ALTERNATIVE ANTENNA STRUCTURE. An existing pole or other structure within the city rights-of-way that can be used to support an antenna and is not a utility-owned pole or city-owned infrastructure.
ANTENNA. Communications equipment that transmits and/or receives electromagnetic radio frequency signals used in the provision of wireless services. This definition does not apply to broadcast antennas, antennas designed for amateur radio use, or satellite dishes for residential or household purposes.
APPLICANT. The person or company submitting an application.
APPLICATION. The process by which a person or company submits a request to perform construction activity and/or indicates a desire to be granted permission in any way to utilize the rights-of-way of all, or a part, of the city. An application includes all written documentation, in whatever form, made by a person or company to the city concerning the installation of any type of public improvements, public utility facilities, the construction of a cable system or any type of information or telecommunications system over, under, on or through the rights-of-way.
ATTACHED WIRELESS FACILITIES. Those facilities affixed to a structure except optical fiber, wires, coaxial cable and the mounting hardware used to attach optical fiber, wires, and coaxial cable. Examples of attached facilities include but are not limited to antennas, telephone boxes, power boxes, and other equipment boxes and cabinets on structures located on the ground.
AUTHORITY. A state, county, or city governing body, board, agency, office or commission authorized by law to make legislative, quasi-judicial, or administrative decision relative to an application. AUTHORITY does not include any of the following:
(1) State courts having jurisdiction over land use, planning, or zoning decisions made by an authority.
(2) Any entities, including municipally owned utilities that do not have zoning or permitting jurisdiction.
BASE STATION. A structure other than a tower that supports or houses an antenna, transceiver, or other associated equipment that constitutes part of a base station at the time the relevant application is filed with the city, even if the structure was not built for the sole or primary purpose of providing such
support, but does not include structures that do not at that time support or house base station components.
CAMOUFLAGE DESIGN. Structures and associated equipment taking on the appearance of a piece of art, a natural feature, an architectural structural component or other similar element and which aesthetically blends with the surrounding building environment. Examples of camouflage design include, but are not limited to: architecturally screened roof-mounted antennas; antennas integrated into architectural elements; antennas designed to look other than an antenna; antennas integrated into existing buildings, sports field lights, highway signs, water towers, etc.; and towers designed to blend into the surrounding environment or to look other than a tower, such as flag poles, trees, clock towers, monuments, and church steeples. All such designs are subject to the review and approval by the Public Works Director or their appointee.
CITY-OWNED INFRASTRUCTURE. Infrastructure in the public right-of-way within the boundaries of the city, including but not limited to, streetlights, traffic signals, towers, structures, or buildings owned, operated or maintained by the city. NOTE: the use of traffic signal poles, mast arms, and related traffic signals items by any utility is not allowed by the city.
COLLOCATE. To install or mount a small wireless facility in the city right-of-way on an existing support structure, an existing tower, or on an existing pole to which a small wireless facility is attached at the time of the application. COLLOCATION has a corresponding meaning.
COLLOCATED SMALL WIRELESS FACILITY. Installation means a single telecommunication tower, pole, mast, cable, wire or other structure supporting multiple antennas, dishes, transmitters, repeaters, or similar devices owned or used by more than one public or private entity such as:
(1) A single ground or building mounted receive-only radio or television antenna including any mast, for the sole use of the tenant occupying the residential parcel on which the radio or television antenna is located; with an antenna height no higher than the height of the poles and antennas in the surrounding area;
(2) A ground or building mounted citizens band radio antenna, including any mast, if the height (post and antenna) does not exceed the height of the poles and antenna in the surrounding area;
(3) A ground or building mounted receive-only radio or television satellite dish antenna, which does not exceed 36 inches in diameter, for the sole use of the resident occupying a residential parcel on which the satellite dish is located; provided the height of said dish does not exceed the height of the ridgeline of the primary structure on said parcel.
(4) Mobile services providing public information coverage of news events of a temporary nature.
(5) Hand-held devices such as cell phones, business-band mobile radios, walkie-talkies, cordless telephones, garage door openers and similar personal-use devices.
(6) Government-owned and operated receive and/or transmit telemetry station antennas for supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems for water, flood alert, traffic control devices and signals, storm water, pump stations and/or irrigation systems, with heights no higher than the height of the poles and antennas in the surrounding area.
(7) Telecommunication facilities, including multiple antennas, in compliance with the applicable sections of this chapter, located on an industrial parcel and utilized for the sole use and purpose of a research and development tenant of said parcel, where it is found by the Zoning Administrator to be aesthetically compatible with the existing and surrounding structures.
COMMUNICATIONS FACILITY. Means collectively, the equipment at a fixed location or locations within the public ROW that enables communications services, including: radio transceivers, antennas, coaxial, fiber-optic or other cabling, power supply including backup battery, and comparable equipment, regardless of technological configuration; and all other equipment associated with any of the foregoing. A COMMUNICATIONS FACILITY does not include the pole, tower or support structure to which the equipment is attached.
COMMUNICATIONS STRUCTURE. Any communications tower, antenna, and related accessory structure used in the transmission or reception of microwave energy, analog data transfer techniques, radio frequency energy, and other digital data transfer techniques.
COMMUNICATIONS STRUCTURE SITE. A tract or parcel of land that contains the wireless communication structure, accessory building(s), on-site parking, and may include other uses associated with and necessary for wireless communication and transmission.
DISTRIBUTE ANTENNA SYSTEM (DAS). A type of small wireless facility consisting of a network of spatially separated antenna nodes connected to a common source via a transport medium that provides wireless service within a geographic area. Generally, serves multiple carriers.
EFFECTIVELY SCREEN CONSTRUCTION. Meant to conceal small wireless facility equipment as needed to reasonably match the aesthetics of an existing utility pole or wireless support structure. Such screen, when needed, shall incorporate decorative elements in the local environment.
ELIGIBLE FACILITIES REQUEST. Any request for modification of any existing wireless tower or base station that involves collocation of new transmission equipment; removal of transmission equipment; or replacement of transmission equipment.
ELIGIBLE SUPPORT STRUCTURE. Any tower or base station, as defined in this section, provided that it is existing at the time the relevant application is filed to the City of Newton.
EQUIPMENT CONCEALED. Whenever technically feasible, antennas, cabling, and equipment shall be fully concealed within a pole, or otherwise camouflaged to appear to be an integrated part of a pole.
FACILITIES. Means any and all equipment, structures, materials or tangible components located in the rights-of-way and used to provide a service, including without limitation: all plants, whether inside or outside, fiber strands or optic lines, electronic equipment, amplification equipment, optic equipment, transmission and distribution structures, antennas of any type, lines, termination equipment, pipes, poles, ducts, mains, conduits, inner ducts, regenerators, repeaters, underground lines, vaults, manholes, pull boxes, splice closures, wires and cables, and all other like equipment, fixtures and appurtenances used in connection with transmitting, receiving, distributing, offering, and/or providing such service. Facilities shall include, as the context dictates, wireless telecommunication facilities, as defined herein.
HEIGHT. Means maximum height of the small wireless facility, including antenna, above established grade measured at the base of the structure.
LANDSCAPE SCREENING. The installation at grade of plantings, shrubbery, bushes or other foliage intended to screen the base of a small wireless facility from public view.
LATTICE TOWER. An antenna support tower that is self-supporting with multiple legs and cross-bracing of structural steel.
MAJOR WIRELESS TELECOMMUNICATIONS FACILITY. Means telecommunication towers, poles or similar structures greater than 50 feet in height, including accessory equipment such as transmitters, repeaters, microwave dishes, horns, and other types of equipment for the transmission or receipt of such signals, as well as support structures, equipment buildings and parking areas.
MICRO WIRELESS FACILITY. Means a small wireless facility with dimensions no larger than 24 inches in length, 15 inches in width, and 12 inches in height and that has an exterior antenna, if any, that is no more than 11 inches in length.
MINIMUM HEIGHT. The lowest vertical distance at which the structure can still operate at an efficient level of service. An efficient level of service is deemed to be 95% or greater of possible service levels.
MODIFICATION. Includes collocation, removal, or replacement of an antenna or any other transmission equipment associated with the supporting structure.
MONOPOLE. A structure composed of a single spire, pole or tower designed and used to support antennas or related equipment and that is not a utility pole, an alternative antenna structure, or a city-owned infrastructure.
PROVIDER. Means any company or person, including a franchisee, that is providing or is in the process of seeking permission to provide a service to citizens of the city through the placement of facilities or structures either owned or leased in and thereby occupying the rights-of-way, as defined herein.
REPLACEMENT. Exchanging of transmission equipment; not to include the structure on which the equipment is located.
RIGHTS-OF-WAY OR ROW. The surface and space above and below any real property in which the city has a real property interest and/or which have been dedicated to the public or is hereafter dedicated to the public and maintained under public city or by others at the direction of the public city and located within the city including, but not limited to, public: streets, roadways, highways, avenues, lanes, alleys, bridges, sidewalks, easements, public ways and similar public property and areas.
SIGNAGE. Signage is prohibited on all small wireless facilities and wireless support structures, including stickers, logos, and other non-essential graphics and information unless required by the FCC, except for a small placard identifying the service provider and contact information, which shall be placed at six feet above grade, facing away from the public rights-of-way.
SMALL WIRELESS FACILITY OR FACILITIES.
(1) Low powered antennas that provide cellular and data coverage to small geographic areas supplementing the larger cellular network. It includes all equipment required for the operation and maintenance of radio-frequency communications systems that transmit and/or receive signals but are not "major wireless telecommunications facilities," including antennas, electronics, and other types of equipment required for the transmission or receipt of such signals. Alternatively, SMALL WIRELESS FACILITY means either of the following:
(a) Micro wireless facilities that are no larger in dimension than 24 inches in length, 15 inches in width, and 12 inches in height and that have an exterior antenna, if any, of no more than 11 inches in length; or
(b) A wireless service facility where each antenna is located inside an enclosure of no more than six cubic feet in volume and where primary equipment enclosures associated with the small wireless facility is cumulatively no more than 28 cubic feet in volume and shall be placed underground unless it is integrally incorporated inside the customary pole structure or base. For purposes of this division (1)(b) “volume” shall be measured by the external displacement of the primary equipment enclosure, not the internal volume of each enclosure. An associated electric meter, concealment, telecommunications, demarcation box, ground-based enclosures, battery backup power systems, grounding equipment, power transfer switch, cutoff switch, cable, conduit and any equipment that is concealed from public view within or behind an existing structure or concealment may be located outside of the primary equipment enclosure and shall not be included in the calculation of the equipment volume.
(2) For the purposes of this chapter, a SMALL WIRELESS FACILITY does not include the following:
(a) Wireline backhaul facility, which shall mean a facility used for the transport of communications data by wire from wireless facilities to a network.
(b) Coaxial or fiber optic cables that are not immediately adjacent to or directly associated with a particular antenna or collocation.
(c) Underlying vertical infrastructure, which shall mean poles or similar facilities owned or controlled by the city that are in the public rights-of-way or public utility easements and meant for, or used in whole or in part for, communications service, electric service, lighting, traffic control, or similar functions.
SMALL WIRELESS FACILITY INSTALLATION. all equipment required for the operation and maintenance of so-called "small cell" wireless communications systems that transmit and/or receive signals but are not "major telecommunications facilities," including antennas, microwave dishes, power supplies, transformers, electronics, and other types of equipment required for the transmission or receipt of such signals.
STEALTH FACILITY. Any commercial wireless communications facility that is designed to blend into the surrounding environment by means of screening, concealment, or camouflage. The antenna and supporting antenna equipment are either not readily visible beyond the property on which they are located, or, if visible, appear to be part of the existing landscape or environment rather than identifiable as a wireless communications facility. Stealth facilities may be installed, but such installation methods are not limited to, undergrounding, partially undergrounding and landscaping.
STRUCTURE. Anything constructed or erected with a fixed location below, on, or above grade, including, without limitation, service cabinets, junction boxes, foundations, fences, retaining walls, awnings, balconies, and canopies.
STRUCTURE HEIGHT. The vertical distance measured from the base of the antenna support structure at grade to the highest point of the structure. If the support structure is on a sloped grade, then the average between the highest and lowest grades of the cell site shall be used in calculating the height.
TOWER. Any structure that is designed and constructed primarily for the purpose of supporting one or more antennas; including self-supporting lattice towers, guy towers, or monopole towers, and that which is not a utility pole, an alternative antenna structure, or a city-owned infrastructure. Except as otherwise provided for by this policy, the requirements for a tower and associated antenna facilities shall be those required in this policy.
UTILITY POLE. An upright pole or similar structure owned and utilized in a whole or in part by a public utility, municipality. It is designed and used to support electric cables, telephone cables, telecommunication cables, cable service cables, which are used to provide lighting, traffic control, signage, or a similar function.
VARIANCE OR VARIATION. A grant of relief by the Public Works Director or their designee.
WI-FI ANTENNA. An antenna used to support Wi-Fi broadband Internet access service based on the IEEE 802.11 standard that typically uses unlicensed spectrum to enable communication between devices.
(Ord. 2376, passed 5-19-2020)