The purpose of this chapter is to provide for the common good and preserve the enjoyment of private property through the regulation of the construction, placement, and modification of wireless telecommunications systems, including telecommunications towers and associated facilities, while ensuring the ability of the consumer to use and enjoy telecommunications services of all types, and to protect the right of private and public enterprise to exercise free trade.
Furthermore, to the extent permitted by law, the City of Vermilion shall apply these regulations to specifically accomplish the following:
(a) To accommodate the need for wireless telecommunications towers and facilities to meet the public's demand for the use and convenience of wireless personal cellular and digital telecommunications service, while regulating their location and number in the City;
(b) To discourage the location of towers and facilities on residential land, while encouraging the location on City facilities, buildings, and structures, as well as permitting the location of towers in industrial and business zoning districts;
(c) To maximize the usage of co-location thereby minimizing the total number of towers and facilities;
(d) To ensure towers and antennas are configured in such a way as to minimize adverse visual impact by design, careful siting, landscape screening, camouflaging, and innovative techniques brought about through the advance of science and technology;
(e) To avoid damage to adjacent properties from tower failure through competent engineering, construction, and erection of towers;
(f) To ensure that a competitive and broad range of wireless personal communications services and high quality telecommunications infrastructures are provided to serve the residents, businesses, public sector, and visitors to the City;
(g) To create and preserve a wireless telecommunications facilities system which will serve as an effective part of the City's emergency response network; and
(h) To accommodate the public's demand for present-day wireless personal communications services through these standards, so that changing technologies will continue to serve these needs, while concurrently preserving the City's aesthetic and ecological integrity, so that residents of the future may continue to enjoy the comfortable living standards of the Vermilion community.
(Ord. 99-46. Passed 10-24-99.)