Loading...
(a) The City has the authority to regulate the placement, construction, and modification of towers, antennas support structures, and telecommunications facilities.
(b) The Federal Communications Act of 1934 as amended by the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (“The Act”) grants the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) exclusive jurisdiction over:
(1) The regulation of the environmental effects of radio frequency emissions from telecommunications facilities.
(2) The regulation or radio signal interference among users of the radio frequency spectrum.
(c) The City’s regulation of towers and telecommunications facilities cannot have the effect of prohibiting any person from providing wireless telecommunications services in violation of the Act. (Ord. 318. Passed 2-4-08.)
The general purpose of this article is to regulate the placement, construction, and modification of towers and telecommunications facilities in order to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the public, while at the same time not unreasonably interfering with the development of the competitive wireless telecommunications marketplace in Westover. Specifically, the purposes of this article are:
(a) To facilitate the provisions of wireless telecommunications services to the residents and businesses of the City in an orderly fashion;
(b) To regulate the location of towers and telecommunications facilities in the City;
(c) To protect residential areas and land uses from potential adverse impact of towers and telecommunications facilities;
(d) To minimize adverse impact of towers and telecommunications facilities through careful design, siting, landscaping, and innovative camouflaging techniques;
(e) To promote and encourage shared use/collection of towers and antenna support structures as a primary option rather than construction of additional single-use towers;
(f) To avoid potential damage to property caused by towers and telecommunications facilities by ensuring that such structure are soundly and carefully designed, constructed, modified, maintained, and removed when no longer used or determined to be structurally unsound;
(g) To ensure that towers and telecommunications facilities are compatible with surrounding land uses;
(h) To promote the location of towers in industrial and business, rather than residential areas. (Ord. 318. Passed 2-4-08.)
The following words, terms, and phrases, when used in this article, shall have the meanings ascribed to them in this section, except where the context clearly indicates a different meaning:
(a) “Antenna Support Structure” means any building or other structure fifty feet in height or taller other than a tower which can be used for location of telecommunications facilities.
(b) “Applicant” means any person that applies for a tower development permit.
(c) “Application” means the process by which the owner, or the owner’s legal representative, of a plot of land within the City submits a request to develop, construct, build, modify, or erect a tower upon such land. Application includes all written documentation, verbal statements, and representations, in whatever form or forum, made by an applicant to the City concerning such a request.
(d) “City” means the City of Westover.
(e) “Electrical Engineer” means an electrical engineer registered as a Professional Engineer by the State of West Virginia.
(f) “Existing Tower” means a tower that is in existence/is being constructed on the effective date of this article.
(g) “Normal Business Hours” means those hours during which most businesses in the community are open to serve customers.
(h) “Owner” means any person with fee simple title to any plot of land within the City who desires to develop, construct, build, modify, or erect a tower upon such land.
(i) “Person” is any natural person, firm, partnership, association, corporation, company, or other legal entity, private or public, whether for profit or not for profit.
(j) “State” means the State of West Virginia.
(k) “Stealth” means any tower or telecommunications facility that is designed to blend into the surrounding environment through the use of camouflage or other appropriate landscaping or construction techniques.
(l) “Structural Engineer” means a structural engineer registered as a Professional Engineer by the State of West Virginia.
(m) “Telecommunications Facilities” means any cable, wires, lines, wave guides, antennas, and any other equipment or facilities associated with the transmission or reception of communications (other than radio and television broadcast communications) which a person seeks to locate or has installed or near a tower or antenna support structure. However, the term “telecommunications facilities” shall not include:
(1) Any satellite earth station antenna two meters in diameter or less which is located in an area zoned industrial or commercial; or
(2) Any satellite earth station antenna one meter or less in diameter, regardless of the zoning category.
(n) “Tower” means a self-supporting lattice, guyed, or monopole structure constructed from grade which supports telecommunications facilities. The term tower shall not include amateur radio operator’s equipment, as licensed by the FCC.
(o) “Tower Owner” means the person that owns or control a tower.
(Ord. 318. Passed 2-4-08.)
(a) A tower shall be a conditional use of land in such districts as specified in the City Zoning Ordinance. No person shall build, erect, or construct a tower upon any plot of land in any other district unless a Conditional Use Permit has been issued by the Board of Zoning Appeals. Application shall be made to the Planning Commission in the manner provided in Section 1311.02(d) of the City Zoning Ordinance.
(b) Towers are exempt from the maximum height restrictions of the districts where located. Towers shall be permitted to a height of 150 feet. Towers may be permitted in excess of 150 feet in accordance with the normal Zoning Ordinance variance process, as adopted by the City.
(c) The City may authorize the use of the City property in appropriately zoned districts in accordance with the procedures of the City Charter and Code. The City shall have no obligation whatsoever to use City property for such purposes.
(d) No tower shall be built, constructed, or erected in the City unless such tower is capable of supporting another person’s operating telecommunications facilities comparable in weight, size, and surface area to the applicant’s telecommunications facilities. For purposes of this Section, the “applicant’s facilities” shall mean those installed within six months of completion of tower construction.
(e) An application to develop a tower shall include:
(1) The name, address, and telephone number of the applicant. If the applicant is not the owner of the parcel of land upon which the tower is situated, the written consent of the owner, and the name, address, and telephone number of the owner, shall be evidenced in the application. The application shall also contain an affirmative statement indicating that both the owner and applicant are aware of and agree to comply with the provisions of this article regarding abandonment.
(2) The legal description, assessor’s map and parcel number, and address of the parcel of land upon which the tower is situated.
(3) The names, addresses, and telephone numbers of all tower owners with towers or usable antenna support structures within a one-mile radius of the proposed new tower site, including City-owned property.
(4) Written documentation that the applicant made diligent, but unsuccessful, efforts for permission to install or collocate the applicant’s telecommunications facilities on City-owned towers or usable antenna support structures located within a one-mile radius of the proposed tower site.
(5) Written documentation that the applicant made diligent, but unsuccessful, efforts to install or collocate the applicant’s telecommunications facilities on towers or usable antenna support structures owned by other persons located within a one-mile radius of the proposed tower site.
(6) Written, technical evidence from an electrical engineer that the proposed tower or telecommunications facilities cannot be installed or collocated on another person’s tower or usable antenna support structure located within a one mile radius of the proposed tower site and must be located at the proposed site in order to meet the coverage requirements of the applicant’s wireless communication system.
(7) Written, technical evidence from a structural engineer that the proposed structure meets the standards set forth in this article, including but not limited to the requirements set forth in Section 1325.05.
(8) Written, technical evidence from an electrical engineer that the proposed facilities meet the standards set forth in this article, including but not limited to the requirement set forth in Section 1325.05.
(9) Written, technical evidence from an electrical engineer that the proposed site of the tower or telecommunications facilities does not pose a risk of explosion, fire, or other danger due to its proximity to volatile, flammable, explosive, or other hazardous materials such as LP gas, propane, gasoline, natural gas, or corrosive or other dangerous chemicals.
(10) A map of the City and the first half-mile of all bordering communities showing the design of the applicant’s entire existing or proposed wireless telecommunications network. Such map shall, at minimum, indicate the general location of all proposed or existing tower and antenna sites, their dimensions, specifications, and signal area coverage.
(11) Color photo simulations showing the proposed site of the tower with a photo-realistic representation of the proposed tower as it would appear viewed from the closest residential property or properties and from adjacent roadways.
(12) An application fee that represents the site development plan review fee and the conditional use fee otherwise required. The City reserves the right to employ an outside consultant to review any application. The applicant shall reimburse the City for the reasonable expenses related to such review as an additional application fee.
(13) A site plan, including a description of the lot lines, setbacks, location of adjacent structures, proposed location of the tower, separation distances, proposed tower height, landscaping, screening, access, parking, and security.
(14) An acknowledgment that the applicant currently complies and will continue to comply with all FCC standards, including reporting requirements regarding radio frequency emissions.
(f) All information submitted with an application that is trade secret information or is for other reasons proprietary shall be clearly marked as such when submitted with an application. The City shall not disclose publicly, or to any third party, proprietary information unless compelled to do so by federal, state, or local law.
(Ord. 318. Passed 2-4-08.)
In order to ensure that the City’s public safety radio services will be free from harmful or destructive interference, all applicants requesting a permit to site a tower or telecommunications facilities must:
(a) Demonstrate compliance with good engineering practices;
(b) Provide the City a copy of all intermodulation studies submitted to the FCC;
(c) Not induce harmful or destructive interference to the City’s public works and public safety radio services;
(d) Comply with FCC regulations regarding susceptibility to radio frequency interference, frequency coordination requirements, general technical standards for power, antenna, bandwidth limitations, frequency stability, transmitter measurements, operating requirements, and any and all other federal statutory and regulatory requirements relating to radio frequency interference (RFI); and
(e) In the case of co-location of telecommunications facilities either in the same location or on the same tower as the City’s, comply with FCC emissions requirements and eradicate any RFI or any electromagnetic interference (EMI) that may interfere with the City’s public safety radio services.
(Ord. 318. Passed 2-4-08.)
(a) All towers in business and industrial zoning districts shall be set back on all sides a distance equal to the underlying setback requirements in the applicable zoning district. All towers in residential zoning districts shall be set back on all sides a distance equal to the tower height.
(b) Setback requirements for towers shall be measured from the base of the tower to the property line of the parcel on which it is located.
(c) Every tower shall be designed to fall within the boundaries of the parcel on which the tower is located. (Ord. 318. Passed 2-4-08.)
(a) Towers shall be separated from all residentially zoned lands and all residences (regardless of zoning classification) by a minimum distance equal to one hundred percent (100%) of the height of the proposed tower.
(b) Tower separation distances for the purpose of compliance with this article shall be measured from the base of a tower to the closest point of a designated area. The minimum tower separation distance shall be calculated and applied regardless of City and county jurisdictional boundaries.
(Ord. 318. Passed 2-4-08.)
Measurement of tower height for the purpose of determining compliance with all requirements of this article shall include the tower structure itself, the base laid, and any other telecommunications facilities attached thereto which extend over the top of the tower structure itself. Tower height shall be measured from grade.
(Ord. 318. Passed 2-4-08.)
Towers shall not be artificially lighted except as required by the Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA”). Upon commencement of construction of a tower, in cases where there are residential uses located within a distance equal to the height of the tower from the tower, and when required by Federal Law, dual mode lighting shall be requested from the FAA.
(Ord. 318. Passed 2-4-08.)
All landscaping on parcels containing towers, antenna support structures, or telecommunications facilities shall be designed to screen the tower, antenna support structure, and telecommunications facilities to a height of at least six feet from garde. This requirement may be waived at the discretion of the Inspections Division if the base of the tower and facilities to be screened are not located in and not visible from any business or residential districts or visible from public streets. All landscaping must be continually maintained in a healthy and attractive manner.
(Ord. 318. Passed 2-4-08.)
Loading...