12/02/2003 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 12/2/2003 This ordinance has been approved by the Planning Commission and is on third reading tonight. Mr. Nashar asked the Law Director for comments. Law Director Dubelko commented that the city is under an obligation under federal law, under the Telecommunications Act of 1996, to insure that there are sufficient sites available for these types of wireless telecommunications towers. We retain our local zoning authority to the extent that we can plan to site these towers at the best locations in the city. But we have to make sure that our local ordinances do not discriminate amongst providers, do not prohibit effective coverage within the city and our decisions are not based upon perceived environmernal hazards from or environmental effects from these towers. The city did act in a comprehensive fashion several years after the effective date of the then new 1996 telecommunications act. The city hired Todd Hunt, a telecommunications attorney from the firm of Walter Haverfield, which is a nationally known law firm in this area. Mr. Hunt, did a couple of things for the city. First, he wrote the regulations for our overlay district. Regulations which do such things as require minimum spacing at least a half a mile between tower locations, 300 feet minimum distance from residential property lines and other things to ameliorate the affects of towers throughout the city. He also looked at the city's zone map and made recommendations to the city as to what areas should be incorporated into this overlay zone district. Essentially, his recommendations were that the city permit these along the I-480 right-of--way through the city, that the west end of town in the light industrial area should be zoned for this supplemental use. One of the recommendations was city properties, and another recommendation was school district properties. He made comprehensive suggestions to make sure that we had sufficient sites throughout the city so that, if and when telecommunications providers came to the city, they would be able to locate and address their service needs either through towers or antenna on high structures throughout the city. The city did pass zoning regulations in the year 2000. Initial rezoning was also accomplished in the year 2000. City Council did not initially zone any school district properties into the supplemental zoning. It is his understanding that was not done because the city is one government and the school district is another government. Some members of Council felt it might be preferable for the school district to come forward and request the zoning if they wished to use their properties in this fashion. Councilman Limpert, chairperson of the Streets & Drainage Committee: 1) The committee met on November 24. Present were committee members Nashar and Miller and chairman Limpert; Council members McKay and Gareau; President of Council O'Grady; Finance Director Copfer, Service Director Driscoll, Safety Director Jesse, Law Director Dubelko, City Engineer Durbin. The following items were discussed: • Ordinance 2003-158, which accepts a storm sewer easement. The committee recommended suspending the rules requiring three readings. Mr. Gareau noted that he will abstain on the vote on the Council floor regarding this issue. • Ordinance 2003-86. There was a rather lengthy discussion, and several amendments were made. Some required improved wording by the Law Director, and he has just completed that task and Council should have those before them. Two areas of major discussion were whether to allow above-ground retention or detention and also 6 ~; .