GILROY
– If cellular communication companies want to set up cell phone
towers in Gilroy, they now have to abide by the conditions set
forth in a 30-page city document.
GILROY – If cellular communication companies want to set up cell phone towers in Gilroy, they now have to abide by the conditions set forth in a 30-page city document.
After more than a year of debate and controversy that at one point pulled the criminal record of an anti-cell-tower activist into the fray, City Council unanimously approved Monday night an ordinance regulating wireless telecommunications facilities.
By reducing the amount of staff review and lowering the cost of processing fees, the new law urges companies to place cell towers away from residential zones in favor of locating them within commercial or industrial zones. If a company still wants to build a tower in a residential area, it would need a special permit and would have to prove that an alternative commercial/industrial site was not available.
“This is a policy that has a little bit of carrot and a little bit of stick,” City Administrator Jay Baksa told Council Monday.
Formerly, the city could only restrict cell towers if their height exceeded that allowed under zoning guidelines for particular areas.
Advocates for the ordinance generally praised the city for drafting the new law. However, they remain disappointed Council did not adopt a provision requiring applicants to expressly notify residents within a certain distance of a proposed cell tower.
The city shied away from adding such a clause in the ordinance since establishing the justification for a particular distance is scientifically difficult, if not impossible.
“Notifying residents who will live within 500 feet from an emitter of radiation is not unreasonable,” said Chris Coté, the leading proponent for the new law. “The city should be trying to encourage more public participation.”
Coté is the resident whose legal run-ins came to light after he stymied a plan to use Luigi Elementary School flagpoles as cell towers. Coté was sued by Gilroy Unified School District years ago for failing to provide bus transportation to student events despite being paid.
Permit applications for communication towers in residential areas will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis by the Planning Commission.
Certain technologies would be exempted from the ordinance, including:
• wireless facilities for public safety, hospital and medical service agencies,
• citizen-band, amateur and business radio,
• wireless Internet service, and
• TV antennas and satellite TV dishes and antennas.
The law encourages companies to group commercial antennas, mounting them on pre-existing structures (light poles, buildings, etc.) and to hide towers from view.
The city will now begin an inventory of all existing cell tower sites. Those facilities have five years to make sure they comply with the new ordinance.
