Industry, Local Government Groups Release Model for Streamlined Wireless Tower Siting Reviews
New model documents for government review of wireless tower siting applications will help municipalities and local governments develop guidelines and streamline the deployment process to satisfy the 2012 Spectrum Act, said CTIA, PCIA and local government groups Thursday. The groups, which also included the National Association of Counties (NACo), NATOA and the National League of Cities (NLC), said they collaborated on a model ordinance and siting application review checklist to give local governments information they can use to develop documents. The FCC October wireless facilities deployment order reduced the period of review before a collocation application can be deemed granted in exchange for a promise from CTIA and PCIA that they would work with local government groups to streamline the approval process (see 1410170048).
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Use of the model requirements is entirely voluntary and doesn’t constitute legal advice, CTIA and the other groups said. The model ordinance is relatively basic and mostly adheres to wireless siting deployment language included in the wireless deployment order, said NATOA Executive Director Steve Traylor in an interview. The model documents are primarily targeted at “localities that don’t have the resources to hire an outside consultant or don’t have an attorney on staff and need some guidance on what the rules mean,” he said. Cities that will be examining their existing wireless siting rules likely have staff who are knowledgeable about the new streamlining rules, Traylor said. “We’re just trying to highlight what some of the pitfalls are, especially with the time line,” he said. “They have 60 days to act once an application is submitted, with some exceptions, and when you have that kind of timeline you need to know what to look for.”
The model documents are an “important step” in implementing the order, said CTIA President Meredith Baker in a statement. The documents, when “coupled with further collaboration and education efforts among our organizations, will help expedite wireless infrastructure investment and deployment, minimize the burden on location authorities and provide consumers with additional advanced services in a more efficient and effective manner,” Baker said. PCIA President Jonathan Adelstein said in a statement that the model documents “will reduce and, in some cases, eliminate obstacles to achieving one of America’s biggest economic priorities: expanding wireless broadband networks.”
NATOA is working with NACo and NLC to get feedback from local governments on whether the rules are workable at the local level, including whether the 60-day approval timeline works, Traylor said. Industry groups also have expressed interest in gathering feedback, he said. “We want to be able to build up some best practices that we can share with all of our members,” Traylor said. “The more that both sides understand what the other side is trying to do, it helps us reach the same goal of deploying these sites. We just want to make sure that in our haste, that local authority over these rights of way is protected.”