For decades, Albemarle’s Comprehensive Plan has put a premium on visual aesthetics when considering what to do with the land. There’s a current conversation underway about the impact of utility scale solar operations will have on the landscape.
For many years, there’s been a call from some members of the Board of Supervisors to revisit rules that govern how cell towers can be built in order to increase wireless communications for voice and data across the county. Since 2000, Albemarle’s rules have been clear that tall towers are discouraged and those that are built must be concealed to the fullest extent possible. (view the policy on cvillepedia)
(View topic on Engage Albemarle)
To Neil Williamson of the Free Enterprise Forum, that’s the primary reason why many community members complain of dead zones where they cannot get cell service.
“These poorly named dead zones are the indirect result of Albemarle County’s outdated wireless technology ordinance,” Williamson said. “Interestingly the existing wireless policy itself dates back to about 1998. That was the same year Google was founded and long before it was a verb.”
Williamson spoke at a June 13 work session of the Albemarle County Planning Commission held to learn more about a recent memo written by consultants to review the 2000 policy.
Susan Rabold is a project manager with CityScape Consultants, one of the authors of a memo on suggestions that would eliminate the primary role aesthetics play in governing their construction. She told the Planning Commission there are 164 existing towers and 25 base stations. She said her company has taken an inventory of the county including where there is no service.
“And when we ask you: Do you want to fill that area?” Rabold asked. “And if the answer is yes, we have some suggestions for your consideration.”
Other community members want the county to proceed cautiously and retain existing policies.
Laura Good of the White Hall District said she and many of her neighbors are concerned about the effects the proposed policies will have on their health and quality of life if more towers are built. She said the memo puts the industry’s needs before those of county residents.
“We do recognize the desire for personal wireless service but this need is not universal,” Good said. “Our area has recently gotten high speed fiber optic in ground which means that we do not need to rely on cell service solely for many Internet communications.”
Let’s get back to the report.
Rabold said the work included a visit to all of the existing 189 antenna locations to record data and produced a map of where they are located. Many of these were originally built for older technology. (view the inventory)
“The first, second, and third generation of platforms have been retired and so those networks that were built in that range are no longer provided,” Rabold said. “However the industry does use that base platform for 4G so they didn’t have to go in and rebuild structures. They just changed out antennas and hardware and software to transition to 4G.”
Rabold said the new generations also require more infrastructure because smart devices require an increasing amount of bandwidth. That’s limited by the county’s current rules.
“This code really does keep the visibility of the tower down significantly,” Rabold said. “The challenge from the tree top from an engineering perspective is that that propagation pattern cannot travel as far because the antenna is lower and those trees are going to continue to grow.”
Rabold said other barriers are in the code as well. Visibility restrictions limit the amount of hardware that can be on top of a tower meaning that some equipment is placed on the ground instead. For instance, something called a “remote radio head” won’t fit on top under Albemarle’s rules.
“They can’t put them behind the antenna which is really ideal because of the distance that you have,” Rabold said. “They can’t exceed 18 inches from the back of the antenna to the pole. There’s not enough room for them to mount the antenna and the remote radio head and have the coax and all of the other cables that go to that antenna. It can’t fit there, so they have to mount them below.”
Rabold said that then limits the effectiveness of the signal by 30 percent. There are also limits to the size of antennas allowed, which also reduces choices that the five wireless providers in Albemarle can make.
Back to geography. Nearly 50 percent of the county is set aside as an avoidance area including mountain protection areas, Agricultural and Forestal Districts, and historic districts. That doesn’t mean they’re totally prohibited, but there’s an extra layer of regulation. Same with any site within two hundred feet of a scenic by-way.
During the public comment period, one Albemarle resident said he was concerned the memorandum sided with the industry at the expense of community members who don’t want a landscape littered with towers.
“It’s as if Verizon and AT&T crafted these recommendations specifically for their interests,” said John Foster who lives in the Batesville Historic District. “I’m confident that Albemarle planning staff and elected officials heard the displeasure surrounding proposed cell towers in Batesville and Greenwood communities over the past few years. The community consensus in each case was decidedly opposed to new cell towers.
During her presentation, Rabold said the memo is intended to be a set of suggestions to have a conversation about how Albemarle might choose to alter its rules to boost capacity. She said the draft would be updated.
“I want to apologize,” Rabold said. “I realize through the speakers that in the written part we used the word recommendations in the analysis. I will change that to options.”
Those options include:
- Allow for increased height at existing facilities up to 130 feet. Rabold said this would increase coverage areas and distances.
- Allow for increased height at new towers to be constructed at 30 feet above the canopy.
- Allow for increased antenna sizes and to allow for more colocation.
- Encourage any future towers that will be built for public safety communications to plan for collocation with private providers.
- Allow some towers in avoidance areas.
Planning Commissioners had thoughts on the avoidance areas. Commissioner Lonnie Murray said the county’s adoption of the Biodiversity Action Plan in 2019 showed a continued commitment to rural preservation. He urged continued prohibitions on towers on new mountain top locations.
“Mountain tops are very sensitive biological areas because they’re cooler and they tend to be refuges from warming temperatures,” Murray said. “As we consider climate action plan, we’d do a big disservice to biodiversity to cover our mountains tops with antenna.”
Murray said that for many years Albemarle’s Comprehensive Plan has included language that rural living comes with fewer services.
“Part of the deal of living in a rural area is that you have less service and i’m okay with that,” Murray said. “It’s just like when I go hiking in the wilderness, I don’t expect my cell phone to work.”
But Commissioner Nathan Moore said the county’s existing restrictions are too constraining and he would be in favor of loosening regulations.
“So when you go hiking in the wilderness and when you go hiking on a nice trail, and your kid gets a sting or you have an allergic reaction or you fall and break your angle, how are you going to get the word out?” Moore asked. “That the kind of reason why I’m very in favor of broader, better coverage of cell service.”
Moore was supportive of paying attention to setbacks to make sure they can’t be built too closely to a neighboring house.
Commissioner Karen Firehock said she would support allowing towers in ag-forestal districts.
“I don’t think a tower is a use that interferes with someone running their tractor or their cows or their sheep-grazing,” Firehock said.
Commissioner Julian Bivins said he was tired of historic properties being protected from having to see cell towers. He added that denying cell service to the rural area penalizes people with low incomes who live there.
“There’s a whole host of people there that are just plain old working people,” Bivins said. “There’s a whole bunch of tradespeople over there that use their cell phones to get work, to do work, and to tell whoever is in their lives that they’re going to be late.”
The conversation was robust and worth viewing in detail. There’s a link below.
A community open house will be held sometime this month followed by public hearings in the fall before the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors.
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