Albemarle seeks input on changes to cell tower policy through Friday

Albemarle County is continuing to review many long-held policies that put a premium on the aesthetics of the natural world. One of them is a policy on how “personal wireless service facilities” are regulated, but that term is a little jargony.

“Yes, that’s what we call cell towers because that’s what the federal code calls them,” said Bill Fritz, the county’s development process manager at a recent work session of the Albemarle Architectural Review Board. 

The federal code Fritz mentioned is the 1996 Telecommunications Act which updated federal law which had originally been crafted in the 1930’s. 

Fritz said soon after the 1996 act, there were many lawsuits across the country against local governments for restrictions placed on cell towers placement.  

“Albemarle County was actually involved in one of the very early lawsuits in the country, a federal lawsuit where we were sued by a provider and we won and that’s an unusual thing,” Fritz said.

Fritz said that led the county to adopt an ordinance in 2004 that largely have required cell towers to be concealed in order to be approved. That had been called for in the 2000 Comprehensive Plan. 

“As foresighted as the county may have been 23 years ago, time has now caught up so the Board of Supervisors directed staff to hire a consultant and evaluate the wireless policy and so we’ve now been doing that,” Fritz said. 

There’s currently a survey on Engage Albemarle that is open through December 15 in which participants can review the proposed changes which include allowing treetop towers to be 30 feet above the tree canopy as opposed to the current ten feet. 

“All things being equal, a taller tower will cover a larger geographic area so often they want to get up as high up as they can to cover the largest geographic area,” Fritz said. “There also is with the changing pieces of the spectrum that they’re using, they’ve gotten to a portion of the spectrum now that is more impacted by water and  by structures and leaves have a lot of water in them.”

There would also no longer be a limit on the number of arrays attached to a tower, nor would the size of equipment at the top be regulated. (take the survey)

Fritz said feedback from the latest round will be taken into consideration in advance of a Planning Commission public hearing in late winter or early spring. That will be followed by a public hearing before the Board of Supervisors.

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