Local Tower Construction Halted

Planning officials called for the moratorium in an effort to update the county's existing tower ordinance to comply with new wireless technologies.

"It's time to reevaluate the whole tower location program and look at some of the new things coming online with telecommunication," said Robert Davis, head of the current planning division, Wednesday morning.

"By putting a moratorium (on telecommunications towers), we're able to get with other jurisdictions and get input from the industry on what the plan is for the next 10 years."

Before approving the moratorium, board members made the stipulation that collocations would still be allowed.

Collocation is the process of installing an antenna or equipment on existing telecommunications structures.

"The reason for the moratorium is that there have been concerns about the heights of (telecommunication) poles, placements of poles," said Craig Benedict, county planning director. "(But) we recommend that the collocation of towers be permitted to occur during the six-month time period."

Although the the moratorium officially went into effect Wednesday, the board denied an application for a new telecommunications tower submitted earlier that day because the applicant company did not comply with a pre-application meeting required by the existing ordinance.

Robert Eckstrand, representative of Kilpatrick Stockton LLP, said his client, the Verizon Wireless company, was unable to submit its application until Wednesday because it did not finalize its site plans until Tuesday.

"The reality of the situation is Verizon has been working on this for over a year now," Eckstrand said. "We did meet requirements of the ordinance, but we did not have a pre-application meeting. The moratorium is being imposed early in the cycle -- site plans (were not) finalized."

The Verizon company planned to construct a new telecommunications tower on the intersection of N.C. 54 and Gold Mine Road.

Eckstrand said he was disappointed with the board's decision to deny Verizon's application for a telecommunications tower. "(But) we look forward to proceeding after the new ordinance is written and active," he said.

Planning officials say the next step is to begin drafting amendments to the existing tower ordinance.

"We are putting together a committee of county staff and industry (experts) right now," Benedict said.

Davis said the planning staff's main objective over the next few months is to create a comprehensive county plan that can be applied to new technologies.

"We need a more coordinated look at what (the telecommunications industry's) objective is and see what the county can do to have a build-up plan," he said.

But Davis said planning officials will need to conduct extensive research and examine successful up-to-date tower ordinances from other jurisdictions.

"The whole technology industry has changed in the past few years. We'll all learn a lot about towers in the next six months."

The City Editor can be reached at citydesk@unc.edu.