Towers, towers everywhere

Demand for wireless communications leads to hundreds of new antenna sites

By Michael Bayer

The people of Sheboygan had not spoken out against wireless communications until a company proposed to erect a 120-foot tower near a residential neighborhood.

Concerned that one tower could lead to many, neighbors organized against the plan. A city ordinance allowed towers only in industrial areas. Since the proposed site was zoned for commercial uses, the land would have to be rezoned to accommodate the tower. The neighbors didn't like the rezoning, either.

Airadigm Communications eventually received a conditional use permit after agreeing to increase the distance between the tower and the neighborhood. Residents still weren't satisfied, however. So city planners are crafting an ordinance that would allow neighbors to block wireless facilities by demonstrating a substantial negative impact or proving the facility would create a hazard.

"It's not our intention to have the most complicated ordinance," said Sheboygan city planner Arnold Grotbeck. "We need to fill in the skeleton so neighbors on the edge of residential neighborhoods have a high level of comfort.

"We need to protect the public interest, the people who live with (communications towers) every day," he said.

Sheboygan's experience is not unique. The expanding market for wireless communications is prompting communities across Wisconsin to review their land use policies. As many as 250,000 wireless facilities could be erected nationwide in the next decade, forcing municipalities to balance the demands of the market with the public's desire to minimize visual blight.

"It's an infrastructure," said Dick Oldenburg, AICP, a property specialist/zoning coordinator with Sprint PCS. "That's a good planning way of looking at it."

Communication towers are not new, of course. Along Milwaukee's Capitol Drive, for instance, a forest of television and radio towers overlooks the Milwaukee River. Nor are towers limited to media transmissions. Radios link dispatchers to police officers, firefighters and cab drivers, just as pagers connect husbands and wives and workers to the office.

A single antenna might be sufficient to broadcast a television signal because the transmission moves one way. A cellular telephone provider, on the other hand, requires a network of two-way antennas spaced throughout its service area.

During the early 1980s, the Federal Communications Commission awarded licenses to two cellular phone companies in each market. These companies, by one estimate, have built more than 22,000 antenna support structures.

The advent of digital Personal Communication Services (or PCS) technology in the 1990s created greater demand for antenna sites. In 1995, the FCC auctioned licenses to as many as six PCS providers in each market. The licenses allowed providers to create wireless networks that compete with their analog cousins, the cellular companies, as well as with one another.

Armed with these licenses, PCS providers raced one another to establish networks and open their airwaves to the public. Already, Sprint PCS has erected about 1,000 antennas at more than 100 locations, six to nine antennas per location, in southeastern Wisconsin, according Oldenburg. Companies such as PrimeCo Personal Communications and Ameritech have put up a similar number, he estimated.

Oldenburg is careful to distinguish between antennas and towers. "People refer to towers and antennas as synonyms, but they're not," he said. "Antennas can be on towers, buildings, water towers, rooftops and other people's towers. The companies are not looking for locations for towers. We're looking for locations for antennas."

Perhaps half of all wireless communication antennas in the United States are attached to lattice towers and monopoles. Whether mounted to a tower or a building, antennas can easily share space with other companies' antennas. Technology usually isn't the issue. Cooperation is.

"The companies aren't in the business of building towers," Oldenburg said. "The quicker we get the system built, the quicker the sales people and the marketing folks can serve the public.

"And, of course, we wouldn't be building it if the people weren't using it."

Indeed, planning for antenna sites has become a key land use issue in many communities. However, communities have limited authority to control the placement of the towers.

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 preserved the power of state and local governments to control the "placement, construction and modifications of personal wireless services" through zoning. However, the law stipulates that governments cannot discriminate among providers of wireless services. Nor can they prohibit wireless services altogether.

The Telecommunications Act also specified procedures that municipalities must follow when a wireless company attempts to locate an antenna or tower.

In a report to the Waukesha County Wireless Communications Consortium, Madison attorney Richard Lehmann outlined the legal issues local governments must consider. Here is a sample:

* Conditional uses. Wireless facilities should be treated as conditional or special uses within the zoning code.

* Review time. Local governments must act on requests within a reasonable period of time. In a Seattle case, a federal court ruled that a six-month moratorium on issuing permits was reasonable even though the normal review time for special use permits was three months.

* Impact fees. A municipality can require an applicant to reimburse the community for the costs of reviewing and processing applications. Governments, however, have no authority to receive compensation for visual blight or the loss of a skyline.

* Proliferation of sites. Communities can't prohibit an antenna or tower on the grounds that other facilities or providers are already serving the area if this is the sole basis for the decision.

"If proliferation is the price of competition," Lehmann wrote, "then Congress has declared that this is a price that must be absorbed by municipalities, unless the municipality has a legitimate land use reason for denying a particular facility."

* Co-location. Communities can encourage wireless companies to share antenna space on buildings and towers, a process known as co-location, but may have to act as a facilitator.

Of all the issues municipalities face, aesthetics may be the stickiest. Plan commissioners can debate the best locations for antennas, but nothing brings the reality home to residents faster than the prospect of a 150-foot tower visible from their backyards.

"Aesthetics is the major issue here," said Daniel Ertl, AICP, director of planning for the city of Brookfield. "PCS challenges planners and communities to accommodate towers in an aesthetically appropriate manner. In the past, (telephone) lines were buried underground or were unobtrusive in backyards and along streets. PCS towers are more visible."

Because of Brookfield's location and demographics, the city was one of the first in Wisconsin to feel the rush of the PCS roll-out. Providers almost literally ran through the doors to locate antennas near Brookfield's office parks and along the busy Interstate 94 corridor.

Since PCS facilities sprouted so fast, Brookfield wasn't able to benefit from new "stealth" technology that hides the towers and antennas, Ertl said. Instead, the city required providers to paint antennas to match background colors, such as when one was erected atop a water tower.

Ertl said the city won't ask wireless companies to change the appearance of existing facilities. He believes most installations aren't intrusive. In historically significant areas and residential neighborhoods, companies are beginning to design antennas that appear ornamental or to place them inside structures such as church steeples.

As long as all wireless companies are treated equally, communities can regulate the appearance of facilities.

Wireless technology requires that providers craft a grid to serve their customers. The grid is a set of geographic areas or cells that organize the radio signals so mobile phones can receive them. A "perfect grid" resembles a honeycomb of interlocking hexagons, or rings, that form the network. Companies most often construct their networks in phases, completing the most lucrative areas first. This is known as a "grid-in-process."

Once a ring has been installed, the technology determines within a limited range where the next ring must be located. Unlike utilities like cable television, wireless companies can't rely on public right-of-ways, so communities must be more flexible.

Being flexible doesn't mean municipalities should accept wireless facilities as the companies propose them.

"Planners and communities have an obligation and a responsibility to challenge the companies in their assumptions on these grid sites so that their plans are properly prepared and aren't an exaggeration of need," Ertl said.

In 1996, a number of municipalities formed the Waukesha County Wireless Communications Consortium to educate themselves about wireless technology. The consortium hired a telecommunications consultant, a radiation specialist to review health issues, and Richard Lehmann, legal counsel to the Wisconsin chapter of the American Planning Association.

After six months of work, the consortium developed a set of guidelines, as well as model license and lease documents.

Ertl said the guidelines have been effective. Brookfield used them to screen applications and suggest co-location sites. About eight PCS sites were installed using the guidelines, he said.

The process highlighted the value of technical knowledge. Since planners understand the technology, they don't have to rely on the expertise of company representatives, Ertl said.

"Hopefully that resulted in a coordination among carriers and a reduction through co-location in the number of facilities," Ertl said. "I think we're now able to anticipate the future to some extent."

After a flurry of activity, the installation of PCS facilities may be slowing down in southeastern Wisconsin.

Lawrence Evans of Evans Associates, the telecommunications consultant who worked with the consortium, detects a "lull" since the fall of 1997.

"It appears initially there was a race to get on the air to generate revenue," Evans said. "(Acquiring the licenses) involved a tremendous outlay in capital. Our supposition is that the companies wanted to get revenue in. They are already pretty well covering the (Milwaukee) metro area, and in our opinion, they will want to get their equipment paid off before they start (building) again."

Ultimately, the number of facilities will be determined by the demand for wireless communications.

"It's like a road," said Oldenburg of Sprint PCS. "You don't need a new road until the old one is worn out. It could take five years. It could take 50 years."

Ertl hopes municipalities continue an open dialog with providers as the technology evolves. As planners know, wireless communications are but one of many issues communities must confront.