Stephens Co. Passes Ordinance on Wireless Internet, Telecom Towers

Stephens County Commissioners approve an ordinance to deal with personal wireless service facilities and the towers that often accompany them.

Tuesday, county commissioners approved the ordinance following a second reading and public hearing.

Stephens County Attorney Brian Ranck said this particular ordinance will govern things like telecommunications towers, broadcast towers, cell towers, and wireless Internet towers.

Ranck said the ordinance deals with safety requirements, setbacks, where such facilities go, and so on.

For the past several months, Stephens County staff has been working on the proposed ordinance to deal with such facilities in a way that officials say would better match its land use ordinance.

Stephens County Administrator Phyllis Ayers said that the county’s current tower ordinance did not properly address this technology.

John Smith with Gunby Communications said his business would be affected by this ordinance and he disagrees with many parts of it.

Smith said that the county is applying a standard towards one industry, in this case, wireless internet, that is not applying towards any other industry.

“You can take a pole and put that same pole there, that same structure, under a wireless use, you impose a set of restrictions on it,” said Smith. “But for any other use, that same structure, as a light pole, it is not regulated. Put a bird box on it. It is not regulated. Put a windmill on it. It is not regulated.”

Ranck said, however, that this ordinance governs something different from the county’s general tower ordinance and notes that the tower ordinance does have many of the same safety requirements that would govern what Smith is talking about.

“If there is a tower, if it is a 70-foot tower or you put a bird house on it, whether you call it a pole or a tower, it is probably going to fall under the tower ordinance,” said Ranck. “The safety regulations John (Smith) is mentioning apply to the tower ordinance as well.”

Meanwhile, Stephens County Commissioner Debbie Whitlock said that while the ordinance is complicated, rules need to be there for protection.

“We have to look that these things are safe,” said Whitlock. “Honestly, I have to say I think it is fair that say if someone puts up a wireless tower in their back yard, maybe they should be able to say that does not look like our neighborhood.”

Smith said that requiring setbacks from property lines can often have a negative affect on aesthetics.

“If you have seen any of the facilities we have put up elsewhere, where we have set them back against the tree line instead of out in the middle of the yard, you have driven by them and hardly seen that they are there.”

Following discussion, the county commission voted 3 to 0 to approve the ordinance. Commission Chair Dennis Bell was absent from the meeting.

Meanwhile, Commissioner Stanley London abstained, saying that the county has a lengthy land use ordinance and after reading this Personal Wireless Service Facility ordinance, he feels it is too complex.