RES 19-035 APPROVING SMALL WIRELESS AESTHETIC STANDARDS

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Small Wireless Aesthetic Standards Findings The City desires the most advanced and highest quality wireless services available. The City also wishes to minimize the negative impacts associated with wireless facility deployments including small wireless facilities. Such negative impacts may include interference with right-of-way sight lines, aesthetic impacts that are inconsistent with the surrounding area, fall zone and clear zone risks, navigation obstacles, interference with future right-of-way improvement or transportation improvement plans, interference with the installation or maintenance of other utilities, and increased visual or noise pollution. To address such impacts, any person desiring to collocate small wireless facilities or place new wireless support structures in the right-of-way must first obtain a small wireless facility permit pursuant to the City’s right-of-way ordinance, Code Section. Moreover, any person seeking to collocate small wireless facilities on an existing wireless support structure owned or controlled by the City must first enter a standard collocation agreement. The following aesthetic standards and requirements are intended to maintain the City’s aesthetic environment while also allowing for the availability wireless services, including broadband and “5G” services, using small wireless facilities. These standards are intended to establish clear and consistent aesthetic standards for small wireless facility placements in the City and establish a streamlined review and approval process. The City will make these standards publicly available. These standards apply to all small wireless facility permit applications for placement of small wireless facilities on City-owned and non-City-owned support structures (poles), and the placement or replacement of small wireless support structures in the public right-of-way. Compliance with these standards is a requirement for, and condition of, issuance of a small wireless facility permit. Any installation that does not conform to these standards will be in violation of the associated permit and the City’s right-of-way ordinance. In addition to the following standards, the placement of new support structures for small wireless facilities shall be subject to any conditions specified in the small wireless facility permit. Applications to install small wireless facilities or place new support structures in districts zoned for residential uses or within a historic district established by federal or state law or city ordinance, shall further be subject to any conditions contained in the required conditional use permit authorizing such installation. With respect to City-owned support structures, these standards additionally seek to: 1. establish a menu of design options for providers to select from when applying for new small wireless facility permits associated with City support structures. 2. minimize unnecessary placement of new poles by encouraging co-location of small wireless facilities.