Aspen, CO passed Aesthetic Guidelines for Cell Towers on Residential Streets that will Replace Streetlamps. MoCo Council Refuses to do the same.

 

The Montgomery County Council will not establish aesthetic guidelines for cell towers that will replace every 3rd streetlamp on our residential streets.

The Montgomery County, MD County Council has refused to establish aesthetic guidelines for the cell towers that will replace every 3rd streetlamp in the County. But Aspen, Colorado did establish aesthetic guidelines. This image and article below shows what a cell tower looks like next to a residential streetlamp like the ones found in Montgomery County. Montgomery County residents will not have any input into what the 5G cell tower in front of their home or schools will look like because the Montgomery County Council has determined residents should not have a say. Aspen, Colorado disagreed with the Montgomery County Council's position and established aesthetic guidelines. The Montgomery County Council votes on their plan to replace every 3rd streetlamp with a cell tower tomorrow, July 27th, 2021.

5G towers set to dwarf Aspen [Colorado] streetlamps

Aspen city staff are working on aesthetic regulations for small cell wireless facilities, even as cell carriers are putting in their applications to build out 5G capabilities.

The FCC has tied the hands of local governments, which must allow new towers in public rights of way, and cannot consider health or environmental effects of the technology in their codes. What remains is the ability to create a set of design standards for what the wireless towers will look like.

In a work session last night, staff asked city council to weigh in on proposed design parameters regarding everything from height, width and color of the wireless facilities, to ways to consolidate and disguise the new infrastructure.

At the crux of the conversation is the tradeoff between keeping new poles smaller and shorter, or allowing larger infrastructure to be built in Aspen, with the theory that wireless carriers could double up on the larger poles, meaning less total new development.

The guidelines are being written to encourage cellular companies to build new small cell facilities in place of existing streetlights. A company would apply for an application and, if approved, remove the current streetlight and replace it with a cell tower that fits within the design guidelines, at their own expense.

The city is proposing a requirement that all the radios, wires and antennas that compose the small cell unit be enclosed in the pole and out of sight from passersby. Paul Shultz, the city’s director of information technology, said that means the current lamps used to light Aspen sidewalks cannot act as the cell tower.

“There is just not room to support the amount of infrastructure,” Shultz said. “It’s just not possible to reuse these poles”

The design team is proposing that the replacement poles cannot be any higher than 25 feet in the air. That number is 14 feet higher than Aspen’s shortest existing streetlamps, but shorter than the 50-foot limit the wireless industry would like to see.

https://www.aspendailynews.com/news/5g-towers-set-to-dwarf-aspen-streetlamps/article_173bd7d0-3cc8-11ea-9cfb-1fc12d21b3d2.html