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Planning commission debates stricter telecom tower rules — setbacks, testimony and balloon tests under scrutiny
Summary
The commission spent most of its work session reviewing a comprehensive rewrite of the wireless telecommunications ordinance, debating height/setback tradeoffs that could render existing towers nonconforming, the county's ability to require carrier engineering data, balloon-test procedures and FCC preemption of health claims.
The Northumberland County Planning Commission devoted the bulk of its June 18 work session to a detailed review of proposed revisions to the county’s wireless telecommunications ordinance, raising technical, safety and procedural questions that commissioners said warrant additional public review.
Staff presented a draft that replaces "special exception" terminology with "conditional use," adds definitions (including monopole and freestanding tower), and enumerates an extensive list of application materials an applicant must supply (an engineer’s report, visual impact assessment, evidence of efforts to collocate, FAA/lighting determinations, and more). Commission discussion focused on several contested topics: setback methodology tied to tower height, whether adopting large height-based setbacks would render many existing or proposed towers nonconforming, the county’s ability to request structural and collapse analyses from carriers, and requirements for balloon tests and public notice to demonstrate visual impact.
Commissioners repeatedly questioned carriers’ engineering claims during prior presentations that monopoles would collapse within a 50-by-50-foot lease area, and noted carriers appeared unable or unwilling to provide detailed failure or base-failure studies in earlier hearings. Philip, planning staff, reiterated that engineered soils reports, footing designs and stamped engineering plans are typically submitted after conditional-use approvals as part of the building and site-plan review; that sequence means some technical details are not available until a later stage.
Public commenters and commissioners also raised electromagnetic/radiation concerns. Staff and legal counsel advised that the Federal Communications Commission’s authority limits local governments’ ability to regulate radio-frequency (RF) safety, so the county cannot independently adjudicate RF health claims. Commissioners discussed whether the draft should require periodic RF testing (some drafts include a five-year non-ionizing radiation test) and whether to retain requirements for applicants to demonstrate collocation feasibility and design towers to accommodate multiple providers.
On visual impacts, staff proposed a balloon test: the applicant would fly a 3-foot brightly colored balloon at the tower's proposed top height for at least four continuous hours, with advertised dates and county staff present to witness the test. Commissioners debated whether the balloon test should occur before or after filing (some said after an application with public-notice posting is more effective), whether county staff must always witness the test, and the degree of scheduling/advertising detail required.
Other notable draft items: a requirement that towers be structurally designed to accommodate at least five additional commercial antennas (collocation), an emphasis on using existing county-owned property or existing structures when feasible, pre-application meetings and applicant-borne consultant-review costs, and FAA Part 77 analyses when towers exceed certain heights. Commissioners asked staff to refine language for clarity, remove redundant or overly prescriptive clauses, and resume the ordinance review at the next meeting at section F.
The commission did not vote on final ordinance language at this meeting; staff will redraft sections discussed and continue the review at the next session.
