Small cell wireless facilities approved

ROGERS — A new appendix to the city’s ordinances seeks to keep small cell wireless facilities as unobtrusive as possible.

The facilities are “wireless communications devices that house an antenna and equipment … to boost wireless communications capacity for a limited area,” according to the appendix.

They are small towers that improve cellphone reception. At about 6 feet tall, they are typically placed on utility poles, buildings, streetlights and other facilities.

The Planning Commission began considering the fees, licensing considerations and other prohibitions in June. The City Council approved the resulting parameters during a meeting Tuesday night.

Jennifer Waymack, senior staff attorney, said the city consulted with AT&T and other large cellphone providers for feedback on the code before presenting it to the Planning Commission and City Council.

That feedback changed some details, such as an initial estimate the towers be no closer than 250 feet from each other. After meetings with AT&T, Waymack said the city dropped that requirement because it would clip some providers out of the market altogether by creating unnecessary incentive.

One of the requirements is no more than one facility will be allowed per intersection, John McCurdy, community development director, said during a Planning Commission last week.

“We don’t want a farm of seven poles next to each other,” he said. Raising Cane’s in Rogers has one of these facilities in front of its restaurant. “It’s not a subtle thing.”

Waymack said the cellphone providers had no objection to that spacing requirement, or to a radius of 20 feet from other poles and rights-of-way.

Providers wanting to place the small towers would have to notify the Community Development Department and they could have conferences with the department before the application process.

Applications would include drawings and descriptions of the suggested tower facility, maps, geographical coordinates and digital files of those coordinates, a letter of agreement, surveyed site plans and description of any required variances.

A $250 fee would be required for one facility, and if the provider is requesting multiple facilities, the first would have a $250 fee with subsequent facilities for $25 fees.

Community Development was considering a $500 fee for processing applications and granting a license before the department did more market research. Both the initial estimate and the $250 amount are much less than other cities charge, McCurdy said previously.

Small cell facilities are often made of poles, and the new code requires they be metal or fiberglass and display no signs or lighting, according to documents released before the meeting.