Debate over cell towers goes into the night
Council mulls ordinance that would streamline process for telecom facilities
Dozens of residents who fear radio frequencies negatively impacting their health and others who say more antennas will detract from Santa Fe’s appearance spoke late into the night Wednesday before the City Council, which was poised to decide on an ordinance that would streamline the review process for telecommunications facilities in Santa Fe.
The ordinance, which could clear the way for improved wireless coverage in a city where spotty cell reception is a widespread concern, brought out a contingent of local anti-wireless and anti-internet residents who told councilors the legislation would relinquish too much power to telecommunications companies.
“The culture here, the quaintness of Santa Fe, is already vastly changed, lost,” resident Adam Steinberg told the council. “Protect us; slow it down.”
The promise of better wireless service is encouraging, however, for businesses and cellphone users who say reception in many parts of the city has become unbearably slow.
Simon Brackley, president of the Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce, said the chamber strongly supports “investment in both broadband and wireless infrastructure.”
City councilors earlier this year passed a resolution identifying expanded telecommunications services as a critical component of economic development — in particular, the facilitation of antenna installations on cityowned structures and in public rights of way “to provide low visual impact and cost-effective options for expanding broadband coverage to businesses, residents and neighborhoods.”
Some people said they fear the new
policy would flood city streets with antennas they believe would be harmful to residents’ health.
Studies by the World Health Organization, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Communications Commission and other government agencies have found that the radio frequency exposure is too low to produce health effects.
And federal law explicitly prohibits the city from regulating wireless facilities on the basis of the environmental effects — including possible health effects.
“We do not have authority over those health effects,” said Councilor Peter Ives.
Some speakers Wednesday night urged the council to violate this law. “When federal law is immoral, it is your duty to disobey it,” said Arthur Firstenberg, a longtime local advocate against enhanced wireless coverage.
Under previous city policy, all companies submitting applications for telecommunications infrastructure projects were obligated to appear before the Planning Commission. The new guidelines would route smaller-scale modifications through city land-use staff, part of the streamlining process.
The new ordinance does include provisions to minimize the visual impact of antennas and other new structures, and it would require that the city Planning Commission review modifications that do not meet aesthetic standards, amount to a “substantial change” under federal law or require a waiver.
City Attorney Kelley Brennan said the aesthetic standards would not change much under the new policy; according to the ordinance, above-ground structures would be “designed, installed and maintained” so as to minimize visual impact on the “natural and built environment.”
Another hurdle removed was the requirement that would-be telecommunications providers in the public rights of way place advertisements in newspapers, send mailers and post signs. Under the new ordinance, applications and related submitted documents would be kept on the city’s website.
Pen La Farge, president of the Old Santa Fe Association, said his group opposes this change. “We do believe the cellphone industry — all industry — should notify residents, the neighborhoods, the citizenry,” he said.