EUGENE, Ore.-The Eugene City Council voted Sept. 16 to put in place a 120-day moratorium on tower building in the area, but accepted applications for sites submitted before the moratorium was established, said City Planner Cathy Czerniak.
“We didn’t want to change the rules midstream,” said Czerniak.
The moratorium period will be used by the council to gain knowledge of tower siting and write codes with language that specifically addresses siting for towers and infrastructure to operate wireless communications.
The dozen plus applications submitted prior to the moratorium will be evaluated under current procedures, which require a conditional use process and public hearing, added Czerniak. Once new codes are in place, a public hearing will not automatically be required.
In the conditional use process, requests are evaluated based on factors including compatibility, impact to the environment and traffic generation.
For instance, Eugene received a request for a tower site at the intersection of two highways where several tall light and electric poles already stand. Here, one more tower will not have much visual impact compared with a single new site in a residential area.
Cellular operators AT&T Wireless Services Inc. and AirTouch Communications Inc. and personal communications services operators Sprint PCS and Western Wireless Corp. each submitted applications prior to the moratorium.
To date, none has challenged the ruling. In Oregon, individuals are allowed 21 days to contest the moratorium, said Czerniak.
Tower siting has become an increasingly controversial topic, particularly following the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996-which provides that states cannot prohibit market entry yet still govern zoning-and the gold rush style of introducing PCS to the marketplace.
