WASHINGTON-A major controversy with national implications has erupted in Massachusetts over draft legislation that would promote antenna siting collocation and streamline siting approval for carriers throughout the state, despite protests from citizens who say the measure effectively guts local zoning rights from the 1996 telecom act.
The draft bill, which is expected to be amended to existing legislation in the Massachusetts legislature shortly, is titled “An Act Providing a More Efficient and Uniform Process for Implementing Municipal Authority Over the Placement, Construction and Modification of Wireless Communications Facilities.”
The draft bill is the product of a consortium that includes the Massachusetts Municipal Association, the Conservation Law Foundation and six wireless carriers (AT&T Wireless Services Inc., Bell Atlantic Mobile, Cellular One, Nextel Communications Inc., Omnipoint Corp. and Sprint PCS).
If the bill makes it through the Massachusetts legislature, other states may turn to the legislation as a model.
An aide to state Sen. Mike Morrissey (D), chairman of the Senate Governmental Regulations Committee, said the bill would force carriers and local zoning boards to hash out siting disagreements instead of having them arbitrated by the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Energy.
Today, carriers typically turn to DTE if they cannot get local siting approval. The draft would take DTE out of the loop.
The bill also will be overseen by Rep. Daniel Bosley (D), chairman of the House Governmental Regulations Committee.
But some citizens claim the bill, while purporting to give locals a say in siting disputes, largely takes away their voice in antenna siting matters.
“They’re pushing the towns into a corner,” said Diana Warren, a member of the Massachusetts Council on Wireless Technology Impacts.
The bill, among other things, would free carriers from having to secure local zoning approval for additions to existing structures like existing towers, buildings and water towers.
Such an addition would be deemed a “minor wireless telecommunications facility” under the bill.
But Warren said the bill is so liberally worded that there would be few instances in which a community could override a carrier. While federal and state laws currently make it optional in most cases for communities to negotiate with carriers, the draft bill in the Massachusetts legislature effectively mandates that communities and carriers negotiate a solution.
“We have the telecom act. Do we need this? No, we don’t need this. Cities and towns are doing quite well. Cases are going to the courts and cases are being settled as intended by the [1996] telecommunications act. The telecom act is working,” said Warren.
Some lawmakers in Congress, like Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Rep. Charles Bass (R-N.H.), believe the telecom act’s siting provisions could be improved. But their bills to strengthen local oversight of antenna siting have not moved to date.
“We support efforts that encourage collocation of cell sites as a matter of policy,” said Jeffrey Nelson, a spokesman for the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association.
Activists, like Warren, are worried there will be legislative maneuvers that will enable bill proponents to bypass a hearing in the state legislature by attaching the legislation to an existing wireless bill or to an existing bill affecting the Massachusetts Municipal Association.
The wireless industry, having failed in recent years to convince Congress and the Federal Communications Commission to pre-empt local and state regulation of antenna siting, has retreated to a more conciliatory posture.
As such, the industry has turned to a government-industry advisory committee to mediate siting problems like the many moratoria that exist throughout the country.
In addition, the two major wireless trade associations have struck siting accords with conservation groups.
