[1st-mile-nm] Santa Fe Telecom Ordinance: Town Hall Meetings 4/8 & 4/22
Richard Lowenberg
lowenberg at designnine.com
Thu Apr 1 11:10:39 PDT 2010
I called and emailed the contacts listed on the announcement,
as well as Councilor Chavez, without any reply, yet. I also called
the City Attorney's Office,
but they knew nothing of the upcoming meetings, or when a new draft
Ordinance would be available for review.
RL
On Apr 1, 2010, at 12:02 PM, Tom Johnson wrote:
> Talk about fuzzy wording: "...two to three hundred small towers on
> the streets and sidewalks of the city." Makes it sound as though we
> could become a city designed by Gaudi -- http://gaudi.notlong.com
>
> But yet again this perspective of the issue fails to recognize that
> fiber optics are an alternative that works best for everyone.
> UNLESS the city legal staff has split out WiFi from fiber. Could
> that be possible?
>
> Any idea when and where the "further revisions of the ordinance"
> will be available?
>
> -tj
>
> On Thu, Apr 1, 2010 at 9:14 AM, Richard Lowenberg <lowenberg at designnine.com
> > wrote:
> I've held off posting the following announcement, to get
> clarification on whether the meetings
> would address the entire Telecom Ordinance, or just wireless issues
> in a pending City Ordinance.
> I've had no response from the organizers, yet. RL
> --------
>
>>
>> CONTACT: John McPhee 505-577-8351
>> Azlan White 505-983-7071
>>
>> WHAT: Santa Fe Public Town Hall Meeting
>> on City Telecommunications Code Revision
>>
>> WHEN: Thursday April 8th, 7pm
>>
>> WHERE: Mary Esther Gonzalez Senior Center
>> 1121 Alto Street
>>
>
>> CITY TO HOLD TOWN HALL MEETINGS ON WIRELESS ORDINANCE
>>
>> On April 8th, 2010, from 7-9 pm, the first of two Town Hall
>> Meetings will be held on the revision of Santa Fe’s
>> telecommunications ordinance. It will take place in the Mary
>> Esther Gonzalez Senior Center at 1121 Alto Street.
>>
>> The second Town Hall Meeting will take place on April 22, 2010 in
>> the Genoveva Chavez Center, also from 7-9 pm. The public is urged
>> to come and participate at both meetings.
>>
>> Further revisions to the proposed ordinance will be presented, and
>> the possibility of a temporary moratorium on antennas and towers in
>> Santa Fe will be discussed. Critical issues that have led to the
>> calling of these Town Hall Meetings include: property values;
>> homeowner rights; aesthetics; public notification of and public
>> input into the locations of proposed antennas; and preservation of
>> the cultural and historic values of Santa Fe. The purpose of these
>> meetings is to gather public input into the ordinance revision
>> before the city council next considers it on May 12, 2010.
>>
>> Santa Fe's current telecommunications ordinance, which regulates
>> antennas in the public rights-of-way, was partially struck down in
>> 2004 by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, and it was never
>> revised. Santa Fe has a separate land use ordinance that regulates
>> antennas on private property. The lack of a valid public rights-of-
>> way ordinance did not pose a problem for several years because no
>> applications for antennas on public streets were submitted.
>> However, the advent of iPhones, iPads, and similar technologies has
>> greatly intensified the demand for bandwidth for mobile devices,
>> and in 2009, several antenna-building companies approached the city
>> with proposals to place as many as two to three hundred small
>> towers on the streets and sidewalks of the city. These would be a
>> combination of new antennas placed on existing PNM and Qwest poles,
>> as well as new 25-foot towers in areas of the city with no overhead
>> utilities.
>>
>> To accommodate these applications, city staff has revised the
>> telecommunications ordinance and presented it to the city council
>> for approval. However, the revised ordinance, according to members
>> of the Santa Fe Alliance for Public Health and Safety, lacks
>> necessary protections. It eliminates effective public participation
>> in the approval process; allows antennas as a permitted use in all
>> residential areas for the first time; and gives blanket franchises
>> which allow these companies carte blanche to not only to install
>> cable underneath the streets, but to install antennas wherever they
>> please along the cable routes with no further notification or
>> approval process. The Alliance is proposing that the cable and
>> antennas regulations do not belong in the same ordinance, and is
>> presently working to draft two separate ordinances for presentation
>> to the public at the Town Hall Meetings, and to the City Council at
>> an early date.
>>
>> Other cities, such as San Diego, Pasadena, and Glendale, have dealt
>> with similar situations by first passing temporary moratoria on
>> antennas in order to craft careful ordinances. Glendale, for
>> example, has a 17-month moratorium which is still in effect and
>> will expire in June, while it solicits public comment on its newly
>> drafted ordinance.
>>
>> Councilor Miguel Chavez and the Santa Fe Alliance for Public Health
>> and Safety are co-sponsoring the upcoming Town Hall Meetings.
>>
>
>
>
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>
> --
> ==========================================
> J. T. Johnson
> Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA
> www.analyticjournalism.com
> 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h)
> http://www.jtjohnson.com tom at jtjohnson.com
>
> "Be Your Own Publisher"
> http://indiepubwest.com
> ==========================================
------------------------------------------------------------
Richard Lowenberg
P. O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504
505-989-9110 off.; 505-603-5200 cell
------------------------------------------------------------
Senior Broadband Planner
Design Nine, Inc.
lowenberg at designnine.com
www.designnine.com
Design Nine provides visionary broadband
architecture and engineering services,
telecommunications master planning,
and broadband project management.
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