[1st-mile-nm] Plan would ease expansion of broadband coverage in Santa Fe

[Richard Lowenberg]

Plan would ease expansion of broadband coverage in Santa Fe

By Tripp Stelnicki | The New Mexican Aug 28, 2017

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/plan-would-ease-expansion-of-broadband-coverage/article_6469e2fb-5f06-5be9-838c-62af918aa3de.html

A plan to streamline the approval process for telecommunication 
structures in Santa Fe would remove some hurdles for service providers 
who want to install new equipment or alter existing facilities, a move 
that might open the door to more antennas in public rights of way and 
improved wireless service.

But a vocal cadre of residents who fear radio frequencies negatively 
impact their health are fighting the proposed ordinance, saying more 
wireless coverage would mean more harmful microwave radiation.

The proposed changes would fulfill policy recommendations approved by 
city councilors in late June for code changes regarding 
telecommunications franchises to facilitate “antenna installations on 
city-owned 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.”

The city has identified the expansion of telecommunications services as 
“a critical factor in economic development,” according to a city memo. A 
recent report in The New Mexican found wireless service was spotty 
across town and particularly scarce downtown for users of at least one 
major provider.

The proposed ordinance comes as telecommunication carriers prepare to 
implement 5G service, a next step in network service that will provide 
faster downloads and better coverage.

Planned 5G networks will use the high-frequency millimeter waveband of 
the wireless spectrum; these waves can move larger quantities of data at 
a quicker rate but don’t travel as far, according to Wired, a tech 
magazine.

So, when the 5G networks are built, “you’ll see mini-antennas basically 
everywhere,” the magazine reported earlier this year.

The proposed city ordinance includes provisions to minimize the visual 
impact of telecommunication structures and requires that the city 
Planning Commission review modifications that do not meet aesthetic 
standards, amount to a “substantial change” under federal law, or that 
require a waiver.

While current rules require every telecommunication application to 
undergo Planning Commission review, the new guidelines would route 
smaller-scale modifications through city land-use staff. This irks some 
opponents of the proposal, who view it as a green light for the cell 
phone industry to plant towers on whichever city streets they choose.

“They don’t sit down and do a public health analysis of these 
proposals,” said John McPhee of the Santa Fe Alliance for Public Health 
and Safety, a group that opposes wireless proliferation.

Current city code states that telecommunication networks will “to the 
maximum extent possible … be designed in such a manner as to locate 
facilities on existing structures; in nonresidential districts; and 
along major arterials.” That is unchanged in the new proposal.

Another proposed change would relegate public notice of a 
telecommunication applications to the city’s website. Current 
requirements — posters, mailings and display advertisements — are not 
“consistent” with the process for other sorts of utility facilities in 
the public rights of way, according to a city memo attached to the 
proposed ordinance, and might be “prohibitive.”

The proposed ordinance says telecommunication towers would be required 
to have “a slender profile,” with antennas and other equipment “pulled 
in as close as possible to the tower in order to present a uniform 
appearance.”

New telecommunication structures could be taller than the permitted 
height of surrounding buildings, the proposal says, if there are taller 
structures within a 150-foot radius of the proposed facility — that is, 
streetlights or telephone poles.

A prohibition against self-supporting lattice and guyed towers (tall, 
thin structures kept in place by tensioned cables) in public rights of 
way is eliminated under the proposed ordinance, but, according to the 
city memo, that is because design standards would already preclude such 
towers.

Arthur Firstenberg, a longtime local advocate against electromagnetic 
radiation and its increasing ubiquity, said he believes the ordinance is 
intended to clear the way for the arrival of 5G networks.

“There will be antennas on every block of Santa Fe” within a few years’ 
time, he said. “That is going to increase radiation enormously — and 
quite frankly it will kill people.”

The World Health Organization, citing decades of studies that have 
assessed whether electromagnetic fields present a health hazard, reports 
“no adverse health effects have been established as being caused by 
mobile phone use” to date.

Meanwhile, federal law explicitly prohibits the city from regulating 
“the placement, construction and modification or personal wireless 
facilities on the basis of the environmental effects (including health 
effects) of radio frequency emissions to the extent the facilities 
comply with [Federal Communications Commission] regulations,” according 
to a city memo from City Attorney Kelley Brennan.

Still, Firstenberg and others view the forthcoming development of 
5G-capable structures — whether in Santa Fe or elsewhere — as a final 
stand.

“If they institute 5G networks, there will be nowhere for us to go,” 
Firstenberg said. “Either we stop it here or we lose our environment 
totally.”

Brennan, who wrote the proposed ordinance, declined to comment.

Councilor Mike Harris, who sponsored the bill, was unavailable Monday.

The City Council is scheduled to hold a public hearing on the ordinance 
as part of its agenda for a 7 p.m. Wednesday session at City Hall.

Contact Tripp Stelnicki at 505-428-7626 or tstelnicki at sfnewmexican.com .



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Richard Lowenberg, Executive Director
1st-Mile Institute     505-603-5200
Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504,
rl at 1st-mile.org     www.1st-mile.org
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