Cities put brakes on towers
Wireless companies are "pounding the doors"
By PETER BOLTZ
Express Staff Writer
Residents of the Wood River Valley will be spared from the sight of new
wireless communication towers, at least for the next 120 days, if all goes according to
plan among the municipalities of Bellevue, Hailey and Blaine County.
Hailey enacted an emergency moratorium on construction of the towers
Monday night after hearing from Blaine County Commissioner Mary Ann Mix.
An emergency moratorium is on Bellevue’s city council agenda for
Thursday night and on the county’s agenda for next Monday.
Mix told the council that the county does not have an ordinance allowing
it to control construction of towers, some as tall as 200 feet, that "numerous
attorneys" were calling the county about erecting.
"We would ask you," she said, "to join us during an interim
time to take an integrated approach" in drafting tower construction ordinances.
Hailey city attorney Susan Baker told the council she was confident the
city of Bellevue would pass a moratorium Thursday and that the county would pass one
Monday.
Baker told the council that with the emergency moratorium on its agenda,
it could enact it immediately. She added that otherwise the city would be
"vulnerable" and have no ordinance to deal with the demands of wireless
communication providers.
According to Idaho Code, a municipality can enact a moratorium of up to
120 days on subjects when it finds "an imminent peril to the public health, safety or
welfare."
Mix told the council that the county commission discussed the need for an
emergency moratorium at its Monday morning meeting, noting that "an application
before the city of Bellevue had precipitated the matter."
At that meeting, commissioner Dennis Wright, who had attended the
sometimes disorderly public hearing about towers in Bellevue last Wednesday, told the
commission he thought the county should take the lead on the issue.
"I saw that the city [of Bellevue] is basically unprepared to
entertain applicants and that the county is in just about the same situation," Wright
said.
He added that he thought "time really is of the essence" and
that the different municipalities in the valley should approach tower construction as a
single community.
Debra Vignes, the county’s zoning administrator, added to the sense
of urgency by describing the "ever increasing number of calls" she was getting
from tower builders as "pounding the doors."
"The mindset seems to be, put up a 200-foot tower. Hit it and
run," she said.
Vignes told the commission that she saw an advantage to writing a wireless
communication ordinance along the lines of Ketchum’s.
"We want design control," she said, "to minimize the
scarring of hillsides, and we want providers to co-locate to minimize the number of
sites."
Jim Desnoyers, a Bellevue property owner asked to speak to the commission
by Wright because of his knowledge of wireless technology, said jurisdictions without
ordinances are at a disadvantage.
"The county has a chance to control its destiny here," he said.
"We don’t want to stop providers from coming into the valley, but we do want to
foster them under our control."
At Bellevue’s meeting last Wednesday, one of the arguments against
its enacting a moratorium was that tower builders would bypass the city and build on
county land.
The majority of the 36 people who jammed the council chambers to
overflowing called for a moratorium just the same.
When challenged by Bellevue Mayor Steve Fairbrother to join the moratorium
effort, Wright said he would get the issue on the commission’s agenda and argue in
favor of a moratorium.
Of the other two municipalities in the valley, Ketchum already has an
ordinance and Sun Valley, according to city administrator Dan Pincetich, has existing
design review and conditional-use requirements. However, he said, "we’re going
to look at these again because of the heightened interest."
So far, he said, Sun Valley has not been contacted by the municipalities
favoring a moratorium.
