UPDATE The deadline to Adopt and Publish Small Cell Facility Aesthetic Standards closed yesterday. Cities that fail to adopt and publish small cell aesthetic requirements by April 15, may lose the ability to impose such standards.
The FCC order addressing the deployment of small wireless facilities became effective on January 14, 2019. Although there have been a number of lawsuits challenging the FCC order, cities should follow the provisions in the order until they receive judicial guidance that the order is invalid.
While the order preempts some local control over small wireless facilities, the Commission concluded that aesthetic requirements are not preempted “if they are (1) reasonable, (2) no more burdensome than those applied to other types of infrastructure deployments, and (3) objective and published in advance.” To be objective, aesthetic requirements, “must incorporate clearly defined and ascertainable standards, applied in a principled manner.”
Inside Towers collected some published standards from ten randomly chosen cities across the country.
- Denver, CO
- Clinton, IA
- Overland Park, KS
- Baltimore, MD
- Jacskon, MN
- Syracuse, NY
- Pittsburgh, PA
- Austin, TX
- Salt Lake City, UT
- Fairfax, VA
April 16, 2019
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