Jackson County, NC has experienced a rising interest in establishing new campgrounds, leading officials to reconsider cell tower approvals for new sites. According to Smoky Mountain News, the county is in the process of revising its Unified Development Ordinance (UDO). There are two amendments currently under discussion, one which would address wireless facilities, and the other which would better define what comprises a “campground.”
If approved, the cell tower portion would allow future decisions to be handled administratively rather than through the more regimented, judicial steps that are now in place. Changing the approach to cell tower approvals is expected to accomplish two main objectives. Amending the UDO should make navigating through the wireless facility process far less cumbersome. The new pathway would also allow Jackson County residents to be a more active part of the process, while streamlining their present route through the county court system.
“What we’ve seen over the last couple years in the state legislature is that how we hold those hearings, and how appeals can be made to those hearings, does present some liability to the county about how that operates,” stated Jackson County Planning Director, Mike Poston. “That led us to really talk about how do we approve wireless communications towers. And we’re proposing to commissioners that we move to an administrative approval process.”
Some specific points the amendment would address include raising tower height limits from 180-feet to 199-feet. Keeping things under the 200-foot mark also sidesteps the requirement to install lights on a cell tower. Additionally, the amendment would include a requirement to reserve colocation spaces for two additional providers on each new tower.
“One of the things that we did is we’ve exempted facilities owned by the state of North Carolina that are emergency management facilities,” Poston told the News. “If the state came in and said ‘we need a viper tower at this location,’ we’re going to tell them to move ahead with that because we’ve already provided exemptions for those types of emergency management types of services.”
Poston added that there has been no feedback received from county residents on the proposed UDO amendments, either regarding cell tower requirements or campground determinations. “We did hold a public hearing at the planning board level and received no public comments during that process,” he said. The next meeting is scheduled for April 18.
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