Protective Ordinances
Make Marin County Even Better – The Power of Ordinance
Q: Do any municipalities in and near Marin County have strong protective ordinances that have successfully stopped densification?
A: To a greater or lesser extent, yes. Here are a few examples:
Mill Valley – no small cell antennas in residential areas.
Fairfax – includes strong tree protection. Requires annual RF testing to verify that actual radiation levels conform to FCC emission limits.
Petaluma – no small cell antennas within 500 feet of homes.
Sonoma Town – strong ordinance.
City officials reasoned: “The lack of regulations that are specific to the siting of wireless telecommunications facilities in the public right of-way combined with the Order’s regulations to hasten the spread and development of small cell facilities would, if continued, jeopardize the health and safety of the public by allowing applications for small cell facilities to be submitted and subject to limited local siting regulations resulting from the implementation of the Order. (…) Thus, projects would be applied for and approved by law without local authority being properly, appropriately, and within the confines of federal and state laws exercised by the City, which would in turn result in potentially numerous wireless telecommunications facilities being constructed and existing without local controls for as long as the life of the facility.”
California Cities with Strong Ordinances:
City of Belvedere, California
City of Berkeley, California
Calabasas, California
Encinitas, California
Fairfax, California
Los Altos, California
City of Mill Valley, California
Malibu, California
Monterey, California
Newark, California
Palos Verdes, California
Petaluma, California
San Anselmo, California
San Raphael, California
Sebastopol, California
Sonoma City, California
Suisun, California
The City of San Mateo, California
Q: Have non-municipal organizations been successful in blocking the deployment of 5G small cell antennas?
A: Yes. In 2017 when 5G “small cells” were first coming into California, firefighter organizations came out in strong opposition to bill SB649, and it was amended to exempt their stations from the small cell deployment. Specifically, the unions successfully lobbied to get their fire stations carved out of state laws that would have forced cell towers onto fire stations.
Q: Marin County has a protective ordinance called Title 22 that includes a specific section, Title 22.32.166, relating to small cell antenna facilities. Isn’t this strong enough?
A: To a large extent, this is a good ordinance. As everyone knows, though, the devil is in the details. For this reason a small group of concerned citizens took it upon themselves to raise the necessary funds to hire Andrew Campanelli, one of the foremost attorneys in the country specializing in wireless ordinances. To date, he has drafted numerous ordinances around the country, each one tailored to the specific needs and requirements of the municipality. About 70 percent of these are initiated by a city or county government; the remaining 30 percent are initiated, like ours, by a group of citizens. In our case, there will be no cost to the county.
Speaking metaphorically, Mr. Campanelli observed during an initial meeting that Marin’s current ordinance is like a big battleship whose hull is 90% built of the strongest and finest materials. But even if only 10% is poorly crafted, the ship will still sink when it’s launched. These are the loopholes we’ve hired Mr. Campanelli to address. What we want is a bullet-proof ordinance. Without this, the County remains vulnerable and will not be in a strong legal position to reject any site developer’s application for multiple 5G small cell antennas wherever they want to build them throughout Marin.
Odette Wilkens
Odette Wilkens is President and General Counsel of a non-profit Wired Broadband, Inc., New York City, focusing on safe technology for the public. Odette is also a technology transactional attorney, practicing for over 20 years representing some of the largest multi-national corporations in entertainment, finance and technology. Odette’s a graduate of Brooklyn Law School, New York University’s Stern Graduate School of Business with an MBA in Finance, and Barnard College affiliated with Columbia University.
She is also Chair of The National Call for Safe Technology, a coalition of over 100 organizations and individuals advocating for safer telecommunications. She has authored over 15 position papers submitted to federal and state agencies on 5G’s cybersecurity risks, the advantages of fiber deployment over wireless, and the rights of those disabled by wireless radiation to accommodation. Odette holds online Town Halls featuring successes in fiber deployment that have become an economic boon for communities and threats to local authority on wireless placement.
A Bullet-Proof Ordinance
Q: What does a bullet-proof ordinance look like?
A: About 1-1/2 years ago, Mr. Campanelli was hired by a local citizens group in Langley, Washington to draft a strict code for wireless antennas that would minimize adverse impacts on the community. The lead citizen behind the effort, Mark Wahl, put together a quick, successful pathway for informed citizens to achieve a state-of-the-art protective wireless code; it uses a fraction of the usual time, expense, and effort. This challenge resistant code for the City of Langley, WA is now legally binding.
Following are a few top-level highlights and strategic features that protect both Langley residents and city government officials from any telecom industry court challenge. (Some may seem counterintuitive – but they work, which is why we’ve hired Mr. Campanelli to draft a similar ordinance that is specific to Marin County.)
1.) No health aspects are mentioned in the code (because health risks are not an acceptable defense under the telecom ordinance of 1996) – yet it protects health.
2.) The code indirectly screens out careless (or indiscriminate) placements (like residential utility poles) without trying to stop legitimate telecommerce. (An approach that would be thrown out in court.)
3.) Setback restrictions and indemnification requirements use language that draws on successful legal precedents, making it easy for courts to rule in the city’s favor.
You can read the in-depth analysis HERE