WASILLA -- Long-awaited regulations are finally in place for towers sprouting throughout the Valley to feed the proliferation of wireless users in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough.
The Mat-Su Assembly, in a 6-1 vote Tuesday night, approved a "tall towers" ordinance after spending more than seven years reworking existing laws -- nearly one year with no rules at all. For a little perspective, the borough first started trying to fix existing communication tower laws in 2008, year of the "new" Android smartphones, the first touch-screen Blackberry and the iPhone 3G.
The new rules require a half-mile notification for people living near a proposed tower site before permitting starts, establishes a permit process starting at a lower tower height than before, and establishes a setback distance from neighbors.
The borough first adopted tower regulations in 1999, but a prior Assembly deregulated tower construction altogether in November 2011 even after a working group labored over a rewrite. As shocked residents watched, towers sprang up unchecked and uncounted in busy residential neighborhoods. The public demanded change, citing safety questions surrounding towers -- high winds toppled a nearly 200-foot-tall structure near Willow in 2013 -- and concerns about property values. The Assembly briefly resurrected the 2008 recommendations, then decided to revert back to regulations first adopted in 1999.
The regulations approved Tuesday require tower developers -- usually communications companies such as Verizon Wireless or AT&T -- to meet with neighbors within a half-mile of the tower site before they apply for a permit. Then they have to summarize any comments and include the summary in the application packet.
The new rules also change existing policy saying any tower over 100 feet requires a conditional-use permit and planning commission approval. Now any tower over 85 feet requires a permit, but one approved by borough staff rather than the planning commission, generally a shorter process with fewer public hearing requirements. Towers taller than 125 feet will still need a conditional-use permit.
Light poles less than 185 feet tall are exempt.
But the most contentious aspect of the decision centered on buffers for people living near towers who are concerned about the rare but reported problem of a collapse. Communications companies argued against strict setbacks.
Assembly member Jim Sykes called for a setback the height of the tower, which drew opposition from several others including Ron Arvin. Another member, Dan Mayfield, called on borough staff to draft a compromise during a break that essentially kept the setback but not if the tower wouldn't fall on adjacent properties and structures.
Instead of the compromise, the Assembly ultimately passed Arvin's suggestion for a setback equal to the tower's height but with a caveat that developers who demonstrate no risk to the health and safety of nearby property owners can get it reduced.
That language is loose enough that it does "give the planning commission broad discretion," borough planner Alex Strawn said Wednesday morning.
Steve Colligan, the lone "no" vote for the new regulations overall, pressed to delay a decision until Feb. 17. Colligan could ask for a reconsideration of the decision at that time.
Existing telecommunications structures fall under a change as well. The borough created a "network improvement permit" to come in line with new federal mandates requiring municipalities to allow for height extensions of existing infrastructure with little review, Strawn said. The new permit allows a 20-foot extension without review and should encourage companies to "co-locate" equipment, which can lead to fewer new towers, he said.
Just two people testified on towers, including regular meeting-goer Eugene Haberman, a self-styled government watchdog, who criticized the notification limit and a 15-day minimum period between notice and meeting.
The other person was Ken Slauson, who served on the small committee appointed in 2012 by Borough Mayor Larry DeVilbiss to hash out new tower rules. Slauson downplayed the risk of falling towers and called the ordinance "overly complex."
"Be very cautious," he told the Assembly members before they took up the ordinance. "You're trying to fix a problem that hasn't occurred yet."
The committee's recommendation ultimately proved so lax that the Assembly last year asked the borough planning commission to come up with its own tower proposal that became the basis of the new regulations approved Tuesday.