Fake Trees: Now Going Up Faster And Possibly Suing, Too

While neighborhood groups have shot down planned cell phone towers in Echo Park, Glendale, and Baldwin Hills, now a new FCC rule will now reduce the amount of time that city and county governments have to consider adding the towers. Covering what planners are calling an important land use issue, the Press-Enterprise reports that the "Federal Communications Commission's Nov. 18 decision gives city and county governments 150 days to consider new tower applications and 90 days to decide on applications to add service to existing tower sites....Before the new rules, local governments in California generally had up to a year to act, depending on whether certain environmental requirements had been met. There were no national time limits. If a state or local government does not act within the new time frame, wireless providers could sue under the FCC ruling." The move has the support of the wireless industry, according to the paper, which has complained that it takes too long for applications to go through. Those opposed to the new time restrictions include local groups that say they need adequate time to hold public hearings on proposed towers, while the "California State Association of Counties and the League of California Cities in written comments to the FCC called the time limits 'arbitrary and inflexible,'" according to the Press-Enterprise. Via Chantpleure
· New FCC cell-tower rules rile locals [Press-Enterprise]
· More Cell Phone Towers Chased out of Town [Curbed LA]