Burr Ridge continues to be proactive in setting up regulations for small cell antennas, but concerns have been raised that the village’s efforts may be moot.
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That is because legislation pending in Springfield would give cellphone providers carte blanche to put the personal wireless service facilities anywhere in public rights of way that they choose.
Burr Ridge is hoping that is not the case and is at the forefront of the DuPage Mayors and Managers Conference’s effort to ensure that local municipalities can regulate the placement of the antennas.
The village has taken the first step to adjusting its recently passed regulations for the antennas by changing the wording to require all public rights of way in the village adhere to the cell antenna regulations. That means that roads under state or DuPage or Cook County jurisdiction would be required to adhere to the same standards covering village streets.
“We identified a gap in the regulations,” Doug Pollock, the village’s community development director, told members of the Plan Commission Monday. “We are looking to extend the regulations to all public rights of way in the village whether or not it is a village right of way.”
Small cell antennas are smaller than traditional antennas and provide service to a smaller area. Therefore, they are located in greater numbers than the traditional signal providers. In communities where the antennas have already been placed, they have been put on utility poles or taller poles erected specifically for the smaller antennas
Members of the Plan Commission unanimously approved amending the village code to extend the regulations to all public rights of way in the village. The proposed zoning code change will now go to the Village Board for consideration.
In October, the village passed its first set of regulations with 13 bullet points restricting small cell antennas, including the following:
* No more than one antenna on a utility pole.
* Each device must be at least 500 feet from another small cell antenna.
* The devices cannot be closer than 100 feet from any residential building.
The 100-feet regulation concerned some members who felt that it is nowhere near enough distance. They hoped Village Board members would expand that to 150 or 200 feet.
“It is not only a safety issue and aesthetic issue … what, if any, signal – radiation or other – does this emit?” Plan Commission member Bob Grela asked.
He said the 100-feet requirement from a house seems insufficient for a community like Burr Ridge.
“In the city, 100 feet is a mile away,” Grela said. “Out by us, that’s a stone’s throw. That’s my concern.”
Resident Alice Krampits questioned with the fast pace of technology today what happens when the antennas become obsolete.
“Will those be taken down? We don’t have anything in these bullet points about what happens when they are not being used,” Krampits said. “Can they be taken down as eyesores?”
Pollock said as the devices would be in the public right of way the village would have the right to take them down.
The village’s community development director said the trend in the communications industry is for companies to put up the small antennas to boost service in certain areas.
Village administrator Steve Stricker has been working with the DuPage Mayors and Managers in an effort to create a model ordinance that telecommunications firms sign on to so that legislation on the issue does not come from Springfield.
Before reading the village’s already passed regulations on small cell antennas, Plan Commission member Mike Stratis said he thought to himself “there better be a lot of strangulating controls.”
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He said when he saw all the bullet points in the regulations, he realized “these are very strangulating.”
Kevin Beese is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press