Small-Cells Surprise in Baton Rouge Raises Questions About Notifying Citizens

Baton Rouge set a “moratorium” on small-cell construction in residential areas until “we can answer questions and come up with a reasonable resolution” to settle citizen concerns about location and appearance of small-cell equipment in about 10 residential locations, said Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome (D) in a Friday interview. The mayor’s office and about 100 people attended a community meeting about the situation, she said. A resolution is “more imminent than distant,” Broome said. Talks with industry show “they want to be good corporate partners and citizens,” so Broome doesn’t expect it will take months, she said.

“Every small cell has been reviewed and approved by the city,” an AT&T spokesperson emailed Friday. “In some instances, however, citizens have raised questions about deployments in residential areas. In response, AT&T is working with the Mayor and the city to ensure that, at such time as AT&T needs to add additional capacity to meet demand in residential areas, citizens will receive information showing where small cells will be deployed in the public rights-of-way, how they will look, and that they will be safe. ... Arming the city and its citizens with the facts about small cells will result in a faster, smoother deployment.”

“AT&T has not suspended its small cell deployments in Baton Rouge,” the spokesperson said before we spoke to Broome. What AT&T said might be “a wordsmith situation,” responded the Baton Rouge mayor: “They are suspending construction in residential areas.” The AT&T spokesperson replied: “Federal law does not allow for moratoria on investment in and deployment of small cells. We continue to invest in the City, and we are working with the Mayor, City officials, and property owners to ensure that they are informed and their questions are answered.”

Louisiana doesn’t have a small-cells law pre-empting cities, but Baton Rouge adopted its own law in 2017 to allow deployment. The state capital wants 5G so it can be an “up-and-coming, progressive city,” Broome said. “I just want to make sure that our method toward getting there doesn’t cause our citizens overwhelming angst or anxiety.” Fluid communication and community outreach on the front-end is important to addressing concerns, said the mayor, noting not everyone watches Metro Council meetings.

Communication Sought

Some want industry to communicate more, even with deregulation.

“It should be the small cell providers’ obligation to notify residents of these installations and to provide a contact for questions,” NATOA General Counsel Nancy Werner emailed. “It is pretty standard to require companies to provide notice to nearby residents before doing invasive work in the rights of way,” and “they should go further,” she said. “The industry effectively sold the FCC and many state legislatures on the idea that the need for small cells is so critical that local decision-making should be severely curtailed -- to the point that residents don’t have much of a voice in these deployments. Now they need to go sell this to the residents who have to live with small cells outside their door.”

FCC shot clocks make it “extraordinarily difficult” to notify people about small cells and give them time to give input, said Yuma Assistant City Attorney Scott McCoy in an interview with other officials from the Arizona city (see 1905170033). Yuma, exempted from Arizona's 2017 law, made small-cells standards Jan. 9 after the FCC’s September order. “The order puts the city behind the eight ball in terms of getting information out to the community about specific sites,” McCoy said.

“There’s a huge educational component for the public that I think is missing,” said Yuma Director-Strategic Initiatives Ricky Rinehart. The city plans to hold some open forums over the next six months to educate the community on the FCC order’s impact, but carriers “have responsibility to educate their customers,” he said.

Colorado residents are raising concerns about possible dangers of radio-frequency emissions, asking municipalities not to approve small cells until they’re proved safe, said local government attorney Ken Fellman in another interview. “Unfortunately, the answer you have to give to those citizens is that local governments are pre-empted under federal law, and we can’t force the FCC to update their regs” about RF emissions. Completing that open docket could help localities resolve citizens’ concerns, he said. Safety has come up as a concern more than aesthetics, but deployment is still early days in the state that passed a small-cells bill in 2017, he said.

Local governments can invite citizens to meetings about small cells, but residents may be frustrated to learn the law doesn’t allow the city to listen to objections, Fellman said. Some localities may send a short notice to residents about the facilities’ imminent arrival, while others may not send any notice since they know they must approve applications regardless, he said. The FCC, CTIA and the Wireless Infrastructure Association didn’t comment.

Some Florida localities have rules requiring notification to adjacent properties, but a state bill awaiting the governor's signature (see 1904020026) would prohibit such notice, said Wilton Manors, Florida, Commissioner Gary Resnick, a local government telecom lawyer, in an interview. HB-693 would disallow municipalities from requiring "direct or indirect public notification or a public meeting for the placement of communication facilities in the right-of-way." Existing shot clocks mean there's already not enough time to provide such notice, Resnick said. "Plus, what's the point? Just because residents object, that's not a basis to deny an application."

Maine localities were neutral on the state’s new small-cells law, which isn’t as extensive as other state bills (see 1905310036). It sets no caps on fees nor “deemed granted” shot clocks on local governments to approve small-cell applications. It requires only that small wireless facilities are classified as permitted use within the ROW. It’s “a good step in modernizing rules for small cell deployment,” said CTIA Senior Vice President Jamie Hastings.