Appellate Court Affirms Cell Tower Decision
Ruling upholds rights of local residents to oppose cell tower construction.
A U.S. Court of Appeals ruling filed Monday means AT&T will not be building a "monopole" cell tower near the Masonic Lodge on Fort Hunt Road.
Though more cell phone tower applications in Fairfax County have been accepted than have been rejected, the case has reaffirmed the power of a vocal minority to put a stop to construction of telecommunications infrastructure in their neighborhoods.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed a lower court’s decision upholding a decision by the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors to prevent construction of a cell phone tower. The appellate court filed the ruling Monday in the case of New Cingular Wireless PCS, LLC, d/b/a AT&T Mobility v. Fairfax County Board of Supervisors.
In a statement, Mount Vernon District Supervisor Gerry Hyland said, “This decision helps make the matter settled law that communities are in the driver’s seat when it comes to the location of telecommunication facilities.”
The case stems back to 2009, when the Fairfax County Planning Commission recommended Cingular's proposal to construct an 88-foot monopole designed to look like a tree near Masonic Lodge to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. But local residents said that the proposed pole could depress local property values, and that the facility was not in harmony with local zoning laws.
The Board denied Cingular's request by a 6-2 vote, prompting the original lawsuit. In November 2010, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria issued a ruling upholding upheld the rights of local residents to oppose land permit applications for the construction of cell phone towers.
The lower court found that the Board of Supervisors had reached a "reasonable decision" to deny Cingular's land use application based on community opposition.
Cingular subsequently appealed the decision.
DAVE
9:11 am on Wednesday, March 21, 2012
We will never get a cell tower in any of these neighborhoods until someone dies because they can't reach authorities in an emergency. Then and only then will they be allowed. The funny thing is that the only group this decision helps is Verizon who now gets all those landlines. So continue to pay for your land line and cellphone.
monkeyrotica
10:58 am on Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Stupid move. Leave it up to cranky old nimbys, and we'd still have dirt roads and no telephone poles because them dang blasted infernal machines ARE TOOLS OF THE DEVIL!
Slea
12:20 pm on Wednesday, March 21, 2012
A second major decision, the first being Sprint vs. San Diego, that gives some of the authority back to the local government. Why should cell companies be able to put transmitters and towers wherever they want? Make money at our expense -- property values, health, distress? The homeowner and the local govt. lose and only the landowner who leases and the cell company win. Once there is a tower, more transmitters follow, making homes virtually impossible to sell as more people learn about the hazards of living near these radiation-emitting devices. I should know, I live on top of a mountain with a fabulous ocean/mountain view and homes do not sell even at depressed prices. Why? We started with 3 transmitters, we now have 54. People are sick, pets have died as young as 7 months from cancer, the bees are gone. Indeed! Tools of the devil.
Jody
2:33 pm on Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Good ruling. That was not an appropriate location at all. Their small lot size would put the pole right next to the adjoining people's back yards. We need a county plan instead of the cell phone companies choosing a location and offering the land owners a huge sum of money to sign the contract. This wastes everyone's time and money fighting applications when a wrong location has been chosen.
Davis
6:42 am on Thursday, March 22, 2012
The Mount Vernon Council of Citizens' Associations has a subcommittee to the Planning and Zoning Committee that has been attempting to work on a district wide plan to install Distributed Antenna System nodes in communities with the blessing of the community. The carriers have been resistant to the idea of DAS, preferring towers to the DAS System. The committee meets every 4th Monday at the government center on Parker Lane. There are communities that would be happy to have these systems (they are lower profile than towers if designed well and can be disguised in a myriad of manners if, again, they are designed well) but the carriers are refusing to provide them. There's a solution. The carriers just don't want to pay for it. They prefer towers because they're more cost effective. Go figure.
elf
2:52 am on Saturday, March 24, 2012
The claim that not permitting towers will result in the lack of cell phone use is nonsense. Read the District Court Decisiion. The tower complainant claimed they had no other solution but towers. The Court proved otherwise and noted techniques acceptable to the Fairfax County Supervisors. The Mount Vernon Council has since also endorsed such techniques.
Greg Crider
2:55 pm on Saturday, March 24, 2012
There's a Distributed Antennae System (DAS) along Georgetown Pike (Route 193) in Great Falls which looks fine to me. So there are acceptable alternatives to monopoles, but the telecom's preferred solution is a monopole apparently because it's their least costly alternative. Instead of focusing on their bottom line and pursuing this goal through the courts as they have been, the telecom industry should work on coming up with acceptable solutions for the communities where the telecom equipment needs to be installed.
elf
5:43 pm on Friday, March 30, 2012
Can you provide a cross street near the fine looking antenna along Georgetown Pike so others can take a look?
Christine
11:01 pm on Sunday, March 25, 2012
Residents should be pleased with this decision. Research shows that one's health may be affected when living 1/2 mile or less from a cell tower. See the research at http://www.centerforsaferwireless.org/Living-Near-Cell-Towers.php
Be aware that "smart" meters are being installed on homes throughout Northern Virginia, as well as the country. Like cell towers, they emit microwave radiation that has been deemed by the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer as a possible human carcinogen, in the same class as lead, DDT, and chloroform. You can read and see videos about smart meters at http://www.centerforsaferwireless.org/Smart-Meters.php