good evening and welcome to the monday february eighth two thousand and sixteen regular council meeting which will be preceded  may be located a memo dated january twenty first from educates landing director during the planning commission's recommendation in favor of the ordinance and then a review letter from washing county planning commission dated january thirteen with no recommendations this evening we do have dan cohen our special counsel on this topic and he's going to do the presentation explaining the order good evening members of council my name is dan call on with the cohen law group firm that specializes in cable telecommunications wireless and broadband issues we've also been privileged to have worked with peters township  several times in the past on cable and telecom issues the the amendments to the wireless communications section of your zoning code this evening really are brought about for two reasons one is changes in technology since this ordinance was drafted and inactive and the other is changes in the law and i thought maybe just give you a brief background on it and obviously answer any questions that you may have the in terms of changes in technology it's probably fairly easy to understand it comes from these things smartphones digital tablets that said there's been a huge increase in demand for wireless broadband right and that that increase has over the last several years caused the wireless industry and by the wireless industry i mean not just the wireless carriers like horizon eighteen t sprint t mobile the really only four left but also wireless contractors  with names like crown castle new path american tower company to create and install new wireless facilities in order to boost capacity not so much to boost coverage because you have cell coverage in peters township but companies may and really already have determined that certain parts of the township do not have the kind of capacity that would allow you to connect to an l t e network so these facilities are generally smaller they have less major area is called d a s you have well heard that term or distributed antenna systems and the other kind of game changer in addition to  these wireless facilities being whether they're small cells or whether they're on poles or not is that many of them are being placed in the public rights of way that that is the big game changer which really up until a couple of years ago and and him the place where it started was north hampton township in bucks county and we could certainly talk a lot about that that encounter that north hampton township had with the wireless industry in any event the wireless contractors that i mentioned have received from the pennsylvania public utilities commission certificates of public convenience and assess of the right to make them utilities right now when you think of utilities and i think of utilities before getting involved in this you probably think of gas a lecture of water etc you may not think of a wireless contractor again not a wireless carrier like horizon but a wireless contractor as being a public utility but the public utility commission is handing these out just as a quick aside literally a week ago the public utilities commission announced that they're going to reconsider the that decision and you can be sure that will be involved in submitting comments the p c nevertheless that's what's happening  the the other kind of change in the wa has occurred both at the federal and state level that's maybe start in the state moved up the pennsylvania ed legislature  late two thousand and fourteen passed the pennsylvania wireless broadband co location act and coal located facilities are facilities you may know are in tennis that are placed on other really important orders in this area in the last five years one in two thousand and nine i guess six or seven years was the shot clock order and the other in late two thousand and fourteen ok so how does this affect peters township your ordinance is a strong ordinance for traditional cell towers and i compliment whoever drafted it but it does not address changes in what i've just referred to which is changes in technology and changes in the law so what we've worked with the township to do is draft amendments to your wireless facilities in the public rights of way because the current ordinance does not do that and to make sure that the ordinance complies with current law  it just to make clear these are merely amendments they retain the structure of the current cell tower ordinance for example giving priority to township property for example making sure that the special exception process which the township has had for many years remains in place the just to point something out to you at the at the end of the ordinance township's how it will address wireless facilities both tower and nine tower facilities going forward should this council enact the amendments so it  s a list of the types of facilities zoning districts that those facilities are eligible to be included in and the approval process for the kind of facility  the only other thing i want to mention and again you know be happy to answer any questions that you might have the there's a map i think was up earlier but there's a map that we recommand be adopted by resolution not by ordinance simply because you know maps can change and streets and roads can change and the council's decision on which streets and roads would be available for  by which these d a s facilities would be eligible so that's what we're proposing this evening and we have been answer any questions that you might have power poles we wanted the facilities if they do come into peter's to be in the areas where we do have above ground kilties we correct me if i'm wrong we do not allow them to i i would also add that these are really be arterial roads of the township which is the major roads and i mean the way the township is designed as you can see if we were to put the map back up  it it really does cover virtually the entire township so the federal law says that you can't prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting wireless facilities but it also at the in the same provision of the ninety six telecom act says that you the township continues to be able to exercise that zoning authority so that's really  i think this is a peters township maybe even separate from some other clients that we have i think is a perfect example of how you can strike that balance so that  is regardless of the underlying zoning districts or their distance from areas in which all utilities are located underground so this was a recommendation that my at it gave some specifications but it doesn't refer back to all the other things that should be applicable related to height and everything else so should there be some tied back as to all the other things apply you know councilman i think some of those things would apply and some would not be the i hope i'm getting to your question the purpose of section nine is  to address why it was facilities in the public when i say and along the public rights of way the way the township's ordinance is written now it could be interpreted to actually prohibit wireless  public rights of way because it's really written for cell towers not for these many cell towers and small dishes and other things that are being placed on the rights of way and so some of the items that were in your current ordinance are retained others are not for example set back right that just wouldn't work in the public in a right of way situation whereas stealth technology would so we tried to go through your current ordinance and see which of those would apply to facilities and the rights of way in which would not and that's what we ended up with thank you welcome reason is that we have found at least and i'm a lawyer not an engineer but what we've found is that remember these are to boost capacity right so areas that are not as well reached is probably better way to put that but not as good as have as good coverage for by the celts of thank you by the cell tower ordinance are just precisely those areas that need to have their capacity boosted which may well be the lower elevations and the areas where and well let me just say one other time and i mean interrupt but look at the the distance capability of a d a s structure is a quarter of a mile to three quarters a mile that's it right so a lot of these need to be placed and may well be counterintuitive the you but if the if the signal is not as strong and certain areas i think those are areas where the signal needs to be boosted i the where the towers are now so i think it really depends on on the company in any one of those kids i assume you all get notices with your of your data coverages be exceeded  i represent unified business technologies we are a contractor for verizon wireless operator need to speak we have some questions and we've been working with the township to try to provide better this would pertain mainly to complications on existing structures that we would need to modify specifically the township has some first energy power towers transmission towers  there on higher elevations in the township which we would like to apply through first energy's process and we have to run a structural analysis to do that we would need to modify those towers to be able to hold our equipment safely passing all the rigorous requirements through the state and federal process i guess the township ordinance as it stands now is not clear as to if we modify an existing structure does that become a new structure and then not in the appropriate  the towers in our part of the river controversy over the structure on the ground that needed to be constructed supplement whatever was going up on top of the tower from the counselor's description would require some ground structure i was trying to distinguish them with my head but to be more specific on his question the existing allegheny power towers as the stand today are not structurally sound to accommodate their equipment so they're talking about actually building a hole inside the tower top which is which is what was being proposed in the par that's what this would look like as well a small shi your question of the tower inside the allegheny power tower structure we consider it a cone cage and if there were more specific questions i guess regarding  and the radio frequency or some towers it's all we have an engineer from verizon to could possibly speak to some of those things or maybe address some of those questions if needed but i think that clarifies for you know what i was looking comcast or both in the township is it feasible that you would have multiple providers even looking at the tower to use it because it's in a residential zone and we needed to be a thousand feet from that so the change the ordinance would help us potentially be able to use that site if we could modify the tower itself to because i tower again cannot hold our quote of it without being modified and then also we would need a place on the ground for port one and the fence around that is actually bigger than that that's the shed itself that holds the equipment and then the fencing around it we had this discussion one time before and you know we were three quarters of the way through that discussion with small right of way where they never did before so back when that tower was fermented first energy said you can have it but you can't put your equipment in our right of way and the right of way up there is one hundred feet so they have the center line fifty feet on both sides on they had to be completely and now they've loosened the regulation for us that we can be fifteen feet away from the base of the tower so essentially we would be a majority neighborhood and the residents in the neighborhood were saying that you know we don't have a problem with one tower but we want to have the whole neighborhood covered with them so we kind of designed it so be at least every other tower me just kind of summarize in my own mind if i may the proposed amendments to this ordinance are dealing with new technology this if you get the three letters that you need to  is an opportunity for those people who are here if you would like to address questions or discuss issues that are not on our agenda the city or anyone in the audience my left me in zero seven the garbage service was shut off and then when the deed transfer was done without my permission given it was turned back on for a service i don't use i business driving truck hauling machinery so sometimes three four days a week maybe i'm the only one that's in that house what fortunately we don't have the ability or capability or desire to allow anyone to opt out of the garbage collection service it's something that i did not sign for and it's a bill for service i'm not using and  when we put our garbage out for for forbid we don't say some people are going to use it so while i mean i should have the obligation to select my services for sure you don't do that to clarify the history  when we started doing mandatory garbage service there was part of that there were independent dollars and people could choose who they were using and one of the things that was was happening lawdy the people w records of guard region also requires recycling and so that's one of the township and up require mandatory garbage collection at every single home and then when that happened the amount of customers it's not an ordinance that requires everybody basically my problem is i have a bill here for and if you receive the garbage bills every quarter now we would disagree with you you can disagree with that i mean i'm not in town as much in there is a possibility of person to get my mail that it did not get followed properly that is a required to have the garbage collection and pay for all right now i mean as a stand what i'm asking is that this bill be waived so i get my refinancing straight out of my financial problems i'm having this is holding me up and it's for something i have not used it because i think the garbage goes in my dumpster paying four hundred dollars a month and dumpsters i get that i have to dumpsters whose touchup is where the but i mean for something that i have not used but i do chose not to and then as of the says balance calculate is true to fifteen and then after two fifteen just by the garbage going on to start using it that's all but it's just it's it's twenty eight zero five interest fourteen zero three costs seventy nine dollars servicing expense what's cos what's the servicing expenses these are all fees related to the fact that that that property has not been lead there  should be off and should be forced into a service that they don't want and that's worth what it is i'm being forced into something that i don't want because of i'm already paying for dumpsters to  that's not a garbage service or that the school that's on that's education but you know that's not public waste or whoever you see in order now you know it's a should have a right to have you want for your services this is not j property so you get to me and i will recuse myself from the consideration this issue since it was before the planning commission while i was still in the planning commission the required frontage which is fifty feet they have slightly over that for each while on the cones the plan is also includes a shared driveway to use the clean level they're no longer able to  e mail blasts as well as they have a couple other methods of they're going to be advertising that he at the library and all those like me are it's thirty thousand dollars well that that's an extrapolation i made based on the number property you know this is another example where people have things out in other people can access from it just it affects everyone negatively i mean it's south which is what it is so what do you need a motion on ok i move that we agree to support mrs allana proposal for the library amnesty for the period from fed kept february fourteenth to the twentieth next one is this position of record which means we could throw things away i'm going to move we prove rose lucian's zero two zero one one six and the argument is that the ex wife was responsible to pay those taxes and did not and the person wasn't aware but in looking at the records from very significant amount of conversation going over multiple years and it was very clear that they are that the person knew the taxes were being paid and the reason the penalty is so much exterior groundwork to hope hope we get this project under bid your council can look at the numbers when they come in and make a decision whether they want to proceed or not  speaking with them at the in march at the p r p s conference to see exactly what they can do to try to improve our chances in future proposals or there's an application doing to the constructed this summer others will be a six week closing of the bridge they're going to start doing some of the road widening work intersection this is their plan which  and read the flood plain about their property became included in the in the one hundred year flood plan this is created issues for these property owners and that they now have to get flood insurance which is up to twenty one hundred dollars and will continue to rise significantly over the years as part of the federal strategy and they're asking for was even remotely in the long area near a creek just to work on the hay and maybe changes your property you know come into the township look at the maps we put them on the web site back and spring twenty fourteen bettors to everybody so they what female will do is is if the property owner would have to provide an engineering study that showed that here is the actual flood plain on my lawn here's the elevation of my house and i'm not in the floodplain so they'd have to prove that you know through it through an engineering analysis but it's a fairly quick turnaround time can be compared to the other method which i explain here in a minute how minor does that famous sends out a letter to them and to us so we can put it on file saying that there are one plan and they provide it to their mortgage lender and their mortgage lender will let them out of the plan quire me for for having to watch for flood insurance and just to be clear we don't require flood plain insurance it's totally a function of your mortgage lender and it's well even if you have a federally backed loan you know that's how you one of the options would be to pay off your mortgage but that's obviously not a not an option for most people but the senate the second way that that can be accomplished in remov g an owner from the flood plains it's on more of an area wide basis since it's called a little more l o m r stands for letter of map vision that has to be applied for by the township the community that is participating in that the flood insurance program and that actually would amend the official maps of fema would have to again we have to back it up with an engineering study and show that the floodplain is actually not where it shown on the map and we'd apply for that there'd be some back and forth comments more of you know that but in the in the end you know the result could be that the entire floodplain gets removed that process is more expensive it's more timely you know i think if they were to do anything my recommendation would be to try to pursue the first option of one modern wonder map amendment to see and you can do some rudimentary engineering yeah and that in the end i don't know the answer to why their mortgage lender is requiring insurance and if it's i've been told it varies from lender to lender some of them if the flood plane touches your property that triggers the requirement the other one what they call detailed studies and the battle that we need to completely fight it's not it's not our fight so to speak but i think that it's because you know because we did the original house location based on  thirteen thirteen and thirteen thirteen is where