Opinion ID: 200247
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Effective Prohibition Challenge

Text: 28 The more difficult question is whether, on the evidence before the district court, the denial of the variance sought by the landowner constituted an unlawful effective prohibition on the provision of wireless services. See § 332(c)(7)(B)(i)(II). This in turn raises a series of issues inherent in the effective prohibition analysis, including the requirements to show an effective prohibition; the contours of the significant gap formulation previously used by this court; and the relevance of evidence of coverage provided by roaming service, towers in other towns, and carriers not licensed in the town. Most significantly, it raises the question of the correctness of the rule adopted by the district court that if any carrier provides any coverage within a purported gap, then there cannot, as a matter of law, be an effective prohibition on the provision of wireless services. We disagree with and reject any such rule, but ultimately agree with the court's alternate ground for holding that there was no effective prohibition.
29 Unlike the substantial evidence issue, the issue of whether the ZBA has prohibited or effectively prohibited the provision of wireless services is determined de novo by the district court. Nat'l Tower, 297 F.3d at 22. The district courts are free to consider additional evidence. Amherst, 173 F.3d at 16 n. 7. In turn, this court reviews the district court's legal conclusions de novo. Nat'l Tower, 297 F.3d at 22. If the facts had been contested before the district court, we would review the district court's factual conclusions for clear error. Id. If the parties had each simply moved for summary judgment, we would review the district court's summary judgment conclusions de novo. See ATC Realty, LLC v. Town of Kingston, 303 F.3d 91, 94 (1st Cir.2002). Here, the parties agreed that the trial judge could resolve the issues on a case-stated basis. Second Generation, 2002 WL 1018923, at . Accordingly we review the inferences drawn by the district court from the stated facts for clear error. See Garcia-Ayala v. Lederle Parenterals, Inc., 212 F.3d 638, 643-45 (1st Cir.2000). In the end, we would reach the same result here regardless of which of these standards of review applied. 30
31 The rule in this circuit is that the TCA's anti-prohibition clause is not restricted to blanket bans on cell towers imposed by towns. Amherst, 173 F.3d at 14. The clause may, at times, apply to individual zoning decisions. Id. In invoking the effective prohibition language, the burden for the carrier ... is a heavy one: to show from language or circumstances not just that this application has been rejected but that further reasonable efforts are so likely to be fruitless that it is a waste of time even to try. Id. A landowner tower developer is in no better position than a carrier and has an equally heavy burden. 7 32 The TCA does not itself expressly authorize local zoning boards to consider whether individual decisions amount to an effective prohibition. See 47 U.S.C. § 332(c)(7). Since board actions will be invalidated by a federal court if they violate the effective prohibition provision, many boards wisely do consider the point. See, e.g., Amherst, 173 F.3d at 16. There appears to be nothing in New Hampshire law to preclude a board from considering the issue. The ZBA here implicitly did so by concluding that Second Generation had failed to show that there were no alternative sites to build a tower that would solve whatever coverage problem existed. 8 No special deference is given to the board's conclusion on this point. 33 This court has identified two sets of circumstances where there is a prohibition in effect. The first is where the town sets or administers criteria which are impossible for any applicant to meet. See id. at 14. That was the situation in National Tower, which affirmed the district court's finding that a permit denial constituted an effective prohibition. See 297 F.3d at 23-25. The second involves the situation where the plaintiff's existing application is the only feasible plan; in that case, denial of the plaintiff's application might amount to prohibiting personal wireless service. Amherst, 173 F.3d at 14; accord Sprint Spectrum, L.P. v. Willoth, 176 F.3d 630, 640, 643 (2d Cir.1999). 9 These factors, when pertinent, should be analyzed in determining whether there is an effective prohibition. This means, of course, that there can be no general rule classifying what is an effective prohibition. It is a case-by-case determination. 34 Second Generation initially attempts to show a violation of the anti-prohibition clause by arguing that the Personal Wireless Services Ordinance restricting the location of the towers to certain districts is a blanket prohibition. That attack is meritless. The Ordinance does not restrict the power to grant variances to build towers in other districts, the town has allowed four commercial towers to be constructed, and the town has not said as a categorical matter that it would never grant a variance outside the Overlay Zone. There is no credible claim of a blanket prohibition. 35 Second Generation then argues that the individual variance denial is an effective prohibition. The question of whether an individual denial is an effective prohibition is largely fact-driven. Since the effective prohibition clause is not self-explanatory, the importance of particular facts must be seen through the prism of the statutory language and intent. Overall, the TCA attempts to reconcile the goal of preserving local authority over land use with the need to facilitate nationally the growth of wireless telephone service. Amherst, 173 F.3d at 13. Congress intended to promote a national cellular network. Id.; see also Todd, 244 F.3d at 57 (TCA reflects Congress's intent to rapidly expand personal wireless services); President's Statement on Signing the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (February 8, 1996), reprinted in 3 Federal Telecommunications Law: A Legislative History of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, doc. 95, at 208 (B.D. Reams, Jr. & W.H. Manz eds., 1997) (TCA intended to promote universal service). The Act aims to secure lower prices and better service for consumers by opening all telecommunications markets to competition. See Telecommunications Act of 1996, Pub.L. No. 104-104, pmbl., 110 Stat. 56, 56; H.R. Conf. Rep. No. 104-458, at 113 (1996), reprinted in 1996 U.S.C.C.A.N. 10, 80. 10 Thus, the Act attempts to reconcile the interests of consumers and residents (many of whom are themselves cell phone users). 36
37 Courts have provided a judicial gloss on the effective prohibition language of the statute in order to determine whether a coverage problem exists at all. We have concluded that a town's refusal to permit a tower that is needed to fill a significant [geographic] gap in service, where no service at all is offered in the gap, would violate the effective prohibition clause. See Nat'l Tower, 297 F.3d at 20; accord Willoth, 176 F.3d at 643; APT Pittsburgh Ltd. P'ship, 196 F.3d at 480. The context in which a question arises is important. In National Tower, where this circuit adopted and employed a significant gap analysis, it was undisputed that no carrier provided coverage in the geographic gap area and that the gap affected the ability of a large number of users to connect or maintain a connection, id. at 17-18. The issue addressed in National Tower by the significant gap formulation, then, had to do with when a purported geographic gap, served by no carrier, is large enough in terms of physical size and number of users affected to amount to an effective prohibition, rather than being a mere, and statutorily permissible, dead spot. Federal regulations contemplate that areas enjoying adequate coverage will still include spots without reliable service. See 360 Degrees Communications Co., 211 F.3d at 87; 47 C.F.R. § 22.911(b) (2001); see also id. § 22.99 (defining dead spots as [s]mall areas within a service area where the field strength is lower than the minimum level for reliable service). 38 Like many legal concepts, the significant gap language used in one context is now being used by the parties to address a qualitatively different and much more complex set of problems. The parties use the phrase to frame arguments about whether an effective prohibition can exist in a geographic area where a carrier already provides some service. The ultimate question of course remains whether a given decision, ordinance, or policy amounts to an effective prohibition on the delivery of wireless services. Inquiries into the existence and type of gap are merely helpful analytic tools toward that end. 11 39
40 Second Generation attempts to buttress its argument by saying the coverage that does exist should be ignored and so this is actually a situation where no carrier provides coverage. The only carriers that provide coverage in the purported gap are U.S. Cellular, which provides roaming service via the Cingular Wireless network, and Cingular Wireless, which is not licensed in Pelham and provides service from a tower in Dracut, Massachusetts. 41 Second Generation raises a question of law as to whether the town or court may consider service by these carriers. In ascertaining the existence and extent of coverage for purposes of resolving an effective prohibition claim (and indeed the proposed solution), we hold it permissible to consider (1) roaming service, (2) the coverage provided from towers in other towns, and (3) service by carriers not licensed in the jurisdiction at issue. See Cellular Tel. Co., 197 F.3d at 71 (Under the right conditions it may be possible to provide an adequate level of personal wireless services to a particular community solely through facilities located outside that community.); accord Omnipoint Communications MB Operations, LLC v. Town of Lincoln, 107 F.Supp.2d 108, 117 n. 8 (D.Mass.2000). 42 Second Generation protests that this result would allow Pelham to displace onto other jurisdictions the obligation to host new cell towers and would infringe the rights of carriers that purchased FCC licenses for the geographic area including Pelham. Both these arguments overlook the fact that licensed carriers may be able to co-locate on the same (existing) tower(s) used by out-of-town carriers. 12 The argument, moreover, runs contrary to the TCA's emphasis on protecting the interests of consumers and residents rather than those of carriers and developers. 43
44 This case squarely raises the issue, which has divided the courts, of whether there can ever be an effective prohibition of personal wireless service if there is any carrier that provides coverage in the geographic gap area. The district court, following the Third Circuit holding in APT Pittsburgh Ltd. Partnership, 196 F.3d at 480, adopted the rule that if any coverage is provided in the gap area by any carrier (including roaming service through a tower in a different town) then there can be no effective prohibition. 13 45 A flat any service equals no effective prohibition rule would say a town could refuse permits to build the towers necessary to solve any number of different coverage problems. 14 It is highly unlikely that Congress intended the many qualitatively different and complex problems to be lumped together and solved by a rule for all seasons that any coverage in a gap area automatically defeats an effective prohibition claim. Such a rule would be highly problematic because it does not further the interests of the individual consumer. To use an example from this case, it is of little comfort to the customer who uses AT &T Wireless (or Voicestream, Verizon, Sprint, or Nextel) who cannot get service along the significant geographic gap which may exist along Route 128 that a Cingular Wireless customer does get some service in that gap. Of course, that AT & T customer could switch to Cingular Wireless. But were the rule adopted, the same customer might well find that she has a significant gap in coverage a few towns over, where AT & T Wireless, her former provider, offers service but Cingular Wireless does not. The result would be a crazy patchwork quilt of intermittent coverage. That quilt might have the effect of driving the industry toward a single carrier. When Congress enacted legislation to promote the construction of a nationwide cellular network, such a consequence was not, we think, the intended result, see, e.g., S.Rep. No. 104-23, Purpose of the Bill (1995), reprinted in 1 Federal Telecommunications Law, supra, doc. 2, at 1 (bill aims to open[] all telecommunications markets to competition); H.R.Rep. No. 104-204, Purpose and Summary (1995), reprinted in 1 Federal Telecommunications Law, supra, doc. 3, at 47-50. 15 The fact that some carrier provides some service to some consumers does not in itself mean that the town has not effectively prohibited services to other consumers. 46 Our reading of the statute also rests on its language: 47 (i) The regulation of the placement, construction, and modification of personal wireless service facilities by any State or local government or instrumentality thereof — 48 .... 49 (II) shall not prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting the provision of personal wireless services. 50 § 332(c)(7)(B). We start with the fact that Congress used services and not service. A straightforward reading is that services refers to more than one carrier. Congress contemplated that there be multiple carriers competing to provide services to consumers. That one carrier provides some service in a geographic gap should not lead to abandonment of examination of the effect on wireless services for other carriers and their customers. Next, the phrase have the effect of prohibiting may well refer to actions that mostly prohibit. For example, B.A. Garner, A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage 256 (2d ed. 1995), gives as the first definition of effective having a high degree of effect. (emphasis added). Accord B.A. Garner, A Dictionary of Modern American Usage 237-38 (1998). Moreover, a common reading of the word prohibition standing alone would apply to a situation of denial of services to the vast majority of users. See, e.g., Oxford English Dictionary (2d ed. 1989) (defining prohibit as to prevent, preclude, hinder ) (emphasis added). Thus Congress may well have meant the effective prohibition clause to reach certain situations in which there is some coverage in a gap. 51 One might hypothesize that the unreasonable discrimination language of the Act would adequately address situations where customers of some but not all carriers lack service in an area. The argument would proceed that the anti-prohibition clause should be strictly read as applying only to de jure and de facto absolute prohibitions. This court has not yet explicated the unreasonable discrimination clause and we do not do so here. Nevertheless, the law from other circuits gives little reason to think this clause will effectively safeguard congressional efforts to promote the building of a nationwide cellular network. Some courts have held that towns can discriminate against proposals that have different aesthetic or safety ramifications, Willoth, 176 F.3d at 638-39; see also H.R.Rep. No. 104-458 (1996), reprinted at 1 Federal Telecommunications Law, supra, doc. 5, at 208; S.Rep. No. 104-230 (1996), reprinted in 1 Federal Telecommunications Law, supra, doc. 6, at 208, or a different structure, placement, or cumulative impact, see Nextel W. Corp. v. Unity Township, 282 F.3d 257, 267 (3rd Cir.2002). See generally AT & T Wireless PCS, Inc. v. City Council of Va. Beach, 155 F.3d 423, 427 (4th Cir.1998) (some discrimination between providers of functionally equivalent services is allowed). 52 Towns, of course, are far from powerless, despite our rejection of the rule. An applicant for a zoning permit arguing that there is an effective prohibition must still show that there are no alternative sites which would solve the problem. Importantly, if an existing carrier provides service, then by definition there is a tower used by that owner, and the tower may offer the possibility of co-location. If co-location on such a tower is not possible, there may be other solutions that the town regards as more palatable than the applicant's proposed tower. Finally, even if there were a significant coverage problem in terms of a number of different carriers being unable to provide service to a significant number of users, we think a town would be entitled to consider whether a particular proposed tower would solve the problem for a smaller or larger number of providers. Here, the firm evidence was that a tower on Second Generation's property would assist two of the carriers. Little evidence was submitted about whether it would solve the purported problem for the other four licensed carriers. 53
54 Dispositively on the effective prohibition issue, the record shows that Second Generation has not met its burden to show that there are no other potential solutions to the purported problem. Specifically, Second Generation failed to show that a taller tower (for which a height variance would be needed) could not be built in the Overlay Zone to remedy the alleged gap. Nor did it show that no other feasible sites existed outside of the Overlay Zone or that the ZBA would deny variances for such sites. Second Generation's own experts acknowledged that its land was not the only location where a tower could provide coverage in the purported gap and that its proposed tower was likely taller than necessary to service the alleged gap. Second Generation also failed to explore whether existing towers in nearby jurisdictions (which enabled U.S. Cellular customers to obtain roaming service) could provide other carriers with coverage in the purported gap. 55 Though Second Generation has not on this record demonstrated that this individual denial of a permit constituted an effective prohibition, it appears there may be a coverage problem requiring a solution. Nothing in the Town's actions thus far shows an unwillingness to acknowledge a problem or to permit the crafting of a solution. The record suggests a range of possible solutions, none yet determined to be infeasible, ranging from more co-location on existing towers in nearby towns, to the construction of less aesthetically disruptive towers in Pelham, to the placement of towers along median strips. Those are the sorts of choices and trade-offs which the Act permits towns to make in the first instance. See Amherst, 173 F.3d at 15; Aegerter v. City of Delafield, 174 F.3d 886, 891 (7th Cir.1999). In this situation the heavy artillery of federal preemption is simply unwarranted. 56 The judgment of the district court is affirmed. Costs are awarded to Pelham.