Opinion ID: 1267232
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The City's decision was authorized by local law.

Text: [W]e must take applicable state and local regulations as we find them and evaluate the City decision's evidentiary support (or lack thereof) relative to those regulations. MetroPCS, 400 F.3d at 724. As noted above, the Ordinance authorizes the denial of WCF permit applications on aesthetic grounds. Also relevant for our purposes is the California Public Utilities Code (PUC), which provides telecommunications companies with a right to construct WCFs in such manner and at such points as not to incommode the public use of the road or highway, Cal. Pub. Util. Code § 7901, and states that municipalities shall have the right to exercise reasonable control as to the time, place, and manner in which roads, highways, and waterways are accessed. Id. § 7901.1. The district court erred in concluding that the City's consideration of aesthetics was invalid under the PUC. [2] The California Constitution gives the City the authority to regulate local aesthetics, and neither PUC § 7901 nor PUC § 7901.1 divests it of that authority.
The California Constitution authorizes local governments to make and enforce within [their] limits all local, police, sanitary, and other ordinances and regulations not in conflict with general laws. Cal. Const. art. XI, § 7. California's Supreme Court has explained that a `city's police power under this provision can be applied only within its own territory and is subject to displacement by general state law but otherwise is as broad as the police power exercisable by the Legislature itself.' Fisher v. City of Berkeley, 37 Cal.3d 644, 209 Cal.Rptr. 682, 693 P.2d 261, 271 (1984) (quoting Birkenfeld v. City of Berkeley, 17 Cal.3d 129, 130 Cal.Rptr. 465, 550 P.2d 1001, 1009 (1976)); see also Conn. Indem. Co. v. Super. Ct. of San Joaquin County, 23 Cal.4th 807, 98 Cal.Rptr.2d 221, 3 P.3d 868, 872 (2000) (state constitution provides city with general authority to exercise broad police powers). There is no question that the City's authority to regulate aesthetics is contained within this broad constitutional grant of power. See Landgate, Inc. v. Cal. Coastal Comm'n, 17 Cal.4th 1006, 73 Cal.Rptr.2d 841, 953 P.2d 1188, 1198 (1998) (aesthetic preservation is unquestionably [a] legitimate government purpose[ ]); Ehrlich v. City of Culver City, 12 Cal.4th 854, 50 Cal.Rptr.2d 242, 911 P.2d 429, 450 (1996) ([A]esthetic conditions have long been held to be valid exercises of the city's traditional police power.). Thus, the threshold issue is not, as Sprint argues and the district court apparently believed, whether the PUC authorizes the City to consider aesthetics in deciding whether to grant a WCF permit application, but is instead whether the PUC divests the City of its constitutional power to do so. [3] Therefore, the question actually before us is whether the City's consideration of aesthetics is in conflict with general laws. Cal. Const. art. XI, § 7. A conflict exists if the local legislation duplicates, contradicts, or enters an area fully occupied by ... legislative implication. Action Apartment Ass'n, Inc. v. City of Santa Monica, 41 Cal.4th 1232, 63 Cal.Rptr.3d 398, 163 P.3d 89, 96 (2007) (citation and quotation omitted). Local legislation is contradictory to general law when it is inimical thereto. Id. (citation and quotation omitted). Absent a specific legislative indication to the contrary, we presume that there is no conflict where the local government regulates an area over which it has traditionally exercised control. See id. Sprint has the burden of demonstrating that a conflict exists. See id. We conclude that neither PUC § 7901 nor PUC § 7901.1 conflicts with the City's default power to deny a WCF permit application for aesthetic reasons.
The City's consideration of aesthetics in denying Sprint's WCF permit applications comports with PUC § 7901, which provides telecommunications companies with a right to construct WCFs in such manner and at such points as not to incommode the public use of the road or highway. Cal. Pub. Util.Code § 7901. To incommode the public use is to subject [it] to inconvenience or discomfort; to trouble, annoy, molest, embarrass, inconvenience or [t]o affect with inconvenience, to hinder, impede, obstruct (an action, etc.). 7 The Oxford English Dictionary 806 (2d ed.1989); see also Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary 610 (9th ed. 1983) (To give inconvenience or distress to.). The experience of traveling along a picturesque street is different from the experience of traveling through the shadows of a WCF, and we see nothing exceptional in the City's determination that the former is less discomforting, less troubling, less annoying, and less distressing than the latter. After all, travel is often as much about the journey as it is about the destination. The absence of a conflict between the City's consideration of aesthetics and PUC § 7901 becomes even more apparent when one recognizes that the public use of the rights-of-way is not limited to travel. It is a widely accepted principle of urban planning that streets may be employed to serve important social, expressive, and aesthetic functions. See Ray Gindroz, City Life and New Urbanism, 29 Fordham Urb. L.J. 1419, 1428 (2002) (A primary task of all urban architecture and landscape design is the physical definition of streets and public spaces as places of shared use.); Kevin Lynch, The Image of the City 4 (1960) (A vivid and integrated physical setting, capable of producing a sharp image, plays a social role as well. It can furnish the raw material for the symbols and collective memories of group communication.); Camillo Sitte, City Planning According to Artistic Principles 111-12 (Rudolph Wittkower ed., Random House 1965) (1889) (One must keep in mind that city planning in particular must allow full and complete participation to art, because it is this type of artistic endeavor, above all, that affects formatively every day and every hour of the great mass of the population....). As Congress and the California Legislature have recognized, the public use of the roads might also encompass recreational functions. See, e.g., Cal. Pub. Util.Code § 320 (burying of power lines along scenic highways); 23 U.S.C. § 131(a) (regulation of billboards near highways necessary to promote ... recreational value of public travel ... and to preserve natural beauty). These urban planning principles are applied in the City, where the public rights-of-way are the visual fabric from which neighborhoods are made. For example, the City's staff report explains that Via Valmonte, which is adorned with an historic stone wall and borders a park, is cherished for its rural character, and valued for its natural, unspoiled appearance, rich with native vegetation. Meanwhile, Via Azalea is described as an attractive streetscape that creates a residential ambiance. That the public use of these rights-of-way encompasses more than just transit is perhaps most apparent from residents' letters to the Director, which explained that they moved to Palos Verdes for its [a]esthetics and that they count on this city to protect [its] unique beauty with the abundance of trees, the absence of sidewalks, even the lack of street lighting. Thus, there is no conflict between the City's consideration of aesthetics in deciding to deny a WCF permit application and PUC § 7901's statement that telecommunications companies may construct WCFs that do not incommode the public use of the rights-of-way.
Nor does the City's consideration of aesthetics conflict with PUC § 7901.1's statement that municipalities shall have the right to exercise reasonable control as to the time, place, and manner in which roads, highways, and waterways are accessed. Cal. Pub. Util.Code § 7901.1. That provision was added to the PUC in 1995 to bolster the cities' abilities with regard to construction management and to send a message to telephone corporations that cities have authority to manage their construction, without jeopardizing the telephone corporations' statewide franchise. S. Comm. on Energy, Utilities, and Commerce, Analysis of S.B. 621, Reg. Sess., at 5728 (Cal.1995); see also id. ([I]ntent of this bill is to provide the cities with some control over their streets.). [4] If the preexisting language of PUC § 7901 did not divest cities of the authority to consider aesthetics in denying WCF construction permits, then, a fortiori, neither does the language of PUC § 7901.1, which only bolsters cities' control. Aesthetic regulations are time, place, and manner regulations, [5] and the California Legislature's use of the phrase are accessed in PUC § 7901.1 does not change that conclusion in this context. Sprint argues that the time, place and manner in which the rights-of-way are accessed can refer only to when, where, and how telecommunications service providers gain entry to the public rights-of-way. We do not disagree. However, a company can access a city's rights-ofway in both aesthetically benign and aesthetically offensive ways. It is certainly within a city's authority to permit the former and not the latter. [6] Our interpretation of California law is consistent with the outcome in City of Anacortes, in which we rejected a § 332(c)(7)(B)(iii) challenge to a city's denial of a WCF permit application that was based on many of the same aesthetic considerations at issue here. City of Anacortes, 572 F.3d at 994-95. There, the city determined that the proposed WCF would have a commercial appearance and would detract from the residential character and appearance of the surrounding neighborhood; that it would not be compatible with the character and appearance of the existing development; and that it would negatively impact the views of residents. Id. at 989-90. We noted that the city ordinance governing permit applications required the city to consider such factors as the height of the tower and its proximity to residential structures, the nature of uses of nearby properties, the surrounding topography, and the surrounding tree coverage and foliage. Id. at 994. We stated that [w]e, and other courts, have held that these are legitimate concerns for a locality. Id. (citing T-Mobile Cent., LLC v. Unified Gov't of Wyandotte County, Kan. City, 546 F.3d 1299, 1312 (10th Cir.2008); Cellular Tel. Co. v. Town of Oyster Bay, 166 F.3d 490, 494 (2d Cir.1999)). What was implicit in our decision in City of Anacortes we make explicit now: California law does not prohibit local governments from taking into account aesthetic considerations in deciding whether to permit the development of WCFs within their jurisdictions. Sprint warns that this conclusion will allow municipalities to run roughshod over WCF permit applications simply by invoking aesthetic concerns. However, our decision in no way relieves municipalities of the constraints imposed upon them by the TCA. A city that invokes aesthetics as a basis for a WCF permit denial is required to produce substantial evidence to support its decision, and, even if it makes that showing, its decision is nevertheless invalid if it operates as a prohibition on the provision of wireless service in violation of 47 U.S.C. § 332(c)(7)(B)(i)(II). Nor does our decision constitute a judgment on the merits of the City's decision in this case. Our function is not to determine whether the City's denial of Sprint's permit applications was a proper weighing of all the benefits (e.g., economic opportunities, improved service, public safety) and costs (e.g., the ability of residents to enjoy their community) of the proposal, but is instead to determine whether the City violated any provision of the TCA in so doing.