14-14-118 TELECOMMUNICATIONS TOWER SITES

A. It is the finding of the City Council that: 1. It is in the best interests of the citizens of the City to have quality cellular wireless telephone service available. This necessarily entails the erection of telecommunications towers within the City limits. 2. It is the right of private enterprise to do business within the City, subject only to reasonable regulation by the City. This includes the telecommunications business. 3. It is in the best interests of the citizens that the telecommunications towers which are constructed are: a. as unobtrusive as possible in their location, size and construction; b. as few in number as possible; c. subject to such reasonable restrictions as may best minimize the impact upon surrounding properties and the City as a whole; and d. not placed in residential areas unless there is no other alternative. 4. It is in the best interests of telecommunications businesses to have access to towers which are of the appropriate height and location to serve their reasonable needs. 5. It is the policy of the City of Bountiful to make available to telecommunications companies such sites as the City owns and which can reasonably serve the needs of the companies, the citizens and the City. 6. The visual burden of towers is borne by the public, and it would be appropriate for the revenues of those towers go to the public. Therefore, telecommunication towers shall be located on publicly owned sites (i.e. lands owned by governmental entities such as the City, schools, etc) where possible, and on private property only when public properties serving the same area are not available. B. In order to serve current and reasonably foreseeable needs, any site approved by the City, regardless of location, shall be subject to all of the following requirements: 1. The applicant shall consent in the lease to two co-locations (in addition to applicant) on the same tower 2. The tower shall be constructed in such a manner as to accommodate three (3) different services, meaning the original company's equipment and two colocations on the same tower. C. Any tower shall be located, designed and constructed in such a manner that it is: 1. As unobtrusive as possible in its location, 2. Necessary for the telecom system to function properly, 3. subject to such reasonable restrictions as may best minimize the impact upon surrounding properties and the City as a whole, and 4. not placed in residential areas unless there is no other alternative. D. When later applications for towers are received, the applicants shall be required to: 1. co-locate on an existing tower, unless it can be shown by a preponderance of the evidence that all existing sites are inadequate to serve that company's reasonable needs due to location, height or other reason, and 2. pay reasonable compensation to the original tower company to fairly share past and future costs.