Tower siting regulations must change to alleviate local political pressure, builder says

Canada’s cellphone tower siting regulations make communities believe they have the power to decide where a tower can be built even if those powers reside exclusively with the federal government, said Edward Hachey, vice president of tower operator SBA Canada. “Constituents have the expectation that municipalities can deny a tower,” Hachey said in an interview. “In reality, they can't.” Tower operators are aware of the not-in-my-back-yard resistance towers can drum up, and are taking steps to avoid arousing a small but vocal group of tower opponents in communities across the country. At the same time, industry players say data-hungry Canadian smartphone users are the main beneficiaries of increased tower coverage. They say those benefits include greater network load needed for smartphones and lower mobile service prices as more towers allow for a more competitive Canadian marketplace. SBA Canada, a subsidiary of U.S.-based SBA Communications Corp., is now the largest independent builder and operator of communications towers in Canada after entering the market in 2009. As the country’s largest non-carrier tower owner, big industry players like Rogers Communications Inc., BCE Inc. and Telus Corp. rent space on SBA's towers, but Hachey said continued expansion of new entrant carriers is driving the company to further expand its network range and capacity. “Now we own and manage over 130 sites,” Hachey said. “And we're actively developing about another 150, and obviously looking to buy as many as we can in the marketplace as well.” Hachey said each towers will generally stand around 40 metres tall in order to support multiple carriers and must navigate a regulatory maze before they can be built. He said current regulations expose municipal politicians to unnecessary political criticism. Under those regulations, towns and cities are required to provide tower operators with a “letter of concurrence,” stating whether the community agrees or disagrees with the project. Once a mayor's signature of approval is affixed, Hachey said, the political consequences can be severe, though Ottawa has the final say on whether the site will be built. “Then the municipal politicians are on the hook with their own constituents for that support even though it is a federal body that will ultimately approve it,” Hachey said. He said local politicians will sometimes disapprove of the proposed tower to play it safe with voters. This comes as a disappointment to industry, especially if public consultations produce little resistance to the construction of towers, he said. One solution is to amend the current regulations so that input from the community is “not so binary” and can leave room for assenting and dissenting opinions, Hachey said. “The only tweak that needs to be made is to what is required from the municipality,” he said. The Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA) is now working to streamline the wireless antenna siting process. The group says it is working closely with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) to develop a “siting protocol template” the organization hopes will speed up the process. Bernard Lord, president of the CWTA, said his organization will hold a series of regional discussion sessions to engage municipalities on the subject of tower-siting and to help develop a common protocol for siting across the country. The format of those sessions, which will take place in Canada’s western provinces, as well as Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes, will be similar to a session the CWTA hosted in Ottawa on May 1, and will include representatives from government and industry. “We understand this is a federal jurisdiction, but at the same time, we feel, even though it is a federal jurisdiction, lets reach out to municipalities, lets develop common protocols that can be used,” Lord said in an interview at the Canadian Telecom Summit in Toronto. “We want to reach out to more people and enhance the collaboration that we can create between ourselves and different municipal organizations and land use authorities. We want to be a resource for them, we want to make it easier for them,” he said. Lord said his organization is trying to find the “sweet spot” where regulations work in the interest of the parties all impacted by cellphone tower sites, especially consumers. He said problems often arise because those who oppose the construction of new towers are more adamant in their position than those who want to see towers built to increase their mobile signals. “The small vocal minority is being heard, the silent majority that uses the networks, that wants the service, sometimes are not being heard,” he said. Tower operators have also started taking more aggressive actions to avoid battles over cellphone tower siting. Some companies have started disguising towers as more common items like trees, church towers, or flagpoles. Rogers has erected at least one shorter cellphone tower on a private residential property in Kirkland, Que. Hachey said SBA will not enter into any land use deals with private citizens like the one Rogers entered into in Kirkland. He said the path of least resistance is to site new towers on commercial or municipal lands. Hachey said SBA's American parent company often disguises towers but usually in cases where there has been intense community opposition to the new tower. He said that opposition often comes from local residents or from the municipalities themselves. “A lot of times it comes right from the municipalities who want the structure to blend in a little more, especially if its in a prominent area where camouflaging is ideal,” he said, adding that his company has not yet erected any disguised towers in Canada. “We haven't had conditions that are associated with it to put it into action yet,” he said. As the industry rolls out more network capacity, Hachey said, tower site operators can count on Industry Canada to be in their corner. “Their objective is to help foster the network development side of it,” he said. “By not approving towers you're not really helping that outcome.” —With files from Nicholas Kyonka. news@thewirereport.ca

Tower siting regulations must change to alleviate local political pressure, builder says

News | June 13, 2012

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Tower siting regulations must change to alleviate local political pressure, builder says

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