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Home My WebLink About2.0 BOCC Staff Report 03.19.2001REQUEST: APPLICANT: LOCATION: SITE DATA: WATER: SEWER: Board of County Commissioners 03/19/01 PROJECT INFORMATION AND STAFF COMMENTS Special Use Penni! for a Teleconununication Facility AT&T Wireless Services 2829 County Road 117, Glenwood Springs, CO. Legal description, a leased parcel within Section 28, Township 6 South, and Range 89 West of Garfield County in the State of Colorado. A cellular telephone facility consisting of a 150-foot monopole, a JOO' X JOO' enclosed equipment area at the base of the tower, a prefabricated fiberbond equipment shelter and supporting concrete slabs. Unmanned facility. Unmanned facility. EXISTING ZONING: AIR/RD ADJACENT ZONING: AIR/RD I. RELATIONSHIP TO THE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN This proposal is located in Study Area I of the Comprehensive Plan. Il. INTRODUCTION I DESCRIPTION OF THE PROPOSAL AT&T Wireless has approached the planning department for pennission to construct an 150-foot monopole some four miles west of Carbondale. Support facilities being a base transmitting station (BTS), radio-receiving equipment set on concrete pads (blueprints and narrative are attached). Access to this unmanned site will be from County Road 117. Due to the remote location of this site the applicant has not yet decided whether to heli-lift the equipment on-site or truck it onto the site. After the site is built activity is generally limited to one maintenance visit a month. SBA had a teleconununications tower recently approved in this vicinity and collocation was suggested. However, because of the terrain problems to the south of the site SBA is delaying development of the site. Ill. GARFIELD COUNTY ZONING RESOLUTION There are two section of the Zoning Code that this proposal must be weighed against before the reconunendation of approval or denial can be made. Section 5.03, number 3 of the Garfield County Zoning Resolution dealing with Conditional and Special Uses states: Design of the use is organized to minimize impacts on and from adjacent uses of/and through installation of screen fences or landscape materials on the periphery of the lot and by location of intensively utilized areas, access points, lighting and signs in such a manner as to protect established neighborhood character. AT&T Wireless Seivices has tried to be very thorough in their investigation of Garfield County Zoning Regulations and trying to develop their proposal to confonu to those regulations. However, due to engineering requirements coupled with the Zoning Regulation of Garfield County all sites closer to the major thoroughfare had significant screening problems. Based on that, Voice Stream opted to move the site further away from mainstream traffic hoping the skyline silhouette wouldn't be a major problem. The AT&T site is located approximately four miles west of Carbondale atop a hill at approximately 7,620 ft in elevation. Based on the distance of the telecommunication tower to the nearest paved roadway the ground equipment will simply fade into the background. The monopole itself becomes quite difficult to screen because of its height but Voice Stream is trying to make this site as inconspicuous as possible by moving the site as far away from the major population centers as possible aud then having no lights on the tower. Further in the same Section, 5.03. 13 Broadcasting Studio aud/or Communication Facility: Such broadcasting studios and/or communication facilities shall be approved by the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), where appropriate (A84~78; 97-60). Jn addition, the following standards will be used in the review application for a communication facility: I. All facilities shall comply with frequency emission requirements of the FCC and any facility in compliance cannot be denied. 2. The co-location of telecommunication facilities on one site is encouraged and the denial of a landowner/lessor of the co-location of a site shall be based on technical reasons, not competitive interests. It is the County's policy to minimize the number of communication facilities by the encouragement of co-locating such facilities. 3. A freestanding telecommunication facility, including antennas, shall not exceed the maximum structure height in the applicable zone district unless an exception is approved by the Board based on the applicant demonstrating the following: (a) Use of existing land forms, vegetation and structures to aid in screening the facility from view or blending in with the surrounding built natural environment (b) Design, material and colors of antenna and their support structures shall be compatible with the surrounding environment, and monopole support structures shall taper from the base to the tip. (c) It is consistent with existing communication facilities on the same site. AT&T Wireless Seivice gets its right to operate this facility from the Federal Communication Commission (FCC), which assigns frequencies and sets emission standards. Unchecked, uncorrected frequency or emission violation can result in suspension or revocation of their operating license. Garfield County encourages collocation of wireless telecommunication facilities and the recently approved SBA site is approximately two miles to the southeast aud is unlikely to be built. Item"c" is not applicable to this review. IV. REFERRAL AGENCY COMMENTS The following agencies have been contacted for their concerns aud comments: 1. City of Glenwood Springs, Jauet Buck (No comment) 2. Glenwood Springs Airport, Jessica McMillan (No comment) 3. Carbondale Planning Department, Mark Chain (No comment) FCC assigned frequencies for these airport facilities range from 118. 85 MHz to 123. 8 MHz. The assigned frequency for the applicant is between 1.6 GHz and 2. 1 GHz, because of this the chance of cross talk or interference is highly unlikely. (Glenwood Springs and the Rifle airport use 122.8 MHz; Pitkin County uses 118.85, 120.4, 121.9 and 123.8 MHz, respectively.) V. RECOMMENDATION Staff reconunends Denial of this communication facility by the Planning Conunission. In the past the Planning Department has reconunended denial of all teleconununications sites that create skyline silhouettes. October 30, 2000 Jessica McMillan Glenwood Springs Airport 1172 Airport Center Road Glenwood Springs, CO. 81602 Garfield County· Building & Planning Department RE: AT&T Wireless Site-Located at 2829 CR 117, Glenwood Springs, CO To Whom It May Concern: Attached is the narrative and site plan for an AT&T Wireless facility located at 2829 CR 117 in Glenwood Springs. Please direct comments and or concerns to Greg Butler at the Garfield County Planning Department; the address is listed on the lettemead for your convenience. Cordially, GARF1ELD COUNTY PLANNING DEPARTMENT Gr g Butler, Sr. Planner 109 8th Street, Suite 303 945-8212/285-7972 Glenwood Springs, Colorado 81601 October 30, 2000 Janet Buck, Asst. Planner City of Glenwood Springs 806 Cooper Avenue Glenwood Spriitgs, CO. 81601" Garfield County Building & Planning Department ... " ) RE: AT&T Wireless Site -Located at 2829 CR 117, Glenwood Springs, CO To Whom It May Concern: Attached is the narrative and site plan for an AT&T Wireless facility located at 2829 CR 117 in Glenwood Springs. Please direct comments and or concerns to Greg Butler at the Garfield. County Planning Department; the address is listed on the letterhead for your convenience. Cordially, GARFIELDCOUNTYPLANNINGDEPARTMENT Greg Butler, Sr. Planner 109 8th Street, Suite 303 945-8212/285-7972 Glenwood Springs, Colorado 81601 October 30, 2000 Mark Chain, Plariner Town of Caroondale 511 Colorado Avenue Carbondale, CO. 81623 Garfield County· Building & Planning Department RE: AT&T Wireless Site-Located at 2829 CR 117, Glenwood Springs, CO To Whom It May Concern: Attached is the narrative and site plan for an AT&T Wireless facility located at 2829 CR 117 in Glenwood Springs. Please direct conunents and or concerns to Greg Butler at the Garfield County Planning Department; the address is listed on the letterhead for your convenience. Cordially, GARFIELD COUNTY PLANNING DEPARTMENT Greg Butler, Sr. Planner 109 8th Street, Suite 303 945-8212/285-7972 Glenwood Springs, Colorado 81601 ~ .~ ' ~ l ' ~ @ Memorandum To: Becky Glover CC: From: Garfield County Planning Department Date: 03/19/2001 Re: The Glenwood Springs Airport Site Dear Becky: 720/ 922-0398 3/r"!/o( /L/.Jo I wish the above-mentioned Special Use Permit could have been heard by the Board of County Commissioners this morning, unfortunately that was not to be ... i!)li\i~ gone ahead and re-scheduled this item, again before the Board of County Commissioners on !¥R!'!i ~~!", 2001at10:30 AM. Because this is a public heariugyou will have to re-mail and re-notify (ijiijq@Ri@ce to the last correspondence generated by this office, all yon will have to do is modify ili¢Mf&U% lilij~li~~t that the mailing and published notification must happen not more than 30 days before tl:i.~-!~~#g\.imd not less than 15 days before the hearing; the day of the hearing does not count as one 'lft!\~§~!ihys. The very last day these notices can be mailed and the publication is April I'' (no joke) fi! !)!~ ~!\~ 15-day window. The very first day the mailings can go out and the publication rrm in the i@l)!i§P~per of general circulation is March 16th, 200 I. fbi''~· safe, you might consider doing the mailings and publication during the week of March 26th and 30th. 1