Recommendation to declare ordinance amending and restating Chapter 21.56, related to Wireless Telecommunications Facilities, read and adopted as read.  (Citywide)
Okay, thank you very much. Is the toilet Marshall here? Okay. That concludes the public comment and no agenda items. We're going to go back to the agenda item. Next item, please. Should we take the hearing. Out to the hearing? Hearing item one is a report from Development Services recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record. Conclude a public hearing and accept categorical exemption. C e de 17 Dash 053 Declare ordinance amending chapter 21.56 of the law between this barcode. Read the first time and lead over to the next regular meeting of the City Council for Final Reading and a resolution directing the Development Director of Development Services to submit a request to the California Coastal Commission to certify an amendment to the Certified Local Coastal Program Citywide. Okay, Mr. West. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The staff report for the hearing will be given by Linda Tatum, our planning bureau manager. Good evening, Mayor. A members of the City Council. I have a brief presentation on this item and I'd like to introduce the project team to work on this, which is Scott Kinsey, the project planner, and Meredith Elgin representing the Public Works Department. This item is a request for a zoning ordinance amendment, and the amendment will change the way of wireless telecommunication facilities in the public. Right of way are regulated. It was initiated by the director of Public Works and the city attorney's office and also working with the planning staff in response to a significant increase in the number of micro wireless telecommunication facilities in the right of way. The intent of this request is to provide enhanced esthetic standards for these wireless telecommunication facilities and also to streamline the permitting process. It would also add a greater clarity for the predictability for applicants who go through that process. It's also intended to be a short term fix because staff would like to, with the approval of this patch ordinance, staff would be working on a comprehensive ordinance to bring back to the City Council for consideration. And we anticipate such an ordinance being completed within six months. What I'd like to do is just give you a little bit of background in June of 2011. This Council adopted the current zoning regulations for wireless telecommunication facilities, and at that time, most of the type of wireless communication facilities that we were seeing or what we call the macro wireless facilities, and these are typically located on private property. And they come in three different types or three common types, but we call the monopoles. They're also designated by the rooftop roof mounted sites that are integrated into the building that you see in the center slide there. And they could also be mounted on electrical transmission towers, which you see on the the top figure at the right and. These types of of sites actually give a carrier more broad area coverage and they each independently make up a cell in a much larger network of cell sites. The regulations for these type of macro sites are not going to be changed, that they are currently regulated by the Planning Commission through a c you p process. So they those are not the subject of the the pact legislation we're considering tonight. In 2011, the ordinance that was adopted was for the that at the time of that legislation in 2011, the micro cell sites were we're kind of a new technology. So the 2011 regulations didn't really adequately address those that type of technology. And this new micro site, it's a much smaller size and it's typically located in the public right of way. It's most often located on existing infrastructure, such as light poles and sometimes utility poles. And they're referred to, as I mentioned earlier, as micro sites or small cells. And rather than providing the area wide coverage, like the larger macro cell sites do, they actually fill smaller gaps between the macro sites and they also provide increased capacity within the macro sites coverage area. So the regulations that we adopted in the city in 2011 represented the best practices at that time for that new technology. However, in the year since 2011, the city has received a significant increase in the number of these micro Apple Micro site applications and specifically beginning it in at the beginning of 2016, we've received approximately 80 applications for these type of sites. So I'd like to give you a couple of it, show you a couple of examples of the small cells that were recently constructed in Long Beach. These are two here, and these are under the current regulations, again, fairly unobtrusive. Now, I'd like to go to Slide six in order to better respond to the development environment and the strong market for these types of facilities. We find it necessary to revise the current regulations to provide greater esthetic standards and better what we call location standards. And also, as I mentioned earlier, to clarify the process, streamline the process and make it a more efficient process for applicants. And what we really want to do is to encourage are esthetic and appropriately sized on small cell facilities that are sensitive to the context of where they're being located and that do not create a visual impact or a negative visual impact on the city's corridors, either through their size, the scale or their location. And the patch ordinance would would critically, most critically address these particular issues. Okay. We talked about the fact that the city has invested heavily in the the esthetics of the right way to make them safe, to make them attractive. And the idea behind this is to increase those esthetic standards so that these facilities do not negatively impact the city's investment in its ride away quarters. But I'd like to show you here is the type of design that our design standards would encourage. As you can see here on the slide to the left, at the very top of the facility of that, that structure is the actual facility. And at the bottom, you can see and the detail on the right shows, the mechanical equipment that's associated for the the micro site at the top of that structure. What I'd like to share with you now are the generally other types of similar esthetically acceptable styles that our our ordinance would encourage. Again, very unobtrusive, not very easily visible. So you'd have to really look to know that a wireless or a micro cell is on those structures. Now I'd like to show you in what some of these facility, what some of these facilities look like in other communities that don't have the type of esthetic standards that we're proposing. And you can see how these are very unattractive. They don't respect the context of the street and the environment, and they just do not contribute anything to the character of the city or to the adjacent development. So these are the types of of standards that we would like to particularly prohibit in the city. Okay. The other is, as I mentioned earlier, the idea behind the ordinance is to update it, at least temporarily, until such time as staff can work through some of the issues. We would update some of the definitions. We would clarify the permitting requirements, remove some of the language in the ordinance that's vague or confusing, and would also prohibit these type of facilities being installed on wooden poles. And of course, one of the other requirements is that we would require a higher standard of evidence for the applicant who would like to install these when they indicate that they can't meet the city's preferred location standards. So that essentially concludes the presentation, the technical presentation. It just like to briefly talk about the next steps in this process. Following tonight's council action on the ordinance, the staff would continue to work as a team. We would work with the the public works department, the Planning Department. And I would just note that the Public Works Department brought in an outside legal counsel who specializes in the preparation of wireless ordinances. So we have the benefit of their their advice as well, having worked in other cities and worked on wireless communication cases in the courts. So staff would like to conclude this presentation by recommending that the City Council consider the recommendation on this item that was taken by the Planning Commission at its public hearing last month. They recommended that this item be adopted by the City Council. So staff. Our recommendation is that Council will adopt this ordinance and the resolution that would forward this action to the local to the Coastal Commission for for action. And with that, as I noted, we have our staff planner here as well as a public works representative, and we'd be happy to respond to any questions from the city council. And he comes after Pierce? No, just thank you for the staff report. Appreciate the work. Councilman Gonzalez. Likewise. Thank you so much. This is a very thorough staff report. I'm looking forward to seeing the changes and how they manifest in our city public comment. They see none that's going caps or votes. I think the clerk said that they have it working now. It was. Let's try it one more time. Nope. Okay. Nope. Not. Not. We're going back to the real county. It's not working. That's okay. Let's go find Austin. Hi. Hi. Hi. I. I i. Unanimous. Thank you very much. Back to the next item, please.