Planning commission orders staff to draft cell tower rules after community safety concerns

The Planning Commission directed county planning staff to draft a standalone wireless telecommunications ordinance after receiving a board request to review how neighboring counties regulate cell towers.

Commissioners said a recently approved monopole in a residential area highlighted gaps in Northland County’s regulatory language: existing land‑use tables allow conditional placement but the county lacks a consolidated telecom ordinance with explicit setback, height and decommissioning rules. Staff summarized practices in nearby jurisdictions: Lancaster County’s detailed wireless telecommunication ordinance (including setback rules and application fees), Richmond County’s prioritization of collocation and county‑owned sites, and West Morland County’s height/setback formula (one foot of setback for every five feet of tower height).

Commissioners and staff discussed tradeoffs between codified height limits (which can reduce the number of towers but may force denser siting) and conditional‑use flexibility. Concerns raised included whether monopoles are engineered to fail in preplanned sections, the appropriate setback from dwellings for tall monopoles, potential liability if a pole failed and public concern about proximity to homes. The commission asked staff (Stewart and Philip) to synthesize sample ordinances from Lancaster, Richmond and West Morland counties into a draft hybrid ordinance tailored to Northland County for review at a future meeting.

No formal regulatory action was adopted; commissioners asked staff to return with a draft ordinance, a model matrix of options (setback formulas, fees and priorities) and suggested language for conditional use versus a codified standard. The item will return to the commission for further review.