PRACTICE AREAS
TCA Based – Zoning Ordinance Drafting
We offer experienced services in drafting local zoning provisions for local governments to enable them to vest themselves with the maximum authority to control the placement of cell towers and other wireless facilities within their jurisdiction, to the greatest extent the United States Congress intended to preserve that power to them, under the “General Authority” provision of the Federal Telecommunications Act of 1996.
At the requests of local governments and/or their constituents, we draft TCA-based local zoning code provisions pertaining to wireless facilities, which are specifically designed to:
- vest local governments with the maximum authority to control the placement of wireless facilities within their jurisdiction; and
- to encompass and provide procedural guidelines to local zoning boards and officials, to ensure that they comply with the requirements of the TCA when deciding zoning applications for wireless facilities.
Each local zoning provision we create is drafted to merge seamlessly with the respective municipality’s existing zoning code and any comprehensive plan which has been adopted, and takes into account the respective Town, County, City or Villages specific zoning districts, historic zones, sites and structures, environmentally sensitive properties, and aesthetic resources.
Contemporaneously, we draft our TCA-based ordinances for local governments to encompass specific procedural guidelines for local officials and boards to follow, to ensure that, to the greatest extent possible, they do not violate the constraints of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which thereby minimizes the risks of federal litigation to challenge any decision of the relevant local Board pertaining to an application seeking permission to install a wireless facility.
We then provide instructions to local zoning officials on how to process zoning applications for wireless facilities consistent with the local zoning ordinance, while simultaneously complying with the requirements of the TCA.
