A working draft of a rewritten 5G cell tower ordinance is making the rounds among the different city-parish departments, telecommunications providers and community groups that would be affected by the ordinance.
Best-case scenario, the rewritten ordinance—drafted by members of the parish attorney’s office and its outside counsel, the Washington, D.C.-based firm Baller and Stokes—could be introduced to the Metro Council as soon as Jan. 22, five months later than originally planned.
“There’s no set date at this point,” says Courtney Humphrey, legislative section chief at the parish attorney’s office, who has assisted with drafting the ordinance. “Our working draft was sent to the affected parties about a week before Christmas. Once we get all their feedback, then hopefully a draft will be ready for submission to the council agenda.”
The rewrite comes on the heels of the FCC enacting federal guidelines to expedite the rollout of 5G wireless networks, with which Baton Rouge must comply.
Some of those affected parties include the city-parish finance department, which would handle the changing permit application fees mandated by the FCC, and the Department of Development, which would administer the federal regulations locally. Also affected are the wireless providers, which will undergo a separate permitting process.
City-parish officials and community task force members have previously attributed delays to making sure the city has adequate community input in crafting the new guidelines governing the 5G cell tower buildout in Baton Rouge. But that process was lengthened by the recent parish attorney search, according to some city-parish officials.
Though he hasn’t read through the working draft yet, Gary Patureau, who is leading the 5G cell tower task force created last summer, says the task force’s legal team at Daigle Fisse & Kessenich Law Firm is comparing the document to the one the task force submitted to the parish attorney’s office in October.
The task force’s draft, based on best practices of local 5G ordinances across the U.S., prioritized the aesthetics of small cell tower installation, which local civic associations say affect property values.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do between now and the 22nd,” Patureau says.
He will provide a status update on the 5G cell tower issue tonight at the Federation of Greater Baton Rouge Civic Associations meeting, which begins at 7 p.m. in the Main Library at Goodwood.
