Speaker 1: All right. So that concludes our presentations. Thank you all for participating. Will now move on to item number one hearing.
Speaker 0: Number one report from Public Works and Development Services. Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing and adopt negative declaration and the 1117 Declare Ordinance amending Chapter 21.56 and Title 15 of the Long Beach Municipal Code read for the first time and laid over to the next regular meeting for final reading. Adopt a resolution directing the Director of Development Services to submit a request to the California Coastal Commission to certify an amendment to the Certified Local Coastal Program and adopt a resolution authorizing the City Manager to execute license agreements with wireless telecommunication providers and carriers for wireless telecommunication facilities for ten year terms citywide.
Speaker 1: Thank you. And I see that there's no oath required. Is that correct? That's correct. Okay, so I'll hand it off to Mr. Modica. Thank you, Vice Mayor. The presentation tonight for staff will be given by Craig Beck, our director of Public Works, and Eric Lopez, our project management officer.
Speaker 7: Thank you, Vice Mayor Members, City Council. We appreciate the opportunity tonight to come before you and have a discussion about small cell and some of the work that's been done, not only between city staff and with our technology partners. If we give me a minute to get this thing working. There we go. Okay. So just as background information, we wanted to kind of clarify why we're here tonight and where we started. The city currently does have ordinances and rules in place that govern the implementation and placement of macro cell sites. That requires a conditional use permit and is heard typically by our planning commission. But there's a lot of new technology upgrades and the telecom industry has been evolving and what they're looking for is an opportunity for more localized distribution and placement, and that is generally called small cell or micro cell sites. So why proposed regulations? What we're finding is the small cell infrastructure that the telecom industry is requesting to be placed really doesn't fit within that typical process that we use for the macro cell sites requiring a conditional use permit. And that whole process that goes along with issuance of a copy doesn't seem to quite fit again for small cell. So we're here before you to really try to clarify the difference between a macro installation and a small cell installation and have really tailored an ordinance for council's consideration around streamlining that process. So what we've seen in our due diligence in bringing this ordinance forward to you this evening is there are many locations where small cell is happening without any regulations. And what we're finding is that it is adding to some of the urban visual blight. What we believe is important for a city like Lamberts that's investing in its public right of way in its neighborhoods and the esthetics thereof, is that it's appropriate to ensure that these installation meet some of our new standards. So what you see on the screen are some examples of where that technology can work, where you can hide a lot of the infrastructure needed for small cell within a either new light street light pole or affixed to an existing street light pole, as you see in these images. The technology is getting smaller and smaller, and therefore the intrusion into the public roadway environment is becoming less and less. So what is before you this evening? So I just wanted to make sure that we illustrate what this ordinance would do. And the ordinance is really intended to do a couple of things. A streamline the process. So instead of going through a copy which can typically take somewhere between six, nine, sometimes 12 months, we want to make sure that we are fast tracking applications that are coming in. We are seeing continued interest in placement of small cell in our city and those applications are increasing in the number and the different type of carriers interested in and placement in Long Beach. So we would have two tiers, essentially. One is Tier A and that's intended to say if a carrier comes in, meets all the standards, it's something we would call an over the counter approval and we could get that done very quickly. Certainly within 20 days. We think it would be even less than that, likely two weeks. But then there would be a tier B, which is there are some requests to go outside of kind of the normal standards, which would take a little bit more deliberate deliberation and discussions with the applicant about what they're proposing and how it fits within the city's goals. So we want to make sure that we understand that our goal here is to make is to limit visual blight and to really work with the companies to address that. So where appropriate, we think undergrounding of equipment is important. We would like to explore co-location of equipment. We want to minimize the look of the antennas on street lights. And certainly if an applicant is coming in and wanting to use some of the city assets like a streetlight pole, that there would be some lease revenue generated from the use of that pole. And then that lease revenue we could negotiate if there was other consideration provided by the applicant. So just to kind of give some background of of the process that we've engaged in thus far, this ordinance was taken to the Planning Commission for review and discussion. There was some comments that were made and we further deliberated and made additional considerations. For example, in our initial proposal to the Planning Commission, we had a prohibition against placement of wood poles. Certainly we we believe that wood poles are outdated and we should move towards a different material type than the old wood telephone poles. But we do recognize that there may be situations within our city where it may be appropriate for a wood pole placement. And we didn't want an outright prohibition, but we wanted to have an opportunity to have a discussion with the applicant and and have some discretionary approval over wood poles. So we made that adjustment. Some of the undergrounding. We do stress that undergrounding is our preferred method, but there may be situations where that isn't possible at the particular location. So again, we wanted to add some discretion and some oversight to to give flexibility to the applicants as they come forward. We had a prohibition in parks and schools. We understand that those are areas where it might be important to provide public access to Wi-Fi. And so we we softened that approach as well. So we believe we have detailed is an ordinance that addresses both the city goals, where we've listened to the telecom industry, we've taken many of their comments and woven that into the ordinance and made some adjustments. So we've we've taken a balanced approach that not only gives us the ability to regulate what happens in our city, but also promotes the expansion of small cell and ultimately 5G, which is typically associated with small cell. So that concludes staff presentation and we are available for questions. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. So at this point, we'll ask for a public comment on the staff presentation. Now be the time. Give us your name. You have 3.
Speaker 3: Minutes. Angela meyer I'm here on behalf of my neighborhood today to talk about 5G.
Speaker 6: This is the first time I've done this. I'm nervous.
Speaker 3: Okay. 5G was vetoed by the state of California. Okay. So every city has the ability to choose where and how it's placed. The fire department in L.A. banned it. It was getting them sick, so they got rid of it. The state of Michigan banned it. They chose fiber optics, broadband for a safer way.
Speaker 6: To install it.
Speaker 3: 5G is a military weapon being used by the military right now at 95 gigahertz. So hours will be up to 90 gigahertz and we won't have any control over it. Okay. So it would be 100 feet from our homes, which is really scary if they let them do that. Okay. Now, I've been a realtor for 20 years and I can tell you that at least 93% of my buyers will not buy a home or a business that's at least 400 feet from a cell tower. Okay. So this will definitely have an impact on the property values, 20 to 30%.
Speaker 6: And you can ask any realtor right now, they'll tell you.
Speaker 3: That it will lower the property, value, the cost of the home. So there's already some lawsuits out there. Okay. People are suing cities because they didn't put a public outreach out about 5G. And I was going to ask you, if you did that, did you tell the people put a public outreach out so they can see it ? So that might be a future lawsuit for you. Okay. So now we have proof from lab rats. Okay. Tested that. Do they get cancer? Leukemia, among other things. So we know that it does cause cancer. The EMFs. Okay. And close to cell towers. Now, the phone company needs to prove to us that it doesn't cause cancer. They have done nothing to prove to us that it's not going to cause cancer in ten years, which is what they're saying. What about our children in ten years? Are they going to die from cancer? I mean, they need to prove to us before they put this on our homes. So there's alternatives, too, for 5G to be safe. You can do fiber optic broadband technology. It's feasible and safer.
Speaker 6: I think, for everybody.
Speaker 3: Okay. So please read the information. I put it up for you. I spent all day printing.
Speaker 6: It and a ton of.
Speaker 3: Ink.
Speaker 6: So please read the paperwork. It's very crucial.
Speaker 3: And this is a really.
Speaker 6: Important matter.
Speaker 1: Thank you, alex. Speaker, please. I'm going to romanized this podium here.
Speaker 5: Make it a small peoples.
Speaker 1: Whatever you want to call it. Small guys think big. Okay? It's going to be little bit shorter than I'm going to use the whole 3 minutes. I just wanted to let you know that the.
Speaker 3: That this 5G stuff.
Speaker 1: Is is a big deal in some of the state. States have decided not to go forward with it. One of the states is Michigan, and that's in some of the documentation that was presented to you by Angela. The reasons they have the pros and the cons, some of the stuff that.
Speaker 3: I think Pat West put out.
Speaker 1: Saying that it's safe has been refuted in some of the the information that's there. I hope you guys will take a look at it. The state of California also had a 5G bill that was. Sent packing, basically it was defeated. So the the state is struggling to, I guess, develop a standard of some sort. So even our own state is having difficulty dealing with this and in how it works. I'm an electrical elect. I'm an electrical engineer. And this does have some some far reaching concerns for me. Certainly, I don't want to have it in my house that that's the main thing that I'm going to say. There's there's Bernie. There's there's safety issues associated with that. And I'm just going to leave it at that. I don't have a lot of material to put forward to you today. I haven't had enough time to really put together a coherent process, but I certainly wouldn't want to see this in a residential neighborhood. No way, shape or form, he thinks. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Vice Mayor. Council Members. My name is Damian Huggett. I'm a senior manager for engineering with T Mobile and wanted to speak to just for a moment about this proposed ordinance. We love what the ordinance is doing, streamlining the process that's associated with the installation of telecommunications infrastructure. We believe it does help accomplish the goals of both providing excellent coverage, capacity and capabilities to our customers and your constituents, while at the same time looking out for the esthetic issues that are associated with installations like this in the city of Long Beach. T-Mobile is committed to providing additional extraordinary capacity and capabilities for the city of Long Beach. That being said, one of those tools that we do use to provide this additional capacity is indeed small cells. The specific portion of the sources that I want to address specifically related to the ordinance are the strand amounts. These amounts allow us to provide a small form factor installation, utilizing the existing infrastructure that's there, maximizing the utility associated with that existing infrastructure without really having to provide anything additional. The fiber and the power that's required for those installations is already on site and it allows us to quickly target areas where capacity is a concern for our customers. The the small form factor associated with the Strand mounts is about the size of a small laptop. We know that this technology works and doesn't need to provide this targeted coverage and capacity. So our request for this evening is that the portion of the telecommunications ordinance that specifically prohibits the installation of the strand mounts be reviewed. We would like to request a motion that this go back to staff to take a look at that portion of the ordinance and see if we can't work out something that would better provide for these small cell strand mount installations on the existing infrastructure. We also do recognize that there's a initiative by the city to try to promote undergrounding of the existing utilities. And we do understand that should a small cell be permitted on existing IT pole somewhere and that portion of the pole was moved toward the undergrounding initiative that we would indeed have to remove it and we do acknowledge that. And so that we were hoping that you would understand that that wouldn't prohibit the undergrounding initiatives that are going before the city. So if you guys have any questions, I can thank you. Is there any further public comment? Now would be the time. Okay. Our final public comment. Speaker, will you do? I have no electrical back. I have trouble screwing and a light bulb. But I would suggest, given what we've heard from a number of people, that you take the requisite steps to make sure that the. Whoever is responsible for building these has the financial backing and will pledge a bond to cover any health. Issues or damage. Done to a structure or particularly a. Human beings, period. And if they're that confident, if they're that confident in their product. And their system. They should have no problem if they have a problem with it. Hopefully your olfactory senses will kick in. Thank you. Thank you. Next for please. Mr. Chair, members of the Commission. Good evening. My name is John Lee. I'm a consultant for T-Mobile. I work closely with Damian as well and just wanted to add a couple of more points to make clear about two issues that came up in the meetings that we have with staff as well as the staff to your offices was the esthetics and the undergrounding and as it is, stacks, I think there there was a letter sent to all of the all of you as members and your staffs about just exactly what the small cell looks like on the street amount. And it's no bigger than a laptop. And there was a photo that I saw in the presentation which so the little loops, the, the the mechanism that T-Mobile puts up, this is a cut and splice on it and an overhead wiring where Crown has existing power and fiber. So it doesn't look quite like that. The other issue that came up in our meetings was the concern about undergrounding. So let's assume that this council was so inclined to ask the staff to amend the ordinance to lift the express prohibition, and we were allowed on to do the strand mounts. If, if, if that particular strand mount that pole location was slated for some type of citywide policy to underground. We recognized and acknowledged we wouldn't have any kind of reserve right now like any other public utility. We would, of course, find alternative locations. And so the point I'm trying to drive home is that we're not in any in any way trying to thwart the city's current policy and goal to underground to eliminate visual blight. Thank you for your consideration. And I hope that you would do a motion to direct staff to make some changes to that particular express prohibition. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Thank you. Vice Vice Mayor Richardson, appreciate the opportunity. Council members and staff. I'm John Heffernan, AT&T External Affairs Manager for the region. AT&T appreciates that staff efforts to consider our comments as it seeks to develop this this ordinance to regulate regulate the wireless network upgrades in the public rights of way. I think you know, I think Eric Lopez the lead lead program manager for the public works departments, done a great job. He's been responsive and he's been considerate when discussing our concerns. And for us, you know, it's important right now to consider not only the pace of the usage of these connected devices, but also the advancing wireless equipment technologies such as small cells. So we think a city like Long Beach, you know, it's it's important, AT&T, that's why we're investing in our wireless network here, not only for the residents, but for the businesses. AT&T small cells will also foster public safety. AT&T was selected, as many of you may know, by the federal first responder network authority, FirstNet, as the wireless services provider to build and manage the first ever nationwide public safety wireless network. So each of our new small cell sites, as well as modifications to our existing sites, are going to enhance our capability to improve your first responder communications in a crisis. Regarding the ordinance specifically, as a reminder, AT&T has a statewide franchise right to install facilities in the public right away. And we feel like some additional work needs to be done on the ordinance so that it is a smooth and seamless process. And for example, right now, applications must be coupled with when appropriate prop maps, feasibility studies as well as alternate site analysis. And we're confident that we'll be able to work with the state public works staff to work things out. But, you know, frankly, Eric did such a good job. I have a feeling he might get recruited way to be promoted to another city. So we just we'd like it if the ordinance language was was real solid. And there's there's a 500 foot separation requirement in residential zones that continues there. There's also language regarding requiring the the carriers to install street trees or public art and also just, you know, city owned assets. A lot of these small cell antennas will go on city owned streetlights. And we think that the the negotiations for those license fees shouldn't shouldn't begin at $3,000 per attachment. It's high in all circumstances, but especially for small cells. Again, AT&T recognizes all the work that's been done. We appreciate it. And we think we would support a motion to have the ordinance fine tuned just a little bit. So we're all on the same page. Thank you. Thank you for the next speaker, please. Good evening, Vice Mayor. Members of the City Council. My name's Scott Longhurst. I'm the government relations manager for Crown Castle in Southern California. And I'd just like to echo some of the comments made by my cohorts here from the carriers. We appreciate the efforts put forth by your staff, in particular, Eric Lopez. He's done a fantastic job as well as your staff as well. Those of you that took the time to meet with us and listen to our concerns again, I'd like to just reiterate that the need for this technology is based on the consumer demand, and the ever increasing demand for additional bandwidth is driving the need for the wireless carriers to build this type of infrastructure in your city. Crown Castle is not a wireless carrier itself. We are a fiber optic and telecommunications infrastructure company. What that basically means is we own wireless facilities and we own and operate fiber optic network. So we partner with the carriers and they access our networks in order to backhaul all the data and voice calls on their networks to their hub sites. So we're close partner with them. We also provide fiber optic networks to cities like Long Beach and other school districts, hospitals, large businesses that transport a lot of data. So these air interfaces or small cell nodes, as they're called, are really important because they allow the consumer to access it's an access point, if you will , to the Internet. And so as these 5G technologies that you've heard about are rolled out, it's important that this infrastructure is in place to support that. Now, the 5G standards themselves are going to be approved later this year. Once that occurs at the federal level and at the Standards Committee level, then the manufacturers, the content producers and the service providers will start adopting those and inserting those 5G chips into their products. And once the next generation of cell phones come out, they'll be able to utilize those higher speeds. And what we're looking at is download speeds of up to 100 times faster than what we're employing today. So, you know, the paradigm shift in the way that we've communicated over the last ten years since the advent of the smartphone, the iPhone in particular has radically changed how we all communicate as a society. And this next leap to 5G will be similar. It's going to be a real paradigm shift in how the public and business and everybody communicates with each other. And this infrastructure that we're proposing and building here in your city will support those services. So again, we look forward to working with the city in the future. We applaud the efforts put forth by your staff. You've taken monumental steps forward. There are, as I mentioned, a few little things, like we'd like some flexibility on the small cell design to be able to utilize that where it truly is the least intrusive means . So rather than have an outright prohibition, we ask that you consider treating that the same way that you've treated the wood pulse. So thank you very much. Again, we look forward to working with you down the road. Thank for your testimony. You bet. Max Baker. Police.
Speaker 3: Good evening and Cantrell. And I'm not interested in the esthetics of these small cells and where they're placed. I'm interested in the health of the community. I understand there was question about whether to put these in parks and near schools. And I'm wondering what the questions were. Is it because there still is unknown about how these cells affect human health, whether they cause cancer? My husband died of a brain tumor 25 years ago. And at the time, it was suspected that it was caused by his using one of the first car phones constantly. This has never been located by anybody but scientists at Caltech. Some of them were very suspicious of the effects of not only cell phones, but any kind of a microwave or any of these kinds of waves that are going through the air that how they affect our health. And until there are studies that are done on this, I think we should slow down on the amount of cells that we put in our community. It seems like you have talked to the people who are wanting to put these up, T-Mobile and the other AT&T. I think it was asked tonight whether you have talked to the public about this. And as far as I know, there has been no public outreach on this. And before you make any decisions on this, I think there should be public outreach and you should know more about the possibilities of health effects. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 6: Hello. My name is Dr. Linda Scholl and I am.
Speaker 3: The former.
Speaker 6: Vice president of Employee Public.
Speaker 3: Affairs and government affairs for Sprint. When Sprint was first being started, we were five people at the time it started. We hired all the RF engineers and we talked to all the RF engineers at that time. And based on that, I would just.
Speaker 6: Give the same advice that you've heard already. Please look at the technology.
Speaker 3: Understand the placement, and make it a public, transparent process. If you you're going to approve this so that the citizens and residents know what's happening and.
Speaker 6: That they can.
Speaker 3: Address any issues that they may have.
Speaker 6: It's serious. The technologies are changing.
Speaker 3: They may be fine.
Speaker 6: I'm not familiar with the new ones.
Speaker 3: But I don't know about you. If you are holding your phones.
Speaker 6: These days, I.
Speaker 3: Can feel the phone in my hand and I have to set it down. I can't put it in my head, so I don't know what the next technology is going to be like. I know I wouldn't want to be around it if it's going to be by my house and I can't get away from it. So where it's placed and what kind of influence that.
Speaker 6: Has upon the human health and the public.
Speaker 3: Health, I think is really important to know before we make something become an invisible process. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Our last speaker.
Speaker 3: I wasn't planning on this, but I was thinking what to say in Europe as opposed to United States of America. A very different approach is taken to something new, whether it's new kinds of seeds, whether it's antibiotics in meat, and the approach is make sure it's safe before you do it. I don't find that much of a problem, but I guess if I were a developer of a new product, it would be one more thing to have to leap over. We do have some FDA testing. We don't and interestingly enough, we don't even test herbal teas or a natural stuff. So so what I would say is, let's look at who's bringing this product to us. It's Southern California Edison, for one. Well, gee, what else have they brought us in California, our nuclear power plant down the coast. And now they're going to continue to want they apparently have gotten even the approval of the Coastal Commission to bury nuclear waste, you know, on site. So people are going to be living with the consequences of that choice, even though the plant shut down. I mean, we're fortunate because of public outcry, public outrage and public outcry, we didn't have 22 or more nuclear power plants in California. I think we don't regret that. I don't regret it. I don't know about anybody else, but it seems to have been the case that maybe nuclear power has a lot more risk than people, the people who brought it to us imagined it possibly could. So I would say, use your imagination, think about all the benefits and all the best case scenarios, and then, you know, use that other part of your imagination, the part that gives you nightmares, you know, and decide because you're choosing for all of us. And personally, I have no idea. I know you did approve liquefied natural gas. I look right now the lithium battery storage. Now that has something futuristic about it. And you didn't even as a city, feel it was necessary to do an environmental impact report. And I don't know what to say about that. I mean, I know I've come up here a lot and I basically end up just kind of whining around like, please keep us safe. But, you know, it's a risky world. So I guess if we get these cell phone towers, we'll we'll survive somehow. Thank you.
Speaker 1: And that concludes public comment. Thank you all. We're going to close public comment now and begin council deliberation. We'll start with Councilwoman Price.
Speaker 0: Thank you. So I support this this ordinance. However, I do want to. And by the way, Eric Lopez is not going anywhere. We can we can't afford to lose him. He's amazing. So thank you for your work on this. But the question I have for staff is, is there an opportunity to go back, as has been suggested, and further refine some of the issues regarding strand mounts and other nuances of the proposed ordinance that would make the process more efficient in its rollout and come up with something that's a little bit more suited to the concerns that were raised.
Speaker 7: Councilmember Price. We believe as staff that we've done that, that we've not only met and worked with the telecom industry to make some modifications, but the items that that are remaining from from staff's opinion are items that we're recommending council approve. And we we put a prohibition against strand mounts because we believe that they add to the visual blight in our community. If council were to take a direction that they wanted to not just pull completely prohibit that opportunity, but to make that approval discretionary, that's something that we believe we could accomplish tonight if that is council's direction . But I think staff's recommendation is there for a reason. The other item that I.
Speaker 1: Heard really related.
Speaker 7: To fees, we understand that we are not the lowest fee structure, but we're also not the highest fee structure. We are recommending a fee for use of our assets at $3,000. But I would would say that that is a a negotiation point that we've we've structured that within the ordinance. So if a telecom provider came and had a public benefit that they wanted to provide in exchange to reduce that fee that is already afforded within the ordinance that we have before council this evening. So from our position, we have streamlined the ordinance. We have addressed the items that have been brought forward by the telecom industry. But we are down to these kind of last two sticking points, and we're moving forward tonight with those recommendations for council's consideration.
Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you for that. My my motion is going to be to support the ordinance, with the exception that in regards to the use of strand mounts that it be a discretionary approval process and for the development services and public works divisions to jointly come up with a protocol for how a decision would be made in regards to the use of those such that esthetic considerations are taken into account. Mr. Mays has something to say.
Speaker 3: Councilwoman Price If that were to be your motion tonight, I would be glad to assist you with the precise language to insert in the ordinance so we could have that done tonight, and it could come back as a complete ordinance for second reading next week. So if we move in that direction and you do make the motion, I would be glad to help you with that language.
Speaker 0: Okay. So I know I have a few other comments cued up, a few other colleagues cued up to speak. So I am moving in that direction. So if you want to give me some language, I can read that into the record. I do want to say.
Speaker 3: That that prior blight.
Speaker 0: Has been a major issue for us as a city. I'm not sure how many of my colleagues have been dealing with this, but this is something that I deal with all the time, and I'm grateful that we're taking steps to be proactive.
Speaker 3: About future.
Speaker 0: Installations, but I am concerned about what's currently there. Is it possible and if Sapp is prepared, can you cover just briefly, kind of where we're at with existing wire brite and what what jurisdiction we have as a city to move that issue forward, if any?
Speaker 7: Sure. Councilmember So there is something called Rule 20, and it is essentially funding that that we receive through Edison that allows us to underground some of our electrical utilities. And what we find and is typical in many cities and certainly typical in Long Beach, that many utilities will co-locate along the Edison Poles. So we're not only running, say, electrical wires along poles above ground, but we're also running cable or other utilities. And I think that this discussion about adding this strand, Mount Small Cell, would be above ground on those wires. And that's one of the reasons that that staff is recommending that we not do that. One of the complications when you move forward with any undergrounding project isn't only the cost of undergrounding, but also coordination with all utilities to ensure that they are aligned with that undergrounding process. I think the gentleman representing one of the telecom companies said that they would be willing to relocate that. I think our hesitation is staff is, well, what does that mean from a process perspective? I would rather have more discretion to to address that if we did move forward with an undergrounding project versus looking at coordinating with yet one more utility when we move forward with that process. The utilities do have the right to place them in our right of way. So certainly Edison has done that over the years. But as we find in many new communities, those utilities are now underground in both from. An esthetic perspective, but also for safety.
Speaker 3: Great.
Speaker 0: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I have a number of questions. I'll just add them here. So regarding the questions about health impacts, what is the agency that regulates or evaluates whether technology is safe to be deployed in the public? Vice mayor, the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission is the entity that regulates that. And do we have do we have are we comfortable from a staff position that, you know, the issues raised around the technology, it is safe for us to get behind as a community.
Speaker 3: Mr. Vice Mayor, if I could weigh in on this question. The city, as were pointed out in the staff report, does have the ability to regulate in areas such as esthetics, which is primarily what this ordinance is directed to in the Federal Telecommunications Act of 1996, specifically prohibits the city from imposing new regulations related to radio emissions . So this is one of those areas where the federal government has taken the lead and pretty much preempted a city's ability to regulate. And they asked cities to rely on the fact that they have tested this technology and that, in their view, it is safe for to be around residents and humans.
Speaker 1: So so it's not even something that the city can the the health issue can't be the basis for a decision on whether or not to allow this technology.
Speaker 3: That's correct. And that is correct. As to small cell and actually it's correct as to the larger cell sites that were.
Speaker 1: Pictured in the initial photos that were shown. Thank you. So my next question. So if the city were not to take any action whatsoever, could this technology still be deployed in our community?
Speaker 3: It could. And many of the telecommunications companies take a position that a lot of this they can do as a matter of right. And so that's the reason the city tried to get out in front of this back in I think it was March or April of last year when we adopted and the Council adopted at the Planning Commission recommendation, what we call the patch ordinance, so that we would have some form of regulation. So this wouldn't get out of control visually from an esthetic standpoint.
Speaker 1: So and I asked that just to be clear to the public. Passing a local ordinance actually allows us the ability to limit the technology and control how it's deployed. So it's important that we do sort of engage on this issue before sort of it gets out of hand. So the next question that I have, our next thought. So, Mr. Beck, you mentioned the ability. So the $3,000 is really a negotiation point and you're able to, you know, sort of negotiate the rate with carriers in exchange for a public benefit. I like that. So I want to take this opportunity just to toss out some technology or some ideas that I think we should be leveraging that amount for. So first, I would say expand expansion of publicly available access to Wi-Fi parks, you know, public corridors, things like that. And then secondly, I would say a few years ago, maybe five years ago, the city did entertain ShotSpotter technology. And at that point, it was too expensive. There was really only one or two companies doing it, and there was a subscription. But we could potentially leverage this, leverage this in order to sort of see if we can bring that technology. And is that something we can we can discuss or toss on the table? Mr.. Beck.
Speaker 7: Vice Mayor. Certainly. Again, we are looking at public benefit options. So we certainly value access to technology in our public spaces. And ShotSpotter technology, from my perspective, is a public benefit.
Speaker 1: Okay, great. Okay. So I want to talk about the SRAM issue. So what is the cost difference between Strand Mount or undergrounding the small cell? What is is there a major cost difference? Why is there such a demand for strand?
Speaker 7: I think you would have to direct those questions to the telecom industry. I would imagine a strand mount option is cheaper than to. Achieve an undergrounding of a power source and a small scale integration into a new light pole, as an example.
Speaker 1: Hmm. Yeah. I'm not satisfied with that. With that answer. Well, I'd like to understand better is if we choose to limit and completely sort of exclude stranmillis. Does that mean that that sort of 5G will not be deployed whatsoever because it's not feasible, cost feasible? Or does it mean that it's just going to cost more and we'll ultimately get there? That's what I'm trying to understand.
Speaker 7: Well, I can give you an example. So Crown Castle is here this evening. They did speak on this item. The city actually worked with Crown Castle to move forward with a master license agreement for deployment of small cell down in our waterfront. They have roughly 25 to 30 locations of small cell. Those have been in operation for over a year. All of those were placed in New Paltz and almost all of them underground and the utilities as well. I would imagine that Crown Castle didn't do that for free and they aren't losing money on that. You would have to talk to them specifically about the economics, but that is one example of where this is working with the standards that we've shared with you this evening.
Speaker 1: Okay. So is Crown Crown Castle still here? Hi. Good evening. Scott Longhurst, government relations manager with Crown Castle. Thank you, sir. Happy to answer any. So my question. My question is the reality of strained mt. financially. If the city were to outright ban strain mount, does that make it financially and feasible to expand 5G or would it just. What would be the impact? The actual expansion of 5G, as was referenced by staff, really are the manufacturers of the technology. The Ericsson's, the Nokias of the world are always working to try and make this technology smaller. And that's evidenced by the fact that we are here before you and I talking about small cell. So that was a technology that was really not available to the industry up until about three years ago. So we deployed the traditional macro cells. Now we basically have taken that and we boiled it down to a small eight by eight by four inch box that has all the technology in it. So there are our recommendation is because we work with all the carriers and they all deploy slightly different equipment because of who their vendors are and what frequencies they transmit and and other factors. But rather than outright prohibit it because it may be a solution in certain instances, we would like to see the city at least have give the industry an opportunity to propose that it may be in an industrial area where you have lots of overhead, you know, utilities, and we can just integrate it into the existing fiber strands. It looks, you know, it's not much different than a splice box that are up there now for fiber optics. You know, cable companies are deploying wi fi nodes throughout the city. These particular units are about the same size as a Wi-Fi cloud. So rather than prohibit it, allow yourself the flexibility to choose that if it is the best option. Thank you. And then the cost difference between the cost difference is it's not significant. It really is. The cost is in the equipment itself. Okay. Thank you. Certainly. All right. So, Mr. City attorney and we're going to come back with some language of the second reading about the discretionary approval. I would suggest if we're going to do it, we're going to hit that route. I like how we do. Sometimes we have standard conditions that allow like on liquor store cups, for example, the city council sort of would be able to give direction that could stand up in all different all the different sort of conditions of approval. So, for example, if new technology comes out or there's a new standard and it's smaller, we'd like to be able to insert across the board a condition through this process that says this is the esthetic requirement. And then the other thing I would say is I would like to, you know, sometimes with the conditional process, certain areas of towns are just less engaged than other areas of town. And I would hate to, you know, to say that a conditional process to approve this technology, you know, under you know, in the years to come, you know, someone else say it's a different city council there and they may not be on top of making sure that we don't have this technology, this or that. So what I'd like to do is see if there is a way to sort of called carve out like major corridors and say, you know, we still want to if ideas blight, I don't want to see this on Artesia Boulevard. I want to see this on the major corridors, on strands or behind someone's house. If there's this esthetic and it makes sense, in my opinion, I think we can go through a process. So I like the idea of still creating a path for technology to improve and for us to address the esthetic issue and the blight issue . But I sort of also want to sort of protect the major our major corridors from having this visual blight. Is there a way that we can do both?
Speaker 3: Mr. Vice Mayor, members of the City Council, if I could read to you the language that we would.
Speaker 1: Propose to.
Speaker 3: To insert tonight that would.
Speaker 1: Solve the problem. I think we could do that.
Speaker 3: If you could adopt this language, we could do it tonight as a first reading, because it's actually a very simple, straightforward change to the existing draft ordinance. But if we get into a situation where we try to articulate on a quarter by quarter basis, there's no way we could do that tonight. And we would have to bring this back for first reading some other time. So what we would propose in regard to Stranmillis is if you have the draft ordinance in front of you at page 41.
Speaker 5: That small Roman numeral number four, we would.
Speaker 3: Change the existing language to add the word stranmillis basically two times, and the new language would read.
Speaker 1: New word poles.
Speaker 3: And strand mouths may be allowed by.
Speaker 1: The director of Public.
Speaker 3: Works if the applicant demonstrates that a wooden pole or strand mount is less and.
Speaker 1: Less impact or tactful.
Speaker 3: From public safety, visual and logistic. Standpoints at a specific location.
Speaker 1: So we did the director of Public Works.
Speaker 3: The ability on a case by case basis to make an evaluation and come to a determination in an appropriate situation if a strand mount would be or would fall is appropriate.
Speaker 1: So the public works director could.
Speaker 3: Take into consideration, as you mentioned, things such as, you know.
Speaker 1: A.
Speaker 3: Corridor that is highly visible where you might not want to strand mount and maybe they would use their discretion not to allow it there. But in an area, in an industrial area where there's already a lot of overhead and it didn't visually add to the impact they could grant it. But again, it would be a case by case.
Speaker 1: I'm comfortable with that. If the maker of the motion likes that language, I'm comfortable with that language.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 0: I still have discretion for grand mal.
Speaker 1: It's to the discretion of the public works director. And so we would work with the public works director to make sure that discretion is well defined. And it would go in the ordinance where.
Speaker 3: We've already given the director discretion on a case by case basis to permit.
Speaker 5: New would poles so.
Speaker 3: They would have the same type of discretion to evaluate either one.
Speaker 1: Good. And then the final thing that I have is I want to I want to do we have the ability, Mr. Beck? You know, if the the technology is going to be deployed, I'd love for it to be deployed more like the LED lights than the bikeshare. All right. Let's let's have let's sort of have randomize it across the city map sort of a market based model that has something we can monitor.
Speaker 7: I believe that's a dig at Bikeshare. But no, the applications come in from the telecom industries and they're driving the locations, and I'm assuming they're basing that on some client service needs.
Speaker 1: Okay. I would say if there is an ability somehow and I know it's hard to figure out at the dice, but there's an ability to say you've already installed 20 of them over here. You need to get over to the other side of town before you approve any of the other ones on this site. We have ability to still do that. See the attorney saying no. We're really limited on on.
Speaker 3: The types of regulations. So if they come to us and demonstrate that there's a need in a particular location and they otherwise meet the criteria, the statute or the ordinance, then we would have to let that go in. And if their choices to deploy it first in one part of town and not the other.
Speaker 1: Trying to get to a cap and trade wi fi situation. But I guess we won't get there. Thank you. That's all my questions, Councilman Austin.
Speaker 8: Thank you. And thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor, you asked a lot of questions on a lot of the questions, actually, that I had prepared already. I do think and I want to thank Councilmember Price for.
Speaker 5: Her her.
Speaker 8: Her thought to add discretion and flexibility to our ordinance. I think it's very important that we have local control. Last year, the city council opposed SB 689, which was a a a bill that was mentioned, but in public comment that had overwhelming legislative support, by the way. And if it weren't for the governor vetoing the bill, it would be law today. Today we're talking about having the ability to negotiate up to and what is recommended here is $3,000 per site. Had that bill been passed last year, it would have been $250 per site across the board. One size fits all for every city in the state of California. And so to to the point raised earlier, I think it's important for us to to move on something today, because today we have local control and we have the ability to to do that, for our inability to to have a say where these sites are placed , how they're placed, and how much we charge for them to be placed there. So with that, I like the the amended motions and I will be supporting. So thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Quick, quick question. What is market rate on that on these clearly very high low. What do we set in the market at 3000?
Speaker 7: So, vice mayor, as I mentioned earlier, we are not the highest. We are not the lowest in our review of other cities. An example is Lakewood, which is about 2000, San Francisco, which is 4000. So we're in between both of those.
Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you, Councilmember Stabler. Thank you. I, too, can support the motion. And in partial answer to the vice mayor's question, there are instances where it is physically impossible to underground. So I think this would be another application that's probably covered in your language that you gave us. Also, I think the language in a perfect world would have come from the telecom industry. I'm not sure if our assistant city attorney got it from that direction, but it did. It might have. It just didn't come to me. So I don't know if this suits them, but I'll support this. Thank you. Councilmember Pearce.
Speaker 3: Yes, I want to thank my colleague, Councilmember Price for her amendment.
Speaker 0: And I thank you guys for coming out and educating us. Definitely. It's exciting days whenever you have.
Speaker 3: A variety of issues, including small cell towers. So I did have a couple of questions for staff. Could you just remind us, when was the first time we.
Speaker 0: Heard discussion that this was going to be happening for some of those residents that feel like today was their first time?
Speaker 7: So Councilmember, this initially came up last year. We've been working on this ordinance for over 12 months. I believe it was February, earlier this year when it went to Planning Commission. It was scheduled to be read by council in March, and there was a request to spend some more time addressing some of the telecom industry's ideas about how to amend the ordinance. We've been doing that and we're before you tonight as councilman or excuse me, as city attorney Mays indicated, we did bring forward to council a patch ordinance, and that was, again, to try to ensure that as best as we can. Long Beach maintains some local control over the deployment and esthetics of how small cell expands in our city.
Speaker 3: Great. Thank you. And I just have two more questions because, yes, the vice mayor did a great job of covering everything in that conversation around basically.
Speaker 0: Having equitable distribution of.
Speaker 3: New small cells. Could the city at its discretion, since.
Speaker 0: We've listed 3000 as that revenue, could we reduce.
Speaker 3: That to say, 15.
Speaker 0: In areas where we see.
Speaker 3: The digital divide as the greatest.
Speaker 0: To try to incentivize.
Speaker 3: Putting them in? Yes, I want to amend my earlier answer because there is some hope as far as the city having the ability to control somewhat the deployment of these. And that is and what I forgot to mention, but Craig covered in his staff report. The city is actually the landlord on a number of these poles. So and that's a different situation than when they want to put their own poles in or they want to utilize an existing pool. So we're we're the landlord. If they come to us and say they would like to use a pole at a particular location. The city always has the ability to, as part of that negotiation process, to see if we can get them to say, okay, we'll let you put it in on these four poles that belong to the city in this area. But what we'd also like you to do is consider adding two poles in another location. So we do have that ability as part of the back and forth negotiation, being a landlord. That's great. So that's good. I don't think we were supposed to be able to recover cost recovery, so to reduce the amount would not necessarily be the correct thing to do. But we are.
Speaker 1: Leveraging.
Speaker 3: Ourselves as a landlord would be the better way to approach deployment on an equitable base. And that's already. And you're saying we already have that ability right now? Yes. As a landlord, we have that ability as a landlord.
Speaker 0: Great. Because I know.
Speaker 3: That from talking to some folks, I know there's an interest.
Speaker 0: In the industry to make sure that we're closing the digital.
Speaker 3: Divide. So I would ask that staff, when you guys are working on this, really try to identify I.
Speaker 0: Know that.
Speaker 3: Councilmember Gonzalez is cued up next and she's done a lot of.
Speaker 0: Work on the digital divide. So whatever information we have in the city, if we could use that as an opportunity.
Speaker 3: To try to close that gap, I think it would be really helpful. I think you guys covered all the rest of the questions. I would.
Speaker 0: Say in.
Speaker 3: In conversation around the Strand Towers. I mean, you guys gave us staff, gave us for photos, and then I have a photo.
Speaker 0: From the industry, which is a very different photo with a lot less wires. That definitely looks something that's more appealing. So as we're talking about installing those.
Speaker 3: Recognizing that we're not installing things from.
Speaker 0: You know, 20, 30 years ago, that this will be more esthetically pleasing than what we currently have. So with that, I support the amendment and the item. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Councilwoman Gonzalez.
Speaker 0: Yes. Thanks for the work as well. I just want to ask if we can receive report back basically quantifying the amount of small strand mounts. Is that something that's easy to do if we're able to do that and see where there? I know I'm giving you extra work, but the reason being is because and we've talked about it, but just to put it out there again and reinforce the message, we know that these are concentrated over concentrated in certain areas. And from what I understand, new places like the western portion of the city, many T-Mobile users and many T-Mobile users, of course, because of the technology, require the small strand. But perhaps there's a way that we can quantify that and see if we can lessen that load, you know, for those areas with that with that blight. So I can't remember the exact question.
Speaker 7: I think what I would add is that right now we don't have any strand mounts that we've approved. So through the application process, I anticipate some will come forward if council takes the action that they're contemplating this evening. And we can certainly track that and be able to report to council where those requests are coming in. The locations of those requests, which request were approved and which requests were denied.
Speaker 0: Okay. Well then that would be great. And thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thanks.
Speaker 1: Thank you. So that concludes council comment. Let's go ahead. Members, please cast your vote. And just so we're clear, that.
Speaker 3: Motion includes the revised language that I wrote. Read into the record. Thank you. Motion case.
Speaker 1: Thank you. As have hearing number two. Just a moment. I have a request. Councilwoman Price. Which was the.
Speaker 3: Item?
Speaker 0: Item number 25.
Speaker 1: We're going to move up to 25 quickly and take care of it.
Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code by amending and restating Chapter 21.56; and by adding Chapter 15.34, all relating to wireless telecommunications facilities, read and adopted as read. (Citywide)