I agree with Bob Famiglio that associations whose rules place restrictions on antennas should be required by the bill to establish standards so that a property buyer isn’t walking into a big unknown that may turn out to be unacceptable.  Requiring standards, whatever they may be, should make any subsequent decision concerning an antenna request less arbitrary and allow potential buyers to understand the rules. Hams would have an idea as to the most they could get, and non-Hams would have an idea what they would have to tolerate.

 

For the many associations who have never had to deal with Amateur antenna requests, getting them to develop standards may be a difficult task, and associations may want to save time and trouble by turning to CAI or some other source for “boilerplate” language, much as happened with the League of Cities and its model zoning codes decades ago.  I think it would be advisable for associations to have more than one source of such boilerplate – perhaps ARRL, for example – lest a CAI-developed absolute minimum become the norm.  This is where some of the gradations Bob gave as examples might come into play.  I can provide other examples that ended up as categorical exemptions in some municipal regulations we negotiated.

 

73,

 

Marty N6VI

 

 

 

From: arrl-odv [mailto:arrl-odv-bounces@reflector.arrl.org] On Behalf Of Mike Lisenco N2YBB
Sent: Wednesday, February 24, 2016 1:06 PM
To: arrl-odv@arrl.org
Subject: [arrl-odv:25162] H.R. 1301 Update

 

BOARD CONFIDENTIAL --- BOARD CONFIDENTIAL

Good Afternoon,

Here is the latest information we have regarding the state of H.R. 1301.  As the issue is very sensitive, please do not share with anyone outside of ODV.

In our one and a half hour meeting with CAI this past Wednesday, which was mediated by David Redl of Walden's subcommittee staff, we were unable to reach an understanding that would retain the “reasonable accommodation" language in the Bill.  CAI's view is that the 30 years of case law interpreting reasonable accommodation in the zoning context would invariably favor Amateur Radio and entitle hams to towers in every instance​. 

We believe that they are wrong and have offered to explain why they are wrong, but they are intransigent on this subject.​ 

We left the meeting at an impasse on only this specific issue.

It is imperative that we come to terms on this one issue as it has been made clear to us by both the House subcommittee AND full committee staffers that the bill will not move forward to the full House Commerce Committee without a consensus.  We have also been told that without this consensus, the bill will also not get past Senator Nelson (to whom this is a personal issue) without agreed upon alternative language.

We were left with two options.  One is to rewrite our Bill in a way that allows us to come up with a substitute for "reasonable accommodation.”  That is difficult as we would run the risk of jeopardizing virtually all of the jurisprudence and case law on PRB-1 that we have developed over the past 30 years in the zoning context. We absolutely cannot risk that.

The alternative is to create a separate and distinct policy applicable only to private land use regulations written in such a way as to keep the tenets of PRB-1 while at the same time including the operative principles that CAI asked for which are acceptable to us.

We believe that the attached bill accomplishes that task.  It should satisfy CAI while at the same time keeps our needs intact.  And it would keep the existing PRB-1 (Sec. 97-15b) and the jurisprudence that accompanies PRB-1​safe from alteration.

​The traditional reasonable accommodation test would continue to apply to zoning and municipal land use cases.​

 

We have offered a lot to reach a consensus.  Should this not be acceptable to CAI, we believe that an intransigent approach on their part would play poorly in the House and work to our benefit.

Please read the bill.  While it’s substantially longer than the original bill, it does make our case. (It will most likely be ​made ​cleaner, but without any loss of substance, when edited for style by the ​office of legislative counsel.)

Feel free to reach out with any questions.

73,

Mike

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Mike Lisenco, N2YBB
Director, Hudson Division
Chairman, ad hoc Legislative Advocacy Committee
ARRL - The national association for Amateur Radio™
917-865-3538
n2ybb@arrl.org