City of Roswell Wins in Court of Appeals: Denial of Cell Towers Upheld; Record Was Sufficient

City of Roswell does not allow telecommunications towers in residentially zoned areas.  Now, that decision has been upheld in court as being justifiable.  Citizen input was critical to city council decisions on denials.

In a case where Roswell's City Council denied T-mobile's request for a cell tower in a residential area, a potential problem arose when the denial letter was questioned by T-mobile in court.  A lower court sided with T-mobile stating that the letter did not outline the reasons behind the denial.  It had, instead, referred to the minutes of a hearing in which multiple reasons were discussed before a motion to deny was passed.  Recently, however, that decision was overturned and the City of Roswell was handed the victory against T-mobile.  There is nothing written in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that says the denial letter by itself must be all inclusive.  Therefore, the reference to the minutes was sufficient.  You can read more about it in the court document and summary here:  http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/ops/201212250.pdf.

The citizens' outpouring of objections obviously carried a lot of weight with the council members, so if you are still involved in fighting a cell tower near you, remember that there is strength in your numbers!  And, don't forget to line up experts on your side, the way T-mobile did in this case.  A battle of experts is better than having experts only on one side of the debate.  Good luck and keep us posted at sayno2celltowers@yahoo.com!