Proposed amendments to the Alachua County Personal Wireless Services Facilities Code
Press release from Alachua County
ALACHUA COUNTY, Fla. – The public is invited to attend a community workshop to discuss proposed Alachua County Unified Land Development Code amendments relating to Chapter 404, Article XII, Personal Wireless Services Facilities (PWSF).
An in-person-only workshop will be held on Wednesday, March 27, 2024, at 6 p.m. in the Grace Knight Conference Room on the second floor of the Alachua County Administration Building (12 SE 1st St., Gainesville).
A virtual-only workshop will also be held on Thursday, March 28, 2024, at 6 p.m. and may be accessed online via the Microsoft Teams video conference platform.
Enter the meeting I.D./passcode when prompted.
Meeting ID: 256 388 091 221
Passcode: YnxZmA
Download the draft of the proposed amendments (The link contains the clean and proposed revised versions of the PWSF code and definitions.).
The county wants to amend land use/development codes in order to allow for cellular sites on nearly any structure – whether a street light or your neighbors roof. Full fifth generation cellular (5g) requires many small cell sites that must be relatively close together. This can only be done by revising codes to allow for your jackass neighbor to lease a spot on their structure to a cell or other wireless company to install a small cell sites. Call it wireless, call it cellular, call it radio frequency…it is unacceptable in any event!
The telecom industry, their lobby, and their fake regulator (FCC) are working hard to get all local governments to give them the legal rights to do this to us!
https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/bureau-divisions/competition-infrastructure-policy-division/tower-and-antenna-siting
Yes, just look at the North exterior side of Ben Hill Griffin stadium. That is what the future of cell towers will look like, if allowed. For anyone who hasn’t noticed – there are packs of cell sites slapped on the side of the stadium – facing outwards, to the North, away from campus. UF has its own land use and development codes so they were able to do this without all of the public notifications. The last thing we need are commerical buildings all around town that act as cell towers. What an insane idea.
And that’s messed up the county provides a link to a third party site that directs you to download their app before even being able to read the proposed amendment. I tried with a web browser and it tries to install tracking cookies. Are they trying to gather data themselves? Being used by a consultant with ulterior motives?
Whoa you’re right! What the hell!?! It prompts to open Kimley Horn App just to read the wording of the proposed amendment…or open in a browser and get stuffed with cookies. That is unacceptable and unprofessional. What’s so hard with using a PDF or just simple text?
Does the county not have a policy against linking to third party sites without providing an obvious notice. Not only did the hyperlink not state it was directing to a third party site but there also was no no pop-up warning box (or ‘speedbump’ to use jargon). They don’t play by the same rules as corporations and other government agencies who must have in place and follow information security procedures. They think your data is theirs!
Personal Wireless Services Facilities = cell towers & antennas
Orwell would blush