2024-12-16 Cindy Evans - Laserfiche WebLink

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Testimony PL-CCI-2024-000009(Bill 194) December 1, 2024 Aloha Commissioners, I write as the author of Bill 194 and Councilmember for Council District 9, North Kohala and South Kohala, and ask for your favorable recommendation. During the fall of 2023 1 submitted a draft bill(now known as Bill 194)for review by Corporation Counsel. The bill was a response to numerous meetings with residents of the North Kohala and South Kohala communities who had concerns about lack of requirements for installation of cell towers and antennas. The proposed application requirements and regulations for the installation and up-keep of infrastructure should accommodate this ever-changing technology. The biggest consideration when I wrote the bill was to find out what a county level ordinance could legally do and not do. I did a broad search of local ordinances across the country for tried and tested regulations. I talked with the FCC(Federal Communication Commission) , FAA(Federal Aviation Administration) , HUD (Federal Housing and Urban Development), DHHL(State Department of Hawaiian Homelands), DLNR(State Department of Land and Natural Resources, PUC (State Public Utility Commission), County Fire department, County Department of Public Works, County Civil Defense, and County Planning Department. Some specifc highlights of my research are provided below. FCC Regardingr the provisions of Bill 194, FCC informed me that FCC's regulations are a"floor"and local governments may enact stricter laws (such as HRS 46-89)to create a higher"ceiling", as long as it didn't give the power to outright prohibit or create a moratorium on broadband infrastructure in anyway. One FCC requirement of note was that, if there are any disputes on the installation of a given broadband infrastructure,they must be resolved within 180 days. During the November 21 Leeward Planning Commission hearing on Bill 194, County lawyers sited Chapter 47 subsection 7(c)(iv) of the USC that states that"no state or local government or instrumentality thereof may regulate the placement, construction, and modification of personal wireless services facilities on the basis of the environmental effects of the radio frequency emissions to the extent that such facilities comply with the commission's (FCC) regulations concerning such emissions." During my discussions with the FCC, I raised all the provisions of the bill that were a higher ceiling of regulation currently in USC Chapter 47, Hawai`i County Code or Hawaii Revised Statutes and they confirmed that theywere all permissible under Federal Law because none of them were in anyway either a prohibition or moratorium on the installation of broadband infrastructure, nor were they in violation of federal law under USC 47(c)(iv) because none of the requirements proposed in Bill 194 uses a metric for RF(radio frequency) exposure to provide any further regulation of broadband infrastructure. Whereas Bill 194 concerns itself with construction parameters, planning parameters, zoning, disaster preparedness, notification and transparency, as well as preservation of neighborhood characteristics. In short, The plan approval 1