CHARLEMONT — The Planning Board has recently finalized new bylaws for personal wireless service facilities and is poised to present them at a public hearing, with plans to bring them to Annual Town Meeting this spring.

“In general, it is very positive and should not be controversial to anyone,” Planning Board Chair Bob Nelson said in an interview.

Formerly known as cell tower bylaws, the name has been updated due to expanded definitions. Three key changes have been made to the bylaws, including adding the definitions of personal wireless service facilities from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), mandating carriers to obtain insurance for building service devices and requiring carriers to develop gap area maps using hard data.

Under the existing 20-year-old bylaws, much of the new telecommunications technology — including small antennas enabling 5G signals — is unregulated, allowing companies to pursue construction without town permission.

If the bylaws are approved at Annual Town Meeting, all telecommunications companies will be required to obtain town permission before deploying any technology.

“If we hadn’t passed anything, someone coming in with a 5G antenna could place them anywhere; we would have no control,” Nelson emphasized.

Under the proposed bylaws, any construction of a cell tower would necessitate a public input process.

While Nelson mentioned discussions about updating the cell tower bylaws have been ongoing for the past six years, the revision process officially began in 2021. The bylaws were revised in collaboration with Jonathan Mirin, a Charlemont resident and co-founder of Hilltown Health, an organization advocating for responsible technology in western Massachusetts.

When they were initially brought to the Broadband Committee, Chair Bob Handsaker deemed the proposed bylaws too general, resulting in a temporary hold on the revision process until last summer.

To address the concerns about overly broad definitions, the Planning Board decided to include specific definitions from the FCC.

During the latest round of revisions, approximately eight individuals expressed concerns about cell towers, many citing health worries. The Planning Board clarified that the bylaws solely address aesthetic issues and do not cover health concerns.

Mirin noted that the bylaws still address some of his health concerns as they are interconnected. However, he compromised on the absence of setback regulations for smaller installations, with the town maintaining setbacks only for cell towers reaching 800 feet.

Many of the new revisions in the bylaws were seen as compromises between health-concerned residents and Planning Board members concerned with aesthetics.

“Everyone feels there should be a hearing and not have a big tech free-for-all,” Mirin stated.

Should the proposed bylaw be approved, “these changes would be a significant step forward from our 20-year-old antiquated bylaw,” Mirin added.

Additional bylaws

In addition to the personal wireless service facilities bylaw, the Planning Board will present another bylaw at Town Meeting that would make slight adjustments to the existing cannabis laws to incorporate social equity. Nelson mentioned that the board also intended to address short-term rentals and implement bylaws to increase housing this year, but they ran out of time for that process to begin.

Reach Bella Levavi
at 413-930-4579 or
blevavi@recorder.com.