[nrv-hams] Montgomery County tower ordinance update

[Russ Abbey]

Thanks for what you do Kay.  I'm very glad you are my County neighbor so to
speak. :)

73
Russ, KG4MAV


On Sun, Sep 29, 2013 at 10:08 AM, Kay Craigie <n3kn at verizon.net> wrote:

> Carter and I were out of the USA for a week, during which time the
> Montgomery County Board of Supervisors held a public hearing on the
> proposed
> amateur radio tower ordinance that had been approved by the Planning
> Commission.
>
> The 25-cent version is that there were no opposing statements at the
> hearing. The formal vote on the ordinance will take place at a Board of
> Supervisors meeting later this month.
>
> That's the last hurdle to jump, and because there was no opposition
> expressed by the public, I expect the vote will go the right way.
>
> Montgomery County will have a very fair and sensible ordinance that
> conforms
> to the so-called Virginia PRB-1 law. Of course we all probably liked it
> better when there was no regulation at all in the county. However, that's a
> situation that could have blown up in our face as it has done in some other
> parts of the USA. Where municipalities do not have sensible ordinances
> specifically accommodating ham radio towers, other ordinances intended to
> regulate commercial towers (such as cell phone towers) are often
> mis-applied
> to people's ham radio towers. That gets to be very bad news very fast. Just
> talk to hams who have endured the trench warfare that can happen when a
> municipality ignorantly applies a commercial tower ordinance to ham radio
> towers, or intentionally adopts a ham radio tower ordinance that's a
> poorly-veiled attempt to rule out ham towers altogether.
>
> The Montgomery County Planning Commission, several of whose members are
> friendly towards ham radio, did not want that to happen here. The whistling
> noise we hear is a very large bullet being dodged.
>
> 73 - Kay N3KN
>
>
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