Do you want a giant 5G pole in your yard? Kansas cities may not be able to stop it
Do you enjoy wireless technology? Of course you do. But enough to have a 30-foot pole put in your yard?
That’s the potential reality coming to some homeowners across Kansas, as wireless companies rush to roll out 5G technology requiring more poles — including in residential areas.
The thing is, as both Overland Park and Kansas City, Kansas, are warning, cities have little to say about it and could soon have even less to say: State and federal laws have combined, especially since a 2016 Kansas law, to leave cities with minimal right-of-way oversight on the locations of such “monopoles.” Basically, other than to enforce public safety and health regulations, cities can’t restrict where the poles go. They can only make suggestions — such as moving a pole from the middle of a property to a less-obstructive property line. Thus far the companies have been open to such suggestions, Overland Park officials tell The Star. But there’s no requirement, as cities and homeowners are largely reduced to bystanders.
A measure before the Kansas Legislature, Senate Bill 380, would give cities even less authority, allowing placement of the poles in easements without the currently required notice to the homeowner or any oversight by city regulators. Fees to cities for right-of-way use would also disappear.
Several Overland Park employees said they’ve seen stirrings of concern among their neighbors on social media, but most people don’t know this is coming.
“They will be more than twice as tall as our standard 14-foot residential street light poles,” says Overland Park Councilman Paul Lyons. “I don’t think residents have paid much attention to the issue, so the deployment of the poles will be a surprise. I am expecting to receive many complaints, especially from neighbors where the poles are deployed directly in front of their homes.”
Sure, you can call the city, but state legislators are the ones doing this — save for lawmakers such as state Sen. John Skubal, an Overland Park Republican, who voted against the bill.
The legislation has passed the Senate and gets its first hearing in the House Committee on Energy, Utilities and Telecommunications Thursday at 9 a.m.
The bill, warned the city of Overland Park in testimony before a Senate committee, “exempts cable operators from local right-of-way and safety regulations and permitting requirements. This exemption is completely unprecedented and puts the public health, safety and welfare at jeopardy. Until now, every federal and state law for any provider utilizing the right-of-way has always preserved cities’ ability to administer necessary right-of-way regulations and permitting requirements.”
Testimony by Mike Taylor of the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, argued the bill “would allow cable companies expanding into 5G phone service to run roughshod over cities and our citizens by using public right-of-way without regulation or compensation.”
Most people would be happy to accommodate wireless and cable companies’ needs, for all the conveniences they deliver. But with multiple companies vying to put up poles, and the city with no say in it, has accommodation turned into imposition?
Now is the time to let your state representative know your opinion.