Linn County Ordinance

[Steve Sawyers n0yvy]

> Date:          Mon, 12 Feb 1996 19:51:41 -0800
> To:            cq-contest at tgv.com
> From:          al crespo <wr6r at ccnet.com>
> Reply-to:      al crespo <wr6r at ccnet.com>
> Subject:       Linn County Ordinance

>         Praise the Lord the Linn County Tower Ordinance applies only
>         to that
> county!
>          If you read the document, there is NO mention of the
>          special status
> of Amateur Radio under PRB-1. Commercial towers do not have the same
> special status that amateurs have under FCC guideline- this
> ordinance never differentiates  between the two totally different
> types of classes.
>         For those in need of help concerning tower ordinates,
>         contact the ARRL- Or was this ordinance really an early
>         April Fool's joke?
> 
>                                 Aloha, Al, WR6R/KH6
> 
Well, I didn't think we did that bad. We had one ham - W0EJ - on the 
committee with one TV station engineer and six county government 
representatives. It was politics at its finest.

They had been trying to enforce a 35 ft limit, which we found 
slightly objectionable. After almost three years of wrangling, 
including an election for the board of supervisors, where the amatuer 
community was very active, we got the following:

On a residential lot, in the county we have the right to:
1. Put up an 80 foot tower anywhere for any non-commercial 
 communication purpose.
2. If you have a one acre lot, which most of the county requires from 
a septic and well limit, you can go to either 125 feet in a 
subdivision, or 150 if in an agricultural area.
3. If you have 35 acres, then the limit is 200 feet.
4. There is no limit on the number of towers.

All of this is with only meeting the set back for towers over 80 
feet. The set back only applies to towers over 80 feet tall and is 
100% of the total  height of a freestanding tower, and 70% of the 
total height of a guyed tower. By the way, you can't put a tower or 
guy anchors in your front yard, not that my wife would let me do that 
anyway.

In the city of Cedar Rapids (about 200,000 people in the area), 1 and 
4 above apply, but no set back required. Still can't put it in the 
front yard.

You can go higher than these limits, but it takes a public zoning hearing 
and variance.

If you stay within the limits, you go to the zoning department, and 
show  them the lot plan; then you go to the building department and  
show them the manufacturer's plans and you get a building permit. 
We don't have to get a PE stamp,  just follow the manufacturers  
installation guidlelines.

BTW the limit mentioned in PRB-1 is 60 feet, so we didn't talk about 
that too much. And PRB-1 has been shot down enough that we did not 
want to hang our hats on it alone.

The lessons we learned:
1. Make sure you are technically correct.
2. Be proactive, make proposals.
3. Be willing to settle for 80% of what you want and work on getting 
the other 20% later.
4. This is a POLITICAL process. Talk to all the powers in the chain, 
and keep them informed. Figure out your allies and your opponents. 
Figure out their motivations, on both sides, so you don't get 
surprised.
5. Be calm, cool, rational, reasonable and persistant. Attend all of 
the meetings and present a professional appearance. Leave the call 
hats, tee shirts and beer bellies at home.
6. Stay out of court - it is EXPENSIVE.

de n0yvy steve

>From Anthony J. Wanschura" <tonyjw at primenet.com  Tue Feb 13 13:39:26 1996
From: Anthony J. Wanschura" <tonyjw at primenet.com (Anthony J. Wanschura)
Date: Tue, 13 Feb 1996 07:39:26 -0600 (CST)
Subject: M0AAA
Message-ID: <Pine.BSD.3.91.960213073437.28045B-100000 at usr5.primenet.com>

For those of you who would like to indulge in *this cow thing* off of the 
reflector, check out these sites:
http://daec.obspm.fr/~morisset.cow.html
http://lila.dei.uc.pt/~pedro/jokes/cows.jok

and don't forget *Sacred cows make the best hamburger*  Mark Twain

kayMOO

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