Forest Hills approves cell tower ordinance, reduces planning board

By Rose Hooper

"The wording seemed appropriate for us," said Forest Hills Mayor Jim Davis. "A lot of work had gone into the county's ordinance, and we didn't feel that we could write one any better."

During a public hearing on the ordinance last week, no one from Forest Hills spoke either for or against the ordinance, which was adopted unanimously following the hearing.

The next step is to incorporate the cell tower ordinance into the village's zoning ordinance approved in June.

The village board also changed its representation on the planning board from nine to seven people. That action also followed a public hearing during which no one voiced opposition.

"Some of the members are rotating off the planning board at this time, so it's a good time not to fill the vacancies," said Davis. "We are not removing people from the board."

With its recently-added extra territorial jurisdiction, the village was required to have two members from the ETJ represented on a nine-member board. With the board size reduced to seven members, the ETJ representation drops to one.

"We are not required to fill all the positions," board member Jim Wallace, the lone dissenter in opposing the planning board reduction, said. "If we only have seven members, we can function with seven, but that leaves us the opportunity to add others if they want to join.

"If we try to fill the positions and we can't, at least we've tried," Wallace said before casting the opposing vote.

Back to Archive: 09/12/02.