T-Mobile South, LLC v. City of Roswell

Roswell’s city council held a public hearing to consider T-Mobile’s application to build a cell phone tower on residential property. Council members expressed concerns about the tower’s impact on the area. The council unanimously denied the application. Two days later, the city informed T-Mobile by letter that the application had been denied and that minutes from the hearing would be made available. Detailed minutes were published 26 days later. The district court held that the city, by failing to issue a written decision stating its reasons for denial, had violated the Telecommunications Act, which provides that a locality’s denial “shall be in writing and supported by substantial evidence contained in a written record,” 47 U. S. C. 332(c)(7)(B)(iii). The Eleventh Circuit found that the Act’s requirements were satisfied. The Supreme Court reversed. It would be difficult for a reviewing court to determine whether denial was “supported by substantial evidence contained in a written record,” or whether a locality had “unreasonably discriminate[d] among providers of functionally equivalent services,” or regulated siting “on the basis of the environmental effects of radio frequency emissions,” if localities were not obligated to state reasons for denial. Those reasons need not appear in the denial notice itself, but may be stated with sufficient clarity in some other written record issued essentially contemporaneously with the denial. Because an applicant must decide whether to seek judicial review within 30 days from the date of the denial, the locality make available its written reasons at essentially the same time as it communicates its denial. View "T-Mobile South, LLC v. City of Roswell" on Justia Law