Current with changes from the 2024 Legislative Session
Section 67.5112 - Wireless providers use of right-of-ways to collocate small wireless facilities, requirements1. The provisions of this section shall only apply to activities of a wireless provider within the right-of-way to deploy small wireless facilities and associated utility poles.2. An authority shall not enter into an exclusive arrangement with any person for use or management of the right-of-way for the collocation of small wireless facilities or the installation, operation, marketing, modification, maintenance, management, or replacement of utility poles.3. Subject to the provisions of sections 67.5110 to 67.5121, an authority shall permit a wireless provider, as a permitted use not subject to zoning review or approval, to collocate small wireless facilities and install, maintain, modify, operate, and replace utility poles along, across, upon, and under the right-of-way, except that the placement in the right-of-way of new or modified utility poles in single-family residential or areas zoned as historic as of August 28, 2018, remains subject to any applicable zoning requirements that are consistent with sections 67.5090 to 67.5103. Small wireless facilities collocated outside the right-of-way in property not zoned primarily for single-family residential use shall be classified as permitted uses and not subject to zoning review or approval. Such small wireless facilities and utility poles shall be installed and maintained as not to obstruct or hinder the usual travel or public safety on such right-of-way or obstruct the legal use of such right-of-way by authorities or other authorized right-of-way users. Nothing in this section shall grant any wireless provider the power of eminent domain.4. Nothing in sections 67.5110 to 67.5121 shall prevent an authority, on a nondiscriminatory basis, from requiring a permit, with reasonable conditions, for work in a right-of-way that will involve excavation, affect traffic patterns, obstruct traffic in the right-of-way, or materially impede the use of a sidewalk.5. Each new, replacement, or modified utility pole installed in the right-of-way shall not exceed the greater of ten feet in height above the tallest existing utility pole in place as of January 1, 2019, located within five hundred feet of the new pole in the same right-of-way, or fifty feet above ground level. New small wireless facilities in the right-of-way shall not extend more than ten feet above an existing utility pole in place as of August 28, 2018, or for small wireless facilities on a new utility pole, above the height permitted for a new utility pole under this section. A new, modified, or replacement utility pole that exceeds these height limits shall be subject to any applicable zoning requirements that apply to other utility poles and are consistent with sections 67.5090 to 67.5103.6. A wireless provider shall be permitted to replace decorative poles when necessary to collocate a small wireless facility, but any replacement pole shall reasonably conform to the design aesthetics of the decorative pole or poles being replaced.7. Subject to subsection 4 of section 67.5113, and except for facilities excluded from evaluation for effects on historic properties under 47 C.F.R. Section 1.1307 (a)(4) of the Federal Communications Commission rules, an authority may require reasonable, technically feasible, nondiscriminatory, and technologically neutral design or concealment measures in a historic district. Any such design or concealment measures shall not have the effect of prohibiting any provider's technology, nor shall any such measures be considered a part of the small wireless facility for purposes of the size restrictions in the definition of small wireless facility.8. The authority, in the exercise of its administration and regulation related to the management of the right-of-way, shall be competitively neutral with regard to other users of the right-of-way, including that terms shall not be unreasonable or discriminatory and shall not violate any applicable law. Nothing in sections 67.5110 to 67.5121 shall in any way be construed to modify or otherwise affect the rights, privileges, obligations, or duties, existing prior to August 28, 2018, of an electrical corporation, as defined in section 386.020, or of a rural electric cooperative established under chapter 394, except to the extent that the corporation or cooperative deploys small wireless facilities that are used to provide services unrelated to the provision of their electric and gas utility service.9. Small wireless facility collocations completed on or after August 28, 2018, shall not interfere with or impair the operation of existing utility facilities, or authority or third-party attachments. The authority may require a wireless provider to repair all damage to the right-of-way directly caused by the activities of the wireless provider in the right-of-way and to return the right-of-way to its functional equivalence before the damage under the competitively neutral, reasonable requirements and specifications of the authority. If the wireless provider fails to make the repairs required by the authority within a reasonable time after written notice, the authority may make those repairs and charge the applicable party the reasonable, documented cost of such repairs.Added by 2018 Mo. Laws, HB 1991,s A, eff. 1/1/2019.