ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, January 31, 1997 TAG: 9701310033
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: ROANOKE
SOURCE: JAN VERTEFEUILLE STAFF WRITER
A federal judge this week ruled in Montgomery County's favor in a lawsuit by a Blacksburg paging company denied permission to build a tower atop Price Mountain.
Chief U.S. District Judge Jackson Kiser ruled that the zoning ordinance wasn't discriminatory on its face and that Paging Inc. didn't prove that the ordinance was applied in a discriminatory manner.
Paging Inc. had argued that its denial by the Board of Zoning Appeals for a new tower was unconstitutional and violated last year's Telecommunications Act. Its lawsuit in federal court was the first in Western Virginia to use the Telecommunications Act in arguing for permission to build a tower. Roanoke County was also sued in federal court last month, by a cellular phone company that wants to put a tower on Cove Mountain near the Appalachian Trail.
Paging Inc. claimed that Montgomery County's zoning administrator and the Board of Zoning Appeals wrongly concluded, in denying a building permit, that the business was not a public utility. The company was told that it could seek a special-use permit for the tower, which requires a public hearing and a Board of Supervisors' decision.
Paging Inc. argued that it should be able to build a new tower by right and avoid going before the Board of Supervisors because it is a public utility.
Tower applications often become heated issues in Montgomery: two have been withdrawn in the face of controversy and one has been rejected in the past five years. Another was approved with relatively few objections in 1994.
LENGTH: Short : 36 linesby CNB