{"id":115882,"date":"2026-01-13T02:58:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T02:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/115882\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T02:58:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T02:58:07","slug":"st-pete-beach-adds-restrictions-to-cell-towers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/115882\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Pete Beach adds restrictions to cell towers"},"content":{"rendered":"

ST. PETE BEACH, Fla. \u2014\u00a0St. Pete Beach commissioners will take a second and final vote on Tuesday to add new restrictions to the city\u2019s cell tower ordinance in response to residents\u2019 concerns.<\/p>\n

What You Need To Know<\/p>\n

St. Pete Beach commissioners unanimously passed the revised ordinance during a first reading last month
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The amendments are expected to pass a second and final vote on Tuesday
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St. Pete beach will be the first city in Florida to implement the most protective ordinance possible
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The Florida Coalition For Safe Technology which raised money to hire an attorney who specializes in telecom law to help the city toughen up the ordinance<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re confident that our city is going to stand behind us,\u201d said resident Lauren Mones. \u201cI’m proud of my city.\u201d<\/p>\n

Residents have been concerned about 5G cell tower equipment installed close to homes, parks and schools. Mones founded the Florida Coalition For Safe Technology<\/a> which raised money to hire attorney W. Scott McCollough, who is based out of Texas and specializes in telecom law, to help the city toughen up the law.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we want is a collaborative effort,\u201d she said. \u201cWe want residents and our elected officials and telecom to come together when these cell towers have to be sited somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

Resident KellyLee McFrederick joined forces with Mones last summer after 5G equipment was being installed on a pole directly across the street from her house<\/a> in the historic Don CeSar neighborhood without any notice.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo definitely was helping raise funds for the coalition,\u201d she said. \u201cSo that we could have the first protective updated ordinance for wireless. That’s what we’re so, so excited about.\u201d<\/p>\n

As\u00a0Spectrum News\u00a0first reported, McFrederick fought back and managed to get the cell tower equipment moved away last September<\/a>. Attorney\u00a0McCollough called that relocation \u201crare\u201d and pointed out the measures McFrederick took were key to her success.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat’s most important is to figure out that this is a bad thing that’s happening to you early in the process, get friends and allies. Get involved with the local leaders,\u201d he said. \u201cThen try to find somebody like our group that can kind of help them<\/a>, help you, navigate through the process. There are things that can be done.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCollough said federal and state laws regulating 5G cell towers are very restrictive but locals can take some measures within those limits which St. Pete Beach has done.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the most important things that we did was we really, really increased the amount of information that is required to be disclosed to the local jurisdiction in the permit application,\u201d he said. \u201cThen as much as we could, required that the people who are affected by the proposed project get notice and an opportunity to participate in the process.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Other revisions to the St. Pete Beach communication and small wireless facilities code include increased setbacks from residential neighborhoods and environmentally-sensitive areas. Limiting the height of most facilities in residential areas, outside of city-owned rights-of-way, to the maximum height permitted in the zoning district.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Increase application requirements for facilities that could adversely affect sightlines for existing developments. Require compliance verification with environmental reviews and historic preservation consideration when facilities could adversely affect these sites and limit equipment on towers to the extent viable.<\/p>\n

St. Pete Beach commissioners unanimously passed the revised ordinance during a first reading last month. The measure is expected to pass a second reading and become law.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like it’s a heroic effort,\u201d said Mones. \u201cFor not only the residents to stand up to telecom but also our elected officials to stand up to a very big, very influential industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCullough said while other communities have worked on the issue, St. Pete beach will be the first city in Florida to implement the most protective ordinance possible. The FCC and the state of Florida pre-empted local authority to address unnecessary regulatory barriers to wireless infrastructure deployment which could affect the speed and cost of the projects.<\/p>\n

Mones and McFrederick said they will lobby state and federal lawmakers to make changes to those laws too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETE BEACH, Fla. \u2014\u00a0St. Pete Beach commissioners will take a second and final vote on Tuesday to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115883,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[3140,274,2968,2287,115,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,278,835],"class_list":{"0":"post-115882","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-app-local-state-politics","9":"tag-app-top-stories","10":"tag-josh-rojas","11":"tag-local-politics","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-st-pete","14":"tag-st-pete-headlines","15":"tag-st-pete-news","16":"tag-st-petersburg","17":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","18":"tag-st-petersburg-news","19":"tag-tampa","20":"tag-top-stories","21":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}