Pasadena Gets Second Deadline Extension in Its Crown Castle Appeal

The 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals granted the city of Pasadena, Texas, its second deadline extension in less than a month to file its brief in its appeal of an Aug. 2 decision by U.S. District Judge David Hittner for Southern Texas granting Crown Castle summary judgment in its wireless infrastructure fight with the municipality. Pasadena’s brief was due Wednesday, and now is due Nov. 30, said a text order (docket 22-20454). Hittner’s order permanently enjoined Pasadena from enforcing sections of its design manual for the purposes of preventing Crown Castle from installing new small nodes and node support poles in public rights of way (see 2210250002). Crown Castle’s September 2020 complaint alleged Pasadena, under the “guise” of its design manual, implemented a restriction that requires network nodes and supporting poles in a public right of way to be located at least 300 feet away from all existing utility or other node support poles. The spacing restriction is “so onerous” it effectively prohibits Crown Castle from deploying a distributed antenna system network in the city because the spacing requirement eliminates the necessary node locations, in violation of the Telecommunications Act, alleged the complaint.