Verizon Sues to Reverse Township’s ‘Unreasonable and Unsupportable’ Tower Denial

Verizon sued Lower Saucon Township in Pennsylvania to challenge the municipality’s “unreasonable and unsupportable denial” of Verizon’s application to build a 130-foot cell tower on 10 acres of property, said Verizon’s complaint Friday (docket 5:24-cv-02350) in U.S. District Court for Eastern Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. The proposed tower is necessary “to remedy a significant gap in reliable wireless service,” and is the “least intrusive means” to do so, said the complaint. Without the tower, Verizon will be “materially inhibited or limited” from providing personal wireless services and telecommunications services to the municipality, it said. Despite Verizon meeting the “specific and general conditional use requirements” of the township’s ordinance, its council voted May 3 to deny Verizon’s application, it said. The council failed in any written record to identify the reasons for its denial, it said. The township, its council and its zoning hearing board have violated Section 704 of the Communications Act of 1934, said the complaint. They have effectively prohibited Verizon’s provision of personal wireless services and telecommunications services, and denied the application “without substantial evidence contained in the written record,” it said. The defendants also illegally based the denial on the federally preempted issue of environmental effects of RF emissions, and imposed “unreasonable and prohibitive application and code requirements” that materially impede Verizon’s ability to provide personal wireless services and telecommunications services to the public, it said. Each of Verizon's claims warrants injunctive relief, mandating that the township issue all required approvals for the construction of the tower, it said. The denial also was arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, contrary to law and not supported by substantial evidence, and thus was a violation of Pennsylvania law, it said.