A year after passing an ordinance limiting the height of church steeples and bell towers, Bloomington has tweaked its regulations by imposing design requirements to make it clear that the same bell tower can't be replicated over and over again on church grounds all over town.
It's not that churches have gone mad for bell towers. The new rule is aimed at providers of cell phone service who are looking for places to hide wireless antennas in residential areas.
After T-Mobile last year masked its equipment in a simple three-legged bell tower erected at CrossPoint Church near 98th Street and France Avenue, the company came back to the city and proposed more towers. When it suggested that the new towers might be copies of the one at CrossPoint, city officials got busy drawing up the new ordinance.
"What we don't want is cookie-cutter tube towers," said Bob Hawbaker, the city's manager of planning and economic development. "We need to figure out creative ways to allow wireless providers to penetrate residential areas without putting up a lot of ugly towers in neighborhoods."
That's why church steeples and bell towers have become popular places for wireless providers to hide their antennas. Mark Wilson, T-Mobile's external affairs manager for the region that includes the Twin Cities, said by phone from Chicago that the problem has gotten bigger now that an estimated 15 percent of Americans have dumped their land lines in favor of cell-service only.
When cell phone is the only way to reach 911 or other essential services, he said, that makes it even more important for wireless providers to make sure that there are no dead zones in residential areas.
But cell towers can reach as high as 45 feet to 65 feet, making them difficult to hide in neighborhoods that are mostly houses.
"It's difficult to install a new monopole [antenna] in a residential area, so we're always looking for creative ways to provide that coverage," Wilson said. "We've used smokestacks on schools, steeples on churches. They're very successful."