T Mobile South, LLC v. City of Roswell, Georgia. (574 U.S. 293)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided January 14, 2015 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 574 U.S. 293 · 135 S. Ct. 808
- Decided
- January 14, 2015
- Term
- October Term 2014
- Vote
- 6–3
- Majority author
- Justice Sotomayor
- Issue area
- Economic Activity
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice SOTOMAYORdelivered the opinion of the Court. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 provides, in relevant part, that "[a]ny decision by a State or local government or instrumentality thereof to deny a request to place, construct, or modify personal wireless service facilities shall be in writing and supported by substantial evidence contained in a written record." 110 Stat. 151, 47 U.S.C. § 332(c)(7)(B)(iii). The question presented is whether, and in what form, localities must provide reasons when they deny telecommunication companies' applications to construct cell phone towers. We hold that localities must provide or make available their reasons, but that those reasons need not appear in the written denial letter or notice provided by the locality. Instead, the locality's reasons may appear in some other written record so long as the reasons are sufficiently clear and are provided or made accessible to the applicant essentially contemporaneously with the written denial letter or notice. I In February 2010, petitioner T-Mobile South, LLC, applied to build a new, 108-foot-tall cell phone tower on 2.8 acres of vacant residential property in the city of Roswell, Georgia (City). Roswell's city ordinances require that any cell phone tower proposed for a residential zoning district must take the form of an "alternative tower structure"-an artificial tree, clock tower, steeple,…
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