When Steve Wheeler surveys the view from his home in west Lawrence, he sees rolling hills and the Wakarusa River valley. He’s not interested in having a cellular phone tower clutter the scene.

“To me, it’s just technology getting in the way of my open view of Kansas,” Wheeler said Monday.

He’s hardly alone. It’s common for Lawrence residents to challenge plans for new cell phone towers, just as Wheeler did last week before the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission.

Planning commissioners gave their approval anyway, but a bill before the Kansas Legislature would keep them from even considering Wheeler’s argument. Under the bill, messing up the view would no longer be a reason cities could deny new towers.

Lawrence’s City Hall opposes the provision.

“We don’t think our regulations are unduly burdensome, but we do think the visual impact is a relevant criteria in determining the location” of a cell tower, Assistant City Manager Dave Corliss said Monday. “That’s what we hear from our citizens, and that’s what we think our law should allow.”

The city’s zoning codes say all communications towers “shall be sited to have the least practical adverse visual effect on the environment.”

That language gives neighbors a legal basis to challenge cell tower plans. And it gives cellular phone companies an incentive to piggyback onto existing structures, such as city water towers.

But today, the Kansas House Committee on Utilities will take up a bill that would allow the state to tax cell phone users to pay for “enhanced 911” services, which would provide emergency dispatchers with the locations and telephone numbers of people calling for help using wireless phones.

6News video: Cell phone towers under discussion in Topeka

The bill includes a provision that wireless service towers used to provide 911 service, which would include most, if not all towers, “shall not be denied on the basis of their actual or perceived visual impact.” The bill does let local governments establish “reasonable” rules governing the appearance of towers.

“I think what we’re worried about is the language … could be used to keep a local government from responding to citizens’ concerns about the visual impact of communications towers,” Corliss said. “We don’t think the state should advise us not to look at that issue.”

Members of the utilities committee did not return calls for comment Monday. Representatives of several telecommunications companies declined to comment.

Wheeler, though, was unhappy with the proposed law.

“I don’t see,” he said, “where it’s the state’s business to get involved with that.”

The committee meets at 9 a.m. today in Room 231-N of the Capitol.