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Council to provide land for cell tower
(by Megan Burrow - April 29, 2008)
After a lengthy heated discussion on Monday, April 28, the council unanimously passed a resolution to make municipal land available to New Cingular Wireless PCS, LLC and Omnipoint Communications, Inc. for the installation of a cell phone tower.
The companies have been discussing a proposed cell tower at 620 Pascack Road, the five-acre site of the racket club in front of the township zoning board for the past several months. As the discussions have continued, public opposition to the proposed tower has grown, and several residents who own homes near the racket club have hired attorneys to represent them and fight against the tower.
At the April 14 council meeting, attorney Terry Thornton gave a presentation to the council outlining possible alternatives to the proposed tower and urging them to pass a resolution which would allow the companies to build on municipal land.
The township currently has an ordinance restricting cell towers from being built on private property, but the companies have argued that the town has not made municipal land available, forcing them to argue their case in front of the zoning board to attain a variance.
Thornton argued if the council passed the resolution, the companies would be forced to drop their case to the zoning board. Also, the town would have more control over where the tower is built and what it looks like, as well as gaining the revenue from the companies’ use of the land.
At next week’s May 5 public council meeting, the council will meet with an expert Thornton has recommended to learn about the various technologies available and decide on how best to move forward.
Thornton described several options to the council at Monday’s meeting: a traditional tower like the one the companies wanted to erect at the racket club, a distributed antenna system made up of a system of “small nodes,” or a stealth tower which can be hidden in a fiberglass structure. Thornton suggested one possibility would be reconstructing the municipal building’s clock tower and installing the cell tower inside.
Council President Joseph Giardina said the council would aim to “make [the tower] as aesthetically pleasing as possible.”
Megan Burrow's e-mail address is burrow@northjersey.com.
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