AMSTERDAM-The town Zoning Board of Appeals voted Wednesday to allow the public to submit opinions on new information submitted by Verizon Wireless on the need for a cell tower in a residential district.
If the board hadn't reopened the record, Wednesday night would have been the deadline to make a decision on the variance as it marked 60 days after the first public hearing.
Cellco Partnership and Verizon Wireless submitted a variance application in May to allow the cellular company to construct a proposed 110-foot monopole tower that would take up almost an acre at 192 Hammondtown Road, the highest elevation in the town. The acre of Frank Brandl's property is classified as a cattle farm and valued at $130,612, according to county tax map property data.
Residents packed the Town Hall meeting room for at least the fourth board meeting in a row and will have 20 days to rebut supplemental information submitted to the board after January's first public hearing. The information includes a redacted copy of Verizon's network performance data, which was requested by residents and the board to prove the need for the tower, and a letter from the town's hired radio frequency engineer, Mark F. Hutchins.
"[The network performance data] indicates that there is clearly customer activity in the mapped area that is marred by an unacceptable failure rate that is a combination of dropped calls and failure to access the network," Hutchins wrote in the letter dated Feb. 8.
"We should not be asked to sacrifice to meet a corporation's bottom line," said town resident Dorie Polacko, who said Verizon did not meet the Rosenberg standard for a variance, which requires the cellular company to prove compelling reasons not to build the cell tower in a properly zoned area.
The property the proposed cell tower would be on is located in an R-1 residential district.
Verizon Wireless previously submitted about 30 reviews of other locations that would have required taller towers and, in some cases, several towers to create the same signal strength as the one proposed.
"We have some reservations," said Counsel for Verizon Wireless Mike Cusack. "This is, in my opinion, delay for the sake of delay. It's hard to go into these discussions without repeating everything."
Board Chairman Thomas Nethaway said even though the additional information is not "new information," as it doesn't apply any changes to the variance application, the board is interested in hearing the public's opinion on it before making a decision.
Opinions and rebuttals on the new information only can be submitted at Town Hall until March 31.
Verizon Wireless will respond to the public comments by April 9 and the board is expected to make a decision on the variance at its April 14 meeting.
Amanda Whistle can be reached at montco@leaderherald.com.