2 cell antenna
applications
on Planning Board table
HAZLET – On the heels of a new edict to ban hand-held cell phone use while driving in the township, two applications for phone antenna installment in the same spot are now on the Planning Board table.
That spot is the Shorelands Water Company tower, on Pineknot and Union avenues, and it’s a popular target for such use.
Antennas have been on the site since 1994, and three applications have come to the Planning and Zoning Board tables since 2001 — one last summer and two within the past month.
One application, submitted by AT&T Wireless, PCS of Morristown, is "seeking permission to place six wireless telecommunication antennas at 110 feet on an existing 135-foot-high water tank and also to place small equipment cabinets at the base of the water tank," according to the notice of the public hearing.
That application was heard May 16 by the Planning Board, and a decision on the matter was postponed.
"Our ordinance [passed last summer] says that for an application like this you have to first try township property, industrial areas and other sites out of residential areas," said Mayor Christopher Cullen. "If all fails, the water tower is the last resort. AT&T never went to options one and two; they just went to three.
"The Planning Board said ‘No, go to one and two first, then come back to us if those options fail, and you have no recourse,’ " said Cullen.
In the meantime, American Cellular Network, LLC, doing business as Cingular Wireless, Toms River, is scheduled to appear before the Planning Board Thursday at 8 p.m. at Town Hall.
The company is seeking permission to construct "a wireless communications facility by placing antennas on an existing 130-foot-high water tank at an approximate height of 95 feet, and construct an unmanned 10.5-by 9-foot equipment shelter," according to a notice sent to property owners within 200 feet of the proposal.
"We haven’t heard that application yet, so we don’t know what direction things will go in," said Cullen.
Shorelands would receive rental fees for the space used to build the antennas, should either of the two applications be approved.
The idea of more antennas on the water tower has always been met with resistance in what is an R-70 residential zone in the township.
It all started in the township in 1992, when Nynex was denied an application to install nine cellular antennas at the water tower site.
The company appealed the township’s decision and won in 1994. Since Nynex won the appeal, nine antennas have been anchored at the site.
An application to add nine antennas and a storage box at the tower box was submitted to the township last summer.
That application was denied at the township level and was appealed by VoiceStream, the applicant.
That appeal remains undecided, and still lingers in the Monmouth County court system.
Other applications before the Planning Board this year are from AT&T and Cingular.
As a result of the resistance to the VoiceStream application, an ordinance setting parameters for cell antenna placement was passed by the Township Committee in July 2001.
The ordinance states cellular telephone antennas will no longer be allowed in what the committee views as all the wrong places.
Through the ordinance, the committee is attempting to prevent cellular tower structures from being built in residential areas.
Specifically, what is also "preferred" by the ordinance is the placement of antennas within "lands or structures located in the Industrial Assembly zone districts."
But the greatest priority in the ordinance is to place the equipment on "existing buildings and towers, preferably on municipal or other public property, and not on newly constructed telecommunications towers; and it encourages collocation and site sharing of new and existing Personal Wireless Telecommunications Facilities."
A telecommunication facility is defined as "facilities for the provision of wireless communications services, including, but not limited to, antennas, antenna support structure, telecommunications towers, and related facilities other than Personal Wireless Telecommunications Equipment Facilities."
Any antennas erected, according to the ordinance, cannot be higher than 12 feet, and in the event that there is more than one on a site, they must be 1,000 feet apart.
Any tower must be 500 feet from residential zone district lines, schools and/or any site listed on the historic register.
A third priority location is listed as on "existing telecommunication facility, or existing water towers, provided the new installation does not increase the height by more than 10 percent."
A fourth priority location was determined as any nonresidential site needed to provide required service to the township.