Local officials tighten controls on cell antennas

Township Committee amends ordinance

By John Tredrea, Staff Writer
   A amendment to Hopewell Township’s ordinance regulating cell phone antennas will not allow an applicant to erect any such antennas in a residential zone without demonstrating that no feasible location in a nonresidential zone is available.
   The amendment was adopted Monday by the Township Committee.
   The measure comes in the wake of a recent vigorous burst of public outcry from residents of the Brandon Farms development over the Planning Board’s recent approval of a T-Mobile application to attach cell phone antennas to the water tower at the northern edge of Brandon Farms.
   Mayor Vanessa Sandom and other Planning Board members said the township had no choice but to approve those antennas because they were a permitted use under the ordinance as it was written at the time.
   The amended ordinance does not apply to T-Mobile because T-Mobile already has its approval. However, the township is negotiating with T-Mobile to move its facility elsewhere, possibly to the wooded portion of the Twin Pines Airport tract the township is poised to buy (see separate story).
   Twin Pines is across Pennington-Lawrenceville Road from the water tower. The wooded portion of the Twin Pines tract is separated from that road by the grass airstrip the township wants to turn into athletic fields.
   Under the amendment, applicants who want to erect cell antennas must adhere to an eight-item “priority schedule” on where cell antennas can be located. The thrust of this list is, as the ordinance states, that “every effort shall be made to locate new antennas in a nonresidential zone, and the applicant shall demonstrate that such a location is not available before approval is granted for antennas in a residential zone.”
   As Deputy Mayor David Sandahl put it, the most desirable location for new antennas would be in a commercial zone on a highway. The least desirable is a residential zone.
   Also under the amendment, platform-mounted or side-arm-mounted cell antennas are prohibited.
   The amendment also requires cell antennas to blend aesthetically with their surroundings to the maximum possible extent.
   In addition, the amendment requires applicants to provide an expert report certifying that proposed antennas would be structurally safe, if erected.