Lawrence zoners nix cell tower close to Princeton border

By Lea Kahn, The Packet Group
   LAWRENCE — The Cellco Partnership lost its battle to build a 140-foot-tall communications tower on the Peterson’s Nursery property on Route 206 near the Princeton Township border, earlier this month.
   The Lawrence Township Zoning Board of Adjustment voted unanimously at a special meeting Dec. 19 — the eighth one since March — to deny the Cellco Partnership’s request for a use variance. The variance was needed because communications towers are not permitted in the Environmental Protection-1 residential zone.
   If the use variance had been approved, the tower would have held antennas for Verizon Wireless, AT&T, and Sprint-Nextel. The cell phone companies claim there is a gap in coverage in northern Lawrence Township and that the tower would have helped to fill the hole.
   The zoning board’s denial marks the second time the board has rejected the Cellco Partnership’s use variance request. The board turned down a use variance application for a 120-foot-tall tower in 1999.
   Attorney Richard Stanzione, who represents the Cellco Partnership, said he would wait for the zoning board to adopt a resolution memorializing its action and then consult his client. It is not known when the zoning board will adopt the resolution.
   At the meeting, a professional planner representing objectors Stephen Parrish and Philip Yang — residents of Tomlyn Drive, which is located between Province Line Road and the Princeton Township border — outlined the case against approving the use variance.
   Planner Paul Szymanski said the tower — if it is approved — would be the third non-conforming use on the Peterson’s Nursery property, after the nursery itself and two billboards on the property. It would make the Peterson’s Nursery property “even more non-conforming” in relation to the township’s Land Use Ordinance, he said.
   Mr. Szymanski said the township’s Land Use Ordinance permits communications towers in 10 of the 28 zones in the township, provided certain conditions are met. The Environmental Protection 1 zone, however, is not one of the zones that permits a tower, he said.
   There is “some activity” by Township Council to permit a township-owned property on Carter Road to host a communications tower, he said. The 2-acre parcel, located near the Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., is in the Research and Development 1 zone, which permits communications towers.
   Mr. Szymanski said the applicant’s radio frequency expert testified at a previous meeting that a tower on that site would help to fill in the gap, in combination with an existing communications tower at the township-owned Joseph H. Maher Ecological Center on Princeton Pike.
   ”If there is another site around that can satisfy the radio frequency expert’s requirements, then that site should be where the tower is located — not where there will be negative impacts,” he told the zoning board.
   Locating a communications tower at the Peterson’s Nursery site would bring it within 400 to 600 feet of the nearest home on Tomlyn Drive, Mr. Szymanski said. The tower would have a “visual impact” on the houses, and it would constitute an invasion of privacy, he added.
   Christine Malone, the zoning board’s radio frequency consultant, told the board that the Peterson’s Nursery property is in the middle of the coverage gap. But even with a tower on that property, the applicant has admitted that several additional towers would be needed, she said.
   When the meeting was opened up for public comment, Buckingham Drive resident Robert North told the board that when he bought his home in 1987, he had a view of a “pristine tree line in a beautiful area.” Buckingham Drive is located south of Tomlyn Drive off Province Line Road.
   ”I like to believe that part of the goal of the EP-1 zone is to preserve that (view),” Mr. North said. “It is my belief that the tower would be harmful to our property values. It would look worse when the leaves are off the trees. In a photograph, everything always appears farther away than in real life.”
   Zoning board members voiced a number of reasons for denying the application. One board member said that putting up a tower on the Peterson’s Nursery property would be the third non-conforming use on the site — two billboards and the business itself, which is in a residential zone.
   Other board members said they voted against the use variance application because of the potential negative impact on real estate values of neighboring homes, and because there is an alternative site — a 2-acre parcel owned by Lawrence Township on Carter Road.
   Township Council recently directed Municipal Manager Richard Krawczun to draw up bid specifications to lease the land to a cell phone company or companies. The winning bidder would be the one that agreed to pay the highest rent for the site.
   ”The threshold question is whether there is an alternate site that does not require a variance,” said zoning board chairman Stephen Brame. “I think we have learned of an alternate site (that) may meet the needs of the applicant.”
   Zoning board member Peter Kremer said the applicant had established the need for another communications tower because of the “extensive” coverage gap in northern Lawrence Township and adjacent areas in Princeton Township.
   But no single tower can cover the gap, Mr. Kremer said. If the board approved the Cellco Partnership application, there would be a need for more towers, he said, adding that the Carter Road site — in combination with the tower at the Joseph H. Maher Ecological Center on Princeton Pike — would come closer to filling the gap.