By Stephanie Vaccaro, Staff Writer
Montgomery residents showed up in droves at the zoning board meeting Tuesday night to express their opposition to a proposed 120-foot cell tower at 139 Green Avenue, a residential property.
Installation of the T-Mobile tower would require a variance from the zoning board.
The public group, Montgomery Residents ACT, hired a local expert real estate appraiser, Robert Heffernan, to convince the board that cell towers cause nearby residential properties to depreciate in value.
While none of the cases he presented were of towers designed to look like a tree, such as the one T-Mobile is proposing, he did show instances where a cell tower lowered the value of properties within proximity to them.
”Having done these particular studies and having studied the properties we did consider, the general indication is that the properties are definitely affected by their location to towers that obviously loom over them that are quite obvious in the skyline,” said Mr. Heffernan.
His presentation included a range of home value depreciation from 8 to 27 percent, when compared to the resale value of comparable homes not within proximity to a tower.
”Because they’re unsightly, people choose not to live near them,” said Mr. Heffernan.
More than 60 residents attended the meeting, many of whom wore “No Cell Tower” badges. While some left before the discussion’s end around 11:40 p.m., many stayed.
The discussion will resume at the July 19 meeting of the zoning board at 7:30 in the court at the municipal building for Montgomery Township.
