By Gene Robbins, Managing Editor
Verizon Wireless wants to plug a hole in its cell-phone coverage area with antennae atop a 120-foot monopole it would like to build on the 4.3-acre property of the Volunteer Fire Co. No. 3 firehouse at 324 Woods Road.
Verizon will make its presentation at the Board of Adjustment’s meeting on Wednesday, March 16. The company wants to erect the tower with eight rectangular antennae at the top of the tower in a single-family home area.
The tower would be another improvement in the Verizon wireless network seeking to improve 4G data service, according to information filed with the application.
Not everyone is in favor of the proposal.
Patricia Ruby, who said she lived on Woods Road three doors away from the site, called it “a horrible idea.”
“That’s why we have zoning, so we can put these things were they belong,” she said Tuesday.
She said she and her two-year-old often go to the pocket park near the firehouse and she feared the potential health danger from the electromagnetic field the tower would emit, she said. There was also the concern that property values in the area might suffer, she said.
The volunteer fire company would presumably benefit financially from the proposal.
Recently the Board of Adjustment approved a Verizon application to put antennae 150 feet up on a PSE&G transmission tower at 249 Triangle Road opposite the middle school. The same application received permission to put a house as a second principal use on the same 4.5-acre lot.
Verizon says it has also proposed a rooftop antenna on stores in the Nelson’s Corner shopping center at 601 Route 206, and has approvals for a 150-foot high monopole at 209 Homestead Road and on a Dunkin’ Donuts store rooftop at 409 Route 206.
The company needs a use variance to locate in the residential agriculture zone on Woods Road, as well as for a second principal use on the property.
The tower would go up behind the firehouse and beyond the outfield for a recreation field. There would be a 20-by-40-foot fenced equipment compound that could expand to 20 by 90 feet in the future. An emergency diesel generator would be installed.
Verizon says the tower would be unmanned, create no traffic, emit no odors, light or noise. It must prove it can be built with no “no substantial detriment to the public good,” or prove to be an impairment to the zoning plan.
