HOWELL – The Howell Zoning Board of Adjustment has approved an application that will permit a company to remove an existing lattice communications tower and to install a new monopole communications tower with new antennas and equipment on the east side of Oak Glen Road near Route 547.
During an Oct. 15 meeting, New Cingular Wireless PCS – Cellco Partnership (Verizon Wireless) was seeking a conditional use variance, a bulk variance and preliminary and final site plan approval to construct a 165-foot-tall monopole.
The applicant will remove the existing lattice tower and construct a monopole tower and an equipment compound surrounded by a 6-foot-tall chain link fence. Antennas for AT&T and Verizon will be placed on the monopole, according to the testimony.
Attorney Judith Fairweather, who represented the applicant, told the board, “What you have (on Oak Glen Road) is a Jersey Central Power and Light (JCP&L) tower and the tower cannot handle the AT&T antennas … We are proposing to take down that tower and put up a new tower that would still be the transmission tower, but a newer style. Where the older style are lattice towers, the new transmission towers have more of a monopole shape.”
Fairweather said the applicant wants to put up a taller tower so it can move the Verizon antennas and add AT&T antennas to the monopole.
A radio frequency engineer who testified on behalf of the applicant said there will a bandwidth allocated for emergency services called FirstNet.
“FirstNet is for first responders,” Daniel Penesso said. “If there is an emergency situation, there is a band that would be allocated to first responders only … Anybody in the township, or coming from another location to Howell … to respond to an emergency, would have that block of spectrum allocated to them.”
Telecommunications expert David Collins, who testified on behalf of the applicant, said the proposed tower complies with Federal Communications Commission regulations.
The closest single-family residence is more than 300 feet from the proposed monopole. The applicant proposed no changes to the driveway or how the property is accessed by technicians who service the equipment.
Board member Thomas O’Donnell said he saw the application as a positive development without many negative aspects. He made a motion to approve the application. Board member Richard Mertens seconded the motion and said he believed the tower would improve communications in the area.
Chairman Wendell Nanson, Vice Chairman Michael Sanclimenti and board members John Armata, Thomas Posch, Jose Orozco, Mertens and O’Donnell voted to grant the variances and to approve the site plan.