By JACQUELINE DURETT
Correspondent
SAYREVILLE — The borough Zoning Board approved the construction of a communications tower by PSE&G at its 5000 Bordentown Ave. location.
The application, heard Nov. 22, required a use variance.
Sheri Weber, wireless plan development engineer, said on the 2.9-acre site, a 50-foot-by-50-foot area would be dedicated for the project, which is comprised of a 180-foot tower, a 10-foot-by-12-foot equipment shelter and a natural gas generator. There is already a fence on the property that is gated and locked.
Radio frequency expert Corby Sluss, systems engineer for Motorola Solutions, who was contracted by PSE&G on the project, explained that PSE&G needs to upgrade its current analog communications system, which is more than 10 years old. The upgrade includes migrating to a digital network and would serve both the electric and gas portions of the business.
“They need to upgrade in order to take advantage of the new features and new hardware that’s coming out,” he explained.
Sluss clarified said this project is different from a cell tower, as this is for PSE&G’s internal radio communications.
Sluss also explained that the tower is part of a proposed statewide 20-tower system, which leverages an existing 10 sites and adds 10 new towers. Placing a tower in Sayreville, he said, is important because the borough currently lacks adequate coverage.
“There’s a hole in Sayreville. There’s a spot that did not have coverage,” Sluss said.
Jim Yorke, strategy manager for PSE&G, added that many of these gaps in coverage throughout the state were identified during superstorm Sandy in 2012.
Council members had questions about leveraging existing sites and co-locating with a cell tower, but Sluss said there were technical reasons why those situations were not ideal.
Sluss was also asked about whether the tower could be used by the police department when it receives its new radios. Representatives for PSE&G were unsure, but said they would investigate the issue further with PSE&G.
The board also expressed concerns about the site being located in an area that is known to flood. Weber said she did not believe the site was within a flood zone, but said she would investigate further to see if the tower and equipment would need to be elevated.
Brian Siedel, planner for PSE&G, advocated for the use variance, explaining that PSE&G has “taken into account considerations to locate the tower as far away from the residential portion of adjacent property as they could.”
There were no comments from the public on the application, which was also pending at the county level at the time of the Sayreville hearing.
The application was unanimously approved.