I-84 Cell Tower Hearing Slated For May 1

By Andrew Gorosko

A controversial proposal to build a telecommunications tower in the vicinity of Exit 10 of Interstate 84 for cellular telephone use is scheduled for a public hearing on Thursday, May 1.

The Connecticut Siting Council has slated the session for the Alexandria Room at Edmond Town Hall, 45 Main Street, from 3 to 5 pm. The tower applicant will present its proposal, with questions posed by the siting council and by intervenors to the application. Starting at 7 pm, general comments from the public will be heard.

The public hearing initially had been scheduled for March 27, but was postponed until May 1, following protests over a proposal to construct the tower on a site at 79 Church Hill Road, near the residential Walnut Tree Hill Road neighborhood.

Omnipoint Facilities Network-2, LLC, a subsidiary of T-Mobile, USA, Inc, of Stamford has had a proposal pending to build a monopole-style, 150-foot-tall steel tower for cellular telephone communications on property at 79 Church Hill Road, near westbound I-84.

But in view of stiff opposition to that proposal and based upon a town request to instead construct the tower in an industrially zoned area, Omnipoint then decided to explore erecting a tower off Edmond Road, on the opposite side of I-84. Edmond Road is a private road that links Church Hill Road to Schoolhouse Hill Road. Edmond Road runs parallel to the eastbound lanes of I-84.

Industrial properties in that area include Rand-Whitney Container at 1 Edmond Road, the Pitney-Bowes Distribution Center at 7 Edmond Road, and what is known as the Edwards property, which is a vacant stretch of land at 3 Edmond Road.

Omnipoint has discussed a possible tower site with Rand-Whitney and also with industrial property owner Jim Edwards, according to an Omnipoint lawyer.

It is unclear whether an Edmond Road tower would need to be taller than the 150-foot-tall tower that Omnipoint had proposed for 79 Church Hill Road. Multiple antenna arrays would be mounted atop a tower for cellular telephone communications along the heavily traveled I-84 corridor.

According to the siting council, the sites for a telecommunications tower that are now under consideration by Omnipoint include 3 Edmond Road, and 32 Schoolhouse Hill Road, a site which lies near the intersection of Schoolhouse Hill Road and Edmond Road.

Additional details on the tower proposal were not available on April 23.

Weather permitting, between 1 and 5 pm on May 1, the applicant would loft tethered helium balloons at the various sites proposed for the tower to provide a sense of how tall a tower would stand.

Walnut Tree Hill Road area residents who are upset about the prospect of a 150-foot-tall tower in their neighborhood organized to oppose the tower proposal for 79 Church Hill Road, collecting more than 700 petition signatures in their opposition drive.

In a leaflet distributed to Walnut Tree Hill Road area residents recently, Julia Nable and Zoltan Csillag of 10 Walnut Tree Hill Road list reasons why a tower should not be built in that area.

The presence of such towers poses the potential for health and safety problems due to electromagnetic radiation exposure, they state. Research is underway to study potential health risks, they note, adding that such telecommunications facilities have not been in use long enough for conclusive research results to appear.

Opponents also have said that having a tower present near a natural gas transmission pipeline, such as the pipeline near 79 Church Hill Road, would pose safety hazards.  

The town contains multiple wireless telecommunications towers. Such freestanding towers often are located in industrial/commercial areas. Tower construction proposals often draw heavy opposition when they are proposed for residential areas.

In the past, the town’s Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) reviewed and ruled on such tower construction applications, based on an elaborate set of tower regulations that were created by the Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z).

A court decision, however, shifted the jurisdiction over tower construction proposals to the Connecticut Siting Council.