Cell Tower Developer: We Can Present Two Possible West School Locations to the State

A cell tower developer said last week that, with the town’s support, he could present state officials with two locations for erecting monopoles behind West School if his own preferred location is, in fact, “off the table” as New Canaan’s legislative body has asserted.

Homeland Towers Regional Manager Ray Vergati told members of the Board of Selectmen during their March 21 meeting that he still would prefer to go with what’s known as “Option A” for the new tower serving the west side of town (about 900 feet behind West School and 600 feet from its playing fields).

Two alternative tower locations deeper into the woods behind the school, toward Llewelyn Drive and Carriage Lane—dubbed “Option B” and “Option C”—would need to be even taller towers to make up for a loss in elevation, and the latter may well trigger concerns about environmental impact because of designated wetlands.

“Look, do I want to be in [Option] B and C? No,” Vergati said during the meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. “[Option] A is the spot. It’s the best location.”

Vergati said that if the town wanted to pursue Option C, “we would lease with the town two options.”

“We’ve done this before. Options B and C, and we would make the commitment to say, if this is what town wants, if Option C is preferred by the town, we will lease two portions on the property, C and B. We would go to the [Connecticut] Siting Council as the primary candidate, ‘This is what the town wants, Option C.’ The Siting Council may scrutinize Option C as mentioned, and say, ‘You have a 30-foot wetlands crossing at Lewellyn. You have an approximately 75-foot crossing further in to get to Option C, and you have potential for impact to the wetlands.’ And the Siting Council may say, ‘You have other viable options on the property. We will deny C but we are OK with Option B.’ So I think what I’m telling the Board of Selectmen this morning is we are prepared to go into [Siting] Council with two options. Spend the money. And let the [Siting] Council, with the town’s guidance and preference, pick the location.”

The comments came after several residents attending the meeting spoke out against the proposals for any cell tower—they range in height from 145 to 185 feet—on West School’s 47-acre property at 769 Ponus Ridge. 

The residents called for the town to wait for the expert voices of a soon-to-be reactivated Utilities Commission to weigh in, to pay attention to the wetlands in the woods behind West School, to dedicate more time to studying the health risks associated with cell towers, to note that Vergati himself already has spoken against the viability of Options B and C and that the town’s process to this point has lacked transparency. Multiple speakers also called on the selectmen to forgo hiring a company for a computer-generated cell coverage analysis of the area, saying it would fall short of being a useful study and has been withheld from the public.

One resident who addressed the selectmen, Carter Weiss, asked the elected body to “just humor me for a few minutes” and “pretend that the tower is needed, wanted, safe, not going to be an eyesore for miles, and we can pretend that it’s not going to ruin any land that we’ll never get back.”

“So let’s just hand-wave all that for a few minutes,” Weiss said.

He added, “First, I’m very curious why we are using a 10-year-old RFP. And second, what level of diligence have we done currently on both Homeland [Towers] and their character as a corporation and their financial wherewithal?”

A new RFP is needed because the one that’s already in place is about one decade old, Weiss said, whereas with a new one “we would be able to pick the best partner, the best terms, the best technology—I’m not sure this is, satellite is coming a long way.”

“AndI believe it’s the fiduciary responsibility of each selectperson doing this,” he said. “Additionally, 10 years ago it may have made sense. Ten years ago, it may have made sense to put the town’s funds into Signature Bank or Silicon Valley Bank. It’s not the case today, obviously they’re both gone. I think the same rule applies here.”

Weiss also wondered whether Homeland Towers would even be considered today if the town were starting this process anew.

“If you just do a little bit of research online, there’s a lot of controversial projects that they have with other towns—for example, the town of Carmel, N.Y., where it looks to me that they’ve been led down the primrose into what is an illegal agreement,” he said. “I don’t know if you’ve spent time with that? If you’ve looked at that? If you’ve looked at what that means for us, if we are on a similar path. There’s a New York state judge this summer who ruled that Homeland and Verizon and the town agreement wasn’t legal. I’m quoting other publications, I have them here if you want to look at it.”

The plans presented by Homeland Towers appear “aged” and “overworked” and should be scrapped, Weiss said.

“I think it’s the responsibility of the selectpeople to do this,” he said, adding in an apparent reference to First Selectman Kevin Moynihan, “Even if one person is madly passionate about this project, it doesn’t mean it’s appropriate.”

Though Moynihan said earlier this month that he favored hiring a New Jersey-based company to do a computer-generated cell coverage analysis of the area, the selectmen—after hearing from the residents—put off a vote on approving the $13,000 contract for that work.

Though Moynihan himself has been pushing since last summer (and fall) for a cell tower behind the school, he appeared during last week’s meeting to try to distance himself from the proposal.

“I would emphasize, this is not a Homeland Towers issue,” Moynihan said. “This is not a Kevin Moynihan issue. This is Verizon and AT&T. They want to improve their service. It surprised the hell out of me that Verizon showed up last April and said, ‘We want to build a tower on the west side of town.’ We need the tower. We need improved cell service.”

Moynihan’s comments led to a discussion where Selectmen Kathleen Corbet and Nick Williams, as they have since last summer, called for more community input regarding the plan and otherwise pushed back on plans long supported by the first selectman. (Note: In any case, the full Board of Selectmen and Town Council would both need to approve any lease with Homeland Towers for building a tower on town-owned property.)

“I’m for ‘Option N,’ which is ‘No rush’ and maybe ‘Never,’ ” Williams said, drawing applause from meeting attendees.

He added, “The whack-a-mole aspect that’s been raised concerns me too. It just seems like we keep doubling down— ‘We can’t go here, let’s go here.’  At some point this has got to stop.”

Corbet said, “I think that what we’ve heard and continue to hear—and I applaud the citizens who have spoken to us—I think it’s fair to just listen to what those options are, and Ray thank you for being here, because we are all learning this at the same time you are, and I think it’s appropriate we listen to what we know thus far and then we make a decision based on that information, which we don’t have right now.”

Corbet and Williams also noted that the Utilities Commission, after it’s reformed, should become part of the town’s decision-making process.

Williams acknowledged Vergati and said he’s “certainly always willing to listen.”

“It’s just for me it’s a high bar because, as I said at the outset, when this first came up in the depth of the summer and everybody was elsewhere, this town has been through so much over the past few years, between COVID and now we have the economy concerns there and there’s been affordable housing which has engendered a lot of emotion,” Williams continued. “And this is such an emotional issue and I just personally don’t see the need. Now I’m willing to listen and hear about what the coverage is, and I do think it’s important that we get the input from the residents as to what they want. Do they have cellphone service? I know I have AT&T and I have pretty good service all over town. So that’s pretty critical to me. To me that’s another piece of this puzzle.”

In addressing the Board, Vergati asserted repeatedly that the carriers’ own coverage maps prove that there’s a need on the west side of New Canaan and called the West School parcel an ideal location for a tower. He also pooh-poohed the arguments from the residents voicing opposition, describing their concerns as predictable and rooted in falsehoods.

“Doing this for so long, I hear the same comments,” Vergati said. “I hear the public say ‘there’s no need,’ I hear the health concerns, I hear the people play the property value, I hear people talk about aesthetics and so forth.”
Vergati said that as a developer, Homeland Towers doesn’t get involved in establishing coverage needs. Rather, the carriers do that and his company figures out the best way address the need, taking community concerns into consideration.

“Towers are needed,” Vergati said. “Rooftop sites are needed. Macro sites are needed. Small cells are needed. Satellite is not going to replace us in the foreseeable future.”

Regarding what some have called the viability of satellite technology, Vergati said, “Those are opinions that people have, and you have to follow the facts and science here. Simple as that.”

He added, “I am not here to prove the need. I’m a developer. The burden of the need is on the carriers. When they go before the Siting Council, the burden on them is to prove that a site is needed in a given area. It’s justified. And the height that they’re asking for is justified … Verizon has been here and shown their coverage maps. People have an opinion or a feeling that they don’t believe it, because they can make a phone call. Just because you can make phone call doesn’t mean there’s not a need.”

He added that a former Centerline Solutions employee, John Keating, concluded in his own study that “a tower is needed.”

“I am not here to spend $1 million because I don’t think there’s a need,” Vergati said. “I think there’s a need, absolutely. I’ve driven the area. I’ve been at the school during pickup times. I can’t get a phone call out on my Verizon phone. And that’s a fact.”

He added, “In my 23 years developing sites, people play that card all the time, ‘Oh there’s no need, I can make a phone call.’ OK, maybe you have WiFi in your house, you can make a phone call. Maybe you’re on a Ridge, you can make a phone call sometimes. It’s not what’s called a ‘reliable network.’ And I don’t get into designing the network. The carriers design it. Just like the average resident doesn’t dictate to Eversource or the water company where a pipe should go, or where a utility should go.”