The town will hold a public meeting next month to gather input on an application for a proposed cell tower on private property in northeastern New Canaan, officials said Tuesday night.
This is what the cell tower planned for a private property at the end of Soundview Lane would look like. Contributed
A joint public meeting is to be held at 7 p.m. on Nov. 20 regarding the application for an 85-foot-high “monopine” tower at 183 Soundview Lane, according to Planning & Zoning Commission Chairman John Goodwin.
The meeting will be run jointly by P&Z and the Board of Selectmen, and will include representatives from wireless infrastructure consulting firm Homeland Towers, which put together an application with AT&T that is to be filed with the state agency that oversees telecommunications, Goodwin said during the Commission’s regular meeting, held at Town Hall.
It will mark the first time P&Z holds such a meeting since adopting regulations last year whereby those submitting applications to the state Siting Council “are strongly encouraged” to meet with P&Z to review the need for the facility, alternate sites and the location of schools “and places of public assembly” nearby (see page 166 here).
“What we have to think about is, in a way we are a bit of a leader—for better or for worse—in Connecticut, in terms of having passed these type of telecom regulations in which we ask for a consultation,” Goodwin said.
“The process is the town will give consultation to Homeland and again, they have not yet submitted their application to the Connecticut Siting Council. So this is our opportunity to give them input before they make that submission. Once they make that submission, the Siting Council will then have another meeting some place in New Canaan at a future point in time. So we will have a second bite at the apple so to speak. But what I would like everybody to think about is what is the nature of the feedback that we should give to Homeland?”
Property owner Keith Richey made public early last year his plans to host a cell tower at the end of the Soundview Lane cul-de-sac, stirring wide discussion in town and drawing opposition from neighbors. This month, First Selectman Kevin Moynihan received an attorney’s letter saying that AT&T had signed up as a carrier whose equipment would go onto the proposed tower. That triggered an application process outlined in state statute, requiring input from the town or city where a proposed tower would go.
According to Goodwin, the first selectman has asked that Town Planner Lynn Brooks Avni draft a memo head of next month’s meeting that outlines how P&Z’s regulations line up with the Homeland submission. The firm also will be notified about those regulations, he said.
“And then the issue will become, how do we as a Commission give feedback?” Goodwin said. “The way I am thinking about this right now is we will do this meeting, the way the meeting will flow is Homeland will present, we and the Board of Selectmen will have an opportunity to ask questions of Homeland and then it will be opened up to public comment. Typically as I understand it, the public can ask questions of Homeland. And then I think after that, depending on how long the meeting runs, we may want to think about that night or at a subsequent meeting talking about how we feel about it.”
Goodwin described next month’s meeting not as an application review but rather “an opportunity for us to provide input.”
Commissioner Dan Radman said his understanding is that P&Z’s recommendations can be attached to the Homeland application to the state, “so that they can understand what are recommendations were and how Homeland has or has not addressed them.”
“It’s not merely a recommendation to Homeland and then it gets lost in the sauce,” Radman said. “Our recommendations can formally go to the Siting Council for their record as to what our opinion is on this application.”
According to the letter sent Moynihan by attorney Lucia Chiocchio of White Plains, N.Y.-based Cuddy+Feder LLP, “the exponential growth in consumer use of mobile data and overall network demands requires the development of additional wireless infrastructure to reliably serve the public.”
The proposed tower “would provide reliable 4G LTE service to over 1,000 residents in the area and several miles of main and secondary roads,” the letter said.
The cell tower itself would include “faux branches extending another 5 feet above the top of the monopine within a fenced compound in the northwest portion of the 4.05-acre parcel.”
“AT&T’s antennas would be placed at a centerline budget height of 81 feet with equipment installed at grade within the compound. Should the town EMS, fire or police services have a need at this location, they could be accommodated as well. The tower and fenced compound are designed to support the antennas and equipment of other FCC licensed wireless carriers. The facility will be unmanned with no sanitary or water facilities and will generate an average of one vehicle trip per month by each carrier at the site, consisting of a service technician in a light duty van or truck.”