Government

P&Z Seeks Way To Influence Applications for Cell Towers on Private Property

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Though a state agency has exclusive jurisdiction over applications to erect cell towers on private property, town officials said Tuesday night, New Canaan should try to update its Zoning Regulations such that they urge—if not require—applicants to check in with the local Planning & Zoning Commission so that standards such as setbacks are respected. New Canaan will have “real headaches” as efforts to improve wireless service move from using public land to private property, P&Z commissioner Laszlo Papp said during the group’s regular meeting, held in a crowded board room at Town Hall. “I am afraid that we will have a tremendous public outcry … but very little to do because this is going to be the [Connecticut] Siting Council’s business, not the town’s business—a little setback or minor adjustment—and I am not happy to sit here and listen to that kind of an outcry,” Papp said at the meeting, attended by about 40 people, forcing some into a hallway. The comments—addressed to a consultant who is advising the town on updating the telecom facilities section of its Zoning Regulations (see page 157 here)—come on the heels of a Soundview Lane resident disclosing that he’s pursuing what would be the first cell tower on private residential property in New Canaan (others already are installed on private property owned by the Country Club of New Canaan and Silver Hill Hospital). Keith Richey’s plan—outlined on a newly launched website—calls for a tower with a total height of 90 feet, to be mounted from a base that forms part of a 1,763-square-foot structure inside a 2,310-square-foot area, according to a site plan shared with NewCanaanite.com.

Government

Cell Tower at Silver Hill Hospital to Go Live in Early 2015, Officials Estimate

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Cell service on the eastern side of New Canaan stands to improve in early 2015, officials say. The tower installed on Silver Hill Hospital’s campus likely will go live in the first quarter of next year, “at least according to AT&T,” Utilities Commission member Tom Tesluk said at the group’s meeting Monday night, held in the Sturgess Room at the New Canaan Nature Center. The timing at Silver Hill is important to the commission, in part, because the group is overseeing data collection through a “drive test” of town roads that has seen a specially outfitted vehicle record cell strength on a street-by-street basis, providing New Canaan with site-specific data that it’s never had before. That test is essentially finished and a draft map is in the works, Tesluk said, though there’s an open question about whether some areas—the south, southeast and perhaps northeast parts of town—ought to be re-tested once the tower at Silver Hill and a second planned tower, for the Norwalk Armory site, go live. Tesluk cautioned that it may take a while for the Armory tower to go up.