Lower Makefield Supervisors against proposed cell phone tower

The Lower Makefield Township supervisers have decided to oppose a 120-foot-high cell phone tower proposed for the Brookside Swim and Tennis Club property at 499 Stony Hill Road.

Board members voted unanimously at the April 6 supervisors meeting to send township Solicitor David Truelove, or another attorney in his firm, to speak in opposition to a variance needed for the facility at the May 3 zoning hearing board meeting.

Applicant Cellco Partnership, d/b/a Verizon Wireless, is requesting a variance to allow for the proposed telecommunications facility within the R-3M zoning district. Truelove said there is another zoning district in the township that allows cell phone towers by right but the applicant has instead chosen to seek a variance to locate the facility at Brookside.

According to documents filed with the township, the facility will consist of a monopole antenna support structure, designed to resemble a pine tree, 120 feet high, and the attachment of up to 12 panel antennas at the top of the monopole to be located within a 20-feet by 40-feet fenced compound. A lightning rod and artificial branches to conceal the structure shall extend to an overall height of 125 feet.

Verizon officials are seeking in the alternative, and if ultimately deemed required, a validity variance pursuant to a section of the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code based on the federal Telecommunications Act of 1996.

It provides that “no state or local statute or regulation, or other state or local legal requirement, may prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting the ability of an entity to provide any interstate or intrastate telecommunications service.”

Verizon officials wrote in the documents filed with the township that “if relief in the affirmative is not granted by the ZHB to allow for the facility, the decision will have the effect of prohibiting personal wireless services facilities by materially inhibiting the ability of Verizon Wireless to provide state-of-the-art wireless service to its users in violation of the federal Telecommunications Act.”

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