Cell Tower Reports Could Be Ready by Late March

Technical reports on five potential cell tower sites from T-Mobile Northeast could be ready by late March. In the meantime, the pending applications to build the towers will be carried to future planning board and board of adjustment meetings.

Two of the applications, for 200 Colfax Road and 970 Valley Road, were carried forward to the April 18 board of adjustment meeting. Two others, for 1310 Route 23 and 1015 Ratzer Road, were carried to the board of adjustment’s March 21 meeting.

The application for 2122 Hamburg Turnpike is scheduled for Monday night's planning board meeting, but that application will be carried to a future meeting as well.

The township hired RCC Consultants, a telecommunications engineering and consulting firm in Woodbridge,  to review the information gathered by T-Mobile. RCC will pay close attention to the technical aspects of the applications and report on the data at a public meeting for the boards to consider before voting on the applications.

“I want to make sure they are doing their due diligence,” said Doug Fishman, director of the northeast region for RCC Consultants.

Several dozen residents have expressed concern about the towers, citing potential health concerns and the negative effect they could have on neighboring property values. The Colfax Road application has been met with hard-nosed resistance from some nearby residents because, if approved, it will be built in a residential zone. 

“The energy from the antennas is very focused; you get no where near the area of concern that you get with a cell phone and, relative to where the antennas will be relative to someone’s head, there’s nothing to worry about,” Fishman said. “I’m a lot more concerned about putting my cellular phone to my ear.”