Community Corner

T-Mobile Creating Report for Cell Tower Sites

Applications will be carried to April meetings.

T-Mobile Northeast is conducting a study of the five proposed cell tower sites for which it has applications before the planning board and board of adjustment, at the request of the township's communications consultant. 

"The applicant is doing further investigations to obtain additional radio frequency data," zoning board attorney Randall Chiocca said at the board of adjustment meeting Tuesday night. "The applicant is working on creating a comprehensive report for all sites."

RCC Consultants Inc., a telecommunications engineering and consulting firm in Woodbridge, has requested information regarding the impact the proposed cell towers would have on the sites. The town hired RCC recently to conduct an overview of the five cell tower applications pending before the zoning and planing boards.

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T-Mobile will submit a comprehensive report to RCC "for all sites" Chiocca said, which RCC will discuss at an upcoming public hearing, so the boards can consider that information in their decision-making process before they vote to approve or deny the applications.

Chiocca said he did not know when T-Mobile's report would be complete.

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Zoning board Chairman William Van Gieson was sympathetic towards people who attended the meeting or watched it on television.

"It's not our intention to waste anyone's time," Van Gieson said.

T-Mobile has requested that any action on its five cell tower applications be delayed until meetings in April. The two applications on last night's agenda were moved to the April 18 meeting. One application, which calls for a tower to be built at 200 Colfax Road, has been met with resistance from area residents. They say they are concerned about the possible short- and long-term health risks that radiation emanating from the towers might pose. They are also concerned that the homes in the area will decrease in value once the towers are built.

Residents met at an informal public meeting recently hosted by Councilwoman Lonni Miller Ryan to discuss the applications.


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