A 122-foot wireless transmission tower proposed for 57th Street in the Edgemere-Sackville neighborhood is likely to move forward after a judge overturned the city’s attempts to block the structure.
On Jan. 20, Judge B. Avant Edenfield of the U.S. District Court ruled in favor of Vantage Tower Group, finding that the city’s denial of a height variance for the pole violated the federal Telecommunications Act.
The case dates back to October 2013 when the Metropolitan Planning Commission denied the request for the tower at 57th and Waters Avenue, according to a staff report.
Vantage appealed the decision to the City Council, and in February 2014, the council reversed the denial by the planning board but voted down three variances necessary to the structure and limited its height to 85 feet.
Vantage appealed this
decision to the Chatham County Superior Court and on Jan. 20, the court remanded the request for the variance back to the city with instructions to comply with the Telecommunications Act.
“We’re disappointed. That’s basically all I can say right now,” said Rosa Davis, secretary of the Edgemere-Sackville Neighborhood Association, which had opposed the tower.
She said she found it most surprising the city’s zoning laws and policies could be disregarded by a federal court and said the new tower would be next to an apartment complex in a residentially zoned area.
“It’s a lower-income neighborhood; we don’t have parks, we don’t have a lot of infrastructure, so this knocks the neighborhood down another notch,” she said.
Davis said this is especially discouraging considering the cell tower will serve more affluent neighborhoods like Ardsley Park without being an eyesore to those residents.
In its court documents, Vantage said the new tower is necessary to satisfy increasing demand by consumers for mobile data.
A letter from Vantage’s law firm, Brennan, Wasden & Painter, dated Feb. 16 said the company would like to work with the city and neighborhood association to add landscaping to “enhance the entry area to the neighborhood” and lower the height of the lighting beacon by about 5 feet.
The memo said the tower would also service carrier T-Mobile in addition to AT&T as its anchor tenant.
An update on the tower was presented last week to the Metropolitan Planning Commission and will appear once more before the City Council for a final decision. After the court ruling, the city attorney is recommending the tower be permitted.