Town Planner: Applicant Should Have Full Plans for Fixing T-Mobile Coverage Gap

Testimony centered on the tower’s proposed height and the need for a second tower in the future as the hearing for a T-Mobile cell tower at the . continued Tuesday.

Despite a hope that the hearing would end, the public did not have enough time to question Timothy Kronk, the applicant’s planner, and the hearing will continue Aug. 16.

Kronk began his continued testimony Tuesday by addressing questions about the distance between cell towers and the closest residential properties in other municipalities around the state. As examples, he spoke of one tower that is 230 feet from residential homes and another location where the tower is 250 feet away.

The tower proposed for the fire company would be about 150 feet from the nearest residence.

T-Mobile is seeking a variance from the zoning board to build a 125-foot tower on the fire company property in order to cover an estimated 1.7-mile gap in its coverage area, mostly in spots on Foothill and Crim roads and North Bridge Street.

The fire company has also requested permission to put a 5-foot antenna on top of the 125-foot tower to improve dispatching capabilities.

Kronk said that there have been examinations to determine whether there are other locations to build a tower or co-locate with another carrier, but none have worked out.

“We looked at the proximity of telecommunications properties near the fire company, and the closest ones are at Route 206 and the , both of which have been addressed in their inabilities to make any impact on the current coverage deficiencies that T-Mobile is experiencing,” he said.

In addition, Kronk discussed other locations in Bridgewater where wireless telecommunications is made possible in residential neighborhoods. He said the zoning board has, in the past, granted several use variances for wireless telecommunications.

“This is not meant to be precedent-setting,” he said.

Kronk cited several co-locations of wireless carriers on PSE&G towers and other existing structures throughout the township in residential zones.

And that raised red flags for the board.

“Is it safe to summarize that this is unprecedented in building a tower in a residential area?” asked board member Donald Sweeney. “In terms of what you gave us, this application is unprecedented because it requires construction of a new tower in a residential neighborhood.”

Kronk said there is a chance the building of a tower itself is unprecedented, but that allowing for wireless telecommunications in a residential neighborhood is not.

“Wireless telecommunications is a utility just like electric, gas and cable,” he said. “They are not just on transportation corridors, we bring utilities into residential zones. And we wouldn’t be bringing a new tower into a residential site if we had a co-location area, but there was no existing structure.”

Township Planner Scarlett Doyle, however, questioned why there was not additional research done given previous testimony by the applicant’s experts that completely fixing the gap in coverage in the specific area of Bridgewater would require two sites, with the second being either a tower or a possible co-location option. Doyle said she was specifically focusing on the height of the proposed tower, and, from a planning standpoint, wanted to know if it would be possible to lower the height of the structure at the fire company.

And, Doyle said, she did not know why the applicant had not presented its full plan for the two sites.

“Did you ever ask your consultant what height would be required at the North Bridge Street site if you put both towers up?” she asked, referring to a possible spot on Vogt Drive that is owned by the municipality and might be somewhere the applicant should look for additional wireless telecommunications. “Would it not have been appropriate to say, we have a gap, let’s get the whole thing together to see if we can drop the height of the tower?”

Doyle emphasized, after several objections by the applicant, that she was not recommending a new location for the proposed tower, but rather asking why the applicant had not built-out exact locations for all of its future applications to cover the specific coverage gap that would be serviced by the tower at the Green Knoll Volunteer Fire Company.

“I do believe [radio frequency expert] Richard Conroy did address that, and he said he would try to use existing structures for the second application,” Kronk said. “I don’t know what would be the maximum height at the other location, it’s a big hypothetical when you don’t have a bid.”

Doyle said her entire questioning had to do with the planning element of the application and working to fill a specific gap in coverage.

“I’m talking about a planner observation of height,” she said. “The gap has to be filled, we know it has to be filled, but the question is will filling the gap allow us to have the least intrusive approach.”

Doyle said it was the planner’s responsibility to examine the least intrusive method of fixing the gap in coverage in the section of Bridgewater.

Much of the discussion centered on the SICA Balancing Test, which Kronk used to weigh the positive impacts of what the tower could do for the community versus the negative impact of approving the application. There are four steps to it, Kronk said, and he believes the positives outweigh the negatives.

Kronk focused his testimony Tuesday on the fourth step, in which he performs a balancing between the promotion of the general welfare for telecommunications versus the negative, mostly visual, impacts associated with the application.

“When you perform the test, the standard is whether or not the impact would rise to the level of substantial detriment to the public good,” he said. “It is not whether or not it is visual, of course the tower would be visual.”

“When I balance the visual impact against the promotion of the general welfare, I find that the tower would be visible, but the visibility would not rise to the level of substantial detriment,” he added.

Doyle said that by the rules of the SICA test, the planner should have addressed where the second wireless telecommunications devices will need to be built in the future.

“You should have come to the board filling the gap and lowering the pole, and the planner should have addressed that in the SICA test,” she said.

Resident Andrew Leven spent about 40 minutes of the meeting speaking about the evidence before the board and other documents particularly pertaining to the SICA test. He began by focusing his attention on changes to cell phone use since the SICA test was initially introduced in 1998, and since information was handed down in 2010 concerning federal studies into banning cell phone usage in cars.

Although Gregory Meese, attorney for the applicant, objected to the line of questioning, Leven said he was merely trying to look at the relevance of the test today.

“If cell phone use is banned, it would diminish the benefit of the tower under the SICA Balancing Test,” Leven said.

Kronk said that that is not necessarily true.

“A passenger in a car could still use a phone in case of an emergency, and there is police and fire,” he said. “Any other uses would be beneficial even if the driver was not using a phone, plus there are all the residents in the surrounding area.”

Leven asked Kronk to focus specifically on the visual impact of the tower, and how that could affect the SICA test.

“Is what a person can see from a window of a home a factor in planning your analysis?” he asked, citing different aspects of that section of town, including the fact that the Green Knoll area of town is zoned residential and has no preexisting towers or high tension power lines and the height is limited to 35 feet. “Is what a person can see from a front yard a quality of life issue potentially?”

Leven also asked whether it would be a precedent for future towers if one could be built in the Green Knoll section of town under the township's residential zoning.

“What I’m driving at from the experts is if you can build in the Green Knoll section, what residential section can you not build in?” he asked.

Meese said the board cannot consider this.

“Every zoning case has to be presented on an individual case,” he said. “There are no precedents set by building one tower. There has to be a demonstrated lack of existing structures and a need for the facility.”

The hearing ended at 10:30 p.m., following Leven’s questions, and will continue with additional chances for the public to question Kronk on Aug. 16 at 7:30 p.m.