— Holly Grosch

NEW SCOTLAND — Cingular Wireless, as anticipated, has applied to build a 90-foot cell tower on Woods Hill Road. Cingular’s representative came before the zoning board last week for the first time to officially introduce its plans.

Adam Walters, an outside attorney who has offices in Buffalo and Albany spoke on the telecommunications company’s behalf last Tuesday. Deborah Burke, from Pyramid Network Services, the company that has submitted the application on behalf of Cingular, also attended.

The proposed plan is to build a 90-foot monopole to the south side of the municipal water tank located on Woods Hill Road. There is already an existing 95-foot Sprint cell tower to the north side of the tank.
"No one likes to see a new monopole," Walters said of local residents, adding that Cingular too, prefers to co-locate on an existing tower rather than build a new one, because "it’s much more expensive to build our own than to rent from Sprint."

But, the highest space available on Sprint’s telecommunications tower is at 70 feet, which would be below the 75-foot tree line, Walters said, and, as a result, would not provide the needed wireless coverage.

Walters said that Sprint indicated to him that 70 feet was the highest available spot on the tower because the existing tower already has one carrier at 100 feet and another at 85 feet.
"This site is a good site," for a new tower, Walters said. "It’s well screened, well wooded and is fenced in."

New Scotland passed a telecommunication law last year that states that any telecommunication tower proposed to be taller than 45 feet requires a variance, which means almost all cell-phone companies’ towers will require a variance and as result will go through rigorous review by the town’s zoning and planning boards.

The law also stipulates a non-refundable $4,000 application fee, and an initial security deposit of $8,500 be placed into escrow to pay engineers and other outside consultants the town may have to hire to review the application.

In order for Cingular’s desired tower to be built, a number of applications have to be approved by the town, including a use variance, the new telecommunications special use permit, and area variances.

For example, the proposed location for the tower is 24 feet from a property line so Cingular will need an area variance for that as well, to meet set-back requirements.

Zoning Administrator Paul Cantlin said that, once Walters makes his initial presentations to the zoning and planning boards, then his department can digest what Cingular wants to do and decide what variances must be pursued first, and the process to go about the total application.

Visual impact & other sites
Walters began to exhibit visual-impact photo-simulation pictures at the zoning board meeting last week. Visual impact studies are required by the town’s new law.
As Walters showed pictures from all over town, looking into where the new tower would be, he claimed that the tower "will largely not be visible based on the terrain." His pictures were taken in the winter, he said, so this represents the worst-case scenario for visibility with the trees still leafless.

Zoning board member Adam Greenberg said that he would like to see the escarpment in the view-shed analysis as well.
Walters also showed diagrams that demonstrated which areas of town currently do not receive reliable coverage from Cingular and how the new tower will "fill in the gap."

Cingular has a long term plan to place another new tower in Delmar, Walters said, which will then completely close out areas without service.

New Scotland’s cell-tower law requires the telecommunications company to show all possible co-location spots and to observe the town’s placement priority list.

Companies must one by one prove that a tower or antenna cannot be placed and reach similar objectives at a town determined preferred location.

The first-priority location is on an existing tower; the second is on a town-owned structure; the third is on electrical power lines, transmission towers, or power poles; and the fourth is on other existing structures in town such as a water tower, silo, or church steeple.

Walters said that, while the Woods Hill Road location is ideal to serve the area Where Cingular currently has poor coverage, the 60-foot-high water tank is not high enough to place an antenna above the tree line.

One location the zoning board requested that Cingular include in its review is on top of the flag pole in the town park on Swift Road, down the street from Woods Hill Road.

Cingulars’ new tower, like the old Sprint tower, would be set back behind and to the side of the water tank but situated at a diagonal angle from each other because the towers can not be placed in line, otherwise there would be interference and static in the phone service. As a result, the two towers will not be shielding each other from view, Walters said.
Walters agreed to do propagation studies from Niagara Mohawk’s poles as the board requested, "although," he said, "they are much shorter."

Greenberg also asked about the possibility of stealth technology or a flagpole structure rather than a tower.

Burke responded that it would limit the coverage and capacity of the tower, stating that a flagpole structure prevents the possibility of other companies co-locating on it later.

Additional horizontal space is needed to place more antennas, because each company needs about two antennas, Walters said.

Since the town’s law prefers placing a new antenna on an existing tower, any new towers are required to be designed and built to accommodate future demands for at least one more commercial application. Walters said that Cingular’s proposed mono-pole is capable of hosting one more carrier.
Referring to a map that showed a lot of white area representing poor coverage, Greenberg asked if he stood on a road in the white area in New Scotland, did that mean that his Cingular cell phone would not work there"
Walters said the area labeled "not reliable," means the call is consistently dropped or has static.

Cingular representatives, expressed interest in being on the planning board’s agenda on June 7.