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Thursday, September 07, 2006
Ind. Gov't. - Cell towers in the news
As noted in this ILB entry yesterday, the Court of Appeals today is hearing oral arguments in St. Charles Tower, Inc. v. Bd. of Zoning Appeals of Evansville, a dispute regarding a 185-foot wireless telecommunication tower.
Here is a report from the Chesterton Tribune at the other end of the state, written by Paulene Poparad, that begins:
Its four-hour special meeting ended Tuesday with the town of Porter’s Board of Zoning Appeals unanimously postponing until the Sept. 20 meeting a decision on whether to allow a 499-foot FM radio transmission tower to be built.The board said it wants more information about where the tower would fall if one or more of its three guyed anchor wires fails, and it needs more time for its attorney to prepare detailed findings of fact in the event the petition is denied.
Chicago Public Radio/WBEZ is asking that Aqua-Land Communications be granted a use variance to erect the tower at the southwest quadrant of Indiana 49 and U.S. 20 so CPR can boost the signal of Chesterton-based sister station WBEW and potentially increase its 89.5 FM listening audience five-fold to 2 million people in northwest Indiana.
A package of technology CPR is offering with the tower including free, three-year wireless Internet access for town residents, co-location capabilities for other providers who already have expressed interest, and upgraded communications for local emergency services all were hailed by proponents as a needed safety and economic-development tool that offsets minor tower disadvantages.
Because the heavily wooded 10.3 acres south of an access road linking the two highways is 80 percent wetlands and already has two approximately 200-foot-tall cellular towers on it, CPR attorney Richard Riley said the parcel is a perfect site for CPR’s needs. On the east side of Indiana 49 is the 421-foot Indiana State Police radio tower.
However, opponents said the tower would be an eyesore, its lights a distraction, that a live web camera mounted on it for emergency weather scans and tourism promotion would be an invasion of their privacy, and that the tower could fall on children playing in their own yards.
Said town planner Jim Mandon, “Guyed towers, probably all towers, have failed one time or another. Certainly if it fell directly toward U.S. 20 it’d be in the street.”
Posted by Marcia Oddi on September 7, 2006 08:38 AM
Posted to Indiana Government