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No, it isn't! Franklin Park commissioned a study by RJM Wireless at a cost of $24,000. The results, which Borough Council made sort of public*, make clear that we don't need this particular cell tower to improve coverage. There are several other options, which RJM's study terms b-alt (B, alternate), c-alt (C, alternate), and d-alt (D, alternate).
* They're on the Borough website, but you can't get to them unless you already know they're there and search specifically for them by name. Search for "RJM study" and it should be one of the top few results.
1. Large towers ("macro sites", in industry jargon) somewhere else. The RJM study identified at least three other sites that would improve coverage: it doesn't have to be at the golf course.
2. Small cells, throughout the Borough.
3. Coverage improvements at the level of individual homes, such as signal amplifiers.
It's the (comparatively) cheap answer. It involves one tower, and one site that they'd already started to study.. They could just as easily put a tower somewhere else, and the RJM study makes clear that there's nothing magical about the golf course location.
Smaller cells also cost less individually, but they'd need more of them, so the total cost would be higher.
Of course they do, and they've shown it by deploying small cells in McCandless after McCandless passed the type of cell-tower ordinance that Franklin Park needs to pass.
The stated reason has changed over time.
In 2017-8, this was promoted as a way to improve cell reception while making some money (in leasing fees for the land the tower would sit on) for the borough.
More recently, we have been told that the borough has an urgent, life-or-death need for better two-way radio reception for emergency services, and that tower builders would allow the borough to put a two-way radio repeater on a tower at the golf course.
More than three years have already passed since the TAC started this charade in January 2021, and SBA has estimated the total construction time for a tower at two years.
If you had a life-threatening emergency, would you wait five years for a solution?
Me neither. I'd use an existing tower to put up my repeater right away. But then, I'm not looking for an excuse to help Verizon save a little money. The TAC and SBA, on the other hand, viewed public-safety radio reception as one of their "talking points" (their word!) for how to sell this debacle to Franklin Park residents.
It basically draws a big arrow pointing to the golf course.
Needless to say, SBA -- Verizon's tower builder from Round One in 2017-8 -- thought that ordinance was just ducky!
Borough Council needs to repeal the cell-tower ordinance, and replace it with a more thoughtful one. The one McCandless passed is a great example of how to do better.
They can't consider health risks to residents, nor environmental damage.
Obviously that was less than stellar lawmaking by Congress in 1996: health risks may well exist, and clear-cutting 10,000 square feet of forest is not generally considered a great thing for the environment. But more importantly, what is Borough Council allowed to consider? They can consider any or all of the following:
- Damage to Borough residents' property values
- Damage to the golf course itself, either as a golf course or as land for other uses in future should golf continue to fade in popularity
- The incoherence of putting a tower the height of an 18-story building in a quiet residential area
- Disturbance to residents' lives from the construction process
- The flashing warning beacon that the FAA will likely require on any "macro" tower - especially one located on a flight path to Pittsburgh airport, like the proposed golf course location
- Noise from the required diesel backup generator, which has to run every so often whether needed or not
The 2018 ordinance, for all its many failings, does also lay out several other requirements that Verizon and tower builders will not be able to meet at the golf course location.
First and foremost, a tower builder has to prove that no less-intrusive alternative exists. As the ordinance states:
"The WCF applicant shall further demonstrate that the proposed tower-based WCF must be located where it is proposed in order to serve the WCF applicant's service area and that no other viable, less-intrusive alternative location exists."
The RJM study has already demonstrated the opposite: at least three viable, less-intrusive alternatives exist. Therefore, it is impossible for a tower builder to meet the criterion laid out by the 2018 ordinance.
Later, the ordinance requires that:
"The Borough Council shall consider whether its decision upon the subject application will promote the harmonious and orderly development of the zoning district involved; encourage compatibility with the character and type of development existing in the area; benefit neighboring properties by preventing a negative impact on the aesthetic character of the community; preserve woodlands and trees existing at the site to the greatest possible extent; and encourage sound engineering and land development design and construction principles, practices and techniques."
An eighteen-story-tall tower is hardly compatible with the single-family homes all around it, and will certainly not "benefit neighboring properties"; on the contrary, it will destroy the value of those properties.
Yet again:
"A WCF applicant for a tower-based WCF must demonstrate that a significant gap in wireless coverage or capacity exists in the applicable area and that the type of WCF being proposed is the least intrusive means by which to fill that gap in Wireless coverage."
As the study proves, a giant tower at the Clover Hill golf course is not the least intrusive means by which to fill the gap in coverage. Therefore, since the ordinance states that the applicant "must demonstrate" this, the Council would be disobeying its own ordinance by approving an application to put a cell tower at the Clover Hill golf course.
According to an article posted by the Pennsylvania Association of Realtors, buyers would pay "as much as 20 percent less" for a house near a cell tower.
Are you prepared to let Borough Council wipe out 20 percent of your property value, simply so that Verizon can improve coverage the cheap way?
First and foremost, get involved! You're already taking a great first step by reading this and educating yourself about what's going on. But please don't stop there! Tell others about the situation. Talk it over with your neighbors. Put out a yard sign (click below to request one - they're free, and we'll even bring it to you!) And above all -- come to borough meetings and make your voice heard!
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