Item 6B - citizen presentationHart Cell Tower Concerns
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Inconsistency in application – Ronnie Valdez
Variances – Chris Ducey
Noise & Interference – David Wilhite
Current State & final recommendation – Eric Tang
Agenda
1. Ronnie – very brief intro and point out the inconsistency in their application and establish their lack of credibility
2. Chris - Variances that we should not approve for
3. David
– expert witness to debunk the noise claim from existing tower given the close proximity
4. Eric - provide recommendation for city for a comprehensive plan and re-cap the variances Chris
presented to deny the application on those technicalities.
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Hart Cell Tower Concerns
Inconsistency
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Justification of 911 Problem
5/15
911 Problem - Not a fear tactic
6/4
We proved the 911 problem is with accuracy of location data, not with dropped calls. The solution is not to build more cell towers.
6/4
8/15
What 911 problem?
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Tower height has to be 120’!
We have questioned the requested height of 120’ over 3 sessions but PI repeatedly insisted that it has to be 120’ as per their engineering and our code… Has there been a recent major
advancement in structural engineering? Our code obviously hasn’t changed.
..Final Answer?
It’s obvious that the higher it is the more tenants they can host but if we can build cell towers ¼ mi from the next cell tower, it defeats the purpose of colocation.
FYI, the tower
development company that proposed a tower for the Feedstore BBQ only requested 80’ which also meets the city requirement of co-location.
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Unable to co-locate because..
What about noise?
8/15
What’s next??
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Burden of proof for co-location?
As we have stated on 6/4, the owner of the tower confirmed its availability in writing - top mount available at 150’
We once again confirmed that the tower owners or their spouses still have not been contacted by anyone other than us as of Wednesday.
“Furthermore neither of our spouses are in the business and would not ever be at our place of business to be contacted for anything related to towers.”
The burden of proof should be on the applicant, not the resident or the staff.
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Hart Cell Tower Concerns
Variances
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Variances
Public street setback is not called out
The extent of the variance is quite drastic unlike continental site where they need less than 50ft from the utility lines
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45-7.d.7.C
Setbacks
Towers shall be a minimum of 200' or 2:1 distance to height ratio, whichever is greater, from the property line of properties used for residential purposes.
Mounted
antennas attached to existing structures (e.g., bell towers, church steeples, stadium lighting, electrical transmission towers, clock towers, and similar structures) are exempt from
the minimum residential setback and distance/height ratio regulations.
Towers shall be located in such a manner that if the structure should fall along its longest dimension, it will
remain within property boundaries and avoid habitable structures, public streets, utility lines and other telecommunication towers.
All guys and guy anchors shall be set back a minimum
of 20 feet from any property line.
No tower shall be located in front of the building facade facing any street, or be located within any required setback.
Setbacks
After the adjustment south it’s now next to a building and the Hart street
After the adjustment south it’s now next to the Hart street which is full of public parking
Livestock on property next door
See next page on potential outage to restore utility lines and poles
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Utility Easement Variance
The impact is significantly different between a cell tower physically falling and taking down power lines from simply blowing the fuse.
The duration of the impact should also be taken
into consideration since the downtime would be dramatically longer due to physical repairs required to restore the power lines and poles.
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Hart Cell Tower Concerns
Interference
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Simulated Noise Pollution
No data is presented to compare for the applied new tower location.
Avadavat exhibits D & E.
Coverage.
Height.
Compare to other tower.
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Same Signal Interference to Mustang Tower
~3500 ft from proposed site to Mustang tower.
~3500 ft = ~0.66 mi
~3000 ft from existing site to Mustang tower.
~3000 ft = ~0.56 mi
0.10 mi difference from either sites to Mustang tower.
Performance tuning are commonly done to address noise pollution
Proposed Site
Existing Site
Mustang Tower
Mustang Tower
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Simulated Coverage Enhancement
Coverage enhancement simulation from proposed site 3500’ away
X
X
No data is presented to compare for the existing tower location.
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Proximity to existing tower
Proposed Site
Existing Site
1300 ft from existing site to proposed site.
1300 ft is less than ¼ mi
If this tower is approved with a proximity of ¼ mi to an existing tower without any tenants then it will set
a precedence for other tower developers to build without requiring them to co-locate.
Approximately the distance to the Hilton Hotel north of City Hall.
Much closer than the highway and Home Depot from Town Hall.
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Hart Cell Tower Concerns
Existing Coverage
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“Less than optimum coverage”
The affidavit attempts to describe Exhibit A with 5 levels of signal strength while the actual exhibit A only has 4 levels.
On an iPhone 6, -106db displays as 2 bars and streams Netflix
seamlessly.
PI stated in the SPIN meeting that each of these areas will be addressed in the future
Need to perform a driving test with mobile radio network air interface measurement equipment:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drive_testing
Phone signal strength
iPhone Code *3001#12345#*
Android in Settings -> About Phone -> Status
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http://wireless.fcc.gov/signal-boosters/
FCC Promotes Signal Boosters
Irrelevant argument.
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Hart Cell Tower Concerns
Conclusion
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Comprehensive plan for the city
PI Telecom Infrastructure has not met the burden of proof for co-location
Deny the variances
Vote against this application based on the variances presented
and the co-location requirement has not been met.
Recommendation
Notes:
City to conduct independent study to confirm the existence of a problem and understand the extent of the problem.
City to come up with comprehensive plan that maximizes co-location
and minimizes impact to city skyline.
City ordinance needs to be adjusted to specify the search criteria to “Generally accepted cellular engineering principles” to prevent applicants
from manipulating search rings to bypass the co-location requirement.
All Carriers can not expect towers to be built at the perfect location as co-location is a requirement.
Vote against
this application based on the variances presented and the co-location requirement has not been met.
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