Firm Seeks Variance For Telecom Tower In Sandy Hook

By Andrew Gorosko

A Waterbury firm is seeking several zoning variances from the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) which, if granted, would allow the company to apply to build an almost 200-foot-tall tower for commercial wireless telecommunications off Berkshire Road in Sandy Hook.

The facility would be the eighth commercial wireless telecommunications site in Newtown.

In its ZBA application, SBA Communications Inc. seeks several variances of the zoning regulations concerning tower setbacks and the tower’s proximity to residential buildings.

SBA wants to build a 199-foot-tall monopole style steel tower at 249 Berkshire Road, also known as Route 34. The property is the site of the Sandy Hook Volunteer Fire and Rescue Company’s substation firehouse. It lies just to east of Berkshire Road’s intersection with Checkerberry Lane. The communications firm would lease space on the property from the fire company for the tower site.

By building a tower less than 200 feet tall, the applicant can avoid requirements for the installation of navigation lights on it. 

The ZBA is scheduled to hold a public hearing on the requested zoning variances April 5 at 8 pm at the town land use office at Canaan House at Fairfield Hills.

Last November, the Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) approved a new set of commercial telecommunications regulations, concerning towers, antennas, and electronics buildings, which has resulted in SBA seeking variances to those new regulations in order to erect a tower.

 The new regulations give the town certain regulatory powers over the placement of facilities intended for cellular telephony and other forms of commercial radio telecommunications. The regulations are intended to balance the need for such facilities with protecting the public health, safety, convenience, and property values. The new rules acknowledge the limitations placed on municipalities by the Federal Telecommunications Act of 1996, which bars towns from banning such telecommunications facilities.

Although the P&Z created the new regulations, the ZBA is the town agency charged with reviewing commercial telecommunications applications.

 In its application, SBA explains it wants to build a tower on behalf of several licensed wireless telecommunications carriers, including Sprint and Nextel, as part of their telecommunications networks.

SBA proposes that the existing lattice tower on the site used by Sandy Hook firefighters be removed and that the firemen’s radio equipment be relocated to its proposed tower.

The new tower regulations approved by the P&Z last November require that towers be set back from property boundary lines by a distance equal to the height of the tower, plus 25 feet, thus requiring a tower setback of 224 feet from all property lines in the SBA proposal.

 To get around that requirement, the applicant needs at least three setback variances. In one case, the applicant is asking that the distance from the base of the tower to an adjacent property line be only 77 feet, instead of 224 feet.

The P&Z requires such setbacks around towers, known as “fall zones,” to prevent a towers from landing on adjacent properties in the event the tower falls over.

Also, SBA Communications is asking the ZBA to grant a variance to the zoning regulation requiring that a tower be at least 500 feet from all residential buildings. SBA is seeking to build the tower within 285 feet of a house.

In its request for the variances, the applicant states that the literal application of the zoning regulations would create a hardship for it, preventing the telecommunications firms from providing a service as required by their federal licenses.

SBA states that locating Sandy Hook’s fire radio equipment on the tower provides for the health, safety, and welfare of the community.

 Newtown now has seven sites for commercial wireless telecommunications: off Berkshire Road, near Newtown High School; off South Main Street, near the Monroe town line; off the end of Ferris Road; at the Connecticut Light and Power Company’s service center on Barnabas Road in Hawleyville; off Interstate-84 in Hawleyville, near the Brookfield town line; in the steeple of the Meeting House on Main Street; in the tower of Edmond Town Hall on Main Street.

The P&Z’s new rules are intended to encourage the location of commercial wireless telecommunications towers and antennas away from residential neighborhoods and to protect natural and scenic vistas. The rules encourage the placement of facilities on non-residential buildings and structures. The regulations also encourage the joint use of new or existing towers and facilities. Through the rules, the P&Z hopes to minimize the adverse visual and operational effects of the facilities through careful design, siting, and screening, and hopes to protect historic aspects of the community from adverse effects.

The regulations are intended to reduce the number of towers and/or antennas needed in the future and to accommodate the need for such facilities, while regulating their location and number.