By Scott MacKeen
Staff Writer
4/23/09
A cell tower that would stand four times higher than the town’s height restriction is being proposed for a site adjacent to the highway.
Green Mountain Communications, a New Hampshire-based telecommunications provider, has proposed construction of the tower, which would stand at 140 feet on land they have leased from MassHighway.
The land is located next to the southbound Route 93 on-ramp near Blue Hill River Road and Blue Hill Street, according to documents prepared by Green Mountain.
Town Planner Bill Clark said the proposal is currently before the Conservation Commission because some of the woods surrounding the parcel contain wetlands.
The cell tower would also involve the installation of a chain link fence and a 12-foot-wide gravel access road in an area with vegetative wetlands nearby, according to Kathy Bowen, administrative assistant for the commission.
Clark said cell-phone coverage in that area of town is “spotty at best.”
“I didn’t get the objection I thought I might get” when talking to neighbors about the proposal, which requires Zoning Board approval, Clark said.
But the Zoning Board would
still have to notify abutters to the land and hold a public hearing once it receives formal applications for the plan.
The tower was discussed at the April 16 meeting of the Board of Selectmen. According to information provided to the board, a public hearing had taken place four years ago at the Council on Aging on the issue. The Selectmen stressed that the issue would need to go before the Board of Appeals before any further action could take place on the tower.
Conservation officials have done a site walk of the property but did not reach a formal vote last week, Bowen said.
If the applications are filed to the Board of Appeals, a public hearing could begin in late May, board secretary Diane Colligan said.
Green Mountain Communications operates out of Wolfeboro Falls, N.H., and its Web site is located at www.greenmtncomm.com.
(Staff writer Kathy Kurtz Ferrari contributed to this story.)