No New Antennas on Tower

December 08, 2005

Moon Over Monopole IT IS NOT UNCOMMON for some to oppose the construction of a new tower. But here's a story where a town in New Mexico has opposed the installation of antennas on an existing tower.

According to an article in the Mountain View Telegraph, Nextel Communications approached the Town of Edgewood already in 2003 to co-locate some antennas on an existing 180' monopole. The tower, which was legally constructed in 2001, is now out of compliance with the town's new zoning ordinance. The Edgewood Town Council denied Nextel's application because they felt the existing tower "is out of compliance with setback, visual buffer and safety requirements, which means modifications cannot be made to the existing structure."

According to Richard Comie of the Center for Municipal Solutions, the only way to bring the tower into compliance would be to tear down the old one and put up a new one, costing the tower owner somewhere in the range of $140,000 on top of the $130,000 already invested in the existing tower.
Mountain View Telegraph | Moriarty, NM | 4/28/2005

It's one thing to oppose a new tower due to aesthetic reasons, but to hold a wireless provider and its customers hostage because it did not have the foresight to have a telecommunications ordinance in place prior to 2001 is ridiculous.

Let's hope more communities don't deny requests for co-location for the same reasons. ■

Zoning Print