>T-Mobile must work with residents regarding cell tower, says Spalding County Board of Appeals

>A decision regarding the T-Mobile cell tower near the intersection of S. Sixth Street and Maddox Road has been postponed yet again.

At the last Spalding County Board of Appeals meeting the motion was carried to have the T-Mobile representatives Marshall Melvin and Butler Fevrier meet with the residents of the area in question directly.
“Last Friday I sent an email to Marshal Melvin (site acquisition agent for T-Mobile) and asked if they were interested in meeting with residents. I suggested Thursday January 27, 2011 as a possible date. As of this morning [January 17] I have not heard back from them,” wrote Lucian Tatum, unofficial resident spokesperson, via email.

Though this was the third board of appeals meeting held discussing the T-Mobile cell tower site, resident opposition has not diminished; the small room was overflowing with residents that opposed the placement of this tower.

T-Mobile presented a “tweaked” tower to the board and residents. Instead of a 138-foot tower, they proposed a 135-foot “mono-pine” tower, a tower that Lucian Tatum describes as “a tower that is only three foot shorter than the original proposal and looks like a gigantic bottle brush.”

“I think most of the residents would like the tower to be located in an alternate location or for T-Mobile to use Distributed Antenna System technology (DAS). This technology uses a series of small transmitters mounted either on existing utility poles or new short (35-40 ft) poles. This type of system is planned to be implemented in Peachtree city,” said Tatum.

“These systems have a very low visual impact. Also the county could receive a percentage of the revenue the developer of the system makes. If a tower is allowed then most likely the county could see a loss in revenue: many of the residents have stated that they will ask for a lower assessment of their property values if a tower is constructed (which means lower property tax revenue),” said Tatum.

Tatum suggests that T-Mobile has ruled out the DAS system simply because it would be more expensive and complex to implement: “Regarding DAS: T-mobile’s Radio Engineer admitted in the first appeals meeting that the Distributed Antenna Systems are more expensive and technically more difficult to implement than towers. But they did not deny that such a system, while not as efficient or economical from their point of view as a tower, would work.”

It seems the Board of Appeals has turned over the responsibility to T-Mobile to make their proposals and appeals directly to the residents of the area in question: find a solution that makes the residents happy, or place your tower elsewhere.