Subject: (Gareau) some good news... (fwd) Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 134654 -0600 (CST) From: "Roy L. Beavers" <rbeavers@llion.org> To: emfguru <rbeavers@llion.org> -------------------------------------------------- ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 12:33:36 EST From: GAREAUK@aol.com To: rbeavers@llion.org Subject: some good news... Hi Roy... Here's an update for you regarding our case. I've been fighting a battle in rural RI(Greene) with Nextel. We found out in October that they want to put a 150 ft. cell tower in a seasonal campground on land that's zoned rural residential and recreation, conservation and open space ! It's also directly across the street from a 500+ federal wildlife preserve! At the zoning meeting on Nov. 4 Nextel had their lawyer bring along a stenographer and 4 expert witnesses-just like Kirk Wines states on his web page, which is an extremely valuable resource for people fighting these monstrosities (www.cellslayer.com)- including a real estate appraiser who said that towers don't depreciate the value of surrounding houses. You just may have fewer people interested in buying them once they see the tower. (duh) We were unprepared for the formal proceedings of that evening ( it was run just like a mini-trial) and the neighbors raised some great points, but since we are not experts our common sense opinions didn't really matter. Testimony was closed that night. The zoning board requested some additional info. from Nextel and sent the matter to the planning commission for a recommendation. In the meantime, the neighbors and abutters of the campground united and decided to try to have testimony reopened. We now call ourselves IMPACT-not only because we feel every tower has an impact in every neighborhood or community it goes in, but also because we are Intensely Motivated People Against Communications Towers. (Don't laugh. It took all day to come up with this name.) I also met someone in another Rural, RI community via your web site(thank you very much) who had just successfully shooed away Cellular One from his neighborhood. He gave me a lot of useful information, including the name of his appraiser, who we did hire. The impact study that Nextel was allowed to submit to our town was done in Boston!(remember we live in a rural area with 2-5 acre zoning and large wooded lots) They were allowed to submit into testimony an impact study done in an industrial area in Boston where there was already an existing cell tower. I felt it was grossly unfair to compare our beautiful surroundings to such an urban area and I let everyone know it! I wrote letters to the editors of our local papers, to the zoning board members and town solicitor, and I talked to the reporters from all 3 local papers. I gave them all the information I have regarding cell towers, the Telecommunications Act....and various web sites for them to look at. They all wrote articles, basically defending our position, trying to inform the public of what was happening. I also read our towns Comprehensive Plan, which was extremely informative. I can't tell you how many times it refers to "preserving open space in its natural state" and "preserving the character of our neighborhoods." This is a crucial bit of info. Every town or city has copies of its Comp. plan in the local library. People should research it extensively! I was fortunate to borrow a copy from a former planning commission member and another friend of mine. You can also purchase copies) I also had the minutes from the zoning board and planning commission meetings regarding a similar case in our town in 1997 when Sprint was denied a tower in a residential neighborhood. I used the same reasons (where applicable) for denial in our argument in front of the planning commission on Jan. 13. Luckily the chairman of our planning commission gave us an opportunity to speak and he actually respects people with common sense so they did in fact vote to DENY (6-2) Nextel the special use permit based on: depreciation of real estate values, not enough alternative sites were looked at, and basically it doesn't belong in a residential neighborhood (or something to that effect; this could be bad for us later if they appeal, but I don't think they will.) Now it gets even more interesting...it was supposed to go back to zoning for a decision on Feb. 3 BUT the head of our zoning board passed away last week so they won't have a quorum, therefore they can't vote. As a result the public hearing will be postponed to Mar. 3 where Nextel will have to start all over again! They can't vote on it until the next month, which brings us to April. We are now prepared for them. We have 2 real estate experts, the appraiser and a friend who lives about a mile from where the tower would be and an "expert" on our comprehensive plan who will bring up discrepancies with the plan and this tower. He's the ex-planning commission member who happened to be the vice chairman of the advisory committee when the comprehensive plan was being written. So things are looking up. I think that Nextel may actually look for a more appropriate site(not that there ever really is one) in the middle of the woods where no one can see it. If you can't see it at least it won't ruin the character of the neighborhood and it won't depreciate real estate values so although I would rather live in a community with no towers, I realize that's simply not possible at this time. I'm sorry this is so long but this case has been complicated from the start. I think it's very important for people to act a swiftly as possible when hearing of a proposed tower coming into their neighborhood. You absolutely have to: Hire a real estate expert or experts(if a tower goes up it will absolutely diminish the value of your property); Read your comprehensive Plan or Tower ordinance and make copies for the zoning board of any pertinent information; Having a lawyer is nice, but not really necessary; Be reasonable in your requests/concerns(Don't whine or get emotional, which is hard sometimes); Become familiar with the Telecommunications Act! Do not dwell on the health effects! I didn't even mention them at the planning commission meeting other than the fact that just the perception that there might be a health risk can automatically reduce your property values; Have petitions all ready to hand in for the first meeting in case you get shut out like we did(Get as many people to the meeting as possible but make sure you tell them to be respectful at all times-even though you may want to punch the people for the towers) Make friends with your newspaper reporters and write letters to everybody! Research everything! GOOD LUCK! Karen PS sorry this is so long but i can't believe we won the first battle! Archive provided courtesy of WaveGuide, http://www.wave-guide.org Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.feb.se/EMF-L/EMF-L.html