Subject: Bell Towers that don't ring???....
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1998 164629 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Roy L. Beavers" <rbeavers@mail.llion.org>
To: emfguru@hotmail.com
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 01 Sep 1998 08:24:28 -0700
From: dingel@concentric.net
To: rbeavers@llion.org
Subject: Please broadcast
'Stealth tower' or bell tower?
Sprint asks church to hide structure
By Hugh Lessig
Daily Press
HAMPTON - Meet the newest weapon in the public relations
campaign
over communications towers.
It is 70 feet tall. It doesn't look like a communications
tower at all. When all is
said and done, it might even chime on Sunday morning.
It is the "stealth tower," and Sprint PCS wants to build it
on the grounds of
the Faith Outreach Center on Mercury Boulevard. It will be a
regular
communications tower hidden inside a fake bell tower. Sprint
officials say it
would blend in with a landscape that is part commercial,
part residential.
In working with the church, Sprint is trying to follow the
first rule of good
community relations: Thou shalt not antagonize thy neighbor.
The church must approve the design, as must the city. The
planning
commission recently recommended approval to the Hampton City
Council,
which will consider the project Sept. 9.
The stealth philosophy isn't new to Hampton. Radio antennas
attached to the
downtown Harbour Centre are painted to match the outside of
the building.
But this project, if approved, would be the first
free-standing stealth tower in
the city, said Jacqueline Stephan, a city planner.
In this case, the right combination of circumstances came
together to allow
Sprint to propose the project, said James Cinnamon, a Sprint
property
specialist.
"These can only be done in specific situations," Cinnamon said.
Sprint needs a tower somewhere in that neighborhood to cover
its service
area, Cinnamon said. Some towers are 150 feet high, but in
this case, a
tower about 70 feet tall can do the job, he said.
Sprint tried to find a structure that was already 70 feet
tall and attach an
antenna to it; an office building or a sign would have done
nicely.
But that area of Mercury Boulevard, although it has plenty
of commercial
buildings, has no structures that tall, Cinnamon said.
Sprint officials know that neighbors would notice a
conventional tower. "It
would be very difficult to hide it," he said.
The church had space available to lease to Sprint. The Rev.
Mason Clark
said it will cost him two parking spaces. But the income
from the lease will go
into an outreach ministry, allowing the church to do its own
brand of
communicating.
If possible, the bell tower will play electronic music. That
has yet to be
worked out, though. Clark said it's too early to say how the
final design will
look.
"We would love to have a functioning bell tower," Clark said.
Another alternative is to place a steeple on the church and
hide the tower in
that. Church leaders and the congregation will have a say.
Several neighbors attended a public meeting held at the
church to discuss the
tower. Cinnamon, Clark and Stephan said no one voiced any
serious fears or
concerns.
They wanted to know if the tower would interfere with their
televisions and
telephones. Some asked about the structural integrity of the
tower. Others
wanted to know how it would affect parking.
Any interference that results from a telecommunications
tower must be
corrected at the provider's expense, according to Federal
Communications
Commission regulations.
All towers must be designed to meet or exceed "wind loads"
for a particular
area. The wind load for that site is one produced by a 95
mph wind,
according to Cinnamon's report.
A check of several homes near the church found people who
either were not
opposed or who simply wanted to know more.
Marsha Scearce, who lives within sight of the church on
Aspenwood Drive,
said the idea of a tower didn't bother her. The same was
true for Marshall
Massengill, who lives on Woodbury Forrest Drive, right
behind the church.
"I don't have any objection to it," he said.
Across the street from Massengill, Reid Hudson had mixed
feelings.
Hudson could not attend the neighborhood meeting. "I'm not
opposed to it,"
he said, "but I don't know enough about it."
Hugh Lessig can be reached at 247-4787 or by e-mail at
hlessig@dailypress.com
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