Mount Pleasant Town Board Approves Controversial Cell Tower

The Mount Pleasant Town Board unanimously approved a 156-foot cell tower on the town’s leaf-composting facility on Pocantico River Road despite strong objections from several neighboring residents.

The wireless telecommunications facility will be built by the Danbury-based Homeland Towers company. The monopine tower, which is camouflaged to look like a pine tree, will support up to four levels of antenna mounts from different wireless companies, according to Homeland Towers representatives.

The tower will be 150 feet to the top of the antenna array with the branching accounting for another six feet. Ground equipment will be located at the base of the tower and will be enclosed within an 80-foot by 40-foot fenced area.

During a three-hour public hearing last Tuesday night, neighboring residents said the tower would be an eyesore that would reduce property values and pose potential health risks.

“We’re going to live with this problem,” said Marlene Van Hegan, whose property is about 400 feet from the site.

She called on town officials to consider an alternate location away from residences. The town should contact another company that would be willing to construct a cell tower on another site, Van Hegan said.

A petition was signed by 27 neighboring residents opposing the tower, said resident Leo Chang, whose two unimproved lots and house are located next to the composting facility. He said he already sees the mulching site once the leaves fall off the trees and that the tower would degrade his family’s quality of life.

Public safety won’t be improved by the tower and with 5G service ready to be introduced, the tower is unnecessary, Chang said.

“What’s the need?” he asked rhetorically.

Supervisor Carl Fulgenzi said realtors and assessors have informed him that cell towers in neighborhoods do not affect home values. Furthermore, it isn’t known when 5G, the next advancement in cellular communications, will be added to the area. If in the future the tower is not needed, Homeland Towers would take it down, he said.

Fulgenzi said the town-owned composting facility was the proper location to improve cell phone service in the area, particularly for first responders.

“We have to make sure our emergency personnel can communicate with hospitals” and other facilities, he said.

Homeland Towers President Manny Vicente said the tower is “needed more than ever” because of the increased use and dependency on cell phones, even with the potential introduction of 5G in the area, he said.

Robert Gaudioso, an attorney representing Homeland Towers, said the tower would be well within Federal Communication Commission radio frequency emissions for cell towers and the tower would pose no health threats to residents.

Resident Joel Kasin said a more appropriate location for the cell tower would be at the site of a pump station on Route 9A, away from homes.

However, “dead spots” in cell phone coverage in the area of town near the composting facility makes that location most desirable, Fulgenzi responded.

Mount Pleasant Police Chief Paul Oliva said after he examined the proposal he concluded the tower will improve communication for police and emergency medical services.

Councilwoman Laurie Smalley said the cell tower would also provide needed cell phone coverage for students in dormitories on the campus of Pace University. Without cell service in their rooms, they are often unable to communicate with emergency responders, she said.

Resident Sheldon Marcus leveled sharp criticism at the Town Board’s for its review of the project. Telling board members that they favored the tower before last week’s hearing, Marcus called the hearing “a sham.”

The board did not respond to Marcus’s comment.