Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Board struggles to find right words for Nextel (November 8, 2002)

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 09 Nov 2002 15:46:13 -0500

This is interesting....

Imagine a Nextel site in your house. You could have "On Toilet Portable Coverage".

<Snip>

"Nextel wants to place a six-panel antenna inside the cupola of a private residence in a
rural neighborhood off Bradford Street. Neighbors oppose the plan, but the application has
satisfied nearly all town requirements except for one.
http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/boardstruggles8.htm

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November 8, 2002

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Board struggles to find right words for Nextel

Planners try to write permit that won't leave P'town at mercy of courts, telecom industry.

By EMILY C. DOOLEY

STAFF WRITER
PROVINCETOWN - With big business on one side and bylaws on the other, planning board members voted again Wednesday to continue a hearing about a cellular antenna.

But it wasn't the decision slowing down the five-member board. Rather, it had to do with just how to word approval of a special permit requested by Nextel Communications. The board, which meets again later this month, has until January to issue its decision.

Nextel wants to place a six-panel antenna inside the cupola of a private residence in a rural neighborhood off Bradford Street. Neighbors oppose the plan, but the application has satisfied nearly all town requirements except for one.

At issue is the 500-foot rule, which requires all cellular facilities to be at least that distance from homes, schools, cemeteries and senior centers.

Board members worried that denying the permit based on one fact could open the town to problems.

A lawsuit is already pending in federal court over the bylaw and a zoning board of appeals decision, which refused to grant the telecommunications giant a waiver from the 500-foot setback.

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 allows companies to appeal local decisions in federal court. It also gives judges the right to approve applications without placing local restrictions or conditions, town counsel Kay Doyle said.

"They'll come up with another way," board member Barnett Adler said. "They'll get another body to overrule what we do. We have to look at the long-range possibilities and realize what they would come up with could be more detrimental to the town."

Wednesday, board members only discussed how to approve the permit. The board has a couple of choices and both end with approval.

"They have the upper hand at this point," Adler said.

The board could approve the special permit, but condition it on either the zoning board or a federal judge granting a waiver to the 500-foot rule.

"(Nextel) would have less of a reason to challenge the bylaw if the special permit were granted with that condition," Doyle said.

Only member Len Bowen seemed opposed to the permit. "What's necessarily best for Nextel, what's easiest, perhaps, isn't what is necessarily best for the town," he said.

(Published: November 8, 2002)

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