WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — After a year of hearings, community forums and consultations with the town's third-party peer reviewer, the Zoning Board of Appeals wants one more opportunity to clarify the key issue on a proposed cell tower at the junctions of Routes 2 and 7.

 

The board decided Thursday to continue its public hearing into May in order to arrange for a personal appearance by Walter Cooper of Williamsburg, Va., who has been the town's consultant throughout Verizon Wireless' application to erect a monopole tower at 1161 Cold Spring Road, in the parking lot behind the former Taconic Restaurant.

 

After more than two hours of testimony on Thursday, the ZBA voted 5-0 to ask Cooper to discuss his disagreement with Verizon's radio frequency engineer about how many "small cell" nodes could be mounted on utility poles to eliminate a 2.8-mile coverage gap in the area.

 

Verizon is on record as saying that it does not believe the small cell solution is one the company would be willing to consider. And on Thursday, ZBA members noted that a denial by the board is likely to end up in a Verizon appeal as allowed by the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

 

Residents near the proposed tower site have been pushing the board to deny the application, arguing that the proposed tower would harm an important viewshed and that Verizon is exaggerating the extent of the coverage gap.

 

Cooper's most recent letter to the town, dated March 13, accepted the 2.8-mile coverage gap but questioned the number of "small cell" units that would be required to fill it. Cooper said that five or six "nodes" could do the job, rather than the 26 Verizon has cited.

 

"That said, the single macrocell facility currently proposed by Verizon may be preferable to [small cell coverage] because it would be technically less complex, potentially more reliable and less costly," Cooper wrote in a March 13 email to Community Development Director Andrew Groff. "[The monopole] could be also be more quickly implemented while causing less interference with vehicular traffic along Route 7. Given the low density of the subscriber population in the gap area, a simpler, lower capacity single site solution may be more easily justified."

 

Verizon's team Thursday testified that the small cell technique is generally used by the company in urban settings to boost capacity in specific neighborhoods, typically covering 500 to 750 feet.

 

At Thursday's hearing, ZBA member Keith Davis did some "back of the envelope" calculations and found that for a 2.8-mile stretch, a number in the high 20s is more realistic — assuming that the company could site the small cell units on poles with the correct line of sight needed to make them work.

 

But opponents of the proposed tower persisted.

 

Several of those in attendance Thursday were among the 55 residents who signed a September letter to the ZBA outlining their opposition, including Karen Shepard of 47 Old Farm Way.

 

"We just don't know enough [about small cells] and it doesn't make sense to listen to be educated on the subject by the company about the solution they don't want," Shepard told the ZBA.

 

The board struggled with whether it made sense to demand in-person testimony from Cooper, a consultant who has been reviewing the proposal on behalf of the town at the expense of the applicant.

 

"If he comes … is the board going to end up being the referee in a verbal fistfight?" asked Leigh Short, a ZBA member and engineer and former consultant himself. "What are we looking for?"

 

"The other thing is … as they testified, when you get in the real world you may find you can't get on this pole or that pole," Davis said.

 

"They have satisfactorily proven there's a coverage gap. And they have stated the best solution is probably this monopole for a variety of reasons. I'm not sure what we'll gain by having the consultant."

 

Among the reasons cited by Verizon — in the past and again in Thursday — the single cell tower allows the company to install a backup generator to keep its service running if power is lost in the area.

 

"We are a reliability company," Verizon radio frequency engineer Jay Latorre has told the ZBA repeatedly. "Our customers expect reliability."

 

Latorre, told the ZBA that the small cell units may have battery packs that last up to four hours; a generator could keep the cell tower operational for three days.

 

"I've worked with Mr. Cooper on these types of sites before, and I know his credentials," Latoree said. "Sometimes professionals have different opinions. That said, the utility pole solution provides no opportunity for a generator in the event of an outage. … We feel it's important, and that's why we deep the small cell solution is not acceptable and the monopole is acceptable."

 

In other business Thursday, the ZBA granted a special permit for Silver Therapeutics to open a medical and adult-use marijuana shop at 238 Main St. in the former Colonial Plaza if and when Joshua Silver obtains the state licensing he needs to open the business. The appearance marked, perhaps, the last in a series of testimonies by Silver at Town Hall, where he convinced the Select Board to issue a letter of non-opposition to the project and enter into a Host Community Agreement with Silver Therapeutics.

 

His uncontentious and relatively brief appearance on Thursday prompted a Verizon attorney to joke about the length of the Verizon proceeding.

 

"It only took you half an hour to approve a marijuana shop," she kidded the ZBA members after Thursday's hearing.