Councilor Kavey Continues to Advocate for Cell Tower Abutters
Courtney Gilardi of Alma Street has consistently called into City Council to speak against the cell tower in her neighborhood. She gave a presentation to the Community Development Board on Nov. 5. The city was represented by attorney Anthony Lepore, below.
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Ward 5 Councilor Patrick Kavey withdrew his petition to establish requirements for cell-tower permitting but assured the abutters affected by the tower at 877 South St. that the fight is not over.
This petition was brought to the City Council by both Kavey and Ward 4 Councilor Chris Connell.
"The people who are affected by this, I want you to know that you have been heard, and we are going to continue to move forward with this," Kavey said at Tuesday's City Council meeting. "And as a city, we really love to talk about transparency but as far as this situation is concerned I don't really know if we had the best interest of our residents in mind when these permits were approved."
The 115-foot tower was constructed this year after Verizon received permitting from the Zoning Board of Appeals in 2017. The tower's address is on South Street but it was installed far from the road in the southeast corner of the property.
Neighbors in residential area say they were never properly notified and only became aware it once construction vehicles started driving through their neighborhood. Abutters have concerns over health complications, safety hazards, aesthetics, the possible decrease of property values because of the cell tower.
In early November, the Community Development Board unanimously agreed to continue a public hearing on a petition asking for a cell tower setback of 1,600 feet from residential structures and notification to abutters within 1,600 feet through certified mail.
The process of approving or passing the petition required a public hearing, which the council didn't get back from the Community Development Board in a timely enough fashion to conduct.
This left the council with two options: scheduling a public hearing for January or withdrawing the petition without prejudice.
Kavey said this was the third time that a project has been brought to his attention by residents of the city who they felt that they were not properly notified.
Whether the city is not properly notifying people or whether residents were not aware of the notification or any other reason, Kavey said, it's the city's job to figure out why this is happening so frequently and to solve it.
He believes that certified mail is the solution. He looked into the cost, requesting information from the administration, and found that notifying abutters within the current 300-foot setback would be $272.
From this, Kavey concluded that even notifying abutters within 1,600 feet should not be an outrageous cost.
"I don't really think the argument against the cost of certified mail is valid," he said. "Because I really do believe that it's our duty to inform people of what's happening in their neighborhoods."
The councilor noted that with the Community Development budget pushing $700,000 annually and the city budget upwards of $170 million, a couple of thousand dollars for certified mail notifications should not be too hard to find when they are talking about ensuring transparency for residents.
When Kavey asked for recommendations during the two meetings when the 1,600-feet setback was brought forward, the petition was rejected instead of amended. After six hours of meetings, he said, there was few or no questions or recommendations that could make the petition passable.
Something that the councilor found most unsettling was that the city hired Anthony Lepore of CityScape Consultants to represent it on the topic when, he said, Lepore's firm specializes in similar cases where large telecommunication companies like Verizon push 5G projects with little concern for abutting neighborhoods.
Kavey said it was disappointing to go to CityScape Consultant's website and see that they argue in favor of companies like Verizon.
"I just found it very interesting that we had local attorneys, three of them, who said this petition did not break federal law but we had the one who was hired by the city and, from what I'm seeing from their website, seems to work with these large organizations, tell us that it was illegal," he said.
In withdrawing this petition, Kavey promised to take an in-depth look into the city's current zoning laws and submit a new petition that deals with all commercial-industrial structures and abutter notifications.
He understands that abutters watching the City Council meeting will be upset that this petition is being pulled because they feel like they have not been heard in this entire process, but he is determined to keep advocating for them.
"All I can say is, we'll be back," Connell added.
Tags: cell tower,
