Board wants balloon test for cell tower

KINGSTON, N.Y. >> The city Planning Board wants a balloon test conducted to determine how visible a proposed Verizon cell tower would be if it was erected on Flatbush Avenue.

The board requested the balloon test during the meeting last week at which the application for the tower was presented. The test would provide a visual representation of what the tower would look like from the surrounding area.

City Planner Suzanne Cahill said Monday that details of the balloon test still must be worked out with the applicant. She said her office also will circulate the application for the tower to other involved agencies.

A public hearing on the proposal also remains open, Cahill said.

“The bottom line is we do have a need for a new facility in this area,” attorney Scott Olsen told the Planning Board last week. He said Verizon is “capacity exhausted” in the area.

Olsen said that does not mean Verizon customers users are having their phone calls dropped, rather that more people are using additional devices that require the company to have more towers.

Mike Crosby, a Verizon Wireless radio frequency engineer, said the company has only one facility in the city of Kingston. He said the company did, however, add some “small cells” previously as a way to relieve the capacity needs.

Crosby said the proposed tower, which would be on a residential property at 261 Flatbush Ave., would be just tall enough to clear the tree canopy in the area.

Olsen said the proposal is to erect a 95-foot tower with a narrow lightning rod on top. He said the structure would be slightly lower than the city’s nearby water tower, which he described as being “significantly more imposing.”

Verizon did attempt to co-locate its equipment on the water tower to avoid building a new tower in the area, but the Kingston Water Department said there was no room due to other carriers already using the structure, Olsen said. He said Verizon approached several other property owners in the area before reaching a lease agreement with the residents of 261 Flatbush Ave.

Some residents also addressed the Planning Board, urging its members to conduct a full environmental review of the project.

Barbara Stemke raised several concerns about the proposal and also questioned the need for another tower.

“The basic concern is electromagnetic radiation,” Stemke said. “It makes people sick. It causes cancer.”

She said the environmental review conducted by Verizon states there would be no impact on humans from the tower, but she added that there are scientific facts about cell tower radiation and how it makes people sick. Stemke said she could provide information from peer-reviewed scientists from around the world who would dispute the science used in the U.S. Telecommunications Act of 1996.

Olsen said the tower would not emit ionizing radiation because “basically it’s a radio signal.” He also said there is no scientific evidence the towers are not safe.