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HomeMy WebLinkAboutSP201300007 Correspondence 2013-02-25 Reaction to Public Hearing at the Albemarle County Planning Commission meeting on Tuesday, May 21, 2013. On: SP201300007 Cingular Wireless/Pace Property Tier III Personal Wireless Service Facility Tax Map Parcel: 04700000003000 7 Gentlemen: I appeared before you both as an adjacent neighbor across the road from the proposed tower and as an expert witness. I offer the following reflections on the hearing and request a follow up. Please note I did not oppose the tower in question. I only requested conditions be placed on it to mitigate the impact of the tower on my adjacent property. I requested the following conditions be placed on the tower in question at the hearing: 1) For the safety of adjacent property owners and protection of their property values, that no tower be placed closer to any property line or residence than 500 feet(ideally 1000 feet). Comment: This could easily be done by requiring the tower to be moved back from the property line by less than 200 feet while still keeping it in the wooded area. And to preserve the aesthetics of the Southwest Mountains Historic district: 2) The tower height be limited to 105 feet(which is still 25 feet above the nominal tree top line). Comment: The applicant's request could have been approved for the requested single transmitter with only 10 feet above the reference tree at 108 feet yet you choose to give the applicant another 10 feet in height that he did not need. 3) The tower be designed to look like a tree to blend into the environment and view shed. Comment: The applicant gave a very weak rebuttal to this request yet you ignored it. It is my sense that in most applications when you approve an applicant's request that you also try to listen to adjacent neighbors to support their requests to mitigate the impact on their property by placing certain conditions or restrictions on the approval to reduce the impact on the neighbors. Upon reflection, in this hearing, amazingly there was essentially NO discussion or comments on how or if my requests could be accommodated. When in fact you could have approved the application and supported all of my requests without in anyway denying the applicant's proposal or the functionality that they requested. In preparation for the Board of Supervisors meeting on this topic, I respectfully request that you ask the applicant to show me and other interested neighbors with a balloon test the height of the proposed tower as viewed from our property and that your staff show us the 98 foot reference tree. If the tower appears to be as unobtrusive as the applicant claims, a balloon test will allay the neighbors' concerns and they will have no need to object to the application at the Board of Supervisors meeting. Respectfully submitted, Ronald L. Kerber Board of Supervisors Albemarle County Charlottesville, VA Dear Members of the Board, I wish to supply input to your discussion and decision on the following request to locate a cell tower adjacent to my property. SP201300007 Cingular Wireless/Pace Property Tier III Personal Wireless Service Facility Tax Map Parcel: 04700000003000. I am also attaching my input to the planning commission for your review. Please note I did not oppose the tower in question. I only requested conditions be placed on it to mitigate the impact of the tower on my adjacent property. I requested the following conditions be placed on the tower in question at the hearing: 1) For the safety of adjacent property owners and protection of their property values, that no tower be placed closer to any property line or residence than 500 feet (ideally 1000 feet). Comment: This could easily be done by requiring the tower to be moved back from the property line by less than 200 feet while still keeping it in the desired wooded area. And to preserve the aesthetics of the Southwest Mountains Historic district: 2) The tower height be limited to 105 feet(which is still 25 feet above the nominal tree top line). Comment: The applicant's request could have been approved for the requested single transmitter with only 10 feet above the reference tree at 108 feet yet the planning commission chose to give the applicant another 10 feet in height that he did not need. 3) The tower be designed to look like a tree to blend into the environment and view shed. Comment: The applicant gave a very weak rebuttal to this request yet the planning commission ignored it. I respectfully ask the Supervisors consider each of my requests. Finally,I remind you that you can approve the application and support all of my requests without denying the applicant's proposal or the functionality that they requested. Respectfully submitted, Ronald L. Kerber Testimony for Public Hearing at the Albemarle County Planning Commission meeting on Tuesday, May 21, 2013. On: SP201300007 Cingular Wireless/Pace Property Tier III Personal Wireless Service Facility Tax Map Parcel: 04700000003000 Ladies and Gentlemen: I appear before you both as an adjacent neighbor across the road from the proposed tower and as an expert witness. My qualifications as an expert witness are attached. First let me say that Teresa and Monte Pace are lifelong residents of the area and are viewed by all as good neighbors and citizens and we want to support them. As we speak, our area is being bombarded with"technology improvements" for the "general good"that are significantly devaluing our property. The Hollymead transmission line expansion project is going through the area and adding a huge eyesore to the views. Now this project will add more view shed clutter plus be a safety risk. I remind the Commission that this property is in the Southwest Mountains Historic District. I make the following requests: 1) For adjacent property owners and household resident protection and safety that the tower be placed no closer to any property line or residence than 500 feet (ideally 1000 feet). If the tower is placed any closer to property lines it will definitely negatively impact neighboring property values and restrict potential use of neighboring property. 2) The tower height be limited to 105 feet (which is still 25 feet above the nominal tree top line). 3) The tower be designed to look like a tree to blend into the environment. The rational for these recommendations are as follows: I have conducted microwave research for lasers and plasmas and published the results in archive journals. I was responsible for Whirlpool Corporation's global microwave oven business. And I was responsible for all of the Department of Defense basic and applied research including radio frequency effects on people and things. 1) I tell you today that no one can say for certain that the long term impacts of low levels of radio frequency energy are not potentially harmful to the human body. 2) I can also state without reservation that the electromagnetic energy distribution around antennas at their operating frequencies and harmonic frequencies is very hard to measure and monitor at low levels. 3) Finally I can tell you that the electromagnetic fields of these antennas drop off rapidly with distance. So distance is your friend. I am not here to stop economic progress. We all know that cell phones and "wifi"have huge impacts on our society both from a convenience and economic point of view. However, we have adopted these technologies without really understanding the long term impacts of this low level radiation on our bodies. I am only saying that some smart policies could mitigate the potential negative cell tower impact on us. Ronald L Kerber Page 2 Testimony for Public Hearing at the Albemarle County Planning Commission meeting on Tuesday, May 21, 2013. I suggest that Albemarle County adopt the following two constraints as a minimum policy for all cell tower placements: 1) Limit cell towers to be no closer than 1000 feet from a property line or home. 2) Require all cell towers to look like trees. Ideally a more aggressive policy would place cell towers in our area on remote mountain tops with structures that look like trees. I realize that with this recommendation each tower would need an access road but I still strongly believe that it would be worth it. Given the safety and aesthetic information that I provided above, I request the following conditions be placed on the tower in question in this hearing: 1) For the safety of adjacent property owners and protection of their property values,that no tower be placed closer to any property line or residence than 500 feet (ideally 1000 feet). And to preserve the aesthetics of the Southwest Mountains Historic district: 2) The tower height be limited to 105 feet(which is still 25 feet above the nominal tree top line). 3) The tower be designed to look like a tree to blend into the environment and view shed. Respectfully submitted, Ronald L. Kerber Ronald L. Kerber, Expert Witness Qualifications: 1) Ph.D. in Engineering Science (applied physics) from the California Institute of Technology 2)Professor of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering and Associate Dean of Engineering at Michigan State University 3) Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Technology 4) Chief engineer for McDonnell Douglas Corporation 5) Chief Technical Officer of Whirlpool Corporation 6) Senior Fellow on the Department of Defense Science Board 7) Professional Engineer the State of Michigan