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HomeMy WebLinkAboutSP201000021 Review Comments Special Use Permit 2010-09-01COUNTY OF ALBEMARLE Department of Community Development 401 McIntire Road, Room 227 Charlottesville, Virginia 22902 -4596 Phone (434) 296 -5832 Fax (434) 972 -4012 September 3, 2010 Stephen Waller 536 Pantops Center — PMB #320 Charlottesville, VA 22911 RE: SP 2010- 00021, Carter's Mountain Trail- Tier III Dear Mr. Waller: Thank you for your recent submittal of a Special Use Permit amendment to replace two (2) existing 6' diameter Alltel microwave dishes with two (2) new Verizon dishes at various heights on an existing 185 -foot lattice tower on Carter's Mountain Trail. One of the new dishes will be the same size (6' dia.), the other will be smaller (25 dia.). The information provided with your initial application for a Special Use Permit has been reviewed by the Department of Community Development, including the Planning Division, the Current Development Division, RWSA, and VDOT. Comments from reviewers are summarized below. Current Development The Planner for the Zoning & Current Development Division of the Albemarle County Department Community Development will recommend approval of the plan referred to above when the following items have been satisfactorily addressed. (The following comments are those that have been identified at this time. Additional comments or conditions may be added or eliminated based on further review.) [Each comment is preceded by the applicable reference to the Albemarle County Code.] The existing tower is permitted by SP1994 -37. While the current Personal Wireless Facilities Policy (adopted after the SP was issued) does not encourage the use of lattice towers, locating facilities on ridgelines, or the use of non -flush mounted arrays, the current facility is considered appropriate because it currently conforms to the conditions adopted by the Board of Supervisors when they approved the Special Use Permit. Therefore, the scope of this review is limited to what impacts replacing and moving the microwave dishes may have, and if their replacement and relocation on the tower furthers the current County Policy. Page 3 of the Policy states that the most important principle for siting personal wireless service facilities is visibility. From a visibility perspective, replacing and moving the microwave dishes higher up the tower could increase the visibility of the tower, and thus not further current Policy. However, in this case, staff has found that the proposed changes are not expected to increase the negative visual impacts associated with the existing tower, and Current Development staff has no further comments. Please contact Elizabeth Marotta at the Department of Community Development at 434 - 296 -5832 ext. 3432 for further information. SP 2010 -021 Carter's Mountain Trail- Tier III 2 Southern Albemarle National Register Rural Historic District The following comments have been provided by Margaret Maliszewski of the Planning Department: 1. The site of the tower is located within the Southern Albemarle National Register Rural Historic District. Historic districts are considered avoidance areas, but the negative visual impact of the existing facility is already immense and the proposed changes are not expected to increase that negative impact on the historic district. Please contact Margaret Maliszewski at the Department of Community Development at 434 -296- 5832 ext. 3276 for further information. RWSA Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority reviewed the application and had no comments. Please contact Justin Weiler, EIT at RWSA at 434 - 977 -2970 ext. 206 for further information VDOT Virginia Department of Transportation reviewed the application and had no comments. Please contact Joel DeNunzio, PE at (i oel.denunzio@vdot.virginia.gov) for further information Resubmittal or Public Hearing Within 30 days of the date of this letter, please do one of the following: 1. Resubmit in response to these comments on a resubmittal date as published in the project review schedule (the full resubmittal schedule may be found at www.albemarle.orq in the "forms" section at the Community Development page), OR 2. Request a public hearing be set with the Planning Commission based on the information provided with your original submittal (a date will be set in accordance with the Planning Commission's published schedule as mutually agreed to by you and the County), OR 3. Request indefinite deferral and state your justification for requesting the deferral. (Indefinite deferral means that you intend to resubmit /request a public hearing be set with the Planning Commission after the 30 day period.) If we have not received a response from you within 30 days, we will contact you again. At that time, you will be given 10 days to do one of the following: a) request withdrawal of your application, b) request deferral of your application to a specific Planning Commission date as mutually agreed to with staff, or c) request indefinite deferral and state your justification for requesting the deferral. If none of these actions is taken, staff will schedule your application for a public hearing based on the information provided with your original submittal. Unless you fail to respond within the time periods specified above, a public hearing with the Planning Commission will not be advertised until you advise us that the project is ready to proceed to a public hearing. At that time, a legal advertisement will be run in the newspaper and a staff report will be prepared to go to the Planning Commission. Please be advised that, once a public hearing has been advertised, only one deferral prior to the Planning Commission's public hearing will be allowed during the life of the application. The only SP 2010 -021 Carter's Mountain Trail- Tier III 3 exception to this rule will be extraordinary circumstances, such as a major change in the project proposal by the applicant or more issues identified by staff that have not previously been brought to the applicant's attention. As always, an applicant may request deferral at the Planning Commission meeting. Please feel free to contact me if you wish to meet or need additional information. Sincerely, Elizabeth M. Marotta, Senior Planner