P9 conditional use for monopine cell tower
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What was said
Machine transcription of 1h 43m of recording, with speaker names inferred from voice matching. 76% of 604 lines carry a name. It shows what was said, not what was decided, and both the words and the names can be wrong.
So we're gonna move on to P9 if my colleagues would please bring up the PowerPoint for the item. P9 is PDD24 CU03. It's for conditional use for a 155-foot above-ground level monopine wireless communications facility in an AR agricultural residential district. The name is Joan E. Patterson, Anthem Net Inc. Verizon Wireless.
The current zoning on the property is AR Agricultural Residential District. The future land use classification is Res 3, residential three dwelling units per gross acre. The proposal is for a 155-foot above-ground level, which is basically a 150-foot wireless communication facility with a five-foot lightning rod, monopine, suitable for the co-location of three additional carriers that is located within a proposed 2500 square foot fence compound area. The overall parcel is 20 acres. It's located on the east side
of the east side of the terminus of Roland Drive, approximately 600 feet north of Balo.
Location is in southwest Pasco County as shown is on the location map within a mile of Hillsborough County.
The current zoning on the property is AR. It's surrounded by RMH, R1MH, R1MH to the south, and R1MH to the west. And surrounding the area is Lake Geneva Lake and Mineola Lake, or Lake Mineola, Lake Geneva. The current um future land use on well the future land use on the property and the surrounding properties is res three, three dwelling units per gross acre. Access to the overall site is from Roland Drive, which is a privately
maintained residential road that has fifty feet of right-of-way. And access to the compound lease area will be proposed through a 20-foot wide access and utility easement which is located off of Roland Drive.
This is the um the yellow dot is basically the proposed I guess this doesn't work proposed location of the uh the monopy.
This is the general site plan showing where it will be located on the parcel.
This is basically showing that it's gonna be a a monopine type um tower and the compound area.
Here are a few photo simulations which include the the map key as to where those photosimulations were taken.
The first photo simulation uh the left uh depicts before conditions, so without the monopine. The right uh depicts the after conditions with the monopine. That would these this particular one was taken from the north, State Route 54, looking south onto the property.
This next one was taken from um east on state road fifty four looking west.
This one was looking from Bayle Road. Again, the left is without, the right is with.
This one is looking from roll and drive.
And this comes to you with a recommendation of approval with conditions as included in your agenda packet. I do want to mention that there is a specific maintenance condition included on on the uh in the approval that basically states what would happen if any of the fronds or whatever would fall from the monopine.
Okay.
And I'm here for any questions that you may have.
Okay. Anybody have questions for Denise?
Okay. Is the applicant present?
So as the applicant or anybody that has questions about it, and when you come up Just give us your full name and your address.
Need to be sworn.
Yeah. They've already been sworn.
Um good afternoon, Mary Solik, 121 South Orange Avenue, Suite 1500 Orlando, Florida. I am legal counsel for Anthem Net, who is the co-applicant on this particular application. I'm glad you've mentioned swearing in because I know there are a number of citizens in the res in the audience today to speak to this item. And I noted that I don't think any of them stood up to be sworn, so you might want to. go over that again. Um your staff has done a very thorough presentation of this particular application, but I had one additional graphic I wanted to use and the spotlight
there is not uh helping me but This particular 155-foot monopine is on a 20-acre tract of land. It is the largest piece of property in this area. We were very fortunate that we're able to find a property of this size to locate the tower on. The size of the property and the heavy tree canopy on the on the property helps buffer and screen this tower. from off-site views. We have the tower
centered almost as it's it's as as centered as we can get it on the particular location. It would be centered in the middle but for the wetland area. We have had a wetland survey done and the location of the tower is not in a wetland area and we meet the 25-foot wetland setback as required by your code. And then again the bottom portion of that pic oh, thank you. Yeah. The bottom portion of that picture is just another uh elevation view of the monopine tower. Again, we're utilizing
a mitigated approach for this particular area. As you know, towers are permitted either as a permitted or conditional use in all of your zoning categories in Pasco County, and we meet all of the requirements of your code for an approval. I would like to research the Time or come back up and address citizen commentary. I have with me today Bill Compton, who is with Verizon. If you have issues or questions about the need for the tower, that's been reviewed by your outside consultant. And Jennifer
Frost is here too. She's a project manager from AnthonyNet. If you have any issue or questions about the siding or the location of the tower. Do you have any other questions for me?
Yeah the uh we you'll you'll have uh as I said at the very beginning, you'll have a five minute opportunity to respond at the end. Okay. And uh Um So we'll let's find find out what the questions are and then we'll
Okay great. Thank you. Do I need to find one?
All right. Uh whoever who's here to ask questions about this particular application? Is there a sheet that we can call people up?
Yes, we have a few uh folks signed up to speak. The first person is Nick Zumas, followed by Linda Schubert, and then after that James Cassidy.
Okay, so you're Nick Schubert? Nick Jumas. Jumas. Yes, sir. And you've been sworn, Nick?
Um no I haven't. I'm not used to being sworn in for public comment, but I guess
the whole
procedure is a
little bit
more.
You want to do everybody's group of them back there now. Yeah, anyone who has not been sworn, you'll need to be sworn or you we won't get take your testimony.
Do you swear or affirm the testimony you're about to give in which you're going to be able to do that?
Raise your right hand, please. I do. All right. Yeah. Did you get that, everybody? Okay. Okay. It's important because we can't take your testimony without it.
Okay. I live at [address removed]. I'm here today to oppose agenda item P9, which is the cell phone tower. I just want to point out that uh the private part of Roland Road, which is where this tower is going, you do not have 50-foot of right-of-way. It's a single lane. So it's a lot of factual inaccuracies that were just given in her report. Um I asked AnthemNet to provide images of what this tower would look like in all high visibility areas on October 20th. By email they ignored me. And the reason why they ignored me is because all the images that you just saw are
low visibility areas. Let me tell you about our neighborhood.
We pay in our own blood, sweat, and tears to maintain our roads when people destroy them, which they do on a daily basis. We have no sewers, we have no county water, we have no fire hydrants, we have persistent flooding problems. At many points in time our roads have been inaccessible to emergency vehicles. We have code enforcement violations everywhere. We have derelict and abandoned buildings. We have issues that government is better suited to solve, yet we are abandoned by our government so that we may solve our problems on our own. We
want to protect our community. We want to protect our lakes. We want to improve our neighborhood. Our neighborhood has many issues, many priorities. A cell phone tower is not one of them. If this project proceeds, there's a couple issues of note. Number one, the Patterson property has an illegal second residence on it. It's zoned AR. Every residence under AR needs to be on its own property, separately apportioned. Number two. The proposed tower is a fake pine tree which will shed plastics into
a protected swamp and waterway. If you're going to put this tower there, which we do not, Do not want this tower. Do not put a monopine plastic tower that's gonna pollute our waterways.
I question the planning decisions being made in Pasco County. Our county is riddled with planning nightmares, like the Lowe's at fifty-four and gun highway that's going to create a traffic armageddon for our Odessa community. I urge this board to alter its thinking on planning in Pasco
County.
And that's what we want to hear you talk about.
Well I'm here to talk about the project and planning in general. I'm talking about this is a planning commission meeting, is it not? I'm talking about I
gave you an opportunity at the beginning of this meeting to speak about anything that was not on today's agenda. That's when you should have brought those things up.
Let's focus on the right-of-way.
We're talking thinking on strategic planning in this county. Because this board has made numerous blunders.
We're operating under certain rules. You're gonna follow them. I'm discussing planning. I don't know what you're talking about, man. You you don't know I'm not man, okay? Well how would you like to be dressed?
If we're gonna have an issue, I can deal with it. I urge you to exercise due care and respect anywhere else. Can you stop interrupting me or am I gonna have my time reset? Yeah, no, I'm not you're not gonna have your time reset. So you're gonna follow me.
You're gonna stand here and interrupt me.
Please
come forward. Thank you for your time. You you guys have no idea what you're doing. Yeah, I can tell you're a real genius yourself.
Thank you, sir.
You guys fuck up this county every day. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Yeah.
You kissed my ass.
Yeah.
All right, who's next? I haven't seen that one yet.
Um next is Linda Schubert.
Reading too much Facebook.
Yes, my name is Turn. Linda Schubart.
Yeah, can you pull that down a little bit, Linda?
I'm
short. Yeah.
We just need your I think you just need your name and address, Linda.
Alinda Shubart, [address removed].
Okay.
And the only the only thing that I'm worried about is um I know it's all private land back there and it's a single limerock road. Um Are they gonna be like Bringing semi trucks? It's right in front of my house. We're the closest, um, us and Butch. Right. And I'm only at like m less than four hundred feet. But um I know the woman, it isn't twenty acres, it's only ten, 'cause my husband's
lived here since nineteen sixty-nine. So he knows that she sold uh ten. So sh they have ten acres of s unsellable land. Right. Which is fine, but I mean do I have to they have to keep bringing in concrete trucks and semi trucks on On my road. I mean I'm getting kind of scared. It's like I I can barely ride the road as it is 'cause it's all lime rock and they don't take care of it, obviously. Um What will happen after
You know, all the semi trucks and And all that goes in. That's all I was just
Okay.
Yeah, kinda worried about that.
That's a reasonable request. What we'll do is make sure that They address that when they come back up because uh they they'll have in mind, you know, what it's gonna take to establish the poll and then how often they'll have to be there to maintain it.
I'm not sure about the laws of the private land. I know about my daughter was handicapped and they couldn't come pick her up. because it was in private land and the fire trucks can't come through. They have to bring water tankers. But yet They can build a cell phone tower. So I'm just kinda confused, that's all. Okay.
We'll try to get you some answers and appreciate you coming.
Next person is James Cassidy, f followed by I'm gonna kill this because the last name, Sharon Sokier.
Suki ol, thank you.
Pretty close.
All right. Sorry. Name and address?
My name is James Tyler Cassidy. I'm a living, breathing man with a soul given to me from God. I am not a citizen but an American state national whose vessel is foreign to the United States of America. and state of Florida corporations. I'm here to speak on item P nine. First off, I appreciate your time, guys. I know you guys have a job to do and decisions to make. I'm not here to roast you guys.
Sir,
did we get
your address? I don't think
so. I'll give that to you. [address removed]. If you'd like, if you could pull up that square with all the addresses, I'd love that.
Anyway. I'm not here to roast you guys. My mom always said you catch more flies with honey. I respectfully ask that this board deny AnthemNet and their plans to build. Pick the people over the companies. I do not give the company AnthemNet permission to build a structure that would house antennas that would repeatedly send signals into, over, and onto my property. This is my official notice to cease and desist your plans for installing a wireless communications tower Nearby my rail property located at 14720
Bluestone Lane in Odessa, Florida. I know how this works. You guys are being pushed to develop this city, to see its fut to see to its future. I assure you, placing environmental poisons upon the people who live nearby there is not in the city's or this council's best interest, and it certainly isn't in mine. This board should not approve any further actions or planning of this project. The approval of this project will put men and women's health at risk, including my own. The approval of this project will negatively impact plant life in the local area, including over a hundred
fruit trees I've spent years cultivating, obtaining, planting, and nurturing. Upon search for private property in two thousand nineteen I came upon the property I have now. I have put thousands of hours of labor and tens of thousands of dollars worth of fruit trees and plants which now stand to be negatively impact impacted by the installation of this proposed tower. Plants have been shown to be negatively affected by RF radiation. The millimeter waves produced by these 5G towers continue to slow the growth, lower the immunity, and in some instances visibly brown normally green leaves, hindering
the growth of plants and oftentimes killing them. The trees next to the 5G Tower located near the church in East Lake near Keystone Road are constantly being killed and replaced. A Swedish study recently found that a tower even smaller than the one this company is proposing would raise the radiation from roughly 9 milliwatts to the Ron Oakley. per square meter currently to one thousand six hundred and ninety milliwatts per square meter, high enough for both acute and long term effects on a living, breathing man.
How do you plan to guarantee my safety? You have no right to jeopardize my health that I've worked so hard to obtain and maintain. I owned a group fitness gym business for almost nine years, where I was responsible for assisting thousands of people in their health and fitness journeys. I've acquired over ten thousand hours of work and study in the health and fitness field, including many studies on the effects of wireless radiation on the health of a man or a woman. So I uh ask also how do you plan to compensate how does this company plan to compensate us for the health of our plants and the time spent building our properties,
our food forests, and our own health? How do you plan to keep our dogs and animals safe while proposing a tower that will produce large amounts of microwave radiation? How do you plan to compensate all of us for the loss of value in our property directly from the installation of this tower? Again, I do not consent to this. Cease and desist. Thank you for your time.
Thank you. Any questions? I just want to know if he owned a cell phone.
I actually sold cell phones for five and six years and I have extensive uh knowledge with that as well. I try to keep my phone off and in airplane mode as much as I can. So I do not have a lasers essentially, right? 'Cause uh these things aren't powered by a connection, but they get connection. Right? Those things are gonna be shooting right over my property. This is literally right across the street from where I live. My mom lives on my property. This was life by design. I bought that property specifically because it had a mobile home on it and it had
a block home in the back. I put my mom in the front, me in the back.
You need to just answer the question which is do you I think the question question was do you own a cell phone?
Do I own a cell phone? Yes.
Okay. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions? All right. Thank you very much. Appreciate your help.
Who's next?
Ms.
Wal uh followed by Walter Schubart and then James Harrell or Harnell, I'm not sure. Thank you, sir.
Hi, my name is Sharon Sukhil. I live at two thousand seven. Is there something wrong?
Just pull that down so we can hear you better.
Does that to me?
Okay. My name is Sharon Sukhil. I live at [address removed]. I've been living here for 22 years. It was a beautiful place when I moved here. 54 wasn't a six-lane highway back then. Well, I also worked for the county for ten years. So I actually loved working for the county, but in the last ten years since I left the county, it has gone downhill. It doesn't listen to its its cus uh citizens. Citizens
can talk until they're blue in the face and everybody listens and nobody nobody does anything. There's no action. Okay? Um There is a location for the cell tower. Okay? It's right next to the location where the last cell tower was that somebody decided to take down because they wanted to develop the property. Okay? That is Kathryn Starkey. This is her district. She likes ruining things that are already it's set in stone. Okay, this this
community has been there for a hundred years. Some of those houses are actually a hundred years old. Okay, there's there's historic buildings over there that everybody ignores. You took Renados and you destroyed it and made a parking lot out of it. Okay? But anyway, so there's a suggestion. There's better places. Residential areas are not for cell phones. They say you look it up online. Should you put a rel a cell phone in a residential area? They say you should keep it as far away. from
a residential area as possible. Look it up yourself. Okay, you don't put cell phones in residential areas unless you want kids with six eyes to look 20 years from now or three legs. Okay, you just don't do it. And you people who won't be here in 20 years when the people over there come back and say, Why are my kid what are my kids being born with disabilities? Okay? Yes, I have a cell phone. I hate that. Cell phone, but you have no choice because that's progress,
okay? But you don't have to ruin someplace that's already okay. We have Black Lake, which is ruined, okay? It has no life in it. It's black. It's literally black. There's no oxygen. There's no life in it. Nobody wants to come and help this little lake. Get live again. They want to put a 400 hot room hotel or 350 room hotel right next to it so they can look at the dead lake. Your your planning is just absurd. You
created Black Lake? So you could straighten out 54, and now we have a dead end. A Black Lake cul-de-sac. You know what it is? It's free parking for all the trailer trucks that live in the neighborhoods that can't put their trucks in there.
The Chairman's already warned the prior speaker that you need to confine your comments to the application under review, which is
the application is it that's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a cell phone that's being put in the middle of a residential area. You do put them there. You put them in why why somewhere on fifty four? You've got how many f fifty thousand car washes? You can't put a cell tower in someplace. You got fast food restaurants every other Every other p place is a s fast food restaurant, a bank, and a car wash. We don't want it. You people are
planning and designing things for people that don't want it. You're putting in exquisite, exquisite, okay, another planning development. Okay, I'm 54. Where are those, all those houses you're gonna shove in there behind the lows? You people are poor planners, and this is outrageous to put a cell tower in the middle of a very lovely neighborhood. Fake as it is, we don't want we
don't want it. Thank you.
Mm-hmm. Yes, yes. So I'd like to remind the Planning Commission that you cannot consider health Environmental effects Radio frequency emissions Any of those issues as as your in as part of your consideration of the cell tower We are preempted by the FCC as long as they comply with FCC regulations. You your your role is primarily to look at potential infrastructure impacts, aesthetic impact, but you cannot consider Whether this might have
adverse health effects or adverse environmental effects. That's very clear under federal law and it's very clear under our code.
Ma'am, I I I didn't write the law. I'm just telling you. Yeah.
I'm sorry, we can't speak from the audience. Thank you.
Who's
next,
please? If you have a concern with federal law, you need to be talking to your federal legislators. I'm telling them what federal law requires.
Could you just repeat the last part about uh the environment that You said
Federal law says that you cannot con when we're considering whether to approve the cell tower We cannot consider environmental effects, health effects, or any raqu radio frequency emission effects. And we've already heard testimony from two speakers now about potential health effects, radio frequency effects. I want to be clear. This board didn't write this law. I didn't write this law. The Federal Communication Commission preempted our ability to regulate cell towers based on those effects.
Can you clarify that, David, about environmental as for instance the applicant is respecting the wetland and the required?
I mean from the radio frequency admissions. So for example, we heard testimony that radio frequency admissions may hurt plants, animals, people's health, that would all be preempted to the Federal Communications Commission. Mm-hmm. I'm only telling you what the law requires. I didn't write this law. It wasn't my idea. federal government preempted us on that issue. So Our role here is limited to Is this an appropriate location from a land use zoning perspective? Is it appropriate from an infrastructure
perspective, from an aesthetic perspective? It's not to determine whether it will or will not have adverse health effects. Okay.
Let's go. We um I'm sorry, just a minute. Does anybody have a question for this gentleman? Yeah. I can't bring you up unless somebody has to bring them up. So does anybody have a question?
Nope.
Yeah. Uh I'll take one question and make it quick.
Because you guys are saying you don't consider the uh health effects and the plant life and
federal law.
The law. The law. Does the law consider financial loss?
If there is a potential adverse adverse impact on property values that could be considered. I don't know if we have competent substantial evidence of that, but yes that is something that this Planning Commission could consider.
I've seen it and I could provide evidence of such things based upon Again, money I've spent and also uh the value of properties uh in the area, right? Values of properties throughout Pasco County that have dropped and not been able to sell because towers are next to it. There's one right on Angel Lane that that happened to.
Again, substantial evidence of that, that is absolutely something that the Planning Commission can consider. I will be honest with you.
No, I've seen it.
Okay. But usually that would require testimony from an appraiser you know, actually presenting actual data showing that property values are decreasing as a result of a cell tower. So I haven't seen you present any of that.
Well I would I mean I was hoping this uh board was gonna actually deny this, but of course if it moves forward then of course I would have to gather exhibits and Spend four hundred dollars to open up a case and it sure won't be in Pasco County.
So we have to be clear, this board can only deny something based on competent substantial evidence.
Yeah. My statement, I sworn in.
Okay, but you have to have a certain level. Yeah, are you an
appraiser?
No.
Are you a real estate broker?
No.
Then what would qualify you to give us expert testimony as to property values?
Because I have owned both commercial and residential real estate. Successfully.
Well I own state too, but it doesn't
qualify.
Yeah, but I've also searched extensively myself for properties. So
sir,
I've answered your question, which is that it is something
I'm just checking, I just wanted you guys to confirm that.
They can consider effect on property values.
Maybe somebody else
will bring something to that our attention.
Okay.
Thank you. We're uh we're trying to um Stay within the confines of w what our guidelines were for at the beginning of the meeting. When I told you that if you have a question, come up. You've got three minutes to state your case. and then the next person 'cause we want to make sure everybody has a chance to speak. So but we can't have people coming back and forth, back and forth, back and It's not this isn't a coffee clutch where we just talk to each other. Unfortunately we have to do it in orderly fashion.
And the reason I made my statement about the health effects is because you all only have three minutes and I want you to make the best use of your time and confine it to those issues that we can actually consider.
Okay.
So who's next?
Walter Schubert, followed by James Harrell. Then after that is Michael DeMeo and the last person signed up to speak is Elizabeth Kelly.
How are you doing? Good. I'm not here to gripe. I'm just here to say I've lived across the street. It's Walter, right? Walter Schubart, [address removed]. Thank you, Walter. Thank you.
Go ahead.
I've lived in this location for fifty five years. I raised my kids on the same property. Um the same property where the tower's going. It was Back in the day I canoeed back there. It is wetland. It's right next to the swamp. Um I'm just here to say I have to almost four hundred feet of frontage on a private road that goes right where they're gonna go in.
How are they gonna access that being it's a private road? Um
So we will ask the applicant to address that is the
road and then People do forty miles an hour down a a five mile an hour road. Um It's a piece of country that's left out there. Fifty four's gone crazy. Everybody knows that. Times have changed, but we're trying to save a a little piece of heaven back there and it's Just kinda irritating, that's all.
Well if it is a private road then we'll see if we can establish that and you know.
I mean I haven't checked into the private road part of it, but I own from the county where the county stops, I own all the way to where the And I'm just curious how's that how's that gonna work? Being it's private property, private road.
So sir, we will ask the applicant address what gives them the right to use Roland. Is it Roland Road? Is that your talk the one you're talking about?
Excuse
me.
Is it roll and drive that you're referring to? Yep. I have
four hundred feet of frontage on that road.
You're you that comment has been made and we will definitely ask the applicant to address that.
Okay. Yeah. 'Cause I mean, how what are they gonna do? They're gonna come in and fix the road or
Well if it's private property.
The county is not even taking care of the road. They come out and patch it here and there, but It's been like this for fifty years.
Yeah, I but a private road could be used if they've got Mm. If they've got a private right to use it. So I will ask the applicant what gives them I mean they may have an easement, they may have I don't know because we don't have to do that. Tell us. So we'll we'll ask the applicant to repeat the right-of-way.
the applicant would be trespassing on your property, you have every right to do that. But We will ask the applicant to address that issue. If they don't have legal access to the site, that is a problem. I I don't disagree with you, but we're going to ask the applicant to explain I I suspect they probably do have some legal legal access because I don't think they would have lease this site without having legal access to it, but allows the applicant to address it.
Okay. All right. I just wanted to I'm here to vote. No. That's all I really wanted to say. And thanks for your time and you guys have a nice day.
Thank you very much.
Back mm back when you m probably moved out there, I've been here Longer than that. And uh a lot of these developments were platted but never the roads were never accepted by the county. So there are call 'em private roads, but they're really have they're just legal accesses to the lots that are that are there. So Um they're they're private in the sense that the county is not paving them, they're not maintaining them. They're not keeping their either
ways. And uh So you you if you look at some of the very older much older developments here Exactly like Moon Lake Estates for example, that's the same thing. It's a it's a large Uh development. Lots of lots out there. but very few paved roads and that's because they were never accepted by the county. And that's maybe what you have here. I don't know. We'll find out.
Well the other thing I would point out is it it appears there's actually a home on this lot currently. Mm.
The lot. I would presume they're accessing their o their home legally, but we'll we'll find that out. Right.
Okay.
So who's the next person?
James Harrell is next.
James, if you give us your full name and address, please.
I got a cell phone.
Well could you call me please?
My name is James Harrell, [address removed]. Just you know when she got uh the I guess the applicant got up and spoke, she talked about the need for that space uh where they're presently uh proposing to relocate it. However, when I moved out there in 17, that same tower was on the corner corner of Black Lake in 54. and it was removed there and someone alluded to earlier for commercial uh reasons, uh so they can do that. So I just
have questions for her. Uh why is the tower being l relocated from State Road fifty four to our neighborhood? And what is the health implications for the entire community? Uh was the first question.
So sir, I'm an instructor to not answer that question about the health because I've already Explain the That's not something this commission can consider. She can answer your first question.
Okay, that's fine. Whatever the rules are the rules. Okay. Also historically, has there been a Substantial decrease in real estate value. So so I live on the other side. It's not directly, I think I'm outside of 500 feet of it. uh from my house. I have little visibility to it, but presently my house Praises. Put some pretty good numbers, uh, you know, from nine hundred to one two. Uh so my question is, is uh Am I gonna see a substantial
decrease in value? And has there been any studies? Done by uh the applicant to address uh real estate values and decreases, and if so, will the residents be compensated? Uh, number one. Uh I mean so that's kinda what I wanted to know and besides that, you know, hopefully I would definitely wanna vote no to reject the tower being put in our neighborhood. you know, kinda not in my backyard. So Uh hopefully she can address those questions and
We'll move forward. Thank
you very much. Appreciate that, James.
And who's next?
Michael DeMeo.
Hi, my name is Mike Dameo. I uh live on [address removed]. Um coincidentally enough, right outside of the area where the notices from the county were distributed, I really think we should consider increasing that to allow more residents to know what's going on in the county. This is not the first time that's happened where there's a limit of notification of the the surrounding communities. Anyway, I digress. Um here to talk about the cell phone
tower that is uh gonna ask you
the so
how did
you find out about this meeting
is the posting on Roland, on the corner of Roland there's a county a county sign that's been posted. No the sign. I saw the sign, but I was not mailed any letters or anything. If you've probably never been back there, the only reason you'd ever go back there is if you live back there. So the only chance people like a lot of people aren't here today because they don't know about it. They don't see the sign and they weren't notified via mail. Okay, thank you. Um So I'm not here to discuss the health effects
of having a tower installed. I don't know the health of health effects. I'm not here to talk about that. It is being installed basically right on top of a residential neighborhood. And I have no idea if there actually are health effects or not. However, um A monopine tower has P V C needles. They're made of P V C to make 'em look like pine trees, right? Uh a 115-foot pine tree, pine uh mono pine tower has 10,000 pounds of PVC needles. This is a 155-foot tower
being put up. And it's a huge concern that these t these needles that are installed on the tower are gonna deteriorate and fall off the tower into the environment below. We live on a very, very delicate lake system in an environment that's pretty rural. and all the people that live in the area, we're all on well water. If these microplastics shed off the tower and go into the environment below, all that microplastic is leaching into our soil and into our water sources. We're not on city water.
A couple solutions I hope you'll recommend. Change the location of the tower. We don't need it or at least recommend that it's not a good spot for it. This tower's gonna be installed in a residential neighborhood. There's gonna be people living under this tower. As you can see from the map, those houses are a hundred feet from the tower, they're gonna have a giant hundred fifty five foot tower. Right above their house. I live on Lake Mineola, which is right to the left, uh right to the east, or uh I'm sorry, right to the west of that tower. And
um, you know, I live about twelve hundred feet of where this tower's gonna go. We have a lot of concerns about being that close to something like that. Uh second, change the type of tower from a monopine tower to a standard metal one. I don't know if this is an option, but it would reduce the the probability of a PVC, the PVC pine needles falling down below, washing into our lake system. This is right on two lakes. If these pine needles fall off the tower, it's going right into the right into the water during those summer
storms, those hurricanes. We live on a very delicate lake system. Third, reduce the height of the tower to limit visibility to revit residents. A lot of those uh shots showing the proposed tower uh height. I if you've been back there, those are pretty selective photos. I don't think they did a very good job of really showing what the tower is gonna look like when it's installed. And then lastly, if you are going to allow this proposal to continue, please require some sort of cleanup,
a semi-annual cleanup, a rock solid maintenance plan for this to make sure that these PVC needles are cleaned up when they do deteriorate. Uh and then uh finally I'm sorry to uh to go over uh two questions for the commission. Um what relevance does owning a cell phone have to do with the tower being installed? Um our cell service is fine. Uh you know, having a cell phone, everyone has a cell phone. There's no reason to to question whether someone has one or not. And then um, sir, I'd like to to clarify that the road's
not being accepted by the county. I just want a little more information on what that means. 'Cause we do live on a private road. We maintenance all these ourselves and we get no help from the county to to maintenance all this stuff.
Oh when the when these some of these uh areas were platted. Years ago. Um the you know, a lot of these places were set up to be weekend places for people from Saint Pete and other places. They didn't think about paving the roads then. Or if they did they were very poorly bathed.
Yeah.
And the county wouldn't accept them. or accept the responsibility to maintain those roads because they weren't paved properly. And they still don't. And they st and they still don't. It'd be a huge expense if they did that they never accepted in the first place. So um the people that actually ended up moving living out there. Um had to you know, maybe there's a good chance you didn't understand that. When you bought your property and uh I think that's the case in many in many of these instances. And I
can name a number of developments that have that same situation. I named one, Moon Lake Road, this this one is one, Shady Hills is one. I mean there's There's n a number of 'em. Sure. And uh Uh y and so the county has no responsibility. There I mean You can't g get mad at the county because the county didn't have any responsibility for 'em in the first place.
Yeah, not yep.
And uh So what you have to do in order to get the road paved is to do an assessment of the people on your street. And if you can get them to agree and then the county will come in.
Anyway, uh please just consider you know those solutions, any small changes that may help the community if this thing is pushed.
Well if you if we could get rid of the monopine, that would be a big thing and
I mean to me it would seem
like a big concern.
Those we have hurricane season, we have summer storm season, and we have uh a blazing hot sun that deteriorates these thin little pile. needles and they just break into small pieces and fall in fall below the general.
Well I'm sure the applicant can speak to the durability of them and what their average lifespan is and all that 'cause they've dealt with these before too and and and how that relates to the length of durability of the pole itself. Because it's a very good chance that pole may end up being replaced with different technology well before these needles deteriorate. So we'll s we'll see from the applicant kind of what the lifespan is and what their plan is for that.
We've asked the
staff or the applicant to polled residents as to their preference as to the appearance of the tower. In some cases they've been offered bell towers. flag poles, it's an enclosed canister and then a flag is hung on it, or it could be just a cr a plain galvanized monopole Um with the antennas visible from the View. What would be your preference? As far as the aesthetic
of it, like what I want it to look like? I will tell you that I am giving a lot of consideration to your argument about the PVC material making up the Pine needles. Um So then that leaves us with We call that a mitigated tower in our code. A mitigated tower is a a a tower we disguise try to best disguise as we can so it doesn't look quite like a cell phone tower. Right.
So they could do an unmitigated design wherein they've just got the antennas up and generally they're in a triangular format. up at the top or they could put it in a canister that and then we can hang a flag off of it. Sure. So if we were to opt not to have a monopole here, what would your preference be?
I think it would probably be best to pull the residents that are gonna be living underneath it because they're gonna see it every single day. Um my mailbox is basically adjacent to this land and so I'll also see it. Mm. If I had a preference, I want something that's not gonna deteriorate and inf affect the environment as much. So I w I would go with a galvanized, you know, I'm not a Yeah. But uh something where you know we're not gonna have to worry about cleaning up after it and uh having it affect our lake systems.
And I'm I'm gonna ask the applicant and and I could very well be wrong, but if I were to bet right now without asking her, there was probably some sort of polling already done by the residents, which is why they're proposing the monopine.
I would
love
for them to confirm whether that actually
Because that's generally more expensive design to put up than just a unmitigated poll. And so usually uh developers only put those up if there's been a request from the residents and nearby area to mitigate that design.
Yeah, and the height of the tower at fi hundred and fifty five foot is well above any of the surrounding trees. So it kinda sticks out like a sore thumb, uh, compared to everything around it.
Yeah, I mean that's not generally something that we can control because
It's certain requirements based on technology.
One last question for you. Go ahead, John. You
the pine needles or P V C, how do you know that?
Uh research online shows that the uh pine needles are made of PVC and it's a thin PVC, kind of like a fake Christmas tree. No
see it.
Okay. Okay.
What I wanted to answer is one last question though. The point of asking if you owned a cell phone. Yes. The point is we all live in an age where we all own one of these. Yes sir. And I agree with the lady in the back. Yes, we don't have a choice. Um Yeah, you can get a landline, but The only people that call the landline at my house are phone solicitors, so I never pick it up. So that's useless. The rest of us all use one of these. And this is one of the unfortunate you know, problems
of life. If we're going to use this technology, then there are going to be towers until some other technology comes along to replace it. So the best we can do Is try to figure out how we can locate the towers. Decorate the aesthetics of the towers to make something that we can all live with. Yep. You know I don't know how old you are and I don't want to give my age back in the seventies when I was a child Uh huh. We
had all of these big erector set orange and white towers that beamed microwaves all over the place, and that's how. A lot of landline phone communication got beamed from place to place and so these are a whole lot less obtrusive. Yeah, and we had telephone towers that were thousands of feet. Fifteen hundred feet high, yeah. Right. So
I do think the concern would be a lot greater if we didn't have cell service in the area, but we our cell service is fine.
Whether we like it or we don't. There are many, many new residents to Pasco County. And all this although the cell service maybe fine today When all of a sudden the capacity on that tower is used up because of all the new homes the folks have cited that are going up in the area and those people are using their cell phones and there's more traffic on fifty four and those people are driving by using theirs, eventually your cell phone service won't be very good. Understood. Because there's no
capacity on the tower. Beforehand.
you're having a delight.
When you're asking this man about his life about the easement,
ma'am, you cannot speak from the audience. You cannot speak for the clerk cannot pick it up you cannot speak from the audience.
So
anyway though, I actually appreciate the gentleman's demeanor because He's Come up here and he's presented a logical case. He's done it without emotional outburst And he's actually presented some evidence That's right. has got me thinking about the approval for this tower.
Thank you.
I applaud you.
Thank you very much. If there are no more questions.
Mr. Chairman Elizabeth Kelly is the last person that has signed up to speak on the minor. All right, thank you.
Hello?
Hi. Ms. Kelly, if you give us your full name and address, please.
I'm Elizabeth Kelly. I live at [address removed].
Okay. And you've been sworn, right?
I have.
Okay, thank you.
Um I love Pasco County. I lived here sixteen years. Um before that I lived in Tampa. I like Tampa too. Um My community is this one in the lower right hand corner. Uh so I'm not right in that neighborhood. I don't have wetlands or anything like that. This is like a planned development. There's about 250 houses in there. Um And so our views, all
of us, is of this property. Um and right now it's a beautiful canopy of trees and you can see the birds fly in and out in the morning times and everything like that. Um And like the uh last speaker said, this Uh cell phone tower is gonna be way taller than all the other trees there. Um I understand that, you know, they're trying to disguise it as a tree itself. Um but I've looked online at
pictures of other uh Pine tree fake cell towers and if you put that sticking up above all of the other trees that are there. It's you're not gonna be fooling anybody. It's gonna definitely look like not a natural tree and something that doesn't belong there. Um So aesthetically, uh, myself and uh my neighbors that I've talked to uh are very
concerned. We're concerned that uh it won't look good to us, and more importantly, if we need to move, it won't look good to anybody else who would come to see our house and see what, you know, how lovely it is there. And they'll say, Oh, your house is pretty good here, but Yeah. What about that thing? Like, I don't wanna live where that's my view. I don't wanna wake up in the morning and open the curtains and oh there's the cell phone tower, you know. Um So I think it's important to just talk about
the location. Um
Someone mentioned there there was or Recently um A tower that was right along the highway on 54 that's been taken down. It's my understanding from research online. That's why this one's being built. At that same spot where they took that one down, there's a lot of un Developed. Places there. For sale, whatever. I'm sure someday there'll be strip malls and everything like that in them. I don't understand why instead of or or who
decides to put this up if it's Verizon, do they go to the homeowners and knock on the door and say, hey, let's sneak this in your neighborhood because I can get it in there cheaper than buying our own land on the highway? Where you know commercial things all belong. Everybody agrees theoretically, like on the highway, you're gonna have that stuff, not in a neighborhood. So I think that they should go ahead, build it on the highway. Um just because they can do it doesn't mean they should.
Well just to let you know they don't typically buy the land anyway. It's all it's usually leased. So they they leased the land. Yeah. The reason they choose a location is because geographically it has to meet certain criteria. coordinates in in terms of being able to communicate. Most towers I think If it's the same as it used to be, they're about eight miles apart. You don't want two towers too close to each other, you don't want 'em too far because they won't do any good. So That's probably
has a lot to do with why they chose this location.
It's bas based on coverage maps and where the population's at and where the the radius from that tower that it needs to serve those people. So that a lot of times determines that location, not
Yeah, I saw that circle and the old tower was also in that circle. Isn't this this I think is like a replacement tower. It could be because if they if they in that if they leased
if
they
leased that property on fifty four and the property sold, they may have been required to move it.
There's a lot I'm saying there's a lot more properties there. It's not like this is the only spot where they could build a tower in this area. They could stay on the highway. There's a lot of properties there. I think they just have to do that. So to be clear
though, it has to be a willing landowner that allows it to happen. So This landowner didn't have to be a good thing. Exactly. They were not forced to put this tower on their property. I
understand.
They're agreeing to do it.
I understand.
So I mean And that they're your neighbor.
those on fifty four are willing to. Apparently the prior prior property owner wasn't willing to have a tower on his property anymore because It's gone.
I yeah. 'Cause it's I think zoned for commercial so they can just get more money from the right-of-way.
Yeah,
I guess
my point is that a tower these tower companies do not have eminent domain authority. They're not
they should just pay more to place it in an appropriate location instead of trying to sneak into a neighborhood where it's cheaper.
But the problem is it's very limited. So y y there may only be three or four or five properties within the radius that they need to be and and if out of those four properties, three of the owners don't want them on the location. That narrows it down to just one choice.
Possibly, possibly not. If they were gonna try to sneak into a neighborhood, we wouldn't be sitting here with all these people in the room.
I didn't I uh well I agree also with the comments that um notification of this, I mentioned in my HOA meeting last night, I think there was one other person in the whole meeting who had even heard about this. And we're literally that community right there. Mm-hmm. Uh I don't know. I got someone put this uh notice like on my car at one point. So I don't know who even put it there. But some like, you know, somebody's trying to verbally spread the word. I
don't know. But um Yeah. I think if more people knew there would be more people here.
Okay. Yeah, we have to comply with whatever our requirements are to notify and
Thank you.
Thank you. Appreciate you coming.
So if you didn't get a letter in the mail, you had to see the sign. If you were
Ma'am, ma'am, again, you cannot be speaking for the audience. If you have comments, you can come up and speak, but you can't speak from the audience. Yeah, she's she's been up once before. Okay.
So Mr. Chair, I do have someone else that ha that just signed up. Uh Heather Cremella.
Heather, you probably haven't been sworn since the yeah.
I was new back there. I was sworn in, yeah. Uh yeah. Uh gentlemen, uh just for a moment I'd like to piggyback on Miss Kelly's uh comments. I also live in the same neighborhood, Greyhawk, and we recently purchased dare I say, overpaid for the home that we live in. Um and then renovated the house to bring it into, you know, two thousand twenty three. Uh so I've major concerns with putting a cell phone tower up. I haven't unfortunately am unprepared with providing um, you know, evidence
and sorts of packets of things to tell you that property value will drop. And I know from personal experience, while we were looking for houses, there were a number of new constructions with cell phone towers in the back. And we turned around just as quickly as we pulled in there. And it was a major deterrent. So if necessary, I will find someone probably in our community who does real estate that could provide some of that evidence. So I'm just asking um as a a homeowner now in Pasco County came from St. Pete and um I'm happy to be here. I love we actually have I don't know if this can get us any credit, but there's
a bald eagle that lives in the lake. I have video evidence of it. We're a pretty community and I would love to keep that community. I know that you can't take into account the health or the well being or the children and that's the law and that's very unfortunate, but I'm glad that was brought to attention. Um again, if you could potentially find a new location for this, um it would be appreciated or consider it, that'd be appreciated. Thank you. Can you please state your address? Oh yeah, sorry. [address removed].
Is there another tower type design you might consider otherwise?
Truthfully no. I mean, if I I guess if it was where you just have no other option that we're going to vote on this, I guess I'd need to take some consideration into it. Um to be honest, uh Ms. Kelly, she posted in the HOA meeting last night and it was a reminder of hey, and then somebody posted in our group um at 110 and was like, hey, that meeting Going on, so I jumped in the car, it was four minutes late. Um, but there'd be a little bit more consideration, and truthfully, I'm not prepared for this. But it was something where I think about, and this to be honest, this doesn't affect my view. I look south,
we've got lake, I won't see this tower. But for my community and for the people around, um, I just feel it's not necessarily me, but it's everybody, and then listening to some of the people that live you. or directly in in it. Um so I I don't know uh Mr. Moody, I would have to do a little bit more research into it. I haven't I'm not prepared to answer that question.
Well just so you know for the people who did come to speak Uh have questions about it. This does go to the county commission after this meeting.
Okay.
And so you will have another opportunity.
Okay, I d you know and I saw that little paper too, so I saw that
too. Just make sure that you have What what I'm trying to tell you is they can't make decisions based on emotion. Right,
got it.
You have to have Evidentiary mo uh information that they can you know that they can consider otherwise you know they can't consider it even if they want to consider it.
Got it. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate
it.
While the applicant's coming up, can Patty, can you put up the um wetland uh layer on that map? 'Cause I think that may answer some questions with regard to other available properties in the area.
Absolutely.
Okay.
Thank you for asking for that map. It does help explain why we are where we are. Substantial wetland areas in this community. Much of our search area was encumbered by wetland areas. Much of the 20-acre parent tract on which we're locating this tower has wetlands on it. We're avoiding those. And and that's a two-edged sword. It means we can't locate a property on the wetlands, but the wetlands also provide buffering and screening. Those, you know, those wetlands, those tree canopies aren't going away. And so you won't see this tower from
anywhere to the north and to the to the east because of the heavy tree cover provided by the wetlands. I don't think you'll see it from the residential community the last two speakers came from either. And said she wouldn't speak, uh wouldn't see it. The photo sim sh has a view from Ballow Road. which is on the south side of the subject property and that a and you barely see the very tip of the tower from that viewpoint, I think further south you won't see it at all. So um let's go back and address the cons
the the roadway issues. Can you put my survey map up, please?
Commissioner Gray, you are um you are right on the money. This is a 30-foot platted road right away. It is a privately maintained road for most of the length. Some area south of the subject property shows up as county maintained, but most of it in the area is privately maintained. But it is a 30-foot plated right-way, which means that's right-way dedicated for dedicated for the use and benefit of the public. It's not a private It's not it's not private. The roadway's
privately maintained. Um we w we do bring in um flatbed trucks for the tower.
So before you leave that point, so
Here okay, here's the survey on the can you turn it the other
Is this the
So your your lot the lot where you're placing this is one of the lots that's subject to the plat?
Yes.
And so your position is that the road is for the benefit of anybody who lives in that plotted All the for all those platted lots.
Right, correct. Platt's available. We can look at the dedication on the plat to see whom the roads were dedicated to.
Well, they probably weren't dedicated to the county, I'm guessing.
But I think her argument is that we're not going to be able to
Is that accurate? Correct.
It's not private property, is my point.
So this is a plat from nineteen eleven.
Hundred year old homes like this. And yes, the right of way is clearly platted.
And that is our access and you see the dirt road on there. And it is the county we looked up the records while we were in the audience and that portion of it is is shown as privately maintained. So we do have we will have to construct the tower and we will have to bring in concrete trucks and a flatbed truck to bring in the sections of the tower. We will we take pictures of the roadway before we start construction and we take pictures of the roadway when we finish construction and we repair any damage we have done to the roadway during construction.
Once the tower is constructed, The traffic to the tower is very minimal. I used to say I've been doing tower work since the late 90s. I used to say it was one light duty vehicle trip per month per carrier, and this is a four-carrier pole. But now things have progressed, and now it's more like one trip, maybe every one, every two to three months per carrier. And even that is starting to, the the trend is moving. away from that because there's a lot of the maintenance on the towers on the antennas that
can be done remotely. So the the traffic that comes to the towers for maintenance is going down and not up. Um
how long will the trucks be coming back and forth
during
construction?
Construction process uh What, six weeks? Six weeks is usually we can usually get them up in six weeks.
Every couple of months.
Per carrier,
yes. Per carrier.
Okay. Yes. Um You covered health effects.
How was the selection made?
Oh, on the tower type.
Yes.
That was a decision made jointly between Anthem Net and the landlord. We utilized you know, you never it's damned if you do, damned if you don't. The the decision was made for a monopine to be sensitive to the neighborhood. We decided to use a mitigated tower. That uh the speaker said that those branches are um plastic. They're not, they're fiberglass. And there is a condition in the conditions of approval that requires us within 15 days
to um repair or uh modify or clean up anything that is f you know, any branches that have fallen, any branches that have broken. And that's in the conditions of approval. We've uh we we don't we're not aware of these um pine trees being a maintenance problem, but your county has made sure that if it becomes a maintenance problem, we have to fix it in fifteen days. And again, those branches are fiberglass and not plastic.
So fiberglass Is an abrev is a short is a shortened term. The full term is fiberglass reinforced plastic.
So can I ask you a question on that? So Does your lease require that you build a monopine? With your lease with the landlord?
No.
So If Planning Commissioner Oakley were to tell you They don't want a monopine and they'd rather have some other design that would be perfectly okay with your release.
it would not violate our lease. Now
We would not want a unipole because that limits the antennas. That messes with our relationship with our carriers. So a monopole, you know, you hit uh that's a that's a less expensive facility for us to build. That is the carrier's first choice of Structure.
And it eliminates any concern for environmental impact uh that some of the residents have brought up, and some of the residents are saying that the pine would stick out like a sore thumb.
ends up just sort of blending into the environment and people don't notice it.
We've seen that too.
I didn't expect the residents to ex I
mean.
We we've also seen in the past other designs like you know bell towers, things like that. So I guess my my main question to you is Is the design issue within the purview of planning com solely within the purview of the applicant, planning commission, or the board, or is there something in your lease that restricts your ability to as to how this is designed?
No.
Okay.
All right. Okay.
Could you also address it? Why this site as opposed to Other sites in the area, like how you ended up with the the site in your site selection?
Um I'm gonna have Jen Frost come up and talk about that and while she's coming up, again, Again, we we um researched the properties in the search area. This happens to be I think the largest property in the search area, that was a key factor because a large property allows us to absorb much of the visual impact of the tower on site. So we think we think we found the best piece of property in the search area for this tower. And
given the wetlands on the western portion of it, that was a bonus that uh allows for additional screening and buffering. But most of the properties in the search area are encumbered by wetlands or didn't have access or didn't have interested landlords. Jen, this is Jen Frost, the project manager for Anthem Net. Hi, my name is
Jennifer Frost. My address is 5944 Luther Lane, Suite 2725 Dallas, Texas. You've been sworn. Yes, I have been sworn. Thank you. Um Mary summarized everything perfectly as far as reaching a viable site outside of wetlands, outside of any other conservation easement, and willing landowners. We were declined by three landowners or other landowners. That we contacted never replied to us. Ms. Patterson was the only landowner who was willing to move forward on her 20-acre parcel.
And what was your search circle or what were the boundaries of where you were searching?
We had about a half mile radius. Um There. This one I think that's the other one.
This one would be done. Okay. Is
that something you put up on the display?
And while while she while you're getting that loaded up. We um your code requires that we establish that there are no available structures within our search area on which to locate a tower, and your outside consultant has confirmed that there aren't any available towers or suitable tall structures. But your code doesn't require us to prove that we've found the the best site in the in the search ring. We think we have on
this particular case. case, but that's not part of the analysis.
I understand, but some citizens have commented that there's other viable locations. I would have just wanted you to I want to understand what your thought Thought process was as to how you ended up on this one.
Okay. She's gonna show you this. We're gonna get this aerial up. Oh now it's upside down. Yeah.
Is this a pointer?
Is it the white circle?
Yes, that's our search area. We got some glare.
It looks like the yellow circles as coverages from other towers?
Yes. Okay.
So
so the white circle just To explain for lay people, including me.
That's your gap area. That's the area where you have to have the towers and the white circle to meet Your coverage needs to be a good idea.
Yeah. Yes, so there is a red dot in the center of that circle. That is the ideal location for a tower to be located in order to fit into the existing network. We were given a one-half mile search radius, which is the white circle shown up on the map. We had several we we contacted several property owners within that. circle. Like I said, a lot of it is wetlands conservation and the green triangle is Ms. Patterson's property. With the proposed tower.
And so this this is intended to serve what we're doing. Geographic area. I mean I understand that your your search area is half mile, but what is the geographic area? You're trying to serve with this tower.
Yeah, we're gonna bring um Bill Compton up. He's the RF engineer for Verizon, who is the anchor tenant.
Do you want to use any of your mounts that I was going to do? Okay.
Hi, William Compton. Um address is 7701 East Telecom Parkway, Tampa, and I have been sworn.
Okay, thank you.
Um W we build uh a network of towers. So this this tower does not live and exist on its own. So this location was determined as as has already been stated. You can kind of see those circles coming in from the east and the west, also to the south. This is basically kind of the sweet spot of where we'd want to offload traffic. So this tra the this area will not only this site will not only benefit this area, this search area that's that's shown on the map, it'll also s benefit the entire surrounding area because it it offloads all those sites that are trying currently I'm
I'm glad the the residents are saying they have great service now.
And we're trying to offload the entire area. So
part of the reason I'm asking this is because the county just did an RFP to put one A tower at Starkey Park. Mm. Which I think we're close to awarding or leasing That doesn't alleviate You are like I understand it's not a structure that's up currently, okay, but so you didn't have to consider it as part of This but my question is if it were up. Would it is that a potential viable location or not really? Because It doesn't
help this area. I I'm that's uh that's my question.
Yeah it it would not affect this area. So that would be a to that would be a totally separate area that we'd be working on to mitigate traffic in that area as well.
Okay.
So yeah, that was what I was gonna ask too and you already kinda covered it. But um you know, people talking about how traffic's great now and or how their service is fine now. And and I know um um my limited knowledge of the uh improved technology with going to 5G and everything, as these speeds increase then that decreases the radius to which can be served areas that can be served. So therefore I'm assuming as technology advances we're gonna have to have higher densities of cell phone towers to cover these areas. Yes. Am I
correct?
Well tip typically the the service radius of a cell site is usually predicated on the frequency band that we use. So in the early days when cellular first came out, it was eight hundred megahertz, which is a fairly low frequency, very low frequency for us now. Um and then as the FCC auctions off more and more spectrum for wireless usage, that's that spectrum keeps going higher and higher in frequency and just due to the physics of RF and RF propagation, it goes less distance. That is correct. Okay. So the the distance is a function of more of the capacity. We can cover long distances and still
c provide coverage, but as has already been spoken, coverage only gets you so far when you start want to start using it, we've got a tremendous amount of traffic coming from inside residences now. People are working from home. And they're just trying to use the devices where they didn't necessarily do it before. They pick up their they they use our landline at home and then they drive to the office. We have people working from home now that are trying to use the internet service and stuff through our wireless devices.
And there's more wireless internet being used in the home as well. So people that are getting rid of cabled connections and going to wireless connections within the home?
Absolutely, yes. So could you address the height issue? 'Cause there there was a At least one of the residents said why not make it lower What what happens if you make it lower or why can't you make it lower?
Um it it's just like the lights in this room. There's a reason why they're on the ceiling and not coming from the floor. The the the higher they go, the bigger area they shine on. Um the other thing that I want to point out is this is I believe a four-carrier pole. Um so each carrier that goes on that pole has to go up below the one above it, and there's technical technical reasons for that to keep these the frequencies isolated. So basically every time you put another carrier on you drop that that height 10 feet approximately. So 155, now we're down to 150, so we're 145 feet's gonna be the center of our tower, our our antennas. Then we're
gonna be at 135, 125, 115 is gonna be actually the lowest, and that's very low for that area. And we also look at the distance to the the surrounding sites to make sure the RF energy can get and serve the area that we're trying to serve.
So a lower tower would require more densely uh densely location of other towers.
Exactly. Exactly.
Some more towers.
Okay. So can I ask the search I forgot her name search? Jennifer Ross, one more question. So I see from your search area that the red dot was sort of the ideal location and I could see some residents saying, Well, that's on fifty four where we wanted it. So did you You di you definitely contacted some owners that were at that ideal location and you weren't able to get The tower there?
Yes, that's correct. There is a commercially zoned parcel right at the searching center. We did reach out to them. I spoke with the gentleman at length. He does not want a tower because he wants to reserve that parcel for other better uses, maybe a hotel or what other application he can use on that property. A lot of the other properties along State Road 54 to the north of it, like I said, were conservation lands covered in wetlands, or there they were already too densely built out to where there would be no room for a tower whatsoever. Other properties along 54 were
also affected by wetlands, access issues, floodplain, or just not enough space for a tower.
So it wasn't an issue of you weren't willing to pay a higher price. price.
willing landlord somewhere on fifty four, you would have done it.
If we had a willing landowner that had available land that wasn't going to be affecting wetlands, yes, we would have paid a higher price. Okay.
Okay. Any other questions?
I had a question on the uh just the access. Can you kind of take us through the r road system as to where you're gonna be getting off of fifty-four and then to that site?
Maybe they go back to that county map that was up there.
Yeah.
It's gonna be on the front page of the plans, right?
I don't know if it's gonna be
Usually it sends directions. It dies?
I apologize. I'm trying to find a good map that we'd be able to illustrate for you.
I think we have a map here, but it's an aerial map. We can use that, right?
Richard?
Yeah.
And a pointer would be great.
Can you see the aerial map that we have up?
Yes.
If you can just point what is that a pointer? Just use that to point in the direction. Where you'll access and That kind of thing.
Well more.
Is it working?
Yeah, it's working up. Trying to orient myself okay for the
You can get closer.
Right now. And here we're going to say. Well, get to Rowland from the south.
So coming off the the top button.
Yeah.
No, that's actually and I'll get to all of that after.
Right. So
Yeah. I couldn't. No,
it doesn't work on the
putting a light on a light.
So you come in here from Sassandra. Yeah, back up.
You can just walk it down from the or talk us through it. So
From
State Road fifty four. Oh, you got it. Coming from State Road fifty four, turning onto Asturian Parkway going south, turning right onto Black Lake Road. Turning left onto Chesapeake Drive.
Okay.
Um and then can you traverse the
C C Andrew?
Can you move it? Okay.
Yeah. We have to come in from the south end north.
Yeah, it is a long way around, is it? A little bit more.
Chesapeake Drive. Yeah.
Over to the Sandra Lane, up to Roland Drive, up to the site.
Okay. Thank you. So can I ask a follow-up question? Um so All of those roads you just mentioned. Not all of them, not not fifty four in Black Lake, but Chesapeake and Roland, all of that entire length of roadway is all part of the same nineteen eleven plat that You have the right to use all those roads?
To our knowledge to our knowledge those are all public right of way.
Okay, so So is it only rolling north of the right-of-way? What part of Roland is private, privately maintained?
Blue stone
back. Correct. From what it appears per the Pasco County GIS from Bluestone and Northward is privately maintained but county owned. The last couple hundred feet. Overall end.
Okay. So most of that road network you just talked about is county maintained. Okay.
It stops at Bay Low and I can confirm that because I did the house at the corner of Baylo and Rowland. Literally just got its CO a month or two ago.
Okay, thank you.
I have a follow up question. And then I'm just thinking those towers. So they're gonna be able to come through there and make the turns and all that. How long are the actual towers that we're bringing in?
The sections of the tower are going to be brought in on flatbed trucks. There's probably going to be about four sections, twenty-five to thirty-five feet each in length.
Okay. And I guess I mean I'm assuming they'll be able to make those turns. I'm looking at Ches Peak and Cassandra.
It is tight, but those trucks are able to make those turns,
yes.
David, no in the last two years I've done three houses on Roland Drive. And they have to deliver trusses to those houses. Those all come on flatbed semi trucks they can access the street.
Okay. Are there any other questions?
Somebody brought up during one of the pieces of testimony that a fire truck wasn't able to access down this road. Is there any truth to that or is that fallacy?
So
we're going to do that. Well go ahead.
And the fire marshal will review our access plan. and make sure that the fire marshal can get emergency equipment to that site.
No mail allowed back there.
Yeah. Yeah, I w I just wasn't sure. And the reason I the reason I was asking the question, I wasn't sure if it was a a legal question or if it was uh just because of the condition of the road, but valid point that you have to go through.
But it takes the the road has to be really bad for a fire truck.
I would tell you that the road is clearly a little bit more than a little bit. Substandard. doesn't meet county standards, but I don't think it's not accessible by fire vehicles. Like I said, we've completed three three houses on that road in the last couple of years. So we've had concrete trucks, semi-trucks delivering trusses. Drywall deliveries, roofing materials. So we should blame you for the fact that it's all in some rough shape? Like that when we got there. And the e all of their
claims of flooding are true.
Any more questions for us?
More questions.
So the style of uh of of the tower doesn't matter to you.
Yeah.
Monopine, monopole. One of one of the two. And between those two it doesn't matter.
And what about the bell tower?
No.
So it you'd rather us deny it than g do a bell tower. Is that what you're saying?
Um
We don't think a bell tower is the right-of-way. right mitigator.
is on it, but I'm just asking you in advance. That may be something that the board wants. So if that's not if that's not something you want and that's not acceptable No, because we'll just deny it then.
Is it because of a technical reason or cost issue?
Cost cost structural. Yes. And I think it's limiting um Bill. I think it's antenna limiting too. I think it's
Sat down prematurely. William Compton again. Um yeah, as as I mentioned earlier, the FCC keeps auctioning off higher and higher frequency bands. Um there is a limitation as the the the higher the wavelength, the the more the less it can penetrate. And that includes anything you put in front of the antennas, any kind of stealthing. So if you put a bell tower or something that you're trying to put the antennas behind that. Frequencies above 6 gigahertz, which right now we're not technically using any on most of our macro sites, but anything above that frequency band, those materials don't pass through. So we do
have ways to mitigate that, but that basically is like a like a 3M wrap that we put on our very, very high frequency equipment. But again, that's not structural. That's literally just something that just wraps around the front of the antenna just to change the color, like on a light pole or something like that. So yeah, um Structure types are becoming more and more of an issue to the carriers because of that issue as the f higher frequency bands come out.
The monopine doesn't do that?
The monopine does not, no sir.
The antennas are massed by the branches that stick out.
Okay.
All right. Any other questions? All right. Then uh do I have a motion?
So I'd move to approve. Might Personal preference is just the galvanized monopole. I Mm Moved by the gentleman's testimony about the the needles on the monopine, that was something new to me. I did not realize that was a plastic material. I think he has a legitimate concern. As I said, I've done three houses on this street in the last couple of years. I can tell you Lake Mineola is beautiful.
I would hate to see that lake polluted with
fiberglass that's left out in the sun for years and years and years, eventually it becomes brittle and I can see his point that this'll chip off, this'll get in the lake, and then we've got forever plastics in the lake and So although the monopole may not be as aesthetically pleasing, although I would tell you that I personally think those monopines look like the Charlie Brown Christmas tree. Um They may not be as aesthetically pleasing to some people, but I I tend to agree with your statement
earlier that they tend to blend in the background. There's so many of 'em around you don't even notice 'em and Uh I have one exception to that and That's my assistant in my office, lives in an apartment. The monopole's located directly behind her apartment, so you can't help but look out the window and see that. But when you're driving down the highway and it's off in the distance. I think they blend into the background fairly well. So that'd be my motion.
I'd
second that, John.
Okay, we have a motion and a and a second for discussion.
Denise, did you did you say something?
David, just for the record I don't vote on these, correct?
That's correct.
Okay.
I I do have a question.
Yes, what, Denise?
So David, am I allowed to ask the applicant a question?
If you needed to help.
I need help with the with the monopole because I'm not sure if the lightning rod is gonna be the same height on a monopole. I'm saying them say yes, so this will still be the same height. Okay, thank you. That's all I needed to clarify.
If the motion passes you'd be changing the conditions to say monopole instead of monopine and you'd remove the Maintenance condition.
Maintenance condition, yes. I understand. I just wanted to check to see if the high the sometimes a lightning rod is four feet instead of five or ten instead of whatever. I wanted to make sure that that was not a a change. Thank you.
Okay. Um just for discussion purposes and I I guess just as far as my position goes on this, um
I guess I start out by saying Fortunately or unfortunately we've all become a little bit of a little bit of a little Very dependent on cell phones and cell phone service and I mean I'm I'm I'm in a way. I'm troubled by my cellphone anyways and I wish I could become less reliant on it, trust me. Um but I'm troubled by the fact that if I'm interpreting what you guys said correctly. Your search area radius was half a mile. So are we heading down the path that we're
gonna have a cell tower every mile? In this county? Is that kinda the direction we're heading?
B based on capacity, there are areas where we need sites that close together, but again it's based on capacity. So in a rural area like this, I don't see that density ever getting down to that height that close, but it's purely based on capacity. Each one of these cell towers has a set of antennas that can carry a certain amount of traffic. Once the users use that traffic up, the only way we mitigate that is making that service area smaller by what we call cell splitting. So as
population becomes more dense, as development happens, these cell towers become closer and closer together. As a result, we end up with cell towers that are closer and closer to residential lots. the closer to existing residential lots. I mean here, I mean we're we're building this or we're they're proposing to build this cell tower one hundred feet from the property line. Um I mean granted it's it's screened on one side by a wetland, but i it's very, very close to existing residential in this area. Um
That's bothersome to me when I look at the at the kind of the checklist here and the conditional use the the approval requirements. I mean one of the things says that the site of um
Th there's topics in here that talk about has adequate drainage on the site um as far as one of the conditional use criteria. I d I don't think it does. I think this is an area that's pretty significantly and pretty frequently floods. I think people brought up um You know, property values, even though there's not legitimate proof that it does affect property values, I I d there's I haven't heard the applicant say either that it that it does not. Uh and they could both sit up there probably and claim that
Defend their side of the case. I don't know, this is a hard one. Um again we we've all become very reliant on on cell phones and technology and and maybe this is just one of the things that we're stuck with dealing with but I I don't know, I think we're headed down a dangerous path here and I think really everybody's gonna be facing where everybody's gonna be looking out their back door at one of these things really in the near future. So I just
as by way of commentary though, I think part of the issue here is that This is not a deed restricted community. I mean I I think it you probably would not see this happening in a private deed restricted community 'cause the private deed restrictions would probably prevent This landowner from using his site for a cell tower.
Mm-hmm.
So I do think some of these older neighborhoods that The Don't have private ease restrictions. Or probably more at risk of having a I'll call it a rogue landowner. Um maybe not operating in the same interest of the rest of the neighborhood because he It's got no deed restrictions. So it allows the
restrictions on the golf course. either. We looked at a case where they wanted to be on a golf course a few months ago and I'm certain that all the homes around that golf course probably had lots of deed restrictions on them. True,
but in
that case
most of the homeowners ended up supporting it because they wanted to support the golf course owner.
I mean we we were a lot further than a hundred feet away from the existing residences too. I mean I I look at w two things I looked at when they put that map up there. One I know there was some some discussion here about this cell tower being needed to replace the that's the tower that was removed from the frontage on fifty four and Black Lake Road. Doesn't look like that was within that half mile radius sight either, okay? I mean th there there is also there appears to be county owned land that's a half a mile to the west. That's not in their half a mile either, but it's four hundred feet from the
nearest residence. So I I mean I I don't know. That's why I I brought up about the the spacing between these towers and what's acceptable and what's not. I mean I I really think we're we're going down a dangerous path here if these things are required every mile you drive. I mean, I don't even that's almost as close as we allow stoplights.
I
don't think anybody wants um cell phone towers in people's backyards. I mean that's you know I don't think But but unfortunately it's a necessary evil of the technology that we're we're just trying to pick
our poison. is, you know, I got my new planning commission laptop and I'm using wireless internet. I got my cell phone. I got the Roku's on my TV. I A lot of people have Wi Fi thermostats and refrigerators and you know, unless we wanna go and I'm not saying I'd be opposed, you know, but A lot of times People tell me your cell phone rang and I say, Well If it were nineteen seventy
five and the phone rang and I didn't hear it, I wouldn't even know they called. Man, maybe we'd like to go back to that time, but I don't think we're headed there.
But but but are we going too fast? I mean it seems like the the the the antennas aren't keeping up with the frequency and the demand.
The the problem is is it's not our job to say whether we're going too fast or not. It's it's driven by economics and by consumer demand and
So can I can I ask the expert a question? So If this neighborhood had been It's I'm assuming it's an older neighborhood that's not served by fiber, so if it was a newer neighborhood that had fiber service, is it less is it probably gonna put less demand on your So you learn network?
So
more of the homes that are on fiber?
In in some ways yes. If if if there's fiber to the house and the and the that particular resident has purchased that service and then they have Wi Fi, then they have it in the house. But again, for wireless services, most of those I won't say most of a lot of those calls are outside. Something happened, you're driving your car, so a lot of our a lot of our service is not confined to Wi Fi. If Wi Fi was the answer, we wouldn't have to be a good thing.
I'm assuming you do too. Yeah. Um I don't know that we're putting the same demands on the cellular network as Mr. Moody over there.
I still have old fashioned cable for my Wi Fi in the house.
But but that's a good follow-up question. So, you know, if as infrastructure in the area pr improves with new development and more people potentially go wired through the fiber and things like that, is there the potential that it would reduce demand on this tower that you put up and possibly necessitate the decommissioning of it?
I I wish I could speculate to that.
Yeah, I mean i but it's possible, correct? I mean if
I I can't say it's not possible when you read it that way.
the fiber companies in a neighborhood like this are probably not gonna come in and retrofit it with fiber. I mean typically when you see Fiber, it's the newer neighborhoods that that they have it installed when they
That's correct. I mean but but you have newer developments that are that are coming online in the area and and those are probably gonna be have the infrastructure built into them, so
I I guess my point is is that I don't I get your point, but I'm not sure that fiber is gonna be the solution for an area like this. because it wasn't put in when all these homes were developed.
I agree with your point. I I think that for the could reduce to maybe counter somewhat what Jamie's saying, which is that we're gonna have towers every hundred feet because I think because because because fiber I mean
So you're
slave to cable company or you're slave to the fiber company. Or you can go to T Mobile and you can get 5G wireless internet. Well you need more towers. Well, yeah. Yeah, or you're
slave to the towers, right? Okay,
well I'm gonna I'm gonna So if you live in a non-rural area with all of that density, then you're going to have a lot more concentration of towers, I guess we'll have to think about it.
I volunteer to be a slave to fiber. I won't so I can reduce my tower consumption.
We're talking about reducing carbon footprint. We did we didn't talk about reducing
tower
consumption.
I made the motion to approve, but I'm a motion I like it.
Yeah, we're same here. We have a motion, we're under discussion. And what I can say since I haven't s really spoken yet on this issue. is that and it really in spite of the first speaker that came up And al although he was very pleasant for about the first fifteen seconds. Um I I too have reservations like you do, Jamie, about the about the uh the tower and the neighborhood and how to affect the neighborhood. I think Although it's not in a it's not in a newer
neighborhood that has HOA protections and things like that. Um I think we we do have a responsibility as a board To try to protect the uh people live in that area. Yeah.
The other thing I that I don't like is I don't like it when company comes and says, Oh, we don't want to do that because it's gonna cost more money. Um I think the Yeah, the uh how it affects the neighbors. is more important to me than whether it's gonna cost more money or not. It's gonna cost more money then let's find a different location. So Um I I I will I'm not gonna s uh vote to support the motion. Um I think it's
Something that we obviously need, you know, I use a cell phone just like everybody else. Yeah, but I think we need to make our best efforts. I'm not sure that All the best efforts were made here to find the a better location. Uh I think the fact that it's a hundred feet from from a a r residence and about the flooding issues. I I'm I'm concerned about all those things. I'm concerned about pollution and I think that's why Mr Moody made the motion he did a a really
I mean that would be a minimum for me, but Um I just want to let the board know in advance that I'm not gonna support the motion for those reasons. So
Anyway, we have a motion. Is there any further discussion?
I'll just chime in a little bit. I just uh one of the things I wanted to mention too is we have uh thousand people a day are moving into Florida and there's not a whole lot we can do about it. It's it's a we what we call growing pains, and it's not easy. And with all that it comes a cell service. One more thing is just that Just personally speaking I had a uh Witlacucci gentleman come and said we're gonna put a Well. Electric pole in your yard. I said, I don't want to electric pole my yard, but they put it in there and I was arguing with him and he said you'll get used
to it. And I thought that's that's pretty rude. But you know what? So I'm not saying it's you know, and I'm not saying you'll get used to it but You drive by every day and you see telephone poles and you don't even look at them and it's Just becoming part of life, I guess. And that's all.
All right. Well, um let's see, are you voting on this one? Richard? He does. He doesn't think so.
He doesn't think so. I think Richard seems the sees the hand writing on the wall
there.
The vote.
All right. So we have a motion. We have a second. Fed discussion. Is there any more discussion? Any more questions? If not. All in favor of the motion signify by saying aye, let's have a roll call.
Mr. Jamie Jordy?
No.
Mr. Derek Montlets? Aye. Mr. Peter Hansel? Sorry. Mr. John Newtie? Aye. Mr. uh Richard Channel uh wait
you
gotta wait till there's
a tie before you let him vote.
And Sir Mitch Rolf Gray.
Nay.
Um
two, so Mr. Channel can vote to break the tie.
I'll vote nay.
Okay, the motion's denied. All right. There you go.
Democracy at work. Democracy only works if people participate. And I and Mr. Chairman I have to depart.
Okay.
Still a quorum, right? Yes. Okay. Now Richard's in on it every day. You didn't know how important your seat was.
Did you so the the item is over the more Chris sent me?
Stick around. Um no,
please pass along to the first speaker. Yes, if he comes in again
I should probably say that I'm
Mr. A-Hole. I'm not just an A-hole. Right.
I should I should probably say that this does go to the Board of County Commissioners and that is scheduled for the Board of County Commissioners.