PEG24CU14 conditional use Verizon Wireless 199-foot monopole
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The county’s agenda for Planning Commission, May 2, 2024
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The county’s minutes for Planning Commission, May 2, 2024
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What was said
Machine transcription of 25m of recording, with speaker names inferred from voice matching. 70% of 111 lines carry a name. It shows what was said, not what was decided, and both the words and the names can be wrong.
Okay.
Okay.
Alright, so as my team uh brings up the PowerPoint, I'll start it up. It's PEG24CU14. It's for a conditional use for a 199-foot above-ground level Monocle Wireless Communication Facility in an R2 low density residential district.
The subject site is located in north-central Pasco County, on the north side of Spring Valley Road, approximately 870 feet west of Adela Street. What is being proposed is a 195-foot actual mast tower with a four-foot lightning rod and it will have the it will be suitable for the co-location of three additional carriers, so there are going to be a total of four carriers, and that's being proposed within a 1600 square foot fence compound
area on the property.
On the screen next for you is the zoning map and it basically shows you that to the north of the property is zoned R2, low density residential, as is the west side. On the east side is a Tampa Electric Communications, I'm sorry, Tampa Electric Company sub electrical substation. And to the south is AR, Agricultural Residential.
Where's the substation? I'm sorry.
Substation is on this property right here.
Right here. Due to east.
Just directly to the east.
And the surrounding uh future land uses uh are Res Sik Res 6 and Res One to the south. What? See this uh shows a better photograph or picture of the electrical substation to the east. And the ta the uh proposed tower location will be in on the northeast portion of the property.
Okay, so yeah, put in that corner like or is it right in the middle or what?
I'll show you I'll show you the uh site plan is coming up. This is basically showing that it is on let's see if if it's there's a larger view.
So the actual communications tower will be placed on the northeast portion of the property. So this is showing the actual compound area, and together with the communications tower showing the four locations where antennas will potentially be placed. So there's a total of three co-locators and the actual anchor tenants. Verizon wireless on the top.
So it's only sixteen hundred foot footprint, basically. Sixteen
hundred square foot is the actual fence compound area. Yeah. With the tower in the center of the compound.
Okay.
And these are photosimulations um of the where the towers so photos taken where a balloon has been floated up into the air and showing where um how the property would look with the tower. Gotcha. So this is the first view which is looking southwest and it's taken from the intersection of Blocker Street and Baxter Avenue and this is showing existing and proposed and you'll see that it's not visible from that location.
This is looking southwest at the intersection of Blocker Street and Ainsley. So it basically shows where the so the first one would be existing without the tower, the second would be with the tower and it wouldn't be visible from there either.
Okay.
This is looking north on Spring Valley, so this is actually where like the the um the home site of the Elliotts is the house with the with the solar panels on the roof and that's showing the actual communications tower.
Okay.
This simulation is southeast on Spring Valley Drive and as you can see it's visible from that location, looking southeast, and that's position four.
And the recommendations approval with conditions as included in your agenda packet. The applicant did hold a neighborhood meeting as is required,
consistent with what the land development code requires, and the summary package is included in your notes.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Are there any questions for Dennis? Yep. Okay, very good.
You wanna would the applicant like to come up first or yeah.
Good afternoon. I'm Matt Tania John, nine thirty-five Main Street, suite C four, Safety Harbor, Florida, three four six nine five. Just as a couple points of order before we get going, I did send over a PowerPoint presentation if we could bring that up. If not, I have a copy of it on my If not, I have a copy of that on a thumb draft. And then Mr. Chair, if you would be willing to indulge, I did request additional time in case you'd like a full presentation. Um I did request up to twenty minutes
if you want the full presentation.
Well I'll tell you what I think might be best. Why don't we I I did get that message so you can have the extra time if you need it. But my suggestion is maybe just give us a brief overview right now. Let them let's hear what their concerns are, then you can come up and do. As much of a presentation as you think you need to do. Understood, sir. Okay.
I hope you won't be interrupted by gunfire outside, so
You know it.
Alright. As I said, I'm Matt Tanaya John. And just to move through this presentation in more of a summary format,
this is the conditional use for 199-foot-tall monopole style communication tower, as you heard from Ms. Hernandez. It's 195 feet to top of steel and an extra four feet for lightning rod.
In all maps I show you today up will be north. This is just an aerial showing the area around Blanton. You can see Blanton Road going uh roughly east-west and then curving south. The green marker is the monopole. And I've added an arrow.
This is just a closer view. Um the one thing I want to bring to your attention is the siding of this. So since we have an electrical substation to the east, the siding was to place the monopole, which is a simple gray structure, off in that northeast corner. There's mature trees in the area around it on the property and to the north, you have a larger parcel up to the north. If we were to go west there's a house off in that direction. So we're maximizing separation and I respectfully
submit that we're placing it in a location that's logical when you think about it, having an infrastructure use next to an infrastructure use instead of spreading out footprint. The very base of the monopole is a 40 by 40 square that's fenced in with the opaque fence as required by your land development code. It's a closer view of the property. Um Well, the code required landscape buffer. Um we did request to uh perhaps
wave it on the south and west sides, but there is space provided there and we're perfectly happy to provide it. Uh this is just a closer aerial. Again, it shows the location of the monop of the monopole uh in that northeast corner there and you can see that there's trees to the north, to the west, to the south.
Yeah.
This is just the zoning designation for the area. This is the future land use map from your county GIS showing residential six.
This is an example of a monopole style communication tower. So when I say monopole, that's a term of art, that means that there's a tower with a single support pole with no guy wires or ironworks extending out from it. It does have external antennas on the headframe at the top. The reason that those are mounted externally is so that way there's adequate space for the antennas and adequate airflow.
I mean that's
This is a copy of sheet C two or C one from the plans just showing um the uh monopole overlaid. You can see the gray square. I do bel My apologies.
I do not have a okay. You can see that there's a gray square, that is the monopole itself. You can see a circle or a yellow circle around it, that's the fall zone. and the unlikely adventure structural failure of the monopole foldover upon itself to be completely contained on the parent parcel, you can see the driveway extending off to the west.
This is sheet C2. It's the same line work without the aerial. And then this is just a closer view of the equipment compound. It will be 40 by 40, fenced, landscaped. Um it has space for four sets of equipment that meets the co-location requirement under your code. This is an elevation showing the monopole as with the Verizon's antennas at the top and the three future co-locations. This is the f this is the opaque
fence at the bottom, it'd be a wood board fence six feet tall. These are the photo simulations that Ms. Hernandez showed you. Our visibility it generally consists to the south. And that's our my landlord's house right there. And then off to the west. And you can see even off to the west um the lower portion of the monopole is buffered by the oak trees. Working through the RF package, this is for Verizon Wireless. They are trying to solve a
gap in service. Basically there's six towers. You have them up along the I-75 corridor on the west side. So I 75 up by the county line and then um as you come down um I'm gonna call it the Hancock Seat Exit and then as you are coming down towards St. Joe Road. On this side you have Dade City, then as you head up along the 301 corridor.
This is Verizon's current coverage from those six towers. Green is reliable, red's unreliable. If there's no color, they're not having coverage in this 4G band. The yellow dot, which they conveniently put on a light cream background, is right there in the middle, and I do apologize for the visibility issue. And then here's the proposed coverage from the monopole. So what it does is it gives us coverage, it gives Verizon coverage throughout the Blanton
area, houses that extend further out, and then along Blanton Road.
And then this is just a map showing uh the coverage that's proposed along the way.
Okay.
And the last thing I'd like to bring to your attention is nine one one call statistics. Um so anyways, uh the vast majority of our our of our nine one one calls that we receive today are from uh wireless phones because we don't have wirelines anymore. With that, I'm available for any questions that you may have. Thank you.
All right, thank you very much. Any questions at the moment? All right. Thank you. We'll uh see what questions come from the audience here and we'll deal with that. Thank you. So you'd like to come up and speak?
Who else would like to speak on this? Anybody else? Okay.
My name is Carol Cruz and I live at [address removed]. And I just want to say one thing. I am not against cell towers. I believe we need them, but they should be properly put in the right places. A cell tower. Uh has radio frequencies which go out from this tower. I don't care if it's a tower with one pole, ten poles, seven poles, whatever. It's a cell tower and it sends out radio frequencies. Radio
frequencies are measured in Hertz, which is equal to a number of isolation cycles per second that is the periodic motion and the repeats itself also. Over and over again. It has it known for many years that exposure to high levels of radio frequency energy heats biological tissue. known as thermal effect. The radio frequency at cell towers is higher than the human body can tolerate.
The radio frequency levels of a human being that can tolerate anywhere from 30 to 300 Hz. A cell tower sends out over 700 Hertz. which is almost two and a half times higher than the human body can tolerate. The World Health Organization on Cancer Research has classified radio frequency electromagnetic fields as a possible cause of some types of cancer in humans. The electromagnetic field
heats the body tissue, including the brain, which can cause cancer of the brain. The World Health Organization also says that there is strong evidence that exposure to radio frequency waves from cell towers can cause other health issues. The results of some studies of maternal Exposure during pregnancy is more than fifty Hertz of a radio frequency have shown risk of congenital malformations, fetal childhood development disorders, and other fetal
cancers and conditions. Other effects of radio frequency documentations of scientific research studies include headaches, sleep issues, memory deficits.
Ma'am, can I just interrupt you? you have adequate time. The Planning Commission is not allowed to consider health effects from Soltowers. We're actually preempted by the Telecommunications Act and our own code. We can't consider that. So if you have other reasons why you're objecting to this tower that are more aesthetic based or
compatibility
based, then I'd rather you focus on that because this body cannot consider that any alleged health effects from the sole tower.
Oh well The cell towers that is being placed, the singular monopole is right next to a development with many children, many children. And they play on that road right around that area. And that is a safety issue. That's for children. I mean, come on. And it's just it a cell tower should be not placed in within any residence within a quarter of a mile because of its uh radio frequencies that are sending
off.
Okay, well you're still arguing about the health effects of the tower. I'm
asking
do you have an objection to the tower unrelated to its health effects?
No, no. Uh because that's the main issue and I think that's one of the most important issues that I could bring up. Is health.
Okay, well unfortunately the federal government has told us we can't consider that. So I just want to ask if you had anything else.
Okay.
All right. Would you like to uh come up and adjust whether you wish to or not the any of those again? Pardon me?
I asked if you wanted to speak. She raised her hand earlier. She did? Okay. She did, yeah. Sorry.
I just wanted to ask um when the neighborhood meeting was, because I think and I could be wrong that I saw it was in um Uh Saint Leo's. That's a long way from where this was put up. None of us knew there was a neighborhood meeting. So, uh, like maybe it was advertised, but words certainly didn't get around. So And if they're gonna have it, it'd be nice if they had it
close by the neighborhood somehow. You know, Saint Leo's a bit of a ways out. Thank you.
All right.
Good afternoon, Matt Tania John. Uh just to start, um as uh Council Goldstein brought to the youth planning commission's attention, and I would be lapsed in uh my practice if I didn't mention it, there is a federal preemption of um of the local government considering RF emissions under 47 USC section 332. It's not competent substantial
evidence. Uh just to circle back around to the community meeting. Uh we held it was properly noticed. We held it. My office manager spent several days looking for a for a compliant place to locate it. notice was sent out, so I I mean I I followed the code and I would hope I'd not be c considered unethical in my practice there. I
just like it was March twenty sixth
and there was four people that signed in on the neighborhood meeting
shoot we have. And we had discussion and I had neighbors that were there. So um Anyways, so I would draw you back to the zone to the competent substantial evidence of this application which is before you today. You have your staff's expert recommendation of approval. You have the RF consultant's expert recommendation of approval. We have taken care to cite this in a location where it
should be, you know, next to another utility. to try to create a logical locationing for those types of uses. Um I've shown you that our that Verizon does have a need to serve the area and I would respectfully request that uh you recommend approval to the Board of County Commissioners with staff's proposed conditions of approval. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, Retirement.
M Ms. John, would you the uh testimony we heard was related to safety of the tarot falling, would you address that issue again? I know you addressed it to us already in your presentation.
Absolutely. So to begin with, the monopole will be designed to the eighth edition of the Florida Building Code, so the 2023 version. And um also the I'm going to get the code wr I'm going to get the abbreviation wrong. It's A-S-C-E-22 Wind Exposure. Which basically means the monopole and everything designed the monopole and everything attached to it is designed to meet both our Florida
building code and our wind loading. If there was to be a structural failure, it's actually designed with a pre-engineered crimp point so that way it folds over upon itself. And this is this isn't new technology. Uh monopoles are basically a derivative of the design of structure that we use for interstate lights. So my example that I normally give people is the interstate exit for Kings Highway in Charlotte County in 2004. If
you remember Charlie went down there and across that interstate exit and all those lights were folded over upon themselves. That's fall zone um technology in action. Basically the lamppost folds over upon itself so it doesn't block the travel lane. Exact same engineering.
Right. Any thing else? Any other questions?
Okay. Thank you very much.
Okay. Uh so diar motion, please.
I just want to make a comment to um uh I forgot your name, but uh what what you were talking about was basically the it's how microwaves were discovered, microwave oven were created. And it's so it's that radio frequency that creates heating, but it's has to do with proximity to it. Um so you y so you have so
I'm sorry, we don't speak from the floor.
So so you you have that same thing in your house, the microwave. And that's what that's what that does, it heats up. But you know, and that's one of the reasons why we can't um why we're preempted by federal law to to consider those health effects because you know there's there's no competent evidence out there that says that those frequencies of radiation creating kind of cancer or any other kind of health effects or we use them every day in our own our own homes. So I understand where you're coming from in terms of the the concerns, but um So far we've we've been living around cell phone towers for quite a while
and and so far everything's okay. So
Well the other main point is that if we denied the application based upon a a law that we said we can't we can't base it upon. then it would have no effect. So it wouldn't accomplish what you want anyway. So um Well we have uh we have the presentation. Uh do we have a motion? Yeah, I'd move approval of PC eight. I'll second it. Second.
Any further discussion. Yeah, I d just want to point out to the lady I I heard the comment about we the people That's you need to go talk to your congressmen and your senators. We didn't make that law. We're preempted by that law. Our hands are tied. I'm not saying I don't believe you. There are some things I do believe. Button. in our capacity we have no ability to take that argument into
consideration.
As as they say it's above our pay grade when it comes to federal law. So
So we have a motion and we have a second. Any further discussion from up here? All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed, like, sign. Motion carries.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you. Thank
you. Better example of a micro.
Yeah.
Yeah. I've been told by a lot of experts that this is more difficult tools than any Silver.
Maybe
any board, I think it's
a good thing.
This goes to further what this goes to the board. Yeah, for for just for your information. I think the question from the floor was, does this go to the Board of County Commissioners? The answer is yes. This is a recommendation from us. So you can attend the appropriate Board of County Commissioners and we have a list of the many meeting dates.
And and this is scheduled for the Board of County Commissioners on June fourth, twenty twenty four, at one thirty PM in the same chamber.
Okay.
Thank you. Alright.