New cell phone tower proposed on Swarthmore College tract
NETHER PROVIDENCE » A Florida-based cellular phone company hopes to erect a 120-foot-tall monopole on a tract owned by Swarthmore College that sits almost jowlto-jowl with the Blue Route.
SBA Communications has already made one presentation to the township planning commission regarding the proposal, which calls for the structure to be installed at a site off of Avondale Road, adjacent to a leafcomposting facility shared by Nether Providence and Swarthmore Borough.
It would have at least one cellular phone company’s transmitters plus room for three additional carriers.
But before the application can advance, the commission will need to make a recommendation to the township Board of Commissioners. That will take place once a formal landdevelopment plan has been submitted, township Manager Gary Cummings said.
The commissioners, in turn, will need to vote on it.
In addition, the zoning board will need to consider whether to grant variances required for the project to proceed and the county planning commission will need to perform a review and offer its comments.
Based on its initial consideration of the proposal, the planning commission did not raise any immediate objections and opted to forward it to the Board of Commissioners with suggestions and proposed conditions.
“This recommendation was made because of the relatively remote location of the site, the lack of apparent opposition (at least to this point), and very few additional topics the planning commission could review, aside from those discussed at the meeting,” the panel stated in its notes.
The college will lease the land to the company contingent on the application receiving the necessary approvals.
Joel Cooper, the college’s chief information technology officer, said the school supported the plan because it will help address cellular phone coverage gaps in the area.
“My colleagues and I at the college work closely with officials in the region to serve both our campus and the broader community,” Cooper said.
“We have been approached several times in the past by cell companies, but those proposals never produced tangible results. A few years ago, SBA Communications approached us because they were trying to address Verizon coverage in Nether Providence and proposed a location on property owned by the college in Crum Woods.”
He noted that the site is “not a particularly visible location but will dramatically improve cell coverage in the area. The college will receive a nominal amount from the company in order to lease the land for the tower, but this is less of a moneymaking opportunity and much more of an opportunity to improve cell service both on our campus and in the area.”
The planning commission noted the “location is being proposed to predominately (sic) cover the Blue Route roadway valley. When asked, the applicant indicated that he would present further information at upcoming appearances whether this location was intended to cover a gap in coverage, or a shortage capacity with existing coverage, or both.”
This is not the first time SBA Communications has pursued a cellular phone tower in the area. In September 2008, amid growing public opposition, the Wallingford-Swarthmore School Board rejected a proposal from the company to place a 150-foot-tall structure next to George L. King Stadium, at the rear of Strath Haven Middle School.
SBA was offering the district an initial payment of $250,000 plus annual payments of $28,200 and additional fees if other companies placed transmitters on the tower. However, a board member at the time, Carol Carr, described that amount as “nominal.”
That rejection came after the school board about a year earlier had turned down plans from a different firm to install a cell phone tower in a stand of trees next to the baseball the middle school.
In its summary of the latest SBA Communications proposal, the planning commission stated that the following variances would likely be needed:
A variance to construct the tower in an area of the township zoned for singlefamily home residences.
With respect to this issue, Brian Seidel, representing the company, asked whether the requirement could be waived since the site would be adjacent to or on land leased by the township — as well as Swarthmore Borough – for leaf composting operations. The initial opinion of the planning commission and the township zoning officer was that such a designation would not make sense.
The Planning Commission notes show that a question field at was asked regarding whether the tower would be visible from nearby Calendar Lane.
“The applicant’s response was that due to dense tree lines, it wasn’t (expected to be the case),” the panel wrote.
A variance to construct the monopole at a height of 120 feet when the maximum height allowed is 100 feet.
On this requirement, SBA Communications is arguing that the 120-foot height is being proposed so that multiple carriers could be placed on the tower and the lowest carrier on the monopole could still be 85 feet above ground level.
“Since the goal of the ordinance is to accommodate multiple carriers at a single location, if 85 feet is the lowest practical height for a carrier at this location, and that can be proven, the 120-foot request may well be consistent with the intent of the ordinance,” the planning commission commented.
A variance to have a lease area of 100-by-100 feet when it would appear that an area measuring 240 by 240 feet would be required to satisfy the applicable ordinance.
Regarding this issue, the company sought a further interpretation on whether a 100-by-100-foot leased compound was considered for the requirement of placement of the monopole relative to the required distance from any property line or right of way line, or if the entire parcel could be taken into account.
A variance to allow for barbed wire on top of the 8-foot-tall fence that would surround the tower.