Santa Fe planning panel backs Fort Marcy cell ‘tower’
Verizon Wireless plans to turn one of the light poles that illuminate the outfield at Fort Marcy Ballpark into a “stealth tower” with several antennas, an installation the company says will “greatly improve” wireless speeds and capacity in downtown Santa Fe and the Fort Marcy area.
The new equipment on the pole at the city-owned ballpark would improve access to Verizon’s LTE service in the surrounding residential areas, the company claims in its proposal, and ease the traffic burden on existing downtown telecommunication facilities. The latter issue has has throttled speeds and frustrated residents, tourists and businesses alike.
In other words, your selfie with Zozobra should make it onto Instagram faster this fall.
The company’s proposed “2018 build plan,” included in the application for the Fort Marcy Ballpark structure, lists 11 additional Verizon telecommunication facilities spread across Santa Fe. Each would require some form of city approval, either administrative or, depending on the location and land-use requirements, from the city Planning Commission and City Council.
Verizon, according to its Fort Marcy proposal, would furnish a new 72-foot light pole behind the fence in left-center field and install its 61-foot-high antennas around the replacement pole. It would conceal the equipment behind a “radio frequency friendly shroud,” according to a city land-use report.
Because city code establishes a 35-foot maximum height for structures in the ballpark’s residentially zoned district, the proposal was required to go before the city Planning Commission, which approved a height waiver and the tower proposal Thursday night.
City land-use staff had recommended approval of the proposal, considered a “tower alternative” or “stealth tower,” a design intended to camouflage antennas.
“By replacing the existing light pole and adding a stealth sleeve, you’re still going to look like a light pole — it will just be a little bit wider,” Anne-Marie McKenzie, an Albuquerque site manager working on Verizon’s behalf, told the Planning Commission.
A lease agreement with Verizon for the space will be presented to the City Council.
Several planning commissioners com-
mended the creativity of the Verizon proposal.
Commissioner Pilar Faulkner contrasted the inconspicuous aesthetic with that of a telecom tower on the south side of town that’s disguised — poorly, she said — as a fake tree.
“I’m legally blind, and if I can tell it’s not a tree, it’s not a tree,” Faulkner joked. “I would love more of these throughout town instead of the not-trees.”
Verizon installed eight temporary wireless installations on city property in December and January under an edict issued by former Mayor Javier Gonzales, who declared that a “telecommunications emergency” in the city was endangering residents’ ability to get in touch with first responders.
One of the installations was stationed behind the fire station on Murales Road, which sits next door to the Fort Marcy Ballpark, the summertime home of the Santa Fe Fuego of the Pecos League.