The borough assembly has rezoned several lots adjacent to Wrangell’s solid waste transfer site, allowing installation of a cell phone tower on the city-owned land if the developer can obtain a conditional-use permit for such use of the property.
A public hearing and further consideration by the Planning and Zoning Commission is required for a conditional-use permit.
The assembly, in two unanimous votes May 25, approved rezoning the seven parcels to open space / public zoning, and allowing communication facilities, including cell towers, as a conditional use within the zoning code for such areas.
The assembly action also allows municipal use of the seven parcels and any other parcels in the borough zoned for open space.
An April request to the borough by a Florida-based company, Vertical Bridge Development, to build a cell tower at the site prompted the ordinances. However, Carol Rushmore, the borough’s economic development director, said the zoning change should have happened anyway.
The borough has been using some of the land near the trash site to store old tires and electrical department equipment, which were not allowable uses of the lands before the parcels were rezoned. The rezoning and code changes took effect May 26.
“A proposed cell tower triggered this series of events for a zone change and modification to the zoning uses,” Rushmore explained in her presentation to the assembly.
The cell tower conditional-use application has been before the Planning and Zoning Commission, which determined it could not take action without a change in the zoning code.
The commission at its April 29 meeting recommended the assembly amend the code to add municipal facilities and communication infrastructure as conditional uses within the zoning district.
The issue was most recently before the commission May 13 and will be back on the agenda for the commission’s June 10 meeting, Rushmore said.
The applicant is required to present the borough with a third-party study to ensure that the tower will meet Federal Communications Commission safety standards for radio frequency waves. Rushmore said that study will be included in the public information packet for the June 10 meeting.
The Vertical Bridge Development request is for a 150-foot-tall metal-lattice tower within a 50-foot-by-50-foot fenced area.
“The proposal would allow for Verizon Wireless coverage on the north end of Wrangell and the Wrangell airport,” the application stated.
The new cell tower “will greatly enhance wireless coverage in the area and will provide an opportunity for other wireless carriers to provide coverage to the north end of Wrangell
Island,” said a consulting company managing the conditional-use application for Vertical Bridge.
“The initial tenant for this site will be Verizon Wireless whose 4G antennas will be positioned at a height of approximately 147 feet above ground level,” the application stated. “The communication tower and lease area are designed to accommodate three additional wireless carriers.”
A new, non-exclusive 20-foot-wide access and utility easement would be built to the property from Third Avenue (the road to the trash site).
KSTK has a transmitter atop the solid waste transfer station building, broadcasting its signal to the lower Stikine River area and the Back Channel. The station wrote the Planning and Zoning Commission in April, expressing concern over “the potential for signal interference between the cell tower signal and the KSTK translator signal.”
The station advised the commission, “KSTK does not want to be sued by Verizon if the existing KSTK signal and the new Verizon signal are interfering with each other. Any potential signal interference can be avoided if the new service provider … is held responsible to engineer their system to not interfere with the existing KSTK signal.”
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