Cellular technology is changing fast. The huge need for more wireless facilities is making co-location less desireable than in past years. Co-location is changing the character of Barton Mountain. What is "secondary land use impact" Criterion 9 (A) and how does it occur? There are alternatives to towers.

In some areas, co-location can make sense. But in others, a pre-existing industrial use can encourage co-location which can change the character of an area to its detriment.  Shorter concealed or stealthed towers may work better than one or several huge towers, if they are stealthed, concealed, and spread out over a wider area not only for reasons of aesthetics but for better cell service. Wireless cellular units attached to poles will be even less obtrusive. The photographs of cell towers shown on this page are examples of cell tower techno-blight.  Several of the pictures below depict how cell towers can burgeon even in rural areas.  When one tower application is considered at a time, an initial approval can quickly develop into a situation of "secondary land use impact" when the approval of a second and third tower is predicated on previous permits. Careful consideration of public concerns over what the siting of one tower can do to an exceptionally sensitive visible focal point over the long term is sorely needed in locations such as Barton Mountain.  It is too late for the Peterborough, New Hampshire location shown below.  One of the few very successful planning laws in this country designed to protect our landscape for posterity and provide for "smart growth" is Vermont's Act 250.  The long-term vision and common sense of Vermont's Act 250 District Commissions are Vermont's best hope to protect vulnerable ridge line areas. Citizens in general just don't know the laws pertaining to the siting of towers, nor do they realize there are choices and alternatives. Even if there is a significant gap in cellular service, a local government can deny a "celluar tower," according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second and Third Circuits, if it isn't the "least intrusive means" available for closing the "significant gap." There are many places to site cell towers where cell service can be provided and the towers are not obvious eyesores.  The recent successfully sited cell stealth trees in Wheelock and Coventry, Vermont attest to this.

                           Secondary Land Use Impact

At the present time, a 75 foot FM Radio Tower application for Barton Mountain awaits approval at the FCC and is on file at the Barton Town Office.  The first site approved in Barton was the Adelphia cable TV site.  That site became the basis for the approval of the Unicel site, which was approved without the knowledge of adjoining landowners.  The Unicel site became the basis for the approval of the Verizon site.  If the Verizon site is approved, the Unicel and the Verizon sites could provide the basis of the approval of the FM tower. Each industrial facility permitted for Barton Mountain within the last decade has been predicated on a pre-existing industrial use, clearly setting in motion secondary land use development and the approval of further towers.  What will be next? Large groups of citizens in Barton and elsewhere do not want this pattern to continue.

Examples of where an existing industrial facility led the way to multiple sites are numerous in this state.  Among these places are Pease Mountain in Charlotte, Georgia Mountain in Milton, East Mountain in Kirby, Burke Mountain in Burke, Glebe Mountain in Windham, Mount Mansfield in Stowe, and Barton Mountain in Barton. Charles Gallagher, formerly District 7 Co-Ordinator of Act 250, stated that land on the top of Mt. Mansfield was initially given to the University of Vermont as a bequest with the caveat that it could be used only as a site for a research weather station. Over time, however, Mount Mansfield has become so populated with towers that not too long ago, radiation levels had become so high that skier safety was jeopardized.  Act 250 does review secondary land use impact under the Criterion of 9A. Examples such as these show that pre-existing sites can cause a proliferation of towers, and in some areas the destruction of ridge line aesthetics.

In the case of Barton Mountain, we should be looking for the least intrusive sites available, not the most intrusive sites.  Two concealed or stealthed towers at lower elevations hidden in locations where cellular radio equipment services are provided to people are more desirable than one or several huge towers which provide coverage out to several miles at high elevations but not to population centers.  Less unsightly are dictionary-sized units on existing utiltiy poles, deployed routinely in California by PCS carriers.    

Photograph Curtesy of www.necellularsites.net

Photograph Curtesy of www.necellularsites.net

Photograph Curtesy of www.necellularsites.net

This photograph represents untold cell site proliferation across the nation. An example of this closer to home is Greenfield, Massachusetts where five cell towers rise high above the town on a convenient ridgeline overlooking the town center.