AT&T, Arts Wireless propose 135-foot monopole at 577 West Main Street; Connecticut Siting Council will decide

David Ball, counsel for Arts Wireless and a co-applicant with AT&T, told the Norwich City Council at an informational session that the applicants propose constructing a 135-foot telecommunications monopole and a roughly 2,000-square-foot fenced compound at 577 West Main Street.

The proposal is part of a Connecticut Siting Council process; the council — not the Norwich City Council or planning and zoning — has exclusive jurisdiction over final permitting, Ball said. The applicants provided technical reports, coverage maps and visual simulations at the session and answered questions from aldermen and city staff.

The applicant team said the project aims to improve service east of the site and into the downtown area. Martin Lavin, an engineer with C Squared Systems who prepared coverage plots for AT&T, summarized the need: "The need, here is primarily for coverage in that area to the east of the site, towards downtown. There's weak coverage and there's inadequate service in that area." Lavin said customer complaints were among the factors driving the siting decision.

Architect Doug Roberts described the site plan as a 135-foot monopole sited in the far west corner of the parcel with utilities routed underground to meter centers and a gated, gravel compound: "We're proposing 135 foot monopole in a 2,000 square foot compound at 577 West Main Street." He said the design will be refined for siting-council and construction documents.

Ball and the applicants said two carriers would be on the pole initially: AT&T, and Verizon has expressed interest. Lavin said alternative locations were evaluated — the applicants and city staff discussed five alternatives that were rejected for various reasons.

Russ Dosta of Virtual Site Simulations described two balloon tests used to produce visual simulations; the team tested a balloon at roughly the pole height on April 24 and again the Friday before the meeting. Dosta summarized the visibility analysis: the package showed about 37 acres of visibility with leaves on and about 55 acres with leaves off, representing roughly 2 percent of the study area (one-mile radius) by his team’s calculation. He said visibility was concentrated mainly within a quarter mile north of the site and the commercial area to the south.

City planning staff and aldermen pressed the applicants on aesthetics, safety and site constraints. Deanna Rhodes, the city’s director of planning and neighborhood services, asked that the applicants provide engineering "fall" data showing where sections of the monopole would land if a failure occurred and noted the parcel’s small size and a fire-damaged building on the lot. "I would like to ask that the, AT and T provide us with that fall, data of how the structure would fall on the property because I think it's gonna preclude any kind of development on this site," Rhodes said.

Roberts said monopoles are engineered to meet Connecticut building code and industry standard TIA-222-H, with a pre-engineered failure mode intended to keep a failed section within the property: "We normally, will provide a pre engineered fault, within the tower design itself. So if if it did fail, it would fall within the property, property lines." He also said actual monopole failures are very rare and most failures result from improper installation or modification.

Council members asked about setbacks, fencing and screening. Roberts said the applicants plan an 8-foot welded-wire (chain-link) fence around the compound and that no screening vegetation was currently proposed, though applicants said they would consider additional screening if the city requested it. Rhodes noted that an 8-foot fence may trigger zoning setback requirements and the precise fence and structure placement should account for those rules; she said the exact commercial-zone setback was "not specified" at the meeting.

Aldermen and staff also raised whether alternate tower treatments (for example, concealing antennas inside a flagpole) were feasible. Lavin said such designs would create RF and stacking limitations and likely require about 40 more feet of height to accommodate the same antenna configuration: "We would need 2 more sections of the tower above where we are now, to house all the 3 antennas per sector... Verizon would also likely need 2 more sections, so the pole would be 40 feet taller to accommodate the same coverage."

Rhodes and other staff said the city intends to record these comments and submit testimony to the Connecticut Siting Council when an application is filed; she asked that the applicants include technical fall-zone data and other details in the Siting Council record. Ball and the applicant team confirmed they expect the same presenters to appear at the Siting Council proceedings.

No formal city vote was taken; the Norwich City Council does not have authority to approve or deny the application under state statute, and the Siting Council process will include its own public hearings and notices, the applicants and staff said. The applicants said they already mailed abutter notices under state statute and that additional notices will accompany any Siting Council filing.

Next steps noted at the session: the applicant team will prepare and file an application with the Connecticut Siting Council; the city will submit its comments and requested fall-zone data will be sought from the applicants. Timing for the Siting Council filing and hearings was not specified at the meeting.