The Mecklenburg County Planning Commission voted to approve two proposed monopole communications towers during its meeting covering zoning and special-exemption items. The towers — presented by counsel and consultants for Sailco Partnership/Verizon Wireless and Arcola/rock-spring-associated applicants — were described as meeting county spacing requirements and federal aviation reviews.

The first application, for a site identified in the county file as parcel 38231 near Skyline Road, was presented by Anthony Bologna of Williams Mullen. Bologna told the commission the project is a 195-foot monopole with a 4-foot lightning rod that will host Verizon as an anchor tenant and has capacity for three additional carriers. He said the site is roughly 125 acres and that the estimated land disturbance is under half an acre. ‘‘The tower is a 195 feet with a 4 foot lightning rod,’’ Bologna said, and added the design aims to preserve the pastoral character and disturb as little land as possible. Staff recommended approval and a commissioner moved to approve; the motion was seconded and the commission carried the recommendation.

The second tower, proposed by Arcola Towers for property owned by Rock Spring Baptist Church, was presented by Jonathan Yates. He described a 197-foot monopole with a two-foot lightning rod and said the Federal Aviation Administration reviewed the site and issued a ‘‘determination of no hazard to air navigation’’ and found no requirement for obstruction lighting because of the tower’s distance from nearby airfields. Neighbor Gene Purnell, who lives adjacent to the site, asked the applicants to move the tower a few hundred feet farther from his home; Yates said re-siting would require repeating surveys and federal reviews and could delay the project by up to a year. ‘‘If we move it even 50 over 50 feet, we have to go back through all that,’’ Yates said. The commission voted to approve the special-exemption application after the presentation and brief questions.

Both approvals were recorded as motions made and seconded and were announced by the chair as carried. No formal conditions beyond conformance with county regulations and any required federal or state permits were included in the public record during the hearing.

The commission’s record shows applicants and staff emphasized public-safety benefits from improved cellular service, including more reliable 9‑1‑1 connectivity and better access to the county’s Code Red alerts. Opponents did not register for the Whittles Mill hearing; one adjacent property owner spoke during the Arcola/rock-spring discussion and raised siting concerns.

The planning commission’s decisions were procedural approvals of the applications before it; any subsequent building permits, environmental compliance or carrier deployments will require follow-up reviews and permits by the county and other agencies.

The planning commission moved on to other agenda items after the votes on the tower applications.