Beaufort County board approves special-use permit for 145-foot 'monopine' cellphone tower in Habersham

Beaufort County — The board approved a special-use permit for a 145-foot wireless “monopine” tower at 87 Cherokee Farms Road after a presentation by the applicant, Mr. Yates, who said the structure is aimed at improving in-home and area mobile coverage for Habersham and nearby neighborhoods.

Mr. Yates told the board the monopine will be 145 feet tall with a 4-foot lightning rod and is designed to host four carriers, with T-Mobile as the initial anchor tenant. “If you take your phone inside your house, it might as well be a paperweight,” he said, arguing the facility will provide “in building coverage” and “additional capacity to that area.”

The applicant said the parcel is slightly under 1 acre (0.977 acre), is zoned T2R, and that the property owner, T and W Holdings LLC (Bob Turner), recently removed a trailer from the site. Mr. Yates said the proposal meets the setback and criteria in ordinance section 4.132 and described a construction timeline: foundation work first, the pole itself can be put up in a day, and T-Mobile would take about 30–60 days to integrate equipment and activate service.

Mr. Yates also reported that the Federal Aviation Administration reviewed the site and made “two important findings: no hazard to air navigation because of our distance from Merritt Field MCAS, and also no illumination.” He told the board the facility will not create “noise, odor, vibration, fumes, lights, [or] glare.”

The chair asked whether board members had questions; a board member said none. The chair stated the county planning staff had recommended approval. The chair then asked for public comment on the item; none was offered and the chair closed the public comment period.

A board member moved to approve the special-use permit; a second was recorded and the chair called for members to indicate their assent. The chair then told Mr. Yates he could proceed with the site review team (SRT) process and permitting. Mr. Yates had said earlier that, if approved, construction could be completed — tower erection and equipment activation — within roughly two months depending on carrier work.

Why this matters: County officials said the project is intended to improve cellphone and broadband reliability in a part of Habersham where in-home coverage is reportedly poor, which proponents said affects residents’ ability to use phones for basic services, payment and health applications.

Next steps: With the board’s approval, the applicant will finish SRT and permitting with the county and proceed to construction and carrier integration; Mr. Yates estimated a 30–60 day window for the carriers to bring equipment online after the pole is installed.

Quotes in this article are taken from public remarks made during the meeting and are attributed to speakers listed in the meeting transcript.