As the Zoning Board debated allowing a fifth wireless communications provider to plant antennas on a Bloomfield Avenue building, some board members began wondering if a legal limit needs to be imposed on how many providers — or how much of their hardware — is allowable on one property.
There are benefits to having one massive pile-on of cell-phone companies’ transceivers, and local ordinance encourages competing companies to share the same spaces, in part to avoid having antennas popping up all over the place.
But last Wednesday, as the Zoning Board contemplated allowing New Cingular to stick 12 antennas atop 641 Bloomfield Ave., near Valley Road, some board members began wondering if at some point, enough is enough.
Board Vice-Chairman Joseph Fleischer questioned whether a site could get so overcrowded with antennas, forcing carriers to keep erecting higher and higher transceivers to avoid interfering with each other’s signals, that it was no longer a viable spot.
Excluding New Cingular and the dozen new antennas it proposed, and received board approval for, last week, four other carriers already had equipment on 641 Bloomfield Ave., the six-story Leach building, said Planning Technician Richard Charreun.
A company called Nynex was the first telecommunications provider to break ground, so to speak, at the building 16 years ago, in 1992.
A line of wireless carriers followed: Sprint received its approval in 1997; Nextel, in 2000; and Omnipoint got clearance to place some of its gadgetry atop the site in 2005, Charreun said.
According to resolutions of the Planning and Zoning boards issuing approvals to those projects, a combined 40 antennas are already perched on that rooftop.
Holly English, a Zoning Board member, said the Leach Building had so many antennas on it already that they were starting to result in "a major porcupine effect" on the roof. Fleischer ultimately voted against the plans, saying "the line has been crossed here."
But New Cingular’s attorney, Renu Shevade, noted that Montclair’s zoning ordinance doesn’t place a cap on the number of telecom devices permitted on one property.
The company was just seeking a zoning variance since its proposed antennas were 6 feet, or in some cases almost 8 feet, higher than the parapet wall of the building, which houses Morgan Manhattan Moving and Storage.
The application was approved with a vote of 5 to 2.
Board Chairman William Harrison Jr. said he would prefer having New Cingular situate its equipment on a single rooftop alongside other carriers, rather than erect them on sites that have not yet been marred by telecom facilities. But he noted that "it’s only a matter of time" before applications start coming in for other tall buildings in Montclair.
Fleischer said that municipal officials will eventually need to devise alternatives for providing cellular coverage within the township that don’t involve piling antennas onto the township’s limited number of tall structures.
Shahed Husain, a radio-frequency expert for the wireless provider, said New Cingular’s new facility would fill a coverage gap that is four township blocks in size, or about a half-mile, and it would help relieve a neighboring cellular signal site in Glen Ridge that is getting "overwhelmed" by demand.
Maurine Hranek, the company’s site acquisition consultant, said she reviewed 12 other possible places in the vicinity of the Leach building where an installation could be placed and possibly achieve similar results, and concluded the original spot was still optimal.
Among other sites Hranek said she considered were the Montclair Police Headquarters, the Department of Community Services facility on North Fullerton Avenue, a high-rise apartment building on Church Street, The Siena at Montclair condominium building at Church and South Park streets, and the Orange Road Parking Deck.
In some cases, Hranek said she got no responses from owners, while in other instances the sites were tall enough but not in the right location to provide adequate coverage.
The company backed away from the Church Street apartment building since it is a residential site, which seemed less appropriate than the Leach building, which is commercial, she said.
Meanwhile, municipal officials have not yet solicited proposals from telecom companies for any public properties, and are expected to do so in the coming weeks. The Community Services facility might be offered, but a new cell site there would not provide New Cingular with the full extent of coverage needed, according to testimony at the meeting.
