On judge’s order, Paramus board selects site for cell tower
JULY 7, 2014 LAST UPDATED: MONDAY, JULY 7, 2014, 3:51 PM
BY KAREN KLEIMANN
MANAGING EDITOR
TOWN NEWS
After a decade of fighting the installation, the Paramus Zoning Board of Adjustment reluctantly chose a location for a cell phone tower.
A judge recently ruled against the board in a lawsuit filed by Sprint and T-Mobile after their application was denied by the zoning board.
At a June 26 meeting, the zoning board heard additional testimony from the applicant and then opened the meeting to the public on comments and questions.
All zoning board members except for Walter Vavosa voted in favor of the Church of Nazarene site.
“We have an obligation to choose a site,” Zoning Board Chairman James Huffman said. “We denied this application because we didn’t like it, but we were told by the judge that we have to choose a site.”
About a decade ago, Sprint and T-Mobile filed a joint application before the zoning board to bring a cell tower into the borough in one of two sites on East Midland Avenue, the Church of Nazarene or the Ambulance Corps building.
The applicants proposed building a monopole, a tower that had antenna branches stretching out from the pole and resembles a tree. Ultimately the board denied the application, stating among several reasons that the benefits did not outweigh the detriments to the community.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/on-judge-s-order-paramus-board-selects-site-for-cell-tower-1.1047639#sthash.K8CUU3EB.dpuf
This post and the last makes me think of something — when we add another 500 families downtown with the new projects, what are the things we won’t be able to stop? Will the new residents or the developers be able to argue things like “well, we need better cell service now, so we need a tower in town; we need to change the rules on overnight parking because it discriminates against our guests; we need to re-zone the residential area next to us because we need a new Walmart now to provide for the new people.”
The message is when you play around with zoning laws, you do a lot of unintended things.
Right on !