OCEAN CITY — City Council approved a resolution that would allow a cell phone tower to be installed on Bay Avenue at the former American Legion lot, ending a long-running dispute over putting one at the Compass building on the corner of Haven Avenue and 34th Street.
Ordinance 25-01, amending Zoning and Land Development, will allow a 120-foot-tall monopole with a wireless telecommunication antenna to be installed on city-owned property in the 3300 block of Bay Avenue, where the legion post was before a new one was built at 46th Street and West Avenue.
The ordinance, which set parameters on where cell phone towers could be located, was approved on first reading at the March 27 meeting before being approved on second reading at the April 10 council meeting.
City Solicitor Dorothy McCrosson said the ordinance helps resolve a legal battle with Cellco, which does business as Verizon Wireless, over its plan to place a cell phone booster on the Compass building. Citizens in the neighborhood fought the cell phone node because it was roughly the same height as nearby homes, including bedrooms of children. They voiced their concerns about the potential harms of EMF waves.
The Planning Board denied the application, but Cellco appealed in federal court, alleging the city was in violation of the Federal Telecommunications Act because cell phone companies have rights as quasi-utilities, McCrosson said.
To settle the lawsuit, she said the city undertook almost a year of review of properties in the area where both a tower could be built and where there was a need for better cell phone coverage. The need was demonstrated in the neighborhood near the Compass building.
The city considered using the small plot of land at the northeast corner of the intersection of Bay Avenue and 34th Street — where the city used to have a lifeboat on display — but it didn’t work out.
The city settled on the vacant lot where the legion used to be, she said. Although there are residences nearby, the monopole would be 120 feet tall rather than at residence height.
She said during testimony in the fight over having a cell phone node near residences, there were competing experts, some who said they were “perfectly safe” and another who said they send out “death rays.”
The city was trying to find a way to get the tower off the Compass building and the safest way was to put it on the monopole high up. That, McCrosson said, would provide better cell phone service coverage to the area and do it in as responsible a way as possible.
Council Vice President Terry Crowley Jr. said it was a good example of the city listening to the public. At one iteration there was consideration of placing the cell phone tower at the little league ball field at 35th Street, but that wouldn’t fly. The corner of 34th Street and Bay Avenue would have been the best place, he said, but this ended up being the best solution to the problem.
Councilman Sean Barnes said that aesthetically he didn’t like the idea of the monopole, but it was the best solution to resolve health concerns.
Second Ward Councilman Keith Hartzell had asked McCrosson to explain how “painstaking” the process was and he was confident everything was done that was “humanly possible” to choose the right location.
The motion was approved 7-0.
– By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff