Many of the public comments during the East Hampton Town Planning Board’s Oct. 19 public hearing on a 185-foot-tall communications tower at Camp Blue Bay in Springs were not about that tower, but about an unused tower at the Springs Fire Department. That said, all agreed that additional cell and emergency communications service was needed in Springs, and quickly.
Some of the confusion might have been due to the fact that the lobbying firm Accabonac Strategies, headed by the town’s Republican chairman, Manny Vilar, had held a meeting the night before about the tower at the Springs Firehouse, which has a tortured history dating to 2015.
In a phone call, Mr. Vilar said there had been a “purposeful and willful attempt to prevent the Fire Department from bringing that tower on.”
The East Hampton Town Zoning Board of appeals revoked a building permit for the tower at the firehouse and the fire district’s lawsuit challenging that decision was dismissed.
“We have publicly encouraged them to consider alternatives, but none have as yet been proposed by them, as applicants,” Eric Schantz, an assistant town planner, said in an email. “A roughly 150-foot tower near the center of the property would most likely not require any variances.”
An Oct. 18 “wireless service updates” document published on the town’s website lists the Springs Fire Department tower status as “awaiting submission of a draft environmental impact statement as of September 2021 or a revised application.”
In the meantime, the Camp Blue Bay application has moved forward relatively swiftly. There, American Tower, the applicant, leases the property from the Girl Scouts of Nassau County, which owns the camp. Originally proposed less than a year ago, the public hearing on Oct. 19 was the final step before the planning board would be able to approve or deny the application.
Despite the confusion between the two towers, it went well. Christopher Fisher, a telecommunications attorney speaking for American Tower, said, “It’s not often I come to a hearing on an application and hear overwhelming support.”
The 185-foot pole would replace an existing 60-foot tower at Camp Blue Bay that carries only Verizon equipment and has no emergency services functions. Mr. Schantz wrote, “The Camp Blue Bay tower will complete the town’s emergency services communication network and no other ’node’ is needed in Springs.” In addition, the proposed tower would also support all four major cellphone carriers.
In the first indication that the waters had been muddied, Jonathan Coven, of Talmage Farm Lane, who had been at Mr. Vilar’s meeting the night before, asked, “Will there be an opportunity to talk about proper relocation of the fire district’s current illegal cell tower later this evening?”
“Changing what is a national building code for the purpose of allowing the fire department to gerrymander this tower that they built illegally is cynical and counterproductive,” Mr. Coven said.
The town has updated its wireless code, so that the height of a tower cannot exceed the horizontal distance from the property line. Previously it prohibited any habitable building from being within a horizontal distance equal to twice the vertical height of a tower.
Mr. Schantz wrote that the fall zone change had nothing to do with the Springs Fire Department application. The changes were made at the advice of the town’s wireless consultant, Cityscape, based on “a review of the ordinances of other municipalities.”
Craig Sands, a resident of Runnymeade Drive, said with regard to the fire department tower, “From what I understand, it’s up and it’s not going anywhere. Why not just add a few more antennas and get the service and coverage that we need here?”
Referring again to the fire department tower and not to the Camp Blue Bay tower that the public hearing was addressing, Michael Green, a resident of Camberly Road, said, “We want the Planning Department to be aware that a majority of people are in favor of [moving] the tower to a central location at that site.”
Aaron Warkov, who lives on Old Stone Highway, said, “I am in support of the Camp Blue Bay 185-foot tower,” but since it wouldn’t fulfill all the cell demands of Springs, he asked the board to investigate smaller devices to “make a mesh network of radio signal coverage.”
Deanna Shenn also began her comments by talking about the Springs Fire Department tower. As for the Blue Bay tower, she said she supported it, but “I don’t know much about it. If we can’t ask you questions and we can’t get answers we don’t know where things stand,” she said.
The planning board does not answer questions at public hearings, it simply listens, but questions such as those may have been better put to the East Hampton Town Board, which discussed wireless communications in depth at its meeting the day before.
Nevertheless, the planning board hearing offered people a chance to raise issues that had long been on their minds.
“You couldn’t make a phone call out of my house this summer,” said Peter Ross, who lives on Deep Six Drive. “I’m enthusiastic about the 185-foot tower.”
Karen Pardini of Copeces Lane said, “The me, myself, and I people who don’t want anything in their backyards, maybe they should move to the Sahara.” She then said that she had met a man the other day who received a phone call in the Sahara.
Lawrence Mayer of Talmage Farm Lane said, “I doubt there’s anyone in this town who doesn’t have cable television. If we accept that premise, they are amply suited to have wireless connectivity for their cellphone; if you have an internet connection you have cell service for your wireless phone,” he said.
“I’m 80 and intend to live in the town for the rest of my life,” said Nigel Noble of Accabonac Road. He said due to the poor service, he once missed a video call with Stony Brook University Hospital. “I would like to continue to live in this town and stay alive here. Maybe you can hurry up and deal with this problem.”
Samuel Kramer, the planning board chairman, sought to clarify the situation once the public comments were complete.
“The public hearing gives you an opportunity to give the board your opinion. It’s not an opportunity to go back and forth, because the board has gone back and forth with the applicant, and with experts,” he said.
The Planning Department would prepare a memo summarizing the public hearing and then, “In public, this board will discuss the application and comments again,” he said. “It’s intended to be a transparent public process and we as a board do our best to keep it that way.”
He said all relevant documents were available at 300 Pantigo Road, and on the internet, “free to see and understand.”
Last night, the planning board was set to discuss comments made at the public hearing to determine whether members were ready to vote on the American Tower application.
A resolution one way or the other could be prepared in time for a vote at their meeting on Nov. 9.
