Pine tree tower approved by APA

EMILY HUNKLER, For the News
RAY BROOK — The state Adirondack Park Agency approved the permit to allow Verizon Wireless to build a communications tower along state Route 9 in the town of Schroon at the full agency meeting Friday.

The permit called for the tower to be built on private land with a paved access road from route 9 also being constructed.

At Thursday’s Regulatory Programs Committee meeting, some agency members took issue with the construction of the access road; however, it was deemed necessary for the project to move forward.

Language in the permit was changed to include the word “reasonably” when outlining how precisely the tower will assimilate a mature eastern white pine tree.

“My only concern is that the project manager may have a different understanding of what ‘reasonably mimics’ means,” agency Chairman Curtis Stiles said regarding the accuracy of the tower’s tree-like characteristics.

At Thursday’s meeting, agency member James Townsend said, “Our standard is Pilot Knob, and we were pleased with the outcome of that.”

Townsend was referring to the Nextel cell-phone tower built on Pilot Knob above Lake George in 2006. Dubbed “Frankenpine” by its opponents, the tower was considered a general success by the APA, which hopes to see a similar outcome with Verizon’s tower.

Mark Sengenberger, APA’s interim executive director and deputy director of the Regulatory Programs Committee, said he was concerned that companies are not cooperating when applying for these permits. Sengenberger said he wished to see more attempts to co-locate and make room for other tower users to use the space as well.

“Perhaps we ought to revisit the Towers Policy and make that clear,” Sengenberger said. “I’m sure that Verizon is going to be getting the best service they can from that site, but they are not necessarily thinking about getting the most out of that site in terms of co-locating.”