REANET promises tower landscaping

REANET promises tower landscaping

Mar. 7, 2001

By Janelle Holden
Journal Staff Writer

A representative from REANET promised the Cortez Planning and Zoning Commis-sion on Tuesday night that the company would complete landscaping around its 120-foot tower at the county annex on Montezuma Avenue by May.

The Cortez City Council denied REANET’s request in December to contribute $2,000 from the city’s beautification fund to help the company finish removing the asphalt from Montezuma Avenue into the county annex and replacing it with grass, trees, and a walkway between North Chestnut and North Elm streets.

In addition, the commission questioned Dan Bridges, the chief technical officer at REANET, about the tower’s use and compliance with the conditional-use permit granted on Aug. 16, 1999. The permit required the tower to be used for LMDS technology within a year — with landscaping to screen the base of the tower. If the tower is no longer needed for LMDS transmission, REANET was also asked to guarantee its removal.

Commission member Bob Wilson explained to Bridges that when the permit was considered last August Raymond Keith, the representative from REANET, formerly Tri-Corners Communications, Inc., had "crammed it down our throats" that the project was necessary to bring high-speed telecommunications to the Four Corners. Since then, a fiber-optics highway has been constructed from Grand Junction to Albuquerque, and LMDS technology is limited in scope.

At the time, many residents of Montezuma Avenue complained to the commission about constructing an unsightly edifice next to the city’s most aesthetic street.

Bridges said the tower is being used for wireless transmission, although some antennas have been removed. They have refocused the wireless patterns with different antennas. The tower allows a 360-degree transmission pattern, over a three- to five-mile radius. A representative from REANET told the Journal in January that only one test business in the area was using the service at that time.

Also Tuesday night, the commission heard from several residents who live on Canyon Drive and wanted to comment on a pending application to construct a five-bay car wash on the southwest corner of South Broadway and Canyon Drive. The residents asked that if the car wash is approved, access to Canyon Drive be prohibited.

"We have really no objection to the car wash, per se, if that exit and entryway on South Broadway can be pushed just as far south as possible. Eighty percent of the time we can’t get on the highway right now. It’s a very narrow street and we usually have to go right to go left," explained Canyon Drive resident Chuck Haley.

The Cortez Sanitation District also commented that the sewer lines in that area would have problems handling the silt and sediment that might accumulate from the expected 75,000 gallons of wastewater per month running through the system.

Residents said the sewer systems are already plugged during many weekends, and this would only increase the problems. "There is a sewer problem with us on the street. About once a month a little yellow truck comes down and pumps that line out and we’ve all had sewer problems backups there because that line is so flat," explained Haley. "It’s plugged much of the time, just on Canyon Drive residences."

The commission tabled the permit until CDOT responds to the request of the applicant, Super Splash Inc., for an access permit, and the possibility of putting a light at the Canyon and South Broadway.