Mancos town board turns down 150-foot communications tower

Mancos town board turns down 150-foot communications tower

Dec. 21, 2000

By Tom Vaughan
Mancos Times Editor

A 150-foot digital telecommunications tower proposed for a location on Western Excelsior property 62 feet inside the west limits of the town of Mancos was rejected by the town board after a hearing Dec. 13. It may reappear — in a larger form — a few hundred feet outside the town.

D.W. Towers, working with Western Excelsior owner Charlie Mitchell, had proposed to build a monopole tower just off the west end of Riverside Avenue to hold four to six antennae for digital communications.

The reason for picking that location, Towers representative Jeff Nichols has told the planning and zoning commission and the town board, is ease of access to utilities needed to support the tower, as well as proximity to the existing excelsior-plant smokestack, which would soften the visual impact.

P&Z has considered the tower proposal for several months and, after holding its own hearing on the matter, sent it to the board on a split vote.

Subsequently, Margie Connolly, P&Z chair, who was absent when the proposal was voted on, sent the board a letter of opposition.

When the issue came to the town board, Mayor Pro Tem Paul Christensen immediately recused himself and left the room for the duration of the discussion and vote, citing a conflict of interest due to his in-law relationship to Mitchell.

No one had signed up to speak at the hearing when it opened.

However, Connolly spoke from the floor in opposition to the tower, citing the height of the structure, and the precedent that would be set if the town suddenly changed its recently-enacted land-use code to allow 150-foot towers when the current limit is 80 feet.

She also voiced concerns about the lack of direct financial benefit to the town (no franchise fees are given to the town), and the volatility of the telecommunications industry.

Mancos Valley resident Jerry Gunter asked Nichols to provide more information about the grid matrix the tower would tie into, the frequencies, bonding requirements, health issues and the liability of the town.

Nichols said he would make the matrix information available.

He said the height was necessary to be able to co-locate antennae on the same structure (in earlier presentations,

Nichols had also stated the height was necessary for line-of-sight linkage between towers in the matrix), and that health should not be a concern. He said the power used by a digital antenna is comparable to that of a household light bulb.

Nichols also stated that D.W. Towers is only erecting the tower; American Towers will be the owning and operating entity.

The lease requires the owner to tear down the structure if it is no longer in use, absolving the town of liability for a derelict structure.

Gunter also raised the question that has come up in every discussion of the proposal: Why not put it on Mancos Hill with the rest of the towers?

Nichols responded, as he has in each case, that the difference between digital and analogue (the technology used by the towers on the hill) is that digital doesn’t have the range of analogue and there is a better signal for cell-phone users if the antenna is close to the highway.

Trustee Vernon Harrell asked about other sites the company had considered. Nichols said there were two other possible locations on the Western Excelsior property, outside the town limits, and a site at the new fire station, also in the county.

Harrell expressed concern that approval would gut the land-use code with no benefit to the town, and there was no guarantee the unused smokestack would continue to be standing to lessen the tower’s visual impact.

Trustee Ray Martinez expressed concern that, if the town did not approve the 150-foot tower, there could be four 80-foot towers, all allowable under the land-use code if they were in locations zoned "Light Industrial."

Building Inspector Mel Heath affirmed that building permits would have to be granted for 80-foot towers in the appropriate zone.

Trustee Michele Black expressed the concern that technology changes in the blink of an eye and today’s state-of-the-art construction may be tomorrow’s dinosaur.

After briefly considering kicking the issue back to a divided P&Z, the board decided to grab the bull by the horns, and voted 3-1 to deny the request for a permit and its associated changes to the land-use code.

Harrell, Black and Trustee Herman Muniz voted for the motion; Martinez voted against it.