Cell Tower Goes Online

Cell Tower Goes Online

By Erica Jackson

As the spring golfing season gets into full-swing, golfers at the Smithtown Landing Country Club and residents of the neighboring San Remo community will finally have cell service.  Despite a snafu with the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Joy Mooney, managing partner of SiteTech, of Islip, says the cell tower is online with AT&T.

According to Bill Fonda, spokesman for the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), SiteTech, failed to file necessary permits, which prevented the tower from going online earlier this year. “They needed a variance, which they did not get,” he said.

However, Mooney said after a meeting on April 28 between SiteTech, the Town of Smithtown and the DEC, the DEC permitted SiteTech to bring the tower online, pending the filing of proper permits.

Mooney says her company was not aware that a DEC permit was necessary.  “This has been four years in the making. The last thing I would have done is forget to file for a DEC permit,” she said, “We were not told by the town that a permit was needed.”

According to Fonda, DEC regulations require that anything constructed along a Wild and Scenic River corridor must obtain a special permit.  Since the tower was built at the country club near the Nissequogue River, which has a Wild and Scenic River designation, permits should have been obtained.

“The tower is seventy five feet tall and our standards require a variance at forty feet tall,” said Fonda.

To obtain the proper permit, SiteTech, said Fonda, must provide “justification” on why its tower must extend higher than regulations.  He said, “We then have the option to tell them to take the tower down, move the tower, or we can provide SiteTech with a permit and require them to do some kind of mitigation project that would improve a shoreline or habitat area.”

Moving the tower, however, may prove difficult. 

According to Frank DeRubeis, Smithtown town planner the location of the tower was selected after a golfer went into cardiac arrest and fellow golfers were unable to call 911 due to a lack of cell service.

“The man survived,” said DeRubeis, but town officials decided a cell tower was needed at the country club so a similar emergency wouldn’t happen.

The town requested bids via a Request For Proposal (RFP) process for a cell tower to be constructed on the town’s property at the county club.  Two were received. 

The town selected SiteTech to lease the land from the town and a 3-year planning process commenced. While SiteTech worked with the town on a lease contract and  a site plan review, the town asked the state to approve special legislation that would “alienate” the 0.7 acres of land that the cell tower sits on.  

“In other words,” said DeRubeis, the alienation legislation took the land out of the park so a private tower could be built on it. The land would revert back to the town if the cell tower ever goes out of commission.

The Smithtown Town Attorney’s office did not return repeated phone calls as of press time