Proposed Tower in Wrong Place

A proposed 120-foot-tall cellphone monopole along with a vinyl-sided shed on a parcel on Napeague received negative signals from the East Hampton Town Planning Board on Nov. 19.

The pole, to be used by AT&T, would be placed at the rear of a nearly 16,000-square-foot parcel on the north side of Montauk Highway owned by an entity called Surf Barn. The site has one house on it and a store occupied by Goldberg’s, a bagel shop that opened there earlier this year.

From the moment Eric Schantz, a senior planner for the town’s Planning Department, began his presentation, based on a 19-page memorandum, it became clear that the proposal had virtually no chance of succeeding. Among the negative factors Mr. Schantz laid out were that it would require 22 variances from the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals, that it had the potential to damage the structures on the site and buildings on four adjacent properties, and that it could end up blocking the Long Island Rail Road tracks to its north, or Montauk Highway to its south in a hurricane or other emergency.

Mr. Schantz said that the town code offers guidelines for erecting such towers, and said the chosen location did not meet them. Furthermore, the code specifically prohibits such towers in places where they could potentially strike other buildings.

However, he also pointed out that the code requires the Building Department to offer two alternate sites. He then suggested a Long Island Power Authority site to the west, where T-Mobile has antennas on  a 70-foot-tall wooden pole, or the roof of the building housing Goldberg’s, which he said would require the construction of a cupola.

 Janine Brino of the firm Re, Nielsen, Huber & Coughlin, which has handled many applications involving cellphone towers, listened as board members then weighed in with objections. “That fall radius is very much a concern to me,” Reed Jones, the board’s chairman, said. “How are people from Montauk supposed to get out of town?” he asked, if the tower were to fall. Even the planned accessory shed for the tower was taken to task by the board, with Ms. Weir telling Ms. Brino that vinyl siding was a poor choice for East Hampton Town.

Ms. Brino told the board she would go back to the owner of the property and develop a response to the comments, as well as discuss possible other locations with AT&T.