Hours before a meeting at the Springs Firehouse at which residents loudly vented about poor to nonexistent personal wireless coverage and a gap in emergency communications coverage in the hamlet, the East Hampton Town Board held a lengthy presentation and discussion of parallel issues.
The upgrade of the town’s emergency services communications infrastructure that began in 2017 is mostly complete, Eric Schantz, the assistant planning director, told the board. Seven of eight projects have been completed, he said, though three of those could be modified with new or taller towers on which communications equipment is mounted.
The remaining unresolved node in the system, Mr. Schantz said, would cover Springs. There, the plan to site a 185-foot tower at Camp Blue Bay on Flaggy Hole Road, owned by the Girl Scouts of Nassau County, is underway, with the planning board scheduled to hear American Tower’s application on Wednesday. A public hearing has yet to be scheduled.
The plan would need the architectural review board’s approval as well, and the tower would also accommodate personal wireless communications equipment. It “will improve cell coverage and be a vital part of the emergency services communications network,” Mr. Schantz said. While the tower remains in the planning stage, a temporary “cell on wheels,” accommodating emergency communications equipment only, is sited at the end of Gann Road in Springs.
CityScape Consultants, engaged by the town, conducted a wireless infrastructure poll in August 2021, which found that more than three in four respondents described network coverage where they live as poor or nonexistent. A little more than half of the poll’s respondents live in Springs. The poll was conducted to help inform a wireless master plan that is to guide development of the wireless network in the town.
At a public hearing last Thursday, Mr. Schantz told the board that proposed code changes pertaining to personal wireless communications are intended to modernize the code, which was last updated with respect to wireless communications in 2002. “Since that time, federal regulations have changed,” he said last Thursday. “As we all know, technology has changed, and community need has changed. We need more coverage out here.” The proposed changes are also intended to empower the town to see that standards for new facilities reflect community concerns.
The changes would also promote efficiency, Mr. Schantz said, making it easier for carriers and town staff to review new applications. “We’re also looking to expedite review of applications that are minor changes — swap-outs, things of that sort,” he said, “things that go to the planning board right now when really, everybody wonders why. A swap-out of equipment at an existing facility is not something that should have a full review in front of the planning board.” The town board appears agreeable to adopting the code changes.
Among the 2021 poll’s findings, Mr. Schantz said on Tuesday, was that residents favored concealed facilities and use of existing structures over new towers, but a majority did not oppose new towers.
At any given time, there are around a dozen new and pending applications to co-locate or swap personal wireless equipment on an existing tower, Mr. Schantz said. Among them are a 110-foot monopole on town-owned property on Stephen Hand’s Path and a 100-foot-tall monopole on New York State-owned land at Hither Hills State Park in Montauk, both of which would house personal wireless equipment. A proposal for a 50-foot monopole housing personal wireless equipment near St. Peter’s Chapel in Springs will be considered by the planning board “at some point,” he said.
While the town board settled on Camp Blue Bay for a tower to house emergency communications equipment to complete the townwide upgrade and cover Springs, Elite Towers and the Springs Fire District are co-applicants before the planning board for a 180-foot monopole at the Springs Firehouse. It would replace the existing 150-foot tower that was built in 2015 without site plan approval from the planning board, according to the town. The zoning board of appeals revoked its building permit, and a State Supreme Court judge dismissed a lawsuit the fire district filed against the Z.B.A. challenging that decision.
Carl Irace, an attorney representing the fire district, said that the town mischaracterizes the existing tower’s construction. “The existing pole was not built without approvals,” he said in an email on Tuesday. “The district and Elite jointly submitted a building permit application for the pole, and also another one for co-locating wireless equipment. Both permit applications were approved by the Building Department. Every other fire district in town applied for, and received, the same approvals Springs Fire District did. The tower was built and the fire district installed its equipment, which is operating.”
The building permit was revoked only after a neighbor applied to the zoning board of appeals for its revocation, he said. Rather than continue litigation, “the supervisor and the commissioners agreed to bring a new application for a replacement tower,” the application now under planning board review.
That board made a positive declaration under the State Environmental Quality Review Act in 2020 and directed the applicants to prepare a draft scope outlining the contents of a Draft Environmental Impact Statement, which Mr. Schantz described as “an exhaustive review of potential impacts of the project” on aesthetics, historic or archaeological resources, and human health. The board received the draft scope last year and is awaiting the submission of a Draft Environmental Impact Statement from the applicant.
That tower requires planning board, zoning board of appeals, and architectural review board approval. It would accommodate personal wireless equipment and could house emergency communications equipment, but the town has settled on a tower at Camp Blue Bay.
“One thing missing from the conversation is the carriers themselves,” Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said of personal wireless service on Tuesday. “We should invite representatives of the major carriers here to give us their perspective on how to solve this problem.”
Later on Tuesday, some of those representatives addressed residents at the Springs Firehouse, where Manny Vilar, a Springs resident, had organized a meeting (Mr. Vilar is chairman of the East Hampton Town Republican Committee). The meeting’s purpose was to advocate the immediate activation of the existing 150-foot tower on the firehouse grounds.
More than 100 residents attended, seemingly to a person deeply frustrated at poor personal wireless coverage, the prolonged lack of a tower housing emergency services communication equipment in the hamlet, and uncertainty as to what can be done to resolve both problems.
Mr. Vilar suggested that residents mount a pressure campaign by contacting elected officials from the town level to the governor’s office, demanding that the supervisor issue an emergency declaration and temporary permit for use of the existing tower at the firehouse.
Tanya Negron from Elite Tower told the gathering that the company could offer the existing tower, the proposed taller tower, or a cell on wheels at the firehouse. Each option could accommodate personal wireless equipment, revenue from which, said Mike Benton, chairman of the fire district’s board of commissioners, “more than likely would go to your paid paramedics,” the cost of whom continually grows. “We desperately need paid paramedics,” he said. “They save lives.”
“The fact is, so much emergency response is intertwined with wireless at this point,” Mr. Irace told The Star. “Ambulance equipment relies on wireless. Radio and wireless are both used for dispatching,” and certain aspects of dispatching completely rely on wireless technology. “In the emergency world, the line between the two is harder to discern.”
The district and Elite Towers’ three offers to the town stand, he said: use of the existing tower, the proposed taller tower, and a cell on wheels, any of which would cost the town nothing. Given its location and elevation, he said, the firehouse site is superior to Camp Blue Bay. “I don’t see how the Camp Blue Bay site solves as much of the need as is being offered,” he said. “There are still going to be coverage issues. Think of its location, near the bay. How can that be the best site? It doesn’t make the greatest sense.”.”
