Cell phone coverage on Penniman Road and part of the Colonial Parkway near Cheatham Annex is about to get better.
The York County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously at a Tuesday meeting to approve a permit authorizing the construction of a proposed 199-foot cell phone tower at an undeveloped site on Penniman Road. They voted after a presentation from a representative of the company that wants to install the tower, Beacon Towers, and from the design engineer who crafted the tower.
The supervisors had a brief discussion with the Beacon Towers representative, Jonathan Yates, and with the design engineer, Bill Swartz, about the need for improved cellular coverage on the Colonial Parkway. Supervisor Donald Wiggins (District Three) said coverage on the Colonial Parkway is “traditionally pretty bad” and he asked if the tower would improve that area.
Swartz said the tower would improve coverage on part of the Colonial Parkway, primarily in an area around the point where Penniman Road intersects with the Colonial Parkway before giving way to Cheatham Annex. He also said he is in talks with the U.S. Navy to install a pair of cell phone towers in the area — one near the Camp Peary exit on Interstate 64 and the other to the east of the newly approved tower — that would improve coverage on the Colonial Parkway throughout the area.
The area is particularly challenging for the construction of a cell phone tower, as much of the land in the area is owned by the National Park Service, which Yates said adamantly opposes any kind of tower construction in Colonial National Historical Park. That park contains Historic Triangle landmarks including the Colonial Parkway, Yorktown and Jamestowne Island. The proposed construction sites on U.S. Navy property is at the discretion of the military, which is not subject to local ordinances that govern land use.
The tower will be installed in a long, narrow parcel in a wooded part of upper York County, on Penniman Road near the Colonial Parkway. The parcel where it would be built is on the eastern side of Penniman Road, nestled in densely packed trees that are occasionally split by a home. On the other side of the road is a chain-link fence that divides the area from the adjacent Yorktown Naval Weapons Station, which occupies much of the nearby land. The Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation’s headquarters and the Kings Creek Timeshare development are also in the area.
The lot where the tower is to be installed is bordered by residential lots on either side. The closest house is 140 feet away, while the second closest is 170 feet. Supervisor George Hrichak (District Four) asked whether the tower could be set at the back of the property along Diesel Road, but that isn’t possible due to a dramatic slope that consumes the rear of the parcel.
York County Assistant County Administrator and Zoning Administrator Mark Carter presented to the supervisors an analysis from county staff of the proposed tower. He said Beacon Towers investigated using an existing 280-foot tower at the intersection of Route 199 and I-64 by the Marquis at Williamsburg and Water Country USA, however that tower was not suitable to the needs of the company.
Supervisor Thomas Shepperd (District Five) said the board has seen many applications for cell phone towers come before it — there are almost 40 towers in the county — and that the concerns about them tend to be about the view of the base of the tower and about how the tower would fall if it were to collapse.
Yates said the base of the tower will receive heavy landscaping, blocking the view of the base from the adjoining properties with a thick combination of deciduous and evergreen flora. The issue of the tower falling was discussed in detail at a September meeting of the York County Planning Commission meeting, where the commission voted 4-1 to recommend the supervisors approve the tower.
“Towers don’t fall like Christmas trees,” Yates said at that meeting. He said the tower begins to give way at 150 feet up and the tower is designed to sustain 100 mph winds. He said towers from his company along the Gulf Coast were not affected by winds from Hurricane Katrina except for when those winds picked up parts of bridges and boats and slammed them into the tower.
The lone dissenting voice at the planning commission meeting was commission member Tim McCulloch, who said the application was a “no-brainer” until a nearby resident of the site where the tower would be installed, Felicia Brady, spoke during the public hearing and said she had been advised by a real-estate broker that the presence of the tower would lower the value of her property. Carter said Brady had since sent a letter to the county saying her concerns had been addressed by Beacon Towers.
While Brady spoke at the public hearing concerning the tower at the planning commission meeting, nobody showed up to talk about it during the public hearing at Tuesday’s supervisors meeting. Carter said he has not heard from anyone who has any problems with the tower being installed at the proposed location.
Supervisor Walt Zaremba (District One) asked if either the pastor or the congregation at New Quarters Baptist Church, which is about 300 feet away from the tower site, had expressed anything concerning the tower. Carter said they had not said anything about the application.
When an application is sent to the county, it is initially analyzed by the York County Planning Division, which examines the application with the intention of advising the planning commission and the supervisors about the nature of what the applicant is asking for. During that time, planning staff typically makes recommendations they feel would make the application more palatable.
In the case of the cell phone tower, the planning staff made a number of recommendations, all of which were embraced by the planning commission and the supervisors. These recommendations include a curved access road from Penniman Road to the tower so it is better obscured by trees from Penniman Road and a requirement the applicant seek out a letter of approval from the adjacent Yorktown Naval Weapons Station to ensure the equipment on the tower would not interfere with on-base activities.
During the commission’s meeting, Drew Robins of the Yorktown Naval Weapons Station said cell coverage at Cheatham Annex — which is near the site of the tower — is “pretty terrible.” Nobody from the U.S. Navy spoke at Tuesday’s meeting.
The atmosphere at the supervisors meeting was much quieter than at a James City County Board of Supervisors meeting late in 2012 when a proposal for a 170-foot cell phone tower drew the ire of a group of New Town residents. They said the visibility of the tower near their homes would affect property values. The James City County supervisors eventually approved the tower — which nTelos had been trying to build in the area for seven years — however the length of the approved tower was reduced to 135 feet.
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