2007-02-02 TCELLCO - Laserfiche WebLink

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Waimea town. This would be in the Lakeland area moving towards Waimea town. The area of the application is identified with this orange dot. This is right along the Hawaii Belt Road, that’s running in an east-west direction between Waimea and Honokaa. The applicant in this case, Cellco Partnership dba Verizon Wireless, is requesting a special permit to allow the establishment of a 150-foot monopole telecommunications tower as well as an equipment shelter and fencing on 2,000 square feet of land on a 418-acre parcel that’s identified in this particular area. The reason for the request is to be able to bridge the communications gap between Waimea and Honokaa. At this time there is very little signal in that area in regards to any kind of any cellular transmissions. I’m sure many of you might have experienced that while driving through that area. The applicants do have a tower existing within Waimea as well as Honokaa. So this tower would be able to bridge that gap. Looking at the site plans that are submitted by the applicant, we have just a plot plan identifying the location of the tower as well as the equipment shelter and the fencing. And this is basically the 2,000 square foot area, this would be on the plot plan with the easement showing. The map does not show the location of the highway. Looking at the antenna design, we’re looking at a monopole antenna that’s going to have 12 panel antennas that are 8 feet in height. These are located at the top of the tower. There will be three sectors with 4 panel antennas on each sector facing in different directions. It would be identified in this type of configuration. Originally when the Planning Director had distributed the background and recommendation, the Planning Director was recommending that the application be denied, mainly because of negative visual impacts that the tower would create from the highway as well as to residents in the area. The Planning Director requested that the applicant make attempts to be able to either find an area to relocate or to lower the height of the tower. The applicant had made attempts and had submitted information in regards to their findings. And, at this point, the Director reviewed those findings and felt that rather than being able to have to place additional towers to be able to bridge this gap that we would be able to, it would be better to just have the one tower and then place some conditions in there to help minimize the visual impact. Looking at the conditions, Condition No. 4 was added in to try to be able to minimize those visual impacts. It states that the applicant shall plant, establish trees that will grow to a height of 100 plus feet along the north, west, and east boundaries of the proposed project site to minimize any negative visual impacts along the highway. Additionally, there have been concerns regarding easements. When the applicants for these cell towers get a location on a property it’s usually within that 2000-square foot area for that project area. The landscaping usually will go outside of that area. So in the past they’ve had problems with the applicants being able to get an easement to plant along the outside. So we’ve requested in Condition No. 5 that the applicant be able to provide that easement for the landscaping along the outside. EXHIBIT A 2