By Matt Hampton
The agreement, the result of an uproar on the part of Hempstead residents, has several key components that they feel give them a better chance of avoiding the proliferation of unsightly 40-foot-tall utility poles on their rights-of-way.
“The town did reach an agreement at the July 7 board meeting,” Town Spokesman Mike Deery said. “It basically provides for NextG being able to use town site poles for their transmitters, and to use those in instances where they’d be a preferred alternative.”
As well, NextG has agreed to give 30 days’ notice to residents in neighborhoods where its specialty poles will be erected. This may be cold comfort for some, but it is time enough to allow residents to explore their options, and perhaps negotiate with the company — following the example of Rosalie Rella, who lives on the corner of Willow Road and Patt Place in Franklin Square.
Rella returned home from work last month to find a four-story utility pole standing in the right-of-way near her home. She said she had received no notification, and if she had, she would have put up a fight. What followed Rella’s discovery was a sort of grass-roots uprising, as other neighbors who found themselves in similar situations went to the town to ask officials what gave NextG the right to erect poles without notice.
Now, thanks to Hempstead’s new agreement with the company, the pole near Rella’s home has been removed, along with another nearby pole on Horatio Avenue. Rella had said she was worried about the potential health effects the pole might have on the neighborhood. She was also outraged that her property taxes — a portion of which help maintain the rights-of-way around her home and in her neighborhood — were being trumped by a for-profit company that had been recognized by the state and federal government as a utility.
Rella said she is satisfied with the way the situation was resolved, but she would still like to see a change in the federal law. “It’s just so ridiculous that they could get away with something like that,” she said. “This is America. We’ve got to go to the United States government. I say take it to the government, let’s go, it’s not right.”
Where the pole once stood on her corner there is now only a circle of disturbed dirt as a reminder, and the memory of the pain she felt when she arrived home to find the structure is fading fast. The receiver that would have been installed on it, and another that would have topped the pole on Horatio Avenue, have been moved to existing infrastructure behind a heavily trafficked shopping center in the area.
The town hopes the new policy will prevent any further episodes. According to Deery, everything that can be done at the local level has been done. “We don’t have the authority to control them under the federal legislation,” Deery said. “This is one of the mechanisms we’re trying to use to minimize any impact on neighborhoods.”
NextG’s right to install the poles stems from the Federal Telecommunications Act of 1996, which allows cell phone providers that are recognized as utilities to use or create infrastructure as needed, anywhere in the country. For the time being, the town’s current truce with NextG may be the only way to head off the construction of more of the poles. Spokespersons for some of the county’s federal legislators acknowledged that the federal law may be examined in the near future as the nation’s cell tower infrastructure continues to expand and include wireless and cellular networks.
Deery said that the town would continue to discuss with federal officials ways to help prevent further cell-phone-pole intrusions like those of the past month.
Comments about this story? MHampton@
liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 214.
