By JOSEPH KELLARD
, resident Donald Dellaro was perturbed that the Town of Hempstead Zoning Board of Appeals rescheduled the hearing a second time after a fellow Oceansider ‹ who had only recently learned of the proposal ‹ requested an adjournment to conduct her own study.
Dellaro wasn¹t the only one upset by Julie Taub¹s request. ³I went into adjournment for the community, and you¹ve had ample time to prepare your case,² zoning board Chairman Gerald Wright told Taub, a real estate agent, at the rescheduled hearing on March 14. ³I will give you our next available date, and I don¹t care if it¹s next week. ... It will be final, and if you are not ready, you will suffer the consequences.²
At the original hearing on Jan. 18, Omnipoint Communications, the corporation acting on behalf of T-Mobile, proposed the installation of six antennas on a flagpole on the 51-foot-high roof of G&M Wolkenberg Mortgage Bank, at 2838 Long Beach Road, a few yards south of the lighthouse in the Davison Avenue triangle ‹ and five blocks north of another proposed site.
While Dellaro, a Windsor Parkway resident, was prepared to present the board with an alternate site for the proposed antennas after learning at the January hearing that the construction of such antennas cannot be prevented on grounds of health-related issues, Taub instead offered to conduct a study that may challenge Omnipoint¹s claim that it needs to fill a service gap in and around the triangle area.
An agent at Hal Knopf Realty on Long Beach Road, a few doors north of the proposed site, Taub asked for up to six months to complete her study, a request that sparked an outburst from both Wright and board member Robert O¹Brien, who noted that they and the board had conducted similar studies in a matter of hours.
While Wright agreed to adjourn the hearing until 3 p.m. on May 9, granting Taub time to conduct a study of T-Mobile cell phone users in the area, he did so also because he was upset that Omnipoint had failed to abide by the board¹s policy in such cases, that the company meet with residents to explain its proposal. When Omnipoint attorney John Huber told Wright that the company had mailed more than 1,400 questionnaire cards to Oceanside residents, with 57 respondents saying they ³fully supported² the proposal, Wright responded that Huber had failed to answer his question, which he repeated more pointedly: ³Has anyone from Omnipoint sat down with people from the community to discuss their proposal?²
³No one from the community contacted us,² said Huber, who objected to the latest adjournment.
Wright scolded Huber, who has appeared before the zoning board several times and, Wright said, should be familiar with the board¹s policy. ³I realize this is costing Omnipoint money, but the community has a right to be informed,² Wright said.
Omnipoint did not respond to calls from the Herald about whether company officials plan to meet with Oceanside residents regarding their plans.
Dellaro, meanwhile, was prepared to propose a firehouse in town as an alternate site for the antennas. He had contacted an Oceanside fire district official to ask whether Omnipoint could mount its antennas on the roof of the Columbia Engine Co. No. 1 firehouse on Smith Street, behind the Great Lincoln Shopping Center on Atlantic Avenue.
³He spoke to me about this possibility of placing a tower on fire district property, but no action has been taken,² said the official, who declined to be identified.
Last June, Omnipoint proposed mounting 12 antennas atop the Redco building, at 3115 Long Beach Road, just north of Nathan¹s restaurant, purportedly to fill a service gap. Omnipoint said the application at Redco would remain on the table while it pursues G&M Wolkenberg Mortgage as an alternate site. ³The Redco application hasn¹t been pulled, but that¹s mostly to give the town a choice as to what application they feel is a better site,² Esme Lombard, a T-Mobile senior manager of external affairs, told the Herald in January. Lombard added that if the board approved its alternate application, T-Mobile would pull its Redco proposal.
³If they put a strong enough antenna on that firehouse, it will cover both areas,² Dellaro told the Herald after last week¹s hearing, noting that he based his proposal on Omnipoint maps he has seen that show the area the company says it needs to cover.
Another resident at the hearing, however, told Dellaro that the firehouse building is just one story tall and would not suffice.
After the hearing, Dellaro told Taub that she messed up his case and ³pissed off² Wright, charges that Taub dismissed as untrue. She told Dellaro that she was among a group of residents who had successfully fought a similar proposal by Nextel Communications in 2003. Nextel had proposed mounting 12 antennas and an equipment shelter on the roof of a local apartment building above Ocean Chemist Pharmacy at Long Beach Road and Windsor Parkway, on the grounds that it needed to fill a service gap. In that case, the board conducted its own study with Nextel cell phone users in the area, and ruled that there was not enough need for the antennas.
³You won that case only because there were kids living at that site,² Dellaro told Taub.
Later, however, a somewhat calmer Dellaro told Taub that he was willing to join forces with her in opposing antennas at the bank site. Taub is planning to hold a community meeting at the Oceanside Library next Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. ³We need to come together as a community to prevent T-Mobile¹s proposal,² she said.
Dellaro originally opposed the installation of the antennas at the bank building, which neighbors several residences, because he believes the radio frequency emissions the antennas produce are a potential health risk. But the federal Telecommunications Act of 1996 prohibits opposition on those grounds.
Comments about this story? JKellard@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 287.
