At a Waldoboro Planning Board meeting on Oct. 13, residents raised opposition to the location of a proposed wireless Internet transmission tower on Storer Mountain. The residents are concerned that the aesthetic impact of the tower would lower their property values.
At that meeting, the Planning Board reviewed two applications from Midcoast Internet Solutions for tower sites. The second proposed tower is on town property behind the transfer station.
The board tabled both applications because Midcoast Internet Solutions did not provide detailed enough maps of the proposed sites.
The towers are part of a town-wide Internet expansion project paid for in large part by a $113,889 ConnectME grant. The state program provides matching funds to an Internet provider of the town’s choice to expand access into rural areas. There is no cost to the town.
The town chose to work with Midcoast Internet Solutions, a wireless Internet provider, who said they could provide coverage to an “excess of 90 percent” of homes that don’t have broadband access now, said Jason Philbrook, President of Midcoast Internet Solutions.
Midcoast Internet Solutions will receive the $113,889 to help defray some of the cost of the project, estimated at $275,000, Philbrook said.
ConnectME is a state program funded with federal money that was used to expand access in Jefferson last year. Midcoast Internet Solutions was the provider behind the Jefferson project as well.
The Jefferson project saw almost no resistance from residents, said Jefferson Town Clerk Lynne Bond.
“We were driving through North Waldoboro every day while we were working in Jefferson,” Philbrook said. “Driving through areas that didn’t have any broadband Internet access. Waldoboro just seemed like a good fit.”
The project required an amendment to town land use ordinance, which was approved by voters this June.
The passage of Article 44 on this year’s town warrant allowed wireless Internet towers to exceed the current town-wide height restriction of 42 feet in every part of Waldoboro except the downtown village area. Without that exception, Midcoast Internet Solutions would have been unable to build the five towers they need to reach the target areas, Philbrook said.
If the company is not able to build the towers, they “might be able to reach one third” of the homes they hope to reach using towers placed in other towns, Philbrook said.
At the Oct. 13 meeting, there was no overt public opposition to the Transfer Station site, but residents Gerald and Diane Leach were vociferously opposed to the Storer Mountain site, which is near their home on Noyes Road.
“I don’t want it in my backyard,” Gerald Leach told the board. Although it is unlikely that Leach would be able to see the tower from his house, there is a view of the mountain from Noyes Rd. on the way to his house that he is concerned would be spoiled. “I don’t want to see that nice colorful hill with an aluminum pole sticking up.”
Midcoast Internet Solutions is proposing a 120-foot tower 12 inches in diameter supported by several support wires on each side. These towers are significantly shorter and lower profile than cell phone towers.
If the towers are erected, they may be shorter than the proposed heights, said Cameron Kilton, Project Manager for Midcoast Internet Solutions.
“Sometimes we find out we don’t need to go up as high,” Kilton said. “We always go shorter if we can.”
In Jefferson, Midcoast proposed a 120-foot tower to be put on Haskell Hill, but ended up building a 100-foot tower.
“I didn’t build my retirement home in a rural place to be next to [Internet] towers,” Leach said. “If you want access to the Internet, don’t live in a rural place.”
Leach said that if the tower is approved, he may move.
At their meeting on Oct. 12, the Waldoboro Board of Selectmen heard an update about the towers, but is waiting for the Planning Board’s decision before they take any official action.
The selectmen must approve the tower at the Transfer Station because it is on town property. At the Oct. 12 meeting the selectmen said that if there is any opposition to the Transfer Station site from abutters, they will not approve construction. However, at the Planning Board meeting, there was no opposition to that site.
Approval of the Storer Mountain site will be in the hands of the Planning Board.
