The Notice

When a rezoning is proposed, only homes within a few hundred feet are informed.  My community, Wildewood, was very fortunate that one of those homes was occupied by the homeowner association’s Secretary/Treasurer.  This notice was delivered during the busiest time of year: December.  People are on vacation, on holiday, etc., yet the County’s land use committee was scheduled to meet the first half of January.  Admittedly, I didn’t make it to that meeting and I was a bit distant from the whole debate.  Wildewood was again very fortunate because the meeting was rescheduled to the middle of February.  Great, I thought, that’s extra time to organize and inform residents about the issue.

Background

It’s always nice to know what you don’t know: known unknowns, if you will.  It’s the unknown unknowns that get you.  What I didn’t realize (and didn’t know) about this issue is the scope of its reach.  Digging on the web brought me to a few interesting articles.  The bottom line is that a company called Collier Enterprises II entered an agreement with Hillsborough County to build towers on school properties.  In exchange, Hillsborough County receives rent generated by the towers.  How much they receive isn’t clear.  This is similar to Coca-Cola sharing revenue with schools, provided the company gets exclusive rights to sell drinks to students.

The Collier Enterprises II website was taken down, which is suspicious, but Google still has the pages cached.  The Daily Loaf did a fine job of documenting this ongoing battle.  What wasn’t immediately clear to me is why the opposition to technology gained so much traction.  Property values?  Ugly towers?  I would find out more very shortly.

The Interloper

Persistent opposition to the tower seemed coordinated.  On one Saturday afternoon a flyer was circulated to the neighborhood.  It wasn’t the official newsletter of the community; I know because I write it.  I read the headline and felt compelled to act – not over tower concerns but because this flyer, which flaunted the words cancer and leukemia, was blatant scaremongering.  You can view the flyer for yourself.  It’s the text equivalent of screaming “fire” in a crowded room just to get attention.  I was not amused.

Facts, Not Fear

You can’t expect every Joe Sixpack to stay up with the local news, work one or more full time jobs, and be informed enough to do a cost-benefit analysis of a cell tower.  It was my hope that a well written, balanced newsletter would ease the tension a bit.  You can read the official Wildewood newsletter but I’ve highlighted the main points below:

Arguments with no contradictory evidence

• Cellular coverage is already adequate. Building yet another tower can only mean the cellular companies want more capacity.  More cellular users mean each tower must carry a greater load.  Thus, more towers can ease the strain of growth. This would seem to support the rezoning, but it’s just a setup for the next argument.
  • Can the argument be contradicted?  No.  This is a fact made clear by visiting the website of any major wireless provider.  Coverage maps show our area is blanketed with wireless signals from AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint.
• School coverage is adequate but it has unique issues with capacity. As Tampa becomes more populous the need for school capacity will increase.  This argument places the needs of children over that of wireless usage.  Cannella recently underwent an expansion.  Why?  Additional capacity was needed so kids can learn in a bricks-and-mortar classroom.  I never liked to learn in portable double-wide trailers.  Future school children won’t either.  Let’s give the kids room to expand first.
  • Can the argument be contradicted?  No.  All indications show that Tampa will continue to grow, which means more children, more teachers, more parking, and the need for more classrooms.

Matters of opinion

• Property values will decrease. Residents on the adjacent property to Cannella on Cedar Dune have a valid concern.  People might find the tower to be an eyesore and some might not. This is a matter of opinion because not all buyers make decisions based on the same reasoning.  The same concern could be voiced about the planes flying overhead to and from Tampa International Airport, or road noise from Linebaugh Avenue.
• Cell phone towers are ugly. While this can be true in general, newer towers can be disguised.  Some towers use a flagpole design; the tower on Gunn Highway between Nixon and Anderson is one example.  The only imposing factor is its height and possibly the ground structures. One’s opinion is also influenced by the tower’s location. Maybe the same tower design in one location is appealing but simply placing it closer to your home is enough to consider it unattractive.

Arguments with contradictory evidence

• Radio frequency (RF) creates health risks. This argument is simply thrown out by the committee because the studies are contradictory.  One study will say limited exposure is fine, one will say there have been no conclusive long term effects, and another will say…whatever the funding for that research wanted to indicate.  Flyers distributed in Wildewood played on emotions of this argument and even called out the ominous threat of cancer.
• People who use cell phones. This may seem obvious but many of the same people who would protest the tower are cell phone users themselves.  If you own and use a cell phone, and object to the rezoning for a cell tower then the “not in my backyard” argument becomes clear.  Cell phone towers, electricity plants, and prisons all provide a necessary service to the community.  However, when faced with the prospect of becoming a neighbor to these facilities, people behave in contradictory ways.

Organizing

An informal meeting was held to better gauge resident concerns.  Only 12 people attended but it showed that people throughout the community, not just those living adjacent to the proposed tower, had concerns.  Money was a frequent point of debate, i.e., why are the schools in such dire need of money?  After a few more side discussions it was decided five volunteers would canvas the neighborhood and solicit opinions.  A petition would be available if anyone felt opposed to the rezoning.  After a few days of intermittent door knocking the result was 51 signatures in opposition.

The Hearing

Finally, all of the thought, debate, and petitioning would be put to use.  I left work early, ate dinner, and headed to the main Hillsborough County government building.  The meeting was scheduled to start at 6PM.  When I arrived at 5:40PM, there were already protesters outside waving signs.  I was introduced to The Interloper and, though very amicable, I knew we wouldn’t agree on the greater issues at hand.  I’m not making my community part of any questionable agendas.  It was time to head indoors.

Two issues preceded the debate on rezoning.  A local squabble over easements, outdoor stoves, and trailers provided a bit of amusement.  Following that was a VFW station that wanted a liquor license.  Go to your local government building – see a slice of life.

The applicant for the cell tower rezoning then addressed the zoning master.  It was a well-researched, nicely organized presentation.  Apparently, the redesigned plan for the area calls for a cell tower that’s a flagpole design.  This wasn’t clear to me a month earlier but it seems the voices of dissent provoked this change.  And, yes, it will fly the American flag.  File this under “Why didn’t you say so earlier?” because I believe the majority of the population, myself included, think of the legacy towers.  I imagine flagpole designs are more costly to build, but without dissenting opinions what motivation does a wireless provider have to spend more money?  None.

A very clear point of the applicant was that wireless coverage in my neighborhood is inadequate.  Really?  I’ve got full signal strength with T-Mobile.  Neighbors on different providers have no complaints.  The point was without merit.  I can understand the need for competition if the area was monopolized, but several major wireless providers already have this area covered.

Finally, after several long-winded talks by experts and lawyers who only embarrassed themselves and their clients, there was time left over for me to speak.  I only had three minutes so I presented an ad hoc version of my speech with just the bullet points.  Here’s my speech in its entirety:

Introduction

Good evening, my name is Matthew Crumley.  I’m here to present the position of the Wildewood Homeowners Association, which has 144 homes just south of the proposed rezoning area.  I’m also a resident of Wildewood and its Board President.  I’m going to outline why this rezoning is unnecessary.  There are three main points and then I’ll briefly conclude.

Coverage Is Great.

Imagine any Florida intersection with all four corners occupied by a gas station.  Would rezoning for a fifth, within a few hundred feet, be necessary?  I believe this committee faces a similar dilemma.  I use the gas station comparison because we’re really talking about capacity and coverage.  With four stations, few people would argue the area isn’t adequately serviced. However, advocates for the station would say capacity is critical.  More cars! More gas!

But it’s a similar argument for cell towers.

I invite this committee to go to any major wireless provider’s web site (AT&T, Verizon, etc) and select the coverage map for the 33624 ZIP code.  The results indicate no poorly covered areas.

So, why the new tower?  Capacity to route more calls would be one reason.  But satisfying this demand does so at the expense of another: increasing demand for school classrooms.  That brings me to my next point.

We can build better towers, but we can’t build more land.

Hillsborough County’s population has increased from 816,000 in July 1988 to over 1.1 million in July 2008. This is according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates. That’s over a quarter-million people in twenty years time.

In the past five years I’ve lived in Hillsborough County, Cannella has gone through one major expansion.  The proposed area would not likely be used for classrooms, but committees must plan long term.  More classrooms mean more parking, more cafeteria space, and those all require more support and maintenance facilities.

The cell phones you and I use every day to make calls are smaller because of better software and hardware compression. To date there is no way to squeeze more kids together and maintain a high quality learning environment.  Wireless providers can upgrade existing hardware or software.  Schools don’t have that luxury.  As a student, I had class in portable buildings all the way through to college:  from Naples Park Elementary up to undergraduate classes at UCF.

At issue here is capacity, so let’s give it to kids today and tomorrow, and not our wireless providers.  We need to fix the long term problems, which brings me to my final point.

Fix the problem and not the symptom.

While collecting signatures for a petition against the rezoning, I spoke to a number of people who had a broad range of concerns from property values to child safety, but a recurring concern was that of money.

People for the towers say, “Great, the kids and teachers need support!” Indeed.  No one disagrees.  But that begs the question: why are the schools so strained for cash?

Somehow I doubt the reason is poor land usage.

A flashy presentation by Coca-Cola has won over many schools but has a single private entity helped to keep our schools solvent?  No.  It’s the responsibility, not the burden, of taxpayers to do this.  Again, think long term.

I have in my hand the signatures of 51 people who feel it’s not right to rezone.  The reasons varied as did the location of residents, but clearly they felt the benefit of additional income to the County did not outweigh the costs.

When budgets are written, these public-private deals tend to be a Band-Aid for larger problems.

Conclusion

I urge this committee to consider these three points: coverage, growth of our schools, and fixing problems, not symptoms.  Finally, I’d like to remind this committee of a business principle called going concern.  The concept is that a business will operate and not otherwise shut down for the foreseeable future.  Schools and places like Wildewood will be here long after businesses have come and gone.  Decisions like the one you face affect not only land usage but also budgets.  But be careful when applying too many Band-Aids to the budget; they tend to stick…and really hurt when they’re removed.

Thank you for your time.

Postscript

During the past two months I persistently thought of reasons and arguments to proceed with building the tower.  I’m a cell phone user and it’s not hard to imagine a wireless-only internet in 20 years time.  Society will need the capacity to move its data.  People will buy homes and base their decisions, in part, on the quality of that wireless connection. And really, who objects to flying the Stars and Stripes?

I also thought of the numerous classes I attended in temporary public school buildings.  I was in the “portable” at all levels of my Florida education except graduate school.  Schools are perpetually searching for funds, yet no source of income seems to be enough.  The larger issue here is school budgets; vending machines and cellular towers are just the footnotes.

I’ll update this space when the zoning master gives his decision.

Update 3/11/2010:  The cell tower received approved from the county.