North Hampton dead zone: Vertex Towers pitches cell tower after eminent domain controversy
NORTH HAMPTON — A proposal to build a cell tower on land off Mill Road was filed this week with the town’s Planning Board.
Select Board member Jim Maggiore made the announcement at the end of Monday’s board meeting. One of the board's goals have been to improve the poor quality of cell phone service that plagues residents and emergency responders around portions of Route 1, Atlantic Avenue and the coast.
According to the application provided by Town Administrator Michael Tully, the proposal is filed by Massachusetts-based Vertex Towers, LLC, with North Hampton property owners, Richard E. Skowronski and Leila A. Hanna, with an address of 142 Mill Road. The application indicates the tower is proposed for land located at “South Road Rye, New Hampshire, Map 12, Lot 72,” with access off “Mill Road Rear, New Hampshire, Map 12, Lot 65."
The filing follows a months-long controversy earlier this year when the Select Board launched an eminent domain attempt to take a slice of Ron and Lori Cotter’s Mill Road property against their will.
The intent was to utilize the Cotters' land to access town-owned land behind the Cotter property in hopes a private company would build a cell tower on the land-locked, town-owned parcel. At the time, the Select Board said they had not been approached by a company wanting to build a tower on that site. Following several long public hearings, when townsfolk spoke for and against the eminent domain taking, the Select Board voted not to take the Cotters' property.
Vertex Towers files application with town Planning Board
According to the Vertex Towers application, the proposed tower will improve the town’s cell phone service for business, personal and emergency uses. The land’s owners, Skowronski and Hanna, would lease the land to Vertex for the tower for five years, with seven additional 5-year renewal periods possible.
Filed for Vertex by Francis Parisi, a lawyer from Rhode Island, the application requests a conditional use permit and site plan review by the Planning Board to construct a 150-foot cell tower that will be able to hold equipment for four different wireless companies.
According to Parisi, the property in question is approximately two acres of undeveloped land in the town’s R-1 Residential Zoning District and Wetland Conservation Overlay District, across which is an existing utility easement, surrounded by other parcels under common ownership.
“Access to the facility will be over an adjacent lot under common ownership, Mill Road Rear,” Parisi wrote.
If built, the tower would be “unmanned,” according to the application, and would involve “only periodic maintenance visits,” with the utilities required for operation, electrical power and phone service, already at the property. It would not obstruct existing rights-of-way or pedestrian access and would not be a traffic or congestion hazard, according to the application.
“Traffic generated will be one or two vehicle trips per month by maintenance and technical personnel to ensure the telecommunications site remains in good working order,” Parisi wrote, adding the visits would not cause “a substantial change in the established neighborhood character.”
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Vertex Towers proposal needs Planning Board waivers
According to the application, Vertex Towers complied with town zoning ordinances related to Wireless Communications Facilities as much as possible.
However, they request the Planning Board find “that extraordinary hardships, practical difficulties, or unnecessary and unreasonable expenses would result from the strict compliance,” with all applicable town regulations.
Vertex requests that the Planning Board grant waivers to its ordinances including among others 605.3, the use of privately-owned land for this project, and not town-owned, as zoning stipulates.
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Who is Vertex Towers
According to the application, located in Sharon, Massachusetts, Vertex Towers is a limited liability company, a telecommunications infrastructure developer which builds, manages and owns telecommunications facilities across the country.
“The Vertex team has been working in the industry since the industry was founded,” according to the application, “and has the experience and expertise to navigate the challenges of the most complex markets.”
Vertex is also the company that worked with the Sununu family in 2021 to bring a cell tower to a remote area of Thornton, New Hampshire on family-owned land near Waterville Valley Ski Resort.
Published reports stated members of the Sununu family were approached by Vertex a year before the proposal was brought to Thornton officials. The project was initially denied by the Thornton Planning Board, but Vertex filed a lawsuit. Ultimately, the case was dismissed in October 2021, following a motion to terminate in light of a settlement between the two parties.
Tully said Select Board member James Sununu notified the town that he plans to recuse himself from all discussions and actions related to the cell tower application.
“One of my businesses has a relationship with Vertex up north on a tower site in Thornton,” stated Sununu in a letter to Tully. “So even though this is going in front of the Planning Board and not the Select Board, I’m going to recuse myself from any public discussion about this application so there is not potential conflict during its evaluation.”
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: North Hampton dead zone: Vertex Towers pitches cell tower plan
