The Village of Roslyn Harbor has approved the planned construction of a new cell phone tower.
In recent months, the Board of Trustees, the Planning Board and Zoning Board all approved the measure that would allow AT&T to construct a 200-ft. cell phone tower in place of the 240-ft. structure that stands at Harbor Court.
The new tower would be relocated west of the current one.
The issue now goes to AT&T, which took the initiative in wanting to have the tower replaced. It is up to AT&T to take down the old tower and construct the new one.
Kevin M. Walsh, the village attorney, added that the village held three public hearings before taking a vote.
The old tower, Walsh said, has been in place for decades.
There has been opposition from at least one resident.
“My understanding is that nowhere in your literature provided is it stated or was it given in your decision that a lower tower emits stronger and more direct RF waves closer to the surrounding community and properties in the area,” wrote attorney Jack L. Glasser of behalf of his client, Roslyn resident Robert Maltz.
“Since I understand that your decision was made without taking into consideration the health and safety of my client and other surrounding members of the community that will be affected by the RF waves of this cell tower, not to mention that this particular cell tower will have 9 cell companies and 48 antennas which has been shown to increase dramatically the chance of breast cancer and other cancers by Tel Aviv University studies, we believe your approval was unjustified.”
“Since you were required to have clearly investigated these things before you made your decision to approve this project and since none of the members of the Board that have approved this live as close to the cell tower as my client and they live a safe distance away, the Board has failed to take into consideration the health and safety of the women and children that are most susceptible to breast cancer than others in this community from this cell tower, my client is putting the Village Board Trustees…on notice that the decision that was made approving this cell tower was done so without considering the health and well being of my client, the women and children of the nearby community, we demand that a new application be required to be submitted and that a new meeting of the Zoning Board of Appeals take place.”
Efforts by The Roslyn News to secure a comment by counsel for AT&T have so far proved unsuccessful.
The tower is indeed “decades and decades” old. It was constructed in 1970. Opposition existed even then.
Among them was Village of East Hills Mayor William Fletcher. At an Oct. 19, 1967 hearing, the mayor said the plan was “a classic example of downzoning which the courts have already declared illegal.”
The Town of North Hempstead also suspended any support for the tower.
“How does it benefit Roslyn Harbor?” one Gil Gubler, a Roslyn Harbor resident, asked at that same hearing. “It won’t employ any people, there won’t be landscaping, it will keep vegetation out, thousands of birds nest right where that tower will be going up. If we have a park there and look up at that tower, it will be a sight awful to behold. It will be an Eiffel Tower abomination.”
The opposition fell short and the tower went up. According to the Roslyn Landmark Society, “It was built in 1970 by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) as part of their Long Lines program. It is located on a roughly four-acre plot of land formerly part of the Frick Estate.”
Like other towers built as part of this program, the tower, according to the society, featured a series of microwave horn antennas. It was approximately 275 ft. in height and was constructed as part of AT&T’s Long Line network between Long Island and Putnam Valley, by way of Manhattan. A few other towers were built by AT&T on Long Island as part of the program – including a tower near Plainview.
A Case Made Against AT&T’s 200-ft Cell Tower
