By WALTER DAWKINS
PARK RIDGE -- Cellular phone provider Cingular Wireless is in discussions with the zoning board to add 12 antennas to a phone tower on the borough's east side.
The company's proposal calls for the extra antennas to be affixed to a 90-foot cell tower that sits on private property and is owned by rival cellular provider T-Mobile. The additions are designed to improve cellular phone service for residents, who have complained of the inability to use their phones in various parts of the community, said Cingular attorney Judy Babinski.
Planning and Zoning Board Secretary Lyn Beer said Cingular would pay the owners of the Hawthorne Avenue property a monthly fee for installing the new equipment. Company officials did not disclose the terms of their proposed rental agreement with the owners, who already receive a similar fee from T-Mobile. The board will continue hearings on Cingular's proposal Sept. 19.
For the last few years, residents have opposed a 150-foot cell tower proposed by Sprint, citing concerns about potential health risks caused by cellular technology and equipment.
The state Department of Environmental Protection rejected Sprint's first proposed site for the tower in a borough-owned park because it was in the Pascack Brook's flood plain. Then, under opposition from residents, the mayor and council rejected four more borough-owned sites in 2004 because they were too close to homes and playgrounds. Three were in a recreation area behind Borough Hall, and the fourth was in front of the municipal building.
Shortly after, Sprint withdrew its proposal for putting the tower on a privately owned site on Park Avenue after neighbors gathered 400 names on a petition opposing the tower.
As for the Cingular proposal, Babinski said neighbors should not be worried about potential health risks.
"We still meet all the FCC standards," Babinski said. "Adding our antennas to the [T-Mobile] antennas is well below the amount of energy that one of these sites is allowed to output."
Resident Ed Van Overloop, who believes radiation from cell towers can cause brain tumors and other illnesses, remains concerned.
"I think the cell tower standards are too low," said Van Overloop, a retired electrical engineer. "The more antennas you have radiating energy, the higher the radio frequency. I'm concerned about the excessive radio frequencies going into young people and babies that live in that neighborhood."
