By Jamon Smith
Staff Writer

NORTHPORT | After three months of considering a proposal to build a cellular tower in a Northport neighborhood, the Zoning Board of Adjustments on Thursday voted against the tower’s construction.

Board member Terry Woods said he voted against the tower’s construction because the people living in the neighborhood have been opposed to it since the proposal was brought before the board about three months ago.

“Seeing as how there’s so much opposition against this, and that there’s no evidence proving that the tower will not cause harm to the residents of that area, I propose we deny it," Woods said to the other board members just before the vote.

The proposed construction site for the cellular tower was off of Martin Luther King Boulevard, near a small, predominately black neighborhood called London Circle.

Though a current city ordinance doesn’t allow telecommunication towers to be erected within the city limits and every previous request from cellular tower companies to build a tower within the city has been denied, Guy Smith, a representative for Faulk & Fosters, said his cellular tower company sought an exception.

“The issue was capacity," Smith said. “We wanted to build another tower so that [cell phone signals] could be off-loaded to this tower so people wouldn’t lost their coverage."

Shawn Blackburn, president of Save Our Community, a grass roots organization that’s largely composed of residents from London Circle, said the group opposed the tower’s construction because it would be an “eyesore" and the radiation from the tower could possibly be a health risk.

“We’re about the beautification of our community," Blackburn said. “We didn’t want an eyesore that prominent on Martin Luther King."

Blackburn said his group had met with Smith and other representatives from Faulk & Fosters before Thursday’s meeting to discuss the health risk associated with having a cellular tower near a neighborhood, but the evidence Smith presented to the group wasn’t convincing.

“The evidence was inconclusive," Blackburn said. “They said it didn’t pose a health concern, but we found that there have been just as many studies conducted by doctors who say it could."

Blackburn said he’s extremely please with the board’s decision. “The zoning board did a wonderful job listening to all the facts and based on the facts I believe they made an appropriate decision," he said.