A rural Idaho fire department OK’d a cell tower on its land. Neighbors are appealing
Five miles north of the Mores Creek Lucky Peak bridge, a cluster of homes dot the rocky hills on the east side of Idaho 21. The neighborhood — about 100 residences — overlooks the highway and views of mountainous rural terrain. Soon that view could include a 150-foot cell tower.
Plans for the 5G cell tower have prompted desperate opposition from some neighbors in the Boise County subdivision, who say it will ruin views and property values and worry it could be a health and safety issue. The project has also created tension between those residents and the local volunteer fire department that leased its land out for the tower.
The tower, which was approved Oct. 21 by Boise County’s Planning and Zoning Commission, would stand west of the majority of the homes in the Mores Creek Rim Ranch neighborhood.
Officials for Horizon Tower, a telecommunications infrastructure company with five Idaho installations, said they’re under a Federal Communications Commission mandate to provide cell service to the Robie Creek area and will face fines if a tower isn’t erected in time. Supporters say it will add much-needed cell service to that stretch of the highway.
Now the local homeowners association has pooled resources to hire a lawyer and file an appeal in hopes of stopping the construction, which appears poised to start any day.
Cell tower lease raised questions on funding
Before Horizon settled on its $800 monthly lease with the Robie Creek Volunteer Fire Department, it sent inquiries to a handful of neighbors just outside the bounds of the Mores Creek Rim Ranches HOA.
“We got a letter in the mail asking if we would put a tower on our property for $800 a month,” said Jessica Broadbent, who lives next door to the fire department property, in an email. “The other two lots to the left of us also got the same letters. We all declined. None of us wanted the tower near our properties and families.”
It’s not clear when Horizon first approached the fire department about the cell tower. Through a lawyer, Horizon declined to comment “until approval is final and the official record is closed.” Fire Chief Nathan Bowers and the department’s board of directors could not be reached for comment. Meeting minutes from the fire department show the tower listed as “new business” during the department’s May 4 meeting. The entry notes the department will “reach out and see what HOA was objecting” on the subject.
The volunteer fire department has a 1.7-acre parcel next door to the Broadbents. The property features a warehouse, a local water district pump house and a freshly graded space marked with stakes designating the lease area and tower location.
The 35-year tower contract would mean about $400,000 in revenue for the department, Bowers wrote in comments on social media website Nextdoor in August. While Verizon is currently the only cell phone carrier that has agreed to use the tower, Bowers said the department could earn additional revenue if other carriers decide to locate equipment on it. Horizon also offered the fire department the opportunity to mount its own emergency communications equipment on the tower free of charge.
The funding would be a big boost for a nonprofit department that relies on fundraisers and subscription dues. It has also raised questions about how the department should receive its funding. Some neighbors have proposed creating a tax district to fund the department and quash deals like the cell tower.
“To us, it feels like taking advantage of an underfunded, small fire department,” said neighbor Sara Stappenbeck, who lives across the street from the proposed tower site and serves on the boards of the water district and HOA.
Eric Snyder, vice president of the HOA and another across-the-street neighbor of the tower site, echoed Stappenbeck.
“(The tower contract) is not addressing the problem,” he said. “They need to be funded properly.”
Meeting minutes show Mike Sacks, vice president of the fire department board, told residents in September that the contract for the tower had been signed and there were opportunities to raise the tax district issue earlier.
Neighbors raise cell tower concerns: views, property values, safety
Public comments show a single written comment in favor of the tower, submitted by a man who lives in Wilderness Ranch, a development across the highway from the site that will also view the cell tower. One other comment requested the tower be disguised to look like a Ponderosa pine tree.
Recordings from Planning and Zoning meetings show no in-person comments were made in favor of the tower; numerous neighbors, including Snyder and Jessica Broadbent’s husband, Jon, spoke in opposition. The HOA also hired a lawyer to speak on its behalf to oppose the project.
Neighbors have raised numerous concerns. Chief among them is the tower’s impact on neighbors’ views. Many of the homes sit east of the proposed tower site, facing west toward the canyon — and the cell tower.
“It will be directly across the street from my husband and myself,” Julie Ferris said in a phone interview. “We moved here in 2006 for the views and to get out of the city. … I don’t want to look at a skyscraper the rest of my life.”
Some neighbors feel they’ll be stuck next to the tower, unable to move away without accepting significant losses to their property values caused by the development. Judy Melcher, who wrote in a public comment that she lives across the street from the fire department property, said in her letter that she “was depending on the value of my home if something were to happen to me.”
Others said they worry about environmental impacts from a tower, pointing to local elk and whitetail deer migrations through the neighborhood, as well as birds of prey — including bald eagles — nesting in the area.
“We asked for an environmental impact study,” Stappenbeck said. “That hasn’t been done.”
Stappenbeck said she’s also concerned about cell tower interference with Life Flight or other aircraft after the Federal Aviation Administration asked to pause 5G installations in the U.S. pending more research on potential effects of certain 5G spectrum on aircraft. Industry leaders have said 5G operates safely in numerous countries without interfering with aircraft.
Others still are worried about health impacts from living near the cell tower. Broadbent, Ferris and another neighbor, Kathy Marquart, said they worry radio frequency waves from the cell tower could lead to cancer.
Dr. Chung-Kwang Chou, the chair of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ committee on electromagnetic safety, said in a video interview that these fears have a long history dating back to World War II. But Chou said decades of research show living in close proximity to a cell tower is considered a safe “far-field” exposure — safer even than the “near-field” exposure of holding a cell phone to one’s head.
Like Chou, Horizon rebutted the neighbors’ health concerns. It also pushed back at worries over property values, pointing to studies that show property values in cities like Boston, Dallas, Phoenix and Raleigh didn’t decrease when cell towers were built.
Horizon’s lawyer, Josh Leonard, told the Planning and Zoning Commission that federal laws prevent the board from denying the project on the grounds of “unsubstantiated health effects of radio frequency emissions.” The law also explicitly outlaws prohibiting access to cell service.
“Neither Boise County’s Planning and Zoning Commission nor the Board of Boise County Commissioners may deny Horizon Tower’s CUP (conditional use permit) application if denial would have the effect of prohibiting the provision of personal wireless services in the Robie Creek area,” Horizon wrote in a supplemental narrative letter to the commission.
Neighbors scramble to appeal
The Boise County Planning and Zoning Commission voted unanimously Oct. 21 to approve a conditional use permit for Horizon’s tower on the volunteer fire department land. Since then, the HOA has scrambled to file an appeal, which is due by Tuesday. Snyder started a GoFundMe to help pay for the retainer for Andrew Campanelli, a New York lawyer who has helped other residential neighborhoods fight tower installations. Their appeal would take the issue to the Boise County Board of Commissioners.
Several of the Mores Creek Rim Ranches residents said they aren’t totally opposed to the idea of a cell tower in the area.
“As an HOA, we offered space (for a tower) behind the lots, but they declined,” Stappenbeck said.
Neighbors said they felt frustrated — with the tower company, the fire department, the commission — and feel an appeal is their last hope.
“If this tower is built, then it will force our family to move,” Jessica Broadbent said. “When I think about the future and not living here, I feel depressed and so anxious. We moved away from town to be away from these types of issues. We don’t know where to go from here.”
This story was originally published November 15, 2021 at 4:00 AM.
