More Clover neighbors join fight against 180-foot cell tower

More neighbors have joined a Clover town councilman’s fight against a proposed 180-foot cell tower, and are gearing up for a zoning board battle Thursday night.

Laurin McCarley, who lives near the proposed tower site, voiced her concerns to Clover Town Council Monday night. Many of McCarley’s neighbors, including a church and its membership, Ed Dees Jr. and councilman Todd Blanton, are against the tower. Some of those neighbors attended Monday’s meeting – but so far the town has had no discussion about potentially changing the site.

“It would be an eyesore and a health risk,” McCarley said. “This is the wrong place for a cell tower.”

The tower would sit behind the former American Thread textile mill building that has been closed for decades, and directly across two streets from residences and a church. More than 30 people attended Monday’s meeting and a dozen voiced objections to both the mill and the tower.

McCarley, who called the tower a “monstrosity,” lives one street over from where the tower would stand. Such a tower should be built in an unpopulated area of town, she said, and if the town and the owner of an abandoned mill want to develop the property, it makes no sense to build a tower just yards from where people would live and work in the old mill.

“Who would pay hard-earned dollars to purchase a residence, only to gaze out a window at a 180-foot metal structure?” McCarley told the council Monday night.

Dees and Blanton have said the tower is unsafe because it is so close to homes. Some neighbors are upset that the public was not told of the project until The Herald published several stories about the proposed tower.

Blanton has led the charge against the tower. Dees appealed the tower permit to the town, and a zoning appeals board hearing is set for 6 p.m. Thursday.

McCarley, Dees and Blanton also say that a tower so close to homes poses a health and safety risk.

Blanton held an information meeting and bake sale fundraiser on Saturday to help cover the $300 fee Dees paid to get Thursday’s zoning appeals hearing.

Clover officials say the tower, which would become the tallest structure in the town, falls within current zoning for the property and has been designed in a way that if it fell in a disaster, it would not endanger nearby houses or people.

It remains unclear if Clover has followed its own zoning rules, Blanton said. Clover’s code requires an applicant to show a “good faith yet unsuccessful effort” to co-locate a new tower on an existing building or tower, and no suitable facilities within the coverage area were available.

“I have seen no such documentation that there was any effort to look at other sites,” Blanton said.

Thursday’s zoning appeals meeting at the Clover Community Center is open to the public.

This story was originally published January 12, 2016 at 9:27 AM with the headline "More Clover neighbors join fight against 180-foot cell tower."