A Lower Makefield Township Zoning Hearing Board meeting to consider variances for a controversial cell phone tower proposal for the Congregation Beth El Synagogue property at 375 Stony Hill Road will be held Aug. 1, officials announced at the May 2 ZHB meeting.
The hearing to consider variances requested by Verizon Wireless for the 150-foot-high tower disguised as a pine tree was originally scheduled for May 2, but has been delayed for several months while the township board of supervisors seeks conflict counsel to represent its interests in the matter and township and Verizon officials try to work out other details, including the possibility of another location for the tower.
Verizon had planned the structure for the Brookside Swim and Tennis Club at 499 Stony Hill Road, about a mile from the synagogue, but then withdrew that application and pivoted to Beth El.
At the May 3 supervisors meeting, seven residents who live near the synagogue went to the microphone during public comment to express their opposition to locating the tower at Beth El, saying among other things that it would be too close to houses. One resident said there are 287 signatures on a change.org petition opposing the tower at the synagogue.
Other nearby residents have said at meetings and on social media that the tower is needed because cell phone reception is very poor along that stretch of Stony Hill Road, a notion disputed by opponents of the tower at Beth El.
Supervisors’ Chairman Fredric Weiss and fellow board member John Lewis told residents at the May 3 meeting that provisions of the Federal Telecommunications Act make it difficult for municipal officials to oppose cell phone towers but that they will do their best to balance the interests of residents while not bringing a lawsuit upon the township.
“There are limits as to what we can and cannot do,” Lewis said.
Township Manager David Kratzer said one of the issues he and other township officials and Verizon are discussing is whether it’s possible to locate the tower on another spot on the synagogue property, farther away from houses.
The supervisors are seeking outside, or conflict, counsel because a member of township Solicitor David Truelove’s law firm, Hill Wallack, lives near the synagogue and will be a “party” in future hearings on the tower, Truelove has said.
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