Long Island Town Enacts Tough Cell Tower Limits

crimeandpunishment writes "They're getting tougher on towers on Long Island. The town of Hempstead, NY has imposed some of the toughest cell phone tower restrictions in the country. The ordinance prohibits wireless equipment within 1,500 feet of homes, schools, day care centers, and houses of worship, unless the company can prove absolute need. A spokesman for Verizon says, 'It's not unheard of for towns to have issues, but this is extreme,' and says this makes 95 percent of the town off limits to future antenna construction." With internet access by 3G, 4G and WiMax getting ever more common, I suspect that not everyone in the town will appreciate blocking out the companies that provide it.

Comments

They should be doing exactly the reverse

[vadim_t]

Assuming signal strength is somehow harmful, they're doing the exactly wrong thing to deal with it.

By imposing those limits, they force towers to be further apart. To cover the area anyway they'll have to bring the power way up. The schools, daycare centers and so on will probably get about the same amount of RF as before, but whatever is near that tower will get cooked. And for those who protest the aesthetics, it's going to be a big ugly one as well.

What they should be doing instead is peppering the area with a weak tower on every roof. Then they can have coverage without strong emitters anywhere.

Re:Take a look at the map.....

[commodore64_love]

>>>If we impose the 1,500 foot blackout... there is what, maybe ONE place to put a tower?

This reminds me of a conversation I had with my art teacher. I said the US Congress has banned incandescent bulbs effective 2012. He immediately pointed out that the law doesn't directly ban incandescents. It requires a 50% reduction in energy usage. I replied that's the same effect as a direct ban because no incandescent can meet that standard, so what's the difference? None.

Same with this celltower law. It doesn't directly ban the towers, but the 1500 foot limit has the same effect, which I bet was the politicians' plan all along. "We did not ban celltowers in Hempstead." Yeah. Accept that you did because now no towers can be built.

Aside -

I consider Edison's incandescent bulbs to be a superior technology to CFLs. Fast turnon, can be used in cold/hot areas (or enclosed fixtures), cost consumers 1/10th to buy, use fewer materials, easy to recycle, and no mercury vapor.