##VIDEO ID:J--FzW4ysg8## okay as if I didn't say it two times before this is a meeting of the Greenfield zoning board of appeals on January 9th 2025 it is now 6:33 p.m. we are meeting here at the johnzon community center in Greenfield chair statement for those who missed it this meeting is being recorded if any other persons present are doing the same you must notify the chairperson at this time in accordance with Mass general laws chapter 30A subsection 20 G no person shall address a meeting of a public body without permission of the chair and all persons shall at the request of the chair be silent and that includes people online no person shall disrupt the proceedings of a meeting of a public body if after clear warning from the chair a person continues to disrupt the proceedings the chair May order the persons to withdraw from the meeting or I will take you off of the meeting and if the person does not withdraw the chair May authorize a constable or other officer to remove the person from the meeting okay thank you um Mr clerk can you please read the first public hearing that's before Us application of verie Wireless LLC for for property located at 112 Newton Street assessor tax map R23 excuse me r24 a lot 7A which is located in The General commercial GC zoning district for a variance pursuant to sections two 200. 7 200-8 point7 of the the zoning ordinance in order to allow the construction of a new wireless communication structure comp comp comprised of groundbased equipment cabinets and antennas mounted on top of a monopole 17 70 ft in height with an in with a insufficient F excuse me file Zone okay um Eric green I want to thank you for being on the panel last time but now that Mark Maloney is back uh please say who will sit those that will sit in the panel are Debbie Eric will not all right Debbie jok thank you Mark Maloney Peter wak Jim win and David singer Mark Maloney can you put in the record what you've done to qualify you to be able to be on the panel I just sub submitted the M certification to Eric which involved what does that what does that mean for the public all the documentation and viewing the meeting uh from the 19th okay watching the recording of the whole meeting yeah Mark Mark is a a regular member of the board and we want him to participate as much as possible Eric did a stellar job standing in and he will be available too in case we need him so thank you sign copy of the mullen's compli okay great perfect okay so now it's time to hear the presentation from the applicant who is here for the applicant Mr chair members of the board attorney Michael Rosen on behalf of the applicant uh with me in person this evening are George chanis from ver Wireless and Peter Marshon from SA I uh verid is the tower uh contractor and developer SII is the representative of the AT&T uh also with us uh on the zoom uh would be Martin Lavin uh Lou hitz uh Dominic Avera David arshambo uh Mark kenti and Michael Cronin from my office are also present are they all attorneys uh the only one that is an attorney is Michael Cronin thank you you're welcome uh please proceed Mr chair I do I do have a question and that is that we have a variance and we have a special permit and aite plan and I'm wondering whether we should um open both meetings and have all of the evidence presented be applicable in both meetings so that when it comes time to discuss merits and vote on uh uh the special permanent site plan as opposed to the variants uh we don't have to repeat go through everything that's being presented here to the board this evening I think most of the information that's being presented will be duplicative uh in in certain instances certainly when you look at the site plan and you compare it to the uh fall zone variants that we're requesting for the tower itself so I would ask uh the chair if that is something that this board would consider and uh for the record confirm for everybody as presentations being made whether we're discussing the variance the cine or the special permit those comments would be applicable to all of those approvals okay um do you think I have to go run this well the next the problem is the special permit hearing is scheduled for 6:45 and In fairness to anyone who thinks that that's a different proceeding we do have to wait to 6:45 to open thatman yes public hearing notice went out this is just oh that's a continuation so you can start at any time okay thank you um anybody on the board have a problem with combining them I just want to say this for you that for in my mind first I'd like to I'd like to know factually what's going on and then of and then of course you as an attorney and we as the board will get into the special permanent variance factors and plus there's a federal law that also controls what's going on here but um just so that people who are watching and people who are hear from the public if you if even though that was a good technical um discussion if we can throw out the facts first about what's going on uh that would be really helpful certainly do you need to take any formal action to open the the special permit uh let's Mr cler can you read into the record the uh continuation of the uh December 19th meeting for a special permit yeah this is conf continued from December 19 2024 application of ver W Verity Wireless LLC property located at 112 Newton Street assessors map r24 L 11 which is located in The General commercial GC zoning district for a special permit pursuant to sections 200- 4.93 200714 200 d8.3 and 2008 d8.4 of the zoning ordin in order to allow for the construction of a new communication structure compromised of a groundbased equip equipment cabinets an antenna mounted on the top of a pole monopole 170 fet in height at this location thank you and sitting on on the panel are Debbie jokes Mark Maloney Peter W Jim wi David singer okay and if I might um Mr Maloney can you confirm that your U Mullen apply actually apply to the special permit not to the variance because we never open the variance hearing no I can't you can can I don't yeah no you read wait you looked at the LA you did all the things that were necessary I missed one meeting which I it's not a trick it's not it's not a trick question only the variance hearing was opened and when you were asked previously what you did and technically you didn't miss the variance hearing because tonight's the first one so I just wanted to on the record so you you again for the record you did listen you watched the tape yes I did you did what the rule requires yes I you submitted the uh the paper that under oath that you did it yes and it replies to everything correct yes okay thank you thank you you're welcome uh so AT&T identified a gap and coverage their Gap and coverage is along a major Federal Highway uh 91 uh in Greenfield and it began a search for a location uh within that Gap and coverage that could provide coverage uh in accordance with the zoning uh bylaws or zoning ordinances of the city of Greenfield uh they looked for available sites within the community they looked for sites that were available by an owner or property owner to either lease or purchase they looked for sites uh that would satisfy the requirements of your wireless ordinances and they looked for sites that were feasible upon which to build a tower uh you will hear later this evening as we go through the application uh you'll see a ly of sites that were identified as being available or potentially available were the applicant uh explored the possibility of putting a tower on those locations to fill the Gap in coverage and at the end of the day the applicant determined that the least intrusive means of filling that Gap in coverage was to pick the site that is before you this evening they then went and they started this process and this process started with conservation and they went before conservation and they applied to conservation and they proposed um a development of of the of the site of the property um and they obtain their approval from conservation after they obtain that approval they were informed that the property was being subdivided there were some characteristics of the site that were going to be changed and the property then shifted slightly um so you'll note that in one of the applications it started out as uh 112 Newton Street and it eventually became a zero Fair Street and the reason for that is because of the anr and the change of the lot lines where a portion of the property that was previously uh contiguous to the front part of the property became contiguous to the balance of the property and if you'd like I can throw anr map on up on the screen or we can hand out anr map and we can if anyone wants to identify where the site is so um Mike if you're there so the attorney in my office if you share screen with him he has all of these documents and he can post them up on the share screen and then some of the plans I thought it might be easiest and I've printed uh six copies of some of them and Mr chairman that is the anr that we're going to throw up on the screen if it makes it easier for everyone to have a version in front of them I have a version with me and if any of the abuts or any of the audience would like to come and take a look but it will be EAS people in the public can see it and secondly either describing somebody can point to things yep sorry used to pushing a button yes please put it on the screen okay Mike can you let me know if you can put it up on the screen not to be rude I'm going to look and see if he's trying to communicate here I wonder if maybe he can't hear us or no I'm just looking to see if I have a okay connection yes it looks like I do just give me one second yeah remember believe this is everyone saying that yes um Mr chair would you like me to pick the microphone up and go to the board so that the audience can see what we're talking about and I can take this with me Eric it's good okay so when we started this process the lot line was here and this was all part of one parcel is 112 and then once we got through conservation this parcel was subdivided it's it's now uh zero Fairway Street West because it has no Frontage on Newton or rug um and that's why the change so with the first application the special permit application we filed a supplement identifying for this board the change and for the variance application we've identified it as Fairway Street West um just just to be clear is was parcel a part of the original parcel the design was I believe on that parcel on parcel a I believe so yeah and now it's on the 7138 acre parcel uh I understand the address piece but physically I just want to understand that if I can step in the uh the site is located where this like triangular shape is which used to be a part of parcel a then was subdivided and is now a part of this this parcel right but the 7.1 38 acres is included in even though you have a dotted line there which doesn't create a new parcel it's the parcel for the tower is you also own this is is the 7.1 38 acre entire parcel what's in play here no matter where you located is that whole parcel in play yes so this is the line that was removed this is the line that was inserted that's what I'm saying okay and the site is here yeah that's the site itself but the part corre it it is in the Triangle only to explain that when the line was here it was part of parcel a when this line was removed and a new line was put here it is in the portion of this parcel that was forly part of this parcel that is a clear explanation thank you after meeting with conservation and as we were preparing the site plan and the special permit application and the variance application we did um and I'm going to forget the name but you have a mechanism where you can do a departmental review I I refer to it as an IDR an inter departmental review but it's techn technical review group and we uh held a meeting with that group and we came and we presented to that group that group uh was made a recommendation that we change the design of the roadway into the site that was the reason for going back to conservation so we went back to conservation a second time we adjusted the drive to the site and the parking at the end of the drive down by the site to satisfy uh the technical review we then went back to conservation the second time we presented the amended plan to conservation conservation approved it and then we filed our our application with the town I'm sorry with the city um when we filed the application we filed it all as one Consolidated application uh at some point in time thereafter uh based on our our our discussions with the town it was recommended that why don't we take the variance application and file it as a separate application and so we then went ahead and filed the variance application I'm going to say it was it was filed on December 12th whereas the special permit application was filed in October U but the special permit application and the materials on that application do actually address the variants um but we did file it again as a separate application on February on December 16th uh so where we're at now so we have uh AT&T interested in going on a tower at this site AT&T is a first net responder they are the first net responder they have a 24 25e contract um that allows them uh with the US Department of Commerce that allows them Awards them a contract it started in March 2017 to develop first net sites and first net sites include sites that are not only for the provision of um you and I but also for our government uh you know the types of things that on like September 11th uh on what's going on in California right now in the wildfires uh that the governments also want to ensure reliable access um and for emergency crews Emergency Services fire departments police departments um and those types of reliable services in order to be able to address um government based needs so this site will be part of that first responder Network and and AT&T then handed that site off to Verity Wireless who was responsible to design and permit the tower on which AT&T will go uh just just to be just to go back to so you're saying that um AT&T has a first net responder contract with the United States government yes US Department of Commerce Department of Commerce okay it was awarded in March of 2017 I believe they're the only carrier with such a designation and it's a 25y year agreement now when you say that's just that designation do you mean of all of all the other providers yes okay thank you yep in in designing the site um you always look for us to see if you can get in a wireless um overlay District or a wireless zone or a Zone in which Wireless is allowed and um your ordinance lays out some preferences but this particular site actually I believe is the second preference but it does fall in a site uh a location where Wireless is in fact allowed um you then have to file the oblig uh the the special permit application process site plan approval process um however there was one Nuance with this site and that is in order for AT&T to get the coverage that it's looking for they want to be at 170 ft and your by law also requires uh an obligation to attempt collocation and When developing new towers to develop those new towers in a way that collocation will be available for future carriers so this particular site is a heavily wooded site um and therefore to get a location that you could get uh the four carriers on one Tower at any point if they came and sought to co locate in Greenfield uh the design dictated that it be approximately 170 ft from the ground the site itself is about 20 ft below the road it tapers off um um from from Fairview Street West and going down down a hill down a slope um the reason that there's a wetland down at the bottom and we had to go to conservation is is that it does slope down to where and then Rises back up to where the highway is and the goal is to attempt uh you know the the primary Gap and coverag is along 91 uh so that site was designed uh at 170 ft noting that it's approximately 130 ft to the lot line and therefore a variance would be required for the uh the additional 70 ft um in order to do that um carriers have been um for a number of years now uh probably more than 15 designing poles that um will self um collapse on themselves and they have stress points and they have wind loads and wind resistances that differ for the base versus the top of the pole and so that what it would do is it would allow the pole to break at the break point a portion of that pole it wouldn't snap it would bend it will come down on itself and then it would in a in a worst case scenario in like U 190 degree 180 degree wind at some point the second portion could come down but the way that it's designed enough of it would be below the tree line that in all likelihood the lower portion of the pole ever collapsing uh would would be slim none um the those polls go out they're designed by companies who are experts at that um and they're here with us tonight um and they can discuss the design and the way those poles are um you the different wind loads and how all of that is calculated and determined to ensure that the the the point in the poll is properly designed so that if something were to happen that pole would would bend in a way before anything worse would happen um you know I would also point out um I don't want to get into all the details but I've read some of the the reports and some of the materials being provided by some of the opponents to this project and they're going to pre present you with examples of horrific instances where tornadoes rip through communities and show you pictures of cell towers on the ground and on top of cars and vehicles and I think I my my response to that would be if there's a tornado that hits here that's 180 or 190 miles an hour I I think the tower would not be the biggest concern and the hope would be that it would stay up longer than anything else so that it would be able to provide coverage so that the word could get out you know again same that's going on in California right now and without first net and without Wireless Communications um I can only imagine what would be going on out there uh without these these Technologies and the advances that we've made in technology over the past 20 30 years so I have for you so so that's kind of the background the the tower has been designed we have experts that have have looked at all of the different sites that were potentially available they have looked at the characteristics of those sites some not in an allowed Wireless Zone some on property that wouldn't fill the coverage Gap uh they've looked at existing towers that would not feasibly support for instance I believe there's an AM radio tower that is not in good shape and would not support um a cellular installation and they came to the conclusion that because this is the least intrusive means of filling that Gap in coverage that we we would excuse me go forward with that application and unless the board has any generalized questions about the site itself at this time I think what I'd like to do would start to call different members of our team we we had kind of organized this a little on the other hand Mr chair you want to focus more on the variants first I could probably take our experts a little bit out of order um if that's what you would prefer and let me let me do this I can go through the order that I was going to have our experts present in and see if you think that logically that makes sense so we were going to go with our site location first somebody to explain how we narrowed in on this site the site design itself so you understand what went into the engineering for the particular site um we would talk about uh foundation and Geotech we would then talk about the physical tower that would go on the F foundation and the fall zone we would then talk about the visual impacts property valuation and then I would wrap up everything at the end I I'd like to see you make your presentation as you feel comfortable we we can come back and if there are times where any member has a question just inter just let me know and we can stop is that all right we'll we'll I I have no objection with being interrupted all right yeah we'll do it we'll do it nicely okay thanks um so with that I'm going to hand it over to Martin Lavin who is going to discuss our site location and why this site prevailed as the least intrusive alternative over the other sites that we looked at within the city of Greenfield Mar Martin do can you hear us and are you good yes I can uh Martin l c Square systems on behalf of AT&T um me the process starts as as Michael said with a a search ring uh when an area is identified as being a problem uh RF engineering identifies where a site should go to solve that problem then that area goes to real estate and they come back to us with candidates those are listed in the uh site analysis that was part of the applic um Michael if you want to put the um plots up M mik Cronin yes okay thank [Music] you that is the U A through m Mike Mike Cronin can you uh you're probably going to need to zoom a little bit if possible yeah thank you if you if you can go yeah um is that in our packet it is yeah the board members do have it thank you tell us what number it might be in the packet I can do that y thank you just briefly we got sites a through M there um two 2 a sorry two two all right everybody hear that number two thanks and it's it's subtab exhibit a you should have two pack well you should have three packets now the first one is special permit application second one is additional supplemental materials and the third one is the variants it would be in the first packet and if you look at the first packet um the first page of the first packet is a letter uh addressed to Eric uh By Me dated October 21st 2024 that says attached is one complete special perit application one memorandum and support the exhibits and so forth and and this is attached to that letter it's it's again I'm sorry I might have said 1A it's 2A all right I have this is this what is this what you're talking about okay I have this I have this no that's my book that's do the no didn't you did yeah electronically no well this is what I got from the from Eric the additional Michael if I can I think I can clear up the confusion on this there were two packets that were submitted 12 copies of the supplemental materials were required and this was included with the original special permit application which there was only one copy that was required to be submitted so okay you should have received black binder that looking at I never I never got it I do have it I I do I have I got it electronically so I given my packet away to the to the resent so I do have a copy of it yeah you're free to look two perfect you're going to be okay with I I brought an extra Mr Janice he's not I guess I never got that okay and thank you for sharing with your Butters so that we know that they have it and they've seen it as well I app appreciate thank you um yeah some of these are approved some of these are backups some of them are too far some of them are too my tail um coverage is inadequate okay uh even in the book small to read so anything that you could do to enlarge it would be great Mike if you can if you can make it any larger uh yeah I think that's fine because that we can still see the uh yeah I want to be able to see the addresses you don't necessarily have to go ABCD but start with Long View Tower yeah keep scrolling a little bit more look like yeah I think that is that or would you prefer that we open one larger at a time and then we move from one to the next and we scroll down one of my questions to you which I think will start to be answered by this is tell us the other sites and why they're not feasible that's right which is what you're doing so if if it's being done you know line by line then why don't we just follow it line by line with an explanation yeah Martin can you do that yes and then Mike just scroll make it a little bit larger and then scroll up as as um Martin moves to the different sites perfect thank you uh Long View Tower you can see um that was uh rated as too high it's at um existing observation tower was rated as being too high for capacity site uh which it is so that one was ruled out um B was originally ruled in um as the primary but on further discussions is an AM Tower um in an AM radio situation the tower itself is the antenna and all of the um voltage um and signal is on the tower itself there was a time we could um isolate ourselves from the tower um but with 4G and 5G they're sensitive enough to any noise of that nature that we really uh can't go on those Towers anymore uh Franklin County Fairgrounds was approved as backup two um the there's a second radio tower which um may or may not be actually at the property right now um inside if the second tower for the AM station or if it's so close that it would have most of the same um problems with noise running up in down the tower itself that it's really not compatible with the advanced systems um site e Latter Day Saints uh based on lack of coverage that was rejected uh the same with Jehovah's Witnesses property um site F Western Mass Electric was our least appealing um tower that might work as you can see there's proved as worst case scenario at 170 uh the Hampton in and the Hampton in sign uh sites H and I were rejected for lack of coverage because they're uh they don't give much elevation at all uh Town Parcels too far away site J um site K Greenfield Community College uh inadequate coverage really too far away um from and only 55 fet above ground level from the area we're trying to fill in uh Tractor Supply was uh originally a primary but we there were real estate problems there and that um site fell out which left us with site M which is the proposed site at 170 feet so only um okay thank you Martin a member has a question I I I hear the statement that they've been ruled out but what was the analytical process that was used to do that because we have a we have a document we received that was quite specific in what their in their opinion what would be the process for selecting a site and I I hear that it was rejected but I don't understand exactly how it's rejected the various s uh rejected for RF means it didn't provide the coverage we needed in the Gap that was identified um by the the interest State there based on the height we have and the equipment we have it it wouldn't fill in that Gap but what was I mean was that done through an analy through a Computing so Martin yeah can you explain this the simulation model the steps that yes we have basically we we take height and location for each of these candidates and put them in our planning tool and that um uh propagation model shows us what each one will cover or won't cover and we look at each one um and then figure out which of those are are acceptable which will provide the coverage we want and which show that they won't but what's the radius of coverage I mean I'm asking these detailed questions because we're going to be challenged with this and I want to you know as as an individual I want to understand what you've done so when we get we get other people wanting explanations I need to feel comfortable at least there's been that analytical process that's been put in place to to do that I mean is is there a specific mileage is there a number of calls is there a drop RTI that's the kind of questions we're being asked and I want to make you're providing Cate by candidate by candidate we analyze the available height on the at that location to see whether it will reach this area and and cover this area um one at a time it's not a matter of a radius or a fixed coverage amount it depends on um the height available and also the elevation of the site itself uh and each one is specifically um analyzed to show exactly what it will cover at that location at that height and it in this terrain of course it does not come out to be a radius it's a very irregular shape and have to see which one fits the best yeah I I was going to add and and uh I will advise the board that I actually did study this when I started doing work in this industry and I took um engineering courses on the difference between tdma CDMA and the signals and the ability to transfer and send signals terrain plays a huge part um uh foliage plays a huge part uh evergreens are different than seasonal foliage proximity to water plays a huge part uh so there are a lot of different factors um one of the things that was raised in the ab's opposition and and again I'll get into more of that later but it's relevant to the question you're asking now uh so they raised a question about well we want to see something prepared why don't they have something prepared by an engineer rather than a non-engineer you know why did I sign and make these representations in the application so we did after we we've only had their opposition for 24 hours um so we'll we'll provide something more thorough but in the meantime today we did send over um uh an engineer signed report that identifies our site and why our site works and if you look at that report and I don't know Eric if you had time to circulate it to everybody again and I apologize we sent it over today but we only saw the opposition at 3:00 yesterday afternoon but you you'll be a did you send that uh I I was running around all day I know Mike sent it over to you he sent you two things today and I did make sure I brought an extra copy of each one so that I would have them um and you know noting that I don't think we're wrapping up tonight I I expect that you'll have more than enough time and circulate it but if I might approach please thanks for asking Mr chair so we did have a market evaluation done and this is the engineer signed report as to our coverage needs so we did send these over today and Mr wnac so that you can see that our propagation models would be something in that okay nature so you would see reports that identify the gaps identify the coverage and how it's being Satisfied by the Tower and the tower at particular height and that is identifying where different towers are incentive so that you can understand how how this site actually filled that need uh where things are getting handed off you understand where I'm coming from question yeah that's why I'm trying okay y thank you just a quick question and those reports are specific to AT&T coverage AT&T coverage for this yep okay well I what I was going to say to you and maybe this is what you did with your report today is it would help me and I'm sure would help everyone if we kind of could see on the ground this area on 91 that you're trying to cover yes and then point out these sites as they relate to that coverage area I I get that I think what Peter is saying and I'll feel the and I I I can appreciate it is you're you're not connecting this data with anything that we can see in our minds it's all kind of ethereal a little bit you know like you did some studies and you got some results and that's great so in the packet that you sent today do you think there's something that could be put on the screen that could start right off with what is really the F here I'm going to use my own notes of what I believe we need to see uh the physical size of the Gap the area in which there is the Gap the number of users that the Gap affects you know th those are things that if we can see them it would help us appreciate the technical things that you're trying to uh provide us yeah Martin do you have the C2 report in front of you or do you have similar material and if you do Michael has the plots up probably the first thing to look at so if you can direct Michael to which ones you want him to put on the screen I I'm thinking if the the first question is where is the gap that we're looking at the uh the plot is ma 5014 existing 700 megahertz LTE coverage Martin is that the correct one uh yes it's the page out of the U RF report Mike do do you understand which one he's looking for it's mostly mostly orange and green y okay and if you can zoom into to the star in the middle to the site yeah thank you that portrays our current coverage that is the details um information on exactly what things look like now um and and the white Martin if you can confirm the white is the gap that you're trying to fill yes white is unreliable coverage red is adequate coverage or orange is adequate coverage and green is the best desired coverage we would like to see so and the Gap you're looking to fill is predominantly white and orange at the current time yes okay along 991 and into the uh areas on the west side and what's what's the star ma 5057 uh those the black stars are the existing sites so if you if you look at there's I see one two three other stars on here you can see they're all embedded in green a is and and why don't I do this if I could and that way the audience also knows what I'm referring to so yeah this isn't so existing sites are black proposed site is blue so this is a black site and you can see that it's surrounded in green and then orange outside it and the this is uh an existing site in green this is an existing site in green uh so I think those are the three existing and this is the proposed site and so the goal at the end of the day would be to have an area in here uh near 2A where the intersection is with 91 where this goes from white and orange and you would see green and here that would be similar to here here and here that that's the project if we can flip to the next plot that would be hang on Martin just let I just want to just want to digest this yep St Martin okay so what you're saying is that the areas of white have poor or no coverage uh we call it unreliable but poor or no coverage yeah the green is adequate uh green is the best coverage the and orange is adequate adequate yes all right so if I guess again I want to kind of zero in why this particular spot of 91 is important uh and that's my original question but if I were to expand that map would I see along 91 other white green and orange spot uh areas like this like why is this why is this the hot spot on 91 because there's no Tower yeah but aren't there other parts of 91 that aren't serviced go to all of those spots do you are you is your goal to have every spot on 91 covered yes at the end of the day the goal is for first net responders is to have every spot particularly along a Federal Highway and particularly along a Federal Highway that intersects with a state road the goal is to provide seamless coverage and the reason is uh so that if you have the need for First Responders emergency situations people traveling on the road at night I'll give you the best example I can give you uh 20 days ago at 10:30 at night driving home from Bucknell University my son hit a deer in the middle of the highway on Route 80 and there was nobody out there because it was snowing and he was on the road at 10: 10:15 at Night by himself car crushed up like an accordion in his car crying but what worked was his cell phone and he got on the phone he called his father he called his mother he called the state police and within 15 minutes they had a crew out there they had a car off the road they had the deer cleaned up off the road and my son was safe and he was waiting then he called uh he's a wrestler of bnell he called one of his teammates who was about 45 minutes behind him on the road and his teammate and his teammate's father pulled off the road and got him and picked him up that's that's why we're doing it it's those are the types of situations where if I had done that driving home from college 40 years ago I'd be sitting on the side of the road can I ask a question how is it how is the white determined to be white you know is there yeah I'll defer to Martin on that uh it is below the threshold signal level here the thresholds for um the green the great coverage is 83 dbm the Orange is 83 93 dbm and white is anything that is analyzed to be below that level below 93 dbm so someone was in that area to determined that that was the power level or or lack of coverage there or is that done in a simulated way I don't know whether it was Drive tested or simulated Martin do you know if it was Drive tested or if it was simulated I don't I don't know if there's a drive test I know they test these things I know they're constantly monitoring their system statistics and if they see um lost connections for data or or Voice or or things of that nature that's what drives this the customer satisfaction basically um is what drives um which there are there certainly lots of white on this map and plenty of places to put a site but this particular one is the one that was the most urgent and all that data is available that shows that decision making process um probably proprietary and I well but I mean you you if you had to you could say here's here's the data we use to make the decision that we need coverage in that white area yes yeah what what we could you know again what proprietary information we could or couldn't share but certainly it could be explained in in in Greater detail if that's if there's a need greater detail on that uh one more question yep so so where the blue star is that's white and across from the highway is white yet the highway seems to be colored orange is the highway really not colored orange and I'm just missing something that's the color of the road yeah I think that so I the highway is actually colored red yeah the the highway is red the state road I believe is is like a blue this is actually orange this is green so it's just really the the road itself so that the road stands out as opposed to streets that are all shown in Black it is there a different set of rules for deciding uh this because of the first responder issue and not for just an expansion of the economic uh desires of AT&T I don't believe there are a different set of rules but I do believe there are additional factors so when you have an area that again like an intersection of a state highway and a federal route that I would think would get greater priority within a build plan in any particular time so here's a here's a white area over here there are no streets over here there's no Highway over here I would think that that this blue star is going to take greater priority than say going into the middle of Sherborn or shelborne where there's no streets and no traffic and why does the tower have to be 170 ft high if you're only trying to Signal something that's very close to it so it it's it's not very close I mean I I don't know what the exact radius is but I mean you have a a gap in here it's close I mean I know from my own knowledge that's mile two miles two and a half miles no the star to the highway is probably I don't know feet of some sort or yard short of the highway here yeah it's probably a couple hundred feet so what why what's the need for 17 of tower if all your if your goal is the first responder in area that's very close so if you're going to build the Tower you're going to fill the Gap you're not just going to build a tower I I mean at the end of the day you require a minimum number of towers in town one of your key criterias is collocation looking at existing Towers so if you did that you might need to put a tower here a tower here a tower here a tower here a tower here a tower here and you might need eight Towers to do the job that you could do with one tower that could fill in possibly from here to here and I you know by way of example and I'm not like saying mathematically so I'm going to go to the middle of that star and I'm going to tell you that that is I think everyone can see the green is certainly more than the length of the pen if I put the the pen here I'm I'm covering a lot more than just the parcel of land and right here and that I mean if I go to this one and you look and you see what's red and what's green and you're getting all of this area out of that one Tower you can cover a greater area with one Tower which is fewer Towers which is what your bylaw requires and your bylaw requires collocation so you have a tree line here that I believe is in the 90 foot range and so the idea was to build a tower that you can put four carriers on and carriers generally have antennas that go anywhere from 8 to 10 feet and in order to avoid interference between carriers you generally put gaps between each antenna array so you might go your first array might have a center line at 105 ft your second array might have one at 120t your third array might have one at 135 ft you know hypothetically and your top array might have one at 150 fet you also don't design the towers for today trees that are 90 feet tall today are going to be 95 feet tall in 10 years they're going to be 100 feet tall in 20 years so you don't want to design a tower that's going to all of a sudden um be troubled by interference within the first 5 or 10 years that you build it so you want to be high enough that you're over it and signals were also line of sight so one of the things that you want to make sure that you're doing with your signal is if if you have a tower here and a tree here like this and you're trying to reach down here that signal is going to get interfered with by the trees so your goal is that you want your Tower here you want to think about what the line of sight is to where you're trying to get to and you need to be up over the trees away from interference which is why so driving down uh route two and 2A today probably passed a dozen Towers along the way that you see along the highway that you know you don't see the whole Tower but you see the top third or the top half of the Tower and it's line of sight and as you're driving and you're getting your text messages and your emails I wasn't driving George was driving so I was checking my emails um there would be periods of time where I couldn't get an email and I would wait and then you know a minute or two later my phone would buzz and I would have gotten emails because I went between a tower you know so we were coming in from this way so we went between like maybe this Tower and the next Tower over here and the further away you are from an urban area the harder it is to have seamless coverage between Towers so you focus on points of denser population major roads and intersections you try and maximize the coverage you're going to get again under your bylaw which is as few towers as possible and as great a collocation as possible and that's that's the final thing is will the will will Martin Show us something that shows the actual area of coverage so Martin can you tell us which slide to go to Martin I'm on mute sorry next down Mike can you lift up so now here's your site with the proposed CPR and of course it's not just i91 it's everything around there that goes from white to orange or green orange to Green um takes you all the way through there on 91 with good solid coverage so that's that's what it'll be if this Tower is built and that antenna is at that high okay thank you thank you so if you don't have any other questions for Mr Lavin uh next on our list uh uh would would be L hodet who designed the layout of the site Mr chair person should no no nobody from the audience his presentation corre so I just going to ask the board if you're good with that part of it and I'll move to the layout of the site does do any board yes thank you thank you yeah I do I do have one question on the um on the Long View Tower site it says it's too high for a capacity site could you define that for me what makes it too high Martin um with digital um systems these days capacity is driven the um it's doubled since 2021 the amount of u data people want if a site covers too much it covers too many users um and it can't um supply all of them with a sufficient quantity of data if the sites overlap then the overlapping basically if it's if it's too high it's probably going to show up in all sorts of areas and basically just create noise not service in areas that are have service um that is why it's a trouble for capacity it's it's a very different thing from when we were having analog cellular back in the 80s and 90s and it was just a matter of getting on the highest thing you could find and letting it cover as far as you could it was only voice and um there was no problem really in that regard but the quantity of data that's demanded now um requires that we tailor the size of the sites to the area that we need to serve and that we not run over into the coverage areas of other sites which would diminish their ability to serve their customers s is too high it can't be controlled it can't be rained into where it's supposed to be and it's just showing up in places it shouldn't and it's causing more trouble than it's solving and how much higher is that site from the one you're proposing do we have a ground yeah do the ground wasn't on here um if it's an observation tower Mohawk Trail uh let me see it sounds like the kind of thing we would have gone on back in 1985 but so Martin while you're looking that up if I could also I mean the reason why I'm asking is Sprint is already there and in in your review you stated it has excellent coverage to the north and to East but it's too tall so I'm just like I just want to understand what about it made it if Sprint's there and it's working why would it not also work for you it depends where Sprints other towers are versus where um AT&T's other towers are so one thing I can tell you again so you have antennas on each Tower and each antenna can handle an a a finite number of calls and the data from a call kind of gets kind of packeted up into each antenna and that's why you see some towers with like um every tower has three arrays they go in the in the different directions and then on each one you might see two antennas three antennas or four antennas so you might see six nine or 12 around the entire thing and each antenna can handle a finite number of calls I believe uh it's about 80 at a time so if you have all those antennas and you're higher up what's going to happen is you're going to have signals that are going out a further distance so you have to have higher power on it to get it to travel from a higher height you're going to have it covering a greater distance and one of the things that actually causes interference is other signals so if you put um Mike can you go back to either one of the other two I I think I'm following you there okay so what about your Tower at the 170 ft know you commented that you you you would allow other T other carriers to be on it possibly down the road correct so what is different about that setup that would make it different from adding an additional carrier to the Long View Tower so each carrier I mean think about it like an egg crate and everyone has to fit their eggs in that crate in the way that they're so you're not going to potentially use the same egg crate if you have like ostrich eggs as you would if you had like smaller eggs so depending on what your system and how your systems operating and what technology it's using and where your other towers are you're going to set the power at your Towers so that it knows I know I have one over there I have one over there I have one over there and I have one over there the one I got to put in the middle has to have 12 antennas it has to be at a particular power and I don't necessarily want it to be more because if it is more what it's going to do is it's going to interfere with all the other towers around the edge and it's going to make those functionally obsolete which would mean those Towers might have to be taken down we built different Towers might have to go in different locations so that could that in theory could correlate to your to the tower that they're proposing correct that other carriers could not use yours there's there's a chance another carrier may or may not I I would say if you look at most Towers when you when you drive around I mean coming in today did I see one or two that only had one carrier yep did most of them have three yep I it's it's rare that you see one with four but you design it with four and you design it with four in particular if your bylaw says you have to build it in a way that it's colloc for all the other carriers so you design it so that everyone could come there um we don't have everyone else's data we don't get nextel's data we don't we don't get or Sprints data we don't we don't get other carriers data but we do know what they have in the marketplace and obviously we're not going to spend more money and build a higher Tower if we don't think at some point somebody else isn't going to come on that Tower just be entirely inefficient um just you done if I understand what you're saying then is even though Sprint thinks that Long View is good it's good for their system and where their towers are located correct that's their egg egg basket correct whereas for you if you put uh AT&T up there where your towers are located it wouldn't work as well if I if we put at& Long View correct the where your Sprint has their Tower over here you might have a tower over here you want those S to be lined up properly correct and so it doesn't when you analyze it you not only analyze what I think uh Deb was asking was functionality but compatibility with the rest of the system right correct because it might mean if we went on that Tower we might actually have to build another Tower because we might only be able to cover half the Gap instead of all of the Gap and therefore we might need two towers in town or I'm sorry in the city to cover the the area that was shown on the second grid all right so can I follow up for you a question which is again I think you're saying several things at the same time which is fine but I really heard this first responder stuff and and that caught my attention could a first responder only AT&T uh Contraption go on Long View and be functional on Route 2 and 91 in that Corridor that you're concerned about I do not know the answer to that I Martin if you know the answer to that yes I think there's there's two things going on here um Sprint is a special case it's entirely possible that they're listed as being on that Tower but they're not anymore uh they were absorbed by T-Mobile and yeah see that's not the question yeah the question is could you use that Tower just for purposes of providing coverage as a first responder for the route two Circle and that white area that you designated I'm not worried about whether it's compatible with other Towers but just as a first responder so you're asking is do First Responders use different technology with the use of that facility Well that be the underlying thing that you heard but I'm just saying if if your goal is to get a first responder uh Gadget up there so that it will it'll be you'll be able I'll be able to use my phone if I hit a deer then will the Long View site work for that purpose if AT&T puts something up there that narrow use will that function okay will it will it will it work in that area I Martin I got it I don't I don't believe it would I think what it would do is it would cover a portion of the Gap and it wouldn't cover the whole Gap you're using the same signals you're using the same bandwidth you have to set your power to the same levels in order to get your power to travel to a particular level and so what it would do is it would have that interference issue with potentially a tower to the North or to to the North or to the east or to the west by going on that um who what's the other Tower Sprint but I'm just talking about like getting on the phone and calling someone not not sitting and getting uh you know you don't limit who like there there aren't different phones in different signals and different sets and different antennas so your fire department and your Police Department are not using different phones than anyone in this room is using and so their technology isn't different than our technology so if I hit a deer or your police chief is trying to reach somebody because there's a tornado coming we're set we're taking our phones and we're calling the same equipment on the same Tower and we're trying to get a signal to connect to the same place so I don't I don't think that that would work correct continue any any other questions on the coverage okay so um Luke do you want to go and discuss uh the layout of the site and then yes I'd be happy to okay thank you uh sorry I can't connect my video I have limited uh cell service where I am right now um so my bandwidth has does not have capacity to have video on um if Mike can up uh put on the overall site plan I think that would be helpful and while he's uh we probably go to the next page or the the ortho photo page be the most helpful at the moment so our company uh was contracted by verie Wireless uh to design and helped site this cell tower uh uh for service in Greenfield um I my name is Lou hitz I'm a senior project engineer with dubo and& King engineering um I'm licensed in Vermont working under the direction of another engineer who is not able to be on the call um Mark Goodrich who is licensed in in Massachusetts and who is the senior project engineer um of record for this site um when we were originally uh reached out we looked at the the the property to the north uh which was part of this parcel is parcel is identified in parcel as parcel a uh under Michael's uh opening statements uh we looked at viable options within that parcel um understanding that that was potentially going to get redeveloped at the time um and then as the as the design re viw on our end went through that parcel was redeveloped um and sold uh so we had looked at potential sighting within the existing building footprint and and open space footprint that was there uh that wasn't there weren't a lot of options within there uh so we looked at other locations on the property uh traveling south um and identified a a wetland area um that Wetland was delineated by another uh environmental firm called VHB um there is a the Wetland that's there is primarily Dam controlled uh the existing pond at the the Northern end of the property and on that parcel a uh has a dam uh structure uh that retains the the surface water uh for that pond and um Upstream dream of that created a wetland um So based on conservation um and the requirement to maintain at least a minimum 25 foot undisturbed buffer from that Wetland boundary uh we identified a a flat reasonably uh well-graded uh location where we can design the uh 50 by 50 um uh site sorry is this 150 um or the the the tower location site uh and then to meet all the requirements uh with access road coming down from Fair viiew uh at a reasonable grade to allow for vehicular traffic um Mike if you go to C six um so we designed the access road uh to access the the tower location site uh we are maintaining a a fenced site compound um that's 50 by 50 feet wide um so that the cocats in the future have ample space to go in there to put their equipment um and and build out any equipment needs that they have uh in a in a predetermined footprint um based on the conservation requirements we were required to design a storm water treatment system uh so we have drainage selles uh and a gravel W or a a a shallow Wetland around the perimeter to provide storm water treatment um and then in our technical review meeting with the with the town staff uh the fire chief specifically requested a wider Access Road uh to allow for uh the fire apparatus or the ambulance um to access the site and be able to turn around so the original access driveway that we had proposed is shown in red on this plan uh after speaking with the with the fire chief we widened that to its current limits as shown in Black uh with some additional parking and turnaround area to the southeast of the site we had attempted to moved the site as far into the property as we could to the West uh but we were constrained by the Wetland and the 25 foot undisturbed buffer requirement that conservation set um we had looked at other parts of the property as well uh to see if there were other areas where we could site it to to meet that separation requirement or the the fall zone requirement and with the location of the Wetland it just was not feasible uh this was really the best location we had that provided the greatest distance to the property line um and and to maintain that fall zone area um going forward we still need to accomplish or still need to conduct the geotechnical uh evaluation uh which requires having a boring machine access the project location uh do a 25 to 30 foot boring to determine the the soil types and then we will do a foundation design for the tower uh based on the preliminary view of the soils in the area uh we don't foresee any issues the this USGS soil Maps uh indicate that it's a grally Sandy LOM um so we're anticipating a reasonable uh soil condition in this location uh the in our experience soil conditions of that nature tend to have a 20 to 30 foot uh pad Foundation uh which would be with entirely within the 50 by 50 foot compound um and then there's a small Pier that sticks out of the ground that the tower then sits on um that is all designed by the tower manufacturer based on the Geotech report um and designed to accommodate that tower for uh the service loads as required by the uh code requirements so that's a very brief introduction um if there's any questions I'm happy to answer those so I would I would add one thing just what we this up I think it's an easy time to address it and that is this is where we would need to access to take the testing to determine the exact design of the foundation and this is at around uh 206 and at the street you're over 220 up at the street so it's a significant drop and getting access it would mean we'd have to start taking down trees and doing some buildout of the surface and so one of the reasons that we would like to have that be a condition of the approval is that we would have to do Geotech and come back to the board to show you a foundation designed that supports the application that we've submitted is so that we would not have to go ahead uh before we have approvals and take our trees and start to build a roadway at at at the end of the day with all due respect to the board if you don't approve the site please don't make us cut down trees and build a road so that's the only thinking on that and while we were here at this particular plan so you could see here you could see the elevations here and you could see the elevations of the street I just thought this was a good time to bring it up so anybody have uh at this point have any questions all right I do um yeah that was a that was a big deal at the last meeting I appreciate what you're saying is a chicken and egg thing to this I get it I get it all right so I mean let's let's get to the first fundamental issue that's before the board um you're you're you're you're asking us to vary our safety zone correct which by just me as a lay person I can feel comfortable that I have a Zone where if the tower were to fall it's the same size as the tower so it's going to fall down it's not it's too heavy to move anywhere even if there's a big wind and yet um you can only go 100 uh the tower will fall on the road at 130 feet correct so I've got a lot of we have a lot of safety concerns the reason for that particular provision in the in the ordinance is for safety I don't I want to make sure that everyone driving on that road is safe from predictable events now we also have a peer review and because safety is our first priority we're hoping our peer review can tell us that the the uh the design model that you're using that you're calling the the the the next level of safety where where you can't me you can't do the obvious safety but you'll do an engineered safety again I could be and and we have an engineer we have other people who have the same hopefully the same common sense as I do but we're going to have to know that that Foundation is solidly held in there corre when because there's going to be so much pressure on the bending point that the foundation's going to have where whereas before or as our bylaws are written that Foundation could actually collapse because we have a safety zone so you don't have to build it with that in mind but now you need to build something in order to comply with your representation something that can stand all that pressure of a bending Tower and if you so so I'm not going to say anything I'm going to go to this are you telling me that that our peer review will not be able to have will have will not have enough information to tell us that that foundation will be able to support that pressure I believe your peer review will be able to tell you if properly designed that it will be able to withstand that pressure and I believe your peer review will be able to confirm based on our Engineers that there would be one or two different types of foundations that would be used in detail and that your peer review would be able to tell you that yes it absolutely would work and that they would come back and they would review the foundation as a condition of the approval and our opinion would be that we wouldn't go through this exercise if and I wouldn't say make it a condition we're happy to have the peer review come and review it unless we were 100% confident that we could design that Foundation to um address a tower that is designed with uh um a a bending Point another question sure in our scope of services for the peer review we asked them to also look at the mechanism you're proposing at the halfway point correct and you know I'm sure it has some industry approval or a track record but will will a peer reviewer come back and say you know we we feel it's good but we can't totally guarantee that that'll that mechanism will absolutely operate when it get and when it needs to I think that your peer review will tell you I I believe that they'll tell you at the end that the tower designer knows what they're doing they have a proven track record of success our Tower designer does not have towers that have collapsed and that the technology we're using and the engineering we're using to build it is a proven system that works I think that's what they'll tell you now so I'll give you an example okay you have a tower in town that encroaches on the fall zone it's been in town for 24 years and you haven't had a problem with it somebody designed it and built it and they did it the right way and it encroaches as much or more than this one encroaches and where's that located 195 Country Club it's a 200t tower and it is 130 ft from the road I drive by there every day and in in addition there are no trees that would fall on it's not 20 feet lower than the road up above and it's closer to the homes on the other side of the street there's nothing here so our lot line is here there's about another 20 25 ft to the roadway the roadway is 40 ft and there's nothing on the other side of the road except a steep embankment going uphill so this Tower would have to fall over a dense tree line up a hill and over road so even if it did fall and it stayed in one piece it's falling like this it's not going to that's not going to happen it is designed to bend and and you said that the halfway point it actually will be up slightly above the halfway point but and and I we wouldn't go through the time and the effort of the hearing at this point we're going to be you know we we did the last hearing we're doing this hearing we're going to come back and do another hearing and we're going to come back and do another hearing once we get through the first one and you condition the foundation if you do that we're going to keep coming back and spending money to do it because we are 100% confident that what we have designed what we've implemented in the past will in fact work be designed the proper way will be overdesigned to ensure that something bad doesn't happen and it like to one point on kind of the last discussion we were having if AT&T could just go and stick a tenance on someone else and and Mr Marshon does not work for ver he works for 18 he'll tell you if they could just go put antennas on another tower that already exists and it's easy and it's simple to do we wouldn't be here tonight we wouldn't be spending the money to design this particular type of tower we wouldn't have picked this location um if if we were not 100% confident that that Tower could be designed in a way that it works with all due respect we that's your job to advocate for the applicant for us yep it's to be certain as best as we can that it's safe within the context of what we think is safe as well as what you think is safe Agreed 100% which is you asked me what I think your peer review will do and I'm telling you I agree but I'm not asking you to wave peer review I want you to get peer review because I I I want the the the the the opposition to be comfortable that what we're doing is correct I want the board to be comfortable with what we're doing is correct I want you to get a review I want them to be here I want them to come back and look at our foundation plan I want them to look at everything that we're doing so that if and when you you approve a project here you do so with the same confidence that I have tonight fair enough okay thank you thanks um is this a good moment to pause certainly all right let's take a break you notice how old all the members are that thing Mike Cronin if you can get the minute break the next slide ready I think we're going to go to visual impact so if you can get those ready mics that' be great okay we'll do is for for e e e e e e e attorney Rosen go ahead oh yeah sorry about that thank you Mr shair um we we do have uh one of our team members on on the fall zone Dominic Avera I I don't know if you want to have more detail on that tonight where you don't have a peer review or if you'd like us to put that off until you have a peer consultant at a future hearing I suspect he's going to repeat a lot of what I already said but he's involved with the company that actually is designing the tower and um he he's been working with them on that design and if anybody on the board uh I believe that at least one of the board members is an engineer if they wanted to hear from Dominic we could have Dominic but also noting that we've been here for an hour and a half how long uh will he be uh Dominic how how quickly could you uh either summarize for the board or answer any questions they have I could give a a brief summary you've went over some of the aspects of it already and I could just give a little more detail on it for a couple minutes all right yes I'd like to hear okay Peter yeah I I think for us to understand the peer review we should understand what they're doing right you're looking at us yeah okay go ahead thank thank you Peter please go ahead I'm I'm sorry yeah Peter Peter is the engineer in the room Dominic please go ahead yes my name is Dominic Aversa I'm a licensed engineer in the state of Massachusetts I'm working with All Points Technology uh the actual Tower design is completed by Valmont with their Engineers um I've reviewed their files they've completed so far for the preliminary Tower design uh and in conjunction with bont as well issued the fall zone letter that should be included with the files the fall zone itself and the the function that you know the the function of the tower collapsing upon itself is simply based on an area of the tower slightly above the midpoint being designed as the weakest point of the tower um so everything else other everything below the area is rated at a higher capacity higher strength so if the tower were to be subject to catastrophic winds at the design or above the designed winds for the locality um and the tower were to collapse due to that high winds the theoretical method of failure is it would fold over itself at the What's called the hinge point which is approximately 90 foot above grade as soon as the top section of tower were to fold over itself it reduces the overall load on the foundation significantly as the overall height of the tower is much less should limit any sort of full collapse of the tower where the tower would fall entirely over on its side um so that's when when the hinge point or the you know failure mode is discussed that's what's being talked about is the you know I don't want to call it a weak point on the tower because it still is an area that is strong enough to meet all required standards but it's the weakest point of the tower that's designed that's probably the simplest explanation of it uh just if there's any questions you can let me know in the m in the materials that you have exhibits uh uh 2 b c and d b is from from All Points which is Dominic um C is the backup material from Valmont and then D is a lengthy uh with all of the data and support and the backup for the design that they do and that's I would presume that 2D is what your peer consultant is going to dig their Chomps into so I take it that information has been submitted to the city yes you have you you have it in your package it's in your book uh 2bc and D I I I I think I don't think I have that particular C I have the original one that came with the application back it think it's in let me if I can approach sure yeah I think it's in the original special permit application like page like like way back like 103 104 I don't know what actually habits in this is the supplemental material that's all I have you yours away date of the email all right so I just need to get I just need and this is all whether we got it on the 10th or 11th I don't start analysis and and gonna what your last name jys jilks but you can just call me Debbie it's easy Debbie actually provided this book to the abuts as well so they all have it so I presume they give it to their Council as well so okay can I ask is it time for questions or you want to elaborate more on what he said no we're good first I'll ask any member of the board have a question doesn't mean you can't I'll look at that next you want to look that for a second uh one quick question this Tower will meet all federal and state existing requirements yes thank you there was a I think earlier said in another document this has been designed in accordance with Tia standards uh Dominic uh yes so we calculations are completed to both the Tia 222g standard as long as well as the H standard uh the original design of the tower was started prior to the 10th edition of the Massachusetts State Building Code being enacted um we designed the tower to meet both the 9th and the 10th edition okay thank you Dominic um have when when was this when was this technology of the Ben when was it invented or when was it first used uh it's it's not necessarily an an invention it's designing a weak point in the tower to facilitate a specific failure mode in the case of catastrophic failure has this been used has it so so when when was it first when was it first ever used to your knowledge I'm not certain of an exact first date um I have seen towers that have very few but there are a few instances of towers that have failed in that exact manner um I couldn't say if they were designed with that in mind as a simulator test ever been done with this Tower this Tower design I'm not certain if the manufacturers do uh I'm a third party working alongside the manufacturer to assist in the process um it's possible that the manufacturers themselves have I haven't personally done one myself so how do we know that it will work when an event occurs the the typical failure mode for the shape of that structure is for the actual uh tube to collapse over itself and one of the walls to buckle it's the how the actual structures are designed in general right but it it's hypothetical it's it's based on your engineering designs and your knowledge of of engineering formulas and things of that nature but has has it ever been tested has there ever been a disaster where it's worked so why don't we talk to our Engineers uh the designers of the Tower of Valmont as Dominic indicated he hasn't done an actual testing on that we can ask Valmont and I can get an answer for you I can tell you personally I've been doing uh cell tower permitting uh for 24 25 years and I have used uh monopoles with hinge points in them for near the entirety of time that I have been doing them and I am not aware of one tower that I have permitted and I've probably permitted close to 200 um over the years um I'm not aware of one that I've permitted that has a hinge Point that's failed that's I'm sorry what was the last thing that you said I not aware of one that I have ever permitted that has a hinge point that failed I see okay um Dominic is it fair to say that um if the tower just fell would it fall Beyond 170t would 170t Tower necess necessarily fall Beyond 170 ft I don't see any method that it would be able to fall Beyond 170 ft um the likelihood of it fully collapsing to the side is mostly NE well the purpose of the design is to create the hinge point so that type of failure mode is less likely than it could be okay thank you um can I can I ask one question sure along with David's question I I I'm sure you answer this as the PO the pole would be falling wouldn't that hinge Point as it's falling wouldn't it now start to collapse upon itself in the event that catastrophic event took place where it started to fall from the bottom as it's going down with the hinge point snap at that point I mean I I think if would Dave is asking is you know if for some reason the the hinge Point didn't work or that there was enough power that it took the whole pole down as the poles coming down with that hinge Point help the top piece break off as it's falling I don't believe it's designed to snap it's designed to hinge well yeah but I'm saying would it would it as would it start to hinge would it start to hinge I guess it would depend on the on the Wind load at the time and I guess it would depend if it hit trees on the way down I presume if you had a combin of the appropriate wind speed that was above one standard and below the other and it hit a tree as it was coming down I would think that if the if it hits the hinge Punk the right way it's gonna and I think I think it got mention you know put wind aside if for some reason there was an earthquake severe enough that the pole would fall yeah you would that upper part get impacted by that so it would start hinging as it came down I can ask Valmont if they've designed them and done studies based on earthquakes obviously in the Northeast it's not something that we probably have asked them to look at nor probably have they looked at it in designing this particular Tower um because we're not in an earthquake zone but um I I I do think if there's questions you have that you'd like me to direct to them I can get those answers for you and then obviously we can have the peer review also take a look at them well I I'll give you a comment there was there was some earthquake effect many years ago in Greenfield because my wife was working downtown in the building she was in suffered the the shake of an earthquake not a severe one but there is some earthquake activity in this area okay yeah we C we can certainly ask that question thank youcome let me ask me the the circle on the plans that show where the tower would land does that take into consideration the lower grade so that if it fell in the lower grade it would still go out to that or is is at just 170 ft the this we had this discussion on the way here this afternoon about whether we needed to adopt Pythagorean theorem uh because of the slope and the triangulation and what did you decide um it would save you about 2 and A2 ft okay so it's not substantial there's no the the fact that it slopes is is not a it's it's a two and a half foot issue in terms of measuring the where the circle is as far as measuring the circle yes yeah yeah okay so this is to protect my board and and everyone else this is a lot of information for us to digest and um so I want to certainly give I don't want you to come back many many times but on the other hand is this a natural ending to the presentation or there more things that you want to present I mean beyond the peer review discussion but in terms of just getting us established for what you want why you want it how you're going to do it so we do have um visual impact we can go through the balloon and the photo simulations we have valuation report we could go through that we do have those experts online they've been with us for an hour and 45 minutes and they're going to tell us um from a visual impact they're going to show you the impact uh based on the test I think you require a minimum number of um photographs I believe we doubled the number to be certain and we actually when we got the abuts report um their memorandum we actually I think we can take you slide by slide and show you from their properties what they'll see or what they won't see uh so we could do that um we have valuation report that in all honesty you got yesterday so I if you wanted me to our valuation expert right now he can get off the call and we can maybe at end it after the visual impact but I do I think we probably want to go through the visual impact and maybe try and limit it to 15 minutes or less yeah I'm not trying to rush you I'm just saying is there a logic if if if you need to do more and you've paid people to come to speak to us then I'd like to hear what they have to say I think I'd do visual I think I'd visual why don't you do one thing at a time and we'll see how it's going but I want you to take it at a pace that that you feel you've prepared for I'm not trying kind of fresh you so again I had visual impact valuation and then a wrap up which was going to address the memo we got yesterday from theuts I think since I only got your visual um your evaluation report to you today that can wait till the next meeting and since I only got the abutters memorandum yesterday um and while I have plenty of comment on it um I'd rather prepare it in an organized Manner and deliver it to you so if we just did visual impacts and then continued after that I think that would be appr roate oh with the exception let's if we can talk about peer review yes we're going to talk about all right go ahead so why don't we do visual um Mike can you put up the um the report and then David can you go and then um depending on what David does or doesn't hit uh Mike if if you can walk us through the slides from each of the people that signed the uh opposition memorandum and just show the for the view from each of their front yards thank you hello uh my name's David R Shambo uh thank you for your time tonight um I'm the owner of virtual site simulations uh we conducted a balloon test on uh 1028 24 of 170t tower um that consists uh fairly simply of using a measured braided line um attached to a balloon balloon is filled with helium and filled to a 3 foot diameter and raised to a height of 170 ft we measure the height to the bottom of the balloon um there's always a little Sway in the balloon going back and forth and having that extra three feet um just gives us a little Le leeway depending on how strong the wind is um when we did this balloon test the wind was definitely below 10 miles an hour uh but I believe this day it was more around 5 miles an hour which is a pretty good day for doing a balloon test um you'll see from the photos that it was just partly cloudy um so it was a fairly nice de um if you go to the next page thank you you'll see uh colored numbered circles um they are numbered from the distance from the tower um out so the furthest number out you'll see is 23 23 photos taken um there was actually about 200 photos taken we take a bunch of photos from each location and then we pick the ones that are at the right angle have the best view um from those areas um you'll see that in this particular one there are only two color uh circles green and red um we also occasionally have a yellow circle when the so the green is when it is at least some part of the tower will be visible all the time um from those locations the red is when the balloon is not visible at all from those locations and if we use a yellow which is not here it means you can see it but you're looking through trees branches or you're being obscured by something so it's it's harder to see um the yellow star is the location of the balloon test um the cameras we use are all digital pre-programmed GPS located cameras and the metadata from those pictures is used in our computer programs to locate them um and allows us to know the distance from the site the direction to the site our elevation and um by adding whether we can see the balloon or not gives you the color and is automatically mat the blue lines there show the areas within the one mile uh uh radius area that we traveled during this balloon test um we knock off the lines when we're outside of a mile just for easy visualization um some of these lines we've gone a couple of times to get back and forth to the different roads um so we can start with boto one if you would like which is from a neighborhood of or near a neighborhood of some of the people that are opposing this um I don't know that it's right in front of any of their houses but it is in the general area to the northeast of the of the location and clearly from this location a commercial area uh parking lot light posts in there as well you can see the balloon and if you go to the next picture it's uh superimposed uh one carrier Tower sitting there um in the location um we picked the size of the tower based on a couple of different things uh the size of the balloon which we know is three foot and the distance from the site we create a 3D model to put in the picture and that is expanded or shrunk based on the distance and measurements the balloon in the picture itself so that is a a pretty accurate uh size prediction of what a tower is going to look like in this spot you go to the next one photo number two which is to the the west of the site um also in a in the neighborhood of some of the opp Pro opponents of the site um and this is um not visible we were not able to see the balloon um driving in this area but we took a picture from this particular location and it wasn't visible so the next picture would also not show we don't do a simulation where obviously where it's not visible you go to the next one photo 3 is almost due south of the site um and again with the trees in place um it just was not visible at all um if I if I could also I saw a comment come up on the screen about foliage so I'm going to point out because this is actually a pretty good picture you can see there were trees out here with no leaves on them I don't if you can tell us the day you did this unless it's done at the bottom uh but but you can clearly see there's there's no leaves on a significant number of trees there are still some on some lower branches on some of the trees but the foliage is for the most part uh past its peak maturity for the fall so this was done on October 28th the day the balloon test was the balloon was flow so the next two pictures are to the north of the site both were visible um and when you could you scroll up just so we can get the bottom numbers on this picture so right there that's good um you can see uh the the information for this particular picture it's photo number four which corresponds to the dot on the map at the beginning um the road that we were on the DPS locations of where we were when we took the picture and kind of the bigger thing is the distance from the site so from this location we were about a third of a mile away from the site so again if you go up to the next picture you can see the tower at the top of the trees with those trees there even if there were more leaves off of those trees you're you're not going to see a whole lot more of of that Tower and you're going to be looking through branches to see it um so it it's really the majority of what you're going to see is that top about 12 or 15 fet of the top you go to five which is from the highway um and you can see again the the balloon sitting there still about a third of a mile away and you can see the balloon and if you scroll up you'll see the the picture and again you can see the tower next to the tree and um that's very self-explanatory the next uh couple of pictures are not visible but they are six and seven are again both um from the west of the site in a in the neighborhood where several of the proponent uh the uh against the site are are from um and I think someone has actually worked out whose house is whose but the balloon was not visible um from these locations um and then nine photo9 that's eight sorry eight was also not visible that was to the north of the site um so photo9 a very commercial area everything from the McDonald's arches and staple sign to um the commercial building and parking lot and uh gas stations and stuff where you see actually probably the most you see of the tower um and if you go to the next picture and again this is almost half a mile away and that's um as you get half mile and a mile away the tower in the in the background is getting smaller and harder to or taking up less percentage of your view as you see it um we can continue to go through these the next visible site is photo 17 um if you want to go through all might just go a little bit slower in case the board member looks at one and says hang on a second yep thank you Mike when we take these pictures we take a lot of pictures in within the mile area um and we're trying to give a good overall view this is photo 17 um which is visible but not all that visible since you're almost three4 of a mile away but we try to give an overall view of what is going to be visible where it's going to be visible from um have we got every single spot where it's visible probably not um we also aren't showing every spot where it's not visible again the the object is to give you a good overall understanding of the tower's visibility in this particular area so this particular photo very hard to see where the balloon is but when we have it inhouse obviously we can zoom in and and see the balloon if you go to the next picture it might be easier to to see it and it's actually the two green shrubs right in the middle that have a little u in the middle uh that is where the tower is even though it's very hard to see and then that's because it is almost 3 car is of a mile away yes right in there um so from this area though it is visible um and we were able to see it that's that's what you're actually going to see from from standing in this location the next photo that is visible is 18 and that would be the last one in our in here that is uh visible Mike can you just remove that Circle please thank you and on this particular one you will not see the balloon because the balloon has a backdrop of the mountain but you will see the tower on the next picture and that circle is going to be pretty close to where the where the tower is if you go to the next picture all right Mike leave that Circle there for a minute there you go um so that has the backdrop of the hill behind it um so it it you will still see it but um it will have the background so it won't be sticking up above and won't be as as visible or Draw your attention as quick and again this is a somewhat commercial area with the fire department and some other buildings in the Ford dealership right right there as well um the rest of the photos you can go through it um but there are no more visible shots that we have taken um again going all the way up to photo 23 um certainly if you have any questions I'd be happy to answer them um but that's that's my presentation um is it I'm I'm not sure that everyone in the neighborhood really got to see the balloon live I know that you're showing pictures is it would it be difficult to put the balloon up again at a designated time because our bylaws say that it's really supposed to be up for 14 days not up just 14 days before the um hearing so it gives people a chance to see the balloon so we did actually make that inquiry and we were told that it actually meant 14 days in advance we also asked before we put it up if we could select a date to make sure that the board knew and we also did ask whether or not we needed to send notice to a Butters or do any type of advertising and we were told we didn't need to uh because we wanted to anticipate this question and we did ask to do that at the time um I'd have to talk to my client about the cost of it and doing it again uh but I certainly understand and appreciate where you're coming from well I understand the misunderstanding part and um you all can talk about it and give me your impressions of that but I'm talking about it from a practical point of view especially for your presentation the pictures don't don't really do justice to what it would feel like to be any of these places where the folks live in order to see it um maybe you followed somebody else's Direction but the language in the ordinance is pretty clear and secondly you have people here who are concerned so this would I think if you gave people a chance to see the balloon and and appreciate what it looks like for several days you never know maybe there'd be a quieting of some of the of the concerns the one thing we did do is after we got the opposition yesterday is we took this report and we created a map and you have that map there and um what we did is we took everybody's address who uh signed the opposition so that the members of this board can see where all of those opposition folks live and then what we did today is we took this um recort and we we can identify for you on this report take the photos that were taken we have photos from nearly every one of these locations so that you can actually see uh the fact that we actually have identified virtually every uh location that's on this map and if you'd like we can scroll through them for you and we can tell you by opponent where they live and which photograph in the package relates to their front yard or their neighbor's front yard all right we we can call them concerned citizens instead of opponents and um you never know who might come out of the woodwork after this is done and say something and they haven't they haven't presented themselves here they haven't presented themselves in writing um I guess I don't know who all the people are I haven't taken the time but I do know that as a practical matter right in front of it is Newton Street and that's you know that would seem to me you've shown you've shown I I know the neighborhood you've shown going on the other side of 91 and I get that it's hidden mostly by that uh by the trees and everything else but the Newton Street people are probably the Prime folks that would be affected by the visual as well as other things they're concerned about but we're just talking about the visual I don't know I don't want to open this up to a Butters but I did get the impression from correspondents that I got that people on ding Street did not get a chance to really appreciate the height of the balloon and it might be in your best interest to give them that chance it might be helpful I mean I'm not doing it to give you a hard time but I'm just saying you know that and I understood and I would also have like to see what it feels feels like so that I can justify my decision to my to my my folks my peeps so let let me talk to my client obviously we're g to be back again um it can happen in the future and I mean I will tell you having been doing this for a number of years um the most anyone ever puts a balloon up for is one day and one of the reasons that you only put it up for one day it's not lasting 14 days which is why we had some confusion about what did that really mean and again we did ask for an interpretation and we were told it means it's got to be at least 14 days before the hearing um and it has to be after the hearing was scheduled so we then sent over a number of days we looked at best options we monitored the wind speeds to try and pick a day that had a lower wind speed and was not going to be cloudy or overcast so that we could pick pick the appropriate setting and and but but by the same token I also understand Mr chair your concerns and so let me let me confir my client I think if you think it would be reasonable if we did it for one more day and we did it on an agreed upon day where but what I would do is I wouldn't like pick the day now no what I would do is we're going to get closer to the day there's going to be an email chain that Eric will have that when when one member of the board maybe maybe yourself as the chair Eric my client we look at the wind the visibility and it's generally something we plan on like two or three days advaned notice because if we plan it a week in advance and then you have thunderstorms or 30 or yeah we I mean now we have a captive audience folks are aware of what we're talking about people are listening on on the zoom they're hearing what we're saying they'll people will tell their neighbors when they hear the notice and so I it would be a much better event I think that's my feeling and so you understand the reason we did this and we tried to match the pictures was when we read the memo yesterday and it said something to the effect and they didn't do the balloon test and they didn't do the photo simulations um and they weren't with their application and the reason they not with the application is because you file your application 30 days before your hearing but the test was supposed to be 14 days before the hearing which makes it impossible to do them in advance of your application oh and by the way if we hadn't done the application yet we wouldn't have the abutters list so I was anticipating this part of this discussion hence the reason for this and again we're prepared if anyone has any particular concern about any of the one one particular property right now I can show you that property or we can save it to a discussion to a later date including whether or not we do another balloon test I I think I think everyone here recognizes where they live they saw the pictures um I don't think it's necessary to go through it again but if we if we if we could organize one more day of having a balloon test I think that would uh alleviate that issue not only for the residents but for us because then we could say well we saw it too and we have our eyes and we have our common sense and we know what it feels like so and if you saw it on October 28th and it's sunnier out on February 17th and they see something that you didn't see on October 28th when you're in a room again and we're discussing it we're talking apples to apples not apples to oranges is your point yeah yeah I totally understood okay um any yes go ahead I got one question on the 170 foot Tower that's going up how many antennas of nodes are going on the original tower what's planned uh nine anten nine three and three on each side so not nine antennas yeah three three and three that's it okay yeah I also one other thing if we're going to continue the hearing and if we're potentially going to do another balloon I do wonder whether or not we should incorporate all of that into like a day and maybe it's not even on a evening on a Thursday evening at 6:30 at night where we actually do a site visit and you come and you see where the site is and maybe um we either get like a small Coach or we set up a caravan and we can go to a couple we can pick a couple of the spots that um Mr chair your your board members think are the most appropriate places to have the view from I think that I think that's a great idea okay so maybe we can coordinate all of that together like I I know some communities do Saturdays and they're good with them I know other communities board members are generally volunteer positions who are asked to do a lot and don't want to do Saturdays I do feel like doing it during a day and daylight when I'm not taking people away from their jobs if we're going to do it I I want to do it the right way so you get the most benefit out of it okay but remember it's got to be during good weather I didn't good weather yeah yes that's for the balloon but not to go to the even to go to that you're going to take us down to the site the potential site right I think the site and maybe coming and standing somewhere where you can uh our next meeting I know we're a little bit but our next meeting will not be on the second Thursday but it's going to be on the third Thursday because we have to coordinate with City Hall to deal with the issues that brought us over here um I personally will be away till February 8th I'd like to see the balloon so maybe if we're going to do it before that date we could do it uh what um okay third Thursday February yeah what's the third Thursday the Thursday I think it's February 20th it's the 20th okay and then what are you here I'll be back on the 8th of February okay so we could plan it between the 10th and that and the next uh date unless anybody else has a vacation during that time we'll we'll we'll do it on a week I'm not going to speak for the board but I don't know why we couldn't come on a Saturday morning and walk around the site so let's talk about that okay and I'll confer with my client and we'll send Eric an email and that's fine that's good um okay so I think I think we're done tonight we're going to continue the hearing I know there there are people here who are anxious to speak but I'm not going the the order of this proceeding is the applicant goes first when the applicant's finished then I will hear from you I think it's excellent that you're here you're seeing things firsthand I'm sure you folks have a lot to say and I'm very we're all wanting to hear what you have to say but we're going to have to wait and please be patient so is there anything else that you want okay the peer review while you're here let's do the peer review and then you have something else that you want to share with us an opinion about instant here does he need to real estate person wants to speak at the next time the next meeting since we submitted the real estate report only today I I think um let's put that one off to the next heing so I really think the only thing left would be peer review yeah all right I'm going to put that um so if I can Peter and your a hands so you can talk to the board and then we can take a vote uh for who we want to use for peer review so you know who that is yeah if I could give you uh like from our perspective uh I know you only have one uh proposal in I know you're anticipating getting more my only comment question concern would be we would greatly appreciate it if you could delegate that TK ask to one member of the board and your planning director so that we don't have to have a full meeting to discuss who that's going to be um at the next meeting which would push us out to meetings no no we're going to do that right now okay and we don't have any conflict or any objection with anybody and we saw the quote from the first um consultant you got in and we find that to be reasonable okay I should have asked you that since you're paying for it but yes I listen I got a lot going on here so you ipating is a good thing um go ahead Peter have you seen the scope of services I proposed for them to be I saw their scope and their quote and I thought it was uh Fair y I would I and as I said earlier I would add that we would also be amendable to them coming back if we did the foundation as a condition and having the same person uh review and approve the foundation well we've only received one proposal at this point so I I talking with Eric earlier does I'm not sure if the city is comtable with just one proposal I don't know if they'd want more than one is there a procurement procurement procedures we would need three quotes is this a procurement in in situation yes even though is definitely a procurement situation under Mass law even if we're paying even if they're paying City's not paying in terms of the city's not paying but in terms of getting uh yeah you you make a good point so why don't we vote and then find out I can tell you from experience I've been in communities where things such as traffic studies and generally uh like in Andover they have a particular traffic engineer that they know and trust and they say do you have any objection if we engage such such and such as the traffic engineer and we say no objection because we know if we say we have an objection they're going to wonder why and they don't even send it out to procurement you know what the bill is going to be you know the person that's going to be doing it and so yeah I do think though that the issue of procurement is so that we're not in the government hiring our buddies for uh for work so that's what the procurement law is meant to protect for for you to do it we only need your permission to do it and we're really just we're doing it yeah so I I'm going to say that we I I would like to vote on it subject to our getting an opinion about the I just have one question and I have one comment if I could when you're done no I certainly I looked at I I prepared this pretty much prepared the scope of services are you familiar with the firm I don't have a great history of their you know capabilities are you comfortable with them yes so I I have never worked with any of the so you sent the request out I think to at least five Farms so it wasn't that you only four or five six Farms so it wasn't that you only selected one and I feel like the board should know that you did reach out to six uh I did see the scope I do know all six Farm I have not worked with any of them I did go on their webites and check who they were and I find them all to be reputable I looked at some of the people at some of the firms again I I wanted to make sure number one I hadn't hired them to do any work for me on a different project so that no one could raise a conflict issue I wanted to make sure that they were going to be competent I was GNA I wanted to make sure that they weren't the types of firms that show up to any project and say no no don't do it you know I did my research and my homework on them and I found that the six firms that I picked were actually uh reasonable uh intelligent um and qualified within the industry and certainly the price in my opinion appears reasonable for what they're on the one that you got in I feel like that that was a very fair and reasonable quote all right so why don't you make a motion I'd like to make a motion to award or accept them as qualified Engineers to do the peer review who's they the unfortunate I don't have front of me go ahead Eric do you have there yes um it would be the to engineering let me make sure I have the exact name tower engineering professionals out of North Andover Massachusetts right pursuing to their quote and their follow-up uh communication that's so you're recommending that we vote to hire them for peer review and let the record note that the applicant had finds that both the uh expert and the price to be reasonable all right all in favor please say I I I any opposed okay let the record show was unanimous second on that did we get a second all right no then I was just practicing like I was in the beginning second practice makes perfect all right any discussion forgot that part okay all in favor say I I I any oppose let the record show was unanimous [Music] um Okay so taking care of that business um is there anything else you'd like to say no look forward to coming back next month knock on what hopefully if it's not snow one we get some nice weather and we uh okay well thank you so that thank you very much I appreciate all right so we need a motion to continue uh the variance hearing and the special permit hearing second any discussion all in favor say I I I uh any opposed but the record shows unanimous and attorney Rosen on the record you're agreeable to the continuance for the next two for the next date as well for the hearing correct yes that is correct Mr share thank you February 20th you're welcome thank you chair what's that this is Andrew uh point of order likely the is the hearing was open there's been no public comment allowed who who are you please identify yourself again Andrew Vernon are you a butter no can you identify yourself further please I'm a resident of Greenfield I'm sorry what's your what's what's your address sir 17 Sunset Square Greenfield Massachusetts okay so the the nature of your complaint is that I haven't heard from uh a Butters yet no just that public comment should be allowed when the hearing is open yeah I understand thank you for bringing that to my attention but usually the public comment is after the applicant has completed their uh presentation correct and that's happen no it hasn't but I I thank you for I thank you for bringing that to my attention there's still going to be another hearing where they're going to make further presentation we're going to have peer review we have lots of things to talk about before we're going to hear from the public which will get uh as much time as they need so thank you okay if we could please have it added to the agenda then I'm sorry I I couldn't hear what you said if we could please have it added to the agenda you you're always on the agenda the public comment is part of every hearing you will I I never I never go through a hearing without a public comment period That's all part of the public that's that's what a public hearing is actually is a opportunity for the public to participate no I fully understand it's public comment is not listed on the agenda all right hold on a second Dominic not sure if people understand that the presentation is kind of being put on pause until the it's not over we're just we're pausing and man me but I'm not sure that people get that I'm just saying that I'm not sure that everybody in attendance is fully understanding that that this presentation is still happening we're pausing for the night to pick up during the next meeting but it's not over so the whole like public comment should follow the presentation I just don't know that people I think people are thinking that the presentation is done but we're just done for the night do you see what I'm saying the the applicant presentation has not been completed once it's completed then I will be happy to hear from the abutters and I thank you for your patience Mr chair members of the board thank you very much I appreciate your time this evening anything else a motion to I hear a motion to adjourn I'll second that Mr chairman uh meeting minutes do we have minutes you do people have did the board receive meeting minutes of December 7 19th no okay we'll do meeting minutes next meeting okay continue with the adjournment okay any discussion all in favor say I I any opposed okay let the record show is unanimous thank you [Music]