By PAULENE POPARAD

Its four-hour special meeting ended Tuesday with the town of Porter’s Board of Zoning Appeals unanimously postponing until the Sept. 20 meeting a decision on whether to allow a 499-foot FM radio transmission tower to be built.

The board said it wants more information about where the tower would fall if one or more of its three guyed anchor wires fails, and it needs more time for its attorney to prepare detailed findings of fact in the event the petition is denied.

Chicago Public Radio/WBEZ is asking that Aqua-Land Communications be granted a use variance to erect the tower at the southwest quadrant of Indiana 49 and U.S. 20 so CPR can boost the signal of Chesterton-based sister station WBEW and potentially increase its 89.5 FM listening audience five-fold to 2 million people in northwest Indiana.

A package of technology CPR is offering with the tower including free, three-year wireless Internet access for town residents, co-location capabilities for other providers who already have expressed interest, and upgraded communications for local emergency services all were hailed by proponents as a needed safety and economic-development tool that offsets minor tower disadvantages.

Because the heavily wooded 10.3 acres south of an access road linking the two highways is 80 percent wetlands and already has two approximately 200-foot-tall cellular towers on it, CPR attorney Richard Riley said the parcel is a perfect site for CPR’s needs. On the east side of Indiana 49 is the 421-foot Indiana State Police radio tower.

However, opponents said the tower would be an eyesore, its lights a distraction, that a live web camera mounted on it for emergency weather scans and tourism promotion would be an invasion of their privacy, and that the tower could fall on children playing in their own yards.

Said town planner Jim Mandon, “Guyed towers, probably all towers, have failed one time or another. Certainly if it fell directly toward U.S. 20 it’d be in the street.”

Riley said it’s generally accepted that guyed towers fall within the confines of the guys themselves. After the meeting he said in retrospect he should have presented more details about the fall zone but thought that would be needed at the building-permit phase.

Approximately 40 people attended the public hearing; comment from the 11 people addressing the board was evenly split for and against although a remonstrance petition signed by about 20 residents near the tower site was submitted.

Mandon and town attorney Patrick Lyp both cautioned the BZA that the thousands of dollars of free equipment and services CPR would donate and initially maintain were not part of the petition’s five statutory criteria to be considered. Riley said CPR wants to be a good neighbor.

The case in support

CPR’s presentation to the board took nearly three hours with six speakers detailing why CPR wants to build a 455-foot triangular support monopole topped by a 44-foot antenna with broadcast elements attached to it rather than upgrade its current leased WBEW antenna mounted at 250 feet high in Michigan City or even build a new tower there, which is next to an airport.

Radio frequency (RF) consultant Joseph Davis of Cavell Mertz & Davis Inc. said Tuesday, “FM is a line-of-sight service and coverage is dependent on the combination of power and antenna height.” Because of the proximity of existing signals from radio stations in Indiana and Michigan on the east and Illinois on the west, he added, the best place to locate WBEW’s new tower is north of Chesterton.

BZA President Bruce Snyder asked why WBEW can’t just decrease tower height and boost power. Davis said as a tower loses height, interference becomes more of a problem and the Federal Communications Commission prohibits interference to be caused by or received from other radio stations. Also, as the height decreases so does the number of listeners having clear access to the station.

CPR President Torey Malatia emphasized the locally-oriented programming WBEW would provide and said the station is hoping to share news-gathering with Lake County-based television station WYIN to bring listeners “the kind of things people need to hear to know what’s going on in the community to make a difference.”

Responding to questions from Porter town engineer Hesham Khalil, Davis said radio energy emanates from the top of a radio tower horizontally and predicted less than 3/10 of 1 percent of the FCC’s limit for exposure for ground areas. “I’m very confident there will be no problem at all with the RF exposure limit.”

Riley said WBEW has been searching for one year how best to expand its signal and evaluated sites within Davis’ recommended search ring. The State Police nixed co-location on that tower and Lake Erie Land didn’t want a tower tenant at its Munson Place commercial subdivision at which the new Porter County Visitor Center is under construction.

Officials with the town of Chesterton informally said it needed land at its wastewater treatment plant for future expansion so that location was blocked, Riley added, and BZA member Lorain Bell rejected having the tower on industrial property he co-owns on Woodlawn Avenue. For that reason Bell has recused himself from any consideration of the WBEZ petition leaving four BZA members to vote on it.

Riley said WBEZ already has a construction permit for the U.S. 20 tower site that will expire in early 2007 so the station is anxious for a decision.

Merrillville real estate appraiser Jeff Vale presented a comparison of home sales near and away from the proposed tower focusing on houses built between 1960 and 1980. He concluded there would be no devaluation of land. “It’s hard for me to understand where a fourth tower when there’s already three would have an effect on the market.”

Snyder, an appraiser, closely questioned Vale on his criteria used, and BZA member Greg Stinson, a statistitian, pointed out Vale had not done a statistical analysis to support his conclusion.

Zoning professional George Kisiel of Okrent Associates Inc. exchanged opinions with Mandon whether a parcel zoned for residential use but identified in the Porter comprehensive plan for “office service” on its U.S. 20 frontage would permit a broadcast tower to perform a public service. “In no instance would I consider this a utility,” said Mandon.

Kisiel said it is both peculiar to the property and a hardship that the site has limited access, 80 percent is wetlands and the middle is bisected by a 150-foot-wide Munson Ditch easement. Mandon said wetlands can be mitigated or relocated and property lines could change in the future making the parcel developable.

John Shady of Malcolm Pirnie environmental consultants said there’s no indication the tower project will cause environmental impacts significant enough to trigger a formal FCC environmental review.

Public comment divided

Jeff Voegtlin presented the remonstrance petition and said there are a lot of for-sale signs in the area now; he also said the aesthetics of a tower in the neighborhood shouldn’t be discounted.

Anthony Russo said living 460 feet away it could be his house that the tower falls on. “That’s what we’ll look at every time when we’re barbecuing with our family.” Mike Milovich said he wouldn’t want a live camera trained on family volleyball games and objected to the tower lights. “I moved out of Chicago to get away from this stuff.”

An emotional Tim Savage said his two little girls will “grow up looking at these bright red lights.” Susie Cutler commented, “I don’t think this is the right use for the land. I’m not sure why Porter is the dumping ground.”

But former BZA member John Beckman said the number of future towers can be reduced if one is built at sufficient height to allow other antennas to co-locate on it. A WBEZ listener, he said the commitments the station is making to preserve almost 9 acres as wetlands assures it will stay a wilderness.

Bruce Resteau said the tower is a win/win situation for local emergency responders who have problems communicating in north Porter County and the town’s own police at Porter Beach. He noted at the end of WBEZ’s three-year support for the technology promised, the network could become a business employing people.

Eric Kurtz echoed the need for police, fire, emergency management and ambulance providers to have better communications, the latter served locally by a 120-foot-tall tower in Chesterton.

Sherrill Newman said it would be a distinct honor for northwest Indiana to have its own news, weather and cultural information without relying on Chicago or South Bend. She said the lights from the new Porter town hall across from her home are overly bright but she understands the need. Regarding the proposed tower, “When something’s this important to the community we have to set our personal things aside.”

Bernie Gawronski of Liberty Township said a weather station promised for the tower would provide valuable lead time in case of severe weather. “This (tower) will be hidden in the trees. If someone is looking for a tower, they shouldn’t be driving.” However, Mike Smith compared the tower to a looming monster.

Riley said the tower would be painted to reduce its impact and lit only at night with the same package as the State Police tower. He emphasized that a Dunkin Donuts or a McDonalds on the U.S. 20 frontage would have a far greater impact on the neighborhood because the tower will generate virtually no traffic. He also displayed photographs of the existing towers and showed how a closer telephone pole can appear larger than a tower because of perspective.

Mandon said what WBEZ is promising and offering is irrelevant; the bottom line is the petitioner has to show that the tower can only go at this location and at a height that is the minimum they require, not the maximum they want.

Posted 9/6/2006