Maspeth residents battle cell phone tower plan

Maspeth residents are hoping city officials have heard their complaints about a plan to erect a cell-phone tower.
At a forum, organized by the New York City Board of Standards and Appeals (BSA) on Tuesday, January 29, about 30 western Queens residents blasted the plan to build a “flagpole style” transmitter at 53-20 72nd Place. The three-foot-wide, 27-foot tall cell phone tower would be atop a two-story building and would therefore be nearly 56 feet high and be placed within a pole holding an American flag.
“It’s unfair that the middle class has to always suffer the brunt of big business,” said Tony Nunziato, a member of the Juniper Park Civic Association (JPCA)’s Executive Board. “Once we allow this to happen that means it will be able to happen anywhere.”
At the conclusion of the hearing, the Board requested that the company installing the cell tower - Omnipoint Communications, Inc. (T-Mobile) - return with more information about the plan on April 15. In addition, the BSA asked if other locations would work.
Assemblymember Marge Markey, JPCA and Community Board 5 have suggested that a commercial or manufacturing property would be more suitable than the current one planned for the tower - a two-story residential structure, which adjoins Frank’s Deli.
In a statement, Assemblymember Marge Markey, who organized a bus to travel to the hearing, said she testified in “the strongest terms against this proposal. It is clearly a matter of aesthetics. All of us in the community agree it will look odd - strange - and unsightly.”
Markey also cited the website, www.t-mobile.com, which notes that the signal strength in the area is five bars - the highest.
“All of the residents basically have land phones so this is not as crucial to them … You don’t need to connect for safety reasons,” said Nunziato, a 31-year resident of Maspeth who has three kids, ages 17 to 23.
Several local residents have also brought up the possible health effects of cell phone towers.
“You would put a tower that’s 30-feet tall in the middle of residential area that is saturated with children,” Nunziato said. “We don’t want to take that chance.”
However when T-mobile representatives brought their plan before Community Board 5, they told members that the transmitter would far below the federal limits for continuous exposure. Calls to T-mobile representatives were not returned.
Still, Maspeth residents, who said they had collected 1,300 signatures against the transmitter, said they with continue to fight against the cell tower.
“We shouldn’t be negotiating where it should be put. It should not be in our neighborhood at all,” Nunziato said.