Government

‘This Is a Serious Public Safety Concern’: Water Tower Owner ‘Evasive’ on Renewal of Leases That Provide New Canaan’s Wireless Communications

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Officials said Monday that New Canaan’s ability to continue getting cellular service across a wide swath of town may be in jeopardy, as the owner of the water towers at Waveny appears to have balked on whether to renew leases for a handful of carriers whose antennas are perched atop one of them. Nearly half of New Canaan receives its cellular signals from the four carriers’ antennas located on top of Aquarion’s water tower, and “the town has emergency services transmitters and antennas located on that tower,” according to Tom Tesluk, chairman of the Utilities Commission. “Over the summer it was Aquarion’s plan to have the tower repainted,” he said during the group’s regular meeting, held at Town Hall. “In order to do that, they came up with a very elaborate plan which would allow the antennas to move onto scaffolding and then move back onto the tower once the painting was finished. But we found out that they decided not to repaint the tower, and now we hear from two different carriers that the renewal of the leases that these carriers have for using that tower are in question.

Government

Town Selects Homeland Towers To Proactively Address Wireless Dead Spots

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The Town of New Canaan has selected Homeland Towers to draw up plans for bringing in more cellular coverage in town. The company, as its main service, “performs a full assessment of the state of wireless communications in any municipality through the measurement of existing wireless coverage, and performs an in-depth qualification process to identify objectively good candidates for the placement of wireless communications facilities,” according to its website. Part of the purpose in doing that is to help towns get better “control and leverage over siting issues,” which is exactly what New Canaan wants. The firm is one of five that responded to a Request For Proposal (RFP) from the town which was sent out in March. In an update to the Board of Selectmen last Tuesday, Tom Tesluk, chairman of the all-volunteer Utilities Commission, said two of the firms that replied were disqualified right up front.

Government

‘It Is a Big Deal’: New Canaan Pursues Major Improvement in Wireless Service

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Town officials plan this month to start soliciting proposals from wireless carriers and developers in order to answer this question, at long last: How can New Canaan address gaps in service in a way that’s aesthetically agreeable to property owners? To this point, carriers themselves have controlled a rather one-sided solution addressing that question, and the response has been largely ineffective—essentially, to erect a tower. Now, thanks to emerging technology—most importantly the far less conspicuous “microcell” sites—and an idea to deliver access to town-owned properties in exchange for creating physical infrastructure that’s palatable for New Canaanites, the town is poised to take a major step forward, officials say. Just issuing a Request For Proposals doesn’t guarantee the desired responses, but it does “create a new opportunity for developers and for carriers who have said it’s frustrating because they cannot get a ‘straight play’ in New Canaan,” said Tom Tesluk, chairman of the all-volunteer Utilities Commission that First Selectman Rob Mallozzi re-grouped during his first term. “What we are trying to do is reach a compromise, a win for both sides, where the town gets better coverage—which is really essential today—and from the carriers’ and developers’ point of view, they would get access to multiple pieces of property, including rights of way on streets, that would allow for new infrastructure that the town feels it could live with.

Government

First Selectman: Consider Irwin Park as First Step in Addressing Cellular Coverage Gaps

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Rather than invest more money in a long-term project to solve all cellular coverage problems at once and then wait for a solution to materialize, the town should consider smaller-scale, affordable fixes to start addressing larger service gaps now, New Canaan’s highest elected official said Tuesday. Thanks to a consultant’s report guided by the New Canaan Utilities Commission, the town knows just where its coverage gaps are located. The question facing New Canaanites is whether to spend some $15,000 on a RFP that could yield a comprehensive solution, or else start immediately chipping away at known dead zones. Saying a “more broadly based conversation in the community” is needed to see whether it’s worth spending more money now on that complex RFP, First Selectman Rob Mallozzi told members of the commission that rather than become bogged down in the inevitable “tug of war” about cell antenna or tower placement, “we know [the consultants] talked about Irwin Park being an ideal spot to address some of the needs of cell service in town” so New Canaan should think about “at least start moving this thing off the dime, and have a real good look-see at Irwin.”

“I’m all in favor of that comprehensive position, but knowing that we probably will have to go for funding to do that, that delays things—it’s inevitable, whether we are talking about the Saxe building or redoing a roof somewhere or it’s for this,” Mallozzi said at the meeting, held in the Training Room at the New Canaan Police Department. “There will be competing for resources and what I don’t want to have happen is we compete for those resources and a year from now you are coming before us saying we are pretty close to the RFP.

Government

Cellular Coverage Study Completed, To Be Released Tuesday; Gaps Identified, New Sites Proposed

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Based on a widely anticipated report that identifies where cell coverage in New Canaan is “substantially absent,” officials are recommending that the town turn down AT&T’s proposal for a tower at the Transfer Station until it’s clear how service improves with the activation of a cell site at the Norwalk Armory. The Utilities Commission on Monday night in formally approving and endorsing the findings of the “Wireless Market Study for the Town of New Canaan”—a report that should be available on the town’s municipal website some time on Tuesday—also is recommending that the town government “consider using municipal property, municipal rights-of-way, and/or encourage the use of appropriate, selected private properties and properties held in trust for the location of future cell sites in order to expeditiously address the coverage gaps located in the west, northwest, northeast and eastern parts of town.”

In reading from its formal resolution, the commission during its regular monthly meeting, held in the Brooks Room at the New Canaan Nature Center, underscored that any access to public property for a wireless carrier must follow a design that’s “minimally obtrusive and/or employs stealth cell site designs or technology.”

The resolution, endorsed 6-0 by the all-volunteer commission, follows a “drive test” that saw radio-engineering firm Centerline Solutions track cell coverage street-by-street in New Canaan in order to determine signal strength on a granular level—and make some estimates about how much cell service additionally will improve once towers at Silver Hill Hospital and the armory go live. (In fact, Centerline will perform an additional drive test in the eastern part of New Canaan once Silver Hill cell site is active—it will carry AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile.)

Led by Commissioner Tom Tesluk, who earned praise on Monday from his colleagues in the group, the months-long effort positions New Canaan well to decide exactly where service is most lacking—a shortfall that the town should try to address, officials say, for public safety as well as quality of life. The commission in its resolution acknowledges that “proposals for erecting tall, obtrusive and visually destructive cell towers in residential neighborhoods are widely unpopular with residents.”

As noted below, the Centerline report evaluates 50 pieces of private and public land that, based on the company’s analysis, could best address gaps in cellular service coverage in New Canaan. According to Centerline’s report, cell coverage is “substantially absent”:

In the area west of Route 124 from Frogtown Road up to the state line with Pound Ridge;
Northwest, north and northeast of Country Club Road between Wydendown Road and the state line and the Wilton town line;
and on Valley Road and the eastern border of the town, stretching from the Merritt Parkway up to the state line at Vista.