COLONIE — A plan to build a 140-foot cell phone tower on the lower end of Watervliet Shaker Road got the final OK, on Tuesday, Oct. 19.
The project, proposed by Cellco on land owned by Bonded Concrete at 228 Watervliet Shaker Road, will be built on about 10,000 square feet of overgrown land in an Industrial Zone.
Once constructed it will provide Verizon wireless service to Watervliet Shaker Road, Grenada Terrace, Fairview Avenue, Homewood Avenue, Lincoln Avenue, Addison Street, Franklin Street, Spring Street Road, Bridgewood Lane, Parker Road and Tenth Street.
The lattice-type tower will be 17-foot across at the base and taper to about 4-foot across at the top. It will also have a 4-foot lightening rod.
The tower will not be manned and maintenance crews are expected to visit twice a month.
Since the project was introduced earlier this year, there were modifications made to drainage and other aspects of the project but the overall plan has not changed.
Included in the proposal, presented by Chris Cioffe of Evolution Site Services, is a $75,000 to remove the tower and clean up the site should it be decommissioned at any time in the future.
The visual impacts the tower presents was explored by floating test balloons at the height of the tower. What view varies by the advantage point but there are some homes in the area from where the tower will be visible from. Cioffe said there are electrical towers some 160-foot from some homes in the area and the tower would be nearly 500-foot away from the nearest home.
