Cedar Rapids church gets cell tower requests

CEDAR RAPIDS - 'Love thy neighbor” is a central tenet of Christianity, though residents around two churches here have been questioning the churches' neighborliness.

The rub involves the cellphone industry, and the desire of cellphone companies in an era of more and better cellphone service to erect 125-foot-plus-tall cell towers on church property next to homes.

City Council member Scott Olson, a commercial Realtor, said it appears cell companies have come to recruit church pastors and congregations, seeking to put cell towers on church property in trade for a steady stream of monthly income that can be a welcome addition to any non-profit church's operating budget.

Churches in Cedar Rapids can locate in any zoning district in the city, 'and a lot of times, churches are smack in the middle of a residential district,” he said.

'Of course, there is extra ground that most churches have,” Olson said. ”But it's sitting right in the middle of houses. And people are saying, ‘Do I want to a 14-story-tall tower there?'

'Now all of us need cell towers. But if you're sitting on your back deck looking at it, it's probably not quite as cool a thing.”

Olson is questioning if the city should retool its cell tower ordinance, perhaps to restrict their placement to areas zoned commercial or industrial.

The latest cell tower brouhaha is on the backyard hill of Immanuel Baptist Church, 1900 F Ave. NW, where AT&T wants to erect a 125-foot-tall monopole tower.

Some 200 neighbors have signed a petition objecting to the church's and cellphone company's plan that, for now, is on hold as the city's Department of Community Development's planning staff reviews the city's current ordinance, those in some other cities and any new federal rules.

In late May, the City Planning Commission, on a 4-3 vote, tabled the matter so the church and the cell company representatives could meet with neighbors.

Just weeks earlier, the commission approved a cell tower at 2773 East Robins Rd. NE on the property of New Life Pentecostal Church on a 6-1 vote, only to see the Board of Adjustment - which is the final arbiter of conditional-use permits for tall cell towers - deny the required permit, 4-0, to the celebration of neighbors who had objected to the proposal.

One of the victorious neighbors, Dominique Blank, has called on the city to impose a moratorium on cell tower applications to allow the city time to develop new rules, as she put it, 'in our increasingly advanced technological age … to control the rush of cellphone towers encroaching (on) neighborhoods …

.”

Scott Overland, chairman of the City Planning Commission, said the Board of Adjustment vote of denial on the heels of his commission's recommendation to allow the cell tower on church property on East Robins Road NE caught his attention.

With 'more and more applications” for cell towers in the central part of the city, he said it might be time for the city's planning staff and the elected City Council to 're-look at this” and provide some new direction to the council's citizen appointees on the commission and Board of Adjustment.

Overland said these case-by-case decisions can be 'quite subjective,” and he said the commission never has more than the cellphone companies to provide information on the need for more cell towers and where they need to be placed.

'Really, that's all we have to go on,” Overland said. 'Who am I to say you don't need that tower? I'm not in the business.”

Jennifer Pratt, the interim director of the city's Community Development Department, and Vern Zakostelecky, a senior planner with the city, said the city's cell-tower ordinance was viewed as 'pretty progressive” when he said it was adopted in August 2006.

Pratt said the city's ordinance must meet the legal requirements as set out by the Federal Communications Commission and is designed to provide an adequate technological infrastructure in the city while taking into account concerns of neighbors and property owners around proposed cell tower sites.

'It certainly is a balancing act,” Pratt said.

Both said the expense of a cell tower limits requests for new ones until, Pratt said, companies 'absolutely need it.”

Zakostelecky said the city's existing ordinance features 'strong language” that requires a cell company to allow two other companies to locate on any cell tower to help reduce the number of towers. But he wondered, too, if the demand for cellphone service is so becoming so great that cell towers will come to be viewed as a public utility like electric utility poles and substations.

‘Every site is different'

By way of comparison, the city of Iowa City has not had battles between churches and neighbors over cell towers, likely because Iowa City does not allow cell towers in residential zones, said Sarah Walz, an associate planner with the city of Iowa City.

'Most of our churches that would have enough land to include a tower are located in residential zones,” she said.

Cell towers are allowed with conditional-use permits in Cedar Rapids residential neighborhoods, and the siting of cell towers here will continue to be on a case-by-case basis, Pratt said.

As a result, neighbors out near the New Pentecostal Life Church on East Robins Road NE succeeded in beating back a cell tower proposal, while those near Immanuel Baptist Church on F Avenue NW may not in the weeks and months to come.

'Every site is different,” Pratt said.

So the board of the Czech National Cemetery learned in 2013 when it saw its bid for a cell tower to help with the cemetery budget get rejected while Cedar Memorial Cemetery succeeded several months later in winning approval for a cell tower on its property.

Just two years ago, many of the same neighbors now opposed to the cell tower at Immanuel Baptist Church succeeded in convincing city officials not to allow a cell tower up the hill from the church in the city's Shawnee Park.

Now a new proposal has returned nearby.

The Rev. Dan Wiersema, the pastor at Immanuel Baptist Church, said the church entered into a cell-tower agreement after concluding it came with two positives: It improves cellphone service for the neighborhood and area, and the revenue from the arrangement will allow the church to further its ministry.

'It was a surprise to me,” he said of the neighbors' objections.

Larry and Ruth Beisker were among three families that attended the May meeting of the City Planning Commission, during which they succeeded in getting the cell tower issue tabled on a 4-3 vote. Ruth Beisker subsequently went door to door in the neighborhood, and more than 200 signatures now appear on petitions opposing the plan.

The Beiskers live next to the Baptist church on their own little piece of paradise. Their home is beautifully maintained as is its barn and sprawling yard with bountiful garden that stretches out behind it.

This week, Ruth Beisker was showing off the garden's giant Kohlrabi plants among the peppers, tomatoes, green beans and raspberries and talking about a Kohlrabi recipe that included whipped cream.

'Did you see that Baltimore oriole?” said Larry Beisker, who then shared his method of containing sparrows so they don't harm the new bluebirds that have arrived.

'You're going to be looking at a steel tower with a fence around it,” he said as he pointed out his kitchen window past his garden to a red flag on church property where the cell tower is slated to go.

'You can't quite see the flag from here,” he said over his kitchen sink. 'But see that far bird house? When you step outside, you can see the tower will almost be in line with that.”

'It's going to be horrible,” his wife said.