Zoning board closes comment on both Verizon towers and tables them to October

Webster's Zoning Board of Appeals spent more than two hours Tuesday night on Verizon's two proposed cell towers and decided neither one. The board closed the public hearing on both applications, then voted to table them to its October meeting.

Public comment is closed on both towers. Residents who did not speak Tuesday have no further opportunity to address this board on either application unless the board reopens the hearing.

The meeting ran just over four hours at 1002 Ridge Road. The board reached the towers shortly before 9 p.m., after granting five residential requests and the Waterview Phase 3 variances 4-1. The Ledger covers the residential requests and the Waterview vote in a separate piece.

What the two applications ask for

Verizon is asking for an area variance at each site from the town's 100-foot height maximum. The Lake Road tower would stand 125 feet at the corner of Lake Road and County Line Road, plus a four-foot lightning rod. The Webster North tower would stand 135 feet near 1222 Wildflower Drive, plus the same rod. Both are also before the Planning Board, which tabled them to Oct. 6 on Sept. 1.

Laura Smith of Nixon Peabody, for Verizon, asked the board to apply the public-utility standard rather than the ordinary area-variance test. Smith said New York treats wireless carriers as utilities for zoning purposes. That standard asks for a significant gap in service, a location that remedies it and the least intrusive means of filling it, Smith said.

The Ledger's preview of Tuesday's hearing has the parcels, districts and code sections.

Why this site

Verizon's first approach for Webster North was to town-owned land. Smith said the company worked with the town for two to three years and was before the town board in the summer of 2025 for approval of a lease. The town board decided not to lease.

Asked whether that site is still preferable to Wildflower Drive, Smith said no. The town conversation covered one parcel, with no site selection and no comparison. Verizon has since evaluated 11 other parcels and considers the proposed location better.

On Lake Road, the search area is largely one private landowner's property, and Verizon evaluated seven parcels. Smith said the landowner declined the alternative locations the Planning Board identified, citing farming and conservation easement operations, and that Verizon cannot compel a lease. Smith also said there is no disagreement that the tree line at the back of that property would be less intrusive than the proposed site.

Why it was tabled

The applicant asked for it first. A member of Verizon's team told the chairman it was 11 p.m. and asked the board to table both applications until next month, saying the questions were repeating.

Board members then said they wanted the Planning Board to go first. One member said the board should know what planning or changes at the site could affect a decision, and a second member agreed that was the reason to table.

The motion named Oct. 14 as the return date. The town's published calendar lists the next zoning board meeting as Tuesday, Oct. 13. The Ledger has not established which of the two dates will govern.

The town's own consultant

William Johnson of RF Engineering Consultants reviewed both applications for the town, and told the board the consultants neither advocate for towers nor lobby against them. Johnson said there is a gap at both sites, whether capacity or coverage, and that the proposed heights appear to be the minimum needed.

Asked whether the two sites before the board were the most minimally intrusive of those Verizon considered, Johnson said no.

"In fact, in our first report, we noted that the boards were being presented with only one option, that there were no other options. And when you're talking about something being minimally intrusive, I mean, the implication is you're comparing it to something ... and there's nothing else to be comparing it to because that was the only site that was available."

A church offers its property

A representative of Webster Presbyterian Church offered the congregation's property at 550 Webster Road as an alternative site. The church has heard the opposition and is sympathetic to it. A tower there would affect very few houses, perhaps one, the representative said.

Verizon answered later the same night that the church sits outside the company's search area, and that its radio-frequency engineer vetted the property and found it does not work.

What residents said

The board took comment separately on each site. The Ledger is not naming members of the public who spoke.

A Wildflower Drive resident said a petition with 95 signatures went to the Planning Board, and that everyone found with a coverage problem was a Verizon customer. The resident asked whether trees would be cleared and whether Verizon could raise the tower later. Board members answered that going higher would require coming back to the zoning board, because the motion sets a specific height, and that tree trimming would be a matter for Verizon and the landowner.

A second Wildflower Drive resident, the first Wildflower speaker's husband, asked why the town rejected the water treatment plant site about 250 feet from what is now proposed. The answer was that town board members were not required to give reasons when they voted, and that at least two of the current members are new and did not vote on it.

An attorney for relatives across from the Lake Road site said the Planning Board is still deliberating, so a decision would be premature. The attorney called the site maximum intrusion, open and visible with no trees and no buffering. The corner sits on a national scenic byway administered by the state Department of Transportation, the attorney said, and DOT is concerned. No visual impact study has been done, the attorney said.

A County Line Road resident who lives across from that site disputed the coverage gap, describing an afternoon streaming music on a mower across five wooded acres without losing Verizon service, and asked for a measured survey rather than a study built on Verizon's data. Johnson answered that the report finds ubiquitous low-band coverage at Lake Road, that capacity on that spectrum is at times exceeded, and that buffering can hide a dropped connection.

What comes next

Smith told the board after the vote that Verizon also needs a special permit from the town board, and that it has extended the federal shot clock until after the town board's October meeting.

AI tools were used in drafting and research.