Both Verizon towers return to the Planning Board Tuesday, with new filings on each

Both of Verizon's proposed cell towers return to the Webster Planning Board at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 6, in the Town Board Room at 1002 Ridge Road. Each comes with a new filing dated Sept. 29.

The board tabled both towers to this meeting on Sept. 1. The agenda lists eight items, five of them public hearings. The six other items are a building addition on Ridge Road, two sign applications and two pole barns, plus a sketch plan review on Holt Road.

Webster North, 1222 Wildflower Drive

Verizon is requesting preliminary site plan approval for a 135-foot tower with a 4-foot lightning rod. The item is listed as a public hearing.

Verizon's Sept. 29 filing includes an analysis rejecting the Webster Presbyterian Church site at 550 Webster Road, which the church offered at the Sept. 8 zoning board meeting. The cover letter says the church site's "coverage footprint is displaced to the east, which would fail to provide adequate coverage for the western and central corridors of the project area."

Lake Road and County Line Road

Verizon is requesting preliminary site plan approval for a 125-foot tower with a 4-foot lightning rod. The board left the public hearing open when it tabled the item Sept. 1.

Verizon's Sept. 29 filing for Lake Road adds a landscaping plan of 38 Green Giant western arborvitae around the lease area. The cover letter says the plan is meant "to screen ground-level equipment from view and minimize potential visual impact from passing vehicles."

The letter responds to two law firms' letters. It characterizes them as objecting to the site's location and contending that Verizon's alternatives analysis is inadequate and that the project has not met state environmental review requirements, including for visual impact.

Both towers

In both letters, Verizon agrees to extend the shot clock, the federal deadline for the town to act on each application, to Nov. 20.

Each letter is addressed to the Town Board, the Planning Board and the Zoning Board of Appeals. Each describes Verizon's application as one for site plan approval, special permit approval and an area variance. The Zoning Board of Appeals closed public comment on both towers Sept. 8 and tabled them to its October meeting, Oct. 13.

Ridge Road addition

The Vital Sign Building Addition at 764 Ridge Road was also tabled Sept. 1. The request is for preliminary and final site plan approval of a 15,000-square-foot one-story addition to an existing 11,000-square-foot building. The item is listed as a public hearing. Revised plans dated Sept. 23 and Sept. 29 and a stormwater report are on file with the agenda.

Former UNO Pizzeria, Holt Road

Item 8, listed on the agenda as Olive Garden, is a sketch plan review at 931 Holt Road. The review involves the renovation and expansion of the former UNO Pizzeria building, according to the agenda. A sketch plan review is informational, and the board takes no vote on it.

The town's Property Under Review page lists the site for an area variance before the Zoning Board of Appeals Oct. 13.

Signs and pole barns

Two sign applications are listed: OptiCool monument signs at 855 Publishers Parkway (plan) and an internally illuminated wall sign for Himalayan Kitchen at 1075 Ridge Road. Two pole barns are listed as public hearings: a 768-square-foot barn on Pellett Road and a 1,140-square-foot barn on Gravel Road.

How to comment

Residents can speak at the hearings or send written comments through the town's Planning/Zoning Board Meeting Comment Form. The form asks that board meeting comments be submitted "no later than 3:30 p.m. on the day of the meeting." It says comments are "shared with the appropriate Board Members and included as part of meeting records."

The town has posted video of past Planning Board meetings on its Agendas page.

Also Tuesday

The same evening, from 6 to 8 p.m., the town calendar lists a community meeting with Webster police on speeding at 1350 Chiyoda Drive.

AI tools were used in drafting and research.