Verizon cell tower at 1222 Wildflower Drive goes before the Planning Board tonight

The application's first appearance before the Planning Board is a sketch plan review only. Here is where the proposal stands going in.

A proposed Verizon Wireless monopole at 1222 Wildflower Drive comes before the Town of Webster Planning Board tonight, May 5, 2026, as item 6 on the agenda. The Board has it down for a sketch plan review, the earliest formal stage of site plan review. No final decision on the tower will be made tonight.

What is being proposed

The applicant of record is Bell Atlantic Mobile Systems LLC, doing business as Verizon Wireless, represented by attorney Robert Burgdorf of Nixon Peabody. Verizon has filed to build a wireless telecommunications monopole, with antennas and ground equipment, on a leased portion of a 14.2-acre residential parcel owned by Robby and Dina Villa. The parcel is in the R-3 Single-Family Residential District.

The application calls for a 135-foot monopole, with a 4-foot lightning rod on top, for a total above-grade height of 139 feet. The Verizon antenna centerline would sit at 130 feet; the top of the antennas at 134 feet. Those figures are stated consistently across the packet on file with the Town.

The packet also calls for an antenna array near the top of the pole and exterior equipment cabinets at the base, set on an 11-by-12.5-foot concrete slab. The compound is enclosed by an eight-foot perimeter fence (seven feet of chain link with a one-foot barbed-wire top) wrapping a 34-by-77-foot equipment area, which sits inside the 80-by-125-foot leased footprint. The pole is engineered with reserved positions for two additional carriers below Verizon's array, at antenna centerlines of 115 feet and 100 feet. Verizon's RF justification states the 134-foot antenna-tip height is "the minimum height necessary to provide the coverage and capacity improvements needed."

How it got here

This is Verizon's second application targeting the same Webster North coverage area. The first, a tower on town-owned land at 1209 Creekside Trail, was killed by the prior Town Board on August 7, 2025, when authorization of the underlying lease (Resolution No. 242) failed 2-3. With the town-property option closed, Verizon refiled on March 10, 2026 at the Wildflower Drive site, which is privately owned.

On April 2, 2026, the current Town Board voted 5-0 (Resolution No. 139) to refer the new application to the Planning Board for site plan review. Supervisor Alexander B. Scialdone moved the resolution and Councilman Nicholas E. Hunter seconded; all five members (Scialdone, Cahill, Wright, Hunter, Wagner) voted Aye. The Board also consented to the Planning Board acting as lead agency for State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) coordinated review.

Tonight is the first time the application is in front of the Planning Board. (A separate Verizon application on Lake Road, at the corner of County Line Road, is also pending; that proposal is on a different parcel and is not the subject of tonight's hearing.)

Three permits, three boards

A communications tower in an R-3 district in Webster requires three approvals, under Chapter 130 of the Town Code:

• A Special Use Permit from the Town Board, under §130-8 and §130-11.
• Site Plan Approval from the Planning Board, under Chapter 269.
• An Area Variance from the Zoning Board of Appeals, under §130-10, because Webster's code caps tower height at 100 feet, including any antenna or extension above the structure. A 135-foot monopole needs a height variance.

The Wildflower height variance has not yet been scheduled at the ZBA. It is not on the May 12 ZBA agenda.

What "sketch plan review" means, and what it doesn't

A sketch plan review is informational. The Planning Board uses it to ask the applicant for additional materials, to flag concerns, and to indicate the direction of its eventual review. It is not the public hearing on site plan approval, and it is not a recommendation to the Town Board. Under §130-11(B), once the Planning Board does make a recommendation, the Town Board has 62 days to hold a public hearing and act on the Special Use Permit.

The Federal Communications Commission's "shot clock" rule gives municipalities 150 days to act on a new tower application. Verizon filed March 10, 2026, which puts the presumptive shot-clock expiration on or around August 10, 2026, unless the Town and Verizon agree to extend it.

The legal frame

Verizon's posture, on the record, is that federal law sharply limits what the Town can consider. At the April 2 Town Board meeting, Burgdorf told the Board, per the meeting minutes, that

"courts have repeatedly found that widespread public opposition is not a valid legal reason for denial."

Burgdorf cited Section 332(c)(7) of the federal Telecommunications Act of 1996 and the FCC's preemption of local regulation of radiofrequency emissions, where emissions comply with FCC standards. He stated that property values and health effects "are legally irrelevant and will not be included" in Verizon's submission.

That framing is not the whole story. The Telecommunications Act bars localities from "unreasonably discriminating" among providers, from regulations that effectively prohibit personal wireless service, and from regulating RF emissions that comply with FCC rules. It also requires a written record and decisions supported by "substantial evidence." Local concerns that are tied to the substantial-evidence record, including aesthetics, alternatives analysis, and setbacks, can support a denial. The federal floor is real, but it is not absolute.

Webster's code itself recognizes this balance. Chapter 130's stated purpose is to weigh "increased demand for wireless communications" against "the maximum protection of the health, safety and aesthetic sensibilities of the residents," consistent with the Telecommunications Act. The code's §130-12(B) preference hierarchy favors co-location first, then commercial districts, then municipal property, then residential. With the Creekside Trail municipal-property route closed, Wildflower sits at the residential tier.

Verizon's stated rationale

Alongside the legal posture, Verizon has put a technical case on the record.

Verizon represents that it has a coverage and capacity gap in its "Webster North cell," affecting residents, motorists, and emergency services. The application includes a search-ring justification with propagation studies, and asserts an inventory of existing towers within a two-mile radius found no co-location candidate that would resolve the gap. Verizon's narrative says the search area is "technically difficult due to wetlands and small residential parcels, leaving very few viable options."

Verizon also cites the FCC's 2018 "Accelerating Wireless Broadband Deployment" order (FCC 18-133) for the position that a federal "effective prohibition" claim does not require proof of a specific coverage gap and can also rest on network densification needs.

Public response

Public opposition is on the record and named. The April 2 statements below are drawn from the Town's official meeting minutes. The April 16 statements are drawn from the public meeting recording; the Town's official minutes for that meeting have not yet been posted and are scheduled for approval on May 7.

At the April 2 Town Board meeting, Marcy Veno of 1204 Wildflower Drive, whose property borders the proposed site, read into the record a letter authored by neighbors Edwin and Roberta Przybylowicz on behalf of one of the 16 households surrounding 1222 Wildflower Drive. The Przybylowicz letter asked the Town to defer further action pending a full alternatives analysis, plain-language RF engineering materials showing the coverage gap and why this site uniquely addresses it, photo simulations from neighboring homes and key viewpoints, an analysis of property-value impacts, a neighborhood-compatibility review with mitigation options including increased setbacks or buffering, and a full SEQRA environmental review. The letter also requested public access to the prior Creekside Trail proceedings.

Marcus Veno, of the same address, read a second letter, authored by Karen Heller, a Webster resident and Editorial Director at WebMD, on behalf of one of the 17 surrounding property owners. Heller's letter raised health and environmental concerns, including questions about the FCC's thermal-only RF safety model and possible effects on the salmon-spawning habitat at the adjacent Mill Creek.

Brian Bixler, who identified his home as 1223 Scenic Circle, spoke for himself. He told the Board the proposed location is "really directly in my backyard," cited concerns about property values and neighborhood character, and suggested existing commercial or already-developed areas would be more suitable.

Christina McEwen of 1217 Wildflower Drive opposed the application, citing uncertain long-term health impacts of radio-frequency exposure, particularly for children and pregnant women, and noting that current FCC RF guidelines date from 1996. She also said the proposal conflicts with the purpose of the adjacent Mill Creek Preserve land and that nearby residents were not adequately informed.

The opposition continued at the Town Board's April 16 meeting. A 20-year Webster resident, named in the April 2 minutes as Rick Storace, told the Board,

"If you can see this 135-foot cell tower from your house, your potential customers to buy your house are going to probably walk away,"

Storace also asked the Board to consider a moratorium on new cell towers.

A possible cell-tower moratorium

The April 16 Town Board meeting also produced a development worth noting going into tonight. The exchange below is drawn from the public meeting recording; the Town's official minutes have not yet been posted and are scheduled for approval on May 7.

During discussion of a separate development moratorium the Board was preparing to adopt, a councilmember asked, on the public record, whether cell towers could be added to the moratorium under consideration. The Town Supervisor replied that adding cell towers "would run into a legal issue as it's a public utility" and that the Town attorney would need to research the federal laws and regulations further before any such language could be drafted.

The Board ultimately adopted the development moratorium without including cell towers, but kept open the option of pursuing a separate moratorium on cell towers process pending the legal research the Town attorney owes back. Whether such a process is initiated, and on what timeline, is not yet on a Town Board agenda. The May 7 Town Board meeting agenda does not include a Verizon item or a cell-tower-moratorium item.

The "public utility" question is more than rhetorical. New York courts have long treated cellular providers as public utilities for zoning purposes, an interpretation Verizon's counsel relies on in the application. Whether that interpretation still controls in 2026, and how it interacts with any local moratorium, is the kind of legal question the Town attorney's research will have to address.

What tonight is, and is not

Tonight is a sketch plan review. The Planning Board can ask Verizon for more material, can register concerns, can suggest changes. It is not voting on the application, not granting any permit, and not deciding the height-variance question, which belongs to a different board. The application is not at the Town Board for the Special Use Permit hearing, and it is not at the ZBA for the height variance. Both of those will come, if Verizon's process advances, in later meetings.

What is in front of the Planning Board tonight is a 135-foot monopole, plus a 4-foot lightning rod, on a privately leased compound inside a 14.2-acre residential parcel. The Town's own agenda describes the same project as a 125-foot tower, a figure that does not appear in the application Verizon filed; the 125-foot dimension matches the leased compound's footprint, not the structure's height. Tonight is the first chance for the Board to start asking the questions that decide whether the project, as filed, has answered them.

This article is a backgrounder. It describes the proposal as it stands at the start of the May 5, 2026 Planning Board meeting. It does not attempt to predict the outcome of tonight's discussion or of any later vote.

AI tools were used in drafting and research.