Iowa City’s City Manager Tom Markus sent a letter to Selective Service Consultants Monday recommending denial of a special exception lease permit for construction of a 100-foot cell tower in Iowa City’s Oak Grove Park at 700 Page Street.
The proposed project came from Verizon through their agents at Selective Service Consultants, a Kansas company which works to secure land for cellular signal towers.
The city manager’s letter, which does not block SSC from continuing their application, said that the city had received “considerable negative feedback” following a ‘good neighbor’ meeting in the park on Aug. 5.
Nearby resident Ralph Cap, who lives across the street from the park on Webster Street, has written several letters to the city and newspapers expressing his dismay over how the tower would encroach upon the already-small park.
“I think it’s going to be an eyesore,” Cap said. “This is a nice park. It’s quiet. A lot of people use it.”
His efforts were joined by homeowner Erin Weitzell, who lives on Van Buren Street. She started an online petition opposing the cell tower that now has over 200 signatures.
Weitzell said she walks her dog in the park frequently and was not happy to see the proposal for a special exception for a cell tower.
If SSC does not withdraw its application for the new tower, the Board of Adjustments will still consider the application at its October meeting. When reached by phone for comment, a representative from SSC was not available at the time of publication.
Verizon has stated the new tower is needed to provide added capacity and coverage for cell phones in the area.
The initial proposal was approved by the Park and Recreation Commission in a 5-2 vote in December 2014 when discussion on that item noted that two previous cell tower applications in city parks had been voted down because of aesthetic concerns. Because of the shady tree canopy of Oak Grove Park, commissioners felt that the sight line of the tower would be diminished. The site consultant at that meeting, SSC’s Mark Super, said that his company looked at Longfellow School first, but cell towers are not allowed on school grounds.
The 100-foot tower would have an added eight-foot lightning rod attached. At least one tree would have to be removed for the cell tower, to which the lessee agreed to replace it with another comparable tree elsewhere in the park.
The proposed site plan has a barbed wire fence that would enclose a 2,000 square foot yard surrounded on two sides by an access driveway in the northwest corner of the park. The square footage for the project would take up almost 10 percent of the park’s total area.
Formed in 1973, the 1.6 acre park abuts the railroad. It has a basketball court, playground and a small gazebo.
