Not Your Usual Neighborhood Enhancement

This sounds familiar. One of the churches in Bloomfield was making a quick buck by allowing cell towers to be put in the church. There were several issues that upset people- one being that a cell phone tower should be a taxable item even when in a Church, but taxes weren't going to be paid (maybe making it a cheaper deal for the cell companies) as well as health concerns for those who attend services in the building. I don't remember the details but I believe enough local voices got them removed.
This also leads me to a question. Is it true Bloomfield College doesn't pay taxes because they are considered a seminary? Is it a seminary?

in my opinion, i think that is outrageous. I hope the town turns their requests down, however, i bet it will be approved. If your neighbor can't build a 5th story on their house, there is no way an 80 foot eyesore can be constructed.

Hey, they can disguise the tower as a 'holiday tree'!

Can you hear my cancer now?

Cool! Maybe this will solve the problem of the "Watchung Dead Zone". I get lousy reception at the Watchung station and most of Watchung plaza.

Bloomfield College doesn't pay taxes because NJ has a property tax exemption for nonprofit property owners. Sometimes the towns will bargain for PILOT's aka "Payments In Lieu of Taxes." Same thing with First Lutheran, although they don't pay PILOTs. Most religious organizations don't with the whole separation of church and state thing.

Although I live in Bloomfield, and I don't have a say in it, I would still venture to say, what is this height difference between the church's steeple and the top of the proposed tower. Will it be a major eyesore if it's mixed in with all the trees that line the back of their parking lot? Will the tower be disguised as a tree? Questions some residents might want to ask at the hearing.

is that the church that doesn't maintain their grounds? noone cuts the lawn and the shrubbery is a mess. they don't seem to care about their property at all, much less those around them.

This will turn into another bitter conversation like it always does. Someone makes some money and the town changes a bit and everyone goes nuts.

If you rely on your cell phone, you have to accept the towers, that's it.

I'm going to lease 200 Sq feet of my backyard to Verixon. They're going to construct a 200 foot tower and pay me 10,000$ a month to user the property.

Wee heeeeee!

No reason to have a big ugly standalone tower. In Millburn, on Millburn Ave they put a cell antennae in a church steeple by lifting the steeple off with a crane, installing the electronics, and then placing the steeple back in position.

You drive by and you'd never know its there. (It's the old green shingle church on the south side of Millburn Ave, Baptist I think).

Maybe cost a bit more that way, but that's what good neighbors do right? Oh, I guess that's what zoning laws are for.

By the way, Cingular has perfect cell phone coverage in the Watchung Plaza area. I switched from Verizon, which had no coverage.

I live no where near there, but hope they dont screw the neighborhood and put it up. Knowing the town though, hello tower and goodbye property values. The church should be taxed for the income if it goes up.
The Millburn idea sounds too smart for Montclair.

Why not locate it on public property, e.g. the high school compound ?

Get your neighbors together and fight it like hell!

God..... Can you here me now?

ooops that would be "hear."

I never said I could spell

everyone wants good cell phone coverage ... no one wants the towers. typical montclair.

Hey, they could always install one disguised as a fake tree (like the one next to the GSP).

The towers are needed for cell phone coverage. You have no problem putting a cell signal next your head while talking on the phone and driving through montclair. Just look around. Every one is on a cell phone putting direct signals into the brain. And your all afraid of a tower 80 ft over your head directing the signal
out and around to cover a wide area? Relax, you all sit in front of the television sucking in the Electro magnetic waves. You all heat your coffee in the microwave and drink the "hot" liquid, and you all have time to sit in front of the PC that gives off real strong EMIs, and our airwaves are full of cell signals 24/7 traveling through our bodies. This is the world we wanted. This is the world we created, and now you have to live in it. CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW!!!!

This is turning into a very funny thread.

Don't you think it's at least potentially somewhat unseemly, hiding whoseewhatsit, for a church, which is supposed to be an institution dedicated to the spiritual, and doesn't pay taxes for that reason, to be going into the cell phone business by putting up a big butt ugly tower?

These churches are a racket.

I bet they get free calls to God after 7 pm.

God loves His cburches, walleroo. Unfortunately, most of them are not endowed. Hence the ubiquity of cell phone aerials upon them, which help pay the rent when slow-paying parishioners (where do YOU worship, come to think of it?) like you don't kick in enough.

Thereby allowing you to call your pizzerias, your Chinese takeout joints your video rental stores, even fleshpots that take reservations or do "home visits," all without fail. Thus facilitating your marsupial weaknesses. God is good to you, walleroo, so grant His temples an occasional free ride.

If God really loved his churches, wouldn't they all be well endowed?

Couldn't we start putting up trees that were disguised as cell phone towers? That way everyone would THINK we have great cell phone coverage and be happy!

Of course first we'd need a consultant to investigate the feasability, then we'd another consultant to oversee the project bids, then we'd need another consultant to project manage the construction.

Then we'd need someone to implement the project, preferably someone who'd never done it before.

Then some developer would threaten to sue the town and hold up the project unless he had a "cut" of the deal.

Then the developer would want trees taller than the zoning would permit so that would have to be addressed.

And in the end, of course, we'd find out that the proposed site was contaminated, yielding an entire additional series of consultants, etc. etc.

Then of course, once the cell tower trees were in place, after six months they'd all start to die because the town bought them all from some nursery in Hawaii because a town employee had a "friend" who reduced the price from $175 per tree to $2,165 per tree (plus shipping). But as one Rand third grader pointed out to the Montclair Times, it was doubtful that the trees, which the town said were Norway Maples but in actuality were Royal Palms, were going to live anyway.

HIB 6:17 -- LOL! How can anyone be that funny at this hour of the morning? (Oh, I see -- just getting in are we?) Anyway, time to put all the trees in the tree museum. Put up a parking deck and charge everyone $3.75 (twice) just to see 'em.

what happened to the certified arborist or NJ tree expert?

They are endowed with "love," Pork Roll. Then expected to parlay it into something more tangible. Remember, the Lord famously also helps those who help themselves.

Lourdes thus became an amazing tourist trap based on a mere apparitional "miraculous" appearance of the Virgin or two. Surely, against the clutter there, Baristaville might bend and allow a cell signal aerial or two? This is a city where, as the Barista likes to remind, Colbert walks regularly. Along with so many published writers.

who heats coffee in the microwave?

"who heats coffee in the microwave?"

People with cold coffee.

'Remember, the Lord famously also helps those who help themselves"

That must be why we have so many car thefts.

'Remember, the Lord famously also helps those who help themselves"

That must be why we have so many car thefts. I'm gonna help myself to your Jaguar! :)