More local control needed over cell tower locations

Consider this scenario: You live in a nice residential neighbourhood.

Then, without your consent, the federal government allows a wireless communication company to put up a 100-foot cellphone tower 20 feet behind your home. That’s what you will see dominating the skyline everytime you look out your kitchen window or sit on your deck.

This should not happen in anyone’s backyard.

It definitely is about to happen to residents of Levesque Street and Bancroft Drive. They and our local government can’t stop this happening. The federal government has exclusive jurisdiction on the siting of wireless and data systems.

Our local government is consulted — it can concur or not — but it can’t control the location of any cellphone tower in our city. The actual decision is made by an Industry Canada bureaucrat in Ottawa.

In the U.S. and other countries, many municipalities prohibit these towers in residential settings. They encourage the placement of towers in industrial and commercial zones. They limit the height of a tower and require a setback from adjacent property lines, typically equal to one foot for every foot of height of the tower.

But not in Canada.

On Oct 7, I’ll bring a delegation of residents from the Levesque and Bancroft area to try to persuade our Planning Committee not to concur with the location of this tower.

I’ve also created a petition to the federal government to allow municipalities control over this approval process. See the online petition at www.ipetitions.com/petition/cell-towers/.

We need to balance the placement of a structure that the community may need versus the desires of the majority of its citizens who don’t want the tower.

We need to have that decision made locally, not from an office tower in Ottawa.

Terry Kett
Ward 11 councillor
City of Greater Sudbury