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DRAFT OC Board of Adjustment – 11/9/15 Page 132 of 156 Samantha Cabe: Ok. 1 2 Karen Barrows: So can I just ask, we have this letter from Patricia Williams saying they give 3 permission for the use of the road. 4 5 (Inaudible exchange amongst Board members) 6 7 James Bryan: And if I may also, so there’s one about soil erosion, stuff like that. That’s about 8 something else. The other one is safety, and I believe this is already forward off to the fire 9 marshal, and the sheriff, and stuff like that. That’s normally what you would have plans and 10 responses so you would assume that’s fine, as long as they’ve got access to it. 11 12 Samantha Cabe: Thank you. 13 14 (Inaudible exchange amongst Board members) 15 16 Samantha Cabe: Alright, would you like to make your… does either party want to make sort of a 17 closing statement or argument before we begin deliberations? 18 19 Laura Goode: Yes. Thank you for your time, and all of your consideration, I will just make a couple 20 of points that I wanted to highlight for you before you make your deliberations. The first is to 21 address a couple of things in terms of real estate impact. For differing expert opinions, using 22 differing… Well one person has cited the real estate impact or the article on property values from 23 New Zealand that was from 2005, and did not address properties in the United States, the 24 testimony provided by David Smith, which accompanied his real estate impact study that was 25 prepared and submitted as part of the application used not only analysis of the Cobble Ridge and 26 Sunset Ridge neighborhoods that Mr. Ogburn looked at, he also made adjustments for those 27 sales prices based on differences in the homes, in terms of better things about them that Mr. 28 Ogburn did not make. He also did a match pair analysis, which he testified to as the standard for 29 accessing real estate impact values, and that was done in Orange County for a tower, with 30 properties zoned rural buffer, which is the same zoning classification as the subject property and 31 surrounding properties and found that no impact to property value occurred as a result of that 32 proximity of that tower. Also, introduced tonight as part of rebuttal of the article that was attached 33 to Mr. Ogburn’s study there was an updated study or an article published from the American Bar 34 Association talking about, and looking at, real estate impact studies in North America. Not only in 35 North America, but specifically in Chatham County, North Carolina and cited one of the studies 36 done by Mr. Smith, our expert, that was corroborated by another expert in North Carolina, Tom 37 Keith and Associates. And they cited that as some of the evidence that cell phone towers do not 38 negatively impact property values. That same article, I would ask that you read it and consider it. 39 They called into question the validity of that New Zealand study for a number of reasons. And 40 finally, talked about how there was an actual case study where a cell phone tower company had 41 applied for a Special Use Permit, just like in this situation, they got their approval, it was appealed, 42 and the appeals process took approximately three or four years. During that time period they were 43 able to erect a temporary tower. And they were able to study what the impact of that temporary 44 tower, through duration of that appeal, what that impact was to property values. And they found 45 that there was no negative effect to property values from that. That was a recent case in the 46 United States. Now, you’ve also heard a lot of testimony about what the need for this tower is, 47 what the purpose is, whether other technologies can adequately address the need that has been 48 identified by Verizon. And what this really all boils down to is what the opponents are asking me to 49 determine is that Verizon and TowerCom and all of the witnesses have come here to testify is that 50 134