Orange County NC Website
Approved 3113117 <br />2 Laura Goode: Good evening. My name is Laura Goode. I'm with Baker Donaldson. My business <br />3 address is 1501 Main Street Suite 600, Columbia, South Carolina. However, I live and work in <br />4 Raleigh, North Carolina. Baker Donaldson represents telecom and their application for a SUP for <br />5 a new wireless telecommunitcations tower. Micahel has done a great job of explaining to you our <br />6 overall plan for the proposed tower. This is a copy of the overall site plan that was included in your <br />7 packets. This shows the general location of the facility in relation to the subject property and Mt. <br />8 Carmel Church Road. The property owner is the Butner Family Farm Trust, however a portion of <br />9 the access road will be going over in adjacent property owned by the Williams'. Both of these <br />10 properties are zoned rural buffer. Additionally, the type of monopole telecommunication tower that <br />11 is being proposed is permitted as a Class B Special Use in the rural buffer district. This is to give <br />12 you another aerial view, giving you an idea of where the proposed center of the tower will be <br />13 located on the property. At this time I'm going to talk to you about the network objective for the <br />14 need for the proposed tower. And before I get into that, a couple of things: First, you'I see that <br />15 Verizon's logo is on this side. That's because Verizon Wireless will be the anchor tenant and will <br />16 immediately co- locate on the tower as soon as it's constructed by Towercom. Therefore, <br />17 Towercom is going to build this tower to meet the network objective of Verizon Wireless. Also, 1 <br />18 wanted to point out to you, as I'm sure that your attorney has advised you, that North Carolina law <br />19 does not require the applicant to provide a need or justification for the tower and does not require <br />20 the applicant to provide any propreitary or confidential business information. However, in an effort <br />21 to be as transparent as possible and to explain why it is that we're asking for this permit we have <br />22 provided some information about the network objective for this tower. And the main purpose for <br />23 this tower is that there is a significant gap in coverage along Mt. Carmel Church Road, in between <br />24 the Governers' Club area to the South and the UNC main campus to the North. So this towers' <br />25 primary purpose is to fill a large portion of that signifcant gap in coverage along that road. Another <br />26 purpose of the tower is to provide a capacity offload for surrounding sites that are already in <br />27 existence. If you see this map up here, the red circle is there; those are existing Verizion Wireless <br />28 sites already serving the area. The main focus of the capacity offload is to use the campus site, <br />29 which is up at the top of the map. It's the second one from the left. So it's a double use to provide <br />30 that increase coverage as well as to provide capactity offload. And what that means is the <br />31 demand for wireless service in that area is exceeding the capacity of the existing sites to handle <br />32 that traffic. What that means in real world terms is that you're dropping calls in that area, not able <br />33 to send and receive text messages in that area, and you're not able to browse the internet at <br />34 optimal speeds in that area. So the second map you see here; the prior one was what the <br />35 coverage and capacity looked like without the proposed Clearwater Lake site. The second map <br />36 shows what the coverage will look like if this Board grants the SUP for this propsed tower. And to <br />37 bring down what this means, the red and green is really really good service. That means that <br />38 inside a building just like this one you should be able to use your wireless device to make calls <br />39 and surf the internet. Blue areas is not such great coverage and capacity. That means that you're <br />40 really only going to be able to use your cell phone when you're in your car or outdoors. And if you <br />41 get down to the gray or white areas, that's where it's very hit or miss and you may not be able to <br />42 make a phone call or use the internet on your wireless device. So red and green is what we're <br />43 shooting for and this second map shows how the proposed tower will fill a significant portion of <br />44 that significant gap in coverage, and provide that additional needed capacity. Now based on this <br />45 network objective, this is the search area map that was determined. Which means this is the area, <br />46 the red circle, in which a new wireless facility is needed in order to meet that network objective <br />47 that I just discussed with you. So we needed to find a .place within this search area to locate the <br />48 facility. Now the first thing that we do when we're looking in a search area is we look for <br />49 opportunities to co- locate. That's required by this ordinacne but it's also a best business practice <br />50 for Verizon Wireless because it is much faster to co- locate on an existing tower or inaudible than <br />OC Board of Adjustment — 12/12/16 Page 4 of 156 <br />