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OC Board of Adjustment – 6/8/2015 Page 25 of 68 1 David Smith: None that I have ever seen has made noise. 2 3 Bob Hornik: Do you know whether the equipment that is kept in the base station has to be cooled or heated? 4 5 Tom Johnson: I object this is beyond… he has asked questions this expert doesn’t know. 6 7 Larry Wright: Sustained. 8 9 Bob Hornik: I am exploring with him the basis for his offering that opinion or giving that information that we know is 10 associated with the site. 11 12 Tom Johnson: His ultimate opinion is based upon whether or not this proposed tower will adversely affect adjoining 13 property value by analyzing another existing tower adjoining another subdivision. That is what his opinion is based 14 upon. There would be just as much noise and other things on that tower as on the opposed site so that will be the 15 same whichever one you look at. 16 17 Bob Hornik: That is not necessarily so. You have a full issue of real estate value, a fully treed lot with mature trees 18 surrounding the cell tower as opposed to an open field with a cell tower. You have different effects. Noise might be 19 muzzled on one site that is not muzzled from another so its apples and oranges and I think it is important for the board 20 to consider that when they consider the weight and relevancy of Mr. Smith’s opinion comparing the Hogan Farm site 21 versus the proposed Mt. Sinai and Kerley Road site. 22 23 Tom Johnson: As for noise, the ordinance very clearly requires we have fencing and landscaping around the bottom of 24 where the equipment is so therefore, that will be the whether it is the Lake Hogan Farm site or this site. It has to be 25 covered under your ordinance as well and that has been brought out in previous testimony. 26 27 Bob Hornik: Nevertheless, if the professional ___ no significant adverse noise, no environmental hazards which is a 28 part of the basis of Mr. Smith’s opinion, he just told me he doesn’t have that information so again, for the board’s 29 consideration regarding noise to Mr. Smith’s opinion. 30 31 Tom Johnson: Again, Mr. Smith said he has been around these sites and did not observe any noise. 32 33 Johnathan Blitz: My name is Johnathan Blitz from the Durham County Bar and I’m appearing because I live at 5820 34 Ten Springs Lane and I would just like to point out to the board that competent evidenc e is what is called for by the 35 statute and whether or not a witness has been paid tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years doing 36 testimony for one side is supremely relevant to his case. I would ask the board to reconsider sustaining th e objection to 37 that testimony as it is crucial to the determining the bias of this witness. The second point I would make is, what we 38 have is a lot of objections and being supported by testimony by one of the attorneys and I would ask that we formalize 39 slightly and pay attention to what the witness is actually that he does or does not know because I think it is crucial for 40 the board only to consider that competent evidence and not learning counsel’s introduction of testimony such as what 41 will be shielding around the bottom of the other tower because I heard just from argument of the testimony. 42 43 Tom Johnson: I would object to that because the site plan and everything, Mr. Harvey admitted everything in the 44 application into evidence. The application includes the landscaping and the buffering so that is part of the site plan that 45 is already in record. I am not testifying to that that has already been admitted into evidence by this board. 46 47 David Smith: I would like to respond to something he said, I do very f ew of these. It is a very small part of my practice, 48 probably less than two percent. 49 50