Verizon sues Scott County planning commission over denial of cellphone tower

The Georgetown-Scott County Planning Commission is being sued in federal court because on Jan. 14 it denied an application to build a cellphone tower.

The suit alleges, among other things, that the planning commission’s denial “was not supported by substantial evidence contained in a written record.” The suit also alleges that the denial violated state and federal law.

Charlie Perkins, the attorney for the planning commission, had no comment Friday about the suit.

The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Lexington earlier this month by PI Telecom Infrastructure V LLC, Cellco Partnership doing business as Verizon Wireless, and Albert David Burke, the landowner who had agreed to lease a portion of his property on Crumbaugh Road for the proposed cell tower. PI Telecom builds, owns and manages wireless facilities in Kentucky and elsewhere.

The tower was described in the application as 195 feet tall with a 4 foot “lightning arrestor,” for a total height of 199 feet.

The commission voted 6-1 to deny the application, citing, among other things, “lack of proof” that Verizon had looked at putting its signal equipment on existing towers. There are 27 other cell towers in Scott County; several are along the Interstate 75 corridor, and others are clustered in the southern half of the county around Georgetown, according to planning commission records.

An attorney representing Verizon had told the commission that “co-locating” on other towers would not have served the target area that needed coverage.

A month after denying the proposed Crumbaugh Road tower, the planning commission voted 5-2 to approve the application for another Verizon cell tower on Stamping Ground Road between Viley Lane and Lloyd Road. That tower will be a lattice structure that is 195 feet tall. The Stamping Ground Road site is about eight miles west of the Crumbaugh Road site.

The suit notes public opposition against the Crumbaugh Road tower’s construction, including concerns that it would cause harmful radio frequency emissions, have a negative impact on property values, and would interfere with the North Fork of Elkhorn Creek and its vicinity.

The suit says the consideration of health effects “is expressly prohibited” by state and federal law, and “the attorney for the commission acknowledged this prohibition at the hearing.”

The claims about negative property values were unsupported, and there was no qualified appraiser who offered testimony or who could be questioned at the hearing, the suit says.

Verizon, in conjunction with other companies, has filed similar suits across the country, including two last fall against separate cities in Massachusetts.

This story was originally published February 28, 2016 at 7:17 PM with the headline "Verizon sues Scott County planning commission over denial of cellphone tower."