A tall tale

Neighbors object to a plan by Verizon to put up a cell phone tower. But wait. There might be a solution.

Walter and Cathy Jankowski have lived in their North Beverly home on Mark Road for 42 years. These days, you have to peer over huge snowbanks to get a good look at their single-story ranch house in the quiet neighborhood off Brimbal Avenue.

No amount of snow, however, would be able to block the view of what Walter calls the “ungodly structure” that could go up behind their house.

Verizon is planning to erect a 124-foot-tall cellphone tower on the property of Tozer Storage on Tozer Road. The tower would loom over houses on Mark Road and Walden Street that back up to the storage property, and also be visible from Kinsman Street, the other dead-end street in the neighborhood.

Let me first say that this whole controversy might end up being moot. I’ll get to that later. But as you might imagine, the neighbors aren’t happy. A couple dozen showed up to speak out against the cell tower during a meeting of the city’s Zoning Board of Appeals on Wednesday night at City Hall, and 57 signed a petition against it.

One of those who spoke was Walter, a 77-year-old Air Force veteran who served in Vietnam. His house is the closest of all to the proposed tower — 169 feet away, according to Verizon’s application to the city.

I went up to Walter after the meeting, and he graciously agreed to meet with me at his house the next day so I could get a better feel for how close the cell tower would be. I joked with him that he’s at Ground Zero of the controversy. “Great. Thanks,” he said.

Verizon says it needs a new cell tower to eliminate a “substantial gap” in its wireless coverage in certain areas of North Beverly, including along Route 1A, Route 128, Brimbal Avenue, North Beverly Elementary School, the North Beverly MBTA commuter rail station, and surrounding roads and neighborhoods.

According to Verizon’s application to the city, the Tozer Storage site is “the only feasible industrial or commercially zoned location north of Route 128 in the area where coverage is needed.” The company said the cell tower would be located on the other side of the existing storage building from the residential neighborhood, making the lower part of the tower screened from neighbors. The rest of the tower will also be “well screened” by existing trees and vegetation, Verizon contends.

Of course, no one really knows what it will look like until it’s built. Last month Verizon brought out a crane and it extended it to simulate the height of the tower. Here’s a photo I took of Walter and Cathy in front of their house. Based on where the crane was located, they said the cell tower would be visible from this angle rising above their house.

Here’s a Google Maps overview of Tozer Storage and the neighborhood.

Cell phone towers are everywhere, of course, and anybody who has complained about cell phone or Internet service understands how necessary they are. I used a website called signalboosters.com that identifies cell tower locations and saw that there are 13 within a mile of my house. There are all kinds of stories online about people protesting cell towers near homes and schools. People worry not only about aesthetics but possible exposure to radiation. Michael Giaimo, the lawyer representing Verizon, told the Zoning Board that cell phone towers don’t present any dangers to nearby residents.

The cell tower project can’t proceed unless it gets approval for the Zoning Board. City rules limit the height of cell towers to 100 feet, so Verizon needs a variance from the Zoning Board to put up a 124-foot tower (including a 4-foot lightning rod). The company says the tower needs to be that tall to be effective at that location. City rules also say cell phone towers must be “setback” 144 feet from abutting properties; this one would be 52 feet from the U.S. Postal Service building next door.

Now here comes the part I mentioned earlier about the whole thing maybe being moot. Giaimo told the Zoning Board that Verizon actually wanted to put a cell phone tower on the city-owned Brimbal Hill water tower a couple of years ago. In fact, the city put out a request for proposals in 2023 seeking bids for companies to do just that. Two other companies, AT&T and Sprint, already lease space on the water tower, so a third one would give the city even more money.

Giaimo said Verizon submitted a bid but never heard back from the city, despite repeated attempts. When the neighbors in the audience heard this, they were obviously befuddled. You mean the city wants to lease space on the water tower and Verizon is a willing tenant, and nothing happened, leading to this proposal to put a cell tower near a neighborhood? It doesn’t make sense.

I called up Mayor Mike Cahill the day after the meeting to ask about this. He was attending a mayor’s conference in Washington, D.C., but called me back between sessions. He told me there might have been some kind of “communications breakdown” and said he’d look into it.

“What’s most important is we have an opportunity to kind of revisit and follow up that conversation (with Verizon),” he said. “It may make all the sense in the world to look at the water tower to help improve connectivity and service in North Beverly.”

So let’s say everything works out and Verizon ends up putting its cell tower on the water tower. Everybody’s happy, right? Well, maybe not everybody. Verizon has already signed a lease with the owners of Tozer Storage for the cell tower, although it’s all contingent on the city approving it. So if the thing falls through, the storage owners seem to be out of luck.

Tozer Storage is owned by an entity called 12 Tozer Self Storage Holdings LLC. The managers of the LLC are listed as Joseph Zampell and Chris Koeplin. Three years ago, when he was seeking a special permit to establish the self-storage facility, Zampbell told the Zoning Board that the building was built by his dad and uncles and was used first as a skating rink before it became Johnny Appleseed’s and Comcast.

Koeplin also happens to be the president of Beverly Crossing, the company that built many of the apartment buildings on Rantoul Street. I texted Koeplin to see if he would talk to me for this story and he texted back, “No comment.”

Anyway, the Zoning Board agreed to Verizon’s request to continue the public hearing until its next meeting on Feb. 25. In the meantime, the board encouraged Verizon to talk to the city about the original water tower plan.

Let’s hope the cell phone service is OK and there’s no miscommunication this time. If everything works out, the Tozer Tower might never get built.