Cell Tower Issues

Over the last several weeks I’ve heard significant concerns from residents of the Greenfield neighbourhood about a Cell Phone tower proposed to be located on the northeast corner of the Greenfield Baptist Church site at 3712 – 114 Street.

Many of the issues are site-specific concerns or process concerns with the way this application and consultation process has unfolded.

More broadly, these residents do share many of the same overarching concerns expressed by citizens in Cllr. Diotte’s and Cllr. Leibovici’s areas arising from similar applications for cell phone towers in residential parts of their wards.

The three of us jointly submitted a formal inquiry through Council’s Executive Committee yesterday, the full text of which can be found here. 

The inquiry focuses on opportunities to improve the consultation process and more strongly deter site selection in residential areas. I believe improvements can be made both to the city’s existing “Policy for Siting Telecommunications Facilities” (Policy C471B, accessible here) and Industry Canada’s overarching process for dealing with these applications.

In fact, I think it’s imperative given cell phone proliferation in general coupled with more demand for data over cellular networks. Match that up with the fact that most of the low-impact tower sites are already used up and we’re going to see many more of these kinds of challenging applications in urban areas across Canada. Our end of the problem, in my view, is the City’s policy really isn’t geared to dealing with these new trends.

It’s important to understand, however, that while the City plays a role in the cell phone tower approval process, it does not make the final approval on location. The decision ultimately rests with Industry Canada. The City has the opportunity to issue a statement of concurrence or non-concurrence with the application, which Industry Canada considers when they make their final determination. As background, you may download a pdf of a City brochure with more details on the City’s role in this process here.

To be clear, I do not have control over this decision at the City (it rests with City administration per Policy C471B) but I do have some influence on the evaluation and I do hope that this proposal will receive non-concurrence from the City.

I should note that I have been receiving a lot of health-related concerns about telecommunications radio waves from similarly concerned Greenfield residents. I know feelings are very strong on this but the City will not take a position on the health questions. The City’s position, as I understand it, is that those questions are addressed by the Federal Government, specifically Health Canada which governs the relevant safety standards.

Finally, I want to give credit to the Greenfield Stewardship Committee that has taken up this matter with very strong organization. I understand they are planning a community meeting this Saturday morning (November 5) at the Greenfield Community Hall from 10am-12pm. Unfourtunately I cannot attend but have provided this blog post by way of written update to interested residents.

I welcome any comments below and will update this post when I have an ETA for the inquiry to come back before Executive Committee of Council.