WELD — The Board of Appeals voted Monday to affirm the Planning Board’s approval of AT&T’s cellphone tower application.

AT&T is proposing a 190-foot lattice tower inside a 50- by 50-foot fenced compound. A walk-in shelter at the base of the tower would include a generator for emergency service. The tower would allow spots for three additional carriers and one for the town. It would be erected on land leased from Kevin and Holly Cochran off Phillips Road just before Fire Lane 17 and beyond the Weld Inn.

This is the second time the Planning Board’s decision has been appealed.

An informational meeting in July was met with complaints, comments and questions. At the time, Planning Board Chairman Naomi Doughty said there was nothing in Weld’s ordinances to prohibit the tower. The only reason a building permit was needed was because the tower is more than 10 feet tall, she said then.

A decision was tabled at the Aug. 12 meeting pending review of the town’s ordinances by its attorney.

In September, the Planning Board approved the application.

The Weld Cell Phone Tower Information Committee appealed and the Board of Appeals met Jan. 11 to consider its request. They sent the permit application back to the Planning Board with instructions to provide more information.

According to the Board of Appeals ruling, specific requirements not met included:

• The September meeting was plagued with technical difficulties such that Planning Board members and attendees couldn’t hear one another.

• Roll call votes, required by state law, weren’t taken.

• The Planning Board failed to address each of the nine standards included under Article 21, the commercial and industrial structures section of the Weld Building Ordinance.

• The Planning Board concluded incorrectly that the deed AT&T submitted showed sufficient proof of right title and interest.

The Planning Board met Feb. 17 and referenced material in a report and engineering plans to support its original findings. A month later the board voted to adopt the findings of fact and conclusions from the February meeting.

Later that month the Planning Board took no action on a request to reconsider the AT&T cellphone tower application.

The board has done the due process of the remand, Planning Board member Ernestine Hutchinson said at that meeting.

“I feel, based on the black and white, we were not able to take into consideration Article 1 and Article 2, the purpose of the code itself,” she said then. “We got stuck on interpretation.

“When I look at this code, it’s not black and white for every single situation,” Hutchinson continued. “My understanding wasn’t until we did this process that the Planning Board can determine or ask for anything we want.”

The Weld Cell Phone Tower Information Committee again appealed after the application wasn’t reconsidered.

According to an email, those appealing the decision want to know how the following statement can be true without having done the visual impact studies and where the actual coverage gap area is: “In the findings of fact it notes that the particular site was selected, in part, because it was less visually impactful than other locations within the AT&T coverage gap area and because AT&T found a willing landowner to lease land for the tower siting.”

Other concerns noted were ambiguity in the deed, how the tower impacts abutting neighbors, how the landscape will be preserved or softened to minimize those impacts, tower removal should it become obsolete and a light at the top of the tower.

“At the Board of Appeals meeting on Jan. 11, 2021, attorney Aga Dixon stated that the Weld Planning Board has the jurisdiction to mitigate the location of this celltower,” the committee wrote in the email. “Will you please explain why you wouldn’t both increase the safety and cell coverage for our community, as well as preserve the integrity of our landscape?”

The Board of Appeals voted unanimously that the appeal was timely.

The Weld Cell Phone Tower Information Committee submitted the appeal April 16. Members argued that the Board of Appeals had jurisdiction to hear the appeal because it was submitted within 30 days of the Planning Board’s final approval  on March 17, after reviewing the written findings of fact.

AT&T’s attorney Ted Small argued the Planning Board approved the application Feb. 17.

The Board of Appeals voted that the Planning Board did not err in finding AT&T had sufficient right, title and interest for the tower’s proposed location.

The committee argued that the Planning Board’s March decision was not supported with sufficient evidence in four sections of Article 21 of the Weld Building Ordinance.

AT&T stated the Planning Board’s findings were supported by the record and not contrary to any provision of the ordinance. For each of the four sections, the Board of Appeals concluded the Planning Board’s findings and conclusions were supported by substantial evidence in the record.

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