Cell tower on museum grounds a win-win?

'Long Island has such horrible cell service ... because so many people don't want cell towers built near them.' — Daniel McGowan

May 21, 2009 | 12:40 PM
The first hurdle has been cleared to erect a cell tower on the grounds of the Vanderbilt Museum in Centerport, with the County Legislature last Tuesday unanimously authorizing the museum to explore the matter with cell service providers.

Legislator Jon Cooper (D-Lloyd Neck), who proposed the plan, said the tower would provide Centerport with better cellular communication, which is particularly vital in emergencies, while yielding $60,000 to $150,000 a year to the financially strapped institution.

"This cell tower will help the Vanderbilt Museum protect the proud heritage of our past while also ensuring the future safety of our residents," Cooper said, in a statement.

The project is in the preliminary stages, Vanderbilt's executive director, Carol Ghiorsi Hart, said. "We be meeting with members of our community to get feedback from them."

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She agreed that the tower would benefit both museum and community, saying, "For people who live in this area cell phone access is very poor — and in the harbor as well — so this would certainly help peoples' communications."

Placement is a key element of the planning process.

"Right now, we're looking sort of behind the planetarium in the woods, so it would be away from all the neighbors and not in our historic area. But ... we have to have engineers in ..." she said.

Noel Gill, the Vanderbilt trustee working on the cell tower project, agreed. "It would be on the far northeast corner of the property but not anywhere near the neighborhood property lines," he said. "So it would have the least visual impact on the site itself and on the neighbors."

Exactly how much income the tower brings depends on how many service providers contract with the Vanderbilt. "I'm looking to maximize the amount of passive income that the Vanderbilt could get from a cell tower location," he said.

In that vein, Gill said he would prefer two smaller towers, rather than one larger one, so that they would not loom too high on the property. "It would be 50 feet above the highest trees, which would be 30 feet up."

There is a lot more work to be done: discussions with various service carriers and the Suffolk county planning, parks and telecommunications departments and a state environmental quality review, Gill said.

Centerport Fire Commissioner Dr. Jack Geffken said cell service in the area is poor "and anything that can enhance someone's ability to access emergency services in an expedited fashion would be a benefit to the community."

Due to the dearth of local cell towers, calls made to 911 from cell phones often roam across to cell towers in Connecticut and get picked up by that state's emergency call centers, Geffken said. Those delays in response time can be quite serious, as every moment counts in emergencies, he noted.

Daniel McGowan of Gina Drive, which borders the Vanderbilt property to the north and east, said, "I think if the county's doing something that will help the Vanderbilt Museum long term, I think that's attractive. I also think that cell towers can be pretty unobtrusive, if they're constructed properly."

He added, "The reason why Long Island has such horrible cell service is because so many people don't want cell towers built near them. I think that you can't have it both ways."

Donald Mastroianni, president of the 41-home Plaisance Beach Club on Gina Drive, said he emailed his members about the proposed tower but has not heard back about any specific concerns from anyone.

Gill, who is also helping raise money for the museum through the sale of brick and bench dedications, proposes the cell tower as a win-win solution.

"This is only one of the plans that we're hoping to institute to raise some money and give us a little bit of sustainability," he said. "This is one that I thought that if we got started early, maybe within a year, it would be up and functioning."

Education is the primary concern for Gill, a retired history teacher. "I want to keep the planetarium open and the museum open. We have hundreds of kids who come there every single day."

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