JOSH DAVIS/BAYSIDE GAZETTE
The Worcester County Commissioners last week rejected a lease agreement with Calvert Crosslands for a proposed cell tower near the county wastewater treatment plant. A representative from the company this week called the decision “quite a shock.”

By Rachel Ravina, Staff Writer

(Dec. 13, 2018) Calvert Crosslands partner Barb Pivec said she was blindsided by the Worcester County Commissioners’ decision last week to reject a lease agreement for a cell tower site at the Ocean Pines Wastewater Treatment Plant.

Pivec said she entered the meeting with the belief the lease would be approved.

“Yes, it was quite a shock. It was quite a shock,” she said.

Pivec said Calvert Crosslands took over a proposed five-year lease for the property from Verizon Wireless so the county’s need for space for its own communications equipment could be accommodated.

The county would be able to use the tower for free, and would have been paid $20,000 in rent for the first year, with 2 percent each year thereafter.

She said Calvert Crosslands also recommended that the county permit it to make the tower taller to provide room for the county’s equipment. According to last week’s discussion, that space would have been the top four feet of a 160-foot tower.

Pivec said the company worked with the county to move the project through the procedural hoops.

“You have to make sure the tower is built to handle that weight and that loading,” Pivec said. “Calvert Crosslands said, ‘no problem,’ we’ll … design this tower to handle the county.”

Pivec added the proposed tower could support the weight of several carriers, a broadband company and the county’s equipment.

“Not only will we design this tower to handle the county,” she said this week. “But we will design the tower to handle not only … Verizon and the county, we will design the tower to handle another three installations.”

As for Pivec’s belief that a deal would be reached, she said, “We worked really, really, really hard to get it done,” with county officials and encountered no objections then, only to have them expressed at the last minute.

“I was shocked, and I don’t really know what we’re going to do at this point in time,” she said.

Pivec told the commissioners last week that the site had been recognized as a desirable location for more than five years, but this week she clarified the “location’s actually been an area need since 2008.”

Because Ocean Pines is such a densely populated residential area, she said the wastewater treatment plant site property was attractive because it satisfied the county’s zoning regulations.

The selection of that (or any site) tower location was preceded by assessing the area’s need, she said. Once that had been done, the project required working with consultants, analyzing the area’s zoning requirements, looking for possible sites, evaluating those parcels, and applying for the approvals from federal and local governments.

“It’s very long. It’s very involved. It’s very thoughtful,” she said. “It involves working with lots of different people.”

Pivec said projects like the proposed cell tower can take years to complete.

“Yes, this site was supposed to be built in 2017, and … originally it was supposed to be built in 2010,” she said. “And they just kept pushing it out and pushing it out.”

The county’s zoning regulations stipulate that a tower or monopole must be at least 1,000 feet from a residential structure or where one is permitted, and be least 2,000 feet from a school, day care or nursing home.

When scouting potential sites, Pivec said she usually works with private landlords.

“If there was a private landlord out there, that certainly would have been the first candidate, not the county wastewater treatment plant,” she said.

Further complicating a site search is that not just anywhere will do. It involves radio frequency ranges, possible overlaps with other signals, or gaps between signals.

“You want a seamless network,” she said.

And it must be profitable for the tower companies and the big communications outfits that rent them.

“[They work] with private companies like mine. We actually build the infrastructure and then they become our tenant, and … the carrier’s cost is the installation, not the installation and the infrastructure,” she said.

Creating that infrastructure is complex as well. It’s more than a cell signal.

“A tower network needs fiber. A fiber network can’t handle the distribution of all services to all people, and neither can a wireless network,” Pivec said. “I think a lot of people don’t understand that that we’re not just building the tower, we’re building part of an overall network.”

In last Tuesday’s county commissioners meeting, Commissioner Joseph Mitrecic suggested a location off St. Martin’s Neck Road.

“I’m gonna contact him and find out exactly where he thinks that location is,” she said. “I know that there is another location that is not funded at this point in time that’s closer.”

Pivec said the St. Martin’s Neck area wouldn’t be impossible, but does present a different set of issues, because of its natural environment.

“We can’t impact minor woodland creatures. We can’t impact wetlands. The list goes on,” Pivec said. “I mean, that whole area down there is really environmentally sensitive.”

Pivec said she wants to give a more complete presentation to the Worcester County Commissioners “because they didn’t have the advantage of having all that information when they made their decision,” Pivec said. “They only had the information about the lease.”

She added she’d not only provide photos of what the tower would look like, but also do a balloon test “so that they and others can see what the impact would actually be not what people perceive it to be.”