Proposed billboard on Monroe and Canterbury / 60' cell tower / 936 Portland Ave - same scale

Over the past few years a coalition of neighborhood organizations has fended off three proposed digital billboard variance attempts and succeeded in protecting Cobbs Hill Park with the first Preservation District in over 30 years. Over the summer, Ames Grigg and neighbors in NorthEast Rochester protested the erection of a 60’ broadband-carrying (high intensity, high volume) cell tower at 936 Portland Avenue - and won as well. This month both of these zoning variance applications have been resurrected, and the cell tower (revised for a smaller footprint but same purpose) could be approved as soon as March 30th - and could then be used as a precedent for other carriers to build more and larger broadband cell towers in other residential neighborhoods, without having to ask. Ready to defend our neighborhoods against the megacorporations who increasingly prey upon them? Sign up here, and read on.    

The image on the left above is taken directly (cropped to fit) from the application by the landowner at 25 Canterbury Road, who would like to rent his property to Lamar for a digital billboard as shown, as part of a larger development plan for the property. The image in the center is of a 60-foot cell tower, like the one proposed by Verizon for 936 Portland Ave, and the image on the right is a google street view photo of the proposed location - at the same scale. One can see why neighbors are concerned about these enormous constructions landing like alien ships on streets right by their houses. Or rather, not landing - being built over months, then hanging around emitting brightly lit advertisements or high-intensity RF radiation. 

Neither of these current installations is anywhere close to meeting the zoning code written to protect residential neighborhoods from eyesores and health hazards - hence the applications for "zoning variance". And in upscale neighborhoods, those applications wouldn't have a prayer. But Rochester is not a wealthy city, and it is hard for members of the Rochester City Corporation to say "no" to big business interests with whom they want - or need - to work in future. Nonetheless, they have a duty to protect Rochester residents, and now is one of those times they need to be reminded of that duty.

Goodman Street exit, with already-existing billboards, Monroe exit by library as it is now, Same place with proposed billboard

It's not like we haven't seen other billboards along the Inner Loop; the stretch just one exit up, by Goodman, is full of them, as seen above. But that corner across from the Public Library is blessedly free of enormous signage - until now, unless we convince the City otherwise. As for the cell tower, it would be the first for home broadband use to be erected in a residential neighborhood in Rochester. But if it succeeds, it will certainly not be the last. Once this type of use can be shown to have been afforded to one carrier, the city is legally obligated to permit similar use to other carriers, with less city oversight. There would be little to prevent any carrier from planting an even larger, more powerful emitter anywhere they can find one landowner willing to deal. So it is crucial that we nip this one in the bud. 

That was done last year by a small group at great effort, against a tide of small city decisions - taking some meetings and not others, enforcing some rules and not others, sharing information with some and not others - that favor large, wealthy businesses over scrappy, dogged neighbors. We need to pull together to confront the City and the zoning department about that pattern of unequal attention and enforcement, and demand a moratorium on electronic variances until neighborhoods are better informed and listened to. As it happens, the city has been working for the past few years on its once-a-generation update of city zoning law, and will soon be presenting their refurbished plan (so far still heavily weighted to corporate interests). Neighborhood organizations are aware of this effort ind interested in being better represented in City planning, so the time is ripe for this conversation. This is not an issue that Metro Justice members have agreed upon as a campaign, but it is one whose effects on our city will be large and lasting. So we are all invited to join the group of neighborhood organizations and other residents beginning to research and fight. If you would like to learn more, please sign up for Thursday's rally, and come if you can (if you can't, we'll send an update afterward). If you can stay to Speak to Council, so much the better; one council member has already said they would be willing to stay afterward and talk about the issue if interested citizens show up. There are directions to sign up to speak at the link for the rally.