Mystery pole proposals raising eyebrows, drawing complaints

When Pat Patterson drove to his office in Ingleside Village a couple of weeks ago, a white sign with red lettering changed the mood of his morning.

The notice was staked just a few feet from his own business sign near the intersection of Ingleside and Rogers avenues.

“STOP. Notice to the public; Pole installation; Request for comments,” it read.

It said an application was being made to Macon-Bibb County to put a 120-foot-tall utility pole in about the same spot as the sign.

“Public comments on the proposed pole, in a public right-of-way, will be heard until August 15,” it read.

The proposal caught business owners and nearby residents unaware.

“Whoever’s doing it hasn’t even approached me about it,” said Patterson, whose State Farm Insurance Co. office has been operating near the shopping area for years. “I’ve heard from no one.”

Though the sign indicated that equipment on the proposed pole would be used “to create additional broadband infrastructure in this general area,” Patterson had questions. He called the phone number posted on the sign and reached the Macon-Bibb County Engineering Department. Yet, he said, “All they could tell me is it’s something to do with broadband” improvement.

“I can’t imagine how big the bottom of a 120-foot pole is,” Patterson said. “We’ve been fighting for years to get the power lines moved to the backside of the building to make it nice and pretty down here.”

David Fortson, director of the county’s engineering department, said the California-based company Mobilitie applied to erect the pole, and the Ingleside location is just one of three proposed sites. Two other 75-foot-tall poles were also proposed in a June 25 application: one on Oglethorpe Street in front of the Bibb County jail, and one on Pine Street, in front of Mercer Internal Medicine Clinic.

“This is apparently a new technology; we’re not completely familiar with it,” Fortson said, adding that there are new rules from the Georgia Public Service Commission on how to deal with the utility. “Instead of installing cell towers on private property, some of these companies apparently can install wireless cellular technologies on poles on local rights of way.”

The sign was put there “just to see what kinds of comments we’d get from the public,” Fortson said.

Greg Fender, chief telecommunications consultant for the Georgia Municipal Association, isn’t convinced there’s a need for the new technology — and the proposed poles.

“What we have seen is a constant proliferation of applications throughout Georgia to install 120-foot-tall metal poles in the city’s right of way, generally in the downtown area,” Fender said. The association works with 140 communities in Georgia, and “not one city has said that they welcome the installation of a 120-foot pole.”

Fortson said approval from the Macon-Bibb County Planning & Zoning commission isn’t required for such infrastructure on a public right of way.

“We will develop some kind of process for objecting to or approving requests,” Fortson said. “We’re going to probably have this company come down and brief the (Macon-Bibb) commission in the future on what their technology is all about, what their plans are. … We’re going to have some more questions.”

OTHER CITIES APPROACHED

When asked questions about its technology and the process for picking sites, the company responded with an emailed statement to The Telegraph.

"Small cells are wireless solutions that help increase cell coverage and capacity by densifying existing networks where communities need it most: in urban areas, where it’s difficult to add new tower/cell sites. Installing small cells on utility poles helps wireless carriers to increase cell phone service quickly, easily and affordably in local communities without installing much-larger traditional tower antennas."

Most such applications have come from Mobilitie, which is also approaching other cities in the midstate including Forsyth, Dublin, Fort Valley, Warner Robins, Cochran and Sparta, documents show.

Many cities say that cell phone service is sufficient in the area around the proposed poles, Fender said.

Georgia is the only state in which the company is certified as a communications local exchange carrier utility, a competing local telephone company, Fender said.

“They’re trying to propose that, as a utility, they can just come in and use that right of way and not compensate the city,” Fender said. “Now they’re telling us, as a compromise, that they will pay. … What we’re saying is, ‘Just because you’re a CLEC doesn’t mean you … have the right to just go out and indiscriminately install your infrastructure wherever you want in the right of way.”

Cities that contract with GMA have rights of way ordinances that are in line with those of the Georgia Department of Transportation, prohibiting all “unipoles” on public rights of ways. Fender said Mobilitie has small cells in Dunwoody that are, per a contract, affixed to Georgia Power Co. poles.

GMA representatives are set to meet with Mobilitie on Thursday and “at least try to get a little better understanding of where this technology’s got to be to enable them to have a 120-foot pole,” Fender said.

“I’ve asked them specifically to convince me that these towers are needed,” Fender said. “At this moment, we don’t see that they are.”

This story was originally published August 10, 2016 at 6:41 PM with the headline "Mystery pole proposals raising eyebrows, drawing complaints."