WESTFIELD – At Wednesday night’s meeting, the Zoning Board of Appeals decided to approve the variance for Verizon Wireless to build a cell tower on 866 Shaker Rd. The variance was from Article V S 5-50 (II) A of the ordinance, which prohibits wireless telecommunications towers in the Rural Residential zoning district. The approval of the variance from the Zoning Board of Appeals now allows Verizon to take their proposal to the Planning Board.
The structure will be a 120-foot telecommunications tower that will have antennas mounted at the 115-foot level of the tower. It will also consist of six panels that are divided into three sectors with two antennas per sector.
Verizon Radio Frequency Engineer Jay LaTorre shows the Zoning Board of Appeals the location of the cell tower. (Photo courtesy of Greg Fitzpatrick)
Jay LaTorre, who is a Radio Frequency Engineer at Verizon, talked at the meeting about how Verizon and other cellular networks are currently going through a process of densification. They have to constantly add more capacity to their networks in order to meet their customers’ demands.
“Demand for wireless services has exponentially grown,” said LaTorre.
At this time, the existing cell tower locations near Westfield are to the east, (591 Northwest Street, Agawam), to the southwest (686 College Highway, Southwick), to the northwest (115 West Silver Street) and to the north (14 Delmont Avenue).
With the fact that making sure the cell tower provides 4G LTE service being crucial to customers, it states in the original application, “the proposed site, being centrally located to our existing cell sites in the area, is in the optimum location for 4G LTE service.”
LaTorre noted that the location on Shaker Road is a great opportunity for the city of Westfield.
“Verizon is very excited about the proposal,” said LaTorre. “We think it’s a very important proposal for Westfield.”
