The Blacksburg Planning Commission held a regular meeting on May 1, 2018, at 7:30 PM in the Roger E. Hedgepeth Chambers. Commissioners approved the consent agenda, conducted a public hearing for a cell tower replacement, and received updates on ongoing committee work and a downtown strategic study.
CUP18-0001 – Broadcasting/Communications Tower at 1604 Grayland Street
We're ready to go. First action is on the consent agenda. We have approval planning commission minutes from our April 3rd, 2018 meeting. And then we have a schedule for a busy June 5th meeting. We have a conditional use permit. We'll be reviewing for Office on the Ground Floor in the downtown commercial zoning district at Kent Square. Next item is a conditional use permit at 404 Mount Caber Road for day care center. And the next item is a rezoning 18-0003, a request to resonate 7.383 acres at 1902 Research Center Drive. It's in the corporate research center. It's zoned RD research and development. And then our last item June 5th, we will be resoning 18-0004. The request resone 1.7 acres at 402 Clay Street, southeast from R5 Transitional Residential to Planned Residential for multifamily age restricted development. So we have to approve the consent agenda. Second. Second, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor? Okay. Next item is public hearing. This is for a conditional use permit request for a broadcasting or communications tower in the general commercial zoning district at 1604 Rowland Street to replace an existing building mounted co-located cell tower. Is here representing Shintel. We'll start with a staff presentation. Thank you. This is a conditional use permit for a cell tower on at uh Grayland Street. Clinton Graves Family Trusted is the Clinton Transfer and Storage Air facility. The address is 1604 Greyland Street.57 acres, but the area that we'll be looking at is much smaller than that. The current zoning is general commercial. Part of the reason for this request is uh due to the removal of Shentel equipment from the Allegheny water tank. Uh their lease exp or their lease was not renewed, and so they are looking for um additional cell tower uh coverage in this area. The development request that we have before us today is the removal of the existing 48 uh foot tower, the construction of a new 59-foot monopole tower uh in essentially the same location as the existing tower. Uh they will also replace the existing chain link fence around the mechanical yard with an eight-foot vinyl fence uh color to match the existing building. As I mentioned, they will be um losing some coverage area because of the facilities coming down off of the Allegheny water tank, so the upgrading they are upgrading equipment for that purpose. The existing building mounted tower is not uh structurally capable of uh uh withstanding the additional equipment. They are also requesting a waiver of the required type D buffer yard. You can see the total uh parcel area highlighted in yellow. This is the entire uh Clinton transfer and storage parcel. The green star indicates the location of the existing tower as well as where the proposed tower would be. On the screen in front of you, you have um a graphic that shows the existing building in this blue line here. There is a lower roof line and a higher roof line, the existing building mounted tower in green, the proposed tower in red, as well as the equipment yard in orange at the bottom of the screen. So this would be the view from the west side if you were kind of standing between the hotel and the Clinton transfer and storage building. This is the north side view that you would see if you were looking at it from Lansdowne Street. The applicant has provided several photo simulations of what the proposed tower would look like. In any of these photos, the inset is showing the existing tower with the red arrow pointing to where it is. And in the photo, you can see on the top right and the bottom right what the proposed tower would look like. These were also provided in your application. We evaluate conditional use permits for their conformance to the comprehensive plan and the zoning ordinance, as well as the mitigation of any adverse impacts. The zoning ordinance defines a broadcasting or communications tower as seen on the screen and provided in your staff report. It is different from a co-located tower or a or a building melted tower, which does not require a conditional use permit if it is less than 10 feet above the roof line. There are a number of use and design standards that really govern the development of these towers. I'll go through them very briefly, but they were also provided analysis in your staff report. There is a preferred preferred order of location for towers as seen on the screen.