My neighbor wants to put up a 150' Cingular cell phone tower - Legal recourse to get it stopped? (Springfield: power lines, houses)

[cuba libre]

I hear from the Planning and Zoning Administrator in Lake County that I have no chance of stopping a cell tower going up in my neighborhood. Actually, on the property (owned by my redneck neighbor) adjacent to my house, less than 250' away from my front doorstep. My redneck neighbor solicited to several cell phone companies his front acreage, and CIngular offered the sleaze ball $1,500/month for the right to maintain a tower on his property. Nobody on our semi-rural residential street was ever notified of any public hearing. I hear that cell phone companies dominate the lobbying scene in Springfield, leaving little hope for residents, or county administrators to put any restrictions on these eye sore landmarks.

Does anybody know of any recourse I could take?

[gardener34]

Check out what your zoning allows. Here in kane county where if you are unincorporated just about anything goes - the tower has to be half the height away from the closest residence. You likely will not be able to block it - but at least make sure he has it positioned as far away as possible.

Welcome to the wonderful world of unincorporated living - NEVER EVER AGAIN. You are at the mercy of jerks like your redneck neighbor. Yeah the cell tower thing in the residential area is done here in Kane too.

[sgresident]

sorry to say, gardner is right. If you are in an unincorporated area, you have some problems! If you are in a municipality, I cannot believe that they would let that happen in a residential area.

[Irishtom29]

Capitalism in action. You accept the bad with the good when you believe in capitalism and free markets.

[cuba libre]

The redneck neighbor just got a car and a tractor reposessed last week. Hopefully he is on his last leg (financially) and cannot afford to counter whatever legal injunction me and the other 15 houses on our street file to stop him. But then, I don't know if I'll be fighting my redneck neighbor or Cingular on that one. Hopefully I can tangle the property up in enough trouble with the EPA (he is right next to a wetland) and whatever else I can find, that Cingular will lose interest in building the tower.

Any suggestions from you guys would be appreciated.

[Lookout Kid]

Where the hell do you live? I'd think about investing in a nice acetylene cutting torch if I were you! And some black clothes.

[Drover]

Originally Posted by cuba libre

The redneck neighbor just got a car and a tractor reposessed last week. Hopefully he is on his last leg (financially) and cannot afford to counter whatever legal injunction me and the other 15 houses on our street file to stop him. But then, I don't know if I'll be fighting my redneck neighbor or Cingular on that one. Hopefully I can tangle the property up in enough trouble with the EPA (he is right next to a wetland) and whatever else I can find, that Cingular will lose interest in building the tower.

Any suggestions from you guys would be appreciated.

Or you could move to a place that is zoned to your tastes instead of to your redneck neighbors' tastes. My suspicion is that he lives in an unincorporated area precisely so that he doesn't have to answer to people like, well, you.

[At1WithNature]

that can't be good for him or the neighbors...health wise. it's never a good thing to live under a large area of electricity and/or cellular phone waves. It can have adverse effects on one's health and the enivronment itself. There have been cases where people have thought there house was haunted when in reality, power lines were effecting the eletromagnetic field of the immediate area playing tricks with cameras and lights.

[mendelman]

Originally Posted by At1WithNature

that can't be good for him or the neighbors...health wise. it's never a good thing to live under a large area of electricity and/or cellular phone waves. It can have adverse effects on one's health and the enivronment itself. There have been cases where people have thought there house was haunted when in reality, power lines were effecting the eletromagnetic field of the immediate area playing tricks with cameras and lights.

Unfortunately for you, cell antennas have not been conclusively determined to be harmful. One get have effects from the antenna if you work on them 5 days a week and have to be within several feet of the actual antenna.

Antennas on a 75'+ tower will not have adverse effects on one's health due the manner in which the radio waves project and the way the waves intensity diminishes over distances. You're probably more at risk from the actual cell phone you keep on your hip seven days a week.

As for the OP's questions, if the county's (I presume you're in an unincorporated location) zoning allows for the tower as-of-right, there might not be much you can do. You could try to litigate, but I bet that wouldn't stop the actual construction. Now, if a public hearing review is required and those requirements were not followed then you certainly have defensible recourse.

But really, the first thing you need to do is talk to the zoning admin. again and have that person explain exactly what the zoning allows/prohibits.

Get the facts before you start lawyering up.

Edit: Looking at the Lake County Unified Development Ordinance (UDO), it appears that the neighbor is completely within their rights, provided they are meeting all the height, setback and land area requirements.

Though, only $1,500/month seems pretty paltry. I would have tried for at least $2,500/month.

[At1WithNature]

the word conclusively is subjective.

http://www.aehf.com/articles/em_sensitive.html

The University of Texas, as well as hundreds of Universities, have concluded that electromagnetic fields can affect health. Cellular phones operate at the radiofrequency (RF) part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Considering the vast amount of energy and how large the proposed tower is, I guarantee the resident of that home and his neighbors will be affected and there isn't much that they can do about it except to move away. Good Luck trying to sell your house that is next to this eye sore!

Many believe the severe decline in honey bee population is due to the effects of cellular phone waves that effect the eletromagnetic fields. If honey bees die from it, then obviously it will have an adverse effect on other live things whether they be humans or not.

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news0...ones_bees.html