The board voted to deny the application after refusing a request from a Verizon Wireless attorney to hear the application in the new year.
For now, plans for a proposed 125-foot cell tower at the Larchmont Swim Club have been sunk.
That was the news out Mt. Laurel Township’s Zoning Board meeting this week when the board denied a use variance application for the tower as filed by Cellco Partnership, which does business as Verizon Wireless.
For months, the tower has drawn opposition from residents who live near the proposed site, with residents using lawn signs and online petitions to cite concerns regarding property values, health issues and decreased membership for the swim club.
Due to the large amount of interest from residents regarding Verizon’s application, zoning board members moved this week’s meeting from its regular location in the municipal courtroom to the Mt. Laurel Community Center to accommodate a larger audience.
However, instead of proceeding with the application by presenting witnesses and expert testimony, Verizon attorney Christopher Schubert instead attended the meeting as the sole representative of Verizon to ask the board to adjourn his client’s application until the new year.
Schubert said he was asking for the extension due to concerns that he and six Verizon witnesses, none of whom were in attendance, would not be able to present their entire application in just one evening, in addition to listening to comments or concerns from the many residents in attendance.
With new zoning board members potentially seated when the board reorganizes in January, Schubert said new members would have missed portions of the evening’s testimony.
Schubert said Verizon’s planner was also unable to attend most or potentially the entirety of this week’s meeting due to a commitment in northern part of the state, which Schubert said he relayed to the zoning board’s attorney earlier in the day.
“From that standpoint, I told the township that I would be more than happy to show up and make my request for the adjournment this evening and request that we reconvene at the first available meeting in 2018,” Schubert said.
However, as board chairman Brian List noted, Schubert had previously agreed to the date of this week’s meeting when the board was already forced to reschedule Verizon’s application from November.
In November, officials discovered the board’s regular attorney had a conflict regarding the Verizon application. In turn, the board needed to hire special counsel for the application, which it had done for this week’s meeting.
List also noted how the board had made special provisions to hear Verizon’s application this week, including arranging the meeting so Verizon was the only applicant on the evening’s agenda, paying police officers overtime to be present at the meeting and moving the meeting’s location.
“This is an expectation of being prepared … all this was done so we could hear you properly and carefully,” List said.
Anthony Costa, serving as special counsel for the board regarding the Verizon application, also noted that any new board members seated in 2018 could have read transcripts from this week’s meeting if Verizon had been prepared to start presenting witnesses.
Costa also noted his time having served as the board’s regular attorney for 28 years before retiring two years ago, recalling instances of the board listening to applications as late as 2 a.m.
Costa also said he didn’t believe Schubert could presume a meeting would take “hours and hours” simply from the size of the crowd, as Costa said there might be one or two residents to speak on behalf of the larger group, or some might simply be in attendance to show solidarity.
“It just seems to me that a more prudent course of action would have been to at least bring your people in tonight to see how far we got — maybe we would have finished,” Costa said.
In response to Schubert’s request, no board member would make a motion to adjourn the Verizon application. Instead, the board voted unanimously to deny the request.
The board also did not allow Schubert to withdraw Verizon’s application to re-file in the new year.
With no professionals other than Schubert present, Costa said he saw no alternative other than the board to deny Verizon’s application, which the board unanimously voted to do.
In speaking to the public, Costa said Verizon could now chose to appeal to the Superior Court of Burlington County to determine if the board had acted appropriately in denying Verizon’s requests, which Schubert had also earlier said was a potential course of action for his client.
Should the court agree with Verizon, the board would be required to hold a hearing on the company’s application.
Should the court agree with the board, the denials from this week’s meeting would stand.
