SNOW HILL – Members of the Worcester County Planning Commission agreed to give a favorable recommendation to a text amendment that will allow more flexibility in cell tower locations.
Commission members voiced no concerns with the text amendment, which was submitted by Raymond S. Smethurst Jr, an attorney representing Verizon Wireless. He said the change would help companies trying to build cell towers in heavy service areas.
“The problem is finding a location we can put up one of these towers,” he said. “The data volume has gotten so big we need infrastructure.”
The text amendment will allow the required 1,000-foot separation distance between a cell tower and a residential structure to be decreased by special exception to 500 feet when the tower is located in a high demand transportation corridor.
According to county staff, the only high demand transportation corridors in Worcester County are routes 50, 90, 13 and 113 as well as a small portion of Route 589. Phyllis Wimbrow, the county’s deputy director of development review and permitting, said staff had worked with Smethurst to develop the text amendment and that Ed Tudor, her department’s director, believed it addressed the county’s concerns.
“Mr. Tudor states that, as indicated in Mr. Smethurst’s application, the demand for increased cellular capacity has been growing exponentially and staff research found that cellular demand is particularly high in major transportation corridors now that multiple devices requiring a cellular or wireless Internet connection may be contained within a single vehicle,” Wimbrow wrote in a memo to the planning commission.
The commission voted 6-0 to forward the amendment on to the Worcester County Commissioners with a favorable recommendation.
Last Thursday the commission also agreed to give favorable recommendations to two rezoning requests on the basis that mistakes had been made when the current zoning classifications were assigned. The commission agreed with attorney Hugh Cropper’s request to rezone 12.85 acres from A-1 to A-2 in Bishopville. Cropper explained that the property had already been approved for a RV and boat storage facility but that the county’s last comprehensive rezoning had made it nonconforming. He said the rezoning would allow the property owner to seek a special exception so he could finish the project.
The commission also agreed to give a favorable recommendation to attorney Joe Moore’s request to rezone two acres near Route 611 from A-2 to C-2. Moore said the property was too small to farm and was in an area suitable for retail.
