Public meeting addresses cell-tower concerns

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This article was published 01/06/2016 (3489 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Standing in a large room in the Corydon Community Centre, Sherry Torchinsky held a poster-sized, bright blue handmade sign, covered in rhinestones and bearing a simple message:

“MTS! Cell towers should not be next homes, schools, daycares or playgrounds.”

Torchinsky was just one of dozens of River Heights residents who gathered at their local community centre Wednesday night as the latest chapter in an ongoing debate over a proposed MTS cell tower to be built in the neighbourhood.

The event was a public information session put on by MTS, bringing in community members from around the neighbourhood both in support and opposition of the tower and its proposed site.

Earlier this year, 19 River Heights homeowners were notified MTS planned to erect the cell tower on a property in the residential neighbourhood near Grosvenor Avenue and Niagara Street already occupied by a relay station. Torchinsky was one of those 19 homeowners, and said she and many of her neighbours were opposed to the tower’s proposed location.

“We all acknowledge that there’s a big need for better cell service in that area — we know, we live there,” she said. “I just can’t imagine that there’s nowhere else in the area that they could locate a tower.”

Torchinsky said she was primarily concerned that the tower — which would be 18 metres tall — would not be in keeping with the character of the neighbourhood, and that its presence could bring down property values in the area.

“Personally, I am concerned about resale value,” she said. “We’re a military family, we’re going to be moving in a year or two. I’m looking at it, and I am concerned.”

Others voiced the concern the tower might be harmful to residents’ health — including the neighbourhood’s many pets and children — and that the tower could set a precedent in the city leading to similar projects in other neighbourhoods.

Bob Sweetland has lived in River Heights for five years, and said he had been looking forward to getting a cell tower in the neighbourhood for some time.

“Our cellular reception in our house is horrible,” he said. “As a professional, like many professionals in this neighbourhood, we rely on our cellphones for communication with the office, and it’s been very difficult sometimes.”

Sweetland said he wasn’t worried about safety concerns or effects on property value, but was concerned about negative publicity coming to the neighbourhood.

MTS spokesman Jeremy Sawatzky said the evening was a success from the company’s perspective. Residents filled out questionnaires with opinions and questions on the tower, which Sawatzky said MTS will go through and respond to on a written basis before submitting a report to the City of Winnipeg for a final notice of decision, although he could not provide a timeline for that process.

“If the people of River Heights overwhelmingly say that’s something they don’t want, that would be something we would have to consider,” Sawatzky said. “At the same time, we have to balance that with what our customers have told us for years, and that is that there is a coverage gap in River Heights.”

Sawatzky said the proposed site is currently the only option for a tower location in the area.

“At the same time, we’re being very mindful of what people are saying, and there’s been no final decision that has been made,” he said.

“Everything will be considered.”

aidan.geary@freepress.mb.ca