Lawsuit filed over Lincolnville cell tower impact

A group of business people who earn their living in the tourist industry and hikers who climb Bald Rock are suing the Town of Lincolnville over the siting of a cell telephone tower.

Fourteen people filed the complaint Jan. 2 in Waldo County Superior Court asking the judge to reverse the Lincolnville Board of Appeals decision on the application of National Grid Communications Inc. and RCC Atlantic/Unicel to put up a 190-foot cell tower within the “viewshed” of Bald Rock. GridCom would build the tower and Unicel would be the first occupant.

Plaintiffs say Bald Rock and its viewshed are identified in the town’s Comprehensive Plan as one of Lincolnville’s most valuable and important scenic resources that offer breathtaking panoramas of the bay and islands from the mountains.

Public meetings on the controversy sometimes grew emotional.

Town Administrator David Kinney said town officials haven’t been served with legal papers yet and couldn’t comment on the lawsuit.

Kinney said GridCom had filed a complaint in U.S. District Court in Bangor last summer, accusing the town of unlawfully denying the application for a cell telephone tower, but the complaint was put on hold pending the outcome of the Board of Appeals decision.

There are no other cell towers in Lincolnville. The nearest towers are in Northport and Camden, and the company said it was trying to deal with a “dead zone” in communications where reception fades and disappears, Kinney said.

GridCom applied in 2005 to build the tower on property owned by James Munroe, of Atlantic Avenue in Lincolnville, in an area that would be visible from the Bald Rock viewpoint in Camden Hills State Park.

The Lincolnville Planning Board held a public hearing Dec. 14, 2005 to consider whether the application met the requirements of a wireless communications provision of a town ordinance that it shouldn’t unduly obstruct, or have an unreasonably adverse impact upon, a scenic view as identified in the Comprehensive Planning Scenic View Map.

As part of its application, GridCom submitted a visual impact study done by TerraSearch to assess the impact the tower would have on scenic views of the hills and bay looking down from Bald Rock and up from the bay toward the rock.

More than a dozen people spoke in opposition to the application and many more submitted written comments questioning the legality of the project, the quality of the photographs taken and the simulations conducted in the visual impact study, according to the complaint.

The Planning Board voted unanimously to have an independent consultant review the TerraSearch Report and hired Richard Davol, of Communications Consulting Services, to do it. The Davol Report was submitted to the board Feb. 22, 2006.

Terrence DeWan, a specialist in visual impact studies, sent a letter to the board at the request of two of the plaintiffs on the quality of the TerraSearch Report and its review in the Davol Report.

DeWan questioned conclusions in the Davol Report and said both reports contained too little information and the photos were of poor quality.

The Planning Board denied GridCom’s application March 8, and said the tower would have an unreasonably adverse impact on the scenic view from Bald Rock. The board said the application failed to meet at least two of seven requirements of the wireless communications section of the land use ordinance.

GridCom appealed to the Board of Appeals.

The Board of Appeals ruled in June that the Planning Board erred in denying the application and wrongfully accepted the DeWan testimony without notice to the applicant or allowing GridCom to rebut the testimony.

The appeals board remanded the application back to the Planning Board for correction of procedural deficiencies and errors.

The Planning Board talked to its lawyer and found GridCom failed at least three of seven standards and again concluded the cell tower would have an unreasonably adverse impact on a scenic view.

GridCom again appealed.

On Nov. 22, the Board of Appeals reversed the Planning Board decision and directed approval of GridCom’s application, finding that the Planning Board decision on the adverse impact on the scenic viewshed wasn’t supported by substantial evidence in the record.

Plaintiffs Lorraine Davis and Barbara Gould filed a request for reconsideration and the appeals board denied their request Dec. 7.

Davis and co-plaintiff Dan Henry run Ducktrap Kayak. Other litigants are residents Will Brown, Maria Irrera, David McLean, Susannah Gage, Whitney and Tony Oppersdorf, Cindy and Jim Dunham, Cheryl Cassidy and Ron Pinkham, and St. George resident Rob Stenger, all of whom are hikers.

They said in their lawsuit that the appeals board erred in overturning the Planning Board decision.

They asked the court to reverse the Board of Appeals decision and reinstate the Planning Board ruling.

Defendants are the Town of Lincolnville, Waldo County, the State of Maine, National Grid Communications Inc. and RCC Atlantic/Unicel.