A plan to erect a 250-foot-tall cell tower on a Civil War battlefield in north Georgia is not the stuff that historic preservationists’ dreams are made of.
The battle over the battlefield in Resaca isn’t as simple as it may sound, with an already heavily altered site and a developer willing to compromise on height. Still, for preservationists, it’s emblematic of often worse controversies over cell towers in Atlanta and elsewhere: an ironic lack of communication over telecommunications facilities and a federal review process whose bandwidth is dominated by well-funded developers while short-staffed nonprofits and state offices struggle to keep up. Big-picture plans for tower network locations can be impossible to find, meaning that compromises on alternatives are impossible, too.
In the worst cases, developers demonstrate an attitude of loophole-seeking rather than community-serving or consensus-building – which makes for surprise towers that could pop up virtually anywhere at any time, maybe your city or neighborhood.
“This is an industry now. Not just an industry of the cell towers, but the industry of the approval process for them,” says Mark C. McDonald, president and CEO of the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation, which often comments on cell tower and antenna proposals statewide.
The policies for that process are pretty good, McDonald says, with a couple of big caveats: historic reviews can only require mitigation for cell towers, not the elimination of them, and historic preservation offices often struggle to keep up with the developers’ private consulting firms that take the lead on impact studies. One source of angst for Resaca’s preservationists is that the state Historic Preservation Division didn’t submit a comment about the cell tower plan there for unclear reasons, which counts as a default agreement.
Opposition by the Georgia Battlefields Association (GBA) and Friends of Resaca Battlefield was joined by the Atlanta Preservation Center (APC), which expressed frustration about the lack of information on the plan – such as conceptual illustrations – and on status updates. APC Executive Director David Yoakley Mitchell calls it “daunting” for small organizations like his to carry the burden of advocating for changes to multiple cell tower plans with little or no feedback.
“Every time we can force a more thoughtful placement of these communication resources, we are promoting civilization,” he says. “…Historic preservation is not just old houses and pictures – it is the thin line between chaos and standards.”
On the other hand, telecommunications are needed by everyone these days – including preservationists – and, as McDonald notes, can even play a role in funding historic preservation when antenna space is rented on rooftops and church steeples. In Resaca, some observers weighed the benefits of modern technology against a plan involving a piece of the battlefield that is in private ownership – apparently by a concrete paving company that did not respond to my questions – and alongside two billboards. The planned tower also would rise along I-75, whose construction in the 1960s and ’70s first carved up the battlefield.
Boyd Austin, executive director of the Northwest Georgia Regional Commission (NGRC), said his organization sent a comment letter urging caution to historical impacts, adding that it would have been “more robust” if the tower were planned for public parts of the battlefield.
“I understand the sensitive nature of it,” Austin said. “I’m a big preservationist for our Native American and battle history preservation. But there’s so much growth going on that we don’t often get to choose where the gaps are filled. [Cell towers] have to be in specific parameters. I know that causes some angst.”
Buford-based Dominion Tower Group unilaterally reduced the proposed tower’s height from an original 305 feet in response to the preservationists’ pressure, and its historic impact consulting firm – Environmental Corporation of America – proactively contacted several of those groups for comment.
Dominion’s Jeffrey Evans says the company had historic impact mitigation in mind as part of its plan. “We chose this location specifically to mitigate its visual impacts on the Resaca community,” he said. “Further, this proposed tower will vastly improve the wireless coverage for citizens in Resaca and also provide a facility to enhance emergency radio contact for EMC & police personnel.”
Of course, preservationists see things differently. The GBA and the battlefield’s friends group submitted comments calling for a different location entirely that would not visually impact the site. “The Resaca Battlefield Historic Site is a significant and revered location, and its value lies not only in its historical significance but also in its aesthetic and cultural importance to our community,” wrote the friends group.
The true need for a specific site and potential alternatives are often unclear, as private developers’ plans remain private. And many are far less communicative and responsive than Dominion in the case of Resaca.
In a notorious Atlanta proposal I revealed last year, a company called CitySwitch proposed a 165-foot-tall antenna tower right next to Oakland Cemetery and Cabbagetown’s Fulton Cotton Mill Lofts, which is also within the viewshed of such sites as Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthplace.
The process had some crass and secretive elements, including a public notice in an obscure newspaper that may not circulate in the local area and an analysis that dismissed the landmark cemetery – whose staff were not contacted by the consultant – as a visual “buffer” for the antenna. The tower’s site was one of the dozens statewide offered by CitySwitch on railroad rights of way where a specific selling point was the lack of typical local government review. The status of the tower remains unclear, as CitySwitch did not respond to my questions, and the APC says it hasn’t heard anything in months, either.
Such are the vagaries of the cell tower approval process ultimately overseen by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The process includes reviews of potential impacts on historic resources, endangered species and air travel. The historic part of the process is called a “Section 106” review for part of the federal Historic Preservation Act of 1966. Ultimate comment comes from the federal Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, but local comment is gathered from the public, preservation groups, and the state’s designated historic preservation office, which in Georgia is the Historic Preservation Division (HPD).
McDonald at the Georgia Trust says a big “frustration” with Section 106 is that – unlike similar review processes for federally funded highways – cell tower projects cannot be stopped by historic preservation issues, only “mitigated.” Mitigations can range from lowering and relocation to the borderline ridiculous. McDonald says he recalls a case near Rome, Ga., where a cell tower was proposed next to a pre-Civil War house. “The mitigation was that the cell tower [developer] would pay to prepare a National Register [of Historic Places] application for the site we’re impacting, which I thought was ironic,” he says.
Another big challenge with Section 106 is that the review is driven by the tower developers themselves, who hired environmental consulting firms that write the historic impact reports – almost always claiming “no adverse impact.” It’s then up to locals and state offices like HPD to catch up and respond. McDonald says such private firms typically pay better than the state and nonprofits and thus often try to poach their staff as well as hire new preservation-degree graduates. He says the Georgia Trust staff is frequently approached by such firms looking for “someone to go around the rules” rather than enforce them. On the other hand, he says, the consultants’ reports are often of good quality.
HPD did not respond to questions, but McDonald said its staff capacity is “a real, real issue” – not only for Section 106 reviews but also for historic tax credits and National Register listings. “They’re definitely understaffed for the amount of activity going on in our state,” he said. “…They have been having their budget cut. They’re facing the problems of filling jobs just like everybody else is these days.”
At least on the East Coast, such cell tower impact controversies appear to be a persistent issue, though sporadic in any given place. For example, Baltimore had a major controversy in 2019 with a proposal for a 180-foot-tall tower in its landmark Druid Hill Park, which also would have served City emergency services and its zoo administration. But Baltimore Heritage, a preservation nonprofit, says it has no such current controversies.
As the Baltimore case demonstrates, controversial cell towers may often be used by the very governments that are also involved in reviewing them. Fifteen years ago, I revealed a plan in Boston for a private cell phone company to replace scores of streetlights with its antennas in a rental scheme approved by an obscure City commission. In most neighborhoods, no one knew until they saw the poles going up.
New York City is now in the midst of a similar controversy over 32-foot-tall, ad-bearing towers popping up on sidewalks to serve a 5G provider. The New York Landmarks Conservancy, a statewide nonprofit, fought to get information and finally forced Section 106 review via a demand letter sent by U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and members of the New York City Council and the state legislature. Peg Breen, the Conservancy’s president, says the tower plan was initially pitched as serving “underserved” areas, but the structures began appearing in some of the city’s wealthiest neighborhoods. She said her group struggled to get such basic details as a map of tower locations or the plan for soon-to-be-outdated 4G towers that similarly popped up without notice in previous years.
“Basically, this is going to change the face of the city,” Breen said. “It was inexcusable not to have more information and more community input into this… We want people to have access [to 5G] who don’t have access, but there has to be a way to do that doesn’t damage entire communities and allows the entire city to have a say in this.”
The New York situation illustrates how new technology can create virtually overwhelming waves of new proposals for reviews – and how Section 106 or other reviews might not even happen without advocates pushing back.
On the other hand, technological advances can improve the consolidation or elimination of such facilities. Austin, the NGRC executive director, previously led the Paulding County planning commission and also served as mayor of Dallas, Ga. He says in the early days of cell technology, tower proposals were far more of an issue.
“There’s always a downside to progress and growth,” he says. “But when people realize hardly anybody has a home phone or landline anymore, you’ve got to be able to provide the service to them.”
Of course, as the APC’s Mitchell notes, you’ve also got to provide the service of reviewing such proposals at some of Georgia’s most historic sites – like Resaca, where FCC staff just gave the cell tower a thumbs-up.
“The Atlanta Preservation Center cannot be the lone sentry against insanity,” he said.
The FCC wipes its butt with more sheets of paper than is found in any NEPA documentation it requires. The only thing easier to achieve than a cell tower permit from the FCC is getting a Georgia driver’s license.