Rogers Communications is looking to place a 25-metre cellular tower in eastern Penticton to help fill in a weak area in their coverage.
Building a new tower is a last resort, according to Cavalier Land Ltd., which is handling the project. The first choice is to either enhance existing equipment or build a new mast on top of an existing building.
But in the area of Upper Bench Road, where this tower is planned, neither solution is available.
The matter came before Penticton city council last week in the form of an information package and an announcement of the public engagement process required by Industry Canada.
“The goal of Cavalier lands is really to get a letter of concurrence from local city council. That is something that would happen after that consultation period,” said planning manager Blake Laven, who also noted that local government have no authority over cell towers.
The proposed location for the tower is on a seven-acre piece of agricultural land at 127 Upper Bench Rd. S. Laven said this land is in the agricultural land reserve, but a tower is a permitted use, under the ALR.
Coun. Judy Sentes recalled problems caused with another installation, a high tension power line. Sentes wanted to know if council could require the cell tower either be camouflaged or painted in some way to prevent it from standing out.
“Council can make that a recommendation if they do decide to give that letter of concurrence to the proponent,” said Laven, adding there was no guarantee Industry Canada would put that in their final approval to Rogers Communications.
“I think they really look at the visibility of the location with how far they will go to camouflage them,” said Laven. “We can certainly have a longer conversation about it when the public process is complete and it comes back for decision from council.”
Laven said this application is not connected to one made for Salliken Drive that Rogers backed away from last August.
“This is a different application process completely,” he said. “This one came up quite a bit before that other one.”