Two more cell towers will rise over Palm Coast to add to the seven existing ones as the Palm Coast City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved leasing two city-owned land parcels.
One is at the future Fire Station 22 on the north side of Palm Coast Parkway near Colbert Lane–the station is under construction–the other is at 50 Citation Boulevard, co-located with the city’s Water Treatment Plant #2.
“I think this is a business-friendly necessity. It’s an economic development-friendly necessity,” Council member Theresa Pontieri said. “It’s also a safety issue as well. We can’t afford people to not have cell service in an emergency. And I know even driving, if I take Colbert to the beach, I drop cell service for a period there.”
Pontieri had fought against a proposed cell tower on Club House Drive. “ So this is frustrating for me, because we need cell service in this area, and it feels like we have a lose-lose from every direction,” she said, especially with its current planned location placing it near the Palm Harbor golf course. She suggested moving it further away from the course.
But cell infrastructure will eventually be not just a necessity, but the only choice. In December, AT&T announced that it would end all landline service by 2029 across the country as its copper lines age out and replacement is no longer cost-effective. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, and based on a late 2023 survey, 75.2 percent of American adults used only cell phones, though that proportion falls significantly for Americans 65 and over: 54.6 percent. In Palm Coast, 30 percent of the population is 65 and over, according to the Census Bureau.
Two carriers are interested in the fire station location. Darlene Shelley, speaking on behalf of Celia Pugliese (one of the residents who led the successful opposition to two previous cell tower locations), cited the opposition of the International Association of Fire Fighters to co-locating cell towers with fire stations as a reason not to build near Colbert.
The IAFF took that position in 2004, before the advent of the 5G technology Shelley said causes cancer, a contention the National Cancer Institute contests, though the matter is far from settled, even from the American Cancer Society’s point of view. Some firefighters in various places continue to oppose the towers near their stations, but not often.
“I’m just wondering, since when is the city in the business of making money from companies rather than being in business to protect the residents that live here and pay taxes,” Shelley asked. Another resident called the proposed tower “another eyesore” in her backyard, a property where she’s lived since before incorporation, the first one being the new fire station. “If this was Palm Coast 27 years ago, I’d have moved somewhere else,” she said.
Another resident, Joe Runac, called the city’s Wireless Master Plan “outdated” (the city updated it months ago) but he was echoing the conclusion of the American Cancer Society when he said: “No one can tell me definitively that these are not, do not cause injury. No one either way, one way or the other.” He wants the proposed tower at the fire station to be the “third strike.” He was alluding to two previous proposals not far from there that failed.
Still, opposition was limited to a handful of residents and could create a disproportionate and false impression of broader opposition. One resident with experience in siting towers spoke in favor, including the siting at the fire station.
In 2016, the city hired Diamond Towers to develop a Wireless Master Plan, which the council adopted in 2018. It was the first such plan in the city’s history. It loosened rules regulating tower heights and locations in hopes of improving cell coverage across town and to map out cell tower locations to avoid surprises.
It worked out that way to some extent, but not as much as the city hoped: in some cases, as when Diamond projected a tower on the grounds of the Palm Harbor Golf Club, and again when it projected one on Club House Drive, opposition was so fierce (and litigious, in the case of the Palm Harbor tower) that those plans were halted.
Still, the master plan focused potential sites on publicly owned land, and gave Diamond the first right to build on the 10 locations it identified, including some on public school properties. It built three: one behind the Southern Recreation Center, one near Heroes Memorial Park to improve coverage around Palm Coast Parkway, and one at Fire Station 24 in the Nordic reaches of the F Section.
There was never much love from the School Board. There are seven cell towers in the city today. (See the list and the towers’ operators here.)
Last March the council adopted an updated Wireless Master Plan. That one added 10 locations, for a total of 17. (See the list of the 10 new locations here.) It also changed criteria. Only city properties are included. School properties were eliminated. Need alone is no longer a criteria. Availability is. Significantly, the update gives the city manager the authority to remove site from the plan, but not add any to it.
The authority’s purpose is made clear by the history of Palm Harbor and Club House Drive. With that authority, the city manager can conduct an internal analysis, gauge public sentiment, and spare the council the political fallout of going through combative hearings only for a site to fall through.
The fire station lease is with Diamond Tower, the Citation Boulevard lease is with Wireless Edge Towers. Each company will build its tower at its own expense. The city will earn a one-time permitting fee of $50,000 from Diamond then 40 percent of the sublease revenue from the first telecommunication company that hooks to the tower, and 50 percent of the revenue for each additional telecommunication company.
The terms with Wireless are different: $20,000 at permitting, then $5,000 after a carrier hooks in, plus either the totality of the subleasing fees generated by that carrier or, if there are more than one carrier, 50 percent of all subleasing fees–whichever is the greater amount.
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