Attn: Woodlands/Woodbine Residents - Huge Telus Cell Tower Proposed in Athletic Park

[chalms04]

Originally Posted by fotze

You are all a bunch of brainwashed corporate fellating stooges.

I commented that the tower should be painted a lovely Telus green, and Debbie Travis (the coug from the commercials) be there to switch it on.

[frinkprof]

From a development/planning angle, cell towers are a bit of an odd thing.

Since it's a telecommunications project, they don't have to go through the regular municipal development permit process for approval, but rather through Industry Canada. So, opposition to these has typically been pretty ineffective since the usual process of lobbying your city/town councillor doesn't really do anything because they don't have any jurisdiction or influence to stop it.

Some of the opposing groups and some municipalities have tried their luck with engaging Industry Canada with their issues with little success.

The only thing about this case that may be different is that the land may be City-owned (not sure and I'm not spending the $10 on SPIN to find out, but it's very likely either the City or the Province that owns that land), and thus there would be a lease agreement between the City and Telus.

[TheGrimm]

Originally Posted by 4X4

Ok, if you wont accept Shantz's point about money, how about a basic understanding of construction?

Who is disputing the point about money!? It was the FIRST comment I made that I believe Telus is being cheap and that is a factor in the location chosen (not the only factor).

Originally Posted by 4X4

Do you think that you can just go putting something like that on the roof of a 30 year old building?
And besides, wouldn't that just put the tower another 30 feet higher in the air, and thus make it even more of an eyesore?

Again, at no point did I indicate that I figured they should put an 80' all-weld on top of the Safeway, I was merely indicating that putting a cellular antenna on the building COULD be another option. I am pretty sure if they can put an antenna into a church steeple, the large brained engineers can figure out how to attach the structure to the top of a brick building. Accounting for building height is obviously something that would be done and it's possible a smaller mast could be used to provide the same height as the initial tower plan. I've used masts on buildings for MANY radio installations in the past and while there are some differences with sectoral antennas it's still feasible it could work.
My initial comment was a casual observation that there are likely other options that are less intrusive, I wasn't expecting so many people are so passionate about finances and construction logistics on this board.

Originally Posted by 4X4

You can't not bring up money, because it's not free to get a flat roof like that re-engineered and then upgraded, to support something like that.

I did bring up money. That's what got me into this whole mess in the first place. I agree there are costs involved with retrofitting a building to support a mast and dishes, additionally co-location is an issue and likely a major part of why Telus is trying to have their own tower that they have their own access to.

Guys, I am not disputing this is more complicated than just being cheap. I get that... BELIEVE me I do, I've been working on several co-locations with Telus for towers here and it's onerous. I also know that the residents have a right to object to the structure and that Telus WILL be able to come up with an alternative if forced to.

[Travis Munroe]

edit: should read beyond page 1 as it looks like its been discussed.

[TheGrimm]

I figured rather than just speculate I would put together a few maps to show line-of-sight coverage for the proposed location in Woodbine. This map shows a 30m antenna height line-of-sight to a 1m (roughly man-sized) endpoint. It's not a perfect representation of coverage as it's not accounting for signal diffraction or multipath signal however it's a good indication of where your best signal will be.

When I get a bit more time I will look at what other options might exist.

Additionally, it's worth mentioning that this map DOES account for land cover data such as tree's and buildings, it should be fairly accurate as this is an older community but of course it is subject to discrepancy over time..

Spoiler!

[TheGrimm]

Ok, here's the same map showing the proposed location LoS coverage (light blue) overlayed with the Safeway option I proposed (yellow), this includes overlap areas (green). The antenna heights remain constant (30m) meaning that the structure mounted to the Safeway mall would be smaller to attain the same required height. As you can see the coverage is better, if anything compared to the Telus location proposed.

Spoiler!

Edit: Here is an additional option (St. Jude School) which is at a higher elevation area than the proposed location.

Spoiler!

[Titan]

I like the Palm Trees. They should all be Palm trees. Then all of Calgary doesn't have to go to Phoenix!

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by alltherage

Hey everyone, a bunch of us went to an info session yesterday about a hideous tower being built in the Woodbine Athletic Park for Telus.

NOBODY at the Telus info session had any performance issues with their Telus phones, and Telus had a bunch of PR crap with misleading graphs, irrelevant statistics, and no real quantifiable statistics to support this ugly thing.

I wrote this open letter to Mayor Nenshi & Diane Colley-Urquhart. Feel free to use it in part/whole or write your own.

Spoiler!

I am writing this letter to sincerely ask you to reject the proposed Telus Tower in the Woodbine Athletic Park. I am requesting that you reject this tower because:

1. It is not required, or in any way demanded by the residents of Woodlands and Woodbine
2. Telus did not provide any quantifiable statistics that support any need to build it
3. The tower is proposed in a spot that already gets Telus reception
4. This tower will tarnish the green space/athletic park

This tower is completely unnecessary. I attended the Open House last night at the Woodcreek Community Center, and it was nothing more than an impotent PR campaign by Telus, which was an insult to the intelligence of the few dozen residence who attended. Telus claimed with their service maps that there were “red zones” that had very poor reception. We live in a “red zone”, and many of our neighbors live in “red zones” as well. Not one of us has experienced any kind of performance issue.

The proposed location of this tower is in the athletic park, and by Telus’s own service map is in the good coverage “blue zone”. This “blue zone” is where reception is the strongest- so why do we need a tower where reception is already so strong?

Telus failed to present quantifiable and relevant information, like what percentage of calls in the area are dropped, how many data requests are rejected, or how many complaints they receive from the area. The residents in attendance had many Telus customers who were baffled by this new tower. Not one had experienced performance issues.

The park that this ugly tower is proposed to be built in is a space for our community to take a break from the buzz of the city. This tower is going to be 30M high- more than three times the height of Calgary’s street lights. Telus can find a better spot!

Hey dude where is the link to vote?

Oh wait here it is

Originally Posted by fotze

Did survey in favour of tower. Twice. Encourage others to do the same.

http://www.telusconsultation.com/secured/woodbine/

user: woodbine
pwd: AB2037

[Ice]

Originally Posted by TheGrimm

Ok, here's the same map showing the proposed location LoS coverage (light blue) overlayed with the Safeway option I proposed (yellow), this includes overlap areas (green). The antenna heights remain constant (30m) meaning that the structure mounted to the Safeway mall would be smaller to attain the same required height. As you can see the coverage is better, if anything compared to the Telus location proposed.

Spoiler!

Edit: Here is an additional option (St. Jude School) which is at a higher elevation area than the proposed location.

Spoiler!

You can't assume Safeway Mall wants the cell site. There are a lot of private property owners who want nothing to do with it once the equipment, aside from the antennas, is presented, no matter how much money you offer them.

Most cell sites end up in the public right of way because private property solutions aren't found. It's a last resort scenario 99% of the time.

Until there is absolute evidence proving there are no harmful effects form extended time near a cell site, I doubt schools will allow them. In California, we are not allowed to place cell sites within 500 feet of a school.

[TheGrimm]

Originally Posted by Ice

You can't assume Safeway Mall wants the cell site. There are a lot of private property owners who want nothing to do with it once the equipment, aside from the antennas, is presented, no matter how much money you offer them.

Most cell sites end up in the public right of way because private property solutions aren't found. It's a last resort scenario 99% of the time.

Until there is absolute evidence proving there are no harmful effects form extended time near a cell site, I doubt schools will allow them. In California, we are not allowed to place cell sites within 500 feet of a school.

It may be hard to discern from most of my comments, however I am not completely opposed to the cell tower. I am just playing devil's advocate and illustrating that there ARE in fact other options and that the residents should have a right to protest the fact that they are trying to put it in a public green space. As I said earlier, Telus will find an alternative if forced to, and as I illustrated above, it's not that hard to find an alternative location that is suitable.