Public won’t get to vote on tower rules

PALMER — As the ballot for the Mat-Su Borough’s fall election shapes up, one thing that know won’t be on it is a question about how far a tower can be located from the nearest property line.

“Let the voters decide. Let the people decide on whether or not it’s appropriate to have a tower setback equal to the height of the tower for purposes of public safety,” said Assemblyman Warren Keogh, who proposed a non-binding advisory vote on the question of whether a tower should have to be located slightly farther away than it is tall from the nearest property line.

Keogh’s measure failed at the assembly table Tuesday.

The idea had been that if a tower fell it wouldn’t damage a neighbor’s property.

The towers saga began in November 2011, when the assembly, faced with a raft of changes to borough tower rules, chose instead to throw out everything that was on the books, leaving the borough devoid of regulations on tower construction. Neighbors of new towers built with little to no notice cried foul. So, in January of this year, after a lot of wrangling and fighting at the assembly table, the assembly restored the regulations it had previously tossed.

Rick Brendon, who’s been working on the borough’s committee studying tower issues, showed up to Tuesday’s meeting with photos of towers that had fallen over.

“The logic given for opposing these safety zones is that towers don’t fall, towers usually don’t fall, towers haven’t fallen in Alaska yet, towers fall in a neat little pile around the site, trees don’t have fall zones,” he said.

But the reality is towers do sometimes fall over, he said. Moreover, even if the possibility of that is remote, it’s not remote in the minds of a potential homebuyer who won’t be willing to spend as much on a property where that is a possibility, Brendon said. Towers therefore decrease real estate prices, he said.

“Real estate values that I looked up — if a tower could reach a neighbor’s house his value went down up to 35 percent,” Brendon said.

Likewise in the city of Wasilla where the Matanuska Electric Association has requested a permit to route power line towers through the city, business-owners and the municipality argue that towers there will harm property values and views. MEA said the design for its towers includes a set back so if the towers failed, they would not block the Parks Highway.

Brendon’s data also seemed to find a sympathetic ear with at least one assemblyman.

“Of course, this issue has been around for awhile and we’ve heard that they don’t fall down perpendicular to the base, they collapse, that’s what we’ve been told and this looks different,” said Assemblyman Jim Colver.

But Assemblyman Vern Halter pointed out that the assembly had created and appointed members to an advisory committee on towers. Sorting out those reasons is kind of the purpose behind the tower committee. And the proper process would be for the committee to look it over and send an ordinance to the planning commission, which, in turn, would send it to the assembly. Otherwise, Halter said, a well-intentioned rule could easily go wrong.

“You might make it so impractical you can’t build a tower,” he said.

Assemblyman Darcie Salmon agreed with Halter.

“The process is in place. If you throw an advisory vote to people prior to feedback from the tower group and the planning commission I think it’s not in line and advisory votes are not the way to go with this in my opinion,” he said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.