Schools

Proposed Internet Tower on School Dead? Company Could Still Build It, Official Says

Clearwire LLC still has a lease agreement and zoning permit from the town which would let it build an Internet bower on Maple Hill School, despite the fact that the proposal has been canceled for now.

While Clearwire LLC has stated it is shelving a plan to build a wireless Internet tower on top of Maple Hill School, it isn’t certain whether the company will revisit the proposal in the near future.

“If they decide to build it, (then) they can,” Robert Stanford, the network manager who negotiated the project with the borough last year, said in an interview Tuesday. “The permits are in place.”

Clearwire, a Sprint-owned company that provides wireless internet access, got approval through the land use process in late 2010 to build a 500-pound Wi-Fi Internet structure on top of the school. Naugatuck was slated to garner $20,000 annually from the deal, through a lease agreement signed with the borough.

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But the company has apparently cancelled the plan at the moment, after it told borough Attorney N. Warren “Pete” Hess last week that “there was no need for a meeting because (they’re) not going to proceed.” Hess, who contacted Clearwire to set up a meeting about the project, said the company indicated a timing issue.

While the project has been cancelled for now, it doesn’t specifically mean that the project is officially off the books, Stanford noted. He said it was already clear during the application process that, if Clearwire didn’t get approval from Naugatuck land use officials by its own Nov. 1 deadline, then it would effectively pull the funding to the structure until the next budget cycle.

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This means Clearwire could very well choose to build the tower during its next budget cycle, said Stanford, an independent contractor who said he has moved on from the plan and is no longer working with Clearwire.

“Will they build it in the summer? Maybe,” he said. “They certainly are not going to be building anything on the roof during the winter with all the snow up there.”

The company has both an approved lease agreement and zoning permit that lasts them two years, Stanford noted. Still, he said it is not definite and any decision will be up to Clearwire itself if it wants to go ahead with the Maple Hill proposal.

Attempts to contact a Clearwire spokesman on Tuesday were unsuccessful.

Clearwire spent several months last year working through the land use process to obtain a zoning permit. This included meeting with both Planning and Zoning commissions, which approved the project, as well as holding public hearings and filing the proper paperwork.

Backers of the structure reiterated on several occasions that it would have no adverse affect on the children at the school. Parents found out about the project after reading in the local press how the Zoning Commission approved the application. Many vented their frustration during meetings of the Board of Education and Parent Teacher Organization, saying they didn’t approve of the structure because they weren’t certain of the harm it could cause in the future.

Despite the backlash, Stanford said it wasn’t the PTO that forced Clearwire to cancel the project at the time.

“I’d hate to give the impression that Clearwire didn’t go on a school because the (PTO) squawked on it,” Stanford said.  “It was just delayed so long through the land use process.”


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