Panel backs zoning for 200-foot tower
Residents' protest of S.E. Denver site rouses 30-day study
By Alan Gathright, Rocky Mountain News
March 9, 2006
A Denver City Council committee Wednesday endorsed a citywide zoning change that would allow a 200-foot radio tower in non-residential areas.
But faced with residents' outcry over plans to plant the tower on "non-residential" Denver Water Department land surrounded by southeast neighborhoods, the city will take 30 days to study alternative sites for the big antenna.
Officials stressed that completing the new $10 million communications system is critical to fixing seven "dead spots" around the city where police, firefighter and paramedic radios don't work, jeopardizing first responders and citizens in an emergency.
Denver Fire Chief Larry Trujillo said without the new system the city risks a tragedy like 9/11, when hundreds of New York firefighters died because their radios didn't work inside the crumbling World Trade Center towers and orders to evacuate went unheard.
"I'm not here to say where this (tower) should go. I'm just telling you that we need to have this," Trujillo told the council's Blueprint Denver Committee.
"We are talking life-and-death communication. We have been so blessed to not have it cost a firefighter's life . . . or a police officer or a paramedic or maybe your child at home."
The zoning change is required because city law does not allow for a free-standing emergency tower that's not attached to a police or fire station.
More than 20 southeast Denver residents packed the meeting but were not allowed to speak because it wasn't a public hearing.
Christopher Juniper and Kristen Hannum, a couple whose home borders the proposed Happy Canyon Road tower site, praised the city for hunting alternative locations.
But they say they're unhappy the draft ordinance only requires the city to notify homeowners within 500 feet of a proposed emergency tower site.
The City Council is expected to hold a public hearing and vote on the zoning change in late April.
Residents' protest of S.E. Denver site rouses 30-day study
By Alan Gathright, Rocky Mountain News
March 9, 2006
A Denver City Council committee Wednesday endorsed a citywide zoning change that would allow a 200-foot radio tower in non-residential areas.
But faced with residents' outcry over plans to plant the tower on "non-residential" Denver Water Department land surrounded by southeast neighborhoods, the city will take 30 days to study alternative sites for the big antenna.
Officials stressed that completing the new $10 million communications system is critical to fixing seven "dead spots" around the city where police, firefighter and paramedic radios don't work, jeopardizing first responders and citizens in an emergency.
Denver Fire Chief Larry Trujillo said without the new system the city risks a tragedy like 9/11, when hundreds of New York firefighters died because their radios didn't work inside the crumbling World Trade Center towers and orders to evacuate went unheard.
"I'm not here to say where this (tower) should go. I'm just telling you that we need to have this," Trujillo told the council's Blueprint Denver Committee.
"We are talking life-and-death communication. We have been so blessed to not have it cost a firefighter's life . . . or a police officer or a paramedic or maybe your child at home."
The zoning change is required because city law does not allow for a free-standing emergency tower that's not attached to a police or fire station.
More than 20 southeast Denver residents packed the meeting but were not allowed to speak because it wasn't a public hearing.
Christopher Juniper and Kristen Hannum, a couple whose home borders the proposed Happy Canyon Road tower site, praised the city for hunting alternative locations.
But they say they're unhappy the draft ordinance only requires the city to notify homeowners within 500 feet of a proposed emergency tower site.
The City Council is expected to hold a public hearing and vote on the zoning change in late April.
