To the editor:
When we moved to Hillsborough 27 years ago we carefully chose our house and neighborhood – by Woods Road School. Now a select group of Woods Road firemen want to get paid a monthly fee to have a 126- to 150-foot cell phone tower. Our tax dollars already pay for all of the fire department equipment, training, vehicles, tools and expenses except for the building and land.
This cell tower installation will require the township to grant variances to put this tower within 120 feet of residences versus the zoning (requirement) of 1,000 feet. This tower will also be 940 feet to the property line of Woods Road School and loom over the school.
Do you think prospective homeowners will want their children attending Woods Road School with a tower so close? I would not have picked the house I am currently in for this exact reason. This will lower the property values of our homes by 10 percent to 22 percent — which on an average $300,000 house would be between $30,000 and $66,000! This will cause a massive group of homeowners to demand that their homes be revalued for tax purposes, which means the town could lose a substantial amount of income.
In the long run, if the Zoning Board grants Verizon the permission it wants, any property in Hillsborough will be open up to other carriers demanding the same variance. They would be setting a dangerous precedence for the future of our town.
Please join with your neighbors to fight the select group of fireman (who do not live at the firehouse) and Verizon to put a halt to this project that is effecting hundreds and hundreds of homeowners.
Let Hillsborough residents continue to live “The Good Life.“
Barbara Kaulius
Hillsborough
Editor’s note: The application before the township zoning Board of Adjustment continues Wednesday, starting at 7:30 p.m., in the municipal building on South Branch Road.
