Hoover board to consider taller cell phone tower in Greystone

Crown Castle is asking the city of Hoover for permission to replace a 90-foot-tall cell phone tower in the Greystone Crest community with a 120-foot-tall tower.

The new, taller tower is needed to accommodate Verizon Wireless’ desire to provide better coverage in the Greystone area, according to an application filed with the city by Crown Castle.

Verizon wanted to add its equipment onto the existing cell tower in Greystone Crest, which currently serves several other cell phone companies, but the existing tower will not structurally accommodate the Verizon equipment, Crown Castle said in its application.

Verizon Wireless’ existing signal in the Greystone residential and commercial areas along U.S. 280 is too weak and not adequate to provide acceptable voice and data transmission speeds to customers inside buildings, according to information filed with the cell tower application.

There are no existing cell towers in the Greystone residential area that Verizon can use, and “due to the hilly terrain, we cannot provide coverage in the Greystone subdivision unless we have a site at that location,” according to the information from Verizon.

The existing 90-foot-tall tower is barely visible from homes in Greystone Crest but can be seen from the neighboring Greystone Farms community.

A map that accompanies the application indicates that Verizon plans to add five new sites for cellular communications in the Greystone area, including the one in Greystone Crest, to supplement three existing sites.

The Hoover Board of Zoning Adjustment is scheduled to consider the variance request from Crown Castle concerning a new cell tower at its 7 p.m. meeting on Thursday, Oct. 5. The meeting will be in the William J. Billingsley Council Chambers at the Hoover Municipal Center at 100 Municipal Lane.