The Denton City Council voted 6-1 Tuesday to approve a request from the Denton County Transportation Authority to build a 180-foot communication tower just outside the Southeast Denton neighborhood.
The tower is planned on a 15-acre property owned by DCTA east of Teasley Lane and south of Kerley Street. It will be about 750 feet from the nearest home, according to information provided by DCTA.
Council members tabled the request last month after area residents raised concerns about the tower's height, potential radiation and possible interference with radio and TV signals.
DCTA officials attended the meeting Tuesday to support the tower, saying it was critical to the safe operation of the A-train passenger rail line between Denton and Carrollton. The tower will back up a radio tower in Lewisville and ensure reliable communications between trains and dispatchers along the 21-mile rail corridor, DCTA officials said.
They said the alternative - building more, shorter towers - would be costly and create more potential points of failure in the system. It would also jeopardize the start of passenger service in late June, DCTA President Jim Witt said.
DCTA hired an engineering firm, Irving-based Trott Communications Group Inc., to study the tower's potential effects on the surrounding area.
Raymond Trott, the company president, said interference with broadcast signals would be unlikely.
Radio-frequency emissions in the neighborhood would be thousands of times below standards set by the Federal Communications Commission, he said.
Council members approved the tower with several conditions, including that DCTA monitor interference complaints and report back in six months.
Charlye Heggins, whose district includes Southeast Denton, voted against the tower, saying it didn't belong near a neighborhood.
DCTA has received federal grant funds to pay for landscaping and other screening between the site and the neighborhood and is forming an advisory committee to help allocate the money, officials said.
Kerley Street resident Samuel Marshall called the proposed vegetative buffer a "joke."
"They had trees over there and they cut them down," he said after the vote. "They [DCTA] got what they wanted, and we got the shaft."
Airport board survives
The council also approved a plan allowing the citizen advisory board for Denton Airport to survive with a slightly diminished role.
The longstanding Denton Airport Advisory Board will remain but will no longer review airport leases and contracts, which will go to a newly formed three-member council subcommittee.
The city's airport manager, Quentin Hix, will continue handling day-to-day operations.
The action followed a vote last month to expand the city's Economic Development Partnership Board to handle airport branding, marketing and development incentives.
It ends months of work by members of the city staff, council and airport board on a divisive issue.
The result is a governing structure in which airport-related duties will be split four ways among the advisory board, the council subcommittee, the economic development board and the airport manager.
Council members turned down several city staff proposals seeking to dissolve or significantly alter the council-appointed advisory board as part of a shakeup designed to spur economic development.
The latest plan, proposed Tuesday, would have renamed the board and stripped it of most duties not related to safety or operations.
Airport board members fought the proposal, saying the current system had worked well for decades in spurring airport growth.
Other action
Also Tuesday, the council:
• Passed a "vulnerable road user" ordinance designed to offer better protections for pedestrians, cyclists and people whose jobs force them to work around roadways.
The ordinance sets a safe passing distance of 3 feet for cars or light trucks and 6 feet for commercial vehicles. Violators could face $200 fines.
The ordinance is based on similar laws in 16 states and several Texas cities, including San Antonio and Austin, city officials said.
• Awarded a one-year, $85,000 contract to Denton-based Interfaith Ministries to continue operating the Plus One utility assistance program for low-income households.
The contract provides $75,000 for customer aid and $10,000 for administrative costs.
The program relied on utility customer donations in the past, but city officials say hundreds of qualified applicants are turned away yearly because of a lack of funds.
Council members, who doubled the utility bill late fee last year, informally agreed in February to use some of the revenue stream to directly fund Plus One.
LOWELL BROWN can be reached at 940-566-6882. His e-mail address is lmbrown@dentonrc.com .
