The Council of Greater Manhasset Civic Associations announced last Wednesday its opposition to the installation of a 75-foot utility pole at the southeast corner of Shelter Rock Road and Northern Boulevard, alongside Lord & Taylor.
“Shelter Rock Road and Northern Boulevard is a beautiful intersection,” said Richard Bentley, the president of the Council of Greater Manhasset Civic Associations. “Now this utility pole and antenna would be going up right at that intersection.”
“We don’t want the visual pollution,” Bentley added.
Nassau County Legislator Richard Nicollelo joined the civic groups on Thursday in opposing installation of the utility pole.
“I know there’s a sensitivity to this in the community so I have to make sure I’m representing what the community wants,” he said. “In this case it’s pretty clear they don’t want something like this.”
Mobilitie, a wireless infrastructure provider, submitted an application to Nassau County on Aug. 18 for the pole.
The company said the pole was part of its effort to provide high-speed, high-capacity bandwidth for the next generation of devices and data-driven services, according to a report given to the Council of Greater Manhasset Civic Associations.
If erected, the pole would be part of a “small cell site,” which also includes a “low-powered wireless facility,” a “transmit-receive antenna that communicates with wireless devices,” and other equipment, the company said in response to questions from the civic associations. The small cell site would “add coverage and capacity to the existing wireless networks” since Mobilitie “discovered a coverage need in Manhasset where service can be ‘spotty’ or ‘slow,’” the company said.
Nicollelo said the company’s application for the installation of the 75-foot pole was on hold with the Nassau County Department of Public Works. It put the application on hold because it needs to determine how best to address a recent spike in such utility pole requests, Nicollelo said.
Mobilitie sought a permit with the Department of Public Works because the county owns the portion of the intersection at which the pole will be installed, Nicollelo said.
Bentley said he opposes the proposed pole in part because redundant utility poles have run along Northern Boulevard since 2015, when the Long Island Power Authority installed a high-voltage transmission facility.
“The community was promised that existing poles along the concurrent path would be removed and wires relocated to the new larger poles,” he said. “To date, there remains a long line of duplicate poles.”
Bentley and Nicollelo both vowed to fight the application if it moves forward.
Attempts to reach officials at the Department of Public Works were unavailing.
