The Village of Plandome will hold a public hearing on an application from ExteNet Systems on Monday, Nov. 18, as the latest in a series of villages considering cell nodes within their limits.
The hearing comes in the wake of the Village of Flower Hill receiving a date for a conference in federal court in Brooklyn with the wireless infrastructure provider.
Officials from Plandome previously met with representatives from Elite Towers in July. A 71-page application filed with the village on Oct. 17 includes a map detailing the proposed 10 cell nodes.
Three nodes would replace wood poles on Plandome Road, Rockwood Road and Dogwood Lane. Two nodes would be new wooden poles, one on the end of the Woodedge Road cul-de-sac and the other on Rockwood Road near the Long Island Rail Road’s Plandome station. Another two nodes would be placed within “stealth poles” next to trees on The Ridge and North Drive.
One node would be placed on an existing metal lattice tower on Plandome Drive in a corner of the Village Green, another on an existing wooden light pole on Rockwood Road, and one more on an existing wooden pole on Rockwood Road West.
Village of Plandome officials would not comment on the upcoming hearing.
Verizon Wireless had contracted ExteNet four years ago to install small cell devices in a number of Long Island communities, in order to improve local 4G and later 5G networks.
In Flower Hill, ExteNet had originally applied with the village in 2017, before the board implemented a yearlong moratorium on cell nodes to last from August 2017 to August 2018.
“The moratorium enacted by the Board, by its terms, expired August 1, 2018,” materials from ExteNet’s lawsuit state. “However, in practice, a de facto moratorium continued to be in effect post-August 1, 2018.”
After its application for 18 cell nodes was rejected by Flower Hill’s Board of Trustees in September, ExteNet sued the village, contending that their determination that ExteNet had provided the board with a special permit application with conflicting plans and options instead of “specific alternate plans” is a “charade.”
A call for comment to ExteNet’s legal department was not immediately returned.
Another call, to Flower Hill village attorney Edward Ross, of the Garden City-based firm Rosenberg, Calica and Birney, was also not immediately returned, though Village Clerk Ronnie Shatzkamer confirmed that Flower Hill and ExteNet will next meet on Dec. 17, for a conference before a federal judge in Brooklyn.
Plandome’s ExteNet hearing will take place Monday, Nov. 18 at the Village Clerk’s Office at 65 South Drive at 8:00 p.m.
