The apartment building contains around 26 units and occupies two lots in an R1 (residential zone). Omnipoint needs to get a use variance to allow a wireless communications facility in a residential area as well as a front yard setback and a building height variance. Omnipoint would need a "d" variance for the height because the proposed antenna height of 55 feet and three inches is over 10 percent in excess of the 35-foot maximum allowable in an R1 zone. The pre-existing building by itself exceeds the allowable height for the area.

Most of the equipment would go on the roof of the building. The project's plans indicate several of the antennae would be disguised to look like chimneys from the ground, according to construction official John Uhl. However, the plan also indicates additional heavy equipment would be placed on the ground behind the building next to an immediately joining private residence on Carmita Avenue.

"The applicant should address how access to the rear of the building will be provided for maintenance vehicles and any potential for interference with fire escapes," according to a letter from former borough engineer Ralph Tango, who reviewed the application when it was first submitted last year. "The placement of the equipment cabinets and the relocation of six bins to the rear property line may have a negative visual impact on the adjoining property."

Fees and payments

The borough doesn't receive any rent or fees for cell towers placed on private property in the borough. However, the increase in the property's value caused by the tower gets factored into the lot's assessment, resulting in a higher property tax intake for the town. Felician College, which otherwise doesn't pay property taxes because it is a religious institution, paid the borough $41,000 in taxes on a particular plot of land that houses a cell tower, according to Rutherford tax collector Caryn Miller. According to Miller, the plot is taxed because the college generates a profit from it.

In addition to the tower at Felician, Rutherford houses several other cell towers on the highways, at the Renaissance Hotel, on Chestnut Street and at the police station.

The cell tower at the police station was built several years ago and is rented by three different companies, Spring Nextel, AT&T Cingular and Omnipoint, according to Rutherford's Chief Financial Officer Ed Cortright. Between the three renters, Rutherford made about $100,000 in fees in 2007. According to Cortright, the companies' contracts with the borough include three-percent annual increases on those fees.

However, last month the New York-based company Wireless Capital Partners proposed an offer to lease the tower for the next 40 years. In exchange, the borough would receive a lump payment of $902,283 up front. If the borough didn't lease the tower and the fees paid by the companies currently renting the tower were to remain constant, the borough could expect to make over $4 million in the next 40 years.

However, Cortright noted that there could be significant technological changes in that time that could make the tower less profitable.

"What happens if this [becomes] obsolete?" asked Cortright. "Forty years ago we had rotary phones and fax machines." The mayor and council are currently considering the proposal.