By Jeanne Sager
SULLIVAN COUNTY — November 27, 2001 – Placing a wireless call in Sullivan County is getting easier every day.
Cell towers popping up across the county are making a once-impossible call more and more feasible as customers travel across the area, cell phone in hand.
According to Alan Sorensen, commissioner of Planning and Community Development for the county, at least 18 new towers are scheduled for construction in the next year, scattered from the Town of Thompson to the Town of Delaware.
“They’re all kind of in the planning stages right now,” Sorensen said. “But some of these applications you will probably see under construction in the near future.”
The towers currently on the agenda for construction will be situated in the towns of Rockland, Liberty, Thompson, Delaware, Tusten and Highland.
Others, Sorensen said, are expected to be erected sometime in the next year.
The surging number of towers coming into the county is due mostly to the enormous gaps in service which exist in the area, Sorensen said.
Both tower-building companies — which erect the structures and then seek out wireless providers to rent the tower — and cell providers have responded to the need for coverage in the area, Sorensen said.
Each company is required to approach the local planning commissions in the towns where the towers are expected to be built.
Companies that wish to build within 500 feet of a county road are also required to approach the county for permission.
According to Sorensen, the newest towers proposed for the county have all been addressed by county or town officials.
“We’ve responded to all the applications that have come across my desk,” Sorensen said. “Most have gone before the towns as well.”
Proposed cell tower locations include:
• Rockland: two in Roscoe, three in Livingston Manor and one in Morrston.
• Thompson: two in Harris and three in Rock Hill.
• Delaware: two in Hortonville (one was recently approved by the planning board and will be built to look like a tree on property owned by Joe DeFalco).
• Tusten: two near Narrowsburg.
• Highland: two in Eldred.
• Mamakating: one near Yankee Lake.
• Liberty: one in Ferndale.
• Forestburgh: one at the town’s border with Orange County, near Route 42.