T-Mobile Abandons Plans for Franklin Lakes Cell Tower

T-Mobile has given up on its long-contested plans to construct a 130-foot cell tower behind the Urban Farms Shopping Center, Franklin Lakes announced Monday.

Hearings on the proposed tower, which the company said would have filled a gap in cell coverage in the south side of the borough, ended in a zoning board rejection of the application in late 2011.

The board had denied the company a variance, saying that the proposed location behind the Market Basket would not meet the 300-foot setback from residential property required under the borough code, and that it would have had a “significant negative visual impact” on the neighborhood.

Several other locations for the tower were considered, but in the end no alternative sites panned out.

A superior court judge overturned the zoning board’s decision last July, calling the rejection “arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable,” according to a report by northjersey.com.

The borough followed with its own appeal, continuing what in the end amounted to over a year and a half of litigation over the proposal.

“Just days before the scheduled oral argument on the appeal,” the borough wrote on its website, “the Zoning Board was advised by T-Mobile that [it] had decided to abandon its plan for the cell tower.”

The borough added that the company’s decision will prevent the future possibility of construction of a tower at the corner of Franklin Lake Road and High Mountain Avenue.

“As a result of this decision by T-Mobile, it will no longer be permitted to construct the cell tower,” the borough said. “After over 18 months of litigation, the matter has now been concluded and there will be no cell tower at this location.”