By HENRY A. STEPHENS

INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — The Sprint Nextel Corp. this week got the county's approval to put a cell-phone antenna inside a new 100-foot flagpole in the 6200 block of 37th Street.
But the company failed to get approval for a new 100-foot tower west of St. John of the Cross Catholic Church in the 7400 block of 26th Street.

Greene addressed the county Planning and Zoning Commission on Thursday before getting a 5-0 vote approving a county permit for the 37th Street tower.

"I'm glad this room isn't as full as it was Tuesday," he said in the County Commission Chambers.

That was the day St. John of the Cross parishioners packed the audience and opposed the 26th Street tower proposal, prompting County Commissioner Tom Lowther to win a 3-2 vote to deny it.

It's a tale of two towers under two different circumstances.

Greene, project manager for Value Concepts Inc. of Lawrenceville, Ga., scouts new locations for possible towers for Sprint Nextel.

Thursday he proposed a tower to be located inside a flagpole on the 10-acre property of the Indian River Riding Club Inc., 6250 37th St., to meet the increasing needs of the telecommunications giant's customers.

The hidden or "stealth" tower will be located on a 900 square-foot leased parcel in the north half of the equestrian club's property, county Senior Planner Brian Freeman said.

He said Nextel would need only an administrative permit from the planning board — and not approval from the County Commission — since the county favors stealth towers.

"This is a way of encouraging more towers that don't look like towers," Freeman said Friday.

The tower on the 37-acre property of Bob Cook, northwest of 26th Street and 74th Avenue, however, would have looked like a tower. Planners call the plain tower style a "monopole."

And while St. John of the Cross parishioners agreed it was far enough from the church to be unobtrusive, they were concerned about microwave radiation.

"Science has not yet determined the amount of damage to the human body," said the Rev. John Crowley, the church's pastor.

Nextel needed the County Commission's approval for the monopole as a special exception to agricultural zoning, Freeman said.

Crowley urged commissioners to think of the residents' health and safety. Lowther suggested Greene look two miles farther north for the site.

"I don't think this is the only location where a cell tower can operate," Lowther said.

He won votes from commissioners Wesley Davis and Sandra Bowden to deny the tower site. Chairman Art Neuberger and Vice Chairman Gary Wheeler dissented, citing the need for better cell connections.

A previous board of commissioners in 2001 denied Nextel's request to erect a new tower on the site of Immanuel Baptist Church at 455 S.W. 58th Ave. That prompted the company to sue in federal court, after which U.S. District Judge James C. Paine of Miami ordered the county to grant the permit.

The county failed to meet the U.S. Telecommunications Act of 1996's requirements of "substantial evidence" in denying the permit, the judge ruled.

The same act prevents local governments from setting standards for microwave exposure, reserving that right for the Federal Communications Commission, Sprint Nextel spokeswoman Nancy Schwartz said Friday.

She said the company hasn't determined how to respond to Tuesday's denial and would be consulting with county planners.

"We do need that site in order to ensure the customer's experience with us is seamless," she said.

THE TOWER PLAN

Indian River County's 2002 master plan for cell-phone towers provides for various types, in order of preference:

• "Co-located" towers, where a wireless provider would share a site with another user, such as a radio broadcaster.

• Those attached to buildings, water towers or utility poles.

• Those that would replace existing towers.

• "Stealth" towers, placed inside other structures, such as clock towers, or otherwise disguised.

• New towers, the least preferred. And they will be single poles, not lattice structures.