Tidal Network, an internet service run by the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, applied to construct a cell tower in a residential area of Sitka this spring. Sitka allows cell towers up to 35 feet tall in residential zones, but anything taller requires an additional permit. Tidal Network wanted to build a 120 foot tower. In April, the Sitka Planning Commission denied the request.
On August 21, Judge Max Garner, from the Office of Administrative Hearings in Anchorage, oversaw the hearing of Tidal Network’s appeal. Garner stood in for the Sitka Assembly, after several members were conflicted out of hearing the appeal in June.
Municipal attorney Rachel Jones said the city wasn’t denying that Tidal could build a tower- just denying one that tall. Jones said, among the several reasons for the commission’s denial, there was limited evidence that a 35-foot tower would not provide sufficient coverage in the area.
“They’ve got a right to build the 35 foot tower, they’ve got a right to put that public utility infrastructure in, and they admitted on the record that it would provide some coverage,” Jones said. “Whether that coverage is optimized for their business plan, whether it’s optimized for their federal grants, the terms of which they also did not submit to the planning commission, is only Sitka’s problem if it’s denying them a property right. If it’s not optimizing their property right, that’s a problem for their business plan.”
But Douglas Bonner, an attorney representing Tidal Network, said they had provided the commission with an expert who said the shorter tower would provide only 25% of the coverage of the 120 foot tower. Bonner said Tidal Network had met its burden to demonstrate a significant coverage gap in the area that the tower would address. At that point, he said it was on the city to find an alternative.
“It was incumbent upon the city to show the existence of some potentially available and technologically feasible alternative to the proposed location,” Bonner said. “Unfortunately, the city failed to meet its burden.”
Alysha Guthrie is the economic development director for the Sitka Tribe of Alaska. She said STA was issued a broadband license from the Federal Communications Commission in 2021. STA and Tlingit and Haida have entered an agreement to protect that spectrum and ultimately provide more robust internet service to Sitka.
“Without the variance, the 35 foot tower would serve between 1000 to 1500 citizens,” Guthrie said. “With this variance approval, the capacity increases five-fold, with up to 5000 citizens being served.”
While the tower has supporters, it has also seen pushback from neighbors who are concerned about its construction. Attorney Scott McCollough represented a group of them called “Sitkans for Safe Tech.” He said a major concern was the construction of the tower behind homes on a steep hillside.
“But you need to very carefully take a look at where they’re proposing to put this thing, because if that tower or the pad that it’s sitting on were to move in any respect, it’s going to hit these folks,” McCollough said. “It’s going to put their life and their property at risk, and that’s why we’re all here today.”
Bonner, representing Tidal Network, challenged that suggestion.
“The hyperbole about putting people at risk is really silly,” Bonner said. “The purpose for this tower is to install safe and build safe infrastructure to serve the community. Tlingit and Haida is not in the business of putting people at risk or putting its investment at risk.”
After hearing arguments from all sides and a rebuttal from the city, Judge Garner requested more information from Tidal Network. Garner said he will issue a decision by September 12.
