This is an email distributed by our friends at “The Short Hill Rescue Community Group”.

AT&T’s proposed monopole on Short Hill Mountain at 12355 White Rock Road, Purcellville, VA 20132, is indicated on the plats as a 150 foot structure capped with a 5 foot antenna.  The proposed location for the monopole, at approximately 1,424 feet altitude, already has clear line of sight and unobstructed terrain from that spot to Hagerstown, Maryland, to Waldorf, Maryland, and to all the way to Washington DC, which were the original reasons AT&T acquired the land in 1962-1963.  

 To provide commercial cellular communications in western Loudoun, AT&T would need only a pole that clears the top of the tree line on the subject site, which typically calls for at the most, an 80 foot pole. Therefore this proposed monopole is at least 70 feet too high for any public cellular use AT&T is claiming.

We, the Short Hill Rescue Community Group, thank the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, the Planning Commission, the Communications Commission, and staff in the Department of Planning and Zoning, for the opportunity to communicate our initial concerns with the application PRAP-2018-0041 from American Telephone & Telegraph of Virginia, seeking a Special Exception from existing zoning ordinances, in order to erect a 155’ telecommunications monopole on land zoned AR-1, on the ridge line of Short Hill Mountain.  Our concerns are in the attached PDF.
 
Zoning Ordinance Protects Ridge Line in Loudoun County.  Loudoun County’s revised 1993 Zoning Ordinance, Section 5-618 states that “Telecommunications monopoles shall not be located along ridge lines, but downslope from the top of ridge lines, to protect views of the Catoctin, Bull Run, Hogback, Short Hill, and Blue Ridge Mountains.”  This application from AT&T would place the proposed monopole directly on the ridge line, on property located at 12355 White Rock Road, Purcellville, VA 20132, tax identification number 477387669000.  This above-quoted ordinance protecting the ridge lines is a criteria that even Special Exceptions are subject to, per 5-516 B (3).

2018-04-09 AT&T Monopole PRAP Meeting Concerns List from ShortHill Rescue