Cell tower unlikely to generate complaints from residents

Much to Dan Kantar's irritation, sometimes his cell phone connection fades when he's at work at Adath Yeshurun Cemetery in Edina.

"I hate to call it a dead zone, but we have a lot of dropped calls in the area, and we're in the center of it," he said.

Sprint has a plan to fix that kind of problem.

If Edina approves, the company will erect a 70-foot cell phone tower at the center of the historic cemetery at France Avenue and 56th Street. But first, the city must change its ordinances to allow such an installation.

While similar proposals have stirred controversy and cries of sacrilege in places like Cleveland, Boston and Chicago, the Edina proposal has sailed through the city's planning commission and quickly cleared its first City Council hurdle this week. No one spoke at a public hearing on the rules change.

City officials say the fact that Edina doesn't allow cell towers in cemeteries is simply an oversight in city regulations.

If the council approves, cemeteries would join public property like parks and other places such as golf courses as areas where cell towers can be built with a permit.

According to an Edina survey, ordinances in Bloomington, St. Louis Park, Apple Valley, Minnetonka, Plymouth, Wayzata, Richfield, Lakeville, New Brighton and Burnsville all would allow a cell phone tower in a cemetery with a conditional use permit.

In many ways, cemeteries are ideal locations for cell towers. Putting a tower in the middle of a cemetery keeps it away from residential areas where homeowners object. Mature trees can help hide a tower.

And in an age when cremation is increasingly popular and people are scattering ashes rather than buying a burial plot, cemeteries operators are eager for the steady income a wireless tower can bring.

"We're a little cemetery. This really does help us because all our costs are going up," said Kantar, the cemetery manager. "Our watering bill last year was almost $5,000. ... It generates a little bit of extra income [to help] with our costs for diesel fuel, electricity and other stuff."

Kantar declined to say how much Sprint would pay the cemetery to put in the "stealth" tower, which would be painted brown and would hide its antennas under a metal sheath.

Steve Trueman, a Maple Grove consultant who found the cemetery site for Sprint, said finding good sites like cemeteries is getting more difficult.

"You have to get creative sometimes," Trueman said. "We get caught in a Catch-22. Everybody says, 'We want better service, but I don't want [a tower] in my back yard.' "

When Kantar works in the lower part of the cemetery, he said, his cell phone is always getting disconnected. But he doesn't know if his service will benefit if the Sprint tower goes in.

"I have a different cell phone company," he said.

Mary Jane Smetanka • 612-673-7380