Radio Towers

BY GIVING WCBM-AM a conditional use permit to construct six radio towers on farm property off Hoods Mill Road in southern Carroll, the county's Board of Zoning Appeals has thrust the door wide open for other radio stations to place these monstrosities just about any place they please. Considering the obtrusive nature of large radio towers, the board should have paid more attention to the long-range implications of its action.Many stations would love to move their towers to Carroll, particularly those with facilities now on valuable real estate.

An Owings Mills radio station cleared one hurdle yesterday in its quest to build six 350-foot towers on a Carroll County farm.The Carroll Board of Zoning Appeals ruled that the rights of a longtime local farmer to sell his property to WCBM-AM override the concerns of adjoining property owners.Residents from Carroll and Howard counties protested the radio tower complex proposed for a 400-acre farm near Route 97 and the county line. Sale of the Hoods Mill Road property, owned by Harold Mercer, was contingent on the radio station winning the board's approval.

A plan to build six 350-foot radio towers in South Carroll is pitting neighbors against an Owings Mills business, a longtime landowner and amateur radio operators. And it might place the county commissioners at odds withRoad rounded up 25 people for a public hearing yesterday to back a proposed county ordinance that would kill the project.Those in favor of building the towers branded the proposed ordinance "spot zoning" introduced in reaction to the WCBM plan. The bill would would restrict radio towers to industrial sites.

Opponents of a proposal by a Baltimore radio station to place six transmission towers on a South Carroll farm finally got their chance to tell the Board of Zoning Appeals yesterday why the towers shouldn't be built.In the third day of hearings before the board, neighbors of the Mercer farm on Hoods Mill Road near Route 97 and the Howard County line told the three-member panel that the construction of the 350-foot towers would decrease property values, create ugly views and might pose unspecified medical dangers.

Although a newly drafted county ordinance might make the project illegal, the Board of Zoning Appeals continues its hearing at 9:30 a.m. today on a WCBM Radio proposal to build six towers on a South Carroll farm.The county has scheduled a public hearing at 9 a.m. Monday on the ordinance, drafted after the tower project was made public. It would limit multiple towers to industrial land.The owners of WCBM-AM radio plan to build six 350-foot towers on the Mercer farm on Hoods Mill Road, near Route 97 and the Howard County line.

Radio towers don't constitute job developmentWhoa! How can a radio towers "farm" in the county's southernmost parts, intended to enhance the signal of a Baltimore radio station so that it can reach more people to the south and east of Carroll County and which brings no jobs and only scant increase in tax revenues, be termed an "economic development" issue?The attorney for the applicant does protest too much when he says, "Anybody interested in putting commercial or industrial businesses in this county who sees this kind of thing happen [speaking of my efforts to block the towers]

While the county Board of Zoning Appeals considered radio towers on a Sykesville farm yesterday, the Carroll County commissioners were amending a year-old ordinance that would limit "tower clusters" to industrial land.WCBM-AM radio has an option to buy the 400-acre farm on Hoods Mill Road, near Route 97 and the Howard County line. The station, which no longer can serve its listeners from its four towers in Owings Mills, plans to build six 350-foot steel towers on about 55 acres.The sales contract, signed July 26 by farm owners Esther and Harold Mercer, is contingent on the station obtaining a conditional use from the zoning board.

Before a radio station builds six towers on farmland in Carroll County, it will have to reckon with residents who say they don't want their views of the sky altered.WCBM-AM Radio in Owings Mills in Baltimore County has purchased a 389-acre farm on Hoods Mill Road near Route 97 and the Howard County line, and plans to build six 350-foot towers on about 55 acres at the east end of the property."The towers will stretch across an area similar to the South Carroll High School campus," C. Michael Wheeler, an area resident, told about 125 residents of Carroll and Howard counties who met at the school last night.

Before a radio station builds six towers on farmland in Carroll County, it will have to reckon with residents who say they don't want their views of the sky altered.WCBM-AM Radio in Owings Mills in Baltimore County has purchased a 389-acre farm on Hoods Mill Road near Route 97 and the Howard County line, and plans to build six 350-foot towers on about 55 acres at the east end of the property."The towers will stretch across an area similar to the South Carroll High School campus," C. Michael Wheeler, an area resident, told about 125 residents of Carroll and Howard counties who met at the school last night.

Radio towers that provided key defense communications with Navy forces through World War II and the Cold War will be removed from a peninsula near Annapolis.The Navy, which gave the 231-acre peninsula to the Naval Academy last year as part of a nationwide base realignment, plans to take down up to 15 of the towers on the spit of land jutting into the Chesapeake Bay.The transmission station, commissioned in 1918 and tentatively set to close in January, provides very low frequency radio transmissions to the Navy's strategic and tactical submarines in the Atlantic Ocean and to NATO forces.