Some residents in West Lubbock are voicing their concerns about a recently installed cell phone tower in their neighborhood.
The 70-foot tall Verizon Wireless cell phone tower was placed right behind Agape United Methodist Church, located at 1215 Slide Road.
According to separation requirements by the city, the tower must stand 70 feet away from any residential structure.
So, should the tower ever collapse, it will not land on a house, however it may very well land on the church given it stands only 45 feet behind Agape United Methodist. This, along with other concerns is troubling to nearby residents, some who say were never notified about the tower’s construction in the first place.
Those within the 200 foot radius of the tower should have been notified. Some residents claim they were not.
“I believe we should have, for some tower going up the size of that, three houses down, yeah I think we should have gotten a notice,” said one resident, “Johnny,” who would prefer his last name not be used.
For Muge Darwish, a resident of the neighborhood for 19 years, says moving out is becoming more of a possibility as a result of the tower going up down the road from her.
“When I saw how close it was to residential, I was really surprised,” said Darwish. “I went to my neighbors and i asked them ‘do you know what kind of tower is that?’ and one of them said, ‘no clue.’”
For Darwish, in addition to not having received a notice, she says she is concerned about the church being in fall distance of the tower.
“What happens if that tower collapses it will go directly on the church or on the street?” said Darwish. “I really want to move out out of and sell my house and maybe i will go somewhere out of the town where there is no cell towers.”
According to Pastor Don Holladay of Agape United Methodist Church, talks of the Verizon Wireless tower’s placement with the cell phone carrier company initially began two years ago, in February of 2014. Installation of the tower began in January of 2016.
Pastor Holladay shared with EverythingLubbock that the church receives $1,000 a month from Verizon to have the tower there.
“For us we saw it as an opportunity to really help us reach out and extend our ministry a little bit more through the additional funds we would get which are really modest,” said Pastor Holladay. “Churches more and more are going to look at different options on how to fund their ministry.”
Pastor Holladay said that with the money generated from the tower, the church has been able to hire a lay new part-time lay minister and hopes to make repairs to the day care center adjacent to the church.
The City of Lubbock assures that the zoning department mailed out 32 notices to the residential area about its potential construction in September of 2015.
“Out of all those, 32 notifications, sometimes there are some duplications in there, but you can count on probably at least 25 notifications that would have landed somewhere, and those people had an opportunity to voice their concern at the zoning meeting,” said District six councilwoman Latrelle Joy.
Of the residents EverythingLubbock interviewed for the story, only one said they did receive a notice and that they “did not care” that the tower was placed close to their home. When asked for a copy of that notice, the resident said they did not have it.
EverythingLubbock has put in an Open Records Request for copies of the notices that should have been sent to the residents within the 200 mile radius of the tower, as well as copies of responses from those residents, if any. Once that information is received, we will make adjustments to the article to reflect those responses.