A 150-foot cell tower looms over Middleburg

By Laura Longley

On July 26, the Loudoun County Planning Commission took a vote to deny a recommendation to the Board of Supervisors that would have supported approval of a 150-foot tower to be constructed by a private telecommunications development company, Milestone Towers, at the Mickie Gordon Memorial Park on Rt. 50 just east of historic Middleburg.

The purpose of the tower is to cover a gap in cell service between the Village of Aldie and the Town of Middleburg. Through a Master License Agreement between Milestone and Loudoun County Public Schools that was signed in August 2020, the telecommunication firm may construct facilities, including towers, on LCPS-owned property. 

LCPS owns the 99-acre Mickie Gordon Park and leases it to Loudoun County Parks, Recreation, and Community Services. A popular place for outings and sports, it features a lighted baseball field, three soccer fields, three more baseball fields, two tennis courts, a Little League field, a picnic pavilion, and a small pond for fishing. 

Milestone Towers would build the tower at no cost to LCPS or Loudoun County. LCPS would receive a $40,000 site fee from Milestone and 40 percent of gross revenues that the public-private project promises to yield for the school district. According to Milestone, that amounts to a $30,000 to $40,000 annual contribution to the school—not a number, however, that will make much of a dent in a school district budget of $1.5 billion.

Since LCPS gave Milestone Towers a green light for the monopole and multiple service providers, such as T-Mobile, opposition has mounted among environmental, conservation, and preservation organizations, as well as enterprises at the core of Loudoun’s rural economy—the equine community, owners of vineyards, wineries, breweries, resorts, special event venues, pick-your-own farms, and cattle, goats, sheep, poultry operations, and more.

To address the concerns of these constituencies, Milestone agreed to make modest changes in tower placement, paint colors, screening, and a reduction in height, from 185 to 150 feet, which required negotiations with AT&T. While AT&T is the primary service provider for the Mickie Gordon Park tower, it is not the owner. The AT&T tower proposed for the ridgeline of the Short Hill and recently denied by the Board of Supervisors would have been built on AT&T-owned land and thus owned by AT&T.

Whatever color it is painted or how it is screened, the tower would still be visible in the area between Middleburg and Aldie and the surrounding countryside. Several residents pointed out that the tower would be the major feature on the horizon as visitors from the east enter “D.C.’s Wine Country,” Visit Loudoun’s promotional moniker for the County. That horizon currently presents unparalleled views of the Blue Ridge and Bull Run mountains.

While the Commission was prepared to vote to go into a work session, Milestone refused to extend the review period and develop additional studies.

Milestone, the firm’s representative advised the commissioners, “could get language that they proposed to enter into the SLA”—service-level agreement—” show that to staff, draft, and come back to you and inform you where the school board was okay.”

Several commissioners, including Roger Vance (Blue Ridge), Jane Kirchner (Algonkian), and Forest Hayes (Chairman, At-Large), expressed their disappointment at Milestone’s refusal to extend the timeline and engage in a work session.

Kirchner said she would have welcomed an opportunity to investigate issues raised by the public. “This was not ‘Oh, I don’t like it.’ They gave us very specific issues to look at…I have a list here—1,2,3,4,5,6—items that I was going to list to get more information.”

Barnes added, “I will say that, like so many of my colleagues have mentioned, if we had additional time, I would have worked diligently with everyone else to find a way to help improve and get this particular application to a place where we could have had a different outcome—only because I find from our previous experience with this company that they were willing to work with us.” Barnes went on to address a key underlying issue. “We must embrace the state-of-the-art technology…I think there are ways to increase the [cell phone] coverage that don’t include towers, and we won’t have all this pushback from citizens…We all know that 5g antenna across existing infrastructure and public buildings can create the same impact. I don’t know why we won’t do that. But we keep on talking about 150 feet versus 180 feet … For each and every application we go through the same thing. We’ve got to change this conversation and find new tech, and if doesn’t exist, somebody needs to invent it. 

“Nobody wants the towers cluttering up the viewshed in Middleburg,” Barnes concluded. “I refuse to believe that this is the only way we can bring broadband to Middleburg. I do want to see an independent study that tells me this is the only way we can go about doing it.”

Without a work session or the recommendation to the Board of Supervisors to approve the Mickie Gordon Park project, Milestone’s option now is to appeal the Planning Commission’s denial to the Board of Supervisors, whose next meeting is in Sept. 6 (CK).