The Leelanau Township board could decide on a proposed telecommunications tower on Braman Hill as soon as next week’s regular board meeting.

A company working with Verizon Wireless wants a lease to put a 195-foot tower at Braman Hill Recreation Area, a 65-acre parcel owned by the township and beloved by many area residents. It’s intended to help address spotty cell phone service in the area, a long-standing problem that’s well-known to residents and government officials. 

The proposal is the most recent for a tower in the Northport area, with the township planning commission rejecting a similar sized tower on private property along Kitchen Road near Garthe Road early last year.

Commenters at an August public hearing on the matter expressed a laundry list of concerns about the proposed tower. Among these concerns are its impact on scenic views, safety for neighboring residents and the fact that it’s not expected to make a marked improvement to service in the north end of the township anyway.

“We got quite a bit of public comment, almost all of it negative,” Township Supervisor Barb Conley tells The Ticker. “Now the board needs to decide whether they're going to give this lease or not, and that is the question to be discussed on September 8th.”

Northport resident Eric Potes isn't opposed to a new (or enlarged) tower somewhere in the township, but he and several others feel that it just doesn't make sense to build one in a popular recreation area. 

“The proposed tower does not provide enough extra or new coverage for residents to justify scarring the Braman Hill skyline,” he tells The Ticker.

Conley acknowledged that concern. Projections show the tower would improve service in some areas, she says, but not all.

“Omena would get a little bit better coverage, but not wonderful along the shore. And the north part of the township, which is where arguably the most need is, would not get very much from this proposed new tower,” she says.

Doug Whitley, a longtime and very vocal supporter of improved telecommunications service in the township, says that shouldn’t be a dealbreaker.

“Cell phone service expansion should not be denied simply because a new tower will not provide service to every homeowner and parcel in the township,” he wrote in an essay provided to The Ticker. “It is a false promise to suggest or imply that every corner of the diverse geography in this township could be served by a new tower.”

Whitley has long hammered home the need for more and better service in the township, both for the safety of residents via emergency services and the health of businesses that need reliable phone and internet.

But Will Harper, a Northport village council member (not a township trustee, so he has no official say in the matter) says Braman Hill is not be the place to make it happen. 

“It is completely lost on you that the people of Northport will turn plowshares into swords and sharpen pitchforks against any attempt to build a cell tower on Braman Hill,” Harper wrote in a recent email to Whitley.

Photo credit: Will Harper