Board of Appeals to Permit Cell Tower next to Cresthaven ES

Cell tower at Daly Elementary School in Germantown

T-Mobile filed a “Request to Extend Time“ with the Montgomery County Board of Appeals , concerning special exception S-2709, which authorizes a cell tower next to Cresthaven Elementary School. 

The Montgomery County Board of Appeals is scheduled to take up the request at its Wednesday February 4^th worksession, which will be held at 9:30am, in Second Floor Davidson Memorial Hearing Room of the Stella B. Werner Council Office Building, 100 Maryland Ave, Rockville, Maryland 20850.

The details of the request reveal that T-Mobile wants an extension of time to modify the design of the cell tower facility. Parents and neighborhood residents concerned that the planned modifications for this telecommunications facility would in one way or another result in something larger, uglier, and more detrimental to Cresthaven Elementary School and the surrounding neighborhood.

The Montgomery County Board of Appeals approved this cell tower in 2011. The current deadline to secure the cell tower facility construction permits is April 22, 2015. If this deadline is not met, and if the applicants are not granted the extension of time, then the rights granted under the special exception to have a cell tower facility will expire. A request for a new special exception could subsequently be filed. However, recent clarifications to the Zoning Ordinance now make it difficult and perhaps impossible for a cell tower to be granted a special exception at the WHSC property.

Parents and neighborhood residents say the cell tower would be dangerously close to Cresthaven Elementary School and a threat to surrounding homes and the neighborhood. They are asking the Montgomery County  Board of Appeals to deny this “Request to Extend Time.”