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NORTH CANAAN — For five years, Jeremy Kaminski drove the 500-mile round trip from Philadelphia to North Canaan at least every other weekend. His love for this area grew almost as fast as his love for hometown girl Ashleigh Bergenty. He finally moved here — and now the couple just got word they have been selected as a partner family with Habitat for Humanity of Northwest Connecticut. Construction is expected to start as soon as weather permits at a site off of Salisbury Road (Route 44). It is almost directly across the street from where Bergenty grew up.“This is the greatest gift we’ve ever gotten in our lives,” Kaminski said. When contacted this past Sunday, he said Ashleigh was out with her mom, Debbie Bergenty, shopping for “furniture we can’t afford.”“She’s not really going to buy anything, but she’s so excited, she had to do something.”For Kaminski, the home they will help build seals his chosen fate to remain here. He likes being just a visitor to “the city” now (his mom still lives in Philly) and being able to enjoy the country full time — and go fishing whenever he wants. The couple’s new home will be adjacent to the Housatonic River.It will be the ninth build for Habitat for Humanity of Northwest Connecticut, and the first in North Canaan. The lot was acquired as part of a subdivision on the riverfront property.The couple who will eventually live there met on the Internet in 2002. About three years ago, Bergenty invited Kaminski to live here with her. She had moved into the apartment above her grandparents’ home on West Main Street. They settled into a happy life, which now includes Hunter James, their English springer spaniel, and guinea pigs Jack and Willy. She is the executive director at Wangum Village, a retirement community in North Canaan. He works at Hamilton Books in Falls Village.Meanwhile, they have been saving and looking for a home to buy. They’ve found that even though it’s supposed to be a buyer’s market sellers are not budging on their asking prices. “And everytime we get some money together for a down payment, something happens, like car repairs. It’s really hard to get ahead,” Kaminski said.A concern for their future is Bergenty’s multiple sclerosis, which may one day affect her mobility. The home will be on one story. That’s a typical Habitat approach — the organization feels it makes for safer builds — but it’s essential for this Habitat partner family. It will have two bedrooms and one large bathroom, with extra wide doorways.“We’re excited that it will be very green,” Kaminski said. “It will be built with things like a tankless hot water heater and radiant heat in the slab.”When visited at their home the next day, Bergenty said that, no, she had not (yet) bought any new furniture.It was she who received the phone call from Habitat, on April 1. When she called Kaminski, he was dubious.“But then I told myself it had to be true,” he said. “I couldn’t believe she would be so cruel as to make a joke out of that.”The word quickly spread among family, who also had to be reassured it wasn’t an April Fool’s Day prank.Bergenty said she is happy they will be living so close to her parents. Her brother, Joshua, has a home a short way down Salisbury Road. She will miss the convenience of walking in the town center — but the trade off is that it will be a quick trip to the river for fishing, and for swims for Hunter.Kaminski said they weren’t told specifically why they were selected, but that they are humbled by the honor. At the same time, he believes they deserve it, because they have the mindset of being community givers. “I know I want to volunteer for Habitat through the future. I am going to make sure building our home is not the end of the relationship.”
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Telecom Reg’s Best Kept On the Books
When Connecticut land-use commissions update their regulations, it seems like a no-brainer to jettison old telecommunications regulations adopted decades ago during a short-lived period when municipalities had authority to regulate second generation (2G) transmissions prior to the Connecticut Siting Council (CSC) being ordered by a state court in 2000 to regulate all cell tower infrastructure as “functionally equivalent” services.
It is far better to update those regs instead, especially for macro-towers given new technologies like small cells. Even though only ‘advisory’ to the CSC, the preferences of towns by law must be taken into consideration in CSC decision making. Detailed telecom regs – not just a general wish list -- are evidence that a town has put considerable thought into where they prefer such infrastructure be sited without prohibiting service that many – though not all – citizens want and that first responders rely on for public safety.
Such regs come in handy when egregious tower sites are proposed in sensitive areas, typically on private land. The regs are a town’s first line of defense, especially when cross referenced to plans of conservation and development, P&Z regulations, and wetlands setbacks. They identify how/where the town plans to intersect with the CSC process. They are also a roadmap for service providers regarding preferred sites and sometimes less neighborhood contention. In fact, to have no telecom regs can weaken a town’s rights to protect environmental, scenic, and historic assets, and serve up whole neighborhoods to unnecessary overlapping coverage and corporate overreach. Such regs are unique to every town and should not follow anyone else’s boiler plate, especially industry’s.
Connecticut is the only state that has a centralized siting entity for cell towers. The good news is that applicants must prove need for new tower sites in an evidentiary proceeding and any decisions have the weight of the state behind them. The bad news is that the CSC used to be far less industry-friendly and rote in their reviews, which now resemble a check list. There is an operative assumption at CSC that if an applicant wants a tower, they must need it, otherwise why spend significant money to run the approval gauntlet? This reflects a subtle shift over the years at CSC from sincere willingness to protect the environment toward minimal tweaking of bad applications with minor changes. The bottom line is that towns really cannot rely on the CSC to do all the work for them.
What CSC issues telecom providers is a “certificate of environmental compatibility” after an evidentiary proceeding (not unlike a court case) with intervenors, parties, expert witnesses, and the service provider’s technical pro’s sworn in and subject to cross examination. Service providers get to do the same with any opposition from intervenor/party participants – like towns and citizens -- and their experts. It’s an impressive process whose ultimate goal is the fine balancing between allowing adequate/reliable public services and protecting state ecology with minimal damage to scenic, historic, and recreational values. They unfortunately often fall short of their mandate – like approving cell towers with diesel generators over town aquifers -- evidenced by CSC only rejecting about five cell towers in the past 15-20 years.
The CSC was founded in 1972 and clarified its mission in the 1980’s to prevent the state from being carved up willy-nilly by gas pipelines, high tension corridors, and broadcast towers. With the sudden proliferation of cell towers beginning in late 1990’s, it became the most sued agency in Connecticut by both an arrogant upstart industry if applications were denied and by towns/citizens when bad sites were forced on them. CSC gradually formed a defensive posture that drives their decisions toward industry with deeper pockets and attorneys on retainer.
For citizens, nothing can wreck one’s day like the CSC. It behooves towns to protect what little toolkit they have, and understand the legal parameters of the CSC’s playing field. The CSC is not a “normal” government agency where municipal/citizen redress is based on logic and local support. Their process is largely immune to everything but specific kinds of evidence – like town regs with setbacks/fall zones, radio frequency transmission signal strengths, sensitive areas identified, and detailed wildlife inventory, among others.
There is a current cell tower fight involving two intervening towns -- Washington and Warren; both with good cell tower regs – over a tower site within 1200’ of a Montessori School, near Steep Rock’s nature preserves with comprehensive geology/wildlife databases that include endangered, threatened and special concern flora and fauna, on established federal/state migratory bird flyways, within throwing distance to a historic site capable of being listed on the Underground Railroad, and with an access road on a blind curve entering a state highway that will permanently damage wetlands, vernal pools, and core forests. There are well credentialed environmental experts, including Dr. Michael Klemens, former chair of Salisbury’s P&Z, as well as the former director of migratory bird management at the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and an RF engineer testifying to alternative approaches, plus three attorneys representing intervenors. It is the most professional challenge I have seen at CSC since Falls Village successfully mounted one that protected Robbins Swamps several years ago.
The hearing is ongoing, with uncertain results. To see what it takes today to stop an inappropriate tower siting, see Docket #543 under “Pending Matters” at https://portal.ct.gov/csc before removing local cell tower regs – the lowest hanging fruit that any town can possess in case it’s needed.
B, Blake Levitt is the Communications Director at The Berkshire-Litchfield Environmental Council. She writes about how technology affects biology.