Verizon Proposes Another Season of Temporary Cell Tower Along Route 35

3131 Route 35 North, the location of a proposed temporary wireless tower, April 2023. (Photo: Daniel Nee/Shorebeat)

Verizon officials have proposed to continue the usage of a temporary cellular communications tower at the site of a private business along Route 35 in the the North Beach portion of Toms River.

Cellco Partnership, the holding company that oversees Verizon’s mobile towers, is requesting approval from the township’s planning board to re-install a temporary, 70-foot tall, ballast-mounted wireless telecommunications tower along with related equipment at ground level at 3131 Route 35 North, a marine repair business and boat yard. A similar tower has been utilized at the site since the summer of 2021. The tower would be in operation between May 1, 2024 and Oct. 31, 2024.

The application before the planning board only mentions the North Beach tower. It does not state whether a controversial temporary tower installed at the pickleball facility last summer would return, thought that tower was approved on an emergency basis and was never the subject of a planning board hearing. A separate temporary tower that had been in place for several seasons above a condominium on the oceanfront at First Avenue in Ortley Beach has since received approval to be converted to a permanent tower.

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The Route 35 tower will require the same variances to be granted by the board as in previous years, including a front-yard setback of less than 20 feet, a side yard setback of 6-feet where 10 is required, an operations waiver and permission to utilize the existing curbing and sidewalk instead of replacing it.

The hearing will be held Feb. 21, 2024, at 6 p.m. in the council chambers at the township municipal complex on Washington Street.