A master plan draft on improving Haddonfield’s wireless communication that was released in February and expected to be voted on at the March 26 board of commissioners meeting was tabled for a later date.
The move came after concerns from several residents and Mayor Colleen Bianco Bezich, and so commissioners can further review the plan. Before it was drafted, the borough released surveys for residents, staff and elected officials that included maps of the Haddonfield area and questions about area wireless service. There were 437 responses.
The surveys were meant to glean where there are gaps in communications coverage that could be addressed without damaging the town’s historical image. According to the first draft, coverage issues stem from dense tree canopies and thick walls on buildings along Kings Highway, as well as the number of residents that can be served.
“The borough’s high-population density places significant strain on network capacity,” the plan notes. “Wireless infrastructure can support only a limited number of simultaneous calls and has finite bandwidth at each site.”
Plans were created after a professional study of the Haddonfield landscape meant to identify potential problem areas for communication. An inventory of already existing cellular structures was also conducted.
“As of February, 2023, there are a total of 19 wireless facilities verified in the Borough Study Area,” the plan explains. “These facilities are used for a variety of purposes and consist of eight existing towers and 11 existing base stations.”
A majority of survey respondents expressed the idea that improvements could be made to the borough’s overall cellular infrastructure, with 85% saying the issue of wireless service is important and 70% supporting new communications infrastructure on public property.
Most respondents wanted any new communication bases to be as minimally invasive as possible, with 84% saying they would want infrastructure in some way concealed or camouflaged and 52% supporting the idea of base towers – antennas attached to existing buildings and structures – over entirely new towers.
Three scenarios were outlined in the plan as potential solutions to lapses in coverage:
The first, called macro wireless facilities only, would use 13 structures built for wireless connection ranging from 80 to 100 feet tall. Some would be used as flag poles or be disguised as trees, while others would be plain, painted poles.
The second scenario calls for small wireless facilities only, with 47 of them for wireless connection and all of them between 30 to 50 feet high. Most of them would be concealed in some way, or combined with other area infrastructure like street lights and banner poles.
The third scenario – macro and small wireless facilities – would be a hybrid of the first two. It would use seven macro and 18 small sites to make up for the existing gaps in coverage. All three plans would provide similar coverage and would utilize a combination of both public and private property in Haddonfield.
The third scenario was the one most well regarded by residents who answered the borough’s survey, with 47% choosing it as their preference. Scenario two came in second, at 30%, and the macro-only plan at only 17%.
The master plan first draft is being reevaluated by borough officials, who will discuss it at the next commissioners meeting on Monday at 7:30 p.m.
