What started as an issue dealing with dead zones appears to be a dead issue altogether -- at least for now.
Rogers Communications Inc. withdrew its application to build a cellphone tower in Port Coquitlam's Greenmount Park seemingly at the 11th hour Tuesday, issuing a written statement to Mayor Greg Moore about 30 minutes before council was set to vote on the matter.
Ken Barlow, Rogers' municipal and industry relations manager, signed off on the statement.
"After our community consultation and many conversations with community members and elected officials, we are choosing to withdraw our application for the Greenmount Park antenna," the statement reads. "We continue to be steadfast in our commitment to working with the city to improve our service in this growing community."
In an interview Wednesday, Moore said he would have voted against the proposal regardless of Rogers' position, though that written statement effectively nullified the need to vote on the matter.
"I was surprised, but I think that they realized that there was a good likelihood that council was going to vote against it," Moore said.
A Rogers spokesperson confirmed Thursday that public opposition led the company to withdraw its proposal. "We just didn't have the support we needed to move forward with this particular location, but we continue to be committed to improving service in this growing community," said Sara Holland, senior manager with Rogers Regional Communications.
Rogers had originally applied to lease city-owned land in Greenmount Park to build a telecommunications tower in an undeveloped wooded area north of the cemetery and east of the Oxford Street extension.
The company had said it needed to increase network capacity in parts of PoCo and Coquitlam, decreasing the amount of wireless dead zones in those areas.
"It's been a long process, so I was somewhat surprised to see them withdraw it, but at the same time, I was certainly aware of the concerns that were being expressed and the opposition that was being voiced," Coun. Brad West said. "I'm sure that Rogers was hearing the same thing that city council was hearing and made the decision that this location wasn't going to be supported."
Given Tuesday's move by Rogers, council directed staff to draft up a telecommunications policy that will be overseen by the city's community safety committee.
"We're going to go through a process led by our community safety committee to develop guidelines so that we can hear the input from our residents about where they should go or shouldn't go from an emissions perspective and from a sightlines perspective," Moore said. "It also gives guidance to the industry so they're not wasting time and energy going into places where really they don't have a chance to get approval from council. So I think it's respecting both sides."
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