After residents complained that a proposed cellphone tower would block mountain views and hurt property values, Verizon Wireless has offered to camouflage the tower to look like a pine tree.
“It’s now been modified to a shorter station that will be what we call a stealth site,” Verizon spokesman Bob Kelley said Tuesday. “It’s an attempt to make the site less noticeable.”
An illustration provided by Verizon Wireless to the city of Bozeman showing what a cellphone tower in northeast Bozeman near Bridger Canyon might look like camouflaged as a pine tree.
Verizon applied to the city of Bozeman in May to build a wireless-communications tower at 705 Bridger Drive — on the north side of the road next to Zig’s Electric & Plumbing as you’re leaving town and heading toward the Bridger Mountains.
The tower is intended to improve cellular network capacity for northeast Bozeman and provide coverage to Bridger Canyon, according to Verizon.
But residents say the tower would mar the views for anyone entering or leaving the city through the Bridger Canyon corridor, a popular route to Bridger Bowl Ski Area and the ‘M’ Trail.
The tower was initially proposed as a 90-foot-tall, steel lattice tower.
Verizon revised its proposal this month, shortening the tower to 84 feet, making it a single, monopole and disguising it as part of the treeline, an effort that will cost the company more, Kelley said.
Kelley said Verizon looked at a number of sites, including a nearby water tank, radio broadcast tower and grain elevator. The company decided on the Bridger Drive location, which is zoned for industrial use, because it’s “the optimum site for that section of the city.” Mountain ridgelines block other sites the company considered, according to Verizon’s application.
The proposed new tower would make it easier for people in Bridger Canyon to call 911 in an emergency and for Verizon to serve the growing number of smartphones and data devices in town, Verizon’s application states.
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