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In December, the Board of Zoning Appeal voted 3-1 to deny the request without comment. The decision went against a report from Zoning Administrator Run Hundt, whose report to the board indicated that the request should be approved.
Hundt said that the FCC and the State of Ohio lay out what is a reasonable accommodation with the type of variance request presented by Rollert.
“Basically, what that means is that we cannot prohibit based on standards of people putting up a tower,” he explained. “Now, we can create reasonable provisions. For example, one reasonable thing that we did add to our code, is a fall zone. Basically if the tower fell over from its base, it would fall on the single property where it is located.”
Rollert has been a HAM operator and amateur radio enthusiast since 1952. He said he would like to use commercial-grade equipment including the UHF/VHF frequency tower for two-to-three hours a day to communicate with other HAM operators at remote sites especially during emergency situations.
Several residents are concerned because they feel Mad River Road is a historic road, with well-manicured lawns, as well as a tree-lined landscape. They feel the tower would be an eyesore and presented the petition to the zoning board before it took a vote to decline the request.
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