Marquette County approves 255-foot Verizon tower at Foxport with conditions after strong local protest

Marquette County’s Board of Adjustment voted to approve a special-exception permit for a Tower North Development LLC facility that will host Verizon Wireless antennas on a new 255-foot lattice tower near Foxport, subject to three written conditions the board required before permitting.

The application, a joint filing by Tower North (the tower developer) and Verizon Wireless (the anchor tenant), requested permission under Chapter 62 (mobile service support structures) to place a new unmanned communication facility at W622 Foxport in an A2 general-agriculture district. Staff and the applicant presented a packet of engineering studies, landscape and erosion-control plans, and a roadway damage acknowledgement. Applicants described the facility as a lattice self-support tower designed to accommodate collocation and improve in-building coverage and summer capacity around Puckaway Lake.

Mr. Shaw, the applicant’s representative, explained the search-area engineering used to select the parcel and the tower design: a ~255-foot lattice, three-sector structure with FAA lighting and provision for future collocation. He said the site selection responded to coverage gaps created by low-lying lakeshore topography and existing wetlands that constrain alternate siting.

The county-hired consultant, Ben from Cityscape, told the board he had reviewed the application against county ordinance standards and mitigation measures and said RF modeling for the installed facility showed ground-level exposure would be well below FCC limits — "in well within 3% of the absolute maximum exposure," he stated. (Ben, Cityscape consultant.) County counsel and the applicant noted that RF exposure limits and environmental effects are regulated by the FCC and state law limits local regulators’ ability to deny or condition permits on RF health concerns.

More than a dozen residents, township officials and local farmers spoke in opposition during the public-comment period. Speakers raised consistent themes: visual/aesthetic impacts and FAA lighting in backyard views, concern that a tower so close to houses could reduce property values, fears for livestock and pollinators, requests for more independent RF health evidence, and complaints about late notice to the community. One resident said the proposed structure would be "less than 100 ft" from her property line and predicted a 30% decline in her property value. (Dala Jabber, resident.)

After public comment, the board debated setback limits, fall-zone engineering and whether conditions listed by Cityscape should be required. A motion to attach three conditions passed on a voice vote: (1) the applicant shall submit a full structural analysis signed and stamped by a Wisconsin-licensed structural engineer certifying the tower and foundation design; (2) the tower shall be left with a galvanized steel finish or painted a color deemed least visually obtrusive at the county’s discretion; and (3) the applicant shall provide FAA documentation revising the no-hazard determination to specify required lighting. The board then voted to approve the special-exception permit with those conditions.

Staff explained appeal procedures to attendees; an adverse party may pursue administrative appeal or circuit-court review in accordance with Wisconsin statutes. The conditions attached to the approval must be satisfied before final permits are issued.

The board’s approval reflects a land-use decision based on the evidence presented on site selection, engineering and ordinance standards; the board noted that broader questions about RF health and federal preemption fall outside the county’s land-use decision-making authority and are governed by federal law and the FCC.