Spring Lake Heights Mayor: Speak Up to Lake Como on WRAT Tower

Mayor Frances Enright is encouraging Spring Lake Heights residents to fight city hall — or at least sound off to the powers that be — in neighboring Lake Como.

That’s because the proposed 530-foot radio station transmission tower planned for the Behrman Park area of Lake Como is at the doorstep of Spring Lake Heights. It also would overshadow Rash Field and The Heights apartment complex.

“This would be by the railroad tracks and right across the street from our apartments,” Enright said during the June 13 Borough Council meeting.

A public hearing associated with requesting state permission  to construct the tower, as scheduled for 7 p.m. on June 22 at the Lake Como Municipal Building, presents an opportunity for Heights residents to question officials in the host community, Enright said.

Copies of the announcement of the public hearing, printed on Borough of Lake Como letterhead, were distributed at the Spring Lake Heights meeting. 

At that hearing, Lake Como officials are to field public comment about asking the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) to allow 4,000 feet of the park to be used for the tower base and an accessory building. The site, located at the westerly end of 22nd Avenue, was dedicated by the state as Green Acres land in January 1973. The designation as Green Acres land requires the borough to receive NJDEP approval to construct the tower or any structure.

Though Heights residents might not be able to stop the application by WRAT’s parent company, Greater Media, Inc., they can at least bring their concerns to Lake Como officials, Enright said.

The same public hearing notice also indicates that Greater Media will compensate the host community for the costs of upgrading and renovating sports fields and facilities within Behrman Park in exchange for allowing the tower there.

Because the apartment complex sits 240 feet from the foot of the proposed tower, Lake Como officials were not legally bound to contact the property owners and tenants about the WRAT application. By law, officials must only notify property owners located within 200 feet of a planned building site about a pending application.

As a courtesy, Heights officials notified the complex owners and tenants, Enright said.

The Spring Lake Heights Elementary School eighth grade graduation is scheduled for the same night as the public hearing—a situation that Enright acknowledged could shut out residents wanting to attend the hearing. She questioned Lake Como’s motives in scheduling the hearing for that night.

“There’s a lot going on here,” she said. “I don’t like it.”

WRAT and Greater Media first applied this past winter to Lake Como for variances to construct the tower.  The radio station building and its existing tower are located on 18th Avenue in that borough.