T-Mobile In Trouble After It Decides To Build Cell Tower That Is ‘Not Safe’ For Residents

T-Mobile is taking legal action against the New Jersey court for its decision to not approve the company's plan to build a cell tower and lay the grounds as invalid. The plan to build a tower on a local school was given a go-ahead in 2010 but was halted due to financial constraints. Since then, the telecommunication service provider has been paying the lease for the facility and has made more than half of the required payments. It continued the operations a while back to now face blockages from the Wanaque planning board and the town's residents.

T-Mobile sues New Jersey for being a hindrance in building a crucial telecommunication facility that it was paying lease off for nearly 14 years

In its legal pursuit, T-Mobile states that the municipality of Wanaque, New Jersey, denied the application for building the cell tower but lacked legal grounds and, thus, the rejection stands invalid. The company has been working on its plan to build the facility since 2010. Since then, it has started paying off installments of the 25-year lease and has made its part of the payments for 14 years for the land at Lakeland Regional High School.

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The cell tower construction was originally halted by T-Mobile themselves due to a lack of resources for building the tower and partially because of the work in the high school where the facility was to be constructed. In March 2023, the telecommunication service provider decided to pursue the construction and submitted an application. It also bore other fee expenses in its pursuit, but the town seemed to be after the company as soon as it returned to its operations.

Borough's Financial consultant suggested that T-Mobile look for alternative locations for the cell tower, and the company said it was aware that the requirement had no legal reasoning, but it was still open to exploring other sites.