Cell Tower Lease

[TractorGuy]

Does anyone have a cell tower on their property or know the ins and outs of leasing land for one? All I can find by searching is lease negotiator companies claiming you NEED their services to avoid being cheated.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Our church has one on it's property, that came with the property when we bought it. We get nothing from it until the current lease expires, as previous owners had sold the income from the lease. We will have opportunity to renew the lease in 10 yrs or so, and already we have had companies try to trick us into selling the future lease rights for pennies.

Some of these tower lease companies are crooks. Be very careful. I would find a lawyer that specializes in tower leases. Read and understand every piece of paper they send you, cause they will tell you one thing, then sent you papers to sign that basically take it from you if you sign.

 

[Fuddy1952]

Check archives this was discussed a few months ago. One was going to be installed 1/4m in front of our porch...a 200ft one with flashing light. We fought towers and won. They can be smaller, camouflaged, put on existing structures, etc.
A lot of property owners get excited about the $1500/month income (or whatever offer is) without thinking it through. They have access to your property 24/7, can be bad for neighbors, radiation, etc.

 

[bigtiller]

Our church has one on it's property, that came with the property when we bought it. We get nothing from it until the current lease expires, as previous owners had sold the income from the lease. We will have opportunity to renew the lease in 10 yrs or so, and already we have had companies try to trick us into selling the future lease rights for pennies.

Some of these tower lease companies are crooks. Be very careful. I would find a lawyer that specializes in tower leases. Read and understand every piece of paper they send you, cause they will tell you one thing, then sent you papers to sign that basically take it from you if you sign.

Ain't that the truth. We are in negotiations with a tower management company to renew an old contract now.
We have just read the 4th proposal in 2 months and it is still different than what was agreed to. Thank god for attorneys. Maybe the 5th time they will get it right.

 

[TractorGuy]

Fuddy I did search before posting and didn't find the thread you speak of or any other info pertaining to a land lease to a cell tower. As far as the health risk discussion goes the National Cancer Society claims there is no evidence to support that theory. Cellular Phone Towers

Good to know the tower management companies can't be trusted. I wonder if one could deal direct with the phone company with any sucess?

Does anyone know what kind of money offers they provide? Maybe a land owner could sweeten the deal for their neighbors and negotiate free internet and phone service for surrounding parcels.

I have read you should negotiate to a smaller space than they want and to be weary of language allowing them to expand and sub lease to other providers.

We have some towers in town that mimic trees. They obviously don't look exactly like a tree but they are much easier on the eye than a plan ol tower. I wonder how bad the flashing lights are at ground level? I can see some on a 800 Mhz tower nearby but they don't really bother me on the ground. I think some of my property may be desirable since the closest cell tower is about 9 miles away and my land is at the highest elevation in the area.

 

[Fuddy1952]

When we lobbied against cell towers we showed views like this one from my back yard then with towers sketched in. We hired an expert to make a presentation who showed towers that became huge antenna "Christmas trees".
Around here 200ft.+ had to have flashing lights on top.
We weren't against providing service, instead of a few large towers they have more smaller ones, most you can't see.
They can go on existing power line towers, telephone poles, church steeples, silos, etc.
At some point they may switch to satellite technology and antennas would become obsolete.
I would never consider any tower on my place...but if I did I would hire an attorney well versed with them.

 

[cdb2]

When we lobbied against cell towers we showed views like this one from my back yard then with towers sketched in. We hired an expert to make a presentation who showed towers that became huge antenna "Christmas trees".
Around here 200ft.+ had to have flashing lights on top.
We weren't against providing service, instead of a few large towers they have more smaller ones, most you can't see.
They can go on existing power line towers, telephone poles, church steeples, silos, etc.
At some point they may switch to satellite technology and antennas would become obsolete.
I would never consider any tower on my place...but if I did I would hire an attorney well versed with them.View attachment 607471

Whether you mean to or not, you are preventing service for people in your community. It's not so easy as just building more smaller towers. it's tremendously more expensive to built multiple sites than a single higher tower than can serve more people, both in construction and operations costs as well as regulatory costs.

In an area like ours in central VA it's already exteremely difficult for small companies to offer wireless services profitably thanks to the topography and thick forest, so when you force the costs up like this they simple cannot compete. Even the big operators will avoid improving coverage and capacity when it gets too expensive.

Fortunately I'm a couple of counties over so your lobbying didn't affect me personally, but I still suffer from lack of wireless service because of the same sort of stuff going on here.

 

[bigtiller]

Fuddy I did search before posting and didn't find the thread you speak of or any other info pertaining to a land lease to a cell tower. As far as the health risk discussion goes the National Cancer Society claims there is no evidence to support that theory. Cellular Phone Towers

Good to know the tower management companies can't be trusted. I wonder if one could deal direct with the phone company with any sucess?

Does anyone know what kind of money offers they provide? Maybe a land owner could sweeten the deal for their neighbors and negotiate free internet and phone service for surrounding parcels.

I have read you should negotiate to a smaller space than they want and to be weary of language allowing them to expand and sub lease to other providers.

We have some towers in town that mimic trees. They obviously don't look exactly like a tree but they are much easier on the eye than a plan ol tower. I wonder how bad the flashing lights are at ground level? I can see some on a 800 Mhz tower nearby but they don't really bother me on the ground. I think some of my property may be desirable since the closest cell tower is about 9 miles away and my land is at the highest elevation in the area.

By the time the ph company goes knocking in doors, they have already ran tests with expensive portable equipment to find the sweet spot for the tower. A spot that will get them the best service and highest population coverage. If your property isn't in that sweet spot they won't be very interested in you.

I doubt you can get a phone out of the deal. It's kind of like trying to buy a tractor from john deere, they don't sell them, they make them.

Forget about controlling subleases to other carriers, that is how they make a profit. Tower space for a competitor's antenna is very lucrative.

Ground elevation isn't near as important as location and easy excess are.

 

[NorTracNY]

I also remember a thread a few months back that I gave some input to. Get an attorney to review the language. Are they leasing the land or getting an easement? Permanent or for a certain period of time? How many carriers? If they add carriers are you getting anything? Where on your property and how will they be able to access it? What annual increase will you get?

Then, if you get a tower on your place, wait till the other companies come in and try to convince you to sell to them. Lot's of offers for 6 figures. I had to do some analysis for someone I know with a tower. The offer sounded very tempting until I showed that it's only about half what they should even entertain. Of course lots of scare tactics were used in the offer. The funny one was that new technology was going to make 3 out of 4 existing towers obsolete! From what I've heard, it's going the opposite way with many more smaller towers needed.

 

[Fuddy1952]

Whether you mean to or not, you are preventing service for people in your community. It's not so easy as just building more smaller towers. it's tremendously more expensive to built multiple sites than a single higher tower than can serve more people, both in construction and operations costs as well as regulatory costs.

In an area like ours in central VA it's already exteremely difficult for small companies to offer wireless services profitably thanks to the topography and thick forest, so when you force the costs up like this they simple cannot compete. Even the big operators will avoid improving coverage and capacity when it gets too expensive.

Fortunately I'm a couple of counties over so your lobbying didn't affect me personally, but I still suffer from lack of wireless service because of the same sort of stuff going on here.

Cell service is fine here...and we don't have to see flashing lights and towers. We only have one skyline.
Also imho it's analogous to lots of things considered safe then years later repercussions.
If you want the best cell service at a low cost at the expense of towers everywhere, radiation exposure 24/7, that's fine for you but not for me.