Cellphone Towers @ Southdowns

Dear Homeowner,

CONGRATULATIONS! Your vote to commence the process to erect cell phone towers on the Southdowns Estate passed! For those who may have missed it (we noted low attendance) on 29 October a special meeting was held at Irene Country Club approving the commencement of the process to install CELLPHONE TOWERS on the Estate!

What steps can you expect next?

The HOA should by now have communicated some of the information to you by email – if your email address is correct and attended. Next will be an environmental impact assessment (“EIA”) study to determine if, where & how best to put the towers. They may, or may not, look like normal cell phone towers, or trees, or a mixture.According to the HOA Board, a designated service provider has already been identified: American Tower Corporation.

Uncertainty at this stage prevails over who will be appointing the EIA consulting company, and who will be paying for them to do the EIA. From the Notice of the meeting and the Presentation, it appears that American Tower Corporation will be erecting the towers and will appoint their own EIA Company to determine this, unless residents decide the HOA should take this responsibility. What do you think? We invite your thoughts on this! We are also not sure where the towers will be placed, when the EIA process will commence, or when residents will receive updates.

For more information, please request the minutes of the meeting held on 29 October 2016 from the HOA Board.
According to the American Cancer Society, Cell phone towers are not known to cause any health effects. But if you are concerned about possible exposure from a cell phone tower near your home or office, you can ask a government agency or private firm to measure the Radio Frequency field strength near the tower (where a person could be exposed) to ensure that it is within an acceptable range. For more information please visit http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/othercarcinogens/athome/cellular-phone-towers. Sweden is the first country in the world to recognize electro sensitivity as a real risk and Germany, Israel and Austria have other views from America in three independent studies. For more information please visit http://www.emf-health.com/articles-celltower.htm

Please do not limit your research to only what is provided herein- we encourage you to do as much research as possible on all of the benefits of living near a cell phone tower.

Residents are encouraged to actively participate in the Environmental Impact Assessment, by engaging with the HOA Board on the following:
1. Will Southdowns appoint its own EIA consultancy, or will American Tower Corporation do this, and who will be paying for it?
2. When will the first public participation meeting be held to establish where exactly towers will be placed, and how many towers will be placed?
3. Will the towers be best placed on common property, on Irene Farm Property (pastures) or School Property?
4. How to reach consensus as residents and HOA with American Tower Corporation on what each of the new towers should look like.

For more information, the minutes of the board meetings/special meeting of 29 October or a copy of the slideshow presentation, please feel free to contact the HOA Board, or start by talking to your neighbout and friends in the estate about what you would like to do. Remember : the holidays are around the corner, whoch means potentially 30 days may go lost if you decide to hold over until 2017.

Southdowns Greetings!

Hi, I think it would be a good idea to write an article in the next Southdowns Newsletter and informing the residents of the blog.

I voted no no no ... This is life threatening I can't understand anyone agreeing to this . Did anyone who voted yes did a research on cell phone tower and all the very real dangers ? Especially so near to us and our children ! Unbelievable .. The estate is disregarding all of us here to make money . If the towers are erected we will leave the estate .