Though commissioners were scheduled to vote on whether to adopt a new set of rules for cell towers in the county last week, they opted to put the final decision off till August after a public hearing drew a variety of specific critiques of the document.

A week after a contentious planning board meeting discussing the merits of a proposed new cell tower in Cashiers, the company has informed Jackson County that it will be pulling its application.

A proposal to put in a new cell tower a half-mile from the Cashiers crossroads has sparked heated debate between long-time neighbors Mark Zachary and Rick Barrs, but the outcome of an upcoming hearing on the issue will affect more than just the two men.

Cell phone towers will now be allowed on Jackson County ridgetops — at least according a draft ordinance that’s on its way to commissioners after meeting planning board approval last week. 

The final vote on the draft ordinance was unanimous, but the votes and discussion leading up to that final show of hands — especially the ridgetop-oriented part of the discussion — were not.

Cell phone towers in Jackson County cannot currently be built on ridgetops. That looks likely to change as revisions to the county’s ordinance governing cell towers progress. 

Thus far in the revision process, the Jackson County Planning Board has dug into issues such as allowable height and style of construction.

After a several-year lull in new cell towers being built in the mountains, a new wave of tower construction could be on the horizon as cell companies race to accommodate the surge in digital data moving on wireless networks.

Wireless communications companies could ultimately find Jackson County’s revised cell phone tower ordinance considerably more palatable than the stricter version that appeared to be shaping up this summer. The county planning board seems to be shying away from its previously discussed direction, questioning aspects of the ordinance detailing height and camouflage requirements for towers.

Highlands residents will soon be seeing better cell phone coverage in town following the town board’s unanimous vote to move forward in negotiating a contract with Verizon Wireless. 

A pair of proposed 180-foot cell phone towers met some adamant opposition at the Aug. 20 Macon County Commissioners meeting. The applications, proposed by two separate companies for two separate locations, were both denied, but for technical reasons that make it likely they’ll resurface. 

The cell phone tower proposed for the Whiteside Cove area is off the table for now. Verizon has “indefinitely suspended” plans to locate a tower in the area after requests from Jackson County planning officials that various issues be addressed in the company’s application, chiefly that the design incorporate a camouflage-style tower instead of the originally-proposed mono-pole design.