A northwest Calgary community may soon be home to the city's largest cell phone tower and that's not sitting well with residents.
Tuscany homeowners are worried that a proposed cell phone tower will negatively impact property values and even the health of residents.
If the tower is approved by Industry Canada, which is currently collecting public input on the project, it will be 61 metres tall, four times higher than most cell phone towers.
Angela Takla, a resident in Tuscany, says that the area is very significant on many levels.
Rogers Communications, the company behind the tower, says it's spent years on exploring potential site in and around the community.
They say the tower will improve coverage and cell phone capacity over a very wide area.
Meanwhile, Takla has started a petition against the tower.
She understands the need to expand coverage for cell phone users, but she wonders if the company really has been exploring other sites or not.
"There's concern about the community consultation process, which we don't think has been transparent, timely, and has been very limited in the amount of information."
The city is backing Takla, wanting Rogers to prove to them that there is no other suitable location for the tower. "It's a monster," Ward 1 councillor Dave Hodges says. "It's huge."
Hodges says the city won't be able to stop the tower because the province owns the proposed land, but Industry Canada will need to take the city's concerns into account.
"It's in the area of federal jurisdiction, but the City of Calgary is at least in the position of making a recommendation one way or another."
Dan MacDonald lives in Tuscany and he's afraid about the health of him and his family.
He wants a guarantee that the tower won't make anyone sick.
"I'd like to know more about it there's any sort of health concerns that go along with a tower that big in a community that's full of families like this."
