The City is considering an application to rezone land for a cell mast at an accounting firm in Mabille Park, Kuils River.
Warren Patterson Town and Planning Consultants applied on behalf of Telkom to have a 15m lamp-post-type mast put up at 3 Vlei Street, Mabille Park. The property is registered to a Theo Adams, and the premises is leased by the Little Biz Hub accounting firm.
The application calls for the rezoning of 16m2 of the 991m2 private property, from local business to a utility zone for the purpose of installing the 15m free-standing base telecommunication station with three antennas and four microwave dishes attached to the mast, surrounded by a 2.4m-high palisade fence.
The cell tower will be erected at a cost of approximately R1.5 million, according to the application.
Residents have until October 28 to comment on the application. Currently no objections have been submitted.
Warren Patterson Town and Planning’s Corné Briedenhann said the mast would give Mabille Park and surrounding areas “better network coverage”.
He said: “Residents in these surrounding areas have on numerous occasions complained about their networks being slow, so service providers – with the help of nominal points – indicated that this area has poor signal.”
While there has been growing public concern about possible health risks linked to cell masts, he said the frequency of the radio waves emitted from the base station would be too low to cause any harm.
Some residents in Soneike and Mabille Park said they had only learnt about the mast when asked about it by Northern News.