The Proposed Cell Tower: What You Need to Know

by Evie Maxwell, Features Editor

If all goes according to plans made by Verizon Wireless and Horizon Tower, sometime this summer a 150’ foot new cell tower will go up in Port Ludlow. On land owned by a Port Ludlow LMC resident, the tower will be built via a road off Fleet Drive. In addition to the 150’ tall monopole tower, it will include a 50’ by 50’ fenced enclosure replete with ground mounted equipment and generato

r. The first occupant of the tower will be Verizon Wireless, with room for several more wireless providers.

Sound good to you?

Not to us. And – in addition to Jefferson County’s Comprehensive Plan and state laws that focus on conversing natural beauty, rural character, and environmental quality – our specific objections center around home values, the health of residents, and the matter of location.

We’ll start with home values.

Many in the wireless industry will argue that home values will not be impacted when new towers go up. This could well be true in large urban areas where the towers are well concealed. But outside those areas? The evidence comes down hard on the side of dropping values.

For example, there’s this, from a 2018 study published in the Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics. It found that for “properties located within 0.72 kilometers [2362 feet] of the closest cell tower, property values declined 2.46 percent on average, and up to 9.78 percent for homes within tower visibility range compared to homes outside tower visibility range.”

Or this from the Environmental Health Trust. “Many surveys and valuation studies indicate notable devaluation, often in the 2 – 10 percent range, and up to ~20 percent in certain circumstances.”

Or this from Environmental Health Services, an oft-cited US-based nonprofit focused on translating environmental health research for lay audiences: “Realtors say visible towers can cut home values by up to 20 percent, with surveys showing 94 percent of buyers say they would pay less or avoid such properties.”

We could go on, but you’ve probably had enough. In any case, to put it into dollars and cents for Port Ludlow residents living near the proposed cell tower site, we’ll take the low end of the predicted hit (a 2.46 percent drop in housing value) and apply it to median home sale price in Port Ludlow of $587,450 (as of October 2025 from Realtor.com). A quick turn with the calculator tells us that our median priced home, located near the cell tower, would lose an estimated $14,451.27 in value. Which is no one’s idea of a good thing.

Beyond the issue of housing values, there’s one more big bugaboo surrounding cell towers: Their effects on the health of people, and animals, and even plants located near the towers.

This one is tougher to quantify. After all, despite some notable exceptions (cigarettes, for example), it can be very difficult to tie a specific health problem to a specific source. That said, the most-often cited source when it comes to the impact of cell towers on health is from Spanish biologist Alfonso Balmori. The author of numerous peer-reviewed papers, mainly in environmental and bioelectromagnetics-related journals, Balmori cites a long list of observed health impacts including everything from the mundane but disagreeable (i.e., headaches, insomnia, nausea etc.) to the considerably more serious (memory loss, neuropsychiatric problems such as depression, cancer).

But again, these are ‘observed’ not ‘proven.’

Part of the problem with certainty is that the radiofrequency radiation from cell towers cannot be seen, or smelled, or even detected with anything other than specialized meters and analyzers. Thus, while reports of impacts are growing, proof is nearly impossible to come by. However, with cell tower installations replicating like rabbits around the country, research on the subject is also booming.

All of this brings us to the final – and perhaps most significant issue – with the Horizon/Verizon proposal. To illustrate it, we’ll use a screen shot taken from the first page of the official submittal memorandum:

Application for

Wireless Communication Facility

Horizon Tower

Mats Mats Bay

You will note that the application is for ‘Mats Mats,’ not ‘Port Ludlow.’ So the tower we’re talking about is not designed as a service to residents here, but in a neighboring community. To be clear: There’s no doubt that the folks in Mats Mats deserve good wireless service; that’s a virtual necessity in these days, and if a new tower is needed, so be it. But to locate the tower in a different residential community in a mostly rural county with a large amount of open land, and several commercial corridors … this seems, well, egregious at best.

Which brings us to our final point: As near as we can tell, the regulations regarding cell tower locations require would-be permittees to consider alternate sites for the tower’s location. Despite repeated requests, we have thus far received no information on this.

So yes, we’re opposed. And we sincerely hope that, in the end, the deciding official will take note of that.