Cell providers: can you hear us now?

Some homeowners who spoke out at the meeting, however, said they are resistant to having a tower visible from their backyards because they believe it will be an eyesore and might negatively affect property values. The process highlights the challenge of balancing the interests of preserving the look of a community and providing the infrastructure necessary to support its changing technological needs.

"The proposed new cell site is designed to improve outdoor and indoor coverage, as well as increase capacity on our network, reduce blocked and dropped calls and, in doing so, improve our customers' experience in the surrounding area," said Rossanna Salazar, spokesperson for AT&T Texas.

Meanwhile, Verizon Wireless has entered into an agreement with Crown Castle, an independent owner and operator of shared wireless communications and broadcast infrastructures, to build an outdoor antenna system with 20 nodes—an alternative to a tower—located throughout several subdivisions in the Cinco Ranch area, said Michael Swearingen, south area public relations representative from Verizon Wireless.

"This community has carried high restrictions that affected building normal macro sites [towers] in the past," he said.

The antennas have lower power output but are placed in such a way that they are not very noticeable. They will be mounted on existing poles, such as light and telephone poles, as well as some new ones, and construction is scheduled to begin during 2014.

The process

Cellphone companies each have their own types of towers and antennas, said David Prejean, chief operating officer of Crafton Communications, who coordinated the November homeowners meeting with Heritage Grand along with the company's lawyer Bebb Francis.

The preference is actually not to build a tower at all but to find an existing structure that the company can affix antennae to, Prejean said.

Among the successful installations, companies in the industry have mounted antennas in water towers, flagpoles, church steeples, bell towers and on top of buildings. But there is no structure in the area that fits the height needs identified by AT&T and both population growth and development have outstripped the company's ability to cover the area with smaller antennae, Prejean said, so the company put together plans to build a tower.

"We certainly take into consideration the type of tower we're going to build—the sites that will have the least impact on the surrounding areas," Prejean said.

In the case of Heritage Grand the company proposed a stealthed mono-pine tower, which means that it would have one central "trunk" with no guy wires or other supporting mechanisms on the outside. The tower will be adorned with artificial tree limbs, pine needles, and a texturized painted "bark" meant to simulate the surrounding trees. Even the tower's antennae, normally placed in a sort of triangular array at the top of the tower, would be split up and mounted at various branch levels to better conceal it, Prejean said.

The proposed location of the tower is in a wooded reserve section of the neighborhood off of Cinco Ranch Boulevard between the Cinco MUD 1 facility and a Bayou.

"This type of tower is much more expensive for the company than a conventional site," Prejean said. "It requires a lot more maintenance because the branches have to be kept in order, with no damage. But AT&T is always concerned with how the poles look."

Similar concealed towers have been extremely well received across the region by municipalities and residents, he said.

Next steps

After fielding questions and concerns during the November meeting in Heritage Grand, Prejean said the company plans to refine the tower design and bring a more detailed rendering back to the Heritage Grand HOA after the first of the year.

HOA president Barry Zerkle said the group has put together a four-person task force, equally representing residents who are initially in favor of the project, and those who are against it, to better understand the facts and to dispel any false or misleading information.

AT&T initially approached the community in late 2009 and early 2010 with a similar project. That proposal was turned down by the Cinco Associations board, of which Heritage Grand HOA is a subsidiary, as a part of the Cinco Ranch communities.

This time the Cinco Associations board has verbally given the Heritage Grand HOA the go-ahead to make its own decision, Zerkle said.

"First, we are confirming that in writing," he said.

The HOA has asked its property management company, First Service Residential, to request a letter of approval from Cinco Ranch's ARC committee and Cinco Ranch's residential board. Then it is up to Heritage Grand's HOA to make the final decision.

Joseph Ristuccia, general manager of the Cinco Associations, said that the Cinco Ranch board would also consider AT&T's proposal at its Dec. 11 meeting.

"The association does not prohibit cell towers outright, but they do reserve the right to view and decide upon each request on a case by case basis," Ristuccia said.

Prejean said his company would call another public meeting after the holidays in an effort to make sure residents understood that their voices were being heard.

"We don't want anyone to think that we're trying to cram something down their throat," Prejean said. "We want to hear from them. Sometimes we can get into those meetings and understand their concerns and we can redesign our site to make sure we address them."

There is not yet a date set for the next meeting.

"We don't want people to think that we had a meeting when they were gone for Christmas," Prejean said. "We want people to say 'You came to talk to us, you told us how it was going to be and that's the way it was.'"