Neighbors push back against cell phone tower proposal in St. Johns County

Neighbors in St. Johns County have pushed back on a possible cell tower going up near their neighborhood.

It would be located on RiverTown Main Street in the RiverTown community. It’s an effort to expand wireless coverage, but some neighbors take issue with it.

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Right now, there’s a petition with hundreds of signatures opposing the cell tower.

“People don’t wanna live next to a cell phone tower,” Dylan Thomas said.

This comes as a new K-8 school is being built, set to open in 2025. Just across the street, construction is underway on a new community lodging center.

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“If it’s [the cell tower] pretty close to the school, I probably will sell my house,” Rod Selmo said.

Several neighbors came to Action News Jax with concerns, after learning that a cell tower was also being proposed.

“Proposing a cell phone tower over here, major red flags,” Matthew Raun said.

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The St. Johns County development tracker showed it would be placed on RiverTown Main Street. The description said, “the applicant is seeking approval of a 180 foot monopole cell tower.”

The tower would allow for “wireless coverage” and “future network capacity” in an area that is growing in size and where there have been complaints over cell phone service in the last year.

“I don’t think that cause for concern overweighs the concern of the cell phone tower being on top of our kids,” Thomas said.

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This is still in the early proposal stages.

We reached out to the company that filed the application for the tower but have not heard back.

We also reached out to the spokesperson for the St. Johns County Board of Commissioners and emailed the St. Johns Development office, but we have not received a response.

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