As technology improves and smart phones proliferate, the Town Council is being asked to approve an ever-expanding array of cell phone towers.

They can range anywhere from “faux” palm trees and saguaros to fattened flag poles and athletic field light poles.

The Town Council spent the better part of its only August meeting reviewing communication towers and debating one application in particular.

Cell phone companies are scrambling to provide adequate coverage in both urban and rural areas, with the topography of Fountain Hills providing unique challenges.

It doesn’t sound as if the requests will drop off in number as technology improves.

The council Aug. 6 approved special use permits for two 40-foot faux saguaro antenna towers near the FireRock Country Club.

Members also approved a permit to allow EPCOR Water Co. to install a 42-foot mono-palm wireless antenna adjacent to a well site on Desert Canyon’s golf course (off Saguaro Blvd. and Indian Wells).

An application for a 65-foot faux palm tree cellular antenna array caused the most consternation at the meeting.

A company working for T-Mobile was seeking the permit to install the fake palm tree in the middle of Van’s Storage Yard near Laser and Technology drives.

Councilman Henry Leger raised the biggest objections, saying several neighbors approached him with concerns and that a previous application several years ago at that site had been rejected by a different council.

Leger said the 65-foot fake palm would negatively visually impact the surrounding neighbors and consumers would be put at risk who park RVs and other equipment at the storage facility.

Leger also questioned the town’s procedures for reviewing special use permits (a requirement, for example, that property owners only within 300 feet of the affected site be notified of upcoming public hearings).

Leger and Councilman Alan Magazine both agreed that the fake palm tree the council approved behind the Alamo Saloon “sticks out like a sore thumb” and they didn’t want to repeat the same mistake.

The Van’s site is less visible to the general public, however, than the bar along Saguaro Boulevard’s service road.

Leger asked the applicant, Declan Murphy, if an alternative site would work, such as installing a faux saguaro on a nearby hillside where two already exist.

Murphy said T-Mobile had been using the flag pole site near Arby’s, but that equipment is being removed and a new site is needed.

He said the 65-foot tower is needed because no other sites are available. If a shorter faux saguaro would be used, Murphy said, a second nearby site would be needed as well.

He wanted to erect a faux saguaro on the hillside above the Beeline Highway and Shea Blvd. – on reservation land – but that site is full.

Murphy said municipalities generally prefer cell phone towers to be located within industrial zoning, so he thought the storage yard would be a good location.

Councilman Cecil Yates argued that the proposed tower wouldn’t visually impact the Saguaro Blvd. neighbors as much as Leger was stating.

The council considered an amended motion to force the applicant to seek alternative sites, but that was defeated.

Leger then proposed through an amendment that the T-Mobile tower be approved but that higher real palm trees be required to be installed near the faux palm.

Originally the applicant was going to put in a few palm trees ranging in height from 25 to 35 feet, but the council directed trees ranging in height from 45 to 55 feet.

That amended motion was unanimously approved 7-0.

The town may re-examine its special permit procedures.

Murphy said given the changing world of technology and smart phones and other cellular uses, he sees even “more demand” in the future for cell phone towers.