A bit of history about towers in Pima County. When I put up my tower all that
was required, if anything, was a zoning/land use permit. The county basically
wanted to know that if it fell down it would land on your property. The guy
that examined my "plans", an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet with a plot and an X where the
tower would go, said to me something along the lines of, "You hams are smart
guys, I know you'll do it right."
An acquaintance, a fellow DX club member, put up a 90' tower on the top of a
ridge in the Tucson Mountains on the west edge of town. All entirely legal, but
the Tucson Mountain Homeowners' Association, which has no legal standing but
does have a lot of politically connected members tried to get the county to pass
a retroactive regulation limiting tower heights to 35 feet. We hams joined
forces and hired an attorney ($10,000) to fight the regulation and we packed the
Board of Supervisors meeting with first responders, law enforcement, CAP, Red
Cross, etc, all making the case that for emergency reasons we needed taller
towers. The restrictive height proposal failed but we got building permits
imposed on us.
Wes N7WS
On 5/5/2017 7:36 AM, Gene K5GS wrote:
Having just been through the tower permitting process in Pima County, Arizona
I would offer the following: UST HDX-572:
If you need a building permit AND the project needs to be inspected by a
licensed Professional Engineer and/or by the county, do not deviate from the
manufacturer's foundation specifications without a PE signing off on the
changes, you'll probably fail the inspection if the foundation doesn't match
the specs.
I found Pima County very easy to work with, the entire county process was done
on-line, the county's final inspection was done by Skype video conference. The
required inspections were performed by an on-site licensed PE, the county
provided a list of authorized engineers, his fee was minimal:
Inspections:
- Embedded Bolts set in the hole according to documented specs
- The PE measured all vertical and horizontal rebar placement, the distance to
the sides of the undisturbed earth, the distance between the top of the form
and the top of the rebar cage. He also measured the distance between the
bottom of the rebar cage and bottom of the hole.
We made one mistake that he called out and asked to be corrected and
photographed. The 3 courses of horizontal rebar at the top of the cage must
be each separated by ~1.5 inches to allow for concrete to fully encase each
horizontal piece, I had them bunched together.
I took the rebar inventory from the UST document to a local rebar firm, they
did the cutting and bending. 377 pounds of material, they placed the finished
product on my pick-up truck bed, $240.00.
We built the cage above ground and used a backhoe to place it in the hole, per
the specification - no welding allowed.
I would like to say I knew how to do all of this, but I didn't. Had help from
a local who has previously installed commercial towers, and his employee.
Cheers,
Gene K5GS
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