[TowerTalk] Fall Zone

[jimlux]

On 7/8/19 11:29 AM, Richard Solomon wrote:
> A tower may be a thing of beauty in
> your eyes, but look at it from the
> perspective of the guy next door.
> 
> I was invited to a co-workers house
> for a 4th of July BBQ. This was a
> typical suburb setting, houses on a
> 10K Sq Ft lot. Two doors down the
> street were two towers, 100' and 80'.
> They were loaded with antennas. Just
> imagine yourself in this guys shoes,
> looking up at that mass of steel and
> Aluminum towering over everything.
> 
> And, yes, both towers had proper permits.
> 
> Being Law, common sense or common
> decency, the rule of falling on your
> property is, IMHO, a good rule and
> should be followed.
> 
> 73, Dick, W1KSZ
> 



Sure, but I'd want some rationality in the regulation - A blanket "must 
be height of tower from property line" would be impractical for many 
structures (not just antennas).

OTOH, if you said "must more likely than not, fail entirely within the 
property, subject to analysis" might be reasonable.

I would think that a 100% must fall within lot requirement might be 
unreasonable - do you design for the 0.0001% or not?

But people grow 100 foot trees on a 50 foot lot, have them fall over, 
and damage the neighbor's house and fences. There aren't many zoning 
rules that cover "tall trees" or hazardous vegetation.

I personally find big bushy melaleuca trees growing in the 5 foot 
setback in our neighborhood worrying, from a fire standpoint.  But lots 
of people planted them when the tract was new, because they grow fast 
and don't require much water. After the last big windstorm, a lot of 
them had branches that came down, and then, after the Woolsey fire came 
through, a lot of people decided that maybe having a big notoriously 
flammable tree in your yard wasn't such a great idea.