Residents Voice Strong Concerns about Cell Tower Location in City Next to Neighborhood and School
THE FXBG ADVANCE THURSDAY 7/30/26 MORNING READ
By Steve Watkins, ADVANCE EDITOR
Residents of the Idlewild subdivision in Fredericksburg were surprised to learn at an online community forum Monday night that the company proposing construction of a 150-foot wireless telecommunications tower had been in meetings with city officials for much of the past 18 months.
They also learned that the builder, Milestone Towers, met with members of City Council “four or five” months ago during which they discussed an offer of $25,000 and an undisclosed annual “revenue share arrangement” for use of city property as a cell-tower location next door to Walker-Grant Middle School and 250 feet from the Idlewild property line.
A city spokesman later confirmed that that meeting, or meetings, took place Feb. 24, 2026—“two by two conversations” that “were facilitated by the City Manager and Planning staff.”
The disclosures came toward the end of the hour-and-a-half-long forum where a Milestone representative also spoke at length about how much the Idlewild neighborhood was “suffering” from what he said was weak wireless telecommunication coverage and the threat of missed 911 calls due to poor cell-phone reception.
Only one of the 20 Idlewild residents who attended the virtual meeting said she had problems with her wireless coverage, however, while others who spoke or wrote comments during the session said their reception was fine.
Residents also expressed concerns and asked numerous questions about exposure to the wireless telecommunication tower’s non-ionizing electromagnetic field, potential harm to property values, and clear-cutting of trees and loss of wildlife habitat in the neighborhood, which lost several acres of wooded area a few years ago to construction of the middle school.
The Milestone representative, senior project manager Matt Forkas, said he was unable to provide figures for the number of missed 911 calls, if any, in the coverage area. And after several residents cited studies about EMF exposure levels that had raised their level of concern, Forkas said he would need to find out more information or bring in an expert to respond.
Many attendees weighed in on a chat thread during the meeting, which Forkas said was being recorded and would be posted on a Gateway Boulevard Wireless website later in the week.
“We have a medically fragile child who does not need anything to potentially impact his health,” one resident wrote. “No problems with connectivity or making emergency calls.”
In a follow-up interview the day after the online forum, City Council member Matt Rowe, who represents Idlewild and Ward 1, told The Advance that he had been at one of the meetings earlier in the year with Milestone representatives.
“The city meeting was several months ago, so I don’t fully recall every detail,” he wrote in an email response to a list of questions about the tower project. “But I know that we talked about height/viewsheds, increased coverage provided by the tower and how that tied into site selection, and finances.”
In another email, he wrote, “As for safety and property value concerns, I have received no correspondence from residents with these particular concerns or other issues they may have with the proposed cell tower.”
According to Fredericksburg officials, in addition to the earlier “two by two conversations” and other contacts, Milestone representatives met twice in May 2026 with the city’s Technical Review Committee for “pre-application meetings” on two cell-phone tower proposals—the one near Walker-Grant and Idlewild, the other next to the Sunshine Ball Park.
“The meetings discussed the proposed construction of two 150-foot monopole style wireless communications towers and the need for City Council approval of a Special Use Permit and Comprehensive Plan Amendment for each tower project location.,” a city spokesperson wrote in an email response to a request for more information.
Forkas, the Milestone representative, said the fenced-in area for the tower near Gateway Boulevard would be 50’ x 50’, with a gravel access road. He also assured the Idlewild residents that there would be “no noise or odor” from the tower, which would initially host Verizon, and later possibly AT&T and T-Mobile.
He said he had looked at a number of potential sites for the Gateway Boulevard tower, including several on the school and Idlewild properties, but was unable to find anywhere else geographically or financially suitable besides the wooded area just north of Walker-Grant and a few hundred feet west of the subdivision.
Several residents asked why Milestone didn’t rent or buy property across the interstate at or near the Spotsylvania Mall instead of in proximity to a residential neighborhood. Forkas said he had called the mall owners to inquire about possible sites there but they hadn’t called him back.
Stafford County’s zoning code stipulates that the location of wireless communication towers “at or near residential development will be discouraged,” but Fredericksburg’s code doesn’t contain any similar provision.
At one point late in the meeting, Forkas sought to dismiss the overwhelmingly negative response to the cell tower proposal, saying that he had spoken directly with some Idlewild residents and was certain there were a great many supporters in the neighborhood who hadn’t come to the forum. A few attendees suggested the city conduct a survey about the tower location, and poll residents of both Idlewild and nearby Altoona.
Forkas agreed to the survey, and later told a member of the Idlewild Board of Directors that Milestone would consider an in-person forum as a next step to answer further questions and gauge support for the project.
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Steve Watkins is editor of The Advance.
Strong reporting serves the public good. Great job, Mr. Watkins.
Two statements really caught my attention. The tower company project manager expressed that he had no knowledge about EMF health implications and would have to bring in an expert to address that issue. Well, it just seems so highly unlikely, unless he’s brand-new to his job, that this is an issue of first impression for him; so, yes, let’s hear from consumer-friendly credentialed experts about potential health implications.
The second statement centers on the area councilor’s disclosure that he’d received no communications from constituents about the health issue. Obviously, until this story broke in the Advance, his constituents had no clue that city staff had been meeting with the applicant for about eighteen months. There’s nothing illegal about such meetings, but when there are obviously issues around potential concern about health implications, especially when they relate to children and a school is nearby, it’s an unwise strategy to fail to engage the citizenry early on. I suspect the area councilor will have a full in-box when he next checks.