Muttontown Residents Can’t Intervene ‘as of Right’ in Tower Fight: AT&T

The law is “well-settled” that “neighboring landowners” don't have “sufficient interest in the property or transaction to intervene as of right” in a Telecommunications Act action, said AT&T in a memorandum of law Friday (docket 2:22-cv-05524) in U.S. District Court for Eastern New York in Central Islip. AT&T opposes two motions to intervene from 30 resident property owners in Muttontown, New York, who are seeking to block the carrier from building a 150-foot-tall cell tower in their village. “Whatever interest the neighbors may have” in the fate of the cell tower in Muttontown, “it is adequately represented by the board that considered the application,” said AT&T. Due to the “expedited nature” of TCA actions, “controlling authority also rejects permissive intervention due to the inevitable delay caused by adding parties,” it said. Notwithstanding “the volume of cases affirming that neighboring homeowners have no right to intervene,” the resident property owners “improperly try to argue the merits and openly admit that they will challenge any resolution that allows construction of a facility,” it said. “The effort to avoid the core issue of intervention and to focus instead on the merits is improper, as is the overall strategy of delay, both of which confirm the wisdom of the decisions denying intervention in cases such as this.” The residents contend AT&T is colluding with the village to get the tower built over the objections of the local zoning appeals board, which opposes the project (see 2210200034).