Meadowlands Radio Towers

The New Jersey Meadowlands is home to many AM radio broadcast facilities.  In the mid-twentieth century, the Meadowlands proved to be an excellent location for AM radio towers because of the availability of land, lack of development, and proximity to New York City - one of the largest media markets in the country.  Situated near active and orphaned landfills, AM broadcast facilities were left uninterrupted to transmit their signals without interference from other structures.

Changes in development patterns, however, have threatened the viability of decades-old broadcasting centers.  Efforts to remediate and redevelop contaminated landfill sites and other underutilized properties have brought building projects to the Meadowlands.  Although conferring many benefits, redevelopment projects may prove incompatible with AM broadcasting.  Tall buildings located near AM antennas may cause interference to the signal, resulting in diminished strength.

We represent radio stations facing signal interference from new development.  When new projects are planned, we work with stations' professional engineering staff to identify what impacts the development will have on the AM broadcaster.  If a station is affected, we represent the station before the redevelopment agency sponsoring the project to insure consideration of the radio station in the planning and design. 

In some instances, planning considerations cannot be met, in which cases we have brought litigation to protect stations from planning designs that will put them off the air.

We also provide our land use expertise to the task of relocating AM radio stations to locations that will not be subject of new development projects.  Relocating a station requires first identifying a suitable site and obtaining permits and approvals from federal, State, regional, and local authorities.  The environmental regulations in the Hackensack Meadowlands, for example, requires AM stations to obtain permits from the United States Army Corps of Engineers and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.