The tower is part of a national programme to improve communication for emergency services, and is expected to be completed later this year.
Once built, it will sit between two public plazas, which are part of a $46 million town centre upgrade to be carried out over the next 10 years.
The upgrade is designed to make Lincoln’s town centre more attractive.
It includes new car parks, cycle lanes, streetlights, reconstructed roading and footpaths to address longstanding maintenance issues, and putting overhead lines underground.
Coffee Culture will be across the road from the tower.
Owner Steve Jaeger said other locations should have been considered.
“Why can’t it be behind the event centre or something where there’s no one really around? It shouldn’t be an eyesore for everybody,” Jaeger said.
Next Generation Critical Communications is in charge of the project, but the Selwyn Times understands a separate company applied for a certificate of compliance to build the tower on Lyttelton St next to the library.
The company and the full details of the certificate of compliance have remained confidential.
Jaeger said the application should have been made public.
“I think the best thing would have been if they had a conversation with the community.”
Chorus owns the land the tower is expected to be built on and leases it to the council for community uses, including the Lincoln Farmers and Craft Market.
Market chair Gary Miller also said the tower will be an eyesore in the town centre.
“Anything three to four times the size of anything around it is going to stand out.
“It is going to impact on people and businesses and livelihoods and it should have been something discussed to begin with,” Miller said.
He said the tower has the potential to impact at least seven stalls and disrupt the flow of the market.
An NGCC spokesperson said the application was kept confidential for security reasons.
“New Zealand’s emergency services do not promote the names or locations of radio sites in the interests of site security to ensure the ongoing provision of a radio service for frontline responders – to be safe from the risk of potential actions from ‘bad actors’.”
NGCC would not say whether other locations were considered, but said the site was chosen due to its existing infrastructure.
"The site is on Chorus land which means it benefits from the existing resilient infrastructure the exchange provides.
"This resilience, including the power supply, supports the emergency services’ requirement for the continuous provision of a radio service so they can stay connected, and respond to everyday jobs and also large events, for example, weather-related emergencies in the area."
“In an ideal world, of course we wouldn’t want it there but if it’s absolutely necessary to go there and it’s the only place it can go we’ll have to make the best of it,” Grant said.
Lincoln Volunteer Fire Brigade chief Richie Bee told Selwyn Times improved communications were always a benefit. He said the brigade has never had any major issues with radio black spots.
A St John spokesperson also said it had not experienced any black spots.
