A new 150-foot Verizon cellphone tower is headed for Highway 162 in Covington after the Newton County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to approve it on September 1. The monopole, topped with a five-foot lightning rod for a total height of 155 feet, will rise on land leased from County Line Baptist Church, tucked between residential and commercial areas along one of the county's busiest commuter corridors.
The vote, first reported by WSB-TV, clears the way for construction on a 0.23-acre site at 3325 Highway 162. According to filings reviewed by Citizen Portal, the project was submitted under application NTL26-000002 on behalf of Verizon, with County Line Baptist Church identified as the property owner. The church, according to Livingston Willows Community Resources, also serves as Newton County's official polling place for the Livingston Precinct.
Commission staff said the site plan would provide satisfactory access for pedestrians, traffic flow, emergency responders and automotive safety, per the station's report. Verizon received approval for a 12-foot gravel driveway and a 30-foot ingress/egress and utility/fiber easement, though the Georgia Department of Transportation must still sign off on the highway access easement before work begins.
A Tower Built to Blend In
The unmanned facility will be visited for maintenance only eight to 10 times a year, outside of emergencies, the same account notes. It will be painted a neutral color, ringed by seven-foot-tall masonry and wooden security fences with anti-climbing features, and screened with multiple 20-foot-tall Green Giant trees meant to reduce its visual footprint. Construction cannot begin until the Newton County Environmental Health Department signs off on the plans, a required step ahead of any building or permitting application.
The project also carries a paper trail.
A Sharp Contrast With an Earlier Rejection
The approval stands in stark contrast to what happened five months earlier. In April 2026, the same Board of Commissioners unanimously denied a conditional-use permit for a 195-foot T-Mobile monopole proposed near Livingston Elementary School, after residents opposed the taller structure, Citizen Portal reported. Siting the Verizon tower on church property set back from schools, and buffered by the required evergreen landscaping, appears to have helped this project satisfy setback conditions and secure its 5-0 approval.
Newton County's own zoning rules explain why both projects needed a commission vote at all. Under regulations dating to 2016, cell towers up to 100 feet in non-residential zones can win administrative approval from the zoning administrator alone, but anything taller — like the 150-foot Verizon structure or the rejected 195-foot T-Mobile tower — triggers mandatory public hearings and conditional-use permit review, according to Newton County Development Services.
Federal Law Limits How Far Commissioners Can Go
Local boards don't have unlimited discretion here, either. Section 332(c)(7) of the federal Telecommunications Act of 1996 preserves municipal zoning authority over tower placement, but it bars local governments from unreasonably discriminating among wireless providers or effectively banning service, and it prohibits denials based on health effects of radio frequency emissions that meet FCC standards, per the Legal Information Institute. That federal backstop limits how far commissioners can go in blocking well-planned applications when a genuine coverage gap exists.
Highway 162, also called Salem Road locally, functions as a primary commuter link between western Newton County and eastern Rockdale County toward Interstate 20, where officials have coordinated multi-lane widening projects to ease congestion. The proposed tower would be located along that stretch of road.
The proposed tower is presented in the context of the county's broader growth. County commissioners have also considered other development matters elsewhere, and the Highway 162 corridor has been part of broader development discussions.
