February 28, 2007

Max Taves , Staff Writer

The low population density and mountainous enclaves in Pacific Palisades don't just mean clean air, scenic beauty and high property values. They also mean weak cell-phone signal strength and dropped calls. But filling the gaps in coverage has brought an unwelcome intruder: large cell-phone towers.

Two new proposals to install cell towers in Sunset Mesa and Highlands residential areas have roiled homeowners and homeowners associations, who want cell-phone reception but fear repercussions to their health and property values.

Andrea and Dr. Walter O'Brien recently received notice that Sprint/PCS intended to follow through with what seemed like a dormant plan to install a 25-foot 'camouflaged tree' that would double as a cell-phone tower within 25 feet of their children's playground and 50 feet of their house on Surfview Drive, near the Getty Villa.

On February 14, the O'Briens and their neighbors met with Sprint representative Courtney Schmidt and Jeff LaDou, a management analyst for the Bureau of Engineering.

'The meeting was a joke,' said O'Brien, an orthopedic surgeon. 'The Sprint representative said, 'We're not really here to discuss if there's going to be a cell tower, but rather what it's going to look like.''

Although the O'Briens sit next to hundreds of acres of empty parkland and across from vacant lots, Schmidt insisted that no other spot would suffice and the company didn't want to 'disrupt trees,' O'Brien said.

Meanwhile, residents living within 500 feet of 16699 West Via La Costa, a vacant lot adjacent to the Enclave in the Highlands, were recently given notice of T-Mobile's plan to install a '22-foot monopine' which includes 12 panel antennas and four ground-level cabinets surrounded by an 8-foot-tall chain-link fence. The news caught almost all residents by surprise, and many felt the announcement provided them little time to organize an appeal.

'To date, no one has provided us much information about it,' said Mitch Chupack, president of the umbrella Summit Homeowners Association, which includes the Enclave. 'If we had more notice about this, we would have been all over it. I think we're all a little pissed off.'

About a dozen residents visited the proposed site in a meeting with a consultant to T-Mobile last week, and most felt like their concerns were unanswered.

'This came at us out of the blue,' said Karrie Barnett, who lives near the proposed tower. 'We were there for more information. And the consultant really did not have the kind of information we were looking for.'

Many residents who spoke to the Palisadian-Post planned to attend a public hearing this morning at the Office of Zoning Administration to formally oppose the T-Mobile plan. But a host of federal and state laws benefiting cell-phone companies have severely weakened local resistance to cell-phone towers.

In fact, the Federal Telecommunications Act of 1996 prohibits states and local governments from regulating wireless facilities on the basis of the environmental effects of 'radio frequency emissions.' And a 2002 state law allows wireless providers to install wireless facilities in the 'public right of way.'

Norm Kulla, who directs policy for City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, said that he has pushed the federal government to enforce its health standards, but that federal law has left the cell-phone companies to virtually police themselves. In the absence of federal control, Kulla has pushed cell-phone companies that build here to commit to third-party inspection and community oversight. But he says the approach has been mixed. In a recent meeting with T-Mobile, they did not commit to this plan.

The lack of regulation has stoked residents' fears. Lynne Henney successfully fought an attempt to install AT&T wireless panels at Calvary Church in 2002. Now she is fighting T-Mobile's plans in her Highlands neighborhood.

'I'm worried about the risks of the radiation from these towers,' Henney said. 'I've read that there's a significant incidence of tumors as a result of this radiation.'

Numerous studies using mice show an increase of tumors as a result of electro-magnetic radiation, but there is currently no conclusive evidence that shows harmful effects to humans from cell-phone tower radiation.

Although most residents oppose the T-Mobile plan in their backyard, some local residents believe the costs will be negligible. They also argue that covering holes in cell-phone coverage provides residents safety by allowing an extra form of communication in the case of natural disaster.

Art Zussman, president of the Enclave Homeowners Association, lives close to the proposed site. He's content with the company's plans to disguise the tower as a pine 'tree,' and he feels the aesthetic impact is irrelevant because it's 'out of sight' of most homes.

Final approval for these two cell-phone towers will probably depend on the community response rather than the law. In 2005, Cingular moved its proposed site to an alternate location after significant opposition from Mount Holyoke residents.

A spokesperson for T-Mobile did not return a call to the Post. Because T-Mobile is installing the tower on private property rather than public property, they are not subject to more restrictive city regulations. Ed Miller, an Enclave resident who manages the property that will be leased by the proposed cell-phone tower, did not return a request for an interview.

Caroline Semerdjian, public relations manager for Sprint/Nextel, told the Post Tuesday that company engineers did not know a children's playground was near the proposed site on Surfview Drive. Despite past statements to the contrary, the company now considers empty land across the street from the O'Briens to be 'a very viable solution.'

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Reporting by Staff Writer Max Taves. To contact, e-mail reporter@palipost.com or call (310) 454-1321 ext. 28.