Suit Filed Over Order to Hide Satellite Dish : Legal battle: The city says the receivers are visual blight that must be screened. The dish’s owners contend that the city has violated their First Amendment rights.

The owners of a religious television station, who have been ordered to relocate or hide a satellite dish located on the roof of their hillside home, have charged that Glendale’s zoning law is unconstitutional in a lawsuit filed last week.

The Superior Court suit was the latest development in a two-year legal battle between Glen and Beverly Chambers, owners of KAGL-TV Channel 30 in Glendale, and city officials.

Authorities told the Chamberses in 1988 that the white satellite dish atop their two-story house in southeast Glendale violates zoning laws. Under a city ordinance, satellite dishes are considered visual blight and must be screened with fencing or vegetation.

The couple contend that the city has violated their First Amendment rights, but officials say they are only trying to make the neighborhood more attractive.

The Chamberses have refused to alter the dish atop their Oberlin Drive house, saying it is was installed before the city began regulating dishes.

Further, they claim that the city is disregarding federal rules that forbid interference with dishes and is infringing on their right to free communication.

The lawsuit alleges that Glendale’s zoning law “on its face fails to have a reasonable and clearly defined health, safety or aesthetic objection, but in fact prevents reception of satellite-delivered signals on properties such as those of the plaintiffs within the city of Glendale.”

City zoning officials last year refused to grant the Chamberses a variance that would have allowed the dish to remain as it is. The Chamberses filed an appeal, but the Glendale City Council denied it in March.

In their lawsuit, the Chamberses asked for unspecified punitive damages.

“We’re not so much interested in money as the principle of the thing,” said Gregg Eichler, the Chamberses’ attorney. “What the suit has done is raise the propriety of what the city is doing. It’s our position that the city is wrong.”

But city officials insist that they are on solid legal ground.

“We’ve got lots of rules geared to the aesthetics of the community,” said Kathy Marcus, Glendale’s zoning administrator. “That’s why we have a sign ordinance. That’s why you don’t have flashing lights in Glendale. All of these things are geared to eliminate visual clutter.”

When the city revised its zoning in 1986, it addressed the appearance of rooftop equipment, including satellite dishes and air-conditioning units. “The notion is that it would look better if there were screening,” Marcus said.

Eichler responded, “I frankly think this whole aesthetics issue is in the eye of the beholder. I think that satellite dishes, if they’re properly mounted, are no worse than barbecue grills.”

The Glendale lawsuit is one of the latest of many legal squabbles nationwide, pitting satellite owners against local governments. “It is a problem and has been a problem for several years,” said Mark C. Ellison, vice president and general counsel for the Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Assn.

The group estimates that 3 million U.S. households--including 295,000 in California--own satellite dishes. Ellison said the courts have consistently overruled cities that have tried to impose severe restrictions on dishes.

“To my knowledge, we have not lost one of these cases yet on zoning,” he said.

The Chamberses declined to be interviewed about their dispute with Glendale. But in their 1989 variance application, they said they receive some of KAGL’s programming via satellite and also need the dish to monitor their own evening program.

The couple’s attorneys have said the unit was installed in 1981--well before the city’s zoning rules mentioned satellite dishes--and therefore should be allowed to remain.

But city officials have argued that the dish is not entitled to protection from new laws because it was installed illegally without a city building permit, which is required for major construction on the roof of a home.

The Chamberses’ lawsuit describes the city’s decision as “arbitrary and capricious,” violating Federal Communications Commission’s rules that take precedence over city laws.

“The FCC has already determined that the reception of transmissions by satellite dish is something that people have a right to,” Eichler said.

In 1986, the FCC ruled that city laws affecting satellite dishes must be based on “a reasonable and clearly defined health, safety or aesthetic objective.” In addition, city laws cannot prevent reception of satellite-delivered signals or impose excessive costs on the dish owner.

Mike Kohl, a satellite communications specialist enlisted by the Chamberses, said the couple’s dish will not pick up many signals if it is moved to the ground because it would be blocked by trees or the house. “You must have a physical line of sight, an unobstructed view of the satellite arc,” Kohl said. “He had to get it on the roof to make it work.”

City planning officials said the Chamberses agreed last October to prepare proposals for partial screening of the rooftop dish. Instead, the planners said, the Chamberses sent letters from satellite communications experts, alleging that the city was violating FCC rules.

Because the City Council has rejected the Chamberses’ appeal, the city can prosecute the couple on misdemeanor charges, but officials said no such prosecution has been initiated.