OJAI : 2 Rooftop Satellite Waivers Granted

Two businesses have obtained waivers of Ojai’s strict ban on rooftop antennas that caused a nationwide furor in the satellite dish industry four years ago.

The city’s Planning Commission approved a rooftop dish antenna for Pacific Bell at 202 W. Ojai Ave.

The Ventura County Sheriff’s Department will use the four-foot-wide dish to communicate between its Ojai Honor Farm and Rose Valley Work Camp--a distance of 15 miles over mountains that have caused cellular communication to be garbled since the inmate camp opened 1 1/2 years ago.

The Ojai dish will allow Pacific Bell to install an emergency phone outside the camp gates.

The emergency phone, the first for Rose Valley, will also serve two nearby campgrounds.

A second permit went to Edward D. Jones & Co., a nationwide stock brokerage firm based in Missouri with an office at 1211 Maricopa Highway.

The two-way data and video dish antenna will link the firm with the New York Stock Exchange and other offices nationwide.

Each antenna will be partly or fully screened from view.

Because both businesses lack ground space to install a dish, the commission ruled that their permits fall under a hardship clause in the city’s antenna ordinance.

“While the purpose of the ordinance is to protect the visual aesthetics within the city, we may have to take a more flexible position as the need for these types of antennas increases,” said Marilyn Grauel, assistant city planner.