SHERMAN OAKS : Cellular Firm Seeks OK for Antennas

A cellular phone company today will argue its case before the Los Angeles Board of Zoning Appeals in an effort to overturn a zoning official’s refusal to grant permission to put a cluster of antennas in Sherman Oaks.

A request by Santa Barbara-based AirTouch Cellular to install the antennas, used to carry cellular phone signals, was rejected Dec. 29 by Associate Zoning Administrator William E. Lillenberg.

The company wanted to put the antennas on property just east of the San Diego Freeway about a half-mile south of the freeway’s intersection with Sepulveda Boulevard. The six panel-shaped antennas are about four feet tall and a foot wide. When mounted on poles, they would stand about 10 feet high.

The proposed facility also would include a microwave dish standing 13 feet high, a two-foot-high whip-like antenna and a four-inch-wide dish-shaped antenna. The antennas would stand on a 300-square-foot, three-foot-high concrete pad.

AirTouch Cellular has said that current demand for cellular phone service in Sherman Oaks exceeds the capacity of existing facilities in the area and that the proposed antenna cluster would help meet that need. However, at a Nov. 18 hearing on the proposal, neighbors complained that the facility would be an eyesore incompatible with nearby homes.

Today’s hearing will be held at Los Angeles City Hall, 200 N. Spring St., Room 561-A, at 9:45 a.m.