Chatsworth : Cellular Phone Firm Seeks Antenna Permit
A cellular phone company has applied for a city permit to build a transmitting antenna at a home for troubled teenagers. The antenna would be the third such tower at the facility.
Pacific Bell Mobile Services wants to build a 60-foot pole antenna on the campus of the Rancho San Antonio Boys Town of the West on Plummer Street west of DeSoto Avenue. Cellular phone antennas have been particularly controversial at sites that bring them near children because of parents’ concerns that electronic transmissions may pose health risks.
In January, a city zoning official refused a city permit to Los Angeles Cellular Telephone Co. to build an antenna at Patrick Henry Middle School in Granada Hills.
Associate Zoning Administrator Horace Tramel ruled in the neighbors’ favor not for health reasons but because of his judgment that the 62-foot-high antenna would look out of place in a residential neighborhood.
The city Planning Department says it has no authority to rule on matters having to do with health issues surrounding antennas, and has referred questions about health risks to the California Public Utilities Commission and the Federal Communications Commission.
A public hearing on the Rancho San Antonio permit application will be held at 10 a.m. March 22 at the Sherman Oaks Woman’s Club.
To install the antenna, Pacific Bell must also secure permission to build higher than the 45-foot height limit for buildings in the area, and to build the antenna closer to the property line than the required 25 feet.
