City OKs Phone Antenna Cloaked as Clock

L.A. Cellular won approval this week to build a 40-foot microwave antenna at Honali Plaza shopping center on Alicia Parkway, and though the company agreed to disguise the structure as a clock tower, some officials aren’t comfortable with the plan.

“We need to regulate this industry,” City Council member Cindy Greengold said Wednesday. “We’re getting in a lot of applications” for microwave antennas from cellular phone companies.

Greengold and Councilwoman Melody Carruth opposed the tower plan, saying they believed that L.A. Cellular had not fully investigated other locations.

Greengold said she is also concerned that allowing the antenna to be built would set a bad precedent.

“If we allow one private company to come in and put an antenna up in an ill-planned location, then others will come in and do the same,” she said. “We’ll lose control over the planning process.”

The council approved the tower on a 3-2 vote and instructed the city staff to begin working on a set of comprehensive regulations that would deal with where communications towers could be placed.

L.A. Cellular had sought approval for a 68-foot tower at the shopping plaza, which is next to Interstate 5.

Council members rejected that request, however, saying a structure of that height would be an eyesore.

Mayor Randal J. Bressette said that trees planted between nearby homes and the shopping center would screen the scaled-down tower.

And, at the request of Councilman R. Craig Scott, the company agreed that the clock in the tower would keep accurate time.