Opponent Calls Cellular Tower ‘Visual Litter’

Installing a 35-foot cellular antenna tower along a scenic stretch of Pacific Coast Highway near Faria Beach would create a virtual “antenna forest,” destroying the area’s natural beauty as well as damaging property values, says an opponent of the project.

“I feel very strongly that to be good caretakers of this beautiful area in which we live, we have to do a lot of things to protect it,” Tracy Susman, who lives near the proposed antenna site, said in an interview. “This is visual littering.”

Representatives of Pacific Bell, which wants to install the tower, could not be reached for comment Thursday.

The company has applied for a conditional-use permit to place four panel antennas on a single 35-foot pole at 3945 Pacific Coast Highway, near Faria County Park northwest of Ventura. Two antennas owned by A T & T and AirTouch Cellular are located across the highway from the recently proposed antenna site.

To help shield the new antenna from view, Pacific Bell would place palm trees of similar height around it, said planning officials.

The Ventura County Planning Commission voted to approve the project in November over the objections of several residents, and Susman appealed the decision to the Board of Supervisors. The board is scheduled to review the matter Tuesday.

A Faria Beach resident since 1981, Susman said she is not only concerned about the visual blight but the “perceived health risks” the antenna would bring to the area, which could scare away future home buyers. This in turn would hurt property values, she said. More than 100 families live in the community.

“It doesn’t mean that it has to be proven that there are health risks,” Susman said. “If people perceive there’s a health hazard, they will just not want to buy at Faria Beach.”

She pointed out that telephone lines along the highway were buried underground more than a year ago, enhancing the landscape. It would be a setback if the county allowed Pacific Bell to go forward with its project now, she said.

Still, Susman added that she would be willing to drop her appeal if the county guaranteed her that this would be the last antenna installed in the area and it would be adequately landscaped.

Her third condition for accepting the antenna is that the county draw up new guidelines designating where and how many antennas could be installed around the county in the future. Otherwise, she said, the problem is going to get worse.

“This is a problem we’re seeing up and down the state of California, not just here,” Susman said.

Keith Turner, the county’s planning director, said his staff is recommending approval of the project. He said the applicant has met all legal requirements and had taken care to propose sufficient landscaping to help screen the antenna.

But Turner added that the county is getting more applications to erect antennas and agreed with Susman that it should create guidelines or policies to regulate future installations.