Thousand Oaks Pressured to Ease Cell Tower Rules

After coming under fire from the Federal Communications Commission for its strict regulation of wireless antennas, the City Council will discuss Tuesday whether to allow towers to be built in residential neighborhoods, open space preserves and on public lands.

While the city currently allows cellular towers in commercial and industrial areas, council members have been reluctant to locate them in neighborhoods and natural preserves.

But the FCC has weighed in and said the city hasn’t complied with federal laws that prohibit municipalities from curbing cell phone service by unreasonably restricting the placement of wireless towers.

“We need to take some action,” said City Atty. Mark Sellers. “We’ve got to allow them in and it’s really just a question of how.”

For city officials, the issue of wireless antennas centers on concerns that the gangly towers may tarnish views along the city’s sacrosanct ridgelines and forest groves.

“That’s my main concern,” said Councilwoman Linda Parks. “There are some pretty ugly cell phone towers and I personally don’t want them around every corner.”

In July, the City Council passed stiff regulations that allowed mobile communication companies to erect towers only in commercial and industrial areas, placing a 90-day moratorium on towers in the other areas.

In addition, the council mandated that companies paint the towers so they blend into the natural and structural surroundings, limit the towers to 50-foot poles or a height 15 feet above a roof and offer proof that electromagnetic emissions from antennas comply with FCC standards.

However, the FCC has come down hard, saying the city’s standards are far too stringent and violate regulations contained within the 1996 Federal Telecommunications Act.

Currently, only 20% of Thousand Oaks is zoned as commercial and industrial areas and because of the hilly topography, communications companies said they will be hard-pressed to deliver effective services to the area without more towers.

City staff has recommended that the council comply quickly with federal law and allow communications giants like AT&T; and Pacific Bell Mobile Services to erect additional towers. Officials said the council understands the legal bind the city is in and will most likely decide soon how to implement those changes.

And there are a number of options.

One would allow companies to locate the antennas on the top of street lights while others propose placing them in church steeples, atop stadium lights like those at Thousand Oaks High School and even within decorative city statues.

“I’ve seen a lot of examples of very creative ways of hiding these antennas, so we have a lot of avenues to explore,” Sellers said.

Parks said she advocates the use of micro-cells, which are smaller, limited-use cousins of the bulky antennas currently used by most cell phone companies.

Although city officials understand that they must comply with federal regulations, they still have the ability to regulate the manner in which the antennas are used.

In all likelihood, the city will maintain regulations regarding tower height and color and will also scrutinize their locations.

“I don’t think it will get to a point where they’ll be in everyone’s way,” Parks said. “But it is important that we get a handle on this right now.”