Neighbors Lose Bid to Limit Earth Station

Over the objections of Somis residents seeking to oust a high-tech corporate neighbor, county supervisors Tuesday extended the life of a satellite farm for 10 more years.

For years, neighbors in the upscale, gated Solano Verde neighborhood have battled GE American Communications Inc.’s Earth Station, which controls a set of 13 satellites that beam audio, video and data transmissions for the federal government as well as telephone, cable television and radio broadcasting companies.

Neighbors say the sea of 18 satellite dishes--two as large as 73 feet in diameter--and a 11,000-square-foot building are incompatible with their neighborhood. They say the corporate giant’s 24-hour facility has been nothing but a bad neighbor, unwilling to reduce noise and glaring lights and pay its fair share of road maintenance.

The company in turn argues that its multimillion-dollar facility was there first. The Earth Station was first approved in 1974 with three, 30-foot diameter microwave dishes and a 300-foot microwave antenna. Homes in the Solano Verde development, which sit along the road that dead-ends at the Earth Station, were approved in 1980 and developed over the next decade.

Homeowners say they built there believing that the satellite facility would not expand. They said to their surprise, they watched the company continue to expand and erect an additional 15 dishes that they say killed their property values. Trees planted by GE Americom to block views of the facility, they said, were allowed to die.

“We feel the time has come for GE to move,” said homeowner Robert LeBaron, who appealed to the board to overturn a Planning Commission recommendation to extend the company’s permit for another 10 years.

Supervisors said the company has a valid right to be on the site.

However, they agreed to place new restrictions on GE Americom that will require the company to add and maintain trees and bushes, cut the use of an outdoor public address system and pay 35% of the cost of a new neighborhood road. “What concerns me is the good neighbor attitude that has been nonexistent,” Supervisor Kathy Long said.

GE Americom officials declined comment following the board’s action.