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High-Wire Act

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

As he glided past the water-squirting elephants, lush faux palm trees and prowling tigers at Disneyland, Al Landini had an epiphany.

The Los Angeles zoning administrator had grown weary of trying to balance the concerns of homeowners against the rights of cellular phone providers to erect their towering antennas around the city.

But as he gazed upon the artificial fantasy world of Disneyland’s Jungle Cruise, Landini saw an answer.

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“Why can’t they make the antennas look like palm trees?”

It turned out they could. And they have.

Just this year, two cellular phone antennas disguised as palm trees have sprouted in Winnetka, two of about a dozen citywide. The cloaking devices are just one of the many ways that savvy business types are exploiting nature’s beauty to mask technology.

Some are embracing the technique to avoid NIMBY battles, but others do it simply to create a mood.

“What we are doing intuitively here is to hide raw urban edifices to bring comfort to the population,” Landini said. “Millions of people want cell phones; at the same time they want a softer looking city.”

Throughout Ventura County, GTE has installed hundreds of rock facades to hide recently installed digital cable boxes. And in Westlake and Northridge, visitors to outdoor shopping centers enjoy music beamed at them from speakers shaped as rocks, which are also expected to crop up at shopping centers planned for Calabasas and the Farmers Market in Los Angeles.

As the trend spreads across the country, it is fueling the creation of an array of functional flora. A 35-foot cellular phone antenna dressed up as a saguaro cactus recently made its debut in the Arizona desert.

It may not be nice to fool Mother Nature, but increasingly businesses throughout Southern California are reaping the rewards of doing just that.

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Others are relying on more conventional disguises.

The nation’s churches have been singled out by the cellular phone industry as particularly gracious hosts for their antennas.

The technology is often hidden in giant crosses or specially built steeples. Monthly rents are paid to the churches, which use the money for social causes.

“We’ve found God,” said Tim Ayers, spokesman for the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Assn. “We’re building more church steeples than any other industry in history.”

The flurry of construction is partly the result of the 1996 Telecommunications Reform Act. The federal law strictly prohibits local governments from shutting out companies that want to provide wireless communication services in an area and from banning cellular phone towers on the grounds that their emissions are unsafe, leaving that power to the FCC.

But it allows cities to regulate the way the antennas look, and with new companies racing to build their systems, available sites are becoming scarce. Nationwide there were 50,000 antenna sites as of last year and that figure is expected to more than double by 2006.

Although cities throughout Southern California have been quick to pass ordinances regulating the placement and appearance of antenna sites, the Los Angeles City Council has yet to follow suit. As a result, the decision-making process has largely been left to such city zoning administrators as Landini.

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Landini whipped up the palm tree concept about three years ago after growing tired of meeting after public meeting pitting disgruntled residents against cellular phone providers over proposed sites. Landini mentioned his disguise idea to consultants employed by the cellular phone industry, who began researching the possibility.

“Whether I’m the father of that, I don’t know. But to me it’s a way of reducing urban stress,” said Landini, a West Valley resident. “What makes your day stressful isn’t palm trees. It’s the hard edges.”

Reducing visual pollution has also been a goal of Los Angeles City Councilwoman Laura Chick. Responding to residents’ concerns, Chick’s office urges cellular phone providers to cloak their antennas if they want to install them in highly visible locations in her council district.

“It’s really about visual blight,” Chick said. “If they are something that people are going to be seeing on a regular basis, then they should blend into the landscape.”

Perhaps it’s not surprising that one of the companies specializing in that task has done work for Disney, Universal Studios, Sea World and the recently completed Long Beach Aquarium. Enter the Arizona-based Larson Co., which teamed up with Nebraska-based Valmont Industries.

Valmont manufactures steel poles and ships them to artists at Larson’s utility camouflage division, where they cover them with composite bark and attach fake branches or fronds to the poles to create realistic looking palms, pines, evergreens and cactus.

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But “stealthing,” as it’s known in the industry, can be expensive, with a pole disguised as a tree costing $80,000 or more, compared to $25,000 to $30,000 for a plain pole.

Still, if the camouflages are able to secure site approvals by appeasing residents and city officials, they are worth the expense to cellular providers, who are eager to please customers with reliable service. Those who work in the industry think the demand for disguises is a sign of the times.

“As our society becomes more cultured, we’re willing to pay the price for a nice environment,” said Rick Sampson, vice president of sales and marketing for Valmont. “If you look at Europe, they’ve been much more concerned about aesthetics, whereas in the U.S., it’s been a just slam-them-up [mentality].”

Perhaps no one has capitalized on that realization more than developer Rick J. Caruso, who has modeled his popular outdoor shopping centers after European villages. Caruso’s most elaborate creation to date, the Promenade at Westlake, has been referred to as “that Disney mall” by some visitors due in part to its slick facades, man-made streams and rock speakers.

The speakers, according to Caruso, work well because they not only blend into the landscaping but also project sound toward visitors as opposed to booming it in their faces. The speakers also add to the shopping center’s festive atmosphere.

“With the rock speakers, it becomes a source of curiosity,” Caruso said. “As you’re walking through the Promenade, you’re trying to find out where the music is coming from, and kids especially love them.”

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Caruso plans to install the speakers at his future projects, including the Commons at Calabasas Park Centre and the Grove at Farmers Market. But he is not alone when it comes to keeping an eye on nature in an effort to appease affluent customers.

When GTE began competing with traditional cable companies in Ventura County last year, company officials realized that homeowners in the upscale community of Thousand Oaks invest plenty of money in their landscaping.

Faced with the problem of covering up unsightly cable boxes in residents’ yards, GTE officials began offering fiberglass covers shaped as rocks. Industry insiders refer to the disguises, which come in shades of gray, brown and sandstone, as “pedestal or ped rocks.”

“You need to be more sensitive to the customers’ aesthetic needs,” GTE spokesman Larry Cox said. “We were aware that a lot of people didn’t like the cable boxes in their yards, so we found a vendor who made ped rocks.”

The fake rocks have turned out to be a public relations coup for GTE, which in 19 months has snagged between 46% and 48% of the county’s cable business. They have also turned into a status symbol of sorts.

Last year, a resident from the less-affluent city of Oxnard criticized GTE for not installing the “rock boxes” in his city.

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“We should have the same things they have in Thousand Oaks,” said the man as he requested the boxes at a City Council meeting. “We live the same as them.”

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Frond Fakery

Several fake palm trees made of steel and high-tech composites have been erected in the Valley in an attempt to disguise cellular telephone antenna towers.

Heigh: 60 feet, about the size of a fully grown natural palm

Fronds: Plastic composites that do not interfere with transmission signals

Service: Because installing ladders or steps on the trunk would detract from the appearance, the antennas must be serviced by crane or bucket truck.

Bark: High-impact epoxy

Trunk: Galvanized steel tube

The “tree” is secured either by anchor bolts to a base, or a portion of the “trunk” is buried in the ground.

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