Cell Phone Antennas Spring Up All Over

In the past they’ve tried to camouflage the things inside phony palm trees and behind fake parapets.

Nobody is bothering to hide cellular telephone antennas in the hills around Southern California these days, however.

Wireless companies are cutting those antennas in half and bolting them onto wooden power poles to allow uninterrupted mobile phone conversations for motorists driving through canyons where signals would otherwise be blocked.

Phone engineers say their “micro-cell sites” are so inconspicuous that few people notice them amid the normal clutter of electrical transformers and drooping telephone cables.

But some environmentalists contend that micro-cells are ugly. And they complain that so many rival cellular companies are jockeying for space that in some canyon areas seemingly every pole is loaded down with cellular equipment.

“They’re unsightly, they interfere with the views from hillsides and they are a safety concern,” said Polly Ward, a Studio City activist who heads the Federation of Hillside and Canyon Assns., a 40-group coalition of property owner organizations in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Cities and counties throughout Southern California are reacting by imposing the first-ever controls over public utilities’ equipment placed in public rights of way.

That is prompting howls from the cellular industry, which maintains that it has the right to use utility poles without restriction, just as traditional telephone and power companies do.

Micro-cells consist of two pieces. Antennas typically the size of a bathroom medicine cabinet are attached to power pole cross-arms and aimed at cars passing beneath them. The cell’s transmitter and receiver are usually enclosed in a box shaped like a mountaineer’s backpack that is bolted to the pole beneath the antenna.

The sites work well over short distances. They’re so efficient, in fact, that engineers are starting to install them in flatland areas to fill in reception “dead zones.”

Cellular telephones, like police radios, use FM radio frequencies that operate on a line-of-sight principle. Because of that, tall buildings and hillsides can block service unless extra cell sites are nearby to relay the signal.

Along some curving canyon roads, five or more poles in a row have been commandeered by competing wireless companies.

Canyon residents who use cell phones say they are willing to put up with the micro sites if that’s what is necessary to have reliable service.

“People want to have cell phone reception up and down the canyon,” said Bob Cohen, a 25-year resident of Benedict Canyon. “This isn’t a social issue. It’s an emergency issue. God forbid you’re in an accident and need to call 911 and you can’t get out.”

Many passersby are oblivious to the cellular boxes among the increasingly thick strands of cable that connect to hillside residents’ telephones, faxes, computers and television sets.

Hollywood Hills resident Sue Lim was unaware that her home on North Beverly Glen Boulevard is within a foot or so of a pole-mounted micro-cell site.

“I’ve never even noticed it before,” Lim said when a visitor pointed out the antenna to her. “But we have good cell service here. And that’s a positive.”

Environmentalists have noticed, however. And they grumble that the cellular proliferation detracts from the beauty of Los Angeles’ hills and canyons.

That has prompted Los Angeles City Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski and other council members to call for restrictions on new cell site installations. Municipal officials are reviewing the first draft of an “above-ground facilities” ordinance aimed at controlling cell sites in public rights of way.

Coming up with the new guidelines has not been easy, officials say.

“The community wants more cellular service, but they are opposed to more visual blight,” said Steven Chen, a Department of Public Works engineer who helped write the initial draft of the ordinance before being promoted to a new city post.

“It’s very sensitive, much bigger than I initially thought it would be. It’s a big industry, with a lot of high-powered people out there.”

The proposed rules would require city permits for cellular cabinets and boxes. Landscaping or other “aesthetically pleasing” screening would also be required. Violations could result in fines of up to $20,000 per site.

But there’s one loophole, and it’s a tall one: Only cellular equipment placed on the ground would be governed by the ordinance. Pole-mounted equipment would be exempted.

The city Department of Water and Power controls pole use and it welcomes micro-cells because it receives annual fees for them.

Major wireless firms belong to the Southern California Joint Poles Committee, a coalition that divvies up space on utility poles. As members, they are entitled to rent space on DWP and Southern California Edison Co. poles, said Chris Bengtsson, who is in charge of the DWP’s overhead distribution system.

For four years, Los Angeles County has also been trying to write a wireless ordinance. The preliminary version also leaves plenty of wiggle room for micro-cells mounted on Edison power poles. Its restrictions would not cover future micro-cell equipment placed on currently existing utility poles.

For now, though, the county has begun demanding that wireless companies obtain conditional-use permits for some micro-cells. One of the first tests of that interim requirement will come today, when Sprint wireless seeks permission to install eight new micro sites in Topanga Canyon.

One of the proposed sites is next to the tiny Topanga Canyon Boulevard crystal shop that Cathy Bilsky has operated for nine years.

She has asked Sprint to relocate the transmitter-receiver equipment away from the gemstone-lined store--built around a 100-year-old oak tree--that she calls Angelite Om. The wireless people have agreed.

“I can see three of these cell sites from my door. You just look up at that stuff and say, ‘Oh my gosh!’ ” Bilsky said.

The cellular industry bristles at requirements that special permits be obtained for each micro-cell site. Since phone and power companies are exempt from local zoning laws for equipment in the public right of way, cellular companies should be too, they maintain.

Some cellular companies are considering legal challenges of cities’ zoning laws, said Robert Searcy, a West Los Angeles communications consultant who helps find cell site locations for wireless firms.

“It’s a huge issue. It’s a puzzling thing to the utilities,” agreed Jayme Willis, vice president of BMS Communications, a Simi Valley firm that designs and administers cell sites for major cellular companies. “Wireless companies are utilities that have a state license and are granted the use of the right of way.”

Some cities are taking an especially tough stance on micro-cells.

Westminster, in Orange County, surveyed nearby cities before enacting an ordinance last November that calls for public hearings and conditional-use permits for cell site poles. A moratorium on new sites had been in place before that.

Palos Verdes Estates leaders are drawing up an ordinance that would require wireless firms to erect life-sized mock-ups of cell sites so residents can review them before construction begins, said Allan Rigg, the city’s director of public works and planning.

Industry experts say the entire Palos Verdes Peninsula is a difficult place to do business, because upwardly mobile residents there demand good cellular service while being tenaciously protective of the area’s views.

In Calabasas, municipal officials try to work with wireless engineers. Calabasas has a city telecommunications commission that efficiently reviews both the technical and aesthetic aspects of cell site requests, according to industry experts.

Increasingly common demands that cellular transmitter boxes be placed underground can push the cost of a $75,000 micro-cell site to as much as $200,000, cellular engineers say.

But micro-cell antennas cannot go underground, said Ken Ausmus, a project manager for Bourchard Communications, a North Hollywood cellular services firm that contracts with AT&T;, Verizon, Sprint, Nextel, Cingular and other wireless companies from San Diego to Santa Barbara. He said thin new fiber-optic lines will eventually reduce the cluttered look of canyon utility poles, but underground vaults are impractical along steep and narrow canyon roads.

Some environmental activists reluctantly agree that micro-cells may permanently be in view.

Longtime mountain development critic Joan Luchs, president of the Cahuenga Pass Neighborhood Assn., said that the best she hopes for is that wireless companies change their beige-colored boxes and antennas to a more discreet color.

“Paint them the color of the poles. Paint them brown,” Luchs said. “I’m realistic. They aren’t coming down. Not in my lifetime.”