Making Cell Towers Do a Vanishing Act
When it comes to cellular-telephone antennas, officials in the year-old town of Aliso Viejo have something more fashionable than faux palm trees, phony water towers and slightly deformed light poles in mind.
Make the cell towers part of a building.
Cities across the state have struggled for years to regulate the tall, spindly poles that dot the landscape. Some towns have enacted ordinances restricting their location or requiring cell-phone providers to camouflage them. Berkeley and San Marcos were dragged into court to defend their cell rules--the complaint being that zoning restrictions have made it impossible for the providers to do business.
But in Aliso Viejo--an upscale, master-planned community where appearance seemingly comes first--officials have drawn up a law that will make cell towers little more than another architectural element on a building. The City Council is expected to approve the ordinance tonight. The law would take effect June 1.
“One of the benefits of being in Aliso Viejo is that things look nice,” said Carmen Vali, mayor of the town of 41,000 residents. “If you start seeing antennas hanging off of buildings or on every other light pole, or if you see these fake palm trees popping up, it begins to destroy the look of the community.”
The proposal falls short of banning cell-phone sites from any area--that would be difficult to defend in court because telecommunications providers are protected by state and federal laws. But it does recommend enacting strict design guidelines and requiring providers to share locations--in other words, put their antennas on buildings and structures where others already exist. More important, the law would require the companies to figure out a way to make the equipment look like part of the architecture.
“If it’s properly done, you wouldn’t even know it’s there,” said John Whitman, Aliso Viejo’s public-works director.
If that’s not possible, the provider would have to locate the equipment on a roof, hidden from public view.
The law doesn’t ban the traditional cell tower. But all other options would have to be exhausted before the city would give the OK to build one. “We want the best possible installation for these sites, and we think the best possible and least intrusive installations are on existing structures,” Whitman said. “We have fewer monopoles than most cities do, and we hope to keep it that way.”
Sue Ryan, a staff attorney for El Cajon, which passed its cell-phone ordinance last year, said Aliso Viejo’s effort to turn cell towers into architectural elements appears to be unique.
Aliso Viejo City Atty. Scott Smith said he believes the proposal is legally bulletproof. In drafting the law, he said, the city tried to learn from other communities’ mistakes.
