GILROY
– The city will use a combination of incentives and regulations
to try and keep certain wireless transmission towers out of
residential areas as much as possible.
GILROY – The city will use a combination of incentives and regulations to try and keep certain wireless transmission towers out of residential areas as much as possible.
In response to a controversy that flared up months ago over cell phone and wireless Internet towers proposed for areas near homes and schools, the City Council outlined the provisions of a new city wireless ordinance during a special study session Monday.
Homeowners who pushed for the ordinance thanked the city and said they were generally pleased with the effort, although one noted the city’s ordinance is still lacking specific provisions that would require towers to be a certain distance from homes or schools.
“It’s a good start and the city is on the right path,” said Welburn Avenue resident and activist Christopher Cote, who launched a petition drive demanding new regulations last year after a tower was proposed for a city water tank near his home. “It’s taken a long time to get here, but we have a long way to go.”
Gilroy’s ordinance generally discourages certain wireless towers from residential areas unless a company proves it cannot locate one elsewhere.
However, officials decided against a specific requirement on the number of feet that a tower located an industrial or commercial area would have to be from residential areas or schools. Instead, they left it up to the city’s discretion based on technical data.
More than 860 people have signed a petition urging a ban on radiation-emitting towers within 2,500 feet from homes, schools and city water tanks, Cote said. He noted Watsonville’s law bans towers within 1,500 feet of schools.
Requirements in most other cities studied Monday range from 50 to 600 feet for residential areas.
“What about that one-tenth of 1 percent, particularly children, who may be ultra-sensitive?” he asked. “Is it worth 10 children? Is it worth one?”
City officials note that the federal Telecommunications Act prohibits them from banning towers, discriminating among providers or “unreasonably impeding” service in the community or within specific areas of the city. City staff have noted that 2,500 feet is a “significant distance.
And Council seemed to agree with City Administrator Jay Baksa Monday, who suggested that any arbitrary setback would be hard to defend because there’s no science behind it. Many commercial and industrial areas – where towers could conceivably be located – are also close to residential areas, he said.
“I believe that we need to be careful because of the constraints we have with the (Federal Communications Commission) and the rulings they have placed before,” said Councilman Al Pinheiro in an interview Tuesday. “We have to stay within the law, and this gives us the ability to do that. Flexibility is something you need to have.
“The mindset that was shown is we’re all on the same page as far as trying to keep (towers) away from residential areas.”
Council settled on other provisions for its new ordinance Monday after reviewing the details of laws passed or considered in other Bay Area and Central Coast cities, ranging from Walnut Creek to Berkeley. Gilroy Community Development Director Wendie Rooney had assembled the details of those laws in a special matrix for review.
Based on Monday’s discussion, Gilroy’s ordinance would combine both incentives and regulations in an attempt to guide the placement of certain kinds of towers.
Companies would be urged to place the towers in certain locations – away from residential zones – through less-stringent permitting requirements for those areas that would require only an administrative review and not a hearing before the Planning Commission or another political body.
Grouping of antennas is also encouraged. A company looking to install a new tower may have to build one that could accommodate several antennas if other wireless companies are interested.
If companies assert they need to put a tower in a residential area, they would have to submit an analysis that shows why alternate sites don’t work.
All towers would require a visual impact analysis and screening, while those in residential areas would require disguising or a “stealth” approach. Noticing requirements for new towers would extend 500 feet.
Once a tower is installed, companies would have to submit radiation monitoring studies after 90 days and again after two years to ensure that regulations aren’t exceeded.
Certain technologies would be exempted from the ordinance, including:
• wireless facilities for public safety, hospital and medical service agencies
• citizen-band, amateur and business radio
• wireless Internet service, and
• receive-only, radio-to-TV antennas on residential property and direct satellite TV
The city’s move toward an ordinance resulted from controversy over cell-phone towers at two city water tanks near higher-end neighborhoods in the Country Estates and Welburn Avenue areas.
The petition began circulating when Welburn residents helped quash a planned wireless Internet transmission tower near their homes last year. Some Country Estates residents – concerned about two transmission towers erected on another city reservoir site behind their homes – also joined the effort.
Health concerns about the energy emitted from the towers have been a major theme. Opponents have also stressed concerns about aesthetics and the safety of the water in the tanks if the sites are opened to maintenance workers.
Welburn resident Joanne Curro, a cancer survivor, said the city shouldn’t consider expense considerations in allowing towers in residential areas.
“It can’t be because a company can’t afford it,” she said.
