Cellphone antennas could soon be popping up on top of more Anchorage utility poles -- an industry push playing out in a battle between a telecommunications corporation and neighbors worried about safety and aesthetics.
In the South Addition neighborhood just south of downtown, General Communications Inc. wants to put a 10-foot antenna on top of an existing 68-foot utility pole in an alley near 13th Avenue and E Street. A group of neighbors has mounted a vigorous protest and recently filed an appeal with Anchorage Superior Court.
It's rare to see a cellular antenna on top of a power pole in a residential area in Anchorage. The head of the city's long-range planning department, Erika McConnell, said she knew of only one other example, on Aero Drive off West Northern Lights Boulevard. But McConnell said more are expected, and wireless providers are pushing for more city guidelines as technology evolves and mobile phones proliferate, pushing antennas into denser sites in neighborhoods.
In the South Addition case, which has met opposition from neighbors every step of the way, GCI has sought permission from city zoning boards to exceed the maximum height and separation distance for a cellphone tower in a residential district. The company wants to fill in a gap in cellphone coverage in the area, said GCI spokesman David Morris.
Morris said GCI could have gone the traditional route and built its own tower, but topping an existing tower with an antenna seemed less obtrusive for the neighborhood. The pole belongs to Municipal Light & Power, the city-owned electric utility.
Power poles topped with antennas in residential areas are fairly common in the Lower 48. There aren't as many in Alaska. But Morris said he expects that to change.
"As demand and population density increases, you're going to see more and more of these things occur," Morris said.
Elected officials have said the city should revive a dormant effort to rewrite regulations on cellphone towers and introduce more guidelines for antenna-topped utility poles and camouflage or "stealth" towers designed to blend antennas into the surroundings. The city's first application for a camouflaged tower, by Verizon at Alyeska Ski Resort, is set to be reviewed by the Planning and Zoning Commission later this month.
Those opposing the South Addition GCI project have come up with a different slogan for antenna-topped towers: "Coming soon to a front yard near you." In this case, they say, they're especially worried about safety — what would happen if the pole fell over or collapsed? In November, the city Planning and Zoning Commission reinforced that concern when it denied GCI's permit for the antenna, ruling the cell tower would be located closer to homes than city code allows.
Last month, the commission's ruling was overturned by the city's three-member Board of Adjustment after GCI appealed. The board upheld its decision Thursday.
Neighbors putting up a fight
Teresa Arnold and Heather Knowlan's backyard opens up to the alley where the utility pole is located. They say nine homes are located in the path of the potential tower's "fall zone."
"It is so close to people's homes," Knowlan said recently, standing in the alley and looking up at the northwest end, where long wires run through the pole. (Morris, of GCI, disputed the safety concerns, saying that if there's a danger, it's the existing power pole, not the 10-foot antenna extension).
The pole is 34 feet from one home, Arnold said. City law requires a separation distance equal to 200 percent of the height of a wireless communication tower or pole.
Arnold said aesthetics and property values also are issues for neighbors. She said she and Knowlan have been renovating their home, and the power pole is visible off the back porch. It's already unsightly, she said, but she doesn't want it to be worse.
"My perspective is, we live right here, and yeah these wires are ugly, hopefully one day they'll be buried," Arnold said. "But let's not make it more ugly."
Along with their neighbors Racheali and Timothy Feller, who live across the street from the pole, Arnold and Knowlan have filed an appeal with Anchorage Superior Court based on the Board of Adjustment's ruling to allow the project to move forward. They've also created a Facebook page, posted frequently to the neighborhood website and application Nextdoor.com and canvassed the neighborhood asking about cellphone coverage.
It's somewhat unusual for an Anchorage cell tower case to go to court. Arnold said none of the four neighbors are lawyers, but they're prepared to fight it on their own.
The South Addition Community Council has taken a neutral stance on the GCI proposal, voting last year not to contest the plans. Meanwhile, the church that sits on land next to the utility pole has already been receiving payments from GCI for a land lease related to the tower project.
Paul Hartley, the district superintendent for the Alaska district Church of the Nazarene, wouldn't say how much the church is receiving from GCI, citing a nondisclosure agreement. But he said it's not a large amount.
"We're not getting rich off that by any means," Hartley said. He said the church is leasing land to GCI for a small power substation.
Hartley said the church's lawyers looked closely at the lease and at the proposal for the cellphone tower before making the deal. He said the church saw the proposed antenna as a positive, and wanted to bring better cellphone coverage to the community.
"That's ultimately our stance: We don't have any issue with the cellphone tower," Hartley said. "If the neighborhood does, they have every right to fight it."
Land use issues
The dispute comes as city planners begin to examine rewriting regulations for cell towers in Anchorage, including guidelines for putting antennas on light poles in residential areas.
Right now, the current rules are "inadequate," said Jillanne Inglis, lead plan reviewer in the city's planning department. She said the city's rules need to differentiate between cellphone towers and light poles with attached antennas and outline the process and criteria for approval.
"In this case," Inglis said, referring to South Addition, "it's fascinating because it's actually a light pole. But suddenly … it can't be there because of the falldown distance."
The city also needs to give more guidelines on camouflaged towers, or disguising antennas with fake tree branches or other features, Inglis said.
Efforts to rewrite the city's tower regulations, however, have been dormant for years. In 2004, the city's consultant drafted the first version of Title 21, the city's general land-use code, and included more modernized telecommunication tower regulations, said McConnell, the head of the long-range planning section. But the proposed set of new regulations sparked an outcry in the industry, she said.
City planners then agreed to set aside the proposal until the rest of the land-use code had been re-written -- "of course, never imagining the code rewrite would take 12 years," McConnell said. She said planners still haven't had a chance to work on the tower regulations, but there's research underway now.
"The need is recognized, but we have not had an opportunity to start making (the changes)," McConnell said.
At a recent Assembly meeting, several Assembly members voiced frustration at vague rules surrounding cell towers in Anchorage.
"It is a sense of, OK, what are our standards, what are the requirements, what needs to be fulfilled?" said Assembly member Patrick Flynn, who represents downtown.
He said one goal would be to make the process "less painful" for wireless operators, who are spending time and money on proposals that then run into regulatory issues.
Amy Demboski, the chair of the Assembly's committee on land-use regulations, said she expects to focus on tower rules in upcoming committee meetings.
In South Addition, meanwhile, the neighbors said they're nervous about what the eventual outcome of the GCI case could mean for other neighborhoods.
"Basically, what they're saying … with the current technology, these towers are going to be popping up everywhere," Knowlan said.