LAKEPORT >> Lakeport City Hall was filled with cheers and applause yesterday as the city council officially rejected Verizon Wireless’s proposal to build a cell tower on a plot near 1875 High Street.
After more than six months of debate and delay, the council voted 5-0 to approve the appeal to the planning commission’s original decision in May.
“I admire that the council has made the moral choice, considering all their responsibilities,” said Lakeport resident Meg Harper, who lives close to High Street. “It’s not that we don’t want the tower, we just don’t want it in the proposed site.”
Harper and other citizens represented a large backlash to the Verizon proposal. The wireless company was given two opportunities to research and find an alternative spot to solve coverage issues in North Lakeport.
According to documents provided by the company’s attorneys, other sites, such as the suggested courthouse building, weren’t feasible and couldn’t provide complete connectivity. Due the region’s topography, Verizon argued the only option was High Street, limiting compromise options to tower disguises like trees and water towers.
To most of the public and the council, those options just weren’t good enough. Mainly, the contention came down to aesthetics.
“It just wasn’t going to go along with the look of the neighborhood,” Mayor Martin Scheel said. “I feel with all the information that was presented throughout the process, the council stands by its position and made the correct vote.”
Staff documents also supported that view and said the proposed 72-foot monopine isn’t consistent with the city’s zoning ordinance and general plan because “it fails to preserve the scale and character of the existing neighborhood.”
Verizon’s representatives said they looked at other sites and found some other options that could close the coverage gap. However, property owners refused to allow the antennas on their land.
Additionally, the appeal, filed by nearby business owner Nancy Ruzicka, noted three other parcels on the 1000 block and claimed that significant evidence for weakened cell coverage at those sites didn’t exist.
One of those sites was 1833 High St. — also owned by Ruzicka, Verizon said. The company added that it looked into putting a “stealth rooftop-mounted facility,” but zoning restrictions limited the height of the tower, hindering network capacity offload. In order to offset that, its engineers determined that another 30 feet would need to be added to stealth facility.
“The applicant’s assertion that any height limit exists for this site is false,” the appeal documents said. “A proposed [cell site] is not subject to a numeric height limit in that site’s zone, if a use permit must be secured, but must be compatible with the area’s surrounding character.”
With the appeal’s approval, further action by the cell phone company is yet to be determined. It may file suit under the Federal Telecommunications Act of 1996, according to City Manager Maraget Silveira, but the city feels like it has sufficient evidence to defend against such actions.
“We feel comfortable,” she said.
The future is also unclear for further cell phone coverage in Lakeport. According to Scheel, the council is not feeling pressure from its constituents and the city hasn’t been approached by other companies.
In fact, he could only recall public opposition to Verizon’s plans.
“Out of all the meetings, no one came to the podium and said, ‘please approve this because I need better cell phone coverage.’”
