It’s unclear whether the city of Gilroy knew of any wrongdoing,
but the microwave transmission tower located on top of reservoir D
five years for use by AT
&
amp;T apparently was put up illegally.
It’s unclear whether the city of Gilroy knew of any wrongdoing, but the microwave transmission tower located on top of reservoir D five years for use by AT&T apparently was put up illegally.
It turns out that the tower, which is listed in city documents to be 30 feet tall, is actually 44 feet, three inches-a height that would have required the issuance of a conditional use permit and full approval by the city’s planning commission as well as notification of neighbors in the area.
“This should have been voted on by the planning commission,” said Gilroy resident Chris Cote, who started a public awareness grassroots campaign on the potential health risks that the towers pose when one was scheduled to go up behind his house. “I’ve talked to everyone on the planning commission and they never heard anything about this.”
Perhaps even more interesting is the fact that if it were eight inches taller, the tower would have required a variance approved by the city council itself, which would have brought greater public scrutiny by a population that is increasingly concerned with the potential health risks that high-frequency towers pose.
Located in the city’s residential hillside district at the top of Periwinkle Drive, the tower has been in operation since 1997.
The discovery of the tower’s height was made last week when Ron Gong, a Gilroy resident who lives within a few hundred feet of the tower, hired an independent state certified surveyor to determine its actual height.
Gong is not only concerned with the existing tower, but also the fact that the city contracted with AT&T in June of last year to put up another one. Construction is currently underway.
“I’m extremely concerned, in light of everything that is going on in this city,” said Gong. “First Zinc Technologies tried to put one up and another one went up at Luigi Aprea. My daughter’s window is 150 feet away from that thing. Right now this is an issue everywhere and it concerns me because there is so much uncertainty about them. The bottom line is I don’t care if this tower is six inches tall. I want to hear about it before it goes up. There should be a process.”
Gong and 1,000 other concerned residents in the city have signed a petition for a change in the city’s current process for erecting the high-frequency towers. Ultimately, they would like to see the city adopt a moratorium on such towers and would like to see them positioned roughly one-half mile from all homes, schools and water supplies in the city.
“No one from the city staff or city council is saying that the health issue isn’t valid, but the council is not the venue for discussion on this, the FCC is. The battle needs to be brought there,” said Gilroy City Administrator Jay Baksa.
“That is true,” countered Cote, “but that doesn’t mean that the city cannot control zoning ordinances to determine where they are put up.”
The underlying concern is that as technology grows and the towers are loaded with bigger and more powerful equipment, the dangers will increase as well.
“These aren’t antennas like you used to use when you watched I Love Lucy on TV as a kid. These things are constantly in use. I can turn my computer or cell phone off but these don’t stop,” said Gong.
Gong and Cote are concerned that being in such close proximity to the towers will hurt property values, as they will have to be disclosed to potential homebuyers in the future.
“Even a 1 percent hit on a million dollar home is a lot of money,” Cote said. “But this movement is not about protecting the rich or homes in and around Country Estates, as some have implied. If that was the case, I could have stopped when the tower near me was shot down. But I want to see that everyone in Gilroy is protected.”
AT&T and Nextel as well as the city use the tower that is located next to Gong’s property for its police and fire services.
“Early in 2002 AT&T contacted us and said they’d like to put up another one,” said Baksa. “We said sure. We had already had the authority way back when it was first brought up.”
