Cellular Towers in the Church Belfry? Not Within 500 Feet of me, Says One Resident

Storybook churches, with their soaring belfries, are perfect spots for cellular phone companies to install wireless telecommunications towers. But what happens when a church decides to install cellular “chimneys” within 500 feet of your residence?

That’s the scenario before Joel Froding, who lives near the Highland Park Full Gospel Assembly church. The church, located at 7131 N. Figueroa St., faces the hillside balcony of Froding’s house on Crestwood Way, which is on the border of Eagle Rock and Highland Park, within the jurisdiction of the Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council.

On Monday, Froding, a physical therapy instructor at the USC Medical Center, e-mailed the ERNC as well as the Historic Highland Park Neighborhood Council to protest a proposal by the Full Gospel Assembly to install cell phone, microwave and communications towers atop the church.

According to a Department of City Planning document that Froding received in the mail last week (see attached PDF file), the church has applied for the installation, use and maintenance of an “unmanned wireless telecommunications facility” by Metro PCS, a Texas-based mobile service provider that is reportedly the fifth-largest U.S. carrier, behind Verizon, AT&T, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile USA.

Metro PCS’s proposal, which is scheduled to come before the Los Angeles Department of City Planning for a zoning permit on May 1, includes five panel antennas on an existing bell tower and three microwave antennas behind two new faux chimneys. A new eight-foot-high concrete wall aimed at blocking five equipment cabinets and a GPS antenna from public view are also planned.

“I am very opposed to these additions in my neighborhood,” Froding wrote in his e-mail to the ERNC, a copy of which he sent to Eagle Rock Patch. “The Figueroa corridor is already extremely commercial and in some spots unsightly. This proposed project will not only be visible by everyone who lives on the hillsides facing the church, but from the street level as well. Also, the addition of these towers brings focused electromagnetic waves to within 500 feet of homes and businesses. Do we know the health effects of these waves?”

On April 25, the matter will come before the Land Use Committee of the Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council—ahead of the May 1 public hearing by the Department of City Planning zoning administrator at City Hall downtown. (Cellular towers cannot be installed in residential areas without a zoning permit and an environmental review.)

“Why are we putting cell phone towers in the middle of residential areas?” Froding said in a phone interview with Eagle Rock Patch Wednesday. “I know why they’re doing it—the church is probably trying to raise some money, but it’s going to bring down home values.”

Pastor Patrick Kane of the Highland Park Full Gospel Assembly said that, indeed, money is the primary reason why his church wants to install cellular towers.

“I have cell phone towers to the left of me and the right of me,” he said in a phone interview Thursday from San Jose, where his wife is a college professor. There are cell phone towers in a building right next door to the north of the church as well as another one immediately to the south, the pastor explained, adding that the Full Gospel Assembly not only has a prime location but a very tall belfry, which is why it was approached by cell phone companies as far back as the late 1990s for installing cellular towers.

“At the time we didn’t need the money,” Kane said. “With the downturn in the economy, now we do.” He added: “We have outreach for the poor and we’re going to use these funds [income from the installation of the cellular towers] to help our community.”

Kane said city authorities have already completed an environmental review of the proposal. “The project has gone through a full environmental study by the City of Los Angeles, so the fears of the opposition are groundless,” he said.

Still, Froding contends that cellular towers should not be installed in residential areas because they needlessly commercialize living spaces. “Who wants to live in an area looking at cell phone towers?” he asked in his e-mail to the neighborhood councils of Eagle Rock and Highland Park.