By Eliza Ridgeway
 Pictured is a temporary cell tower at the town hall in Los Altos Hills. |
Los Altos Hills Town Hall was standing-room only at Thursday’s council meeting as residents voiced concerns over planned cell-phone improvements that included erecting a tower at Westwind Barn.
Cell-phone representatives responded to questions from the council and the public before the council voted 3-0 to approve site and conditional use permits for a tower. Councilmen Mike O’Malley and Dean Warshawsky abstained due to possible conflicts of interest.
Residents questioned why the picturesque location next to Byrne Preserve had been targeted for a tower and why more possible sites hadn’t been explored.
Steve Jurvetson, a Westwind neighbor, said, “I can’t believe that the space chosen to give coverage for is an open space. The people (who will) benefit are horses.”
Verizon representatives said the Westwind tower will improve service for a radius of about a mile around the site. Neighbors’ concerns, topography and elevation had eliminated other possible locations.
Tony Kim, a Cingular representative, said it was difficult to find suitable sites in a residential area like Los Altos Hills. Councilman Craig Jones added, “The limitation really isn’t the sites, it’s the sites that are acceptable to the neighbors.”
Jones and the other councilmembers emphasized the difficulty of facilitating tower construction in town. “(The Hills) are not very dense, thus not very profitable for providers,” Jones said.
Verizon has six cell towers in the area. “With three more, we would be covering 90 percent of the town with at least two bars,” Verizon representative Jason Smith said.
The Verizon towers would not benefit residents who use other cellular providers, but each tower has the potential of co-locating one to two other providers’ antennae. The pine-pole design selected by the council has a disguised, tree-like appearance with limited co-location space.
The approved Westwind permit includes construction of a 289-square-foot equipment shed to accompany the tower. Other co-locating providers would also need equipment sheds. Mayor Breene Kerr said he “didn’t want this place to look like a trailer park.” The council directed staff to explore options for making the equipment sheds low-profile.
