GUEST COMMENTARY

Palo Alto residents call for more robust and transparent approval process for small cell antennas

March 30, 2019 – by Tina Chow

Palo Altans are up in arms over the installation of cell antennas on utility poles in front of homes and schools throughout the city. Residents have many concerns about these “small cell towers” including aesthetics, noise, health effects, property value, and fire risk, among others. Furthering resident concerns, city staff are taking actions to codify controversial federal rules that streamline the cell tower approval process, limit public input, and hence reduce transparency. Other cities are doing more for their residents, and Palo Altans should demand nothing less. Speak up now before City Council takes action on April 15, 2019!

New FCC rules have opened the floodgates 

A new order from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is enabling a flood of small cell towers by forcing rapid approval of applications. This FCC 18-133 ruling went into effect on Jan 14, 2019 and shortens the “shot clock” for application review to 60 days. It also requires that aesthetic standards be objective, non-discriminatory, and published in advance.

Palo Alto has already received over 150 applications for such “small wireless facilities.” With 4 major carriers and no requirement for consolidated or shared equipment siting, there could be hundreds more.

Wireless carriers say they are building small cell networks to enable transition to 5G (5th generation) service, which will operate at much higher frequencies and faster speeds to support gaming, self-driving cars, and the Internet of Things. The FCC severely restricts the fees that cities can charge for these smaller cells. A macro cell tower often earns a city roughly $30,000/year and the wireless provider assumes liability. In contrast, rental fees for small cells on utility poles are limited to about $270/year and the city has liability, creating additional financial advantages for carriers to create small cell networks that intrude further into neighborhoods. 

Resident Concerns

Residents argue that these small cell towers are unsightly and unnecessary, and that they put the safety and welfare of our community at risk. Radio-frequency radiation has been shown to create adverse biological and health effects including cancer. In 2018, the National Toxicology Program of the National Institutes of Health concluded that long-term exposure to radio-frequency radiation from 3G and 4G cellular emissions causes brain and heart cancer in rats (Lin et al. 2018). This definitive and large-scale government study was replicated by the Ramazzini Institute, which used even lower radiation exposure levels. Dr. Joel Moskowitz, director of the Center for Family and Community Health at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health, states that “many hundreds of peer-reviewed studies have found evidence of biologic and health effects from low level exposures to cell phone radiation. Hence, the FCC’s exposure guidelines must be re-assessed as they are likely inadequate to protect human health.” 

Putting so many cell towers in such close proximity to resident homes (~20 feet) and schools means human exposures and hence adverse health effects will increase, especially for more vulnerable children and those with electro-sensitivity. 

In addition, power lines and overburdened utility poles are implicated in the recent extreme wildfire events in California. Small cell towers would add hundreds of pounds of equipment hanging off already aging utility and light poles. Another concern is that property values have been shown to go down by 20 percent in some areas with new towers. 

Proposed ordinance would reduce transparency and fail to mitigate key resident concerns

City staff in Palo Alto now want to update the wireless ordinance to streamline the approval process by creating a ‘menu’ of pre-approved designs and removing valuable public input from the process. This ‘menu’ would serve as an objective standard that would take the place of the City’s architectural review findings. Currently, the Architectural Review Board (ARB) evaluates the aesthetics of the proposed cell towers to make the required findings and make a recommendation to the Director of Planning.

With the plan to use a menu of options, decisions would be made solely by the Director of Planning. This means that in the future there would be no public hearing, public record, transparency, or meaningful public participation at all except through formal appeal of a decision to City Council – which is costly for residents and arguably more time consuming than an ARB hearing.

Staff claim that these changes are necessary under the FCC ruling which requires objective standards to be published by April 15, 2019. Remarkably, April 15 is also the date on which City Council is scheduled to consider these changes – with staff pressuring them to decide in favor or else lose the ability to reject applications until alternate standards are approved.

However the staff-proposed ‘menu’ is inadequate to address community objections. Other objective standards, such as requirements for undergrounding, setbacks from homes, and size of equipment, would all go further to mitigate many resident concerns. There is also no reason why we could not maintain the ARB public hearings to consider resident input and preserve our transparent process. 

Other cities and lawsuits against the FCC

Other cities have interpreted the FCC ruling completely differently than Palo Alto city staff. In fact, the FCC order is currently being challenged by lawsuits brought forward by dozens of cities. These include such diverse cities as Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, Portland, Denver, San Jose, Hillsborough, Burlingame, Monterey and more. In addition, our own Congresswoman Anna Eshoo has introduced a bill to the U.S. House to overturn the FCC order. 

Within this complicated legal context, dozens of other cities are taking action to protect resident interests and prevent small cell tower installations in such close proximity to homes and schools. For example:

  • Petaluma, CA now requiresundergrounding of ancillary equipment, 1500 ft minimum spacing of the small cells, and setbacks from residences. 
  • Fairfax, CA passed an urgency ordinance putting a pause on cell tower installations and requiring setbacks from residences, schools, etc., and the city is pursuing a high-speed fiber-optic network.
  • Mill Valley, CA adopted an urgency ordinance to prohibit cell towers in residential zones, strengthen permitting requirements, set minimum distances and setbacks etc. 
  • Ripon, CA also has a new ordinance that requires setbacks from schools and residences. Ripon, by the way, is having a cell tower removed from a school site after a cancer cluster (with at least 3 teachers and 4 kids affected).
  • Marin County is updating its ordinance, joined the lawsuit against the FCC and held a public meeting to discuss 5G in Marin County. 

What can we do?

Residents must speak up now to preserve the health and safety of our community in Palo Alto. On April 15, City Council will vote on the Staff-proposed wireless ordinance changes, which would reduce public input and transparency while doing nothing to address public concerns.

Contact City Council now (City.Council@cityofpaloalto.org) and attend the City Council meeting (April 15, evening) to tell them we need:

  1. A more robust set of objective standards that would include parameters such as setbacks from homes and schools, requirements for undergrounding, size of equipment, etc., informed by an inclusive public process.
  2. A short term resident task force to inform standards that better reflect community concerns and values, with quick turn around of a resolution to adopt them. 
  3. Continued ARB review of applications to ensure public scrutiny and comment on proper application of the standards.

Tina Chow lives in Barron Park and is a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley.


Guest Commentary

Please Help Protect the President Hotel Apartments and Residents Citywide

March 29, 2019 – By PAN (Palo Alto Neighborhoods) Committee on Development, Zoning, and Enforcement 

The City Council will decide Monday night whether to remove a 2016 law that currently prevents the President Hotel Apartments and similar buildings from becoming hotels or offices.

The impact on tenants in downtown apartment buildings could be devastating.  Already, occupants of the 75-unit lower-rent President Hotel Apartments have had to leave because the building’s recent buyer, AJ Capital, aims to convert the property into a luxury hotel.  Other tenants downtown may be affected too if the city removes the 2016 law, which is blocking conversions from any use to another in so-called “grandfathered” or oversized buildings.

The city claims the 2016 law was actually an unintended cut-and-paste error and seeks to replace it by a narrower ordinance that limits just the conversion of housing in oversized Downtown buildings to other uses or fewer units.  However, city staff fear that AJ Capital or perhaps other owners will challenge the narrower law in court and prevail.  So the proposal on Monday night also includes a controversial “waiver” process that allows the City Council to exempt a developer from other zoning laws, thinking this might lead to a compromise that would avoid a court battle.

The City’s approach is insufficient and very worrisome.  Instead of just protecting residents in specific Downtown buildings, the Council should enact a city-wide law to prevent all conversions of residences into commercial space, akin to its ban on groundfloor retail and similar uses converting into offices.  Such a law could benefit thousands of renters across town and also potentially be easier to defend.

The waiver process is itself problematic.  The proposal has no guarantee that apartment tenants will be notified when their landlord applies for a waiver.  Without that, they could wake up one morning to discover the City Council has granted their building generous exemptions the night before and that the residents must all move out when their leases end.  Instead, every tenant should receive notice of any waiver hearing for their building well in advance.

The waiver proposal also empowers a slim majority of four councilmembers to grant benefits worth tens of millions of dollars to a developer by placing no limit on how many zoning rules are eliminated or watered down.  For example, a council majority could respond to a waiver request by granting rights to build an office tower with no parking.  Nothing in our municipal code currently gives councilmembers so much unchecked power for a specific site.

When the seven-member Planning and Transportation Commission reviewed the waiver proposal in January, they unanimously recommended against it.  They further advised the Council to obtain outside legal advice after expressing concerns that the waiver process might not even be necessary.  Their votes reflected concerns raised by many residents who spoke and wrote to them.

From the beginning of the President Hotel Apartment tragedy, our city has failed to protect tenants and preserve rental units, despite repeated proclamations that housing is a top priority.  That can change Monday night if we insist that the Council:

  • insure that any waiver process fully protects tenants, 
  • limits developer exemptions to the very minimum required by law, 
  • consider the unanimous Planning Commission recommendation to eliminate the waiver, and
  • look at adopting a city-wide residential preservation ordinance.

We encourage you to send an email in your own words to the City Council at City.Council@CityofPaloAlto.org.  You can also attend Monday’s Council meeting to speak or support others on this issue.  

Links:

City Staff Report Advocating the Law Changes, Including the Waiver:https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civicax/filebank/documents/70005

Agenda for Monday’s Council Meeting: https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civicax/filebank/documents/69999

Palo Alto Weekly Article About the December 2018 Council Vote on the Waiver:https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2018/12/11/proposed-law-would-prevent-president-hotel-conversion

Palo Alto Weekly Article about the January 2019 Planning Commission Vote to Eliminate the Waiver:https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2019/01/31/zone-change-creates-hurdle-for-president-hotel-conversion

Editorial: Caution on teacher housing

Palo Alto Weekly – by Palo Alto Weekly editorial board / January 26, 2018

Simitian vision for subsidized teacher housing has long road to travel

Every organization in Palo Alto — business, nonprofit and government — is struggling with the lack of affordable housing and the resulting employee-recruiting and commute challenges. So before letting teacher housing become the sole focus, we’d like to see clear evidence of need and demand and a policy discussion about whether and why teacher housing should be a higher priority than other subsidized housing when considering the re-purposing of limited public property.

The value of teachers living within the community may very well be worth making it the priority for the use of this county property, but the public deserves a lot more analysis showing such a plan will actually result in the desired outcome before reaching that policy decision.

Editorial: The risks of secrecy

Palo Alto Weekly – by PA Weekly editorial board / December 8, 2017

School board splits on whether and how to accept large anonymous donations

When developing a new public policy, a sure warning sign should be when the policy has to thread a needle to avoid violating existing laws and, in doing so, becomes convoluted and irrational.

The Palo Alto school board struggled Tuesday night trying to balance competing interests of transparency and donor privacy, and a bare majority (Ken Dauber, Jennifer DiBrienza, Terry Godfrey) approved a new policy that, in our opinion, skates on the edge of the law and brings an unacceptable level of secrecy.

accountability cartoon

What’s all the fuss about code enforcement?

Palo Alto Matters – October 10, 2017

Public trust and damaged community life.

Ask a typical Palo Altan what code enforcement is all about and odds are the first thing they’ll mention is gas-powered leaf blowers. But it also encompasses zoning and building compliance, Use and Occupancy permits, parking, signage, construction noise and more – complex, wonky, and sometimes seemingly nitpicky, issues that have both immediate and cumulative impacts on land use and quality of life. While most residents may not know a specific code violation when they see one, they experience the impacts of noncompliance and it feels unfair.

Immediate neighbors suffer from unabated violations. Worse, Palo Altans city-wide endure a double loss: they suffer lasting changes in the character of their neighborhoods and they feel abandoned, or even duped, by their city government. Supposedly protected retail converts to other uses; burdens on public parking increase unnecessarily; traffic safety in neighborhoods deteriorates; and businesses freely flout rules designed to protect residential quality of life. Rumblings rise about city bias favoring non-resident interests.

Guest Opinion: Exploring creative options for underground train tracks

Palo Alto Weekly – Guest Opinion by Tom DuBois / October 1, 2017 

City holding next grade separation workshop on Oct. 21

Palo Alto is planning perhaps the most critical infrastructure in its history: the separation of our roads from the rail line that bisects the city.

The desire from the community is clear. We need to exhaustively investigate creative approaches to put the train underground and evaluate whether it is possible to do it across town or across a portion of it. Past councils, past rail committees, past community groups and our current community engagement process have all shown a preference for this approach. We need to get serious about how to underground the train and how to pay for it.

Big changes coming to El Camino Real

Palo Alto Daily Post – Opinion by Editor, Dave Price / September 12, 2017

In Palo Alto, 2018 will be the year of El Camino Real.

City Councilwoman Lydia Kou recently rattled off a list of 11 projects that are in the works for the King’s Highway.

Most of these projects would result in more housing stacked up against the street, 50 feet tall (the city’s height limit). If Palo Alto isn’t careful, El Camino will become a canyon with a street on the bottom and 50-foot walls on either side.

Editorial: The shriveling office cap

Palo Alto Weekly – by the Palo Alto Weekly editorial board / September 8, 2017

Council’s split over office cap will surely return as an election issue next year

The irony and hypocrisy of this is that the same majority that voted Tuesday to make more commercial development easier has been advocating repeatedly for more housing. If there is one documentable result of the current office-cap restrictions, it is that it has led to more housing projects where office development would have otherwise been likely.

It is not hard to imagine voters becoming cynical about candidates who say their focus is on increasing the supply of housing while voting to make new commercial development, the major driver in demand for housing, easier.

How to avoid a train wreck – doing grade separations right

cartoon

Palo Alto Matters – Guest Commentary by Pat Burt / September 1, 2017

Former Mayor of Palo Alto

The city council is scheduled this Tuesday to decide on the process for designing railroad grade separations across Palo Alto, but the current plan for the decision-making runs a high risk of running the project off the tracks. While debate over “process” can make most folks eyes glaze over, how we come to agreement as a community on the design for this very complicated and expensive project is critical to its success.

Guest Opinion: A roadway Odyssey

Palo Alto Weekly – Guest Opinion by Evelyn Preston / August 18, 2017

Palo Alto-style A former teacher gives a glimpse into Palo Alto life by traveling around town

While some of my friends binge on their second safaris, cruise European canals or time-share in Hawaii, I consider a trip to downtown Palo Alto an equally grand adventure. For someone living in south Palo Alto, a crosstown sojourn requires strategic planning. Snail-like speed limits, packed parking and a rotating landscape of shops and restaurants present pioneer-like obstacles: The time it takes mirrors the forty-niners’ trek West; the lengthening queues of cars lined up at lights make their own modern wagon train.