Earlier this month, we reported on a group of neighbors on 27th Avenue that were fighting back against the installation of some AT&T wireless antennas.
The new wireless antennas are being attached to utility poles all over the Richmond District and other city neighborhoods. They’re part of an effort by cell phone carriers to improve wireless reception for their customers. The installations are led by a company called NextG, who is contracted by the cell phone carriers.
The effort to remove the unsightly antenna equipment on 27th Avenue was spearheaded by resident Jeff Cooper, who came home one evening last December to find several large, brown boxes on the utility pole outside his living room window. There was also a new, four foot extension added to the top of the pole, where the wireless antenna now sits.
After digging into city records and researching NextG’s wireless antenna installations in the neighborhood, Cooper discovered that an error was made in the permit approval process.
According to the San Francisco General Plan, that block of 27th Avenue – between Lake and El Camino – has a street view rating of “Good”. This means it’s a protected street and as a result, the Department of Public Works (DPW) did not have the authority to approve permits for work that may impede on that view without additional Planning Department review.
Cooper filed an appeal with the San Francisco Planning Department’s Board of Appeals, citing the error and requesting that NextG’s permit for the 27th Avenue wireless antenna be revoked. They were then scheduled to appear at the March 16th Board of Appeals public meeting.
A few days before the hearing, Cooper received copies of the official responses from the DPW and NextG. In their response, the DPW acknowledged that an error was made in the permitting process.
NextG’s response was much longer, at times vilifying Cooper while also conceding that they would be willing to modify the 27th Avenue antenna equipment to make it less conspicuous.
One of the offers NextG made was to re-install the antenna mount at the top of the 27th Avenue pole to be flush with the wood extension. So rather than jutting out out above the extension, the antenna would hug up against it, reducing the overall height of the installation. They cited another existing antenna installation at 3655 Noriega in the Sunset as an example of this.
However when Cooper actually visited 3655 Noriega, he discovered that the antenna was not a flush installation. Like the one on 27th Avenue, it was top mounted on the utility pole extension. Did NextG actually reference an installation they were in violation of in their official response to the Board of Appeals? Yes, they did.
This prompted Cooper to look into more of the installations that NextG had claimed would be flush-mounted in their permit applications, including one at 571 32nd Avenue in the outer Richmond District. That one was in violation as well. Cooper proceeded to find 3 other violations with NextG’s permits, all in the outer Richmond District.
As a result, Cooper filed an addendum to his appeal just before the hearing, detailing NextG’s additional violations.
At the March 16 meeting of the Board of Appeals, Cooper and about 5 other residents spoke before the panel, requesting that NextG’s permit for the 27th Avenue wireless antenna be revoked.
After input from both sides, the Board of Appeals voted to officially revoke the NextG permit for the 27th Avenue installation. And after hearing about NextG’s additional infractions, Board of Appeals Vice President Michael Garcia asked Planning Department Zoning Administrator Scott Sanchez to begin imposing fines on NextG for their widespread permit violations across the city.
“I was ecstatic,” Cooper said about the decision. “I’ve never been one to get involved in these sorts of things, but if this case helps create awareness, it’s great.”
Cooper says there was no indication made at the hearing of what would happen next, but he was told by the DPW that if the permit were to be revoked, the Board would most likely require that NextG remove the equipment.
If the equipment is removed, NextG can still pursue an antenna installation on 27th Avenue. But they will have to reapply for the permit, which is now subject to more stringent review thanks to new legislation introduced by Supervisor John Avalos and passed by the Board of Supervisors in late January 2011.
Only two appeals have been brought before the Board of Appeals about NextG wireless antenna installations; both of them were on the March 16 agenda. While Cooper won his appeal, the other did not. Nevertheless, the win sets an important precedent for any future appeals that may be brought by other residents regarding wireless antenna installations under the new city legislation.
In addition to requiring that advance notice be made to residents during the permit process, the new Avalos legislation provides guidance with respect to the wireless equipment by creating a tier system from I to III, with tier III being the largest installations. The law specifically states that permits for Tier III-B equipment – which is what was installed on 27th Avenue – cannot be approved without Planning Department review.
“It’s all about rolling out this technology in a responsible manner,” Cooper said, adding that the most rewarding part of the process has been creating awareness and connecting with his neighbors on the issue. “Others have reached out to me for information since the story came out.”
Cooper is expecting a formal, written summary of the Board of Appeals ruling in the coming days. He’ll know then whether he’ll be saying goodbye to the equipment for good, or locking horns again with NextG.
Sarah B.
Jeff Cooper stands under the antenna equipment on the pole outside his house. Courtesy of Jeff Cooper.
Bravo to Jeff!
I have to admit I was skeptical about the NIMBY reaction at first–until I SAW what the installation looks like! These people (should) know full well that cell-phone tower installations have oftentimes been cited for being, well, ugly, and their immature and error-strewn response is proof that they have been reactive and irrational–in due contrast to our neighbor’s response.
It’s not too much to ask that art be mixed with science. If the company was smart they’d sort out a way to actually make the installations _attractive_. (Partnership with local artists, consult industrial designers, etc.) When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Hear that, NextG?
P.S. Their hideous royalty-free-corporate-artwork website proves the aesthetically challenged bent of their corporation.
Man, Sarah, you are a great journalist. Thanks for your detailed and well written accounts of the nuances, foibles, and pleasures of little neighborhood.
I will concur with Rob’s sentiments. I do think stories like this are often covered at a 30,000 foot level without any real depth of reporting. This can lead to a story like this to be easily compartmentalized into an overly simplistic NIMBY debate. I really appreciate that Sarah took the time to understand the issues here. This is a somewhat complicated issue that will most certainly continue to arise in the 94121 and 94118 and Sarah did a great job covering the story.
Another hideous installation is at 27th and Noriega in the Sunset. T-Mobile couldn’t have made it uglier if they tried.
As the City currently beautifies Noriega Street with median plantings, sidewalk trees and new awnings for businesses, why are they allowing unsightly cell installations better suited to an industrial area than a residential neighborhood?
Since you published the first story, i took a walk about the neighborhood and noticed there are four cell phone antenna boxes on the intersection of 14th Ave and Clement alone. Does anyone know if there is a limit to the number of antennas that can be within a certain distance of each other?
Way to go Jeff! Corporations like NextG couldn’t care less about the aesthetics of a neighborhood and, based on the pictures in the article, they really didn’t put any effort at all into how things look and are placed. We have to live with the results; they just count their money.
thanks for making mobile phone reception in SF terrible. Way to go. SF’s infrastructure for mobile devices is terrible. you hear the complaints all the time. yet, well mobile companies try to improve it all they do is run into roadblock after roadblock. looking at the photo of jeff it looks like the company took the effort to try to blend the equipment into the poll by painting it brown. as for jeff’s street view, come on, you’re not looking at the golden gate bridge, you are looking at to the street.
sflonglegs, I won’t be able to sleep tonight. I will be guilt ridden with the knowledge that I may have prevented you from downloading youtube videos on your iPhone while you are at china beach.
In all seriousness, it is 2011. These guys can do better. Other cities have pushed back and lo and behold, NextG has responded with more streamlined equipment. It is unacceptable for a company to pull a permit on my address, install large industrial equipment outside both my living room and bedroom windows and not at least give me a heads up. I found out about this antenna when I was face to face with an installation crew on putting this thing right outside my window. It wasn’t until a week later that I actually found out they pulled a permit on my address. Since they provided no notice at all, they did not even ask us to move our cars. So, while they were damaging our street tree, they also dropped tree branches on my car. Double bonus! On second thought, I think I will sleep well tonight. If we don’t demand better, then we will get the cheapest possible thing that service providers like NextG can get away with. It is all about incentives.
Well done, Jeff. Great rebuttal to sflonglegs. Thanks for standing up and representing the neighborhood.
@jeff (+others):
At the risk of sounding like a “conspiracy theorist” I’m gonna throw it out there that “sflonglegs” is a social-media “pawn”; i.e. someone either employed by or contracted by NextG themselves.
Why else would someone justify the actions of NextG by saying:
1) “at least they tried to paint it brown” (made me spit out my coffee, that one) and
2) “you’re not looking at the golden gate bridge, you are looking at to [sic] the street”
…as no one familiar with San Francisco would:
1) use the GG Bridge as the standing reference point (for obvious reasons), or
2) think of Lake as “just a street” (there’s a REASON it’s protected!)
Let’s understand the (admittedly, presumed) facts of NextG’s contract with AT&T:
1) it is likely a “fixed-bid” contract, which means
2) any and all economizing measures WILL BE PURSUED in order to MAXIMIZE profit on this particular contract!
We all know full-well how this game works:
1) Put up your ugliest, cheapest (probably oldest and thus fully owned/most profitable) gear, and
2) watch for fireworks.
3) IF protested, remove gear and replace with more “aesthetic” (i.e. expensive) equipment and rue the profit margin shrinkage;
4) IF NOT protested, smile and rinse and repeat
That’s my take on this one. Standard business tactics–acquire the resource at the lowest possible expenditure.
Signed,
Kreig “Lists are Good” Zimmerman
Noooo! I don’t even get cell reception in my apartment :[ Put one of these on Stanyan, I won’t complain!!
Jeff,
I can appreciate your efforts to ensure that you as a resident of this neighborhood are treated fairly and that the permit process. However I can’t really understand your lack of sympathy for those of us with terrible reception. My girlfriend can’t even make calls from her apartment because ATT coverage is so terrible.
So while I think you were within rights to do this, it looks bad when you cavalierly disregard the concerns of others who may benefit from this antennae. Remember: as a citizen of San Francisco you are effectively s member of an ecosystem full of people like you, and that in this case there are many more people who stand to gain or lose something from this antennae than just you.
@Kreig: Call me a “plant” (the term for someone hired out by a private company to espouse their views on social media is called a “plant”, not a “pawn”) all you like, but the fact is that such accusations are baseless and simply reflect your inability to see multiple sides of the issue. While I understand the frustrations caused by eyesores I can also understand the fact that more people will be affected by the loss of an antennae than by leaving it as-is. The use of the Golden Gate Bridge as a point of reference is not literal, here it refers to the fact that a street view is being blocked, not a million-dollar view. Also, I’m not sure why you’re getting defensive over Lake Street, just because a street is in a higher-priced residential area does not make it less of a street. Clarion Alley is more than a street however because it is restricted to foot traffic and a central aspect of the proud Mission mural tradition. Lake street is just a street by the popular definition of what we mean by city street. Nonetheless I respect what you’re saying regarding the rights of citizens to a decent view, but it seems flimsy evidence to use to completely discredit another POV in this issue.
I am attempting to not belittle the causes of the citizens who this affects, just provide a balanced look and remind everyone faced with these situations to treat them with grace. To have branches fall on my car due to neglect by work crews is something that I hope I never have face, but if I am in such a situation I hope that I can have the manners and good sense to know that these men and women are only doing their job and that the slight against me is not a personal one, but a result of the cold, corporate environment which embodies modern business today. To that end, however, I will support citizens rights when dealing with future situations however I can, but realize that the overall aim of these companies is ultimately necessary, and that it is up to citizens like us to make sure that our rights are favored over a larger profit margin, because I don’t need to tell you that we can’t expect corporations to do this themselves.
Having said all this, if there were such an avenue to do so I would be happy to conduct a survey on my street to see who would approve of such an antennae and contact AT&T about it to ensure a cohesive process which will spoil no-ones view and allow my girlfriend to finally be able to make calls in the house during rainy weather.
tl;dr: Views and non-busted cars are nice, but so is reception. We need both.
Andrew,
I appreciate your response and you are right that this is a complex issue. I don’t have a cavalier disregard for the concerns of others. Apologies for my sarcastic response before. You are right that it does not help my cause and you are correct to note that there are many sides to this issue.
The rollout of this technology warrants an intellectual debate. I strongly believe that it needs to be done in a more responsible manner. Last year, there were 152 permits approved for antennas to be put in the public right of way (street lights and utility poles.) Since May of 2008, there were 342. No effort was made to engage with the community and no notice was provided to neighbors. In addition, the city requires no inspections. Pretty amazing actually. If I want to put a sink in my kitchen, I will have city inspectors visit my house; if I want to build a deck, I need to notify my neighbors, but if a telecommunications firms wants to install large industrial equipment 18 feet 8 inches from my living room window, we are expected to just trust that they will put it in correctly. As I started looking into this issue, I continually came across residents that were upset and caught by surprise. And during my research, I also noticed that NextG is consistently not following city rules. As noted in the article above, NextG was mandated to install antennas in certain locations in a certain manner. They did not. Probably an honest mistake, but nonetheless unacceptable. I am not an engineer and cannot vouch for the safety of the equipment installed, but when they are making basic mistakes and not following city direction, it worries me that other shortcuts may be taken. Recently in Malibu, utility poles fell over in strong winds, which started a fire and burned down multiple homes – and NextG was the last firm to place equipment on those poles. (http://malibusurfsidenews-blog.blogspot.com/2009/04/power-poles-weighted-down-with-utility.html) Again, no physical inspections occur here in SF. I understand that we need good wireless reception. That said, I think the quality of these installations is unacceptable. This link has pictures of the installation, and some addition installations. (https://picasaweb.google.com/jeff.e.cooper/NextGAntenna#)
I guess there are choices that we as a community must make. For example, I get frustrated to no end by Comcast. However, I would rather put up with Comcast than have 3 or 4 other cable companies install equipment on our streets to ensure that I have options. To this end, when I moved to my current house, my ATT coverage was not great, so I made a switch to sprint (best thing I ever did btw). Really was not a big deal, but I also understand that the options are important. The reality is, that if NextG had made an effort to work with the community, I probably would not have fought this battle. To be honest, it was incredibly time consuming and the odds are stacked against the homeowners in these cases. If I can help our city enforce their current codes and help force NextG be a little bit of a better corporate citizen, then it was worth it.
About a year ago, I made a scary investment in this city that I call home. I bought a house and now have a very large invested stake in my community. I want to see the peaceful beauty of this city preserved. I choose to live on my current block because it is a very quiet and peaceful street. And yes, I will fight my darnedest to preserve that. Ten years from now, I will likely still be here. And the equipment that would have been right outside my house would probably still be there too. Sitting there, probably obsolete at that point in time. Do I trust NextG to spend the money to take it down? Given what I learned about their organization over the last three months, no.
Anyway, that is my perspective. I am sure that there are a lot of reasonable folks that see things differently. And again, I apologize for coming across as cavalier.
Sincerely,
Jeff Cooper
@Andrew (née sflonglegs):
There are various reasons as to why AT&T’s coverage in San Francisco is terrible. These issues are technology-based and are exacerbated by the physical geography and natural climate of San Francisco. These issues are NOT shared by the other two providers’ technology base. The work which AT&T is engaged in is intended to ameliorate this challenge and to avoid the (inevitable) hemorrhaging of customers which awaits them now that iPhone exclusivity has vanished into the ether.
Jeff is acting in the spirit of a long-established San Francisco tradition–which is the attempt by its citizens to ensure that the beauty of our civic landscape is not trampled upon by self-serving interest. Your response was emotive and irrational, as no one is against these deployments *per se*–the goal is to ensure they are not hideous and obstructive.
Now as for my own ad hominem attack, I searched Google and found plenty of “sflonglegs” results–proving I was presumptuous. I *did* of course state my conjecture could be wildly inaccurate, so I apologize if you felt as if you were being slighted.
As for your own ad hominem: if “social media plant” is an accepted term then Google seems not to know this.
I guess this has also to do with the weird large metal boxes that are appearing all up and down Balboa as well?
I don’t like the blight but I would probably be OK with it if I could get a phonecall in my apartment, which is still as hard as ever to do!
For those will AT&T cell problems in their apartment, here is a solution that does not require blight to our neighborhoods.
http://www.unplggd.com/unplggd/product-review/a-cure-for-urban-att-mobile-users-3g-microcell-unplggd-test-lab–141771
@bb – I’m almost embarrassed to admit that I bought one of these microcells, mostly because I couldn’t believe I was paying AT&T more money for my mediocre service ($149 – really, AT&T??). Anyway, I’ve had mixed success with it. Sometimes the worst call problems happen when I’m sitting right next to it, LOL!
Sarah B.
I live in the Outer Sunset and came home to find one of these awful things installed at eye level outside my living room window. We’ve had to call three times to ask them to fix the buzzing and ringing. They never told us it was going in, and, during installation, they dropped something on my car and dented the roof.
I worry about was it might be doing to my children’s growing bodies.
Oh, and my AT&T reception is NO BETTER.
Kudos to Jeff! I wish I had the time to fight this.
@Sam – Sorry to hear that. Though not mentioned in my stories, Jeff Cooper also experienced damage to his car roof as well as some dead tree branches as a result of the installation. I think it could be easily avoided by notifying neighbors and perhaps putting no parking signs up during the day(s) of installation. Anything to help neighbors know not to park there.
As for your reception, it may not have improved because your antenna could very well be for a different carrier such as Verizon or T-Mobile. NextG installs antenna for several mobile carriers.
Sarah B.
@Sarah B.:
Actually these antennae are undoubtedly AT&T deployments; cf. http://twurl.kreig.me/attugly.
This article is _also_ a good reference for anyone wanting to WHY AT&T is doing this crap…
@Jeff-“About a year ago, I made a scary investment in this city that I call home. I bought a house and now have a very large invested stake in my community. I want to see the peaceful beauty of this city… And yes, I will fight my darnedest to preserve that.”
Which is precisely why you owe no one an apology. Requesting responsible placement of aesthetically appealing boxes is not an offense and is, in fact, what every citizen in your community should be advocating. Your honorable efforts to protect your investment as well as that of others, deserves praise, not scorn. Kudos to you.
Oh well, many of us can’t switch providers or buy houses. I guess we can just become proles.
@bb – I can’t afford that! I just graduated and can barely afford FOOD.
To follow up on my comment…I was speaking to a current SF Firefighter and he informed me that they are instructed to use their mobile phones in times of emergency when needed. there are times when their other means of communication are not available, like when they are trapped in a smoked filled room they have the direct phone number to the 9-1-1 call center. If SF continues to have poor mobile reception in certain neighborhoods, thanks to the efforts of Jeff and others impeding in the process of new towers, they are putting emergency crews in danger.
sflonglegs – It is an important point and I have heard that mentioned before. I would be curious to know how many times that actually happened in the last year, as I have never seen data around that issue. My hunch is that their radios usually work and it is probably extremely rare when they would have to rely on a personal cell phone, but I am sure it has happened and I do think it is an important point. The other more relevant point to consider is emergencies when emergency crews are not around, such as right after a car accident. My point being that I would never argue that cell phone service is not important, because it is. But that doesn’t mean that telecom corporations can disregard city laws and install things inappropriately. They are utilizing public space to achieve their corporate goals. They should do so responsibly.
Also, do keep in mind that 16 new antenna sites were approved within 10 blocks of my house during a three month period last year. So if my goal is to impede progress, then I am failing miserably. : ) And if people can’t get a signal near my house, then we probably need to rethink the technology that NextG is rollout out….
Below is a link to a map recent cell sites approved in the public right-of-way.
http://www.batchgeo.com/map/569ba07186373cf94ee548ddcb22a0c0
@sflonglegs
As Jeff (rightly) pointed out the cellphones are intended as a *backup* option, not a primary option.
And do keep in mind that this issue is peculiar to AT&T and NOT the other providers. Obviously the solution would be to ensure that they did not use AT&T. 😀