Surf City News

Cell Towers –Not in My Huntington Beach Neighborhood! Say Residents

Technology painted to blend into the building at Pierside Pavilion

People want their cell phones, but not cell towers. It’s the same everywhere. If you don’t have the latest techno-toy, and if your kids don’t personally own cell phones, you are NOT with the times. The trend is in giving up your land line and going strictly cell.  Yet the citizens of communities don’t want to look at cell towers next to their homes, and they don’t want to risk the potential effects of them. 

Huntington Beach City Council voted 6 to 1 to deny a permit to install a huge tower next to houses, condominiums and apartments at Harbour View School  (1 Council member Don Hansen voted in favor of permitting the cell tower to be installed by T-Mobile). For every cell tower that is denied, however, there are many more that people simply don’t see that surround them.

One such interesting object sits on the tower of the Pierside Pavilion on the corner of Main & Pacific Coast Highway. Several sections of this techno-item with cables and a metal boxes covering its components have been painted to blend into the building. People work near it 8 hours a day, and condominiums next door are exposed to whatever the object is 24/7.

A more noticable metal palm tree tower sits behind the 24 Hour Fitness Center and Del Taco on Springdale & Warner in Surf City, and was mentioned at the council meeting by a speaker. He failed to mention it also hovers over the nearby housing tract behind the shopping center. And if you’re not getting enough cell coverage, on the other side of the parking lot facing Springdale near an apartment complex is a metal cell tower shaped like some really sick tree.

City Hall can’t provide coverage for the entire network of cell users in HB, but installations at places such as City Hall  where people work make more sense than neighborhoods where people (including babies & small kids) live and sleep, sometimes 24 hours per day. With an installation at City Hall the fees would go directly to the city, which could be a win-win.