By Julie Mehta
After three months of banning any new wireless communication antenna applications, Saratoga is ready to extend a cautious welcome to the high-tech gadgets. The Planning Commission has unanimously recommended that anyone who wishes to erect an antenna be required to go through a public hearing process and obtain a use permit.
Pending City Council approval, the April 10 decision will end the moratorium imposed Jan. 3 to give city staff time to plan ways to regulate the antennas.
There are now three cellular facilities in Saratoga: atop the International Coffee Exchange, in the rear of the Public Storage facility on Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road, and at the intersection of Saratoga Avenue and Lawrence Expressway. Pacific Bell Mobile Services got approval for a fourth Personal Communications Services site atop the liquor store in the Saratoga Village just before the moratorium began.
The city expects as many as six providers of the new PCS technology to approach the city after the moratorium ends.
Suzanne Hook, a land-use planner for JM Consulting Group, which represents Pacific Bell Mobile Services, said PCS should provide better quality and less expensive service than cellular technology.
"We want this to be for families and common folk, to make it so people can buy a phone at Kmart and get service started with the purchase," Hook said.The PCS antennas are about five feet tall and eight inches wide and can be painted any color, Hook said. They must be in the line of sight of the area they are covering.
Saratoga's current ordinance allows antenna facilities in commercial districts subject only to administrative review; it does not permit them in residential areas. Under the proposal recommended by the commission, they would be allowed anywhere if approved through the public hearing process.
Community Development Director Paul Curtis said he chose this strategy over others, such as maintaining the present ordinance or requiring use permits only for residential areas, because Saratoga has so few commercial districts that antennas located there can be seen from many homes.
Another alternative discussed was selecting certain "pre-approved" sites, where providers could locate without obtaining a use permit, but Curtis says this was rejected because he did not want to hinder companies from placing their antennas in the best place to facilitate the technology.
Filing an application for a use permit costs $2,325 and takes around 90 days, Curtis said. He does not expect this process to discourage interested companies. Nearby Los Gatos already has a similar requirement in place.
Hook said Pacific Bell is busy building its network, and though the firm would prefer having to seek only administrative approval, "this is not really a problem. Right now, we're looking for a definite process so it isn't uncertain and there aren't more delays."
Once use-permit approval is given, it takes only about a month to build an antenna, Hook said. Pacific Bell is hopeful of getting its whole network online by early 1997.
The antenna ordinance will come before the City Council on May 15, according to Curtis. If there is no objection, it will be adopted two weeks later and will go into effect after a 30-day waiting period. Meanwhile, Pacific Bell and Sprint have already informed Curtis of sites on which they would like to build antennas.
This article appeared in the Saratoga News, April 24, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved