The planning commission, in a 6-0 vote with Councilman John Zamora absent, approved a conditional-use permit on Nov. 5 for Cingular Wireless to install a 60-foot artificial tree, with three antennae, near the basketball and tennis courts of Willow Glen High School.

The project comes in response to Cingular clients' complaints of dropped calls in a service-dead-zone section of Willow Glen, said Zack Carter, a contractor with Ruth and Going Inc. This dead-zone section spans out to an approximate 1-mile radius from the high school. At this time only Cingular service users will be affected, but Carter said other companies could choose to share their antennae lower on the tree.

"There's no service in the neighborhood," he said.

Carter said the school has the only nonresidential zoning in the area, zoning that is required by the city for any commercial use.

The San Jose Unified School District approved the project in November 2002 but asked the contractors not to use space on top of school buildings. Instead the company will install an artificial tree, one that resembles a redwood tree, on the southeast corner of Dry Creek Road and Cherry Avenue.

The artificial tree will blend in with adjacent redwood trees on the school property and will be located 650 feet from Cherry Avenue, which far exceeds the requirement that it be a minimum of 50 feet from residential dwellings, Carter said.

The wireless communications pole will use only 400 watts of electricity or the equivalent of four light bulbs. Carter estimated the signal would extend 4,000 feet from the faux tree, providing coverage for a radius of less than a mile.

Cherry Avenue resident Samuel Downs was the only neighbor who expressed concerns at the meeting and asked for more information.

"They used to build power lines over schools before they knew it was dangerous," said Downs, 18, who graduated from Willow Glen High School last June.

He said that if the antennae emitted a harmful amount of voltage, students who went to Willow Glen Middle and High schools would have a total of seven years' exposure.

And he added that he didn't like the idea of a fake tree instead of a tower. "Don't disguise it," he said.

The planning department staff said the low voltage of the pole would not pose a danger and that Cingular and the school board preferred the tree design to a tower.

The city compiled a staff report on the health impacts of the installation—available for review on its website—and the low levels of radio frequency showed no hazard.

Carter said he worked with a Palo Alto arborist to design a lifelike tree with similar bark and branches.

The tree and four locked cabinets containing the computer equipment for the additional circuits will be surrounded by a 6-foot, vinyl, chain-link fence encompassing a 234-square-foot area, which Cingular will lease from the district at $1,500­$2,000 a month.

Willow Glen Neighborhood Association President Helen Solinski said she posted a notice on the association's elist, but received no community feedback on the issue.

Solinski also said she used Cingular and had thought about canceling her service because of "the horrible coverage in Willow Glen." But now she plans to wait and see if it improves.

The next step in the process is approval from the department of state architects before construction—which is slated to begin prior to Dec. 31, 2003—can start.