The San Diego County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously last week to overturn the Planning Commission's approval of Cricket Communication's proposal to build a 50-foot-tall cell phone tower in an old neighborhood outside the city's southeastern border.
Supervisors said they were concerned about fire safety, limited road access to the roughly 1-acre site at 1245 Park Hill Lane, and the negative effect the tower could have on the historical character of the Park Hill Lane neighborhood.
Supervisors Bill Horn and Pam Slater-Price, whose districts include parts of North County, also said they weren't convinced that the wireless company needed the cell tower to improve wireless phone service in the neighborhood. They said the company could pursue more appropriate sites for the tower.
"I think that other sites are available; they have avoided them, but they are available," Horn said during last week's hearing. "I think they will have to go there."
A Cricket representative could not be reached for comment. A spokesman for Cricket said several times during last week's meeting, though, that the Park Hill property was the "most desirable site" and that any other location would require more than one tower being built.
Cricket originally received approval in December for the project from the county Planning Commission. The project came to the Board of Supervisors in March on an appeal from Mike and Michelle Nemeth, who live next to the proposed property site. The final ruling on the project was made last week after two different public hearings.
The Nemeths were among 17 Park Hill neighbors who spoke against the project during the hearing, which was held in San Diego. The neighbors said they were concerned a cell phone tower would damage the historical character of the community.
The hilltop neighborhood, which is nestled between Idaho Avenue and San Pasqual Valley Road, dates to the mid-1920s.
"It's a subdivision that will never be replicated again," June Rady, a Park Hill resident and former Escondido councilwoman, said last week. "We presented a preponderance of evidence to the board … that clearly demonstrated why this project should be rejected, and the Board of Supervisors agreed."
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ESCONDIDO: Cell phone tower project turned down
Source: North County Times
Date: 06/30/2008
