Appeal Filed

The city council will hear our appeal on March 28th, at 7pm at city hall. Please come and show the city you do not support the tower!

Here is the letter attached to our appeal:

To Mayor Ahmad and the City of San Carlos:

The residents of the neighborhood around Heather Drive would like to request an appeal for the decision by the Planning Commission to approve the permit for T-Mobile to erect a cell tower at 882 Heather Drive.
We feel that the decision was not made in the best interests of the residents of the area or the city of San Carlos, for the following reasons:

1. The proposed tower is not consistent with the San Carlos General Plan, but three of the Commissioners openly stated that this was not a concern to them. Since the General Plan is a reflection of the values and aesthetic qualities that we want to uphold as a city, we hope the City Council will take this into greater consideration.

2. The proposed tower will be 20 feet taller than any of the surrounding trees, making it impossible to blend in and blocking views of the bay from several of the houses above. This is about 50% taller than the height of those trees, and would not meet the new aesthetic guidelines just approved by the Council.

3. Two of the adjacent homes will be inside the fall-zone of the tower, and therefore placed at risk if the tower were to collapse.

4. The high visibility of the tower will have a much larger impact on home values in the neighborhood than normal. The residents provided studies showing up to 20% decline in value for homes where the tower is visible. In addition, the homes inside the fall zone will no longer be eligible for FHA-backed loans, which could have a dramatic effect on the home-owners ability to sell the home or refinance their mortgage.

5. The location is on a quiet cul-de-sac. There are already complaints about the level of traffic just to service the water towers, and any increase will be a significant disruption.

6. This proposal has already had a destabilizing effect on the neighborhood. Several families are openly discussing moving, and families previously looking at homes in this area are deciding to look elsewhere.

7. The residents submitted a petition representing almost 200 households asking the city to deny the permit. This petition included several current T-Mobile customers, and not a single resident has come out in favor of the tower.




In addition, the residents provided substantial evidence that the tower was not necessary for T-Mobile customers in the area:

1. The residents proved that homes in the target area already get excellent coverage from T-Mobile. Over 50 samples were taken from inside resident’s homes, gathering signal strength data and ability to place a call. All homes tested had a high level of service, and there was not one incident of a dropped call or low quality.

2. Several existing long-term T-Mobile customers living in the target area testified that they have always had a very high level of service inside their homes, confirming our own data.

3. The residents proved that the tower was not necessary to meet the FCC E-911 requirements, and that the statement to this effect in the Planning Commission Staff Report is incorrect.

4. The consulting engineering firm hired by the City was provided incomplete data. Only the original coverage plot maps were given to them, and not the updated data which included the Heather School site, nor the drive test data was provided. We believe they would have reached different conclusions about the need for this tower, and that alternate sites would provide the same level of coverage.

5. The residents provided technical papers from 3rd party experts which cited academic studies showing that the signal level needed to provide adequate in-home coverage is much less than what T-Mobile is claiming. We also provided photos of homes in the area which show they are all of wood-frame construction and modest in size, and therefore do not need a high power signal to provide reasonable coverage indoors.

6. The resident’s provided decisions from recent court cases, showing that a coverage level of -85dbms (represented by the yellow color on T-Mobile’s coverage maps) would not be upheld as a standard for reasonable coverage, and that a “significant gap” in coverage is “more than just a few dead spots.” According to these decisions, the current level of coverage in the area therefore already meets any legal standard.

7. T-Mobile’s initial set of drive test data contradicted their computer generated coverage plots, showing them to be unreliable as a predictive tool for the benefit this tower would provide.

8. The residents showed that the few small areas of weak signal coverage in T-Mobile’s drive test data either have no houses on them or are blocked from above by steep embankments, and therefore would not be helped by the proposed tower and would be better served by an alternate site.

9. The residents proved that the population of San Carlos is stable (especially in the target area), and that T-Mobile’s market share is shrinking. So, the need for this tower will only decline over time.


And finally, there were several conclusions and assumptions made by members of the Planning Commission which were either new or factually incorrect. But because the public comment period was closed the residents had no opportunity to provide input and correct this. These included the following:

1. That the residents only used 1 phone for our coverage testing, and therefore our tests were invalid. This comment was made by the T-Mobile engineer during the discussion period. In fact, we used 3 separate phones for testing - a low-end flip phone, a mid-range phone with voice and data, and a brand new Android smartphone.

2. That the residents did not measure whether a data call could be completed. This was a new criticism made during the discussion period. Up until this time, the debate has centered on whether residents could reliably place a voice call from inside their homes, as a benchmark for reasonable signal access (which we feel is still the case). The Planning Commission denied our request to provide more data for this.

3. That the residents did not "measure data". This comment was made by the T-Mobile engineer, which the Commissioners misunderstood. What he was really saying is that we did not measure the signal quality, as the rate of data throughput is directly related to this. However, when performing our tests we recorded both whether a call can be made and *also* the signal level, and this data was submitted to the Commissioners. All the homes we tested were able to get a high-quality signal inside, and therefore were able to receive a high level of data throughput.

4. That low coverage would lead to "dropped email". This comment was made by Mr. San Filipo, and was the basis for his decision. One of the residents at the meeting is a Sr. Software Engineer, and his company provides wireless email and other data synchronization solutions for mobile devices, but was not provided an opportunity to explain that this is not true.

5. A conclusion was drawn that a higher level of coverage may be necessary to meet the FCC E-911 requirements. However, the FCC E-911 requirements simply define performance metrics for providing the location of callers dialing 911 and the requirement can always be met, regardless of coverage level - it is just a matter of using the best location-finding technique available.

6. A conclusion was made that since we did not re-submit our "balloon pictures", showing the true height of the tower and how it will impact views of the bay, that this was no longer a concern to the residents. Several of the residents made reference to the balloon pictures and blocked views during the comment period. We did not re-submit the pictures themselves because we assumed they were already part of the record. Obviously, we are deeply concerned with the aesthetic impact that this tower will have on the neighborhood.

Because of these reasons, we hope that the City Council will grant our petition for an appeal and overturn the decision by the Planning Commission and deny the permit to T-Mobile to build the cell tower at 882 Heather Drive.

Thank you,
The Residents of Heather Neighborhood

Planning Commission approves cell tower

Tuesday night the planning commission voted to approve the permit for the tower. Here is an article about it:
http://www.mercurynews.com/peninsula/ci_17458631?nclick_check=1


We are deeply disappointed with the Planning Commissions decision, especially since some of the key factors in the decision of at least 1 commissioner were factually incorrect. But because the public comment period was over we were not given a chance to respond.


Here is a list of comments/issues that were raised during the discussion period that the residents were not allowed to respond to:

1. We only used 1 phone for our testing, and therefore our tests were invalid.

> We used 3 separate phones for testing - a low-end flip phone, a mid-range phone with voice and data, and a brand new LG Android smartphone.

2. We did not measure whether a data call could be completed.

> This was a new criticism made during the discussion period. Up until this time, the debate has centered on whether residents could reliably place a voice call from inside their homes, as a benchmark for reasonable signal access. Of course, the ability to complete a data call on a GSM/GPRS network (such as T-Mobile) is the same as a voice call, and we would be happy to go around the neighborhood and show that we can open a web page on the phone. We did manage to ask for this opportunity, but this was denied to us by the Commission.

3. We did not "measure data".

> This comment was made by the T-Mobile engineer, which the Commissioners misunderstood. What he was really saying is that we did not measure the signal quality, as the rate of data throughput is directly related to this. However, when performing our tests we recorded both whether a call can be made and *also* the signal level, and this was submitted to the Commissioners. All the homes we tested were able to get a high-quality signal inside, and therefore were able to receive a high level of data throughput.

4. Low coverage would lead to "dropped email".

> This comment was made by Commissioner San Fellipo, and was the basis for his decision. I should mention at this point that my company provides wireless email and other data synchronization solutions for mobile devices, and I can assure you this is not true. First, having a lower-quality signal may make the transfer process slower, but will not lead to loss of data. Even if the data call is dropped, the data is not lost - it can simply be downloaded again when the connection is re-established. It should also be noted that a dropped data (TCP) connection  is not a rare event, and mobile carriers will actively force connections to close that they feel are idle or too long-lived.

5. A question was asked by Mr. Marsters as to what level of coverage is needed to meet the FCC E-911 requirements, and the conclusion was drawn that a higher level of coverage may be necessary to meet them.

> The FCC E-911 requirements simply define performance metrics for providing the *location* of callers dialing 911. As long as a phone call can be initiated, the requirement can be met. Actually the vendor that T-Mobile uses for their solution (TruePosition - www.trueposition.com) claims they can often locate the caller before the call is even completed.

6. A comment was made that since we did not re-submit our "balloon pictures", showing the true height of the tower and how it will impact views of the bay, that this was no longer a concern to the residents.

> Several of the residents made reference to the balloon pictures during the comment period. We did not re-submit the pictures because we assumed they were already part of the record. Obviously, we are deeply concerned with the aesthetic impact that this tower will have on the neighborhood.

Final Stand!

This Tuesday (2/22) will be the last public hearing in front of the planning commission. According to the city, they must reach a decision, as there are no more continuances available.

Please come to the meeting and show your voice in opposition to the tower! This will be our last chance to get the planning commission to deny the tower.

The meeting will be at 7:00pm, at city hall.

A 50-foot Cell Tower in our backyards?

T-Mobile has requested a permit from the city of San Carlos to build a 50-foot cell tower on the CalWater lot at 882 Heather Drive, and the city is currently recommending that the tower be approved!

This location is in a densely residential area (map), and would be only a few feet from surrounding homes. The proposed tower will also be highly visible from a wide area, blocking views of the bay and causing sharp declines in home values.


To show how tall and imposing this tower will be, we raised balloons 50' in the air over the location and took pictures:

The height and location will make this tower highly visible from a wide area, blocking views of the bay and causing sharp declines in home values. Here is a simulated before & after photo, based on the balloon experiment:

Recent tests by multiple residents have shown that this area already has good signal access from T-Mobile phones, proving that this tower is not necessary and that T-Mobile's claims of poor coverage are exaggerated.


Help preserve our neighborhoods and tell the city of San Carlos that this tower is not acceptible!