Broadway & Van Ness
Neighbors Convince Wireless Carrier to Withdraw from Proposed Antenna Site
by Mark Longwood
In the Spring of 2000, some of the people residing within 300 feet of the corner of Broadway Street
and Van Ness Avenue were notified of an application to the City Planning Commission to install
three powerful microwave antennas on the roof of the Broadway Manor Motel to provide cell phone
service to a 64-block area. One of the proposed antennas would have beamed microwave radiation
24-hours-a-day directly at St. Brigid School from across the street half a block away.
Local residents, concerned for the safety of the children attending St. Brigid School, the elderly
residing at Notre Dame Apartments directly across Van Ness, and the students living in the Academy
of Arts College dormitory – each of the three facilities directly in the sights of each of the three
respective antennas – formed PCS-NO!, Parents and Children for a Safe Neighborhood. With the assistance
of Supervisor Gavin Newsom, PCS-NO! forced the wireless carrier making the application to twice request
continuance of its hearing before the Planning Commission. Finally, after a substantial city-wide
neighborhood demonstration on October 15, 2000 covered by all local TV networks, KCBS and KPFA radio,
and the San Francisco Examiner, which featured speeches by eight sitting or candidate Supervisors,
including Tom Ammiano – a mother of two St. Brigid School students spoke to the crowd as well – the
carrier withdrew from the proposed site.
In the Spring of 2001, however, the carrier re-filed its application with the Planning Commission despite
its agreement the previous year to Supervisor Gavin Newsom's requirement that it look for alternative sites
and not put the antennas near a school, senior residence center or college dormitory. The timing of the
carrier's community meeting coincided this time, just as it did during its previous application, with the
end of the school year, so that the parents of children attending St. Brigid School would be harder to
reach and less likely to attend the meeting. Since St. Brigid is a Catholic school and its students live
throughout the city, only in the unlikely event that a parent happened to reside within 300 feet of the
proposed site was he or she notified of this meeting by the carrier, even though his or her children would
be among those most affected by the microwave radiation emitted from the proposed antennas.
In addition, letters of notification about the community meeting and Planning Commission hearing to follow
did not go to each of the 50 student residents of the Academy of Arts College dormitory, all of whom live
within 300 feet of the
proposed site. The approximately 239 elderly residents of the Notre Dame Apartments did receive notification,
but the print on the notices was so small many could not read it. In addition, no Russian language translation
was provided for the many sole Russian speakers among the senior residents at Notre Dame.
In an attempt to assuage community concern about inadequate community notification time for antenna siting
applications, a representative of the carrier had earlier claimed that it provided six-week advance
notification of its required community meetings, which would then be scheduled two to four weeks ahead of
any Planning Commission hearing of its application. In this case, after having made its claim, the carrier
provided less than two-weeks advance notification of its community presentation. With the Planning Commission
hearing scheduled for two weeks later, this gave the community less than four weeks to organize, research the
matter and prepare a response to the Planning Commission, instead of the eight to ten weeks earlier claimed
by the carrier. Concerned citizens regarded this as another act of bad faith on the
carrier’s behalf.
Since the initial application to place antennas at this location the previous year, local residents had
meanwhile observed the installation of five additional antennas kitty-corner from the proposed site. Their
first concern again was for the health of local residents, all the more so due to the prospect of cumulative
radiation and hotspots. Because no independent, comprehensive study of potential hotspots where intersecting
radiation beams converge and exceed federal safety standards from the now thousands of antennas in San
Francisco has been carried out, citizens remain in the dark as to just what they are being exposed to.
By mobilizing all of the members of the community mentioned above – the over 300 parents and children of
St. Brigid School, the senior residents of the Notre Dame Apartments, and the students at the Academy of Art
College dormitory – as well as local organizations like the Russian Hill Neighborhood Association and the
Polk Street Merchants Association, the neighborhood ultimately achieved some cumulative effects of its own.
On the eve of the June 7 Planning Commission hearing, residents learned that the carrier had bowed to the
enormous community pressure brought to bear up both it and Supervisor Newsom’s office. It had withdrawn its
application, this time on a permanent basis.