July 2004 · Volume 86 · Number 6

Seeing the Forest Through the Cell Trees
by Jonathan Kramer
The exploding demand for cellphones and new can’t-live-without-‘em wireless services that piggyback onto cellphones has brought in its wake an equally explosive backlash against the encroachment of cellphone towers on residential, scenic, and other sensitive corridors. Spurred by increasing community resistance, the cellular industry has developed a number of interesting techniques to reduce and, in some cases, even eliminate cell sites from view. This article explores the range of options that administrative, planning, and zoning decision-makers can apply to secure the least intrusive cell sites, along with when and how to ask for these project enhancements.
A Bit of History
The first cell systems were easily spotted by the installation of tall towers, widely scattered across a community. Initially, under FCC rules, only two providers served a community, the local wired phone company always being one of them. Cities and counties welcomed cellphone service as a badge of technological prowess. Of course, with phones costing thousands of dollars each, and wireless calls being measured in units of dollars-per-minute and up, deployment was slow.
The federal government stepped in and authorized a slew of new competitors to the incumbent two providers. As intended, this new competition put tremendous downward pressure on cellphone and airtime costs, pushing them toward delivering cellular’s promise of nearly ubiquitous, low-cost service that could compete with traditional wired telephony. The race was on to find and install hundreds of thousands of new cell sites to capitalize on the market explosion.
Trees Grow Up, Towers Grow Down

Here is an example of how a cell site has been disguised in a flagpole.
Cellular phone technology is based on the concept of frequency reuse. With a fixed number of frequencies available in any service area, cell operators increase their overall network capacity by reducing the geographic coverage of a particular cell site and reusing that cell site’s frequency elsewhere in the service area.
This means that the first tall, widely separated towers necessary to provide wide-area coverage now were a detriment to increasing network capacity. The first tall towers had to be replaced by many smaller towers, each with a limited range. Today in metropolitan areas, it’s common to see cell sites just covering a quarter- or half-mile of an arterial road.
The newly discovered need for many new sites at first triggered a community problem. An increasing number of people objected to what they considered unattractive antenna towers, especially when these towers crept close to or into residential areas. It’s the classic NIMBY syndrome.
Responding to the NIMBYists, most major cell service providers developed camouflage techniques to reduce tower and antenna visibility. These camouflaging techniques included installing cell antennas atop faux pine trees, palm trees, and other greenery, as well as inside fiberglass Sacorro cacti.
Brick-and-mortar camouflage involves church steeples, clock towers, and fiberglass parapets. Other common camouflages are commercial signs, flagpoles, and plastic rocks. An extensive selection of photographs of these stratagems can be viewed on the Web site at www.KramerFirm.com/cells. (See box for more Web links to photos showing how sites have been disguised.)
This high-tech game of hide-and-seek comes at a price. Camouflaging a cell site in a faux tree configuration surrounded by additional new, mature trees can add $100,000 or more to the overall cost of a project. The economics of cell communications, however, may make the added cost a worthwhile investment for the applicant, if the time-to-market can be significantly reduced. This is most likely the case with towers in or near residential areas and view corridors.  
Timing Is Everything
The best time to focus on camouflaging is before the project is ever tendered. Many communities are adopting new or modifying existing wireless ordinances to encourage carriers to propose low-visibility or invisible cell sites. The desired result of promoting community aesthetics is chiefly accomplished by offering an expedited review and approval process for these types of low-impact projects.
Most often, the greatest privilege for expedited review—ministerial approval—is granted for a project proposing completely invisible wireless sites. This is a powerful incentive for cell operators to “think camouflage” as they are looking for new sites. Additional revenues generated by the shortened approval cycle may offset the increased cost of camouflaging.
If your community doesn’t already have a wireless ordinance or an expedited approval process for camouflaged wireless projects, consider asking for site camouflaging as early in your review cycle as possible. This is especially wise when the characteristics of the project, as tendered, fall outside the requirements for the underlying planning zone, triggering the need for a special or conditional use permit or the equivalent.
Hiding Your Home
If your community doesn’t already have a wireless ordinance or an expedited approval process for camouflaged wireless projects, consider asking for site camouflaging as early in your review cycle as possible.
Generally, the most difficult places in which to site new cell facilities are within and immediately adjacent to residential neighborhoods. Look to community parks, schools, fire stations, water tanks, and other government property within residential zones that already have potentially suitable structures like rooftops, flagpoles, light standards, hose towers, and such building features as steeples. These are prime candidates for new camouflaged cell facilities. Also within residential communities, houses of worship may offer prime opportunities to hide cell facilities.
When a cell provider proposes to install a building-top site above a parapet, you may want to suggest replacing portions of the existing parapet with matching, visually opaque but radio frequency (RF)-transparent panels and placing the antennas out of sight behind these panels. The result will be a cell site that is invisible to the community and unlikely to raise high levels of community ire.
Streetlights in residential and other sections offer the opportunity to add cellular antennas at the top, hidden inside fiberglass covers called “radomes.” On a private home, a new faux chimney built to match an existing chimney may be used to camouflage a residential-area cell facility.  
Bury Your Problems
While most community members focus on the antenna and tower, cell sites also require radio base-station and power equipment usually placed in above-ground cabinets or small outbuildings. Don’t miss the opportunity to improve and protect community aesthetics, especially in parks and open-space areas, by requiring radio base-station and powering equipment to be placed underground.
Camouflaging techniques for cell sites in commercial districts follow those used in residential areas but may involve antenna attachments to the sides of or above structures, most often on the street side. In addition to placing antennas behind RF-transparent panels, you can reduce wireless site visibility by asking the carrier to place the antennas in other camouflaged locations, including matching building additions above elevator penthouses or inside existing or new plastic signage.
If these options aren’t available, placing the antennas close or flush to the building and installing covers matched to the building façade is an excellent alternative. For example, if the building façade is brick, the antenna covers can be matched to mimic the brickwork and reduce the overall project visibility. Don’t forget to façade-match the exposed antenna cables as well.
Online Photos to View
Here are some Web links to photos showing how cell sites have been disguised:
•	A city-monument sign housing a cell site. 
•	A cell site installed in a faux chimney, front and center of roof. The cell base-station equipment is in two cabinets at lower center of photo. 
•	Building-mounted antennas covered by faux brick facing: one, two 
•	Cell pine tree. 
•	Cell on a church. 
•	Cell palm tree. 
•	Cell flagpole. 
•	Cell on power-transmission pole. 
Regardless of the community benefits or shortened time-to-market, some applicants won’t be interested in camouflaging. What’s a community to do? The simple answer is to process the project as you would any other, following the usual timing and making your “go/no-go” decision. But remember, under federal law, your actions can’t discriminate or have the effect of discriminating against similar providers (see Telecom Act, Section 253). That section can be found at www.KramerFirm.com/253/.
So, whatever your process, it’s best to have a written standard defined in your wireless ordinance and to apply that standard consistently to all similar wireless applicants. Also, following established rules and applying these rules equally among similar applicants is critical in defending your community if a denied applicant files a federal lawsuit. In adjudicating the suit, the court will look to the written project denial, the full administrative record supporting the written denial, and whether you applied your process fairly.
3G = Groan, Gasp, Gosh
“3G” stands for third-generation wireless, which is the next big thing. When rolled out over the next few years, 3G promises to deliver extremely high-speed wireless Internet and other data services, including television to the phone.
The technology demands of 3G place constraints on carriers as to where they can locate their sites. 3G carriers are far more likely to argue that a particular site has to be placed at a particular location. In turn, communities should be prepared to deal with these strict siting constraints by applying carefully crafted ordinance rules keyed to preserving community aesthetics through camouflaging and other techniques.  
Tying This Up with a Pretty Bow
Your citizens want wireless services. They don’t want to see the stuff needed to provide these services. Wireless carriers want reasonable, consistent access, as well as processes to develop the wireless sites your citizens want. You want to protect and promote your community’s aesthetics.
Everybody wants a fair planning process that produces a fair result. You can achieve these goals by knowing the state of the art of the technology, site camouflaging, and by incentivizing carriers through a carefully crafted wireless ordinance and planning process, to bring the best and least visible projects forward.
Jonathan Kramer, JD, FIAE, is principal of Kramer.Firm, inc., Los Angeles, California (Kramer@CableTV.com; Web site, www.KramerFirm.com).