Residents Pack Town Hall to Oppose Sunnybrae Cell Tower

Nearly 100 residents packed a Sunnybrae neighborhood meeting Tuesday night to voice fierce opposition to a proposed 186-foot cell tower that would pierce through a legacy redwood forest bordering the Arcata Community Forest. The “megatower” as residents have called it, has been proposed by Pacific Towers for T-Mobile service on a steep, vacant parcel off Shirley Boulevard, and requires a Conditional Use Permit – meaning it’s not principally permitted in the residential zone.

The project description offered on the Humboldt County Department of Planning website reads in part, “A Conditional Use Permit for the construction of a telecommunications and public utility facility, consisting of a 180-foot-tall monopole with new T-Mobile wireless antennas and antenna equipment, including various equipment cabinets housing various utilities within a 40’x60′ fenced lease area. No water or sewer service required. The tower will be designed to accommodate a minimum of three future wireless carriers to collocate onto.” 

Third District Supervisor Mike Wilson and Planning Director John Ford convened an informational town hall – a step outside normal procedure – to present what information the county has received so far from the applicant, and explain the evaluation process ahead. 

“This meeting is an informational meeting. It’s not a hearing, so we’re not taking testimony,” Supervisor Wilson told the standing-room crowd at the Arcata Community Center. “This is really just informational about the process.”

Ford emphasized the meeting would focus on information provided by the applicant: “What we really want to do tonight is give you some information about the project as we understand it, about the things that are going on in the process, where we’re at in the process, the next steps in the process, so that you are fully informed on how to engage.” 

One of more than a dozen nearby lawn signs protesting the Grotzman Creek cell tower project sits at the 15MPH corner where Shirley Blvd. meets the driveway to the property in question. [Photo by Ryan Hutson]

Mayor of Arcata Alex Stillman and City Councilmember Meredith Matthews also attended the meeting, with Stillman setting the Arcata City Council apart from the County at the outset of the meeting. Stillman clarified the city’s limited role, telling the room, “[W]e really appreciate hearing from so many of you,” as to the flood of recent public comments at Arcata City Hall, adding, “and we’re really concerned as you are, but we can do nothing about this except support your efforts in contacting the planning department and Supervisor Wilson,” concluding, “it’s a board issue.”

Kate Lancaster introduced the Friends of Grotzman Creek Watershed, a group concerned community members and neighbors, many who have lived around the 11-acre forested parcel “for 3 to 76 years” and have met every Friday since August 8th to organize opposition to the infrastructure project. “We all feel a strong connection to this place,” Lancaster said, referencing the Grotzman Creek forest area which connects to the sizable Arcata Forest. “None of us object to cellular reception for all. We just don’t believe this is the best location for a cell tower.”

Lancaster described residents’ deep emotional ties to the forest, a sentiment repeated by several speakers at the meeting. “One [resident of Shirley Blvd.] has lived here for 76 years, she played in that forest when she was six years old…” Lancaster said to those present. “There are people who listen to the spotted owls from their windows,” she remarked.

She emphasized what the group is protecting, describing the familiar wildlife she is personally aware of. “There’s a mother bear and her three cubs,” she said, continuing, “there are deer who head up to the flat backyards to engage in their rutting rituals, spotted owls who sing to us throughout the night, red legged frogs who live in our ponds, flying squirrels who delight us as they launch themselves off our trees into the forest.”

The County Planning Department’s Michael Holtermann presented information submitted by the applicant to a full house – standing room only. That information included FCC coverage maps showing current T-Mobile service in the area and projected coverage with the tower in place – but those maps did not include other carriers to show the totality of coverage in the area. The maps, generated by the carrier, claim to show areas of poor existing coverage that would be improved with the addition of the 186 foot cell tower.

From left to right, County Planner Michael Holtermann, BOS Representative Mike Wilson, Planning Director John Ford, and seated, the liaison to the applicant Pacific Towers, Matthew Moore of Complete Wireless Consulting. [Photo by Ryan Hutson]

When a resident questioned whether the county had verified the coverage information, Ford explained the county’s reliance on applicant-provided data, clarifying for the town hall group that the county assumes that that documentation is done professionally. “We take information whether it’s a house or anything. It comes from the applicant,” Ford said. “We don’t design the house for them. We don’t do the environmental review for them. They hire experts, they hire professionals to do that, and then we have to trust that it’s done at a professional level and with a professional stamp.”

Wilson acknowledged that while the county accepts reports and information compiled by experts and professionals in their field, the hearing process allows for challenge. Wilson told the crowd, “Does that mean that it is always true? No. Often there are times when we as a county can see things in need of challenge, and then sometimes citizens or other experts provide counter evidence to what’s being presented. Remember, these are hearings, right? So we actually take that evidence.”

Ford added that in some cases, the county can obtain verification, adding, “[S]ometimes we are able to get outside sources that confirm information.” He noted that individual carriers are required to report accurate coverage maps to the FCC, and the submitted maps match what’s been reported to federal regulators. 

The applicant’s materials indicate the 186-foot monopole would be constructed on a 2,400 square foot lease area with a minimum of three co-location opportunities for additional carriers. The site is currently vacant forested land, with an adjoining property for sale by the same owner, at 422 Shirley Blvd. 

County Requests Additional Information

Community members viewed the county’s response to the initial application as a positive step. After reviewing the submittal, Planning Department staff sent a Notice of Incomplete Application requesting substantial additional information before the project could proceed to a public hearing.

Holtermann detailed the county’s information request to the applicant which include an updated site plan, updated alternatives analysis, tree removal specifications and updated photo simulations,  a fire prevention plan and fire district service letter, ambient noise measurements, lighting information,  access and easement details, and a Northern Spotted Owl impact assessment by a qualified biologist.

The county’s formal request for updated and additional information paused the FCC’s 150-day “shot clock” for local review, Director Ford explained to the room of concerned residents. No hearing is scheduled until the applicant responds with complete information, he clarified, noting that the town hall meeting was not to be misconstrued as a formal hearing on the matter.

County code requires setbacks equal to the full height of the structure – 186 feet in this case, including the height of the antennas. Holtermann noted that the applicant’s initial site plan appeared to show setbacks to an adjacent vacant lot rather than to the nearest developed residential property, and didn’t include the full extent of the antennas in setback measurements. 

The applicant’s photo simulations, according to Holtermann, suggest the tower would be “screened” by existing trees along the ridgeline when viewed from Shirley Boulevard. However, since tree removal is proposed, the county has requested updated simulations showing what the tower would actually look like after removal of trees.

According to the applicant’s wetland delineation report presented by Holtermann, there are wetlands on site as well as streamside management areas. [Map sourced from applicant materials]

On tree removal, Holtermann said the applicant’s materials indicate trees would be removed but provide no further details. “We don’t know the number of trees,” he said, “the size of the trees, the species of the trees, [or] the location of the trees,” Holtermann noted, in response to an inquiry. Neighbors expressed shock and some outrage at the idea of “clearcutting” or removing any stand of trees, which will need to be removed to accommodate the heavy machinery and equipment needed to build out the monopole’s significant platform and placement infrastructure – along a “fishbowl” shaped, steeply sloped terrain – a “pristine forest” that immediate neighbors contend would be irreparably harmed. 

Shirley “Cow Path” Boulevard

Joan Dunning delivered impassioned testimony about traffic safety on Shirley Boulevard, where construction vehicles would access the site. “It’s Shirley cow path,” Dunning said. “It’s a 15 mile per hour posted sign curve. It’s a right angle curve where this driveway is that it is going to have cranes and logging trucks and cement trucks and bulldozers going at this right angle turn that doesn’t even have a goddamn sidewalk!”

She described the street’s heavy pedestrian use, saying there are “nine blind driveways… constantly walked by senior citizens, by college students, by people in goddamn wheelchairs that are teetering because there’s no sidewalk.”

“I will guarantee you right now that that corner is not legal right now,” Dunning continued. “And you start putting damn machinery in there, and you’re going to be liable for somebody getting killed.” Speaking about the forest’s unique acoustic character, noting she has spent 25 years trying to understand why the forest is so quiet, Dunning explained that it is being called a “legacy forest” because, “it’s a second growth forest that has been allowed to regain old growth characteristics.”

Another neighbor, who lives on Shirley Boulevard described access complications at the proposed driveway entrance. The current 15-foot driveway, he said, would need expansion to 20-40 feet, which could require permission from adjacent property owners or destruction of existing retaining walls. The neighbor said, “[T]hey are going to have to get permission from us to give them more land – not happening – or there’s a retaining wall that would have to be destroyed and moved.”

That neighbor added that multiple property lines converge at the entrance of the 422 Shirley Blvd. location, making it unclear to residents there whether any access route would stay within the applicant’s easement rights. “I think a survey of the property lines where they abut Shirley is very necessary to make sure that any routing of that access road is within their right,” he said.

Noise, Wildlife, and Environmental Concerns

According to the applicant’s noise study presented by Holtermann, the proposed equipment would not exceed 50 decibels either at property lines or at nearby residences – what the county code establishes as the maximum noise level. However, Holtermann noted the code actually requires compliance with whichever is lower: 50 decibels or ambient noise levels. “As of now,” he conceded, “we’re not sure if 50 decibels is actually the limit that the applicant will need to adhere to,” he said, which is why the county also requested accurate ambient noise measurements of current conditions in the area.

Several residents raised concerns about cumulative noise impacts as additional carriers add equipment over time. One resident noted that once a tower is built, FCC regulations make it significantly easier for additional carriers to co-locate equipment, each with their own noise-generating infrastructure. “Under CEQA, normally there’s something called ‘avoiding known cumulative impacts’” she told the room, adding “the FCC has designed their cell tower regulations in such a way that once the darn thing is up, there’s virtually a greased lightning process for anything else that goes on it.”

This neighbor argued the county should consider the full build-out scenario, telling Ford and Wilson, “The county is not just licensing a conditional use permit for this one thing, but it is for the entire shebang,” calling the project “a huge industrialization of a residential neighborhood.”

A Cal Poly Humboldt student spoke about how the project conflicts with how the university markets itself to prospective students. With several students in the crowd, one student offered a perspective choosing un-encroached green spaces over increased cellular coverage. “Humboldt is being advertised to people in my age group and other people as being an ecologically pristine area, and this definitely impacts and segregates that heritage,” the student said. “We don’t care about better cell phone service. We’re happy with our provider… we just want to be able to go into green spaces that aren’t constantly being encroached upon.” This sentiment garnered a roar of support from the group. 

Redwood trees on steep terrain greet hikers and dog-walking neighbors into the gulch where Grotzman Creek Watershed sits, at the center of the proposed monopole cell tower project. [Photo by Ryan Hutson]

A resident asked whether wildlife impacts from noise would be assessed beyond just property line measurements. “If it’s 50 decibels at the property line,” one person asked, “how much louder is it on the tower, and how much louder is that going to be affecting the wildlife? What does that mean for all the individual wildlife?” Holtermann confirmed wildlife noise impacts would be part of the Northern Spotted Owl assessment, assuring the group, “that will absolutely be something that we will be taking into consideration.”

The applicant has submitted an RF emissions report indicating emissions would be below FCC limits, according to Holtermann. He explained a significant federal constraint on local decision-making, “The Planning Commission, and any hearing body at the local level, is barred from considering RF emissions as a basis for denial,” he clarified, adding, “[T]hat’s not to say that people can’t comment on their concerns about RF emissions, but if it’s within FCC limits, then basically the local jurisdiction’s hands are tied.”

Slope Stability Concerns 

Multiple residents raised concerns about slope stability on the steep ravine where tree removal is proposed. One longtime resident described watching slow but steady erosion of an embankment, and tree gradual movement over 37 years, including “a slab out back” that she described “crack in two and fall over,” as well as trees migrating down the steep slope before being removed for safety. “I know that the county general plan safety element agrees with the California general code in requiring that the community be protected from risks associated with a variety [of hazards] including landslides,” the resident said. “The removal of trees that are required by the proposal has the potential to further destabilize the slope, increase the risk of erosion, increase the risk of landslide,” she said, receiving applause from the crowd.

Another nearby resident described the unique topography that residents say makes the Grotzman Creek site particularly problematic for both visual and acoustic impacts. She explained how different homes would have direct sight lines to different portions of the 186-foot tower, telling the room, “I might be looking at the first 15 feet of the tower, whereas somebody else is looking at the next 30 feet.” She contended that unlike typical cell tower installations where the top of the structure is far above surrounding homes, this resident noted that this location would place antennas at eye level with some residences around the rim of the “bowl,” describing the forest’s perimeter.

A compilation of remarks from Monday’s town hall meeting offer a sample of the concerns and the exchange of information at the Arcata Community Center. [Video by Ryan Hutson]

“Most of these projects, the top of the tower is way up high and not beaming directly into people’s residences,” she said. “But,” she asked, “what is the impact of having a tower, the antenna, in that close proximity to homes at that level?”

Additional concerns raised at the meeting included potential interference with search and rescue helicopter operations in the adjacent Community Forest with a resident noting that just a month earlier, helicopters had conducted search and rescue operations in the nearby forest, and questioned whether a 186-foot tower would create flight restrictions that could impede emergency response. 

One resident also asked whether the tower height would create conflicts with Arcata-Eureka Airport flight paths, noting the site is sometimes used as an approach corridor during certain weather conditions. Ford indicated the county coordinates with the airport on structures that could affect flight operations. Officials agreed that this was a fair concern, and encouraged attendees to forward their comments and concerts in writing via email to the planning department. 

A Lifetime Resident’s Plea

A 76-year-old resident who lives 300 feet from the proposed site shared her passionate connection to the forest. “My life began here, 76 years ago at the age of five when I moved into our new home with my family, designed by my mother and built by my father and his father,” she said. “It was the fifth house in the neighborhood. My bedroom is right across the driveway from and looks out into the beautiful forest.” 

She explained, “Since the property the woods is on is not suitable for development,” she posited, “I have thought the woods would always be here unchanged.” She continued, “then I received the notice… of the proposed 186 foot tall cell tower, 300 feet from my property.” 

Expressing her commitment to the forest she grew up with, she concluded, “I feel great responsibility to protect the neighboring Grotzman Creek watershed, my home and our health.” She concluded, “[T]he ramifications of this large project being interjected into the middle of this pristine, uncompromised legacy forest and the environmentally sensitive habitat of Grotzman Creek watershed, and the effects it would have on our neighborhood, are too heartbreaking to imagine.”

Circumventing Arcata’s Setback Protections

Lee Parker, who lives at 70 Fickle Hill Lane just 425 feet from the proposed site, raised concerns about how the project’s location circumvents Arcata’s residential protections. “Most of us on the Arcata side of the city-county line either built or bought our property and our homes, trusting in part that we were protected by the land use code that protects us with [a] 1,000 foot radius of any cell tower being near our property,” Parker said, addressing Director Ford and representative Wilson. “Since this proposed project is cited just yards outside the city limit,” he asserted, “it circumvents that rule.”

Parker, who identified himself as retired from a large utility company, asked county officials,  “Would you be willing, out of simple compassion and respect for our neighboring community, to voluntarily honor the same 1,000 foot residential setback that the city adopted to protect all of its residents? Otherwise we will be involuntarily stripped of that protection.”

A nearby property owner puts the neighborhood on notice with several banners at the edge of a fence line near the corner of 422 Shirley Blvd.. [Photo by Ryan Hutson]

He clarified, “[W]e’re not asking you to enforce the Arcata law. We’re asking you to choose neighborliness over a loophole.” Supervisor Wilson responded that the county could not enforce Arcata’s ordinance, though he acknowledged that making the required technical findings for approval would be “very difficult” given the circumstances. 

Nuts and Bolts of County Planning

Wilson explained his constrained role as a decision maker, should the project eventually reach the Board of Supervisors on appeal. “If it comes to us on appeal, we are then a quasi-judicial body that has to make that decision,” Wilson said, describing the role of the Board of Supervisors. “What that means,” he said, “is that we cannot show bias before we get into that decision making process, or that decision can be challenged.” Wilson emphasized what he could advocate for, stating that he preferred to have the “most robust process possible, the most disclosure possible, the most analysis possible, so that everything is on the table – so that we can make a good decision at the end.” He then clarified that the county’s constituency extends beyond immediate neighbors, and includes the other districts. “The constituency isn’t just the people who live closest to a project.” 

Ford addressed questions about how decisions are made, explaining the concept of “findings” – legally required statements that a project complies, or does not comply, with applicable code – and is not detrimental to public health, safety and welfare. “The findings are basically statements that the decision maker, whether it be the Planning Commission or the Board, is making,” Ford said, such as finding a project consistent with zoning. Each finding must be supported by evidence in the record, both Ford and Wilson emphasized.

On the more subjective “public health, safety and welfare” finding, Ford noted it can encompass various community impacts, but did not include impact to property values in that category. 

Ford explained why property values are typically not considered in findings, saying they’re too speculative. “I’ve been a planner for probably more years than I’m willing to admit,” he said, “and that’s always been the issue.” Paraphrasing, Ford said, “It’s like, ‘you’re going to destroy my property values…’ and sometimes people will say that and actually find out that the project, whatever it is, ends up improving the property values.” This feedback garnered several unhappy responses, with one resident pushing back on that assessment saying to Ford, “This is a cell tower. This is not going to have a positive impact on anyone’s property values. That’s a reality. And I think you can very easily find property value studies that would very clearly show that you’re going to hurt your own tax base.” Another chimed in, adding, “This isn’t the Hammond Trail…” disputing the community value that a monopole cell tower would bring to an otherwise natural area. 

The county is awaiting the applicant’s response to the Notice of Incomplete Application. County code allows applicants six months to provide requested information before an application is deemed abandoned.

When staff deems the application complete, it will proceed to a Planning Commission hearing. Holtermann said the county will provide 1,000-foot radius notice for the hearing – more than three times the standard 300-foot requirement – to ensure everyone who received notice of the application also receives notice of the hearing. This assurance was well-received by the group.

At that hearing, the Planning Commission could approve the project, deny it, or continue it with requests for additional information, according to Ford. After that, any decision made can be appealed to the Board of Supervisors. Officials encouraged residents to submit written comments to become part of the official record to Holtermann’s email at [email protected]. 

Ford reminded residents about the value of written testimony, asking community members who had offered important feedback at the meeting to double down in writing. “Getting it to us at least a week before the hearing allows us to put it in the packet,” Ford told the group, noting, “it’s an attachment to the staff report [so] the Planning Commission, and perhaps even the board, has the opportunity to review your original letters.”

All application materials can be viewed online at Humboldt Accela Citizen Access under project number 19343.