The Aurora City Council will vote next week on whether to change zoning to allow a cell tower in Lebanon Park on the East Side.
Telecommunications company AT&T has applied to the city for a conditional use permit for a 125-foot-high monopole that would replace an existing light pole on the baseball field in the park.
The council’s Committee of the Whole heard information about the proposal on Tuesday night, and put it on unfinished business for next week’s City Council meeting.
Officials said the cell tower would be similar to ones put in other Fox Valley Park District parks. Lebanon Park is owned by the park district, which has already approved the tower installation.
“This has been done at several other park district parks,” said Ed Sieben, Aurora’s planning and zoning director. “It’s been successful in other parks.”
But several members of a family in the neighborhood said the cell tower could threaten people’s health, and also said the city did not give enough notice to neighbors about the situation.
Cynthia Rocha, who lives near Lebanon Park, cited medical studies that show radio frequency waves, a type of low-level electromagnetic radiation, could “exacerbate” problems for “anyone who has been immuno-compromised, including my mother and myself.”
The Rochas also questioned if proper notice was given to the neighborhood. They said residents in the area primarily speak Spanish, but said notices were sent only in English, and the notices were sent by registered mail, which means many people may not have been home to sign to get the notice.
Sieben told aldermen the notices were not in Spanish because the Planning Department was not specifically directed to send notices in Spanish.
Alds. Michael Saville, 6th Ward, and Edward Bugg, 9th Ward, said they were under the impression the City Council Building, Zoning and Economic Development Committee had asked that all notices go out in Spanish. Officials said they would do that in the future.
Sieben said 140 properties – 130 of them homes, the others businesses – were sent notices because they were within 250 feet of the proposed tower. That is required by city ordinance. The notices prompted five phone calls for information, and three property owners showed up at the Planning and Zoning Commission public hearing on the matter.
Cynthia Rocha said that is because the notices were not in Spanish. She said between going door-to-door in the neighborhood, and through an online petition, she has collected 153 signatures against the monopole site in Lebanon Park.
Andrew Flowers, of AT&T, said under the proposal, the company would replace a light pole in the outfield of the baseball field with the cell tower. The lights would be replaced on the tower, with the cell equipment going higher on the 125-foot pole.
While the pole is for AT&T, it would be available for other companies to “co-locate” on the pole, meaning they could use it, too.
Flowers showed a map indicating AT&T call data from the East Side around Lebanon Park is marked in red and yellow, indicating weak service.
“In our system, red and yellow is pretty bad,” he said.
The call data also indicates that a lot of people living in that area use AT&T, and would want to get the better service the tower would bring.
“It really comes from the neighborhood,” he said. “They’re saying, this is what we need, without saying this is what we need. One of the most important things for us is connectivity.”
He said the tower would be within the safe levels endorsed by the FCC. But Rocha said those safety limits have been questioned by medical studies.
“It’s been alleged by AT&T that the limits are safe,” she said. “They may not be illegal, but that does not mean they are healthy.”
slord@tribpub.com