New details came to light about a wireless communications facility planned for Kline Street in La Jolla’s Village near Stella Maris Academy as the La Jolla Development Permit Review Committee discussed the application on first review at its July 16 meeting.
The project will return for another hearing at a later date.
The proposal filed with the city of San Diego looks to install a new Dish Network rooftop wireless 5G facility at 1135 Kline St., some 400 feet east of Stella Maris at 7654 Herschel Ave. Stella Maris, the parochial school for nearby Mary, Star of the Sea Catholic Church, serves students in transitional kindergarten through eighth grade.
Stella Maris is not affiliated with the project.
The location is notable because a cell tower proposed for La Jolla Presbyterian Church’s bell tower at 7715 Draper Ave. ran into opposition from parents concerned about the potential effects of electromagnetic radiation on children attending the church preschool and playing at the La Jolla Recreation Center across the street.
Dish Network, which provides satellite TV and mobile phone services, had proposed to install wireless 5G antennas inside the church tower, with screening to hide the equipment.
That project, however, has been canceled.
5G is a fifth-generation wireless network intended to increase internet speeds and provide more reliable connections through the use of higher-frequency radio waves.
The current proposal for Kline Street includes three panel antennas, six remote radio units, three fiber-reinforced plastic boxes, a stucco panel equipment enclosure, an equipment cabinet, a rooftop access ladder and ancillary equipment and accessories. Should installation be approved, it would take 30-45 days to complete.
However, the Rev. Patrick Mulcahy, pastor of Mary, Star of the Sea, said “we have many of the same concerns shared when it had been planned for installation at the La Jolla Presbyterian Church bell tower. We are monitoring the proposal and are seeking input from our parents and staff. We plan to be actively engaged in the process to determine whether this project should move forward in its proposed location so close to our parish school.”
Maverick Becker, a site acquisition specialist with Morrison Hershfield, which is serving as a consultant to Dish Wireless, told the DPR Committee that “the general purpose of this project is to provide new radio frequency coverage to an area not already served by radio frequency coverage.” A community benefit would be “more affordable wireless service options and faster connectivity,” Becker said.
Dish covers 70 percent of the United States, with the goal of covering 75 percent by 2025, he said. “So this project will contribute to that.”
The facility would feature an antenna and radio equipment screened within fiber-reinforced boxes intended to blend in with the building’s roof “on the rear side … facing the school,” Becker said. “We want to make it look like an extension to the rooftop there. The antenna will be behind a new enclosure.”
He said the new equipment would bring the roof height to just under 30 feet.
Becker said the site was chosen and designed by engineers and that those designs will be submitted to the city for review. A third-party engineering firm also will review the plans, he said.
The site was chosen through a process of identifying a “search ring” of limited coverage and finding locations within that ring that might be able to house the equipment to supplement that coverage.
“We chose this location because it has high elevation, so coverage can reach a greater amount of space so we need fewer sites within a certain area,” Becker said.
Typical coverage radius would be about a mile from the tower, but Becker said it depends “a lot on the height that the site can reach.”
Building owners receive payment for such installation, but Becker said he could not disclose what would be paid at this site. The lease would have a five-year term with four five-year options.
Becker said a notice about the project was posted onsite and that other notices were distributed by mail, but that is the extent of outreach to surrounding properties, including Stella Maris Academy.
He said a report created by a third party “goes over the limits and thresholds that the [Federal Communications Commission] has set for exposure, and we show on that report that we are in compliance.”
Planning boards cannot consider the potential effects of electromagnetic fields, or EMFs, when making a decision on wireless projects. In terms of aesthetics, which is within the DPR’s purview, only the screening would be visible.
The FCC says it requires all wireless communications devices to meet “minimum guidelines for safe human exposure to radio frequency.”
A Forbes report in January quoted Christopher Collins, a professor of radiology at New York University, as saying that 5G electromagnetic waves “have a higher frequency, which allows it to carry more information, [but] it also has a smaller wavelength and does not penetrate the body as far as lower-frequency energy.”
Electromagnetic fields consist of non-ionizing, low-level radiation — such as from phones, computers, power lines and microwaves — and ionizing EMFs, which have much higher-level radiation, such as from sunlight and X-rays.
The highest 5G frequency ranges from 24.25 GHz to 52.6 GHz, where “the big gains in speed of data transfer are really expected,” Collins told Forbes. But, he said, the frequency where electromagnetic radiation starts to ionize and become dangerous is about 3 million GHz.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says “the current limit on radiofrequency energy set by the [FCC] remains acceptable for protecting public health.”
Research published in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology said it found “no confirmed evidence that low-level RF fields above 6GHz such as those used by the 5G network are hazardous to human health.”
However, Forbes reported, more than 3,500 physicians have cited peer-reviewed scientific studies pointing to possible risks associated with non-ionizing radiation, including cancer, cellular stress, genetic damage, reproductive changes and neurological disorders.
The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences said that “in the age of cellular telephones, wireless routers and the internet … all of which use EMF, concerns persist about possible connections between EMF and adverse health effects.”
The institute said additional research is needed and recommended “continued education on practical ways to reduce exposures to EMFs.”
Other DPR news
Two other projects on the July 16 agenda were discussed but also will return at a future meeting.
One calls for a coastal development permit for grading to reconstruct 3,000 square feet of failed slope at a home at 1655 Nautilus St.
The other proposes to split a lot at 1221 Virginia Way, demolish a one-story guesthouse and build a new three-story, 1,663-square-foot dwelling with an attached 797-square-foot accessory dwelling unit at a site with an existing two-story house.
The La Jolla Development Permit Review Committee next meets Tuesday, Aug. 13. The agenda will be posted 72 hours in advance at lajollacpa.org. ♦
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