Company Tries to Sell Residents on Antenna

Hoping to reduce opposition to a proposal to build a cellular telephone antenna in Chatsworth, representatives from a telecommunications company will meet with area residents Thursday night to discuss the project.

In its initial application, L.A. Cellular sought a conditional-use permit to build a 60-foot “monopole” at 10239 Vassar Ave., behind a photographic supply business, a project that many residents have denounced as aesthetically at odds with the surrounding community.

The application also called for the construction of a 336-square-foot equipment shed that would have eliminated four parking spaces required by the adjacent business.

Following a Feb. 26 zoning hearing in Sherman Oaks, the permit was denied by a city zoning administrator. Hoping to appeal the decision, L.A. Cellular has reduced the site of the proposed antenna to 45 feet and suggested a number of design and landscaping modifications to appease neighbors, company spokesman Steve Crosby said.

Doreen Rusen, a former president of the Chatsworth Community Coordinating Council, who helped organize Thursday’s meeting, said the antenna is out of character in a mostly residential area and that its construction may lead to increased commercial development. “There’s a lot of problems with the prospect of having that big antenna there,” she said, but acknowledged that the demand for cellular telephones has increased dramatically in recent years. “We’re feeling that they could do a lot more looking for a reasonable area to put it.”

Longtime Chatsworth resident Diana Dixon Davis agreed. “We’re not opposed to having towers in Chatsworth,” she said. “We feel there are appropriate areas and inappropriate areas.”

The meeting will begin at 7 in a public conference room at The Times Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth.