Parents and more raised fierce opposition at a packed community planning meeting.

A project to install a 5G wireless facility next to Stella Maris Academy in The Village will return a third time, after its second bid for approval resulted in a tense Aug. 13 meeting of the La Jolla Community Planning Association’s Development Permit Review Committee.

After a lengthy discussion during which dozens of parents and children vied for public comment time, planners asked the project planners for more information on how the site was chosen and whether others might be better. 

The project, brought forth by DISH Wireless, would install a new rooftop wireless communication facility at 1135 Kline St., including antennas and ancillary equipment to be screened within architecturally-integrated rooftop equipment enclosures.

DISH proposes a 5G wireless facility atop this building, which sits directly over the Stella Maris playground.

The facility would provide new radio frequency coverage to an area that does not have any existing coverage for DISH wireless, which wants to compete with other companies to provide cellular service.

After the first DPR review of this project on July 16, certain improvements requested by DPR trustees were implemented into the design, according to Maverick Becker, consultant for DISH Wireless.

The improvements included paint texture matching, adding internal access to the roof and more, Becker said.

The Aug. 13 meeting, however, drew ire from parents concerned about the effects of long-term exposure to radio frequency electromagnetic radiation from a wireless facility set 5 feet and 5 inches away from the Stella Maris playground.

Noting the committee is charged only with reviewing projects for compliance with the La Jolla Community Plan and the San Diego Municipal Code, and “no one on this committee has the knowledge base to opine on the health effects of wireless antennae, nor do we have the right to … make any decisions based on it,” DPR Chair Brian Will nonetheless allowed for extensive public comment on the project.

“I think it’s in poor form to choose the location immediately adjacent to [a] school playground,” he said.

The opposition

With about 100 people in attendance, dozens of parents, staff and students spoke, along with community members, citing grave concern with children’s increased vulnerability to electromagnetic field exposure while attending school for hours a day, years at a time.

Asking for a “more expansive idea of what community planning is,” Rev. Pat Mulcahy of Mary, Star of the Sea Catholic church (for which Stella Maris is the parochial school) asked DPR to consider the financial impacts of such a project as well, as several school parents stated they will withdraw from the school if the installation goes through.

Rev. Pat Mulcahy.

“[There] might be a temptation to think it’s just architectural, … but it impacts the whole community,” Mulcahy said, adding the school was established more than 75 years ago.

“This poses an existential threat to our school,” he said.

“You’re going to put this school out of business,” engineer and parent Alex Garcia said. “While I don’t have any doubt that you believe in … the safety of your product, the truth is that standards are always being updated after new findings come out.

“We don’t know whether you’ll be compliant three or four years from now, and that’s the risk that most parents don’t want to take,” Garcia said. “I will not take that risk.”

Several other parents – including one who works at Stella Maris – echoed they would withdraw from the school if the project were greenlit.

Jamie Brandt, Stella Maris Principal.

The DISH proposal “comes at a very high cost to Stella Maris Academy,” said Principal Jamie Brandt, also an alumnus of the school. “We need to keep our school alive.”

“Is it possible that you take all that concern of the community and seek a different location?” parent Arlette Vargas-Ali asked, to much applause. 

The response 

“Wireless development is a permitted use in this zone,” Becker said in response to one comment. 

Acknowledging community concerns, he added DISH has agreed to “a compliance report to be produced after the installation.”

DISH Wireless site development manager Charles Lindsay.

“I understand and I empathize [with parent concerns],” said Charles Lindsay, DISH site development manager for San Diego and Las Vegas, noting sites are chosen if they meet a “coverage objective” and compliance with local regulations.

DISH has installed equipment on or near other schools, he said, adding any installations have to comply with Federal Communications Commission guidelines. 

For this project, “we were within the guidelines,” Lindsay said.

“There’s a wide margin of safety,” said David Witkowski, chief executive of Oku Solutions, a third-party company contracted for an electromagnetic engineering report to address the project’s compliance with the FCC codes for electromagnetic safety.

After a thorough explanation of radio frequency waves and more, Witkowski said the Kline Street projects findings are more than 88 percent “under the level at which the FCC would say that the site is not compliant.”

Addressing concerns the FCC regulations had not been updated since 1996, Witkowski said the FCC reexamined their standards in 2013 after years of analysis.

 “They saw no reason to make any changes,” Witkowski said.

Committee comments

“We have to be very careful about the term ‘community,’” DPR trustee Greg Jackson said.

Reticent to “make judgments about [something] outside our purview,” Jackson said “I do worry about the health of the community, and I do worry about whether the choices that get made by applicants are necessarily the optimal choices for the community.”

He moved that DPR defer decision on the project until DISH returned with additional information on why the proposed location is optimal.

Parents, students and school staff expressed outrage at the most well-attended DPR meeting.

“There have to be better choices for La Jolla than to place this antenna on that particular building,” Jackson said.

 “It seems to me that there’s a threat to an important business, an important educational resource in our community, whether warranted or not,” Will said. “I can’t opine on that, but the threat seems real.”

The motion passed 5 to 1, with trustee Glen Rasmussen opposed, wanting the project to be denied then and there.

DISH is also planning to install wireless sites in La Jolla at 9500 Gilman Drive; 8311 Cliffridge Ave.; 7955 La Jolla Shores Drive; 2122 Via Casa Alta; 1570 Alta La Jolla Drive; and 5655 La Jolla Blvd.

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