Cell phone towers
bring $1000 or more a
month income
One-time eyesores can fetch a pretty price in rent for property owners
By
Eloise Aguiar
Advertiser Staff Writer
Cell phone antennas were once the eyesore that nobody wanted.
But they're looking good today to condo associations, some private
property owners and even the city and county of Honolulu, all of which
have found that hosting them can be worth money.
Four or five cell phone towers sit on the roof at the Pat's at Punalu'u
condominiums in Windward O'ahu, and each brings in $800 to $1,000 a
month in rent, said property manager Tom Heiden.
"It's very lucrative," Heiden said, adding that the towers have been
there since cell phones became popular. "It's a source of revenue for
the association."
The city has 103 antennas of varying applications — not just cell phones
— on its property and reaps an average of about $1,200 a month for each,
said Gordon Bruce, director of the city Department of Information
Technology. That amounts to nearly $1.5 million a year.
And there are hundreds more towers out there with thousands of
antennas.
Need
is great

As
the use of cell phones has proliferated, the need for more transmission
towers has, too.
In
Hawai'i, the number of cell phone subscribers more than doubled from
2000 to 2006, or from 454,000 users to more than 1 million.
Because the phones operate via radio waves, antennas are needed to relay
signals from one phone to another. Today, there are at least 3,200 of
these antennas on O'ahu alone on everything from private property to
state- and city-owned land, according to the city Department of Planning
and Permitting. Not all of them are on individual towers; co-locating is
encouraged to reduce the visual blight.
And while most people see the value of the cell phone for emergencies,
staying in touch with children and simple convenience, some still see
the antennas as an eyesore to be denied.
"It's a perfect not-in-my-back-yard issue," Bruce said. "Traditionally,
the neighborhood boards don't want them in their back yard. They want
the capability of good mobile phone service, but they don't want the
antenna."
Disguised
towers

A
cell phone tower disguised to look like a palm tree overlooks Waipahu in
Waikele, where palm trees are a feature of the landscaping.
Some cell phone providers have worked to disguise their equipment. Some
"stealth towers" are painted to match their surroundings, and still
others are made to look like palm trees or pine trees.
In
2002, Kalihi Elementary School became home to the first "stealth
pine-tree tower" in the Islands and at that time was receiving $1,200 a
month as a result.
Several years ago, a cell phone company wanted to hide an antenna in a
rock and place it at Lanikai Park, said Andrea Jepson, a Lanikai
resident. The company was willing to pay a monthly fee and the Lanikai
Association board liked the idea, but the community balked and
eventually killed the project, Jepson said.
Not long afterward, a Lanikai resident allowed two cell phone companies
to place towers on his Ko'oho'o Place property, to the dismay of
neighbors, she said.
Now, a new company wants to co-locate another antenna at the site, which
is on conservation land, and the community has mobilized against it,
Jepson said.
Any antenna that goes up must get a city building permit and if it is
slated for conservation land, a conservation district use permit is
required, said Sam Lemmo, with the state Department of Land and Natural
Resources.
Lemmo, who handles the permits and heads the Office of Conservation and
Coastal Lands, said he couldn't say how many antennas are on state land
but it is a lot, and the state is getting a fee for the use of the land.
Telecommunication sites are located throughout the island on
conservation land and typically have more than one antenna located
there, he said.
Expanded coverage

Antennas ring the roof of this apartment building at the end of South
King Street. When a service provider receives a permit for a new tower,
it will most likely be in an area where a tower already exists and must
be strong enough for other companies to attach to it.
When cell phone usage took off, the state tried to create a plan for
tower locations but soon realized it couldn't dictate to private
industry where to place its equipment, Lemmo said.
But with a mandate to protect scenic resources, the DLNR has set up
guidelines and a permitting process, he said.
"We were very concerned about the proliferation of telecommunication
sites, especially with the explosion of cell phone use," Lemmo said. "So
we adopted a policy where we would promote co-habitation."
Even when a service provider receives a permit for a new tower, it will
most likely be in an area where a tower already exists and must be
strong enough for other companies to attach to it, he said.
Lemmo said he's seen fewer applications lately, but a new study expected
next month could result in an expanded coverage area for the state's
enhanced 911 system and that may mean more antenna towers.
The Wireless e911 Board has initiated a study to locate areas that lack
wireless phone coverage in the state, said Philip Kahue, executive
director of the board. A report by Intrado Inc. is expected in August
and should include a list that prioritizes the areas, Kahue wrote in an
e-mail.
"The board will take Intrado's recommendations into consideration to
decide whether or not to implement a plan to expand coverage for both
geographically remote and in-building areas," he said. In-building areas
are locations in a building where cell phones don't work, such as in a
parking garage, Kahue explained.
A
monthly cell phone fee collected by the state would pay for the
upgrades.
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