Columnist Susan Snyder: Cell issues tower over neighborhoods

Friday, March 26, 2004 | 8:20 a.m.

How many black holes can you name?

Anybody who has a cellular phone can pinpoint at least one spot in the Las Vegas Valley where the signal disappears, and the call might as well be placed from Mars.

Sometimes, it's because cell phone companies can't build towers fast enough. Other times, it's because people don't want the unsightly towers jutting up from their neighborhoods.

On the valley's extreme northwest side, companies disguise the towers to look like palm trees. They even plant a couple of real trees next to the towers to make it look like a little stand of palms.

But what about inner-city historic neighborhoods? Plopping a couple of palms -- real or fake -- into the middle of a long-established community where such trees don't grow or next to a historic building doesn't fit.

Up to now, companies that wanted to erect cell towers had to assess how such placement would affect any adjacent property older than 50 years, which is the minimum age for any site to be considered for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.

But that soon might change. For as Federal Communications Commission officials very publicly discuss obscenities on the airwaves, they are working very quietly to change the manner in which cell towers are issued permits.

A proposal being considered today would only require historic surveys when towers are being placed next to properties already listed on the national register. Those old enough but not yet listed would be left out.

A final draft of the proposal must be signed by the National Council of State Historic Preservation Officers and also by the U.S. Advisory Council on Historic Preservation before the FCC votes on it, said Alice Baldrica of Nevada's State Historic Preservation office.

Baldrica said that final draft has not yet been released to historic preservation officers, which typically happens before the two national councils make their final decisions. But the proposal is a hot topic among preservation officials across the nation, and most expect an FCC vote soon.

"It is a big change. Most of us are very troubled by it," she said.

And it raises different issues in the West than it does back East.

"For example, in Rhode Island almost all of its (historic) sites are already surveyed," Baldrica said. "Here in Nevada, which is a more recent state, they have not yet been surveyed architecturally and historically.

"If one hasn't been surveyed and listed yet, they could do anything they wanted."

She cited two known post-World War II neighborhoods that would be affected in Las Vegas: The Las Vegas High School neighborhood is between Sixth and Ninth streets downtown. The John S. Park neighborhood sits southeast of Charleston and Las Vegas boulevards.

Both are known, but without national register designation they are not protected, Baldrica said. And changes to the cell tower surveys could open the door for changes to historic survey requirements in other federal permit processes, such those that apply to highway widening projects or placement of natural gas lines, she added.

"This is precedent setting," she said.