By —Tom Tracy
This Friday the 13th is “D Day” for Bay Ridge residents fighting the construction of a cell phone antenna atop 8300 4th Avenue. The “D,” of course, stands for “decision.” Officials from Sprint/Nextel are expected to go to the Department of Buildings on January 13 to talk about a discrepancy in the permit they filed to put an antenna atop the apartment building – just 50 feet from St. Anselm’s School on 83rd Street at 4th Avenue. The discrepancy, which boils down to the fact that the antenna, generator and repeater building will be bigger than what’s indicated on the permit, was discovered by parents from St. Anselm’s. If they hammer out their permit problem on Friday, the stop work order currently blocking Sprint/Nextel’s plans could be lifted, residents fear. Their permit, ironically, will expire on January 20, officials said. If the January 13 is postponed or if the administrator overseeing the case needs to mull over the finer points, Sprint/Nextell would have to file another permit, which would delay the process even longer. “That’s what we’re hoping will happen,” said Chris Proscia, a St. Anselm’s parent leading the charge against Sprint/Nextel. “Basically, we’re holding our breath until Friday.” Sources close to the fight said that parents of St. Anselm’s won’t be turning their toes up and dying if the stop work order is lifted. “We may have a few things under our sleeve,” the source said. For months, residents have been protesting the construction of the antenna, claiming that the radiofrequency radiation emitted by it could be harmful to their children. Officials at Nextel continue to contend that there are absolutely no studies that show that the towers are harmful. It was Proscia and others that found that the antenna was going to take up more square footage on the roof than they were permitted for. Initially, Sprint/Nextel was going to place an antenna, repeater building and a generator on top of the building. Now their plans are apparently revised. A generator is not in the equation. “They need a generator,” says Proscia. “If they don’t, if the power goes out in the city, their cell phone won’t work.” “Even if the generator was the size of an air conditioner, they’ll be over [the footage].” “They say that the waves will not harm the children in the school,” said State Senator Marty Golden, who has filed upwards of six pieces of legislation tightening up the rules about just where a cell phone antenna or tower can be placed. “But there is no twenty-year study in the industry that says it won’t hurt the children.” “There are far too many reports about the dangers of RF radiation for us not to care,” said Proscia. “We met with [Nextel] in Albany and we met with them here, and they haven’t changed their minds…but we have to make them change their minds,” said Golden. “If Nextel doesn’t listen soon, I will get these pieces of legislation passed because it is the right thing to do, not just for St. Anselm’s, but for Bay Ridge and the city as well.”
