The Long Beach Zoning Board of Appeals voted unanimously to deny AT&T’s request for a variance to permanently relocated cell antennas on the roof of a penthouse atop Granada Towers.
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The zoning board announced its decision at Feb. 21 meeting, but a report on the reasons for the decision is pending.
“Their vote helped justify the emotional and financial stress that I have been going through over these last eight months,” said Jen Bambino, who has resided in the penthouse at landmark apartment building, at 310 Riverside Blvd., since 2006.
Bambino told Patch in January that Topper Realty, the management company at the building, and the condominium’s Board of Managers agreed to allow AT&T to relocate its antennas on the roof her penthouse last July. The antennas were previously located on the parapet walls facing outward on the north, west and east sides of the building. But due to major ongoing exterior reconstruction at the building, which Babino said started in July 2010, they were relocated to her roof.
Bambino’s attorney, Andrew Campanelli of Merrick, said that he discovered from the City of Long Beach’s building department that AT&T moved the antennas and formed a new upgraded structure with a permit only for a temporary relocation of the antennas on Babino’s roofs, as structural repairs were made to the building.
According to Campanelli, AT&T is legally barred from filing an appeal to the board’s denial and from filing a new application for the installations for one year from the date of denial. But Campanelli suspects the city will direct AT&T to restore the antennas back to their previous locations on the walls once the building repairs are completed.
Said Bambino: “But at the rate the work has been going on the building, it could be over a year, so I suppose technically, if that happens, they could file again.”
AT&T’s attorneys, Nielsen, Huber & Coughlin of Huntington, did not return a request for comment on the decision.
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