Planning Commission approves T-Mobile facility at Fallbrook Community Center

Property owned by the County of San Diego is exempt from property tax, but not from county land use policy, so a Major Use Permit is needed to site a T-Mobile wireless telecommunication facility at the Fallbrook Community Center. That Major Use Permit was approved Nov. 13 by a 4-0 vote of the county's Planning Commission with commissioners Leon Brooks, Peder Norby, Michael Seiler, and Bryan Woods providing the votes for passage while Doug Barnhart, Michael Beck, and David Pallinger were not present at the meeting.

The permit allows T-Mobile to construct, operate, and maintain an unmanned wireless facility consisting of 12 panel antennas mounted on a 45-foot tall false pine tree, along with a 240 square foot equipment enclosure. The Planning Commission action also granted a height exemption to allow the false tree to exceed the height limit of 35 feet.

Although the 7.16-acre property in the 300 block of Heald Lane has a Public/Semi-Public Facilities land use designation, its single-family residential zoning requires a Major Use Permit for a wireless facility.

An alternative site analysis considered the First Church of Christian Science in the 1100 block of Fallbrook Street and the First Southern Baptist Church of Fallbrook in the 900 block of East Elder Street, but a rooftop cupola to camouflage antennas on top of the First Church of Christian Science building would not integrate into the design of the existing building and serving the desired coverage area would have required a taller antenna at the First Southern Baptist Church of Fallbrook.

The traffic signals at the intersection of East Fallbrook Street and Heald Lane are lower than nearby trees and shrubs

which would cause interference with the wireless communication.

The false tree on the Fallbrook Community Center site will be located at the southeastern portion of the property between an existing tennis court and the parking lot. Each of the panel antennas will be covered by false leaves to help conceal the antennas from public visibility. All of the existing trees will be maintained, and the placement of the false tree at the top slope of an existing trench will allow existing mature pine and broadleaf trees to conceal the wireless facility.

The equipment will be contained within a concrete masonry unit enclosure eight feet tall, and the enclosure's walls will be covered with drought-resistant vines. One global positioning unit antenna will be mounted on an enclosure wall. The enclosure is not large enough to house a backup generator.

The work will also include a 402-foot long joint utility trench for electrical, telephone, and cable connections. That trenching will be placed through an existing depression running east to west across the site.

The design of the facility will allow for future co-location.

On April 20, the Fallbrook Community Planning Group voted 10-2 to recommend approval of the Major Use Permit.