Residents ask for removal of antennas

By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer

Cellular phone antennas were placed on the roof of the Pu'uwai Momi public housing apartments, drawing complaints from residents. Rebecca Breyer • The Honolulu Advertiser

Pu'uwai Momi is the same project where a mercury spill two years ago caused a community uproar, and yesterday tenants told officials they are tired of being kept out of the loop about public safety issues.

T-Mobile, formerly Voice-Stream, installed the antennas in March 2001 after signing an agreement with state housing officials and agreeing to pay the state $1,000 a month. At the time, residents living closest to the array of eight antennas were sent notices about the system, which they said is on a rooftop accessible to neighborhood children and within about 15 feet of the nearest bedroom window.

But the state held its first public meeting on the project only a month ago, said Heather Kahawai, president of the Pu'uwai Momi Tenant Association.

"They didn't give us information until two years later," Kahawai said. "They went and put it up without (our) permission."

Last year, the tenants association filed suit in U.S. District Court to force the antennas' removal. Their attorney, Michael Cruise, settled the case out of court for $10,000 in legal fees and an agreement that the state would seek a review of the project from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. His office said yesterday he was out of town and unavailable for comment.

Michael Flores, the public housing director, was out of state yesterday, but Mark Chandler, the acting field office director, told the group that their concerns will be relayed.

Robert Hall, acting executive director of the state's Housing and Community Development Corporation of Hawai'i, wrote a letter to Flores in August seeking HUD review of the agreement with T-Mobile, signed in January 2000.

Hall did not return calls for comment yesterday. But the agency's spokesman, Derick Dahilig, said department staff recalls no objections from HUD when officials first began in 1995 to sign similar agreements. These agreements have allowed various cell phone companies to place antennas on about a dozen other public housing projects, including Kuhio Park Terrace, Dahilig said. The state receives about $120,000 a year from various telecommunications companies to have antennas placed on top of those housing projects.

"We were told at the time there was no requirement for a public meeting," he said. "In retrospect we could have done a better job."

Yesterday, about a dozen association members picketed outside the HUD office on Pohukaina Street yesterday and delivered a petition seeking the removal of the antennas.

Roy Irei, T-Mobile's site development manager, said the company followed federal safety guidelines in the installation and that the high-frequency, low-power radiation was measured at the site and is well within allowed levels, even placed where it is on the rooftop itself.

"In a lot of portions on the rooftop, there is a zero reading," Irei said.

To meet Federal Communications Commission guidelines, the lower rungs of a ladder were covered to restrict access from the ground, he added.

But Kahawai said children have been able to clamber onto the rooftop anyway, on both the T-Mobile ladder and one installed earlier for other purposes.

Dahilig said his agency is considering removing the ladders entirely to keep children away from the antennas.

Pu'uwai Momi residents said the three-bedroom apartment directly beneath the antennas was vacant during the installation and remained empty until about February, when a Micronesian family of five moved in. The family declined to participate in the protest yesterday, Kahawai said.

The protest has drawn support from the advocacy groups Micronesians United and Island Tenants on the Rise, a coalition of public-housing associations whose president, Monique Ocampo, said the rights of low-income residents are being trampled.

"We're not just 'a project,'" she said. "We're a community. We deserve the same process that every other community receives."

Reach Vicki Viotti at vviotti@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8053.

Correction: Derick Dahilig's name was misspelled in a previous version of this story.