Cell towers lower property values

[“Confusion, concern over proposed cell and light towers” Volume 21, Issue 11 or bit.ly/1OsyLUL]

I have been asked to give my opinion as to the impact of two 70-foot cell towers in the park that fronts Lake Adlon Drive and Lake Badin Drive which includes the San Carlos Recreation Center and the sports field. I have been in business for 25 years and have sold more homes than any other agent in the 92119 code. The neighborhood in question is my most productive area.

The T-Mobile cell towers would have a negative impact on real estate values in the area. This is especially true for the homes that face the towers or overlook them from their backyards. Many homes on Beaver Lake, Boulder Lake, Lake Adlon and Lake Badin will be affected by this. When I have a listing with a cell tower of high-voltage line close by, there are always showing issues. About 50 percent of buyers pass on the house. The feedback from agents on why their client passed is that the cell tower or power line drove them away. When I lose that percentage of buyers, home values decrease. Less buyers means longer market times and lower prices. You need 100 percent of the buyer pool in order to maintain peak value for property.

––Kevin Sheedy, San Diego

Tank farms pose threat to stadium

In September, at the urging of some of my neighbors in Allied Gardens, I wrote a letter to our San Diego mayor about concerns that we consider serious. At the end of November, it was suggested that I write and tell him that he had not extended the courtesy of acknowledgement of our interest.

Subsequently, a copy of that letter was faxed to our District 7 councilman.

In the letter, I mentioned the projected cost of renovating the Charger stadium that is only used about once a month as well as the obvious example of mismanagement of the stadium that reflects a sad commentary of our representation.

There were other relative items mentioned, but the most serious concern that we invited the mayor’s attention to is the proximity of the proposed stadium site to the gasoline tank farm. We see this site as a death trap with far-reaching ramifications and its continued use for any purpose borders on criminality.

The death trap qualification is substantiated by the following scenario and does so without a stretch of the imagination:

On a Sunday at about 1 p.m., the stadium is filled with about 40,000 people. There are 19,000 cars in the parking lot. The adjacent roads and ramps are gridlocked.

Terrorists with explosives collapse the concrete tank retaining rings, and puncture the tanks, resulting in a river of gasoline flowing down on to the stadium parking lot, into storm drains, into manholes and into the stadium. Cars explode and people trapped in the stadium are incinerated.

In our letter to the mayor, which he has not answered, we encouraged him to discuss this matter with his advisors with the aim of assigning a priority based on the gravity of the information that we shared with him.

In our summation in that letter, I mentioned someone’s words of wisdom that addressed the sense of accountability and the burden of leadership, about the authority to make decisions and the inherent responsibility to accept consequences and the use of authority for the common good and left the applicability of those words of wisdom to his judgment.

––Edward Henry, Allied Gardens