Board approves AT&T tower in Bonny Doon amid objections over visibility and microplastic risk

Santa Cruz — The Board of Supervisors voted 4‑1 on June 10 to approve a wireless facility application for 186 Summit Drive in the Bonny Doon area, resolving a long dispute between neighbors and the applicant over whether the site was the least‑intrusive solution to a claimed AT&T service gap.

The approved project replaces an older lattice tower with a new facility at a maximum approved height of 140 feet (staff had noted the original proposal was for a 151‑foot monopine), sited inside a wooded parcel off Summit Drive. The board’s approval included an explicit condition from supervisors that the tower not use the PVC “pine‑needle” camouflage commonly seen on monopine designs; instead the board directed the structure and equipment to be painted a non‑reflective green to reduce visual contrast with the forest. Supervisor Cummings was the lone dissent. (Motion: Koenig; second: Martinez; vote: DeCerpa Aye, Cummings No, Martinez Aye, Koenig Aye, Hernandez Aye.)

What the applicant said

Applicant representatives and AT&T radio‑network engineers said the site fills a "significant gap" in AT&T’s in‑vehicle and in‑building mobile coverage in the Bonny Doon corridor. AT&T engineer Young Se explained AT&T’s modeling uses high‑resolution terrain and clutter data and offered drive‑test data and proprietary propagation maps to show the gap. AT&T and CTI Towers argued other…