During a recent public meeting on the Verizon Cell units project (16-129655-LA), which affects many areas of the city, we found out that our neighborhoods are not well protected from corporate intrusions due to the lax Bellevue land use codes. The Verizon project is for placing their devices on some type of replacement street light poles, behind the sidewalk, within 35 feet of houses, so as to provide additional cell coverage in our neighborhoods.

Most everyone wants additional cell coverage and more data to be streamed into our houses, but there is a lot of leeway as to how big the devices are, what the poles will look like, and with no restrictions on allowing all the cell carriers to place their devices on the same street light, or scattered throughout the neighborhoods.

The first big question is, are these radio frequency (RF) devices from potentially all the cell carriers, placed in our neighborhoods, the best solution to providing services, versus larger units along major roadways, or in utilities facilities out of the residential neighborhoods. And will the RF emissions be as low, when you add all the cell carriers in the mix, as expressed to us at the public meeting.

We were told this project cannot be stopped due to the openness of the land use codes. That raises the second big concern — other public corporations may be able to put equally or more intrusive devices next to any of our houses in our beautiful neighborhoods.

The Bellevue City Council needs to have a thorough review of the land use codes to establish restrictions on what can be placed in our neighborhoods to prevent our nice neighborhoods from being cluttered with stuff that, in many cases, can have a negative health impact.

Larry Brickman

Bellevue