A large amateur radio tower that juts above roofs is getting mixed reactions in Riverside’s Wood Streets neighborhood.

A couple who lived next door until recently say tension over an installation some describe as ugly and unsuitable for the historic neighborhood pushed them to move away earlier than planned. Others say they’re not bothered at all.

After getting a city permit, math teacher Paul Braiman added an extendable ham radio tower in his backyard in July.

UPDATE: Planning panel to review tower decision

On Thursday evening, city Deputy Development Director Emilio Ramirez visited the house to discuss the tower and set an appointment for more discussion Friday. He wouldn’t say what they talked about Thursday and could not be reached Friday.

“This has gotten far more complicated than I ever thought it would,” Braiman said later. “All I wanted to do was my hobby and serve my community.”

Braiman installed a 25-foot, 6-inch tower to replace a 42-foot pole antenna on the garage about two years after he and his wife, Linda, a Riverside City College librarian, moved in from Lake Arrowhead. The motorized tower can extend up to 57 feet, 6 inches, he said.

That stirred controversy in the historic enclave near downtown. Residents spoke out for or against the radio tower in person and online. At least half a dozen lodged complaints with city officials and with Councilman Mike Gardner, who represents the area.

None was more riled than next-door neighbors Patti and David Moran, a nurse and a Riverside County Environmental Health inspector. They complained to code enforcement in July after the tower was erected next to the home where they’d lived for 15 years.

They said the tower was an eyesore they saw whenever they were in the backyard. They contacted Gardner last month after Braiman added a 39-foot-long horizontal, multiband antenna.

“It’s so ugly,” said Danya Johnson, who can see the antenna and tower from her house across the street. “It’s fine he has a hobby, but it shouldn’t be my problem.”

She and Realtor Patti Triplett, who lives around the corner, said the tower detracts from the character of the neighborhood, which is a protected historic district.

“It makes it look like an industrial neighborhood when it’s sticking up like that,” Triplett said.

But retired Riverside Firefighter Ron Simpson, who lives on the Braimans’ other side, was among several residents who said last week the antenna and tower don’t bother them.

“Not in the least,” he said. “I told them, ‘If I don’t like it, I won’t look at it.’”

Christy Hamilton, who lives directly across from the Braimans, agreed.

“If I look at it, I see it. But it’s the Wood Streets – things are quirky,” she said.

Braiman uses an amateur radio, tower and antenna, which cost several thousand dollars, mainly on weekends to make distant two-way radio contact with other operators, a hobby known as DXing. He said his farthest unconfirmed contact with the equipment was with someone in the African nation of Namibia.

For a year, he also has been involved with a community emergency response team he and other operators formed.

A historic preservation office planner issued a certificate allowing a tower that’s 21 feet, 6 inches high when retracted and extends to 53 feet, 6 inches, with a 4-foot antenna support mast, according to a permit copy.

The tower’s installation is protected under Federal Communications Commission emergency broadcasting regulations and was deemed not to be detrimental to the historic district, senior planner Travis Randel said in an email to code enforcement staff.

Code enforcement officials wrote in the case file in March that the antenna had been approved under a conditional use permit and building permit that allowed antenna experimentation.

Gardner disagrees. He believes a horizontal antenna wasn’t discussed in the permit and asked the city attorney’s office to look into that, he said Thursday.

“I don’t think it’s a reasonable accommodation given the historic nature of the neighborhood,” he said.

The Morans left March29. They sold the house and moved to the desert, which they’d been planning to do upon retiring in two or three years. Patti Moran still cries when asked how hard it was to leave.

“That was the worst year, by far, of my life,” she said.

Contact the writer: 951-368-9444 or shurt@pe.com