SF supervisors close on AT&T utility box decision

This AT&T U-verse cabinet is located on LaPlaya between Balboa and Fulton. It is the cabinet that was installed after AT&T received Ameritech's favorable categorical exemption determination from the Planning Department. less This AT&T U-verse cabinet is located on LaPlaya between Balboa and Fulton. It is the cabinet that was installed after AT&T received Ameritech's favorable categorical exemption determination from the Planning ... more Photo: Marc Blakeman, Ameritech Photo: Marc Blakeman, Ameritech Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close SF supervisors close on AT&T utility box decision 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

A week from Tuesday, the rubber is supposed to meet the road, or rather the sidewalk, on AT&T's plan to bring its U-verse high-speed phone, Internet and television service to San Francisco.

That's when the Board of Supervisors is scheduled to vote on whether an environmental impact report is needed before AT&T installs 726 surface utility boxes to power the service across the city.

A "yes" vote, devoutly wished by AT&T opponents who are fired up about the boxes, would at least delay the project for years, or kill it altogether.

If held now, said Supervisor Scott Wiener, who has been meeting with both sides, "AT&T would have a problem." Which no doubt would be good news for Comcast, which has a virtual lock on the services here.

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There are more than 1 million homes able to get U-verse in the nine-county Bay Area, according to AT&T. The number includes, approximately 2,000 in San Francisco, mostly in the Sunset district and South of Market, where boxes were installed before a much larger rollout of the service was halted after opponents appealed to the Board of Supervisors in 2008.

Well aware of the continued opposition ahead of the board's vote, AT&T has "a proposal in the works," said Lane Kasselman, a spokesman for the company. "We're very close to coming out with a (memorandum of understanding), signed by us, laying out our agreements and responsibilities to the city and its residents," he told me on Friday.

Kasselman, who has met with Mayor Ed Lee and several supervisors recently, said he hopes the proposal will be completed before the Board of Supervisors meeting on July 19.

"We're taking into account the mayor's concerns, the supervisors' concerns and residents' concerns," he said.

Asked what the mayor's concerns are, he said Lee "wants to make sure we're building an infrastructure that's the least intrusive and most amenable to residents."

'Public blight': Such concerns echo those raised by some neighborhood groups and other opponents, led by the advocacy group San Francisco Beautiful, who say the 4-by-4-foot boxes are too many, too unsightly, impede pedestrians' right of way and, as graffiti magnets, will only serve to further worsen the landscape.

Better, the opponents say, to put the equipment underground or place the boxes on private property, which, according to a 2005 city ordinance signed by then Department of Public Works chief Ed Lee, must be considered as alternatives to surface utility boxes (described by the ordinance as "public blight").

Kasselman did not have specific details of the proposal, but it could involve reducing the number of boxes. "We don't know the numbers yet," he said. Undergrounding is probably not feasible, given the amount of space required, he said, but, "where private property is available, we'll use it."

In terms of aesthetics, he said, "we'll look to green them, plant trees and shrubbery around them and stealth them." (i.e, fence them off, or otherwise hide them, where possible.) Some of the existing boxes have already been "greened."

As to graffiti, "all our techs in the field carry equipment" to spray over it, "and we'll respond to calls from residents and go out and fix it." he said.

Asked about local hiring, a front-and-center issue facing any new project in town, Kasselman said, "A paramount priority for us is to hire union, and hire local."

'We're all ears': Whether the proposals will prove sufficient to ameliorate the concerns and get the supervisors' green light remains to be seen.

"Mayor Lee has not taken a position yet," said his spokesman, Francis Tsang, on Friday. "He's encouraged by AT&T's discussions with supervisors about streetscape improvements and local hire commitments."

"We're all ears to hear any proposal they have," said Milo Henke, past president of San Francisco Beautiful, who is heading the anti-box movement. "What we want them to do is to follow the regulations of San Francisco," he said, referring to the ordinance.

Henke disputes AT&T's claim that undergrounding is unfeasible. "The technology is evolving. It's not settled. But we're civilians, we're not engineers. That's why we need an EIR," he said.

And if Henke gets his wish? "It's premature to say what would happen," said Kasselman. "But we don't think it will happen. We're confident we'll get approval."

Lessons to learn: If you want to witness a preliminary bout of sorts, you might check out a Board of Supervisors Land Use and Economic Development Committee meeting on Monday, where Wiener will be bringing up the AT&T controversy.

Specifically, he'll be addressing it as an example of one city department not knowing what the other is doing when it comes to such issues.

In this case, the planning department had granted AT&T an EIR waiver, relying on a California Environmental Quality Act provision that exempts utility boxes from environmental review. However, as opponents were quick to pounce on, there's that seemingly contradictory ordinance, which says no surface utility boxes if at all feasible.

"It became very clear that there's not a lot of clarity in how the city manages its sidewalks and what it puts on its sidewalks," said Wiener. "Along comes a proposal to put 726 boxes on the streets, and there's no overall policy or plan for the city on this kind of thing, especially when it comes to implementing the city's Better Streets Plan."

That's the plan, approved by the Board of Supervisors in 2006, to "create a unified set of standards, guidelines, and implementation strategies to govern how the City designs, builds and maintains its pedestrian environment." (sfg.ly/qMlpje)

The desired unity doesn't just involve the planning department and public works. The city's Public Utilities Commission and the Municipal Transportation Agency are also tied in, and will be present at the hearing.

"My hope is that, first we'll learn about what the departments are doing and not doing to coordinate, and then get on the road to better coordination to implement the plan," Wiener said.

Wiener said the public is invited: 1 p.m. Room 263, City Hall. Item 4 (sfg.ly/r6LqWF).