Last update - 00:00 05/12/2007
Cellular carriers to bear 80% of payment for lost property value
By Eran Gabay
It took years of wrangling, but now it's all but final: Israel's cellular providers will have to bear 80 percent of the compensation to homeowners for lost property value because of proximity to a cellular antenna.
Two years after the law regulating non-ionizing radiation finally passed through the Knesset, the National Council for Planning and Building has gotten around to drawing up the principles of a national master plan for cellular transponders (antennas).
The master plan addresses various issues of determining locations for cellular antennas, and another, no less important one: compensation. The cellular service providers will be required to reimburse homeowners for loss of property value because of the proximity to cellular antennas. The issue is not a petty one: studies have found that housing prices by antennas can be as much as 30 percent lower than prices of comparable housing.
Israel has four cellular companies: Partner (Orange), Cellcom, Pelephone and MIRS.
While the cellular companies will evidently have to bear 80 percent of any indemnification due to affected homeowners, the other 20 percent is to be borne by the relevant local government.
The council also ruled the location of all new antenna installations must be publicized. Preference will be given to small transponders rather than large ones within population centers, in order to reduce radiation emissions.
When the council issues its final decision on the issue of reimbursement, the cellular companies may well have to make provisions for compensating homeowners in their financial statements. It is possible their credit ratings will be impaired.
Government bodies will now need to address the issues concretely, include district planning committees, the ministries of Interior, Environmental Protection and Communications and the local authorities.
The National Council for Planning and Building's position on the amount of reimbursement to be transferred by cellular companies to the local municipalities was badly delayed. One of the reasons for the procrastination was that Ram Belinkov, the Interior Ministry director general, who also serves as the chairman of the National Council for Planning and Building, disqualified himself from the deliberations on the issue in order to avoid conflicts of interest.
Spokesmen for the Green party and for the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI) expressed their satisfaction with the decision. SPNI takes the position that costs of reimbursement for damages as a result of installing the antennas should be borne entirely by the cellular companies.
The decision to avoid installing new antennas in natural habitats, to the extent possible, came in response to pressures exerted by the green group. Priority will be given to installation on existing infrastructure poles, including electrical poles. Any installation of new antennas in open areas will require submission of plans based on a set of criteria meant to avoid incursion on open landscape.
Any issue related to the cellular market is problematic, since nearly all cellular specialists in Israel are connected, one way or another, to the cellular companies and objective experts are hard to come by.
The Forum of Cellular Companies' response to the announcement was not quite as enthusiastic as environmental and nature proponents. Describing the issue as "still open for discussion," the forum spokesman said that the cellular companies would issue their professional comments to the document. The cellular companies are of the opinion that the guiding principal should be that installation of small antennas would be allowed within cities.