Verizon wins approval for fifth set of cell antennas in East Boston; some residents wonder when it will all end

The Zoning Board of Appeal yesterday approved plans by Verizon to install 20 new cell antennas in four clusters atop an apartment building at 319-327 Chelsea St. in East Boston.

At a hearing yesterday, a company attorney said the new antenna system, the fifth such in East Boston, would help the company meet the "now high and growing demand" in the neighborhood, in part by providing additional cell access, in part by offloading some of the calls now routed through antennas on Orleans Street.

A member of the Maverick-Central Neighborhood Association, however, questioned the need for the antennas, asking when enough is enough.

She said a Verizon rep had said at an association meeting that the new antennas would provide redundancy should the neighboring antenna system go down. "If this one goes down, then we go into number 6 and if that one goes down then we go onto number 7 and on and on," she said, calling East Boston "a small little town, and the Chelsea/Bremen area "a small little part of East Boston."

The board voted unanimously to approve the new antennas, which needed board approval because they were closer to the building's edge - right on it, in fact - than allowed by the lot's zoning. As part of their approval, board members asked the company to look at moving the antennas as far away from the edge of the building as possible and to paint or shield them in the same color as the building to minimize their appearance.