KENDALE LAKES, Fla. — When Victor Rivero walked outside his home recently, he was stunned to see a 32-foot concrete 5G tower towering over his property line.
“My property value just dropped $30,000 to $40,000,” he said. “My kids play under it — my family photos now have this eyesore.”
Rivero is one of a growing number of Florida homeowners who say telecom companies have installed large wireless poles feet from their homes with little warning and almost no way to stop it.
“It is looming over my children’s bedroom,” said Lissette Monzon, who helped form a statewide coalition of residents fighting the placement of poles in neighborhoods. “From St. Pete all the way to Tampa, Orlando, Pensacola.”
The group stresses they are not opposing 5G technology itself, but how close the concrete towers are being placed to homes.
In Hollywood, homeowner Chris Albertelli told city commissioners he moved his family into the living room after a tower went up near his house.
“It’s an intrusion that compromises my family’s well-being,” he said.
But cities have little power to intervene. Florida law gives telecom companies wide authority to install 5G infrastructure, limiting how much municipalities can regulate the placement of towers. A federal bill that advanced in Congress on Wednesday would allow the FCC to expand that authority nationwide.
The Monzon family and others worry about property values, insurance and potential health impacts.
Miami-Dade’s Property Appraiser, Tomas Regalado, told the Kendall Federation of Homeowner Associations that he believes the towers being to close to homes would drop property value by 15%.
A South Florida petition opposing neighborhood tower placements continues to gain signatures as more poles go up across Miami-Dade and Broward.
Copyright 2025 by WPLG Local10.com - All rights reserved.
