Pu'uwai Momi residents gathered to share a cake inscribed with the words "Victory is sweet" yesterday as they celebrated the removal of a cell phone antenna system from their public housing complex in Halawa.

"I feel safer now," said Samiko Techuo, a soft-spoken woman who has lived in the complex since 1992.

T-Mobile installed the antennas in March 2001 after the state leased rooftop space at Pu'uwai Momi to the company for $1,000 a month. Residents were angry that they were not consulted first and concerned about possible health risks. They have sought the removal ever since, pointing out that the eight-antenna array was on a rooftop accessible to neighborhood children and just 15 feet from the nearest apartment windows.

A T-Mobile representative could not be reached for comment yesterday.

In September 2003, a group of tenants asked the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to remove the antennas. In January 2004, the department agreed.

Stephanie Aveiro, executive director of the Housing and Community Development Corp. of Hawai'i, the state's public housing agency, said the state decided to remove the antennas even though its contract for the site had not expired.

"The residents at Pu'uwai Momi had very strong feeling about it," Aveiro said. "We made a decision to negotiate our way out of the contract."

Aveiro said it took so long for the removal because T-Mobile first had to find and test a new site in the area.

"In hindsight, it would have been better if the residents had been allowed to participate from the beginning," she said. "It could have been done better by the agency."

Aveiro said other public housing projects also have antennas on buildings, but have not had a negative reaction like Pu'uwai Momi's.

"For the future, besides making sure tenants have the opportunity to comment, we are also looking at what happens to roofs when you put antennas on them," she said. "I do know our board is concerned about the number of roofs we have to repair and the damage it causes with leaks."

Dorene Ako, who has lived at Pu'uwai Momi for four years and helped organize the residents to oppose the antennas, said she has had a rash on her face that she believes was caused by the radiation.

T-Mobile has said that it followed federal safety guidelines in the installation and that the low-power radiation from the antennas is well within allowable limits. But research on the long-term effects of antennas near homes is inconclusive, according to Julia Estrella, an organizer of the group Island Tenants on the Rise.

Estrella said tenants have been complaining of many health problems since the antennas were installed, from rashes and breathing difficulty to miscarriages and cancer.

"Now they say there are no effects, but over the long haul, maybe 20 years from now, are they going to find that it is true?" she said.

Reach James Gonser at jgonser@honoluluadvertiser.com.