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Belleair Beach gets price tag for undergrounding
By DAVE SHELTON
Article published on Thursday, Feb. 1, 2007 |
BELLEAIR BEACH – City officials learned for the first time this week that it could cost $8 million to move utility wires from poles to underground conduits.
The idea has been under discussion for many years, explained Mayor Rudy Davis during a special City Council meeting Jan. 30. The meeting was called for a city consultant to outline the proposal.
Robert H. Brotherton, the consultant from Dunedin, said the primary reasons to bury utility lines – electric, telephone and cable – are for aesthetics, public safety from downed wires during storms and to reduce the cost of maintaining wires that go near trees. He said property values would be increased and residents could be allowed to return to their homes more quickly after a storm.
The consultant admitted that the main beneficiary of the project would be Progress Energy. He said many cities have argued the utilities should have to move their wires underground at their own expense but, “legal expenses could far exceed what you would pay (the utility).”
He said the utilities “hold a hard line” and predicted they would refuse to pay for the project.
Brotherton said the utilities have argued that their customers outside of the project area shouldn’t have to pay for the work. He added that unsaid by the utilities is that their stockholders also might not want to pay for the work.
Key to the final expense, the consultant said, would be negotiations between the city and the utilities.
Councilwoman Mary Schoonover said she would stand firm to make the utilities bear a fair share of the burden.
Brotherton also advised the elected officials that it would be up to the city to decide who should share the burden among the city’s property owners. He said that a broad assessment would include property owners along Gulf Boulevard whose utilities are going to be buried by a Pinellas County project along the entire length of Gulf Boulevard from St. Pete Beach to Clearwater.
Other property owners in the city, especially one whole development, already have their utilities underground and the city might have to decide how much to assess them, he added.
Brotherton said he estimated that the city could justifiably assess nearly 700 property owners about $900 a year for 30 years to pay for the project that could be funded through city bonds and possible grants from county, state or federal sources.
An option could be offered if property owners paid the entire cost up front, he said, to save 30 years of interest.
If the city wants to continue the project, Brotherton recommended a public referendum before opening talks with the utilities. He explained that the utilities would charge more than $100,000 just to develop projected costs of the project.
Davis said he didn’t believe the city would continue the project without getting more public input through either a referendum or survey.
Brotherton advised that the city shouldn’t delay too long as construction prices were rising rapidly. This was confirmed by one resident, Jim Corrigan, who reported that an unofficial estimate by Progress Energy four years ago had been about a million dollars less than Brotherton now estimated.
Another resident, J.C. Imfeld, said the projected cost changed his mind about moving utilities underground.
“I just fell in love with the telephone poles,” Imfeld said.
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Article published on Thursday, Feb. 1, 2007
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