Over the years I've mentioned the issue of above ground utility lines in cities, which can be ugly and are subject to failure during storms. DC is unusual in that above ground lines are banned in the core city (called the L'Enfant City) with an exception for streetcar wires.
When in 2007, I worked as a Main Street commercial district revitalization program manager in the Brookland neighborhood--located in DC's outer city, originally "Washington County", residents there wanted the lines undergrounded on 12th Street, the major commercial street of the neighborhood.
But they were wacked in the way they went about it. Rather than working with area planning efforts by the city planning office and transportation agency, they argued with them, and the city wasn't interested in undergrounding, because the local utility, Pepco, quoted such high rates (10x the rate of other cities).
IN FACT, after the actual streetscape construction project was underway, then some litigious residents sued the city over this.
But if they started out with an attitude focused on working together, focused on solutions, maybe change could have been effected ("Moving towards an underground utility line infrastructure in DC," 2008)
Newport Beach, California has special assessment districts for utility undergrounding. I just found out that in 2016, Newport Beach passed legislation allowing for the creation of Utility Underground Assessment Districts, so that residents can pay off over time the high cost of burying the lines and re-connecting buildings to the grid from overground to underground ("Underground utility lines in Newport Beach to go to vote," Orange County Register).
Currently, at least six neighborhoods in the city are in the process of burying utility lines, using this method to ease the upfront cost. Although not without difficulties ("Higher-than-expected bids prolong process of putting Newport utility lines underground," Daily Pilot).
Assessment districts.
-- "Revisiting creating Public Improvement Districts in transit station catchment areas," 2020, recommends creating PIDs in association with transit station catchment areas. In DC, the Brookland commercial district is in the catchment area of the Brookland Metrorail Station
-- "Basic planning building blocks for urban commercial district revitalization programs that most cities haven't packaged: Part 1 | The first six". 2020. Item #6 discusses "regularized funding" for improvements and discusses special assessment districts such as Business Improvement Districts (which San Diego also uses to fund Main Street programs), San Francisco's Green Benefits District, etc.
-- "Public improvement fees as sales tax add-ons," 2016. Colorado and other states have sales tax funded revenue streams for public improvements.
Conclusion. Had Brookland residents focused on the outcome, getting undergrounded utility lines, instead of being obstreperous, maybe this method could have been adopted to facilitate the project. Instead, they lost the opportunity for improvement for at least a generation.
Likely, the program in Newport Beach has influenced other Orange County communities, as Dana Point is considering launching a similar program ("Dana Point will consider undergrounding utility lines to improve views and safety," Orange County Register). The city, at the instigation of residents, is looking into a very ambitious undergrounding program. Probably, they'll end up with a less ambitious program, more like that of Newport Beach, where residents willing to make the change, agree to special assessments.
===
Also see "Paradise Valley Views Free of Utility Poles," Newport This Week, about a project in Greater Newport, Rhode Island where utility wires were undergrounded to preserve viewshed qualities. There are nice before and after photos.
the crazy part is cities like NOLA w/ frequent power outages and no undergrounding. as a councilmember said recently if they had started doing it at a slow pace when first discussed in 2005 after Katrina they would have a dozen plus neighborhoods undergrounded
ReplyDeletealso, let's be honest. the above ground wires (and inevitable clutter from all the other companies that accompany it) are ugly as hell
Ironically, it turns out that because of the old city charter, New Orleans actually has the regulatory authority over utilities in the city, comparable to what is normally a state function. (Only the city-state of DC is comparable.)
ReplyDeleteThis has come up in the recent total failure of the electricity system there, after Hurricane Ida, when all major transmission towers/corridors failed.
https://www.npr.org/2021/09/22/1039110522/entergy-resisted-upgrading-new-orleans-power-grid-residents-paid-the-price
But they never created a commission to do it, it's a city council function (like the negligible oversight DC Council provides for DCPS). But they outsource it to consultants.
https://thelensnola.org/2019/12/26/after-35-years-utility-regulation-in-new-orleans-is-beginning-to-change/
This kinds of things bug me. The city had the opportunity to redefine in a positive way how utilities are regulated, and didn't take it.
(Just like DC can pretty much function like a city-state, being innovative without the fear of a state legislature countermanding or forbidding such actions, and they don't.)
Interesting idea - has it been done on any residential streets? The economics on a block of single family homes would be tough but I live on a block of rowhouses - I think we have 25 houses on our block - if you could do the block for say $500,000 and everyone agreed to their share of $20,000 a household that might be doable in some more affluent neighborboods and maybe Pepco and the city could help to create a low cost financing mechanism to help incentivize it.
ReplyDeleteIn Newport Beach the focus is on residential property. They quote a per house price, not by distance. There are two cost, the master trench and lines, and the reconnection from the building to the new underground master line.
ReplyDeleteThese are old numbers. Pepco quoted like 20 million per mile for the trenching and all associated costs related to the transmission lines, where similar projects elsewhere were 5% to 10% of the Pepco price. They also quoted a separate price of $25,000 per building for reconnection.
Whereas in Newport, the total price is about $30,000 per building.
2. I didn't think about it, but you could combine it with enhanced neighborhood street lighting programs, like in Salt Lake.
http://urbanplacesandspaces.blogspot.com/2019/12/happy-holidays-and-street-lighting.html?m=1
The beauty of this program is that the lights are connected to individual house grids, rather than the big expense of creating a master trench. Of course, the individual houses commit to paying the cost of electricity and new bulbs as needed.
Don't know if the household or the city takes care of ongoing maintenance.
To offload some costs, Salt Lake City has streetlight assessment districts which pay for streetlighting. This is housed in the Public Utilities department which handles and charges for water and waste services. By contrast in DC, waste and street lighting services are just rolled into the property tax.
For commercial or multifamily redevelopment, is utility undergrounding in DC a condition of development approval?
ReplyDelete===
ReplyDeleteReposted with additional text.
===
Good question. In the core including Georgetown, it's all underground as standard procedure.
Outside the core not, and it doesn't appear with major developments that they necessarily look systematically to new development as a way to underground utilities.
Eg Monroe and Market in Brookland seems to be undergrounded while new developments in Takoma haven't been used to get poles off Cedar/Carroll around the Metrorail station.
But then, elsewhere in NW, like on Wisconsin Avenue outside of Georgetown, it appears that poles are at least at the rear of properties or undergrounded. Eg in the Friendship Heights area, there are no big utility poles to be seen.
Connecticut Avenue, Georgia Avenue, 16th Street don't have street facing utility poles either.
With PUDs, you could make undergrounding a "community benefit" to push it forward.
And wrt your original question: the city should use development approvals as a way to push undergrounding forward, when it is realizable.
Here in Salt Lake, there's no such thing. Big transmission towers are typical in various parts of the city. I mean massive. I don't have good photos, I guess I'll have to take a couple.
https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7519006,-111.8636432,3a,75y,290.49h,94.96t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sahWW7hCF6SwFG243GY6HrQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en
And Suzanne's mother always comments how in many places in Orange County, California, utilities were undergrounded when they built subdivisions and cities.
(Here the poles are actually in backyards. Not ours, but the house behind us. I always wonder what Rocky Mountain Power will do when the time comes. The pole is in the middle of the yard, not in line with a driveway. Plus most of the houses have connected garages so egress to the back is difficult.)