Underground lines

If the chatter around town is any guide, it is difficult to gauge whether Tuesday’s Longboat Key referendum will pass.

This, of course, is the much debated vote on whether the town should issue up to $23.85 million in bonds to finance the conversion of Longboat Key’s neighborhoods from overhead power lines to underground lines. 

Longboat voters already approved last November $24.5 million in bonds to convert the power lines on Gulf of Mexico Drive.

In the wake of that vote and the decision to vote on neighborhood conversions, there is notable unhappiness among many property owners on the north end of the Key. They’re upset that voters who don’t live in their neighborhoods and who already have underground lines will be voting whether to assess them. And they’re upset they will be paying from $677 up to $804 a year for the next 30 years, while those with underground lines would pay at most $659 a year.

To be sure, the assessment process has been an imperfect; it could be improved. But those who are upset might take some solace in the fact the cost of an underground conversion in the town of Palm Beach is requiring a $90 million maximum assessment versus Longboat’s $48.35 million maximum. It’s worth noting Palm Beach is smaller than Longboat Key, which means its cost per housing unit and per square mile is much higher than Longboat’s.

The point of that comparison essentially is to illustrate that the investment to convert to underground lines is expensive no matter what. And some day, don’t be surprised if FPL requires every city’s lines to be underground. Underground lines are spreading fast. You can be sure, as well, those future costs won’t be any less than today’s. 

While we have been and still are advocates in favor of this neighborhood referendum, we also would not consider its defeat a monumental setback. It would create the impetus to improve on the assessment formulae.

However the results turn out, this is a project that is good for the Key.