San Diego is finally accelerating an ambitious effort to move power lines underground. Here are the neighborhoods going first. (2024)

SAN DIEGO—

San Diego is launching an unprecedented surge in its long-running campaign to bury utility lines across the sprawling city.

City officials say they will soon start spending five times as much per year on utility undergrounding — nearly $250 million versus about $50 million. That means more projects affecting more neighborhoods each year.

The surge follows a long period of sluggish progress that city officials blame on the pandemic and negotiations with San Diego Gas & Electric on a new franchise agreement to replace a 50-year deal signed in 1970.

The slowdown has ballooned San Diego’s undergrounding account — which is funded by 3.5 percent surcharges paid by SDG&E customers within the city — from $160 million in 2018 to about $340 million.

One goal of the surge is shrinking the fund down to $100 million by 2027 by sharply increasing the number of projects designed, approved and completed each year.

Even with the surge, it will likely be several decades before utility lines are buried across the entire city. Officials say about 400 miles of lines have been buried since 1970, but roughly 1,000 are left to go.

Burying utility lines typically raises property values in a neighborhood by improving aesthetics. It also boosts safety and reliability by making the lines less vulnerable to fire, wind and other threats.

The surge in projects will come under new policies and procedures that city officials praise as more transparent and more focused on wildfire prevention.

But the surge also comes when the cost of undergrounding projects has risen sharply — from roughly $3 million per mile to about $8 million per mile.

In addition, city officials say a rapid proliferation of backyard apartments across San Diego has complicated such projects by shrinking space for utility boxes and increasing the electrical load of properties.

The updated approach is part of the new franchise agreement with SDG&E approved in 2022.

A key change was a new policy prioritizing projects where wildfire risk is highest.

While that mostly affects suburban neighborhoods along the city’s urban-wildland interface, there are also many more urban neighborhoods next to canyons that are also at risk.

The new policy also prioritizes communities of concern, which are typically low-income parts of the city where infrastructure investments have historically been lower than in wealthier areas.

The new franchise agreement also creates a citizens oversight panel for undergrounding projects and sets more specific timelines.

SDG&E must now prepare a preliminary cost and schedule estimate within 30 days of the first project scoping meeting, creating an early opportunity for residents and city officials to raise concerns.

SDG&E and city officials also meet monthly under the new deal to discuss project progress, timelines and budgets, which city officials say will create a more collaborative atmosphere.

The city also gets to have an independent auditor review the program’s finances each fiscal year. The auditor also evaluates whether SDG&E is complying with all the new requirements.

While costs have risen sharply, revenue from the SDG&E utility undergrounding surcharge has also increased.

The surcharge raised about $30 million per year after it was put in place in 2003. That has climbed to more than $60 million per year as utility bills have risen and the population has grown.

The new policies build on several previous changes made with a utilities undergrounding master plan the City Council approved in 2018.

That plan shrank the size of projects to boost efficiency, gave residents opportunities for input early in the design phase and created more accurate schedules so neighborhoods know when to expect such work.

The master plan also requires projects to more closely follow SDG&E’s circuitry to avoid the fate of Sherman Heights, where poles stayed in place for several years to serve other areas, even after undergrounding had been completed on properties.

Before the changes, a few neighborhoods rebelled against undergrounding because of construction hassles and the city’s inability to stick to schedules.

Residents in some neighborhoods still raise concerns about the unattractive utility boxes that must be located somewhere on their properties when an undergrounding project is complete.

Councilmember Joe LaCava said last week that all the changes taken together have made a huge difference.

“I’ve seen a remarkable sea change,” said LaCava, praising staff of the Transportation Department. “You have inherited a program that constituents are very frustrated about, and you have attacked it at every level.”

LaCava said the recent slowdown in undergrounding projects means most city residents are unaware of the improvements.

“The public won’t see it quite yet, but in the next couple years they’ll see that dramatic change,” he said.

To get the surge going, city officials have placed 44 projects in the pipeline for completion. Details about individual neighborhoods are available at sandiego.gov/undergrounding.

There are eight projects already underway in La Jolla, Allied Gardens, Golden Hill, Stockton, Rolando, Lomita and the Webster/Oak Park neighborhoods in southeastern San Diego.

Another eight projects have already been completed during the fiscal year that ends June 30. One was in Bay Park, and the others are identified by streets: San Diego Avenue, Cesar Chavez Parkway, Mount Acadia Boulevard, Orange Avenue, Seminole Boulevard, Marlesta Drive and Beagle Street.

Those projects cover nine miles and 909 properties. Half of them are in communities of concern, and nearly one-third were chosen based on wildfire safety.

Another 16 projects are in the design phase. They are in Carmel Valley, University City, La Jolla, Crown Point, Mission Beach, North Clairemont, Allied Gardens, Del Cerro, Normal Heights, Kensington, Lomita, Encanto, Egger Highlands and Nestor.

Projects have typically taken 18 to 36 months from start to finish, but city officials say they’re confident that timeline can be reduced.

Council President Sean Elo-Rivera praised the changes last week but also questioned whether the millions spent on utility undergrounding could be spent instead on more pressing issues.

“I want to make sure we’re not just doing very expensive things because we planned on doing them,” he said.

Randy Wilde, an aide to Mayor Todd Gloria, said undergrounding projects also typically include other safety upgrades and road resurfacing.

Jennifer Reynolds, the city’s program coordinator for utilities undergrounding, said the city frequently gets calls from residents who ardently want the wires in their neighborhood buried.

Reynolds also said San Diego has the largest utility undergrounding program in the state.

“We know we have a lot of work left to do for undergrounding our entire city, but it’s important to put in perspective what we have done,” she said.