A group of property owners in Tiburon is a step closer to undergrounding utility lines in the neighborhood.<\/p>\n
Residents in the area of Mar West Street, Las Lomas Lane and Esperanza Street are attempting to form a district that will allow them to bury power lines serving their homes. The town lifted an eight-year moratorium on such districts last year.<\/p>\n
As part of the undergrounding district process, the town can determine the amount the property owners need to contribute toward design reports. For the proposed district, the town estimates these documents will cost around $165,760.<\/p>\n
At its meeting on Wednesday night, the Town Council determined the homeowners must put forth a third of the cost, or roughly $55,000.<\/p>\n
Homeowners will now have to circulate petitions to neighbors and raise the money before the town moves forward on the reports. Upon the council\u2019s approval, the town would provide the rest of the money for the documents.<\/p>\n
If the project is put out for bid, residents would vote on forming the district. If enough agree to the plan, the council would consider approving the district and awarding the bid.<\/p>\n
The preliminary project cost estimate is more than $2.8 million. The town would use bond funding to create the district and be reimbursed once the district is formed. If the district fails at any point, the town would not be reimbursed for any of the funding it put into the project.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe feel exceedingly confident,\u201d said Erin Giacoppo, a neighborhood organizer. \u201cWe don\u2019t have any doubt in this passing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Several residents of the proposed district came out to express their support for the project. One organizer said 30 of 39 households support the project thus far.<\/p>\n
Advocates said burying the lines can improve the neighborhood\u2019s appearance, improve public safety, lower fire risk and boost the reliability of services.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose wires are really an abomination,\u201d said resident Bruce Owen. \u201cThis would make a very positive contribution, I think, but most certainly the major contribution to the city of Tiburon to have those wires gone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Because of the town\u2019s previous moratorium, the council did not have a set policy on how much homeowners should pay for the design reports.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we should be picking a percentage,\u201d said Mayor Jon Welner.<\/p>\n
Welner initially wanted the residents to contribute 50%. Councilmember Jack Ryan disagreed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just want to remind everybody: Belvedere requires citizens to put up zero and they\u2019ve only had one district fail,\u201d said Ryan. \u201cAnd they are 95% undergrounded. The policy works when the municipality contributes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The council settled on the one-third figure. The district proposal will return to the council once the residents have collected funding and circulated petitions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A group of property owners in Tiburon is a step closer to undergrounding utility lines in the neighborhood.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129583,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[8436,7,181,23,992,100,180,993,266,101,103,102,104,106,105,31023,31024],"class_list":["post-129582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-utilities","tag-california","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-marin-county","tag-news","tag-newsletter","tag-north-bay","tag-northern-california","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-tiburon","tag-tiburon-town-council"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}