Planning commission hears limits of franchise agreements as Dominion restarts undergrounding

Cindy Mester, city staff leading the utility franchise review, briefed the Planning Commission on June 4 about the city's franchise agreements with electric, gas and communications providers and the implications of Dominion Energy's renewed residential undergrounding program.

"Right now, the 3 franchise agreements are slated for September before council," Mester said, referring to cable/communications franchises (Cox, Verizon, RCN). She explained that Dominion has reactivated a residential undergrounding program and is proposing work in several small neighborhoods in the city, including Columbia and Little Falls, Van Buren and Underwood Streets, and Welcome Drive.

Mester said Dominion is funding its undergrounding work through a separate rate-based capital investment and that, as a result, Dominion can underground its electric lines but communications providers generally "do not have any funding source in which to concurrently underground," leaving shorter poles topped to carry remaining cable lines. "When Dominion does that they will underground their lines but if there's communication lines on their poles ... the poles remain because Cox, Verizon, or RCN have not concurrently undergrounded," she said.

Mester told commissioners that federal and state law governing franchises limits the city's ability to require communications companies to underground lines; she suggested two paths for local influence: add an action in the utilities chapter of the comprehensive plan to pursue legislative change, and ask City Council to include undergrounding in its fall legislative agenda for Richmond. "One of the thoughts I wanted to share with you all ... would be to look at putting it in the comp plan utilities chapter ... as an action step, a strategy, for legislative work in Richmond," Mester said.

Commissioners discussed practical near-term steps, including asking franchise holders to remove redundant poles and exploring whether staff can obtain aggregated energy usage data from Dominion and Washington Gas for city greenhouse gas inventories. Mester said the city receives recurring PEG (public education and government) funds from franchise agreements, and she noted the city typically receives "just under a $100,000" annually from the three communications franchise agreements for public TV and related capital uses.

Action items discussed at the meeting included staff taking the issue to the utilities chapter update and including undergrounding as a request for the city's fall legislative program; Commissioner Andrew Kravinsky volunteered to draft a letter to be considered by the commission in September.