From today’s Examiner,

Officials solicit residents’ input on proposal after CPUC funds run out

With no money left to put telephone and other utility wires underground, The City is contemplating a tax to fund future undergrounding projects.

Residents have until Friday to weigh in on whether San Francisco should implement a utilities bill tax ranging between 2 percent and 5 percent. Only businesses pay a utilities tax, which is 7.5 percent of their utility bill.

The City’s Utility Undergrounding Task Force has created an online survey to gauge residents’ sentiment, and the task force will use the results to determine whether to move forward with a tax proposal. The online survey asks whether participants would support a $2 to $4 per-month surcharge on their monthly Pacific Gas and Electric Co. bill to pay for putting utility lines underground.

Dan McKenna of The City’s Department of Public Works said the tax would be levied against those who receive a utilities bill and that it would tax electrical, and possibly gas, usage.

Over the past 40 years, the Department of Public Works has undergrounded 450 miles of the approximately 900 miles of roadways in San Francisco, McKenna said.

The northeast side of San Francisco, including Nob Hill, has most of its utilities already undergrounded. The Sunset and Richmond neighborhoods have the fewest undergrounded utilities.

In these neighborhoods, Supervisor Bevan Dufty, who created the underground-utilities task force, said he would rather see trees than telephone poles. Also, Dufty said there are “a lot of the beautiful vistas” on the west side of The City “clogged up with these wires.”

The benefits of undergrounding not only improve an area’s aesthetics, but also ensure power outages do not occur when there are high winds, McKenna said. [more...]

The survey can be found at http://www.sfgov.org/uutf.

From a resale perspective, the potential cost of up to $2000 per household is a fantastic investment. Even if you don’t have a view which would be improved by the undergrounding of the wires, just the improvement to the streetscape is benefit enough.

Utility Undergrounding Survey [SFHomeBlog]

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