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City and PEC discuss downtown pole relocation and easement across VFW property; subcommittee formed to finalize routing
Summary
Pedernales Electric Cooperative and city staff presented a plan to move downtown poles off Main Street, asking for an easement across the EDC's VFW parcel. Board members and project consultants debated temporary overhead service versus immediate undergrounding and agreed to form a three-person subcommittee to finalize design and easement routing.
Pedernales Electric Cooperative representatives and Liberty Hill staff presented a downtown streetscape phase to relocate power poles behind Main Street buildings and requested an easement across the EDC-owned VFW parcel during the July 16 meeting.
Troy Whitehead (Speaker 8), regional operations director for Pedernales Electric Cooperative in the Liberty Hill area, recommended the board grant an easement so PEC could install a temporary overhead pole to keep meters served while the city and developer complete civil work required for any underground route. Whitehead said once the easement and payment arrive it would be roughly 30 days to install the temporary service and two to three months for civil conduit work to be designed and constructed.
"Our ask and my suggestion would be to give us the easement. Let us put a temporary overhead pole in, to serve those meters," Speaker 8 said. PEC officials added that permanent undergrounding is significantly more expensive and often requires city-funded civil work that can delay schedules.
Headwater project manager Mimi Fisher (Speaker 13) said the run that would serve only the VFW parcel is about 350 feet and could be isolated for an underground segment if the board prefers that option. Construction-experienced board members urged recording permanent easements close to the right-of-way rather than through the middle of the property to preserve development flexibility and avoid future conflicts with building footprints and drainage.
Planning staff (Speaker 5) and PEC agreed on the trade-offs: putting lines underground reduces visual clutter but carries higher immediate cost and risk of future excavation if property plans change; temporary overhead service can be converted when civil work is completed. Directors asked for CAD files and civil specifications to evaluate routing and potential road trenching impacts on Barton Lane.
The board agreed to form a three-person subcommittee (Robert, Tiffany and Mark Hutton) to review a revised schematic, authorize the subcommittee to approve the design quickly and allow PEC and Headwater to proceed with separate work orders so the poles on Main Street can be removed without delaying the larger streetscape project.
Staff and PEC said they will produce revised drawings and CAD files for the subcommittee and the city's engineering review.
