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Avondale Estates staff briefs board on Georgia Power plan to bury lines; residents worry about transformers and easements
Summary
City staff said Georgia Power will bury a main service line on a circuit that serves Avondale Estates and will need easements and transformer placements on private property; work is expected to take about seven months and staff said one city easement remains unresolved. Residents told the board the proposed units are large and raised concerns about utility access and aesthetics.
City staff updated the Avondale Estates Board of Mayor and Commissioners on a Georgia Power reliability project that would bury a main service line on a circuit serving the city and install transformers and transformer vaults on or adjacent to private property.
The city manager told the board Georgia Power has obtained all required private‑property easements except the parcel for which the city holds an easement; staff is coordinating a meeting with Georgia Power to resolve that outstanding easement. The manager said the work is expected to take about seven months and will focus on the Nottingham–Wiltshire corridor, with occasional single‑lane closures for boring and traffic control handled by Georgia Power.
“The kind of the method to do so is to take the main service line feeding these residential properties and bury it,” the manager said, noting frequent weather‑related outages caused by falling trees in the city’s heavily treed neighborhoods.
Staff said transformer boxes would be placed at intervals along the corridor to connect the buried main to individual property feeders. Some parcels have sufficient right of way so Georgia Power can install a transformer without an easement; others will require easement agreements. Staff said Georgia Power has mailed correspondence to property owners where no easement is needed and that the city will contact owners to encourage voluntary easement agreements where desirable.
At the meeting a resident who inspected proposed sites described large, box‑like transformer enclosures at the corner of Nod and Memorial and said the units could be “unsightly.” The resident said Georgia Power was planning to begin work soon and urged the city to expedite a public meeting with the utility because residents were receiving inconsistent answers.
Staff said they are encouraging Georgia Power to hold an in‑person community information session but that the utility prefers a virtual meeting; staff will continue to press for clear public engagement and to update the board as negotiations on the city easement proceed.
The board did not take formal action on the project at the meeting; staff said it would provide updates as the city meets with Georgia Power.
