SoCal halts plans for buildings under power lines
ROSEMEAD, CALIFORNIA - Southern California's major electrical utility says it's canceling plans to allow buildings to go up under its highest-voltage electric lines.
Southern California Edison vice president Steven Conroy says in a statement that the company is changing its policy because permanent structures would stop it from safely maintaining and inspecting its steel towers and thick transmission lines.
The utility had planned to raise millions of dollars by leasing out valuable real estate under its web of high-voltage towers.
Firefighters opposed the construction because they said it posed a fire hazard, while neighbors said the buildings would lead to blight.
Los Angeles County recently changed its building codes to ban permanent structures under major transmission lines.
But Conroy says Edison decided independently to halt its construction plans.
Related News
Analysis: Why is Ontario’s electricity about to get dirtier?
TORONTO - Ontario's energy grid is among the cleanest in North America — but the province’s nuclear plans mean that some of our progress will be reversed over the next decade.
What was once Canada’s largest single source of greenhouse-gas emissions is now a solar-power plant. The Nanticoke Generating Station, a coal-fired power plant in Haldimand County, was decommissioned in stages from 2010 to 2013 — and even before the last remaining structures were demolished earlier this year, Ontario Power Generation had replaced its nearly 4,000 megawatts with a 44-megawatt solar project in partnership with the Six Nations of the Grand River…
