Should the Gables bury its power lines? City will engage voters on $350 million question
Coral Gables commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday to resume a robust campaign to educate residents about a roughly $350 million undertaking to bury the city’s utility lines before eventually asking voters to finance the project — a preemptive step cities across Florida are taking as a protection against storm damage.
The proposal, put forward by Mayor Vince Lago, directs city staff to conduct an analysis, host educational community events and create an expected timeline for workshops on burying utilities, an increasingly popular concept in Florida’s storm-prone regions.
The final say on the project would come in the form of a question on the November 2022 midterm election ballot.
The Tuesday vote came after very little debate among commissioners, who agreed that education about the process, the costs and benefits is crucial to the process. Commissioners had planned to launch workshops last year, but the COVID-19 pandemic led to emergency shutdowns just two days before the first public meeting was scheduled.
Some details have already changed.
In November 2019, the commission heard cost estimates for burying utilities and passed a resolution similar to the one Lago put forward Tuesday. At the time, global engineering firm Stantec and strategic advisory firm Hamptons Group told the commission that the entire project was estimated to cost between $250 million and $275 million to put power lines underground. About 80% of homes in Coral Gables still have above-ground power lines, though all property owners would pay for the project.
On Tuesday, commissioners were told by Stantec Vice President Ramon Castella that the cost would now total $350 to $390 million, which would be paid through a city-issued general obligation bond over a 30-year period.
The first debt would appear on residents’ November 2023 tax bills, with payment due to the Miami-Dade Tax Collector by March 2024. Property owners would be able to pay the entire sum upfront or cut equal, annual checks with the option of paying off the remaining balance at any time during the 30-year period. According to the presentation, the average cost would be $0.50 per square foot of property for the annual installments.
It would take approximately 10 years to complete the process, which is called “undergrounding,” across the entire city, Castella said during his presentation.
The Gables vote Tuesday gives the OK to restart community outreach, get an updated cost estimate and schedule a workshop in early 2022 to further discuss the findings.
Ballot language would be submitted by July 2022.
The Gables wouldn’t be the first Miami-Dade municipality to take on such an effort. Sunny Isles Beach, Surfside, Key Biscayne and Golden Beach all have plans to bury or have already buried their power lines.
Parking lot sale postponed
In other business, due to concerns from the public about the lack of a public bidding process, commissioners voted to put off the sale of a city-owned parking lot to Delaware-registered JRFQ Holdings, LLC, whose contract went before the commission Tuesday for a second and final vote.
The advertisement for bids will be posted for 30 days.
Activists have been questioning the ethics of the transaction, and called for the city to give other prospective buyers a chance to bid on the property at 350 Greco Ave. instead of moving forward with the sale to the holding company. The partners behind the listed buyer own the MSP Recovery Law Firm, where Vice Mayor Michael Mena has been employed since July 2019.
The city originally waived city procurement code provisions that require public land worth more than $1 million go to a publicly advertised bidding process.
Last month, commissioners voted 4-0 in support of an amended ordinance to sell the surface lot for $3.525 million, money that would fill a hole in funding for a parking garage at the Gables’ public safety building. The ordinance was amended to reflect a slightly higher purchase price and require that the developer provide 34 public parking spaces and accompanying electric vehicle charging stations.
Mena recused himself from voting on the sale when it came before the commission in May, and again on Tuesday. He initially voted on the sale earlier in May, citing an opinion from City Attorney Miriam Soler Ramos.
Lago was defensive against the criticism Tuesday, and said residents and media outlets “need to be careful” when accusing city staff or elected officials of impropriety.
“One thing that I will not accept is fellow colleagues being accused that there is corruption or that they intentionally misled the city or that they are not doing their professional best,” Lago said. “When we slide into that kind of rhetoric, we become like other cities were there is a cloud over every decision that we make.”
JRFQ Holdings has not disclosed what would be built on the surface lot, which most recently served as the city’s COVID-19 testing site.
An earlier version of this story incorrectly labeled the Hamptons Group. It is a strategic advisory firm.
This story was originally published June 8, 2021 at 2:34 PM.