Three separate requests seeking permission for high-voltage transmission lines across three central ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ intersections as part of TEP’s Midtown Reliability Project have been rejected by the city’s zoning examiner.
The rejections come as the City Council considers an election for a new franchise agreement between the city and ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Electric Power.
Last week the council approved pursuing public engagement relating to TEP’s request for a new franchise agreement. An election on the matter could happen in November, city attorney Mike Rankin said.
City voters soundly defeated the last proposed franchised agreement, Prop. 412, in 2023. It would have imposed a monthly fee on city residents to help fund underground installation of the Midtown Reliability Project line, as well as future city climate-action programs.
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However, the council’s actions came a little over a week after ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥â€™s zoning examiner denied the three separate exemptions TEP wanted to allow it to install high-voltage transmission lines across the intersections.
The power project TEP seeks would connect three substations across central ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ via 12 miles of 138-kilovolt transmission lines suspended by 75- to 85-foot-tall poles. In some areas, the poles could be up to 130 feet tall.
At a glance, the utility’s preferred route would connect a substation near Interstate 10 and West Grant Road to a proposed substation just north of the University of ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ and Banner University Medical Center. From there, TEP would route transmission lines to a substation near South Kino Parkway and East 36th Street.
A city zoning examiner has rejected three TEP requests for zoning exceptions to allow for high-voltage power lines to be installed across three ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ intersections. It comes as the city council considers a November election on a new franchise agreement with the utility.
If the three recently rejected TEP requests were approved, the utility would have been able to run its lines east-west across North Oracle Road on West Grant Road, north-south across East Broadway on North Euclid Avenue, and east-west across South Kino Parkway on East 36th Street.
But Acting Zoning Examiner Frank Cassidy denied TEP’s request on Feb. 21.
TEP was seeking the exceptions from that requires new transmission lines be installed underground within a “Gateway Corridor Zone.†Those are areas in the city that give a “favorable visual impression of ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ to tourists and visitors at entry points to the City and on routes leading to major recreation attractions.
TEP said overhead lines were needed, in part, because large risers would need to be built on either side of the intersections to accommodate the underground lines. Those risers, the utility said, were more “visually invasive†the the power lines.
Cassidy disagreed, noting on each request that the absence-or-reduced number of “overhead transmission lines provides a substantially more favorable visual impression in the Gateway Corridor Zone, despite the need for the risers.â€
“The Acting Zoning Examiner also finds that other adverse impacts of overhead lines, including their constrictions on surrounding private and public development and their safety hazards, are significantly reduced or even eliminated by being underground,†Cassidy said in two decisions. “These adverse effects cannot be substantially mitigated through the use of conditions if the lines are permitted to be installed overhead.â€
On Friday, TEP spokesman Joe Barrios said the utility earlier in the week filed a notice of intent to appeal the zoning examiner’s decisions.
Ahead of the zoning examiner’s Feb. 13 public hearing, Koren Manning, interim director of the city’s planning and development services wrote in a Jan. 28 memo to Cassidy that the department concluded that special exception requests were appropriate and recommended their approval.
The utility believes the recommendation was correct, Barrios said.
He noted that the need for this power line route is still there and that the utility is still hoping to complete the work by summer 2027.
TEP is continuing to look at its options but has not made any final decisions on how to move forward, Barrios said.
This issue of the city-designated gateway corridors was the same friction point that TEP and the city had in 2022. That’s when the utility withdrew its original line-siting route for the project. TEP had initially sought zoning permission in 2021 to install the overhead 138-kilovolt lines along parts of Kino Parkway, contending the project was a system upgrade not subject to the overhead line prohibition.
In July, a Pima County Superior Court judge upheld the city’s authority to prohibit overhead transmission lines in city-designated corridors, denying an appeal by TEP that challenged a city zoning administrator’s rejection of part of the utility’s initial plan to build overhead high-voltage transmission lines through midtown.
The ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Corporation Commission then unanimously approved a Certificate of Environmental Capability for TEP’s route in September 2024, but the utility still had to get special exceptions to build it above ground, which the zoning examiner denied last month.
