San Diego’s recent acceleration of efforts to bury utility lines continued Monday with the City Council approving $8.2 million to bury lines in eight neighborhoods.

The affected neighborhoods are Clairemont Mesa, Encanto, San Ysidro, Skyline-Paradise Hills, the College Area, Cowles Mountain, Mid-City and Otay Mesa-Nestor.

The city last year began accelerating undergrounding by shrinking the size of projects to boost efficiency and by creating more accurate schedules so neighborhoods know when to expect such work.

Projects now also more closely follow San Diego Gas & Electric’s circuitry, to avoid having utility poles remain in place years after the undergrounding is complete.


The council also adopted a new policy this year specifying that utility companies must finalize the boundaries for an undergrounding project within 180 days of when the council approves it.

The projects approved Monday are from a city priority list created in summer 2016. They include $6.5 million for electrical utility work and $1.7 million for administration, street light replacement, street resurfacing and related work.

Some work must be performed on private property, including trenching, installing conduits and wiring to the electric meter panel. Property owners must consent to this work by signing a permit and ensuring their properties meet minimum conformance requirements.

The affected areas are Mt Albertine Avenue from Balboa Avenue to Mt Aguilar Drive; Woodman Street from Skyline Drive to Imperial Avenue; Iris Avenue from Via Suspiro to Beyer Boulevard; Cowles Mountain Boulevard from Lake Andrita Avenue to Cowles Mountain Court; Cowles Mountain Boulevard from Lake Andrita Avenue to Blue Lake Drive; and 70th Street from Colony Road to Alvarado Road.


Neighborhoods generally embrace undergrounding projects because they boost aesthetics, increase property values, reduce fire risk and ease the maintenance of utility wires.

Some neighborhoods, however, have rebelled against undergrounding because of construction hassles, the city’s inability to stick to schedules and unattractive utility boxes blocking sidewalks when projects are complete.

The revamped approach aims to solve many of those problems while also giving residents more input into the process. It uses community or neighborhood names for each project, in contrast to a previous practice of using numbers and letters to identify projects.