Neighbors protested the development of an electric transmission line alongside the Redbud bike and pedestrian path at a District 1 Advisory Board meeting Monday night.
Evergy is preparing to rebuild an aging transmission line between a substation at Wichita State University and one near 9th and Hillside. The new line would require the installation of steel poles.
Concerns about the impact of the poles on the surrounding neighborhoods and their property values resonated among more than a dozen people at the meeting.
“They’re just so inappropriate to a neighborhood,” said Kim Curry, whose property backs up to the Redbud path. “We’ve got the Black history plaza, we’ve got the bike path, we’ve got the golf course. It’s really beautiful. This will just obliterate the whole neighborhood.”
The poles would be installed along a portion of the Redbud path between Hillside and Oliver and on a part of East 17th Street North. The height of the poles has not yet been determined, according to Kaley Bohlen, Evergy’s communications manager.
Resident Andrew Herr suggested burying the power lines instead.
“Is burying lines expensive? Sure, everything’s expensive,” Herr said. “But I bet a lot of us here broke even or lost money last year. But you know who didn’t? Evergy.”
The upgrade to the transmission line is necessary to “ensure the equipment meets modern standards for reliability and safety,” according to a letter Evergy wrote to residents impacted by the project.
Last fall, the utility polled residents on two potential routes for the new transmission line. One would run along residential streets, including Volutsia and 16th, while one would be along the Redbud trail.
Bohlen said the vote breakdown between the routes was nearly equal.
“Evergy and the City of Wichita used these results and worked together to choose the route with the least impact to customers, which has been determined to be the Redbud Trail,” she wrote in an email to KMUW in April.
But some community members felt that the poll put neighborhoods in competition with each other to keep the transmission line out.
“This is pitting neighborhood against neighborhood,” said Lavonta Williams, a former city council member. “Trying to say not in mine but go to theirs.”
City Council member Brandon Johnson said Evergy is currently updating all transmission lines in Kansas, including one by the Eastborough and Rockwood neighborhoods near Douglas and Rock.
Evergy’s poll also revealed the community preferred brown weathered steel poles, which the company will install, as opposed to silver galvanized steel poles.
The effort to get community feedback follows a similar 2018 transmission line project in which Westar Energy, now Evergy, installed 105-foot transmission line poles in yards near 9th and Grove. Many community members complained about the poles.
The outcry ultimately led to legislation by late Kansas Rep. Gail Finney, which required utility companies to hold community open houses before exercising eminent domain to build an urban electric transmission line.
Bohlen wrote in an email to KMUW that Evergy expects to host an open house for the community this fall. Construction is expected to take place in 2025.
Johnson encouraged residents to attend the open house because a member of the Kansas Corporation Commission, which regulates utility companies, will be present. He said the city doesn’t have jurisdiction over utility companies.
“Per state law, utilities can do what they want,” Johnson said. “That’s why I continue to say the KCC is their governing body. We don’t have the ability to do any design standards or anything.”
