Whereas BC Hydro suspended their Beautification Program in July 2022 which provided financial assistance for relocating electrical services to underground facilities; And whereas overhead electrical services are vulnerable to wildlife interference or emergency events such as fire; require space within municipalities limited right of way area which conflicts with municipal infrastructure, cause barriers to creating active transportation improvements and limit greening projects such as street trees; And whereas costs to convert overhead electrical services to underground facilities have become unsustainable for taxpayers in local government to carry alone: Therefore be it resolved that UBCM request that the Province of British Columbia reinstate the BC Hydro Beautification Program funding to support local governments in moving overhead electrical services to underground facilities.
Ministry of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation BC Hydros Beautification Program was established in 1972 to address concerns about the appearance of BC Hydros infrastructure in high visibility community locations. The Program provided financial assistance to municipal governments for converting overhead services to underground to enhance and improve the use of public spaces. Past projects were completed in high traffic areas and community venues such as town centres, parks, commercial districts, civic facilities, and bike lanes in communities throughout the province. While beautification projects can appear to be relatively simple undertakings, they typically present unique complexities in terms of preliminary and final cost estimates and technical challenges related to the overall scope of a project. Due to project complexity, BCHydro typically assigned these projects to the most experienced system designers. Over the past few years, there has been a significant increase in demand for new customer connections for commercial operations, big box stores, housing developments and industrial parkssubdivisions throughout the province. At the same time, in some regions, BCHydro has lost highly specialized design staff due to a competitive job market. As a result, there have been delays in connecting new customers. BC Hydro temporarily suspended the Beautification Program in July 2022 to assign the highly skilled and experienced designers to new service connections and to refocus its technical resources on the unprecedented demands for new electrical service connections across the province. The program remains suspended by BC Hydro due to the ongoing pressures on technical resources. New designers are being hired to bolster the interconnection teams.
BC Hydro BC Hydros Beautification Program was established in 1972 to address concerns about the appearance of BC Hydros infrastructure in high-visibility community locations. The Program provides financial assistance to municipal governments for converting overhead service to underground to enhance and improve the use of public spaces. BC Hydro is seeing unprecedented demand for new service connections throughout the province, and we have had to focus more technical resources to this critical work. In July 2022, we temporarily suspended the Beautification Program to assign the highly skilled and experienced designers to new service connections. We know this information may be disappointing but trust that local governments will understand our need to refocus our technical resources on the increasing demands for electrical power connections across the province.