Towers of Terror: Time for Tallying the Toll?

It is now certainly over, but a 10:00 "Chino Hills Towers Town Meeting" was held at Chino Hills City Hall and sponsored by Representative Ed Royce (R-Fullerton) to discuss the Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project (TRTP) and the aftermath of the decision of the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) to force Southern California Edison to dismantle the massive 198-foot towers built within Chino Hills as part of that project and direct the transmission lines underground.

Royce, as has been the case before, issued a four-color mailer, at taxpayer expense, which begins with a "Dear Friends" letter, stating, "We did it.  The fight to stop the monster electrical towers that would have had a devastating impact on the community is close to over and it looks like the towers are coming down." 

The expressed intent of the meeting was to "update you on everything involving the tower fight, and discuss what's next as we work to protect the community," based on the fact that "the PUC's order to remove the towers is being appealed."  While Royce opined that "I do not believe the appeal will succeed, we need to remain vigilant to the end of the process."

In a longer statement on the reverse of the card, Royce reprinted his statement welcoming the CPUC's reversal and, in a way he had not done previously, thanking state Assembly member Curt Hagman, Chino Hills mayor Peter Rogers, and the grassroots group Hope for the Hills for their work in fighting the towers.  Photos show Royce on a tour of the towers and in a meeting, the latter of which is captioned that "Rep. Royce met with anti-tower leaders to discuss his strategy before their successful trip to the Public Utilities Commission meeting in San Francisco."

Whatever role Royce may have played in some advisory capacity, whether or not the staged photo really did include "his strategy," which went unexplained in any case, there is still the question of why a federal elected official, including his colleague Rep. Gary Miller, who was soon on his way to moving out of the district Royce was going to win to another one in the Fontana area, became so involved in something that was truly a state matter. 

As noted here previously, the much-touted congressional field hearing, purportedly about the applicability of Federal Housing Administration loan guarantees in the areas adjacent to the tower right-of-way, was essentially a pretense, without actual foundation as testimony at that hearing as well as existing FHA policies cited in previous posts showed, for making the involvement of Reps. Royce and Miller an actual "federal issue."

As a political independent who registered in the 1980s as a "decline to state" voter and who maintains what is hopefully a healthy distrust of posturing and action across the political spectrum, the irony here is that these conservative Republicans often make a point of calling for limited federal intrusion in local affairs--that is, until they don't.  This kind of thing can (and does) certainly happen with Democrats, too!

Regarding Royce's call for vigilance on the appeal of the CPUC reversal, it does not appear that there is any reason to believe that the appeal is anything other than a pure formality and The Champion has reported this week that Southern California Edison is moving quickly on the preliminary work for the three-year project to reroute the TRTP underground.  Reporter Marianne Napoles stated that Edison "is acquiring at total of 85 parcels" that are in the right-of-way held for several decades by the utility giant.  Of these, 42 are residential and another ten are commercial.  The remainder are primarily owned by the City of Chino Hills.

An article generated by The Champion and found online earlier this week highlighted the fact that, of the residential land that will be picked up by Edison, a number involve the taking of substantial portions of rear yards of houses, including some on Yellowstone Circle in a small wedge of Chino that is in the path of the underground portion of the project.  In one instance, a homeowner will have virtually all of their yard taken because the right-of-way extends to within inches of a room addition built by a previous resident.  There are other houses that are affected, if not quite in that dramatic a fashion, by the proceedings. 

In another irony, while the opponents of the above-ground towers talked mainly about potential threats and effects of the behemoths, now that they are coming down, the actual and real consequences of the underground work are starting to reveal themselves (this being the tempered triumph referred to in the last post here.)  There will also be commercial property that will have to be vacated as a result of the change in the project.

The Napoles piece goes into some detail about the nature of the underground work.  The three years of construction will take place from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturdays (in Chino it will be 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday), but all subject to change involving extended hours and Sunday work; involve significant boring and trenching; the construction of massive vaults and equipment; two transfer stations that will guide the lines from above to below ground and back again at the west and east ends of the affected areas and these stations will be on three-acre parcels with elements that are going to be 133 feet high.  These appear to involve what are described in the article as "a lattice steel transmission structure [that] will be built adjacent to each transition station to feed the overhead wires into the stations."

The eastern station will be constructed at the former Chino Hills city yard on Pipeline Avenue next to the 71 Freeway, adjacent to which are two Montessori preschools.  Presumably, the health and safety of the children and adults at the facilities will not be compromised--note that very generalized health and safety concerns had been raised by the opponents of the towers. 

As for the westernmost station, the paper identified the location as near the end of Eucalyptus Avenue in the Gordon Ranch area, though the proximity of the three-acre site to houses was not specified.  What was stated by Edison engineering staff was that the station would involve "extensive terracing and leveling of the hillside."

West of that point, the massive towers will remain, including in the vicinity of the Oak Tree Downs exclusive gated community, a constituency that, like the folks on Yellowstone Circle had little say in the process of determining the fate of the TRTP towers.

Meantime, The Champion article also noted that there was to be a "commemoration" of the revamped TRTP project at Coral Ridge Park yesterday afternoon with CPUC chairperson Michael Peevey, a former Edison executive, the current SCE president, Ronald Litzinger, and Mayor Rogers. 

To reiterate--there is every sympathy to those who faced having to live in the shadows of 198-foot tall towers and no one would want to do so.  Hope for the Hills conducted a highly successful campaign for reasons that were mainly relatable and understandable, but largely based on speculative concerns, including disaster scenarios of falling towers, exposure to high levels of EMF radiation, and declining home property values, which even then was an arguable point, as found in the field hearing conducted by Reps. Miller and Royce.  Recall that a major point was made of declining home values and sales in the early stages of the towers' construction, which was certainly more a reflection of the fallout from the economic collapse of 2008, given that values and sales have risen in the last few years.

And, the CPUC bears the lion's share of the blame for this fiasco by first approving and then, while construction was well underway, reversing itself. 

But now, revelations are coming out that show that there will be actual and real impacts on other residents and businesses of both Chino Hills and Chino now that the project is going underground for 3.5 miles for three years.  In this battle of wills, as opposed to a fight for "truth", there are clear winners and losers, but, in the latter category, joining Edison are local residential and commercial residents and property owners.

The question, ultimately, is whether the reversal will, on balance, have been worth it.  And that is almost entire a subjective question, which can't be quantified but qualified according to whose vested interest is examined.

Finally, regarding that "commemoration" held yesterday, presumably, there wasn't room for it in the backyard of the woman on Yellowstone Circle who soon won't have a backyard or any value to her house should she try to sell it.

 

Towers of Terror: Tangents Traversing the Trail to "The Truth"

Last Monday, a slick four-color publication came in the mail with the moniker of The Royce Reporter, this tax-payer funded newsletter coming from Representative Ed Royce, whose newly-configured district includes Chino Hills as of the fall 2012 elections.

When the redistricting was announced and the election pending, Royce took the opportunity to leap into the fray with the "Towers of Terror," otherwise known as the Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project, and its eighth section comprising largely of 200-foot tall transmission towers in a narrow 40-foot wide easement owned by Southern California Edison. 

Even though the congressional representative at the time was Gary Miller, soon to realize that beating Royce in the new district was impossible and who then moved to Fontana from Diamond Bar to run for election there, Royce plunged headlong into promoting the idea that the TRTP could be made into a "federal issue" by finding a link to the project via houses near the new towers and their applicability to Federal Housing Administration insured loan guidelines.

As pointed out in this blog, however, the rationale and the logic were, to put it simply, flawed.  The fact was that FHA criteria for appraisers examining properties state very clearly that the houses had to be in the easement for loans to be denied FHA insurance.  While appraisers were expected to comment on the proximity to high-voltage transmission lines, and a whole lot else, and the potential effect on marketability and value, the FHA would not deny insurance in such a case.

Undaunted, Royce and Miller went ahead and scheduled an April 2012 field hearing in Chino Hills on the House Financial Services Committee, again tax-payer funded, to bring attention to the question.

In The Royce Reporter, the representative made a point of claiming that "our hearing brought attention to the looming community disaster and helped convince the Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to look at alternatives."  While it would be expected that the newsletter would try to secure credit for Royce, it was more than a little surprising, perhaps, that almost no mention was made of the significant amount of effort expended by the grassroots community organization Hope for the Hills, which merited one minor mention in the publication, or the City of Chino Hills and its long-running efforts to fight the project.

Moreover, right under this claim is a timeline (see image above) that very clearly states that the project was halted in October 2011 and that, in November, the CPUC ordered Edison to offer alternatives for the project other than the above-ground construction recently suspended.  This was months before the vaunted hearing.

Further, Royce's involvement with this project did not appear to begin until after the November CPUC order--this blog had a post dated 26 November 2011 noting that Royce had issued a mailer that arrived the previous day (see here for that post) and which invited residents (and presumed future constituents) for a "meet and greet" with him at the Summit Ranch community in Carbon Canyon on 4 December.

The timeline then has a gap of nearly a year, because Royce still had to win the election, which was a foregone conclusion with Miller's exodus to the foothills and the overwhelming Republican support in the newly-demarcated district, but it does note that on 26 February 2013, "Rep. Royce contacts the CPUC in support of undergrounding [verb?] the towers," and that, two days later, the CPUC "gives the green light for Edison to being preliminary work to move the lines underground."  This was written, seemingly, as if the two events were intricately connected.

As can be seen in the 28 February 2013 blog post here, the link between Rep. Royce's contact and the decision by the CPUC, which was hardly a "green light . . . to begin preliminary work to move the lines underground," is , , , um, debatable.

Now, despite the fact that FHA appraiser guidelines specifically indicate that insured loans were only a problem for properties within an easement, this flyer highlighted an assertion made by Rep. Royce at the April 2012 hearing that, "the FHA requires an underwriter to obtain a letter from the owner of the tower noting a given dwelling as not being within the engineered fall zone of a given tower."

Yet, as noted here, from a Housing and Urban Development (HUD) property and appraisal webinar's Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section, this is only a half-truth and not quite the most important half:

If the dwelling or related property improvement is located within the easement of a high voltage tower, the lender must obtain a letter from the owner or operator of the tower indicating that the dwelling and its related property improvements are not located within the tower's (engineered) fall distance in order to waive this requirement.

The emphasis here is on the first part—if the dwelling or improvement on the property is located within the easement of a high voltage tower.   The reality is, uncomfortably close as many houses are to the massive towers, none of them is actually "within the easement."

As stated above, in another HUD document pertaining to Valuation Protocol FAQs, which can be accessed here, this is the explanation to a question about eligibility:

If a living unit is located outside the easement then the property is eligible for FHA financing. However, the appraiser is instructed to note and comment on the effect on marketability resulting from the proximity to such site hazards and/or nuisances.

In this case, the second sentence is a notable one, concerning "marketability" of a property, and whether houses in close proximity to the 200-foot behemoths would be hard to sell or at least at a decent market rate.

Another major point made in the Royce mailer is that, because property values in Chino Hills declined by 17% in the year prior to the April 2012 hearing and much of which occurred while the "towers of terror" were being erected, the drop was directly attributable to the project.

Firstly, there is no way to know if the TRTP work had anything directly to do with the property value fall.  While it is certainly possible that this could have been the case for houses near the looming towers, any drop in, say, Butterfield Ranch or the tracts off Chino Avenue could hardly have anything to do with the project.

Moreover, in the year since the hearing, prices in the city have risen some 11 or 12% and, again, whether a property in Vellano or Los Serranos Ranch or Laband Village has seen a growth in market value would seemingly have nothing to do with developments with the TRTP.

It is also notable that, at the April 2012 hearing (the 97-page transcript for that hearing may be accessed here,) Bobbi Borland of the federal Housing and Urban Development office in Santa Ana testified that, in Chino Hills, "approximately 3 percent of homes have mortgages insured through FHA."  Even if a higher percentage of those were near the towers, this is still a very small proportion of residences, meaning that the whole issue raised by representatives Miller and Royce was, in fact, blown out of proportion.  Additionally, Borland stated that, "FHA does collect a limited amount of appraisal data but does not track valuation or home price trends to the zip code level."  When it comes to risks to the agency's insured loans in areas near transmission lines, she observed that, "it is important to note that payment default may have many causes, and there is simply no easy way to identify whether a default was driven by property value declines attributed to nearby transmission lines."

When Rep. Miller questioned Borland, he asked "If a home is outside of the easement area but within the gall zone, does that have an impact on FHA's ability to loan?," she responded that FHA insures, but does not issue loans.   Admittedly, this blogger did not make that distinction in earlier posts, but it was a little more surprising that a member of the House Financial Services Committee did not know what the FHA did with loans, even as he answered, "I understand that," when she clarified.

In any case, Borland also stated that "our guidelines state that it does not impact the FHA loan.  It would be up to the individual lender," meaning that the decision to not issue a loan to a residence near a transmission line is a private matter, not a federal one, and therefore completely outside the jurisdiction of the House Financial Services Committee.

Having said all this, Miller raised the possibility that the proximity to the towers could possibly be a reason for an appraiser to lower the value of a house and when Borland responded (or started to) with, "I can't really comment on the lender's . . .," Miller cut her off and then she indicated that, "it was possible."  The operative definition of "possible" could be interpreted myriad ways under the circumstances.

This is especially true when the discussion went into the "fall zone," it being posited that, in case of collapse, the towers would fall outward, even though they have 50' bases in concrete below ground and are, actually, designed to collapse downward.  When this distinction was pointed out, however, Miller simply uttered that this made him feel much better and he turned and asked Royce if he felt the same way.

As to whether proximity to transmission lines hurt property values, Chino Hills realtor Marion Profitt stated,

while CAR does not possess statistics to show what the impact on pricing may or may not be due to a home's proximity to the power lines, I can tell you from my 20 years of experience that for some home buyers, it does matter. Just recently I took an investor to see a property that backed up to an easement, and its mere location next to that easement was enough for them to say no. However, this isn't the case for every buyer. Many have no problem living next to the power lines, but there are many buyers I have worked with who require a discounted sales price or who will refuse to buy one of the properties. I have spoken with many other realtors  in Chino Hills and they have shared similar experiences to mine.

This can compared to the testimony of Fred Kreger of the California Association of Mortgage Professionals, who observed that,

through my 10 years of experience as a mortgage professional, I can safely say that the impact of high voltage transmission lines on property values and FHA eligibility has
been somewhat minimal. On a monthly basis, I originate many loans within the surrounding cities and counties, of which FHA loans serve an important role for my particular clients. I have yet to have a customer encounter difficulties with their FHA
eligibility due to high voltage power lines. 

Kreger further added that,

in my experience, the appraisers will note the presence of  high voltage transmission lines. However, the effect on the marketability of the home value is minimal, if any. Over years of research and study, I have concluded that although community members and homeowners have negative feelings towards high voltage power lines, their presence is apparently not given sufficient enough weight by buyers and sellers of real estate to have any consistent, material effect on market value."

And, even though Profitt expressed concern about FHA financing in Chino Hills (remember that only 3% of all residences in the city have FHA-insured morgages), Kreger stated that, "I see no problems in terms of eligibility of FHA insured mortgage programs" and the question of transmission line proximity.

The point of all this is not to take sides on the issue of whether the towers should be allowed to stay above or under ground, but to question the motivation and justification for the involvement of local representatives in the federal government in what is, truly, a state matter (this is, perhaps, more than a little ironic given that conservatives often invoke the mantra of "states rights" in so many cases of alleged federal overreach.)

Reps. Miller and Royce, angling for advantages in election campaigns in realigned congressional districts, clearly overreached in making the argument that FHA-insured loans were the entry point for their involvement and used tax-payer monies for the debatable stretch in logic.

Talk about making something a "federal issue."