Pineville Town Council picks new site for controversial substation after months of uproar

Weeks after a tight vote prompted some Pineville residents to shout at their elected officials, the Town Council has reversed course and chosen a different site for a controversial new electric substation.

The Town Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to put the new substation at a site on Nations Ford Road, not the land on Miller Road the council previously picked for the project, Town Manager Ryan Spitzer confirmed.

Pineville will now spend $305,000 to purchase 1.44 acres on the Nations Ford site and right-of-way easements for underground transmission lines to build the new substation. The new site is farther from the residential area that had concerned many.

Pineville officials have said it’s a necessary project to keep the lights on as the community grows. But residents of the McCollough neighborhood — which stretches from the town across the state line into Fort Mill, South Carolina — were worried about the impacts on their property values, safety and health if things moved forward at the site the town originally picked.

The council had previously approved a plan to buy about an acre at the intersection of Miller Road and Greenway Drive for the substation and let city staff, if necessary, condemn it. The decision, made at a special meeting March 25 that lasted less than 5 minutes, drew immediate pushback from some residents.

“We can’t wait for the next election,” one person shouted at town leaders after the vote.

Mayor David Phillips, who cast tie-breaking votes in favor of the Miller Road site at the March meeting, previously told The Charlotte Observer he felt it was “the smartest decision to make at this particular time.”

“It’s not anything that I’m happy about, but, you know, sometimes you have to make decisions that are best for the town,” he said after the original vote.

Since that vote, the family that owns both parcels and had said they were more open to parting with the Nations Ford land “came to the table,” Spitzer said, allowing for a deal and a move to be made.

Months of upheaval over Pineville substation site

McCollough residents have expressed concerns about the Miller Road site since they first heard of Pineville’s plan for a new substation in December, saying they thought it could drag down their property values and negatively impact health, safety and local businesses.

The residents said they were concerned about safety threats related to the substation, citing a shooting at a Moore County substation in 2022, and the potential health impacts of radiation from electromagnetic fields. Substations are high-voltage electric system facilities.

Town leaders have pushed back at public meetings on the project, saying security measures would be incorporated into the design and disputing claims about potential health harms.

The town initially thought it’d have until 2026 or 2027 to get another substation online, officials said previously, but accelerated growth moved up that timeline. Pineville’s population grew from 7,479 to 10,602 from 2010 to 2020, according to Census data. The town’s 2022 population estimate, the most recent Census data available, puts Pineville at 10,886 residents.

The project would need to be completed by the end of 2025 to avoid power problems, according to David Lucore, Pineville’s electric services manager and a systems manager for ElectriCities of North Carolina.

Some residents questioned why town leadership hadn’t considered future infrastructure needs more when deciding on past development deals.

“The rapid growth in Pineville has been something that has concerned me and many residents for many years. And we have raised that alarm for many years with the previous council that things needed to slow down because we didn’t have the infrastructure in place to handle it,” resident Laura Stout said previously. “And now that has caught up to us. And if something is not done, we’re going to lose power, and obviously nobody wants that.”

Why did Pineville leaders backtrack on substation vote?

In addition to residents’ concerns and questions, there was also the matter of trying to get the land on Miller Road from the property owner.

Spitzer indicated at a January meeting that the Millers, through their attorney, have been resistant to sell either plot. But members of the family in attendance at that meeting and their representatives said they’d be more open to selling the Nations Ford land.

The family said that losing the land along Miller Road would take away more than 100 parking spaces from the flea market, hurting business.

The council’s March vote in favor of the Miller Road site gave town staff permission to condemn the land if the family wouldn’t make a deal. But the two groups were able to negotiate, Spitzer said, resulting in the move to Nations Ford Road.

“The Millers came to the table, and the town and Miller family were able to negotiate a deal that was beneficial to both the town and the Millers to move the substation to Nations Ford,” he said.

Will new substation site cost more?

Spitzer said the town’s “best estimate” for the cost of the substation project is between $6.7 million and $7 million, but those numbers aren’t definite “because of the variable of burying the transmission lines.”

The project will be paid for by electric revenues rather than tax dollars.

Officials told residents at a January meeting using the Nations Ford Road site would cost about $1 million more than the Miller Road land and that the added expense could be passed on to consumers through higher rates. Some at that meeting said they’d be willing to take on a slightly higher electric bill to pay the higher cost.

On Wednesday, Spitzer said the Nations Ford site will likely not actually end up costing an additional $1 million because the town is not purchasing as much of the land as originally conceived. The exact cost difference between the two sites “is hard to say” because the town doesn’t know all the costs yet.

In our CLT Politics newsletter, we offer exclusive insight into Charlotte-region politics sent to your inbox on Thursdays. Subscribe for free. Story idea? mramsey@charlotteobserver.com.