Final vote scheduled for May 4
Marfa
When Marfa Planning & Zoning Chair Stephen “Chick” Rabourn addressed a public hearing on April 14 over a special use permit for a new AEP electrical substation, he came armed with visuals—3D renderings of what the new facility might look like with buildings, walls and other infrastructure as it would be seen from the adjoining neighborhood.
Rabourn, who opposes the AEP plan, acknowledged that the utility company has provided more information recently than its first series of meetings from last spring through the fall. “They did show a lot more information regarding the elevations and the heights, and that’s really what we were looking for,” he told the hearing. “Taking [their site plan] drawing set, I went ahead, did some 3D modeling, because I think one of the difficult parts about this is trying to visualize what it is they’re actually proposing. The old substation is kind of small and quaint in comparison, and with new safety standards and equipment standards have really blown up [in size].”
AEP’s external affairs manager, Fred Guerrero, told the hearing that he couldn’t verify the accuracy of the scale on the rendering and would have like to provide an AEP version, but added that until the company gets approval for the use permit and buys the actual property in question, the project has a limited budget. “There’s no internal person that can do that,” he said.
AEP’s proposal involves purchasing an approximately four-acre lot at the corner of Oak and Aparejo streets and erecting a new substation—eight times larger than the existing Oak Street station near Sal Si Puedes and triple the capacity, increasing from 5 MVA to 15 MVA (megavolt-amperes)—an estimated $7 million to $10 million endeavor. The increase in capacity is cited by the company as crucial to meeting both existing and future needs for Marfa’s electricity usage. Since the land is zoned residential, AEP initially applied for a rezoning to industrial to proceed with the purchase of the property to build the substation. After that rezoning was tabled by the City Council, AEP complied with a request from council members to get a special use permit to build and operate the substation under residential zoning.
The April 14 City Council public hearing included council members accepting the P&Z’s recommendation to deny a special permit for the substation after a 4-1 vote on April 7. The council took no action on the permit and instead directed city staff to draft conditions under which the utility would have to operate along with an ordinance allowing the special use by Monday. Another hearing was then scheduled for Tuesday evening—after Big Bend Sentinel’s deadline—for the public to have an opportunity to comment on the conditions and the ordinance.
However, the conditions and ordinance were not available until the actual hearing, and even then were not distributed to the public, leaving many wondering how they were supposed to comment on something they hadn’t seen. The council initially set a final hearing—when a vote on the permit would likely be held—on April 30, but then later moved the date to May 4.
The chief concerns from residents opposing the project are the precedent it would set for rezoning residential land (or allowing special uses on it), the impacts to property values for landowners adjacent to the site and possible noise and environmental impacts. Also frustrating residents is what they view as an inadequate effort for the power company to locate an alternative site.
Critics also said the utility did not explore options for the substation farther out of town. AEP said it looked at alternatives and none met the criteria it needed for both logistics and cost.
That complaint received some pushback on April 14. Guerrero said AEP did a “light investigation” of a property on Highway 90 that would not have served as a welcoming site for those arriving to Marfa. Councilmember Eddie Pallerez said he also knew of an AEP look at a property in Sal Si Puedes east of town, but the landowner turned the utility down. “It’s not like they’re not trying,” Pallarez said.
The new AEP application does provide considerably more detail on the project, and P&Z members have walked through questions about the project one by one—from everything to the types of fences and landscaping surrounding the structure to how many decibels of sound it would emit. For an in-depth look at the history of the rezoning, see bigbendsentinel.aep-rezone.