What Rio Vista's Undergrounding Restart Is Actually Asking For

Rio Vista's first try at burying its overhead wires stalled earlier this year. In the minutes of the Rio Vista Civic Association's June 17 board meeting, President Lori Sterling reported that the initial undergrounding vote fell short. The project then went to a different engineer to revisit, and the board planned a new education meeting for the neighborhood.

That meeting is now on the calendar. It takes place Monday, October 19, at 7 p.m. at 620 SE 9th Street, and owners can also join by Zoom. Gary Foster of the City's Public Works department will present on burying the electric, phone and cable lines, which the association's notice calls "an available option in Rio Vista." Foster has led undergrounding with other neighborhoods. The notice also describes the work as burying all above-ground wires, including electric, phone and cable.

Talk on the street tends to treat this as one big yes-or-no on a costly project. Under the City's process, it is two separate decisions, and they sit years and hundreds of times apart in cost. The first decision is the one that comes back into view this month.

Where the first attempt stopped

Rio Vista has been working toward this point for about a year. In November 2025, Sterling told the general meeting that the City had not settled how it would offer undergrounding to neighborhoods, and that the City would not pay for the process. A resident asked for a timeline. That same month, the City Commission adopted a revised undergrounding ordinance.

By April 13, 2026, three City Capital Projects staff were at the general meeting with figures: Colette Satchell, Ivey Kearson and Wilfredo Negron. They gave the benefits as resilience in storms, safety and appearance. They also laid out a project in two phases. The June minutes do not give a vote count or a mailing date. They also do not say which ballot fell short. On the City's own status page, Rio Vista still appears under "Applications Received." Harbor Beach, Harbour Inlet, Seven Isles and Sunrise Key are listed there too.

Two prices, years apart

The April figures come from meeting minutes. They are not a bid or an adopted assessment, and the minutes record them this way:

Over the full term, the Phase 2 figure comes to $90,000 per resident. That is more than 300 times the Phase 1 figure. The minutes also report that equipment would go in the right-of-way on 3-foot pedestals to reduce flooding problems. Negron said construction would not start until AT&T, Comcast, TECO and the other services were ready to move. The ballot process was expected to take 90 days or more to start, and completion was estimated for the fourth quarter of 2028 if approvals came without delays.

Those dates were set in April, and the first vote has since fallen short. The 2028 target assumed no approval delays, so it already describes a schedule the neighborhood is not on.

Where the ballots fall in the City's process

The City's program page lays out ten steps under City Code Section 25-129. Only some of them ask owners anything.

1. The neighborhood association files an application with Public Works.
2. The City checks with FPL and the other utilities for eligibility and rough costs.
3. A consultant prepares a conceptual study with preliminary estimates.
4. Ballot #1 goes to every owner in the boundary.
5. The City Commission authorizes design spending and sets how it will be repaid.
6. Final design is completed and the project is competitively bid.
7. Ballot #2 goes out with final costs.
8. The Commission holds a public hearing and adopts the final assessment.
9. Construction, pole removal and restoration follow.
10. The assessment appears on tax bills under the repayment schedule.

The decision to bury the lines is Ballot #2, and it comes with a competitively bid number. Everything before it is about paying to find out what that number is. Under the 2025 revised undergrounding ordinance, the City may advance design and consultant costs and recover them through an assessment or fee. The ordinance says that repayment should be finished within 24 months of Commission authorization. For a Rio Vista owner, that means the near-term choice is about a design-phase share of roughly $261, as estimated in April. A 30-year line on the tax bill comes into play only at the second ballot.

How the 70% is counted

The threshold is narrower than it sounds. Each ballot needs at least 70% approval of the ballots returned, not of all properties. Each parcel counts as one owner, and ballots are due within 30 days. A ballot that sits unopened on a kitchen counter is not counted, for or against.

The second ballot has to show more than a single price. The revised ordinance requires final ballots to show estimates both with and without FPL's 25% contribution. That discount applies only if every parcel converts within six months. If they don't, parcels are assessed the undiscounted cost. The 25% is a credit from FPL's Governmental Adjustment Factor, which the Public Service Commission approved. It applies against the electric conversion charge, not the whole multi-utility project.

The estimates also leave some costs out. They do not include each owner's cost to have a licensed electrician connect and activate underground service, or any meter or wiring work the code requires. They also leave out conduit and restoration on the owner's own parcel if the owner declines the City contractor's offer to do it.

Why FPL's own program doesn't settle it

Some owners have seen FPL crews burying lines elsewhere and may expect the utility to do this for free. FPL's Storm Secure Underground Program does run without an upfront customer charge. Its costs are recovered through a systemwide Storm Protection Plan charge, and FPL picks projects using reliability data such as hurricane outages and outages caused by trees and other vegetation. FPL also says that voluntary neighborhood conversions are paid for by the city or the community.

The City adds two points. FPL's strategic program covers only FPL's own lines, so the cable TV and telephone lines stay overhead when it is done. The City also says FPL will underground an area only if every affected parcel agrees to an easement on private property. A street of poles carrying only Comcast and AT&T lines is still a street of poles.

The City's program is designed to clear everything. The City says completed areas are fully restored with new decorative street lighting and resurfaced roads. Lines are built in a loop, so each home has two paths of service, and the City cites FPL's figures that undergrounding improves day-to-day reliability by 50% and storm reliability by 85%. Where the ground sits below 3 feet NAVD, FPL transformer boxes are raised against king tides. Street lighting now hangs on FPL poles that would come out, so the project replaces those lights one for one. Resurfacing is included because the trenchless work still needs openings in the roadway.

What the one finished project shows

Las Olas Isles is the only neighborhood the City lists as completed. It applied soon after the City created the process in 2010 and broke ground on June 14, 2022. City staff recorded it as finished in 2024. Most of that time passed before construction began. Its records show what changes at the curb and inside the house:

• In the street: Most conduit went in by horizontal directional drilling, with some trenching. The City's contractor ran service lines to individual parcels, and restoration covered pavement, sidewalks, sod and landscaping.
• During work hours: A 2023 update described temporary lane closures and driveways that might be blocked, with access restored at the end of each shift.
• Inside the home: The Las Olas Isles association asked Comcast customers to book an in-home visit for a new modem and possibly new internal wiring. It warned that homes not converted by June 3, 2024 could lose Comcast service.
• The cleanup: By July 2024, the District 2 newsletter reported that AT&T had finished hooking up residences, Comcast had finished all but 26, and FPL had taken down poles and old transformers on several streets.

Two other neighborhoods are now ahead of Rio Vista. Idlewyld and Riviera Isles each posted preliminary 30% design plans for community review on July 30, 2026, prepared with Craven Thompson & Associates. The City lists The Landings and Victoria Park as neighborhoods where residents have expressed interest.

Questions worth bringing on October 19

The June minutes leave several gaps that a Public Works presenter can fill:

• Which ballot fell short, and what was the return rate?
• Who is the new engineer, and does the April Phase 1 figure of about $261 still apply?
• Would the City advance the design cost under the 2025 ordinance and recover it within 24 months?
• What would a revised completion date look like now that the Q4 2028 estimate is off?
• Where would right-of-way pedestals sit on the Isles compared with the mainland streets?

The association lists its upcoming meetings on its website. The full process, application requirements and project status list are on the City's undergrounding page. More on how Rio Vista balances its waterways and in-town streets is in our Rio Vista neighborhood guide and our look at how Rio Vista balances boating lanes and urban convenience.

If you own in Rio Vista and want to talk through how a pending assessment process might affect your sale or purchase timing, Elite Florida Homes offers private, discreet consultations with Vicki Annecca. Request a Private Consultation, and we will review your street and your timeline with you.

This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.