Progress: Won't Need Brookridge Property

BROOKSVILLE - Progress Energy officials are coming to Brookridge on Wednesday and are expected to deliver the news that residents of the retirement community hoped to hear.

The energy company likely won't need to buy property in the neighborhood just west of the Suncoast Parkway to make room for new transmission lines, said Cherie Jacobs, a Progress Energy spokeswoman. The company plans to stick to its existing corridor on the west side of Brookridge to run new lines through the county from a proposed power plant in Crystal River, Jacobs said.

"We do not expect to affect any homes there," Jacobs said Monday. "In this case, the lines will be as close to their homes as they are now."

As many as 200 households in the 2,780-home community have been on edge since last month, when Progress sent out letters to notify county residents they are "inside or within" 250 feet of the company's preferred corridor for the new lines, said Bruce Behrens, second vice-president of the Brookridge Community Property Owners Association.

So the association asked Progress Energy to send a representative to field questions from residents about how the power lines would impact the community, Behrens said.

The meeting is for Brookridge residents only.

"We just want some straightforward answers," he said.

Homes on the neighborhood's western side already sit in the shadows of the company's existing power lines. Residents worried the existing corridor would have to be widened to fit more lines and prompt the company to start buying up homes or even invoke eminent domain.

That's a scary prospect for retirees who planned to spend "their golden years" in Brookridge, Behrens said.

When told of the comments by Jacobs, Behrens was encouraged, but still skeptical.

He encouraged the company to "put it in writing."

In a way, the company is in the process of doing so.

Progress Energy will start to do so-called route studies later this summer, further narrowing down its preferred corridors, Jacobs said. About 90 percent of the company's preferred routes are along existing corridors. Progress considers buying property to be "a last resort."

The route studies should be complete by the end of year, and the company would then send letters to the owners of any property it would need to purchase along the corridors, Jacobs said. Progress Energy also will host more open houses similar to events held here earlier this year, she said.

Right of way acquisition could start by the end of the year. Progress Energy seeks to add some 200 miles of transmission lines in 10 counties. The company hopes to start construction of the new lines in 2012 and have the new plant on line by 2016.