Has any HOA purchased light poles from their utility company?

Started by KimB1 • 3 replies • 2073 views

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KimB1 (Florida)
Posts: 81

Posted:

We are a Florida HOA that pays rent and costs to FPL for 80 light poles that illuminate our neighborhood. This cost us $15K a year. Our board seeks to purchase them for $40K and was informed that FPL would reduce monthly costs (reduction not known). It was also communicated our associaton would never actually own these poles. (this point was unclear)

Our HOA has paid for 10 light poles that are not located on land that we own. There's a short road to our community that we illuminated until new townhouses were built. 5 Years have passed and this road legally belongs to them. But our association still pays for the ligh poles. We have not pursued a contract modification to delete them from ours so they are billed to the rightful owner of the land they sit on.

Has any community done this in Florida with FPL and willing to share success or horror stories when dealing with FPL to
1) Modify the contract to transfer poles that should be billed to a different HOA
2) Acquired poles and received any sort of future reduction of costs

Thank you

BruceF1 (Connecticut)
Posts: 2,535

Posted:

Kim,

Interesting. Unfortunately, without knowing what the savings would be it's difficult, if not impossible to determine if this is a good deal or not.

Using my own HOA (we own the lights and only pay for electricity) we pay a fixed cost of $60 per year per light for the electricity.

Of course, we have a different utility company so I know it's apples and oranges, but if we assume it's say $80 per year in your case, then the cost of electricity alone for your lights would be around $6,400 per year. Thus, you would be paying $8,600 per year to rent the lights. That comes out to 4.65 years to amortize the lights, not including interest. (It would still be around 4 years if you paid the same for electricity as we do.)

Then, as you say, what are you buying? Also, what does that mean? Maybe you are buying only the lights and not the poles. Even then, once you buy them, who pays for the maintenance? Do the lights have a lifetime, burn out, and need to be replaced? If you rent them, that's the utility company's problem. Does it become your problem if you purchase them? What's the average life of a light? What does one cost? What about the cost of labor to replace the light (requiring a repair person with a bucket truck)?

KimB1 (Florida)
Posts: 81

Posted:

Your scenario sounds like ours. I am in favor of this project if funded properly and a reduction can be validated.

Have you always owned yours or did you rent them at a higher cost at one time?

Did you pay a large up front fee that eliminated the rental cost?

Can you replace these light poles at any time with something more aethetically pleasing or with solar powered lights?

What kind of costs other than electricity have you expended - when the lights burn out or stop working.

Can any licensed and insured electrician do repair work on these utility poles or do they have to be FPL contractors?

Who insures these lights?

Thanks for your responses

BruceF1 (Connecticut)
Posts: 2,535

Posted:

Kim,

Answers follow your questions.

Have you always owned yours or did you rent them at a higher cost at one time? They were put in by the developer on the common elements (which includes roads and sidewalks).

Did you pay a large up front fee that eliminated the rental cost? No.

Can you replace these light poles at any time with something more aethetically pleasing or with solar powered lights? Actually, they're fairly attractive. They look like old-fashioned gas lights. Black wrought-iron atop a relatively short (12-15 foot) black wrought-iron pole.

What kind of costs other than electricity have you expended - when the lights burn out or stop working. Never asked.

Can any licensed and insured electrician do repair work on these utility poles or do they have to be FPL contractors? I believe the electric fee includes replacement by the utility company. Basically, it's a service they perform, but the developer purchased (and now the association owns) the lights.

Who insures these lights? We do.

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