Drive through Old Las Palmas on almost any block west of Palm Canyon Drive and you'll see the same thing that's been there since the neighborhood was carved out of a citrus grove in the mid-1920s: overhead wires strung pole to pole against the San Jacinto foothills, threading between hundred-year-old estates. That view is about to become a financial question with a specific deadline attached. On October 28, 2026, Palm Springs will hold a public hearing and count ballots on whether to form two special assessment districts that would bury those lines, at a combined cost of roughly $10.1 million paid almost entirely by the homeowners whose properties sit in the path.
If you're closing escrow on an Old Las Palmas home this fall, or listing one, the vote isn't background noise. It's a number that may or may not exist yet depending on which side of October 28 your closing date lands.
What's actually on the ballot
The push to bury Old Las Palmas' power lines started with a neighborhood kickoff meeting on April 23, 2025, made possible by a city ordinance passed the previous November that, for the first time, gave established neighborhoods a formal path to petition for their own underground utility districts. Two separate districts emerged from that effort. District 1's petition, representing more than 60 percent of the assessable property area, was certified in October 2025. District 2's petition followed in March 2026.
In August 2026, the Palm Springs City Council preliminarily approved the assessment engineer's reports for both districts, setting the October 28 hearing and ballot count in motion. Ballots have gone out to property owners, and the outcome determines whether the city moves forward with removing more than 100 utility poles and their overhead lines from the neighborhood.
Chuck Nourrcier, one of the residents who helped coordinate the effort, put the timeline in perspective when the project first launched: "Getting to this milestone has been a long time coming, a lot of work. We had to get the city municipal code changed in order to support this." That's not hyperbole. This is the first neighborhood in Palm Springs to test the new ordinance, and consultant Jeff Cooper, who has run undergrounding projects across Southern California for more than 35 years, was brought in specifically because there was no local precedent to follow.
The number in the headlines isn't the number you'll pay
Local coverage has focused on the headline figure: individual parcel assessments that could run well over $100,000, with some reports putting the ceiling as high as $171,000. That number is real, but it only covers burying the main distribution lines. It doesn't cover what happens after the trench is dug.
Once the overhead system comes down, every property owner still has to hire and pay a contractor separately to connect their home to the new underground service, a step the assessment engineer's report describes as a future requirement once the poles are removed. Southern California Edison has estimated that this cutover work could add another $8,000 to $40,000 per property, and that cost sits entirely outside the assessment total. On top of both figures, an annual administrative assessment of up to $88 per parcel is built into the plan, rising each year by the Consumer Price Index or 3 percent, whichever is greater, along with a possible $16 per-parcel fee to cover bond administration.
Add it up and the six-figure number in the news stories is a floor, not a ceiling, for what a given owner might actually spend to get from overhead wires to a fully connected underground system.
Two ways to pay, and two different things attach to the title
Property owners facing an approved assessment get a choice, and the choice matters well beyond the monthly bill.
| Payment option | How it works | What stays with the property |
|---|---|---|
| Pay in cash | Owner pays the full assessed share up front | No lien recorded against the title |
| Finance through the bond | Balance paid over a term of up to 20 years, added to the property tax bill | A lien remains on the property until the bond is retired |
For anyone buying into Old Las Palmas after the vote, this distinction is worth asking about directly. A home where the seller paid cash carries a cleaner title than one riding a 20-year bond, and the remaining balance on a financed assessment is the kind of detail a title company and escrow officer should be tracking as part of standard due diligence, not something either party assumes will sort itself out.
Why the vote rewards the biggest bills
One detail in the ballot process is easy to miss and worth understanding if you're trying to predict which way this goes. Ballots mailed to property owners are weighted according to the size of each parcel's assessment, so an owner facing a $171,000 bill carries more influence over the outcome than a neighbor facing a smaller one. The people with the most financial exposure also have the most say in whether the project happens at all, which is a structural reason this kind of resident-initiated district tends to move forward once it clears the petition stage. It also means the outcome on October 28 will likely track the preferences of the neighborhood's larger estate owners more than a simple headcount would suggest.
What this means if you're mid-transaction right now
Timing is the practical issue for anyone with a live deal in Old Las Palmas this quarter. Nothing about either district is finalized until the ballots are counted on October 28. A home that closes before that date is changing hands before anyone knows whether the assessment will exist, while a home that closes after will have a documented answer one way or the other.
A few things worth raising with your agent, escrow officer, or attorney before you sign anything:
- Ask whether the specific parcel falls inside District 1, District 2, or neither, since the two districts don't cover identical boundaries.
- If the district passes, ask whether the seller intends to pay the assessment in cash or pass along a bond-financed balance, since that determines whether a lien follows the sale.
- Factor the separate cutover cost, the $8,000 to $40,000 SCE has estimated for connecting a home to the new underground system, into any conversation about total cost of ownership, since it's not part of the assessment total most listings will reference.
- Remember that design work alone is expected to take 12 to 18 months once a district is approved, with construction following for about another 12 months after a bond sale. Nobody buying or selling this fall should expect crews on the street anytime soon. The financial commitment starts well before the physical work does.
None of this is legal or tax advice, and every transaction has its own particulars worth confirming with your own professionals. But knowing the right questions to ask, and asking them before you're deep into escrow, is exactly the kind of groundwork that keeps a closing on schedule.
Old Las Palmas as the test case
What makes this vote worth watching beyond Old Las Palmas itself is that it's the first neighborhood in Palm Springs to use the new ordinance, and other neighborhoods are paying close attention to how it goes. The Racquet Club Estates Neighborhood Organization has formed its own subcommittee to explore a similar district, with chair Cameron Saless pointing to the wind-driven wildfires in the Los Angeles area, including the Altadena fire that was started by power lines, as part of the growing urgency around undergrounding in Palm Springs' windier neighborhoods. Whatever happens on October 28 will shape how quickly that model spreads to the rest of the city, which is one more reason the outcome matters to anyone thinking about Palm Springs real estate beyond this single historic enclave.
A few quick answers
Does this affect my property tax bill immediately if I close this month? Not yet. Nothing attaches to any parcel until the October 28 vote is certified and the district is formally created.
Will construction start right after the vote passes? No. Design work runs 12 to 18 months, and construction follows for roughly another year after the bond sale, so any physical work is a multiyear horizon from today.
Does every home in Old Las Palmas fall under one of the two districts? The districts follow specific boundaries drawn around properties with overhead lines, not the entire roughly 290-home neighborhood uniformly, so it's worth confirming a specific address before assuming either way.
Old Las Palmas rewards buyers and sellers who do their homework, and this is a moment where the homework has an actual deadline on the calendar. If you're weighing a purchase or preparing to list ahead of the October 28 vote, Kurt Bayek can walk through what it means for your specific parcel and timeline. Schedule a free consultation before you write your next offer or open your next escrow.
