The Franchise Agreement: An Opportunity to Strengthen Charleston’s Relationship with Dominion Energy
The City of Charleston is in the process of renewing its Franchise Agreement with Dominion Energy—a document that governs the utility’s use of public rights-of-way and helps shape how electric infrastructure is maintained and improved across the city. While routine on the surface, this renewal presents a significant opportunity to address long-standing concerns about tree protection, infrastructure resilience, transparency, and public accountability.
For many Charleston residents, Dominion Energy’s aggressive tree trimming practices have become a highly visible and controversial issue. Public concern has grown as mature trees—an essential part of Charleston’s character, historic identity, and climate resilience—have been significantly altered or removed with little public understanding of Dominion's decision-making process. At the center of the challenge is a complicated web of agreements, regulations, and case-by-case decisions. The renewal of the Franchise Agreement offers a chance to modernize an important document that establishes the funding and process framework for undergrounding power lines in the City.
HCF is Advocating for:
Increased Investment Through the Non-Standard Service Fund ("Non-Standard Service Fund" is an unnecessarily complicated term for a fund that can be used to put power lines underground)
The Franchise Agreement provides one of the most important opportunities to expand the Non-Standard Service Fund (NSSF), which helps finance infrastructure improvements such as utility undergrounding projects.
Historic Charleston Foundation recommends increasing Dominion’s contribution to this fund from 3% of revenue to at least 5%, bringing Charleston more in line with neighboring communities such as Mount Pleasant. Additional funding could support:
- Underground utility projects
- Alternative technologies such as aerial bundled cable systems
- Resilience-focused infrastructure improvements
- Projects that reduce conflicts between power lines and trees
Increasing available funding would provide the City with more tools to address infrastructure challenges while protecting neighborhood character and the tree canopy.
Expanded Infrastructure Options
The current agreement should be updated to recognize a wider range of infrastructure solutions. Rather than limiting projects to traditional undergrounding, the Franchise Agreement should explicitly allow alternative approaches, including pilot programs using aerial bundled cable technologies where appropriate. These strategies may reduce tree impacts while improving reliability and lowering implementation costs.
The City should also clarify how NSSF funds are prioritized and allocated so that projects delayed for various reasons do not stall overall progress. Additional projects should be able to advance through the planning process while others are awaiting implementation.
Shortened Agreement Term
A 30-year agreement is an exceptionally long commitment at a time when infrastructure technologies, resilience challenges, and community priorities are rapidly evolving.
Reducing the Franchise Agreement term to five to ten years would allow Charleston to:
- Regularly evaluate program performance
- Adjust to emerging technologies
- Respond to changing resilience needs
- Renegotiate terms based on community priorities
Shorter agreements create flexibility and accountability while ensuring the relationship evolves with the city.
Improved Accountability
The updated agreement should strengthen provisions requiring:
- Public reporting of Dominion’s annual contributions to infrastructure improvement funds
- Annual disclosure of fund balances and expenditures
- Clear documentation of eligible projects and funding priorities
Greater transparency would help build public trust and provide City leaders with stronger oversight tools.
Strengthened Tree Protection Requirements
One of the most significant opportunities is directly incorporating Charleston’s Tree Protection Agreement into the Franchise Agreement itself. Doing so would create a stronger mechanism for compliance and enforcement while establishing clearer expectations for tree management activities.
Potential improvements include:
- Requiring documentation and justification for significant tree removals
- Establishing clearer compliance standards
- Creating stronger accountability measures when protections are not followed
- Providing the City with more effective enforcement tools
Integrating these protections directly into the governing agreement would elevate tree preservation from a side agreement to a core operational requirement.
Expanded Undergrounding Efforts
The City should clarify and modernize the definition and use of Underground Utility Districts while creating pathways for additional projects.
Targeted undergrounding—particularly in historic neighborhoods and areas with significant tree canopy—can help reduce conflicts between infrastructure and trees while improving system resilience during storms and severe weather events.
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Looking Beyond the Franchise Agreement
While updating the agreement is an important step, Charleston should also consider broader policy initiatives that support long-term infrastructure planning.
Potential actions include:
- Developing a citywide undergrounding strategy
- Requiring underground utilities as a condition of major (re)development and subdivision approvals
- Reestablishing an Undergrounding Utilities Advisory Committee
- Exploring statewide best practices that better balance utility reliability and tree preservation
These efforts would help Charleston move from reactive decision-making toward a comprehensive strategy that strengthens resilience, protects historic resources, and improves infrastructure planning.
Building on Recent Progress
The City has already taken positive steps to improve public communication through new online resources and public outreach efforts. Those improvements are appreciated and represent a meaningful move toward greater transparency.
As the Franchise Agreement renewal process moves forward, Charleston has a rare opportunity to establish a stronger partnership with Dominion Energy—one that better reflects community values.
By increasing Dominion's transparency, expanding infrastructure options, strengthening tree protections, and investing in resilience, Charleston can create an agreement that serves both residents and the public interest for years to come.
HCF looks forward to bringing you the latest on how we can work together to make this happen!