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O.C.G.A. § 46-3-14 — Effect of part on municipal police powers over erection and maintenance of electric wires, poles, and other facilities of electric suppliers in streets, alleys, and public ways | Georgia Code
O.C.G.A. § 46-3-14 (2018) Copy Cite Official Site Syfertize CourtListener Scholar Amendments

TITLE 46 PUBLIC UTILITIES AND PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION

Section 3. Electrical Service, 46-3-1 through 46-3-541.

ARTICLE 1 GENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF ELECTRICITY GENERALLY

46-3-14. Effect of part on municipal police powers over erection and maintenance of electric wires, poles, and other facilities of electric suppliers in streets, alleys, and public ways.

  1. No provision of this part shall restrict the reasonable exercise of the police power of a municipality over the erection and maintenance of poles, wires, and other facilities of electric suppliers in streets, alleys, and public ways.
  2. No municipality may, by unreasonably withholding or conditioning right of way easements or franchises, defeat, impair, or interfere with the rights and restrictions applying to electric suppliers therein as provided for in this part. Rather, any secondary supplier within a municipality existing on March 29, 1973, and any electric supplier other than the primary supplier within any geographic area thereafter annexed to such municipality, shall pay the municipality for street franchise rights a sum of money calculated and payable in the same manner and on the same basis as is utilized with respect to the payment, if any, by the primary supplier (other than the municipality itself) for the same or substantially identical rights. In addition, any electric supplier within a wholly new municipality at the time such municipality comes into existence or thereafter which does not serve a majority or plurality of the retail electric meters inside the limits of such municipality shall pay such municipality for street franchise rights a sum of money calculated and payable in the same manner and on the same basis as is utilized with respect to the payment, if any, by the electric supplier (other than the municipality itself) which serves a majority or plurality, whichever is the case, of the retail electric meters inside the limits of such municipality for the same or substantially identical rights.
  3. No provision of this part shall abolish the power of any incorporated municipality pursuant to paragraph (7) of Code Section 36-34-2 or any other provision of law to grant street franchises; nor shall any provision of this part abolish the requirement, to the extent existing on March 29, 1973, that any electric supplier must obtain such a franchise in order to use and occupy streets of an incorporated municipality for the purpose of rendering utility services.

(Ga. L. 1973, p. 200, § 15.)

JUDICIAL DECISIONS

Authority of city to charge franchise fee.

- Nothing in the first sentence of O.C.G.A. § 46-3-14(b) purports to prohibit a city from conditioning its grant of a street franchise to an electric company upon the payment of a reasonable franchise fee, and the second sentence is a statutory preservation of the right of a "municipality" under O.C.G.A. § 36-34-2(7) to charge "any secondary supplier" a franchise fee, even where the municipality itself is also the primary supplier. City of Calhoun v. North Ga. Elec. Membership Corp., 264 Ga. 205, 443 S.E.2d 469 (1994).

A municipality may grant a franchise to an electric membership corporation. It is also authorized to assess franchise fees against the corporation. Athens-Clarke County v. Walton Elec. Membership Corp., 265 Ga. 229, 454 S.E.2d 510 (1995).

Cited in City of LaGrange v. Troup County Elec. Membership Corp., 200 Ga. App. 418, 408 S.E.2d 708 (1991).

RESEARCH REFERENCES

Am. Jur. 2d.

- 27A Am. Jur. 2d, Energy and Power Sources, § 20.

C.J.S.

- 29 C.J.S., Electricity, § 15.

ALR.

- Grant of perpetual franchise to public service corporation, 2 A.L.R. 1105.

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This Georgia Code resource is curated by Graham W. Syfert, a personal injury and workers' compensation attorney admitted in Georgia (State Bar of Georgia No. 881027, since 2006) and Florida. For legal consultation, call 904-383-7448.