Government legislation ministry rules utility must pay half of pylon relocation costs

The government legislation ministry said that a city, county or district mayor who directly carries out a traditional-market parking lot project may require an electricity provider to pay half the cost of relocating obstructing power poles, under a special cost-sharing rule in the Traditional Markets and Shopping Districts Promotion Act.

The ministry's interpretation answers a question over whether the cost-sharing provision, Article 22 of the act, applies when the project is run by a local government rather than by a merchants' organization or a market manager. The provision caps the share borne by an electricity provider at half the cost of moving or burying poles, overriding the general rule in the Electricity Business Act that the party causing an obstruction bears the cost.

The ministry said the provision does not separately restrict who may carry out such a project, pointing to Article 24, paragraph 3, which requires mayors to ensure priority re-entry for merchants who operated before a publicly run market modernization project, and to Article 69, paragraph 2, item 1, which allows the SMEs minister to require mayors who carried out such projects to submit records on how support funds were spent. Those provisions presuppose that local government heads can be project operators, it said.

It rejected the opposing reading that the act's shorthand definition of "facility modernization project" in Article 20, paragraph 1 — covering projects pursued by a market's merchants' organization or market manager — limits who may carry out such work and excludes local government heads, saying that view is inconsistent with the structure of the relevant provisions.

The ministry also said Article 22 is meant to ease the burden pylon relocation places on a project's progress, and that this burden is no different when a mayor carries out the project directly.

The interpretation was issued in response to a question from a member of the public, under case number 26-0549.