AUBURN – The city could sacrifice some of the new property tax revenue Central Maine Power Co. would pay to encourage the company to relocate some proposed new power lines.

Councilors on Tuesday will go behind closed doors Tuesday to discuss creating a tax increment finance district for CMP’s proposed power reliability program. Money from that tax program would go back to the company to pay for redesigning the power lines proposed path through Lewiston.

“We just want to gauge the council’s support for doing something like this,” Bennett said. “It’s one way we’ve come up with to help some of our residents.”

Bennett said he expects councilors to schedule a public workshop June 9 if they want to investigate the idea. A public hearing could be scheduled as soon as June 16.

Called the Maine Power Reliability Program, CMP’s proposal calls for upgrading a nearly 40-year-old swath of power lines. The lines start south in Eliot and pass through central Maine in Litchfield, Monmouth, Leeds, Greene, Lewiston and a corner of Auburn at the Durham line. They stop in Orrington, where they connect to lines from Canada.

In some places, lines would be rebuilt or replaced. In other places, lines would be added, including 115-kilovolt and 345-kilovolt lines. The 345-kilovolt poles, not common in Maine, are wider than traditional power-line towers, and are, depending on location, about 20 to 25 feet taller than the lower-voltage poles.

The project would affect about 4,000 property abutters statewide. If approved, it could take three to five years to complete.

Opponents say the 345-kilovolt lines buzz and emit an electromagnetic field they fear could cause cancer. Abutters say the new lines will lower their property values.

Lewiston residents near the proposed expansion have urged councilors to help them, and councilors sent a letter to the Maine Public Utilities Commission urging them to relocate the lines around some Lewiston residences.

“But CMP and the PUC need to do what’s most cost effective for the majority,” Bennett said. The proposed changes to the path through Lewiston could cost the company $8 million more.

But CMP is expected to pay the city an additional $1.5 million in new property taxes once the work is complete. Bennett said the city could sacrifice some of that revenue to make relocating the lines more feasible for the company.

“But I do have some misgivings about this,” Bennett said. “It would be a lot of money we’d be sacrificing to help a handful of people, instead of 13,000. But we need to see if the council is even comfortable with doing this.”