Casa Grande, Florence and Coolidge managed Tuesday to keep an enormous power line out of the middle of their communities, but it was a fight.

The Arizona Power Plant and Transmission Line Siting Committee, which has been holding hearings since November on the route for 500-kilovolt power line from the western border of Pinal County to Apache Junction, made its decision on Tuesday.

It will start at the Pinal West Substation south of Maricopa, zigzag east around the southern edges of Casa Grande and Coolidge and head north around Coolidge's eastern edge and Florence's western edge.

"We dodged a major bullet today," said Casa Grande Mayor Chuck Walton.

"This is a big thing for Casa Grande, Coolidge and Florence," said attorney Court Rich, who represented developers, residents, neighborhood associations and a Hindu temple along the route. "None of them got their worst-case scenario."

Most of the area affected is farmland and undeveloped desert. But about 400 homes could be impacted. The project is estimated to cost $160 million and will provide power to the entire state.

Attorney Kenneth Sundlof represented the power companies, including Salt River Project and Arizona Public Service, involved. He advocated the most direct and least expensive routes.

In western Pinal County, Sundlof won the most direct and cheapest route, right over the 5 acres owned by Tempe residents Cindy and Michael Allen. They have been installing infrastructure for their retirement home.

"We didn't move out to the country to be across the street from a 500-kilovolt line that will make noise and be ugly," Cindy said. "It breaks my heart to think of all the things I deprived myself of to have that property, and now it's gone."

The committee elected to keep the line partly on the north side of Teel Road to ensure that the Hindu temple will keep its views of the mountains as mandated by the faith's tradition.

After much debate, two failed votes and some compromise, the committee approved the route skirting Coolidge and Florence instead of a route that would have cut through the middle of Coolidge or another route that would have bisected Florence's planned Anthem at Merrill Ranch project.

The power companies had adamantly opposed this compromise, which impacts 84 more homes and costs more. "There's no point in it, it's a huge double-back," Sundlof said. "Development opponents just like it because it will miss their land."

Rich, who represents Pulte Homes, a developer in the Anthem project, disagreed.

"You avoid the heart of Coolidge and you avoid the heart of Florence," he said. "Their route would run a power line through the most important development in this little town, the future of Florence."