REDDING - Residents who live near the site of a planned high voltage power line transition station are fighting its location. Diamond Hill Road residents say the two-acre parcel, called Flag Lot, chosen by Northeast Utilities for the station would be a blight on their neighborhood. They say a better location, called the Hardwood Site, is available. "It's a monster, and to place it in the center of this residential area is unconscionable," Jim Congdon said. Redding First Selectman Natalie Ketcham has asked Northeast Utilities to consider the Hardwood Site and put that location, along with Flag Lot, before the Connecticut Siting Council. The council must approve the design of the power line, including placement of the transition stations, before construction begins. "The town is united in hoping Hardwood will be considered by the Siting Council and ultimately chosen," Ketcham said. The town's Conservation Commission agrees. "We think it's a good compromise location," said commission chairman David Pattee about the Hardwood Site. A petition signed by 33 nearby residents is being sent to the Siting Council supporting the Hardwood Site for the station. A group of residents also has contacted a lawyer to help it fight a Flag Lot transition station. But Northeast Utilities said the Hardwood Site was studied last year and was not suitable. "There would be a tremendous amount of environmental impact," Northeast Utilities spokesman Frank Poirot said about the Hardwood Site, which he said is on a hill. "We need a flat space and would have to chop off the top of the knoll and bring in 51,000 cubic yards of fill." The company also contends the power line project needs to get underway after nearly three years of debate. "At some point we have to get going on the project," he said. "The need continues to grow for electricity in southwest Connecticut. Under a compromise route reached last year and approved by the Connecticut Siting Council, several transition stations are needed to accommodate the "porpoising" of a 345 kilovolt power line from Bethel - through Redding and Wilton - to Norwalk. Northeast Utilities in June 2001 proposed an all overhead route that would have carried the high voltage line on 130-foot-high metal poles. The company had hoped to get Siting Council approval within a year but met strong opposition from town officials and residents who wanted the line buried. A compromise was reached last year between the company and the towns and was approved by the Siting Council. It allows half of the 22-mile line to be buried and requires transition stations wherever the line goes above or under ground. A transition station - one is needed in Bethel, one in Redding and one in Wilton - is not one building. Instead it's an approximately 26,000-square-foot fenced-in area that contains an A-frame metal structure about 90 feet high plus other structures, including poles, wires and large circuit breakers. "We just built a tree fort in our yard," said Karen Tomko, one of the six Diamond Hill Road residents whose homes would back up to the Flag Lot transition station. Noting that a 9-foot-high chain-link fence with barbed wire on top would surround the station, she said, "My children will have a nice view of the barbed wire fence."