The state Public Utility Commission will hold a public hearing Tuesday on Peoples TWP’s proposed rate 28 percent rate hike for residential customers.

The hearing will be at 6 p.m. in the first floor meeting room of the Butler County Government Center.

The company is proposing separate rate hikes for residential, commercial and industrial customers to fund the replacement of 148 miles of pipe installed about 70 years ago. The work will be across the county.

Anyone can come and speak at the hearing since no pre-meeting registration is required.

The proposed rate hike increases monthly bills for the average residential customer using 84 Mcf, 84,000 cubic feet, annually from $79.22 to $101.71, an increase of $270 per year.

The average commercial customers using 200 Mcf annually will see a rate increase from $208.53 to $219.77 a month and the average industrial customer using 3,893 Mcf annually will see a rate increase from $2,951 to $3,052 a month.

The price of natural gas has been decreasing, but company spokesman Barry Kukovich said that this rate increase request is not related to the price of gas. He said it is related to the pipeline, other infrastructure and paying its workers.

If a rate increase is approved by the PUC, it will take a while to go into effect.

Jennifer Kocher, a spokesman for the PUC, said that it usually takes about nine months for a rate increase to occur.

When a rate increase is proposed, the PUC holds hearings where the company and other parties present their cases. The PUC reviews the company’s records and request and presents its view on what is in the public interest.

Additionally, public input hearings such as the one on Tuesday take place.

Kocher said people who want to speak at the hearing can come, sign in and share their views. She said the company may offer a brief statement, but the main point of the meeting is for the customers to offer their opinions.

The PUC will make the final decision on the rate increase.

The company said it expects the increase, if granted by the PUC, to take effect no later than January 2014.

In 2011, SteelRiver Infrastructure Fund North America LP of San Francisco and New York bought T.W. Phillips Gas and Oil Co. and changed the company name to Peoples TWP.

The last time T.W. Phillips increased rates was in 2010, when a 10 percent increase was implemented.

The company has 60,000 customers in 10 counties, with about half of its customers in Butler County.