The Washington County Water Conservancy District’s (WCWCD) job is to supply the cities in the county with water. But up until now, WCWCD was given no information about the status of new developments the cities were approving, meaning new demand for water.
WCWCD may know about proposed new development from city council meetings and news coverage, but there wasn’t an established reporting process. Developers simply walked into the WCWCD office when they were ready to start construction, pay their water impact fee, and get their water hookups.
Measuring Potential Demand
That is changing for the better. This year the cities in the county have started reporting to WCWCD the development status of their vacant lots every month. That gives WCWCD a clear picture of upcoming demand for water. There appear to be some difficulties with the reporting process but that should be worked out soon. That’s step number one.
Changing the Business Model
Step number two is figuring out how to balance new demand with available supply. This hasn’t been finalized, but here’s the proposal on the table right now: WCWCD and the cities in the county will change the timing for when and how developers get water hookups… or “if” developers get them.
Cities have given developers the green light to proceed with a development as early as when preliminary plans are approved by cities. But that’s many months before developers are ready to get their building permit and pay their water impact fee to WCWCD.
The current proposal would require the developer to pay WCWCD’s water impact fee earlier in the development process. At that time, WCWCD will issue a “will-serve letter.” A “will-serve letter” means the WCWCD agrees to make water connections available for the proposed development.
Ensuring Balance
Now here’s the important part: WCWCD will not be obligated to issue that letter. They will only issue it if there is sufficient additional water supply available. This adds risk to the developer, but it eliminates a lot of the risk for all of us that demand will exceed supply.
And here’s the second important part: The developer will have just one year to get the final plat recorded. If not, the impact fee may be refunded, and the will-serve letter forfeited.
This isn’t a done deal. But the progress over the past eight months is encouraging. It looks like we will move from a system than had no checks and balances to one where WCWCD will be able to effectively balance supply and demand for the first time.
The mayors and city managers continue meeting with WCWCD to finalize the plan. Hopefully the final plan does as good a job managing demand as the current proposal.
Next, it’s important to get a solid understanding of our supply. More about that soon.
Please share your comments on this topic and tell me about other Ivins issues I have not addressed in recent posts. Email me at Mike@MikeScott4Ivins.com.
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