Article: Marin Municipal Water District weighs developer mandates
Developers in central and southern Marin County could be required to pay tens of thousands of dollars in new fees or add water-saving upgrades to their projects under a proposal to reduce demand on water supplies.
After facing the potential of running out of water during the drought, the Marin Municipal Water District board is considering requiring future projects in its jurisdiction to have a net-zero demand on reservoirs.
While recent rains have eased concerns about the district’s water supply, board members say the drought has shown the need for new approaches for conservation, including for developments.
“Something we’re starting to see around the West is requiring that new connections not provide additional burdens onto strained water supply systems,” Cynthia Koehler, president of the district board, said on Tuesday.
“The basis of this is to have a sustainable way to accommodate new connections without having an impact on our current water supply,” board member Larry Russell said.
Critics said the proposal could drive up development costs for affordable housing projects that will already be water-efficient by design. They advocated that the board include an exemption for affordable housing projects.
“Land and labor costs are already very expensive in Marin,” Bob Pendoley, chairman of the Marin Environmental Housing Collaborative, told the board. “We’re concerned that these offset fees would be a real deal-killer for deed-restricted, low-income housing so badly needed in Marin.”
The district already has banned developers from installing landscaping that requires drinking water supplies until the drought emergency is past. The proposals discussed on Tuesday would implement a permanent change to future developments by requiring water they draw to be made up for either through fees or water efficiency upgrades, such as using recycled water.
Fee revenue could be used by the district to pay for water-saving projects such as turf replacement incentives, expansion of its recycled water system, leak detection improvements, wireless water meter installations and groundwater storage, according to Lucy Croy, the district water quality manager. Fees could be based on each additional acre-foot of yearly water demand.
The fees and water-saving requirements are used in place of an outright moratorium on new developments, Croy said, which some residents in Marin have called for.
Other communities such as Ventra, St. Helena, Cambria and Napa have adopted similar demand reduction requirements for developers in the last several decades.
District staff estimated the agency could see an additional 490 acre-feet of annual water demand based on known projects, including pending water connection applications and long-term developments still early in the process. The amount equates to about 1.7% of the district’s annual potable water demand in 2020 of about 28,200 acre-feet.
The district board plans to continue discussing the proposal and could adopt the new requirements in the coming months.
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