Water Package Holds High Importance to Builders
The comprehensive water package passed recently signed into law by Gov. Schwarzenegger should be viewed for what it is: A major achievement by a Legislature that has been widely criticized for doing little to address many of the pressing social and economic problems confronting California today.
After years of talking -- and little else – about the state’s chronic lack of investment in its water supply infrastructure and the dire implications of standing by as the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta engaged a decades-long “March of the Penguins” toward decline, the Legislature and the Governor should be applauded for getting it right.
Now the question is: Will California voters get it right when they go to the polls on Nov. 2, 2010? If you are a California homebuilder or are employed by a California homebuilder or rely in one way or another on the substantial economic benefits of new housing, then you should hope they do.
The importance of the $11.1 billion comprehensive water package to California’s homebuilding industry is considerable. Water is the lifeblood of everything we do; without it there is no prosperity, there is no building. In California there has always been a link between land use and water supply. Within the last decade though, there has been an increased emphasis on demonstrating water supply security for new development.
Early this decade, two bills designed to draw a tighter connection between water supply and land use planning were enacted. Senate Bill 610 requires retail water agencies to prepare a water supply assessment as part of the CEQA review of larger-scale (500 units or more) projects. Senate Bill 221 requires retail water agencies to provide written verification of the availability of a sufficient supply of water as a condition of tentative map approval for those same-scale projects.
The Legislature enacted both planning bills partially as a response to the infrastructure-investment vacuum it itself created.
As California moved away from financing and relying on storage options such as dams and reservoirs and as imported supplies from major sources such as the State Water Project and the Colorado River became less and less predictable, local water agencies began developing a more diversified and sophisticated portfolio of supplemental supplies to ensure water reliability. From water transfers to local groundwater supplies to off-stream storage to reclamation, conservation and conjunctive use, local water agencies by default have become the frontline planner and developer of new water supplies.
Importantly, the comprehensive water package provides billions for public benefits associated with water storage, for integrated regional water management projects up and down the state, for local and regional conveyance projects, for groundwater clean-up projects and for near-term drought relief projects.
All of these portfolios of supplemental water supply sources are absolutely essential in order to meet the requirements of Senate Bills 610 and 221 and to ensure that the water needs of a growing and prospering California are met in the years ahead.
As the state’s frontline urban water suppliers go about the business of updating their Urban Water Management Plans, homebuilders and their allies need to pay close attention to make sure they do it right. Those plans serve as the basis for identifying all local water supply projects, are relied upon in preparing water supply assessments and verifications, and, importantly, put local agencies in line to receive a portion of funds from the $11.1 billion water bond.
Ensuring that the voting public fully understands the importance of the water bond to our state’s long-term economic prosperity and keeping a close eye on local water agencies as they prepare their urban water management plans should be a high priority for homebuilders in 2010.
