Santa Clarita Builders May Face Water Fees

Another fee on new homes has been proposed in the fast-growing Santa Clarita Valley--this time for water.

Officials of the Castaic Lake Water Agency announced Wednesday that they are considering levying water-service connection fees on developers ranging from $725 to $1,015 per housing unit beginning Sept. 1. About $3.5 million would be realized from the fees each year, helping to pay for an ambitious plan to ensure that the water supply keeps pace with development, agency General Manager Robert C. Sagehorn said.

Sagehorn said he wants to keep the agency out of disputes over approval of housing proposals.

“We don’t want this water agency to become the focus of land-use planning,” he said. “Our goal is to keep the supplies adequate to meet the demand.”

Los Angeles County planners predict that the area’s population will increase from its present 110,000 to 270,000 by the year 2010. At that rate of growth, Sagehorn said, the Santa Clarita Valley could run out of water by 1991 without having the ability to increase the supply.

By 2010, according to planners’ predictions, 115,000 acre feet of water will be needed each year. Without the agency’s plan, financed by the fees, delivery of only 52,000 acre feet is assured, Sagehorn said.

The plan includes development of underground water-storage facilities, implementation of a water-reclamation program, installation of miles of pipelines and the expansion of the agency’s existing facilities. The cost will be about $200 million, Sagehorn said.

Developers, who already pay fees for roads, sewers and schools, have not taken a stand on the proposal.

“We’re studying their plan,” said Richard Wirth, spokesman for the Building Industry Assn. of Southern California. “There may be alternative ways of financing it.”

A so-called standby fee on undeveloped land has also been proposed to pay for water, but it would not be collected during the 1987-88 fiscal year, Sagehorn said. No amount has been set as yet for that fee, but agency board members have discussed charges of $5 to $20 an acre per year.

A newsletter explaining the agency’s water plan and the proposed fees was mailed this week to 40,000 homes in the area, Sagehorn said. Included with the newsletter was an invitation to a public hearing on the fees, scheduled for 7:30 p.m. July 21 at William S. Hart High School.

Agency board members expect to make a decision on the fees the day after the hearing, board President Jerry Gladbach said.

The financing plan stems from a bill passed by the state Legislature last year, which authorized the agency to buy surplus state water and levy water-connection and other fees. The agency now raises funds only through property taxes.

Already under way is a $2.3-million project to add four new filters to double the capacity of the agency’s water-treatment plant near Castaic Lake. When the project is completed by the end of the summer, the plant will be able to filter 25 million gallons of water--about eight acre feet--per day, Sagehorn said.

Future supplies also are dependent on the agency’s ability to buy and deliver more water from the State Water Project to the area’s four local purveyors--the privately owned Santa Clarita and Valencia water companies and two public agencies, the Newhall County Water District and the Los Angeles County Water Works District No. 36.

Under its 1962 charter, the agency is entitled to purchase 41,500 acre feet of water from the state each year. But, until the State Water Project is completed, the agency can be sure of obtaining only 25,000 acre feet annually, Sagehorn said.

The agency now supplies about a third of the water used by Santa Clarita Valley residents. The additional 32,000 acre feet is provided from groundwater pumped by the area’s four water companies and agencies.

It is impossible to draw a greater amount from the groundwater, however, without lowering the water table to unsafe levels, Sagehorn said. As a result, he said, about two-thirds of the area’s water eventually will have to be provided by the water agency from the State Water Project.

The proposal calls for fees on new homes to vary in each of the Santa Clarita Valley’s four water-service areas, based on the amount of water each area buys from the agency. The fee in the Los Angeles County district, which relies totally on the agency for its water, is the highest, at $1,015.

Fees in other areas are proposed at $725 in the area served by the Valencia company, $960 in the Santa Clarita company’s area and $874 in the Newhall area.

The agency’s operations are financed from property taxes averaging $100 a year per household. Agency officials said those taxes will not be increased to help finance the water plan.