Las Virgenes Water District Votes to Refuse New Customers : Drought: Faced with a mandatory cutback order, the board will serve only existing users and those who received commitments before Monday.

The Las Virgenes Municipal Water District will try to survive the drought by refusing to accept new customers, casting doubt on the fate of many proposed developments in the southwestern San Fernando Valley.

Faced with a mandatory 17% cutback ordered by the Metropolitan Water District, which provides the local utility’s entire supply, Las Virgenes directors voted Monday night to provide water only to existing customers and new ones who received commitments before Monday.

The emergency regulation will remain in effect at least until the drought eases, Diane Eaton, a spokeswoman for the district, said. Directors also indicated that even those commitments could be jeopardized if conditions do not improve. “It may be that if we do not receive any additional snowfall, we may not be able to honor what we have already honored,” Eaton said.

The district serves 17,000 residential and commercial customers in Agoura Hills, Hidden Hills and Westlake Village and unincorporated areas that include Calabasas and Agoura.

The district has never taken such action, but moratoriums on new hookups have been imposed in other communities such as Santa Barbara and Goleta.

About 4,500 new residences and commercial spaces are proposed within the district, Eaton said. She said she did not know how many of those projects would be affected.

The district is obligated to provide new hookups to developers who have already paid water fees or have vested water rights. Vested rights can be established through building permits or development agreements with other government agencies that were signed by Monday.

Eaton and developers and homeowners said Tuesday there is no way to predict the measure’s effect on the region since it will depend largely on how long the drought persists. “Everybody is going to have to be on standby to see what Mother Nature is going to do,” she said.

Dave Brown, vice president of the Las Virgenes Homeowners Federation, called the measure “a sign of the times.”

“Southern California has a limited carrying capacity for people,” he said. “At some point we have to realize that there are limits.”

For years, homeowners in the area have sought tighter growth controls, contending that county officials were approving new developments without heed for the utility’s ability to serve them.

In the face of the current crisis, Eaton said, an “extremely strong step” was necessary. “We just don’t have water for people who aren’t currently here,” she said.

The district’s reservoir in the hills behind Westlake Village is only half full. Even in 1977, the last drought year that forced mandatory water rationing in Southern California, the district’s reserves never fell that low.

“We are in trouble,” she said. “There is no water.”

Some developers on Tuesday said they were struggling to determine whether they will have access to the system. Others complained that the district’s definition of vested rights was too limiting, and that they could lose a lot of money that they had already invested in land improvements.

Eaton said individual developers could appeal their cases to the district.

In addition to restricting hookups, the district has imposed mandatory water rationing on all customers. Residents and businesses will be expected to reduce water usage by 17% of their 1990 levels, unless they already use less than the base allotment set by the district.

The rationing plan has been criticized by some area residents who say the plan, by using 1990 as the base year, penalizes people who worked hard to save water at a time when the district was stressing voluntary conservation.