County Issue Growth Control During the...

Dee C. Boysen, Greater L.A./Ventura Region Building Industry Assn.

The cities and the county are already substantially restricting development, as compared to other areas in the state, with their existing growth-control policies. If you couple those controls with the current economic recession that our industry is experiencing, you realize that really we’re producing substantially fewer homes. I think the building industry is prepared to make sacrifices by producing a more water-efficient product. Unlike restrictions being imposed on other industries, a moratorium would completely shut down the construction industry. It would make it impossible for us to help shoulder the burden of providing water resources for the future, not to mention the financing for our parks, schools, roads, sewers, etc., which the cities currently rely on us to provide. You can create more problems by taking drastic, short-term measures. We’re going to need water and shelter in the future to accommodate California’s growing population.

Manuel M. Lopez, Oxnard City Council member

I don’t believe so. I think we have a lot of ways to control growth. Probably the main one is economic. Our building permits are way down and I believe with the recession there probably will not be any need for a moratorium. However, we are studying the issue further. We are looking to require developers to retrofit existing developments so it will free up capacity, so any new growth will be taken care of by water savings in existing developments. In other words, if you have a new development of 40 homes, the developers would be required to retrofit an existing development or property, like a school, with toilets and faucets that use less water as a condition of development. That is what I would support. A blanket “no development” policy is not a wise course to take, I think. What we’re doing as a community, imposing water rationing, is helping. Oxnard is the lowest water-using community in the county. We use less water per capita than Thousand Oaks. If we were going to be fair, other communities should take more of a hit than we do.

Maggie Erickson Kildee, Chairwoman, Ventura County Board of Supervisors

There is no doubt that we are in a very serious water situation and we’re finding ourselves faced with more and more strict rationing programs. In order for the county to issue any kind of a building permit, it is always necessary to be sure that water is available. We require a letter from the supplier for that particular permit, indicating that water is available. So the county depends on the water purveyors to tell us whether or not water would be available for that particular permit. At this point, it appears that the water purveyors are still telling us that in spite of the drought, the long-term situation allows them to continue to issue those “will serve” letters. I believe that it is the responsibility of all of us as individuals to continue to do the very best that we can in terms of conserving the water that we use now to get us through this very difficult time. The information that I have seems to be that we’re dealing with a short-term, albeit very difficult, water shortage. It is always tempting to make long-term decisions based on short-term information.

Carla M. Bard, Member, Environmental Coalition & Ventura County Water Task Force

Rather than calling for a blanket building moratorium during the drought, I believe a more appropriate approach for now and the future, mindful of the precarious state of Ventura County’s economy, is this: the cities and Ventura county would allow some carefully selected development to proceed, if and only if new developments can find and pay for off-site retrofits or other water-conservation credits on homes and agriculture or business, achieving a savings of at least three times the water to be used by the new development. In this way, some managed growth can continue while achieving significant water savings. The city of Oxnard and the city of Ventura have proposed allowing some development to proceed by a simple exchange of water savings, i.e., retrofits and conversions to balance the water used by the new developments. In my opinion, this is not enough and will only cause an increased problem as this drought proceeds, or when a new one comes.

Stephen J. Rubenstein, President/CEO, Conejo Valley Chamber of Commerce

No. We tend to want to take care of the problem immediately when, if you look at how development takes place, it takes several years before one ever starts a project to get to the point where ground is broken and even longer to get up and going. Sometimes it takes three to five years. My feeling is we should allow the development permits to take place and if there is no water, it can’t be built anyway. What will happen is, if we disallow permits now, when it does rain, people will be trying to catch up and there will be an abundance of growth instead of the slow, organized growth we’re used to. One of the things I would suggest cities and counties do is to encourage developers to have more water-conserving buildings, and for the counties and cities themselves to begin looking at putting in catch basins and reservoirs for when it does rain. Developers could put water-saving devices within their developments--things like filtration systems for gray water. No, I wouldn’t stop development. I would get more creative and plan for the future.