Developers May Face Higher Water Fees

A plan to hike water-connection fees for property developers will be considered today by the Calleguas Municipal Water District.

The plan, to be considered at a 7:30 p.m. public hearing at the water district headquarters at 2100 Olsen Road in Thousand Oaks, would raise the onetime fee charged to developers by as much as $5,580 an acre for commercial property and $208 for a single-family home.

Don Kendall, general manager for Calleguas, said he did not expect major opposition to the fee hike. “I think the public sentiment is that new growth needs to pay its fair share,” he said.

Kendall said he expects the board to vote on the fee hike today.

But some developers last week were not happy with the proposal.

“All we need is another hike in fees,” said Ernest Mamsi, president of KNM Development Co. in Oxnard, which builds luxury homes in the Santa Rosa Valley. “It just makes it more difficult to sell homes.”

Eric Bergh, an advanced planning administrator for Calleguas, said the $50 million raised over the next 10 years from the increase would help fund $167 million in capital-improvement projects for the district.

According to the plan, developers would pay $1,158 instead of $950 to bring a single-family home into the system. For multiple residential units, the fee would go from $595 to $927. Commercial projects would pay $8,930 an acre instead of $3,350, and public projects would pay $4,476 an acre instead of $1,802.