New Water Law Is Unlikely to Halt the Region’s Planned Home Projects

Got water?

That, in short, is the question behind California’s new law requiring developers of large housing projects to prove they have enough water before they build.

In Los Angeles County, the stricter standard could affect at least five planned developments, including the 21,600-home Newhall Ranch in Santa Clarita Valley and a 4,000-home suburb envisioned for the rolling cattle country of Tejon Ranch near the Kern County line.

The law, which applies to developments of 500 homes and up, could also affect dozens of subdivisions statewide, from the 2,700 units planned for San Diego’s Black Mountain Ranch to the 8,000 homes proposed in Placer County.

But the water requirement is unlikely to halt those projects even during droughts, both sides in the development debate say. That’s because developers are already wrangling deals to buy extra water for their subdivisions, arrangements that environmentalists warn may overstate future supplies.

The hard-learned lesson of Newhall Ranch helped to turn the tide toward more meticulous water planning. After neighboring Ventura County sued over potential threats to ground-water supplies and wildlife habitats, a judge blocked construction last year until Newhall Land & Farming Co. proved it would have enough water to support the community in dry seasons.

Many developers took the ruling as a wake-up call that courts were prepared to demand specific water commitments for new projects.

“I think everyone’s going to have to come in with access to substantially more [water] supplies than they will need,” said Dennis Mullins, general counsel for Tejon Ranch. “It’s like building a stool with six legs. You could knock out a couple legs and it would still stand.”

But getting water isn’t as simple as twisting open a spigot on the California Aqueduct. If Newhall is any guide, developers will look everywhere--underground aquifers, creeks, far-flung water agencies, storage banks and reclamation plants--for the billions of gallons needed to supply future faucets.

“They’re going to be very creative,” said Glenn Farrel, a lobbyist for the Oakland-based East Bay Municipal Utility District, a water provider in Alameda and Contra Costa counties that pushed for the new law. “They have to be.”

In Newhall Ranch’s case, the developer is trying to meet a projected demand of more than 5.7 billion gallons of water per year. Newhall Ranch hopes to bolster aquifer supplies with overflow from Castaic Creek and water from Kern County suppliers and the Castaic Lake Water Agency. It would save for dry days by injecting water into underground banks. The development also includes a water reclamation plant that would recycle waste water for lawns and golf courses.

The new law, signed Oct. 9 by Gov. Gray Davis, bans cities and counties from issuing construction permits until the local water agency shows it can serve the new community for at least 20 years. It helps ensure that villages sprouting across California won’t suck water away from existing customers, especially during drought years.

State Sen. Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica), who sponsored the legislation, SB 221, said it will spare developers costly legal battles such as the one that stalled Newhall Ranch. The governor also signed a companion bill by state Sen. Jim Costa (D-Fresno) requiring cities to consult water providers in the early stages of development planning.

“It’s not a bad thing for developers,” Kuehl said. “It forces them to make sure they have a legal right to a sufficient water supply, so [they] wouldn’t be in court for years and years and years saying, ‘Well, we have enough for one drought year,’ and the judge saying, ‘No, you don’t.’ ” Local projects that must comply with the rule include Playa Vista near Marina del Rey, a residential and commercial community awaiting approval for up to 13,000 more homes, and Ahmanson Ranch, a 3,050-home project planned along the Los Angeles-Ventura county line.

To soften building industry opposition to the bill, Kuehl changed the size of affected developments from 200 units to 500. She allowed builders to count water-saving measures, such as using low-flow toilets, as part of their supply plans.

The law’s main weakness, environmentalists say, is that it does not prevent water providers from overestimating supplies. Some agencies base projections on how much they are entitled to from the State Water Project. But the state often cannot deliver the full amount requested.

The law “will be absolutely no help to us in the Santa Clarita Valley,” said Lynne Plambeck, an environmental advocate who sits on the board of the Newhall County Water District. She said water providers have vastly overstated their supplies, triggering a lawsuit by environmental groups.

The debate highlights a key element of water politics: the difficulty of precisely gauging how much water will be available at a given time.

“If you have anti-development water districts, they can manipulate the findings to say they don’t have enough water,” said Mullins of Tejon Ranch. “And if you have development-friendly water districts, they’ll say they do have enough.”

Others say the law is superfluous. Ahmanson Ranch, for example, already has a contract with Calleguas Municipal Water District to buy almost twice the water that the project will need, said Tim McGarry, a spokesman for the developer.

“It’s kind of a dumb requirement,” said Dennis Hawkins, the Ventura County senior planner overseeing Ahmanson. “I think the existing laws address [water supplies] just fine. This is just another piece of paper we’ll have to put in the file saying, yep, we have enough water for 20 years.”

State lawmakers have tried for many years to tie land-use planning more closely to water supplies, but the results have been spotty. A 1995 law requiring large developers to show they had sufficient water was largely ignored, according to a study by the East Bay Municipal Utility District. It took 10 years to get the rule passed.

Even with the extra precautions in place, some can still imagine another way around the law. As Los Angeles County planner Lee Stark predicted: “We’re going to get lots of 499-lot subdivisions.”

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Homes Ahead

California’s new law requiring developers to show they have enough water before they build large housing projects could affect dozens of projects statewide. Here are some of the planned subdivisions:

* Newhall Ranch, Los Angeles County, 21,600 homes

* Villages of Laguna San Luis, Merced County, 14,000 homes

* Playa Vista, Los Angeles, 13,000 homes

* West Roseville Specific Plan, Roseville, 8,000 homes

* Santa Nella, Merced County, 6,000 homes

* Oak Valley, Riverside County, 4,367 homes

* Tejon Ranch, Los Angeles County, 4,000 homes

* Ahmanson Ranch, Ventura County, 3,050 homes

* Black Mountain Ranch, San Diego, 2,700 homes

* Pacific Highlands Ranch, San Diego, 1,100 homes

* Golden Valley Ranch, Los Angeles County, 634 homes

* Oakmont Phase V, Glendale, 520 homes