The City Council of Prescott is expected to vote on a proposal allowing owners of vacant lands that are not near a sewer line to connect to city water without having to connect to sewer. This applies to lots outside the city limits that are within the city’s water service area. The concept is a good one to consider, but as written the proposal is a totally one-sided deal. If the city decides to go ahead with a new policy which already was approved by the Water Issues Subcommittee, [Councilwomen Louis Fruhwirth dissenting], it should determine what would be a fair deal for the public as well as for the landowners. Unfortunately at this time, as has been the case in many past city decisions, it appears city staff has made no effort to ask for anything from the landowners in exchange for all that the landowners are asking from the city.
A typical home that doesn’t use much landscaping water is able to return over 70% of the used water into the sewer — water the city collects, recharges and reuses. We therefore lose about 30% of its supplied water. For homes that are not on sewer, we lose 100% rather than the normal 30%. Considering our aquifer continues to be depleted, recharge is extremely important as part of our area’s necessary future sustainability plan, in order for us to uphold our responsibility to assure Prescott will remain for future generations. So it doesn’t initially sound unrealistic to at least consider charging any new non-sewered homes a significant fee that would be reasonable and fair.
The city water service the landowners are asking for will increase the value of their properties by tens of thousands of dollars for each of their lots – maybe $50,000 for some desirable scenic lots. At the city’s Water Issues Subcommittee meeting of March 3, several residents of the affected areas as well as a couple of real estate agents commented that many of the lots are now worthless. And one president of a homeowners association even expressed concern that many owners would “walk away” from their lots – preferring to lose their lots to the HOA instead of paying the annual HOA fees.
At the same meeting, Brian Ruiz of the Water Resources Department said “it might make sense” for owners in certain areas of Granite Gardens to join together to set up a sewer improvement district, which would enable all of them to share the cost of extending sewer into their neighborhood. Yet the proposal which is headed to Council does not require sewer hookups, even those that are shown to be economically feasible. At the same meeting a real estate broker reported she represents a person who owns more than 45 lots in Granite Gardens. Considering it only takes a vote of the owners of the majority of lots in any area to establish a district, it may certainly be economically feasible for that one owner to establish a district for many of his lots. The district could also include other neighboring lots.
So what would be a fair policy for both the lot owners and the public? If certain landowners cannot feasibly set up a sewer improvement district to the lots then the city should require reasonable fees to be paid. Such fees could be in various forms. But one obvious method would be to require each landowner to pay a monthly in-lieu sewer fee. The amount of such an in-lieu fee will have to be determined, but it should be much higher than what the sewer fee is now. The current proposal does the exact opposite – it totally exempts the lots from the sewer fee, which would result in those owners paying only around half of what the average user pays for water and sewer.
City Council should withhold any vote on changing the policy until after they are able to determine an appropriate fee to be included. The landowners are asking us to give them a substantial part of our limited water portfolio, and asking us to forego the valuable effluent. So, considering that they will get a significant increase in their property values, they should be very willing to pay a reasonable fee. It’s only fair.
