The realities of using water policy to manage growth - post-Prop 207

This is a topic that I have been looking at sporadically since I completed a research project on it for a class in law school. First some background - Prop. 207, the private property rights initiative passed by Arizona voters in 2006 limited the ability of local jurisdictions to implement new regulations that would restrict development of property. When the value of property is diminished by such regulation, the property owner has a right to be compensated for that decrease in value. The important catch (for my purposes here) is that the property owner must have vested rights to develop the property in a certain way before the regulation is implemented. In the past, most developers secured water supplies for their developments after getting approvals from zoning boards, county supervisors, etc. where a change to the comprehensive plan or existing zoning was necessary. That meant the development was pretty much a done deal by the time the developer put plans in place to secure water supplies. Therefore, the development was entitled to have the necessary water regardless of what that meant for other water users.

Recent changes to land use policies in many areas have created requirements that developers submit details on the proposed water use associated with a development prior to obtaining necessary land use approvals. This allows local government to either deny approval to development that would have a deleterious impact on water supplies, or (more likely) to impose certain requirements on the developer - i.e. conservation, water use limitations, water recycling requirements. This is the sort of policy that Pima County recently included in an amendment to their comprehensive plan. Not only does this policy give the county more of a say in the type of development that occurs, where it occurs, and how much water it will use. Perhaps more importantly, it places the water supply analysis before any land use approvals, which prevents the developer from obtaining vested development rights, thereby avoiding the risk of any takings claims (pursuant to Prop. 207) against the county.

This is a very significant development in the creation of sensible land use policies that provide necessary links to water use policies that had been lacking for far too many years. And in my opinion it's more than a little ironic that the policy was likely developed (at least partially) in response to a voter initiative intended to protect the rights of private property owners and limit the ability of governments to impose limits on the ability of property owners to develop their land as they wish. For that reason alone, Prop. 207 may have been a good thing.

City/county water study committee update

This week's meeting is tomorrow, Oct. 15, at the Manning House at 6:00 pm. The topic is possible additional water supplies for the region. I've expressed my feelings on this issue previously - see my 9/10/08 posting.
But it's still a useful topic to consider - if only to show that additional water supplies will be difficult to obtain and expensive in the future.

City/county water study committee update

next meeting - Wed. 10/8/08 at 6 PM at the Manning House in downtown Tucson.
Topic for discussion will be city and county water conservation programs.

Principles of Sound Water Management - courtesy of the City of Peoria

I recently returned from the Arizona Hydrological Society Annual Symposium in Flagstaff where I heard one presentation of note that I wanted to talk about here. Bradley Hill - currently with the city of Flagstaff - talked about his recent work in Peoria, where they developed several policies for managing the water resources of the city. The policy that he covered in his presentation involved a rather unique (to me at least) method for linking land use and water supplies. If you are interested in the document that lays this out it can be found on Peoria's website at: http://www.peoriaaz.com/utilities/Docs/PrinciplesSoundWaterManagement.pdf

The general gist of the document is the establishment of a metric for analyzing changes to land use in the city that looks at how much water use would increase on the parcel by changing the land use, then calculating the increased value to the city (in terms of tax revenue, jobs, etc.) from the land use change. These numbers are used to measure the $ value/gallon of increased water usage for the change. It's a way of objectively valuing new development and its impact on water supplies. It's probably not perfect, but is something that should be looked at and refined in other places to develop a highly valuable policy tool for ensuring that the most value is obtained from new development when it alters water use patterns.