Opinion: Downtown New Development Soaks Up Water from Others is an Urban Myth

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At the Pasadena City Council public hearing on increased water rates held on June 8, Mayor Bill Bogaard and Councilman Steve Madison questioned if the city should immediately enact a moratorium or impose water rate mitigation fees on all new real estate development to avoid or offset new imported water rate penalties imposed by the MWD. New Councilman and former Planning Department Director Terry Tornek believed it was hypocritical for Paul Little, President of the Chamber of Commerce, to advocate new office development and at the same time oppose the City’s proposed water rate increases.

Outraged residents asked why they should be coerced to conserve water and pay higher water rates purportedly so there is sufficient water supply for new development.

But the above public perceptions do not reflect reality. All of the above sentiments seem based on an urban myth that new development is soaking up our limited water supply. A careful look at Pasadena water use trends over the last ten years indicates that annual water use has been nearly flat in absolute terms – see approximate data below expressed in urban household water units (or one-half acre foot which is enough water for an urban household for one year).

YEAR HOUSEHOLD WATER UNITS
1999 (74,374 HH)
2000 (76,670 HH)
2001 (67,030 HH)
2002 (74,374 HH)
2003 (74,374 HH)
2004 (75,752 HH)
2005 (73,456 HH)
2006 (66,112 HH)
2007 (77,130 HH)
2008 (73,456 HH)
(Source: PWP – data is approximate)

The three year moving average over 10 years has gone from 72,691 to 72,233 household water units. If anything this indicates a slight drop in water use.

According to a spokesperson for the PWP, Pasadena has averaged a half percent growth rate per year in water use over the long term; or a 10% increase every 20 years. We are currently being asked to cut back 10% of our water use.

We forget that the prior uses of newer developed properties also probably used roughly equivalent amounts of water (e.g., Ambassador College). The current Water Department ten percent budget deficit is more likely a reflection of new development not yet generating water revenues sufficient to supplant the old development revenues due to the downturn in the real estate market.

Contrary to public perception, Pasadena needs to sell and lease-up all the unsold and vacant new housing units and office space in town as fast as possible to support the rate base of the Water Department which currently is described as financially “broke.” Enacting building moratoriums and water rate mitigation fees would only end up further eroding the water rate base and dry up our local economy. What would trigger MWD’s new imported water rate penalty prices is less availability of local groundwater not necessarily new real estate development.

While we can sympathize with the emotional reaction to the increased water rates given the City of Pasadena’s historic official opposition to solving the state’s imported water supply problem in the Sacramento Delta, sound water policy should not be based on counterproductive emotions or urban myths.

In the longer term, the best way to hold down water rate increases would be to ensure the replenishment of the cheap water from the Raymond Basin by sufficient return to the groundwater basin by irrigating landscaping, more efficient management of the City’s recharge basins (i.e., automated gate and value controls and desilting), adding new recharge basins or golf course replenishment lakes, and securing rights to excess spill water from Devil’s Gate Dam.

Where anti-development public perceptions are more accurate is that new “smart growth” transit-oriented “green” development does not replenish our cheap ground water resources on which Pasadena is 40% dependent.

Managing California’s “wettest drought” can be perceived as a water cup half empty or half full. I believe that Pasadena’s water cup is 90% full is the more accurate interpretation on which to base water rate policies. Punishing real estate development offers a typical convenient scapegoat but is counterproductive to managing California’s “wettest drought.”