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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2387 Process for Reservation of Water Service for Property Owners Located within Utilities Outside of City Service AreaORDINANCE NO. AN ORDINANCE ESTABLISHING A PROCESS FOR RESERVATION OF WATER SERVICE BY PROPERTY OWNERS FROM THE CITY WATER UTILITY FOR AREAS LOCATED WITHIN THE UTILITY'S OUTSIDE OF CITY SERVICE AREA AND PROHIBITING THE ESTABLISHMENT OF ADDITIONAL IRRIGATION TAPS IN THAT AREA AND ESTABLISHING AN EFFECTIVE DATE OF JANUARY 1, 1994. WHEREAS, the City of Port Townsend provides surplus water through its water department to areas outside the boundaries of the City; and WHEREAS, the statutes allow cities to provide only surplus water to areas outside of a city's jurisdictional boundaries; and WHEREAS, RCW 58.17 requires that proof of water availability be established prior to the approval of a preliminary plat, and Jefferson County requires proof of water availability prior to granting approval of various permit applications; and WHEREAS, the City of Port Townsend, by contract with the POrt Townsend Paper Company, has use of only up to five million gallons per day of surface water supply; and WHEREAS, the City of Port Townsend is defined as an Urban Growth Area under the State Growth Management Act and, as such, will ultimately require water supplies in excess of seven million gallons per day; and WHEREAS, the combined output of City water facilities from both surface and ground water sources available for areas outside the City in the Tri-Area is presently around 1.3 million gallons of water per day; and WHEREAS, it has become apparent that present water demands in the Tri-Area at some critical times may exceed the currently available 1.3 million gallons per day and periodic emergency conservation measures have been imposed; and WHEREAS, the City presently believes that improvements called for in the Capital Improvement Program to both the surface water and ground water facilities will increase availability of excess water to a maximum of 1.8 million gallons per day; and WHEREAS, present growth rates indicate that the likely population in the Tri-Area will demand more than 1.8 lnillion gallons per day of water within the next five to seven years; and WHEREAS, requests for water service already exist or can reasonably be anticipated which could exceed the 1.8 million gallon per day level if all were pursued and fully developed; and ordinans\prccomm.doc 1 WHEREAS, the City has existing contractual obligations with PUD No. 1 Indian Island Naval Station, Fort Flagler, and other private individuals to provide a substantial, and in some cases as yet undetermined, amount of water to areas outside the City limits; and WHEREAS, the City is not likely to have the capability to acquire additional surface water supply and is limited by contract with the Port Townsend Paper Company with respect to how much surface water can be routed to the Tri-Area; and WHEREAS, ground water rights are limited by water rights and developed capacity, and additional ground water resources are uncertain and may be prohibitively expensive to develop; and WHEREAS, outside of City service area water precommitments have previously been given out with little evaluation as to water availability and capital requirements; and WHEREAS, there is currently no charge for a water precommitment and the City has costs entailed in reserving a sufficient water amount for each precommitment; and WHEREAS, the City must avoid over committing future water services to protect the ability to provide reliable service to its existing customers and to avoid misleading the public with respect to the ability of the City to provide such water supply; and WHEREAS, the City believes it is in the public interest to establish an orderly process for temporary reservations of water service by the City and to establish a process which will only commit amounts the City is reliably able to supply and which will protect existing customers and avoid the speculative reservation of water capacity without regard to an actual commitment to develop in the near future; NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT ORDAINED BY THE CITY COUNCIL FOR THE CITY OF PORT TOWNSEND: Section 1. That a new Chapter 13.14 is hereby added to the Port Townsend Municipal Code to read as follows: WATER SERVICE AND RESERVATION SYSTEM OUTSIDE OF CITY 13.14.010 Purpose. This Chapter is intended to provide an orderly system for commitments to provide water supply to property owners located within the water utility's outside of city service area. It is the intention of this Chapter that a system of water reservation be established which will provide certainty regarding water service to those who are ready to use it at or near the time they obtain a reservation or commitment for service, from the water utility while at the same time preserving the ability of the water utility to provide reliable service to its existing customers. This system is necessary to allow those who have partially developed properties adjacent to existing water infrastructure to have an opportunity in future years to ordinans\precomm.doc 2 obtain water supply and to avoid all future commitments being reserved for large vacant parcels at a pace greatly exceeding actual rates of growth and development in the outside of city service This Chapter is further intended to provide a system for commitments to provide water supply to be perfected by actually paying all charges under this ordinance and other ordinances of the city related to connection, establishing service and continuing service at the address receiving the temporary commitment. Payment of these charges is intended to allow the city to have the funds in hand necessary to complete major improvements to the water system, such as providing increased storage capacity, upgrading the sizes of existing main lines and other system-wide improvements necessary to accommodate growth concurrently with the actual need for service and to create a disincentive to speculative reservations of water in advance of actual development of the property and need for the water service. Due to the limited supply of city water and the fact that water supply would soon be over committed if speculative reservations of water are allowed to occur and continue in significant numbers, the process established hereunder also provides for relinquishing of the temporary commitment to provide supply if the water is not actually beneficially used within a reasonable period of time. 13.14.020 Application for Water Reservation and Preparation of Design Manual. An application for water reservation shall be provided on forms established by the Director of Public Works. The Director of Public Works shall require a fee to be charged in the amount established under Chapter 3.36 to allow processing of such applications. Applications shall, at a minimum, require that a legal description and address of the property to be served be provided, that the proposed use of the property be identified, that the proposed timing of development be identified and that a property map identifying the property to be served be provided at a scale and dimension specified by the Director of Public Works. An application for a water reservation shall not be accepted unless it can be established that an application for preliminary plat, final plat, a discretionary land use permit, or a building permit has been filed and is being pursued concurrently with the application for water reservation. No new taps for irrigation purposes only shall be granted in the outside of City service area after the effective date of this Chapter. The Director of Public Works may require that a fully engineered plan to provide service be prepared by a civil engineer licensed in the State of Washington as part of the application when, in the Director's judgement, such a plan is necessary to determine the amount of water which is to be temporarily reserved and/or it is necessary to allow the proposed water system to be integrated into the existing city water supply system. The Director of Public Works may establish such other requirements for applications and system design as are reasonably necessary to determine the amount of water to be reserved or to insure proper design of the system. Such requirements may include the design and implementation of reasonable water conservation measures. The application requirements and system design requirements for water systems may be presented in a development manual prepared by the Public Works Director and adopted by the City Council. The contents of such a design manual are hereby adopted by reference. Copies of the design manual, when such a manual is adopted, shall be made available to the public at a reasonable charge at City Hall and at the Department of Public Works. ordinans\preconun.doc 3 13.14.030 Reservations Within Adopted Service Area Only. The Director of Public Works may only allow reservations of water service within the service area established by the city through the Coordinated Water System Plan (CWSP) designation process. The City Council may, however, on an emergency basis, either reduce the service area specified in the CWSP or halt the reservation of future water supply where failure to do so would result in over- commitment of the available supply in advance of capital facility construction necessary to provide the supply, or where the system will be unable to provide a reliable supply of water to existing customers or those who have already made temporary reservations of water supply. The emergency modification of the service area or the halting of reservation of water supply shall be established by Resolution of the City Council consistent with the provisions of this Chapter. An exception to the above requirement may be granted by the Director of Public Works under the following circumstances: (I) where the additional connection would result in a desirable looping of the water main system which would otherwise not occur and (2) where there has been a prior, legally binding commitment made to provide service by the City. 13.14.040 Reservation Requires .Water Actually Be Available. A water reservation may only be granted where there will be sufficient water supply actually available and concurrently available for the commitment being given. Water supply shall be considered sufficient only when the amount of water actually available is sufficient to reliably meet the needs of existing customers of the city, the amounts identified in wholesale contracts committed to by the City and any other valid contracts or commitments of the City regarding water supply which are in existence at the time the reservation is applied for. A request for water reservation shall be denied if there is not sufficient water supply available or if there is no specific, funded capital improvement identified in a capital facilities or capital improvement plan which would make sufficient water supply available concurrently with the development proposed in the reservation request. Concurrency shall be defined for purposes of this Ordinance in the same manner as it is defined in the Washington State Growth Management Act at RCW 36.70A.070 and any City of Port Townsend Ordinances regarding growth management which further refine the definition of concurrency in the Growth Management Act. Where requests for reservation of water are being denied because water is no longer available, a list shall be kept by the Director of Public Works which identifies owners requesting water reservations or water connections in the order in which such requests are received. Should additional water become available and the applicant wishes to have the application be reconsidered, applications shall be considered in the order received on the list kept by the Director. Should a reservation be denied by the City, the property owner is then free to approach the satellite system management agency established under the Coordinated Water System Plan to seek alternate water service. If water service is provided by an alternate purveyor, the applicant shall be removed from the City water utility's prioritization list. ordinans\preconun.doc 4 13.14.050 Conditions of Approval Regarding Reservations. The DirectOr of Public Works shall have the authority to impose conditions of approval regarding the issuance of a water reservation under this Chapter. Such conditions of approval may include conditions regarding phasing or timing of development to insure that capital improvements necessary to provide reliable water supply concurrently with the proposed development to be undertaken are completed; that the reservation be tied to a specific project as proposed; that the amount of water reserved be limited; that the water reserved be specifically limited to a certain number of Equivalent Residential Units as that term is defined in Chapter 13.26 of the Port Townsend Municipal Code; that certain on or off-site improvements be made by the applicant or property owner to allow system connections to be properly made; that reasonable and appropriate water conservation measures be implemented in the development of property to prevent the waste of water; and that any other reasonably necessary measures be taken to insure that the development is consistent with sound water use and development policies and practices. 13.14.060 Payment of Certain Fees Required For Issuance of Water Reservation; Refunds. No water reservation shall be issued or be deemed valid until the following fees, set forth more fully in Chapter 3.36, are paid: mo Water reservation application fee. Water tap fee for all taps to be developed or reserved. System Development Charges (SDC) for each equivalent residential unit being proposed. All other charges and fees identified in Chapter 3.36 necessary to establish water service. After the tap is installed, all monthly charges and user fees shall be payable whether the tap is in use or not. The water tap fee, System Development Charges and unexpended service fees other than the water reservation application fee shall be refunded in full to the applicant if the water reservation application is denied because the property is outside the city's service area boundaries or because water is unavailable, unless the applicant opts to stay on a waiting list for availability of water, in which case, all fees shall be retained. A proportional refund of charges other than the water reservation fee shall be made where the number of services or Equivalent Residential Units (ERU) is reduced after payment of an initial fee based on a higher ERU. If the ERU's are increased, a higher fee shall be assessed for the additional ERU's before water service may be established or a reservation for the additional ERU's may be granted. 13.14.070 Life of Water Reservation; Extension. A water reservation shall be perfected when actual installation of the tap or taps involved is completed. A water reservation shall be valid for a period of one year and shall expire unless installation of the tap occurs within that period or an extension of the reservation is granted. Upon payment of a fee established in Chapter 3.36, a water reservation may be extended for a ordinans\precomm.doc 5 single additional one-year period where it is established that permit applications for development of the property have not been issued due to no fault of the applicant for reasons such as preparation of an environmental impact statement, additional public processing or requests for further analysis or information from the permitting agency. 13.14.080 Relinquishment of Water Reservation. The holder of a water reservation may relinquish the fight to receive the water reserved prior to installation of the actual taps. If the water reservation is relinquished prior to installation of the taps, refund of System Development Charges shall be made based upon the following schedule: Relinquishment Date Refund Percentage Within One Year Within Two Years 90% of SDC 70% of SDC 13.14.090 Appeals of Administrative Decisions to City Council. An applicant for a water reservation may appeal any decision of the Public Works Director to deny or condition a water reservation or deny extension of a water reservation to the City Council under the procedures set forth below. An appeal of the decision of the Director shall be filed with the office of the Public Works Director within fourteen days after issuance of the decision. The appeal shall be made in writing and must set forth the facts that establish the appellant's fight to appeal and must contain a brief statement identifying the specific objections and exceptions to the decision being appealed and identifying any specific errors in the decision and any other information reasonably necessary to make a decision on the appeal. There is an appeal filing fee in the amount specified in Chapter 3.36 for City Council appeals of decisions of the Director of Public Works. The Director of Public Works shall transmit the statement of appeal to the City Council which shall schedule a hearing on the appeal and cause notice of the hearing to be mailed to the applicant no later than ten (10) days prior to the date of the heating. After the hearing, the City Council shall consider the record of decision of the Director, together with any and all information relied upon by the Director in making the decision. The City Council shall also consider the testimony given at the hearing and any other written submissions made at or prior to the appeal hearing. Following the heating, the City Council shall make its decision either affirming, reversing or modifying the decision of the Director and the City Council shall enter finding of fact and conclusions regarding its decision. 13.14.100 Limitation on Actions. Any decision, finding, ruling, determination or binding recommendation of the Director of Public Works or the City Council made pursuant to this ordimms\preeomm.doe 6 Chapter shall be final on the date such decision is made in writing and no action to set aside or modify the same shall be brought in the Superior Court or other tribunal unless the action shall be filed within thirty (30) days from the date of such decision, finding, ruling, determination or binding recommendation. Section 2. Severability. In the event any one or more of the provisions of this Ordinance shall for any reason be held invalid, such invalidity shall not affect or invalidate any other provision of this Ordinance, but this Ordinance shall be construed and enforced as if such invalid provision had not been contained therein; provided, that any provision which shall for any reason be held by reason of its extent to be invalid shall be deemed to be in effect to the extent permitted by law. Section 3. Effective Date. This Ordinance shall become effective on January 1, 1994, after its passage and publication as required by law. Read for the first time on 13t, c.4z~0~& ~O~ /79.~, and for the second and third times and passed by the City Council of the City of Port ¥ownsend at a regular meeting thereof, held this ~ot~ day of /~(p~/~ , 19 ~Y M. Clise, Mayor !pproved as to form: Attest: David Grove, Clerk/Treasurer Dennis McLerran, City Attorney ordinans\preco~mll.doe