MMWD adjusts water management plan for housing projections - Marin Independent Journal

MMWD adjusts water management plan for housing projections

The latest housing projections show nearly 11,500 new homes coming to the Marin Municipal Water District’s service area by 2030 as cities and towns race to meet state housing mandates, the utility reported.

The good thing is that the district is expected to be able to meet the new demand without triggering new supply efforts, staffers said. However, officials are recommending a change to the district’s water shortage contingency plan that would restrict golf course irrigation in drought or emergency conditions.

At a public hearing Tuesday, Paul Sellier, water resources director for the district, said the “stage three” contingency plan, enacted when there is a 30% shortage, does not do enough to encourage golf courses to conserve water. Stage three conditions happen about four times every 25 years, Sellier said.

A proposed revision presented to the board would cut golf course irrigation by 30% of the average of the past three non-drought years, or 30% of the site’s water allowance. The board decided to continue the public hearing on the matter until next month, directing staff to clean up the language.

“When we’re going to a public hearing we need to be saying what we mean and meaning what we say,” board member Larry Russell said, urging his colleagues to pause for now.

“I would like to see a simpler metric applied to this where we just ask golf courses to reduce by 30% of their maximum allowed water allowance,” board member Ranjiv Khush said. “To me it achieves the same thing. It’s a lot clearer for all of us.”

In addition to a rewrite of the proposal, board members said the district should continue to encourage or provide incentives for water conservation.

Dan Murray, president of the Meadow Club golf course in Fairfax, said the organization has invested in conservation efforts and that in drought conditions, hand watering is the most efficient.

“We want to continue to find ways to reduce water consumption and be more efficient,” Murray said, adding that the course’s professionals know when and where to water when the supply is short. “We urge you give us that flexibility as long as we don’t exceed our allocation.”

The public hearing Tuesday was to update the district’s urban water management plan, which was approved in 2021. The water shortage contingency plan is embedded within that document.

The original water management plan included population projections and expected water demand through 2045. Staff used housing allocations determined by the Association of Bay Area Governments, or ABAG, in 2018 to come up with its strategy.

At that time, ABAG’s regional housing needs allocation, or RHNA, called for 2,028 new homes in the district’s service area by 2030.

The most recent projections are much higher at 11,458 new homes for the same time period, prompting officials to update the plan.

The higher estimates came as Marin cities and towns finished their state-mandated eight-year housing plans, called housing elements. The documents require jurisdictions to demonstrate that they are doing their part to relieve the housing crisis and welcome the production of new homes.

Within the district today, 93% of homes are single-family residences, while 7% are multifamily residences such as apartment or condominium complexes.

According to the 2020 plan, water demand was projected to be about 26,915 acre-feet per year in the year 2045, Sellier said. Taking into account the new housing projections, that demand is expected to go up 8.1%, to 29,315 acre-feet per year.

Sellier said this is a conservative estimate. While there are more single-family homes today, it is likely that a majority of new homes will be multi-residential complexes. Multifamily homes tend to use less water. So if more apartments and condos are built, it would actually be a lower demand than the numbers staff presented.

The proposed updates to the water management plan simply reflect the change in the projections, Sellier said.

Board members said those numbers are encouraging.

“In the absence of those severe droughts, the marginal impact of the additional state mandated housing is within our ability to supply water,” Khush said. “It does not place a serious constraint on our water supply.”

Larry Minikes, member of the Marin Conservation League, said it was the first time for people to see the projected 8% increase in water demand.

“That should calm a lot of fear about new housing coming in here when we’re talking about 8%,” he said. “It seems like a doable number.”