Agenda - Planning Commission - 10/15/2015

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ASK THE AUTHOR JOIN LIS ONLINE' Go online during the month of September to participate in our "Ask the Author" forum, an interactive feature of Zoning Practice. Elizabeth Garvin, MP, will be available to answer questions about this article. Go to the APA website at planning.org and follow the links to the Ask the Author forum. From there, just submit your questions about the article to the active thread. After each thread closes at the end ;of the month, the archived questions and answers will be available through the Ask the Author forum. About the Author Elizabeth Garvin, A!CP, is an attorney with Spencer Fane Britt & Browne in Denver. Garvin has more than 20 years of public- and private -sector experience in land development regulations, urban planning, and economic development. She has prepared code update/revision projects for cities and counties across the country; drafted topic -specific code provisions covering topics such as TOD, sustainability, and signs; created plans for redevelopment projects; prepared regional design standards; organized and undertaken public participation processes; and assisted private clients in obtaining development approvals. on its website (1998). And the University of Louisville provides a series of 42 questions for communities to consider as they plan for wa- ter use and conservation (Arnold et al. 2009). APPLYING WATER LAW Before describing the various approaches lo- cal governments have available to regulate for water conservation, it is important to add a note to the reader that water law, not just land -use law, may govern any number of as- pects of a community's conservation regulatory process. For example, even though the use of rainwater harvesting for plant irrigation has been practiced since the beginning of human agriculture, it was illegal until 2009 to capture and reuse rainwater in Colorado because that water had already been legally appropriated to a specific water user, who was typically not the home owner (Johnson 2009). And while Colo- rado changed the law, other states have not. Therefore, it is important to have local regula- tions reviewed in light of the water law of your jurisdiction in order to understand the impacts of the proposed regulations on the existing rights of water users. PRICING WATER AND FINANCING WATER SYSTEMS As with most land -use issues, regulations and funding are both critical to water conservation. According to the EPA, there are multiple gaps and oversights iri the water provision and pric- ing system that inadvertently lead to excess wa- ter use and waste (Van Lare and Arigoni 2006). These shortcomings include water providers: (1) choosing to defer maintenance on existing, leak- ing pipes in order to conserve funds to extend the system to new development; (2) not pricing water service to reflect transmission costs to large -lot, dispersed development; and (3) failing to recognize that water systems in low-density areas that are longer and require higher pres- sure to operate leak more than systems serving higher -density development. If the water system in your community is publicly owned and oper- ated, it maybe worth considering the sum of the actual long-term costs to supply low-density residential development and reflecting those costs through the pricing system. Some commu- nities take this approach one step further and establish conservation pricing that increase water rates at peak use times. A study by four The highest rates of per capita water usage in the U.S. occur in the dry western states, yet relatively few western communities address water supply or conservation in their comprehensive plans. Florida water management districts found that increases in water prices result in predictable decreases in water consumption (Whitcomb 2005). The study also found that users in the most expensive homes both used the mostwa- ter and were able to reduce that use at a greater rate than other home owners because they used water for more discretionary purposes, such as landscape irrigation. WATER CONSERVATION -ORIENTED REGULATION Local regulation for water conservation can take place both communitywide and at the site level. In local zoning and subdivi- sion regulations, communities can exercise direct control and establish development incentives to encourage water conservation through reduced lot size and water -efficient landscaping. Lot Size and Density Smaller lots and vertically mixed uses are popular urban design concepts. It turns out that this approach to neighborhood design is not just trendy, it also saves water. Small Lots. Research shows that resi- dential developments on smaller lots use less water, or conversely, large -lot residential development results in greater water use (Beckwith 2009). In Utah, as lot size de- creased from o.5 to 0.2 acres (22,000 square feet to 9,000 square feet), per capita water demand reduced from 210 to 110 gallons per day, a roughly 5o percent difference (Van Lare and Arigoni 2006). Similarly, in Seattle, households on 0.15 acre lots (6,500 square feet) use 6o percent less water than those on 0.37 acre lots (16,00o square feet) (Van Lare and Arigoni 2006). This lines up with Bates's finding that much of our household water use goes to irrigation (2011). Most current studies on land use and water conservation identify reduction in lot size as one of the most effec- tive means a community can use to directly conserve water (Driver et al. 2003). In most communities, the minimum lot size for development is governed by the zoning regulations. One basic approach to achieving smaller lot development, then, is to reduce the minimum tot size in existing districts. Tacoma, Washington, for example, permits single-family residences on tots that range from 2,500 square feet to 6,7.50 square feet, subject to design standards for new de- velopment (§13.o6.145). In a growing number of communities, the zone district also speci- fies a maximum lot size for the district, such as those required by Palo Alto, California, ZONINGPRACTICE 9.15 AMERICAN PLANNING ASSOCIATION I page 3