Agenda - Planning Commission - 08/08/2005

Home

How Thirsty Is Your Community? By Paula Van L~re Water shortages are no longer exclusive to the Desert Southwest. Today, escalating infrastructure costs and tight supplies of drinkin§ water plague com- munities across the country. Older cities with too-year-old pipes face replacement costs, while newer, ~rowin~ cities scramble to keep u~ with demand. According to the EPA, maintaining and replacing drinking water infrastructure will cost water utilities $274 billion between 2ooo and 2o~9. The utilities simply cannot afford the costs. Even if the utilities raise rates by 3 percent each year for the next 2o years, they still would fall $45 billion short. In many areas, rapid growth strains budgets and avail- able freshwater supplies. For example, Alabama, Florida, and Georgia are stalemated in their attempts to divide the Chatahoochee River flow among the states and their growing urban populations, Loca[ governments have several options available for providing drinking water, especially for new developments. Most cities now impose impact fees on developers to coy. er the cost of new infrastructure. In several states, most notably Rodda. local governments charter com- munity development districts to provide infra- structure for new developments. Some utilities adopt pricing policies to cover the costs of providing water and to pro- vide incentives for reducing water use, includ- in§ prices that increase at higher levels of use and hi§her prices during high-demand sum- mer months. These strategies help to address the rising cost of infrastructure and blunt the increase in demand. Oespite such efforts, experts expect demand to rise, straining water supplies in virtually all regions of the U.S, Past attempts to rein in water demand focused on improving metering, fixing leaks, and using indoor conservation technologies such as Iow-flow showers and toilets. These efforts have unquestionably borne fruit, in Boston, for exam- pie, these measures eliminated (or at least sub- stantiatly postponed) the need for a new reser- voir that would have tapped a watershed in west- em Massachusetts. However, control measures for outdoor water use remain [ar§ely absent from community agendas except in the arid western states and during times of drought in the East. in addition, the role of deve[op'ment patterns in s'haping ~ater demand and cost is hardly 'addressed at all. This issue of Zoning Practice shows how urban form affects the demand for and cost of drinking water. It will draw on a variety of stud- ies showin§ how lot size is a particularly important determinant of water demand and cost, as is the dispersion of developments. Both factors are of interest to pianners and municipal code writers. [LOT] SIZE MATTERS Studies show that tot size is a determinant in residential and commercial water use--with all else being equal, homes and businesses on larger lots use more water. Lawn care, car washing, swimming pools, and other outdoor uses can account for 5o to 70 percent of household wate~ use. According to the American Water Works Association, lawn care alone accounts for an avera§e of 50 percent of all household water use nationally. Office buildings also use significant quantities Df water for landscaping'. The U.S. Geological Survey notes, "~awn watering and air condi- tioning use more water than sanitation or cleaning" in commercial buildings. Examples of the relationship between lot size and water use are plenty, Utah planners determined that water demand drops from approximately 220 gallons per capita per day at a densit7 of two units per acre to about lzo gallons per capita per day at a density of five units per acre. in a study of household water use in Sacramento, California, water demand by unit [n the Metro Square development (a neighborhood of 46 single-family homes on compact lots), was 2o to 3o percent lower than less dense developments of roughty the same .j g~ ZONINGPRACTICE 5.05 AMERICAN PLANNING ASSOCIATION ~pc, ge ,~