Californians for Property Rights

TOPIC: RURAL RESIDENTIAL DESIGNATION

CPR RECOMMENDATION: DO NOT REDESIGNATE ANY AREAS IN MONTARA FROM RURAL RESIDENTIAL TO RURAL

The Local Coastal Program unambiguously entitles all properties located within the rural residential areas to domestic sewer and water utility connections, whether they currently have them or not, equally as they are available to any urban-designated property. LCP Policy 2.14a reads:

The County will confine urban level services provided by governmental agencies, special districts and public utilities to urban areasÖand rural residential areas as designated by the Local Coastal Program on March 25, 1986.

It should be emphasized that this provision applies to sewer as well as water connections. LCP Policy 2.22a reads:

The County will requireÖthat sanitary sewer connections be limited to the urban areas and rural residential areas.

The rural residential is not a “poor cousin” to the urban with respect to access to utility connections: there is no more reason to exclude certain rural residential properties from utility service, than to exclude certain urban properties. Nor is there more reason to exclude one section of the rural residential than another. As the LCP Policies quoted above demonstrate, the service areas of both the water and sewer utilities include all of the urban and rural residential properties. All legal parcels, urban or rural residential, are entitled to equal and non-discriminatory access to the utilities.

Environmental Services Agency correspondence with you (February 14, 2005) states:

The implication of the Planning Commission’s recommendation is that LCP policy would preclude future extension of utility distribution lines into these areas.

In other words, the PC recommendation would prohibit utility connections to the targeted properties in perpetuity. The sole justification given for targeting those particular rural residential properties is because they do not have water connections. Yet that is only because there has been a moratorium on new water utility connections for the entire life of the LCP. So the PC is recommending that property owners, who have waited decades for a utility moratorium to be lifted, now be forever excluded from using those utilities. Properties too small to accommodate their own well and septic systems would be rendered unbuildable and virtually worthless, an indisputable example of a regulatory taking.
Where did the idea for such a discriminatory and punitive policy originate? The disturbing answer is that it was originally recommended to you by an official of the Montara Water & Sanitary District (MWSD). This should raise concerns with the Supervisors for a number of reasons. First, it demonstrates that some of the utility’s directors are politically opposed to providing utility connections to certain sections of the district’s service area. As Supervisor Church cautioned at your February 15th meeting, utility districts are not planning agencies, and to the degree they exercise their own planning agenda, they are usurping the planning authority of the Board of Supervisors. Further, it is a long-established principle of public utility law that a utility’s leadership not refuse, resist or avoid serving anyone within its service area. As the federal Supreme Court wrote in a landmark public utility case (Davies Warehouse Co. v. Brown, 1943), within its legislated service area a public utility ìÖis under an obligation to afford its facilities generally, upon demandÖ.î
Another cause for concern is that the MWSD official who originally recommended the rural residential redesignation lives in the immediate vicinity of the targeted properties, and could be perceived by the public as personally benefiting from the proposed policy, due to the decreased development potential in the area. It is important to preserve the integrity of local elective office, by ensuring against the appearance, however unfounded, that elected officials are personally benefiting from policies they originate.
Finally, there is a strong practical reason not to redesignate any of the rural residential lands. Refusing the targeted properties the possibility of a water connection would compel the owners to drill individual wells. The rural residential areas in question lie in higher elevations of the Montara and San Vicente Creek watersheds, in the vicinity of MWSD wells. These upland aquifers should be carefully husbanded, as they provide some of the most reliable sources of local water. Encouraging all rural residential properties to use a water utility connection, rather than a private well, provides the greatest environmental and water supply safeguards.