Fred Allebach
8/7/24
LAFCO Board meeting notes
LAFCO = Local Agency Formation Commission
(my editorial comments in parentheses)
Opening public comment
Comments on Roseland.
Fred Allebach
Comments on DUCs (disadvantaged unincorporated communities), annexations, and services-capacity arguments used to forestall annexations. Says that public policy has to aspire to inclusion and to address social inequity. Refers to new Uncharitable movie, where all system incentives are for profit and unjust, unhealthy outcomes, and the creation of adaptive social goods and policy is not prioritized by our society. In the wealthiest country in the world, in one of the wealthiest, most amenity-rich areas of that country, to make arguments that we don't have enough capacity to share, is not forward looking or just. Decision makers need to aspire for better, with vision, not a simple “pragmatic” business as usual bandwidth that ends up excluding and displacing DUCs.
Agenda Item: VOMWD annexation
VOMWD = Valley of the Moon Water District
VOMWD annexation of a few parcels in the Trinity Oaks area of Sonoma Valley (SV), in the VOMWD service area, because of water issues. Staff recommends annexation.
This small item opened a window to the western water politics of how water is being used in SV as a trump card/ chess piece to limit growth and development. Big discussion by the LAFCO Board and the public ensued.
Mark Bramfitt, LAFCO director
UWMP- Urban Water Management Plan
SDC- Sonoma Developmental Center
SSP- Springs Specific Plan
Hanna- proposed project on Arnold Drive
The VOMWD UWMP (Urban Water Management Plan) has a 1.5% growth rate but did not contemplate current SDC, Hanna, and SSP projects. SDC and Hanna are “very significant” projects, and not in the UWMP. However, VOMWD has done two separate studies that show VOMWD has enough water; the Hanna project falls within their supply availability.
With SDC the state has retained the water rights. The developer is stranded for water supply, does not have water rights, and the current water system is not functional.
Sandra Lowe, Sonoma
Asks about combined Verano Ave. Krug hotel and MidPen 100% AH (Affordable Housing) project, what about cumulative impact on water there?
(Hotels are a hotly disputed part of the SDC and Hanna projects and are hotly political otherwise in SV too. Hotels, growth, sprawl etc. are immediately glossed as ipso facto evil by some cohorts. On one hand Sonoma and Sonoma County (SoCo) spend big money to boost tourism as a way to get TOT (transient occupancy tax) and fund government. Hotels are a piece of that equation. On the other hand, the wine-tourism-hospitality combine has triple bottom line (TBL) negative externalities for water use, GHG (greenhouse gas) and VMT (vehicle miles traveled) impacts and for the social inequity resulting from lower-wage jobs that don’t meet the cost of living in SoCo. Government needs to address these TBL negatives, of what it, itself creates with its agro-tourism economic policy. What we see in SV and SoCo is a selective focus on some negative externalities over others, depending on the interests of proscribed groups; this dynamic doesn't lend itself to any big picture view or to a comprehensive sustainability policy view with TBL full cost accounting for economy, environment and society. In fact, TBL framing is mostly not used at all and we go on acting as if each sector is somehow separate. What we get is alternative universes of facts colliding instead of the synthetic, full cost accounting view that actual sustainability calls for.)
Mark
The Krug-Mid-Pen project was already approved for VOMWD water capacity and is not in the SSP area either.
Susan Harvey, Cotati
Opens up topic of SV population projections, says VOMWD had nothing about SDC and Hanna population additions. She refers to Sonoma Water and to groundwater (GW) and the SV GSA (Groundwater Sustainability Agency.) She says VOMWD has two inactive wells, what about these as indicators of lack of capacity for supply?
Does the SSP have an acre feet per year (AFY) figure for GW?
Mark
These VOMWD wells are just being rested, they are functional. VOMWD also has plans for new wells.
VOMWD has sufficient water to 2035. The SSP has plans for higher density for more housing, the buildout date is 2040, but the plan is not complete, no AFY figure. (In fact, SDC and SSP are being sued and likely Hanna too.) Hanna is already in the VOMWD service area.
SDC is in the VOMWD sphere of influence. VOMWD is planning on using on-site SDC water resources but that is state water; VOMWD may not get control of that water. (Possible that Sonoma Water will have more power and will get control of it. I’m not sure if there is already a Sonoma Water aqueduct intertie to SDC, or if there is some deal for that in the future?)
Susan H
GW rates are now artificially low in SV, full cost fees will raise rates. (What she doesn’t know is all the inside baseball of the SV GSA and that all VOMWD wells are not in the GW basin, and that VOMWD has a GSA mandatory metering proposal out for non-de minimis pumpers, and VOMWD has an argument that the Sonoma aqueduct water it sells offsets SV GW use by a LOT, so any GW used or extra wells they may use has to be counted against the the GW they have already saved.)
Susan Gorin
The SV GSA is just past the first year of a three-year GW rate subsidy from the SoCo BOS, (Board of Supervisors.) Mentions the two SV deep aquifer depletion areas and that demand reduction will need to get serious at some point. Litigation is already here and is coming for SDC, Hanna, and the SSP. (The worst deep aquifer depletion area is nowhere near Hanna or SDC and the deep aquifer is not like one big lake underground, the conditions are more localized. The deep aquifer depletion area near the golf course is closer to Hanna but isn't as large in scope as the east side depletion area.)
Why is the state keeping control of SDC water? Mark says “who knows, it is part of the legislation.” Susan says the rights are VERY valuable; the state is waiting for an approved project, then will negotiate for the price of the rights.
Public comment
Fred Allebach
Trinity Oaks annexation opens window to a larger, long-term SV power struggle over land use.
At a Sonoma Water presentation to SVCAC, a top guy said there was enough water to meet current demands in SoCo. Fred gives short backstory of current land use power struggle in SV, of Sleepy Hollow Stasis mythology
Fred’s GW prescription: the more straws, the less each.
Joe Wilson, Glen Ellen
He did the water math, objects to that LAFCO says VOMWD has “ample supply”, not the right term. There’s a lot to worry about with water, he wants more water analysis. Hotels use “a boatload of water.” So many undetermined variables, annexation resolution with VOMWD should reflect that. (This is part of an SDC Next100/ Mobilize Sonoma plan to do a full court press challenge of any increase in density and land use in SV; goal is to attack on all fronts in any way possible. Thus VOMWD annexation is a chance for them to get their points on the board.)
Norman Gilroy, at center of all SV resistance to higher density
He is OK with Trinity Oaks annexation. He likes Mark’s amendments to the VOMWD annexation proposal, he would have asked for them. Whatever LAFCO says about SV water, there is a perception that it is correct. He doesn’t want water things to seem OK otherwise in the VOMWD annexation.
He made some comment about VOMWD and increased density.
RHNA drives more growth. The SSP plan area is just a sliver of the overall Springs area which is not in the SSP and that area is subject to growth. This potentially impacts VOMWD supply capacity. (A large part of SSP is a Trump Economic Opportunity Area; in SV disproportional development and higher density is being undertaken there in the Springs DUC area. West of Arnold/ Glen Ellen, the wealthiest area in SV, with the most outsized voice of well-educated, senior, white property owners, is seeking to defend its turf with a proposed Sonoma Mountain Community Services District [SMCSD.] A coalition of all SV NIMBY groups led by Norman does not see USA-level infill as appropriate, but Sonoma city resists infill as well; this is a total Green Checkmate.)
He refers to 45 state housing laws (SB-9, SB 335) that are not in the LAFCO analysis, these have a knock-on effect on potential VOMWD supply and demand and should be identified as missing info in the VOMWD staff report on the Trinity Oaks annexation.
He challenged the VOMWD SDC and Hanna will-serve agreements cumulative impacts.
LAFCO Board discussion
Susan G
She appreciates Norman’s comments. (The large bulk of the 1st District constituency is white, senior, wealthy.) Says to revisit VOMWD MSR in five years to calibrate what is happening with population growth and water use. The BOS and SV GSA have not reversed declining GW trends in SV, need stronger medicine. More “straws” are going into SV GW, review VOMWD MSR in five years, a LOT of uncertainty.
Susan H
Says there is land subsidence in SV, wrong. Mentions state dictates “to cram down our throat” bemoans loss of local control. Wants VOMWD MSR in five years and update on GW conditions too.
Mark
Will bring this back and continue this to the next LACO meeting and make the overall water picture language stronger. He thought he already had made it strong. He will be strengthening: 1 GW depletion as relative to VOMWD supply, 2 variables in access to SDC water by VOMWD, 3 unforeseen state housing laws, and that 4 VOMWD needs to account for SDC and Hanna.
(Can we also add variables about DUC and DAC displacement as a result of efforts to constrict growth and development and water, and fire evac as well. If we are going to dispute accounting of the big picture in terms of services and LAFCO factors in SV because that will set a precedent, we need to make sure that DUCs are accounted for accurately too. RHNA calls for 45% of housing to be for Low and Very low-income people, is the inclusion of these people a problem for the carrying capacity of SV aggregate services? An analysis of state housing laws can’t just look at them from a land-owner and government standpoint where an assumption is made they are bad; renters and lower income people see them as good and an antidote to too much anti-development local control that tends to over-control land, raise prices and to externalize lower-income people and their issues.)
Susan H?
Wants significant GW demand reductions; yet Sonoma Water/ Permit Sonoma is telling SV water retailers to make new wells so they have capacity for 40% of available supply. She sees countervailing policy forces at work.
VOMWD has enough for Trinity Oaks. The window this opens into water overall is a discussion that could happen county-wide.
Sandra
State housing laws, like them or not, do not require hotels. Hotels will have a big impact on water use, traffic, fire evac. In LAFCO VOMWD annexation analysis and language strengthening, separate hotels and housing. Keep AH impacts separate from hotel impacts.
Susan G
SDC and Hanna are both builder’s remedy projects, very little discretion for locals; “thank the state for that.” (The state was just tired of locals not getting housing done, a drawbridge mentality took hold after the 70s and 80s growth boom, UGBs, tighter controls, “smart growth” CEQA abuse, less production, higher prices resulted, locals blamed everything but themselves for this. Even smart growth is resisted, as James Gore noted in a recent BOS meeting.)
Rich Holmer, Sweet Water Springs Water District
SV is “going through unprecedented rapid change now.” Keep an eye on this with the five-year LAFCO VOMWD MSR snapshot.
Mark
VOMWD is looking to annex SDC and looking to get control of the water. VOMWD is leery that the developer will ice them out of water control. (Meanwhile SDC Next 100/ Norman, and his SMCSD which excludes the Springs from local self-determination, is looking to get control of the water and the sewer west of Arnold to limit hookups, while using VOMWD capacity arguments in the Springs VOMWD service area as a pawn in their SDC-Hanna-centered arguments.)
VOMWD item continued to a future meeting.
Staff updates
SMCSD. Mark met with proponents. They have the signatures but rules are that tehy have 60 days from the last signature to submit a completed plan. They don't have a plan now. They can get one more signature and that resets the timeline, but they can't keep doing that forever.
Mark mentions a district to the south of Sonoma, what is that?
James Gore
Goes into detail about Alexander Valley area water issues and Potter Valley uncertainties. Possible new Alexander Valley GSA? Have a voluntary water master arrangement therte?
Fred
SoCo and Russian River is a fractal of Cadillac Desert, western water, our problems in SoCo are the exact same as those of allocation disputes on the Colorado River.
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