A SLO County official looked at the proposed Buildout Reduction Plan (BRP) and said it is nothing more than “pie in the sky”. Who is going to pay for it? All Cambria property owners will, that’s who. In the failed water and sewer rate plan, every water user would be paying a monthly fee into the BRP. Of course, new residents who get a meter will pay a very substantial fee to get their meter, but much of that will go to support the District bureaucracy.
When one person sues the District because he cannot get a meter (There are 650 on the CCSD’s list, so supposedly they will eventually get a meter. What about the other 1000s who want to live in Cambria?) that person will win his suit, according to the same county official. “No community in America has ever been successful in capping growth,” he said. One successful litigant will lead to more suits and the BRP will go down in flames.
[Doug Buckmaster]
Last 5 posts by Doug Buckmaster
Absolutely there will be great difficulties carrying out the plan. And it will be expensive. But the basic premise of the plan is that the cost is split between existing ratepayers and the few lot owners who would be allowed to get a meter and build. I admit I cannot recall the ratio and don’t have time to look it up right now. Suffice it to say that the applicants pay an outsized share. I think the connection fee is about $65,000. We have also offered to form a Mello Roos District of the vacant lots only that would charge us a special property tax assessment to help pay for whatever infrastructure impact there is, be it desal or whatever.
If you throw the plan out, is it your idea that the way to deal with it is just don’t provide the water and the lots won’t be buildable anyway, so it all just goes away? You can forget that. So what you’re left with is the existing ratepayers pay 100% of the cost of retiring ALL the lots, instead of all the lots minus the ones allowed to build. You like that bill better?
By telling the 666 CCSD waitlist applicants to go away, you are killing the proverbial goose that could lay the golden egg. We’re the only ones willing to spend the money you need. You are also throwing millions in property value down the drain.
I never advocated including lot retirement costs in a water bill. It seems misplaced. There should be an assessment district with a special property tax assessment. That way theoretically renters don’t have to pay it.
But hotel guests absolutely should pay a portion, and I am sure they would not complain about a room surcharge for such a cause.
As to the lot counts, I have painstakingly counted myself off of the parcel maps, and I have gone over the numbers with both John Hofshrorer at SLO and the engineers at RBF who used far more sophisticated tools than John did to arrive at their numbers. RBF is correct, and SLO is wrong. Simply put, John took the gross acreage within the Urban Reserve Line and divided it by an average lot size of slightly above 3,500 sf (a standard double lot) to arrive at his buildout figure. That means to achieve it you would have to level EVERY house in Cambria, record a new tract map for the whole place (ignoring terrain), and build all new again. It cannot happen, and the water would never be there even if it was possible.
There are 666 on the CCSD list, and another approx 350-400 on the County list. Regardless of how many more lots there are, the rest have never even bothered to get on a wait list, which communicates that they aren’t planning to build (mainly because they are not buildable). So there’s really only about 1,000 at issue that will be hard and expensive to acquire.
UnLOC has maintained a no lawsuit position since CCSD has been indicating the desire to solve the problem and they have admitted they owe us water. We are not involved in any of the suits being threatened by individuals, but we are aware of them. They, along with the ratepayers refusal to fund the district adequately, present the potential of CCSD going bankrupt and power reverting to the county. That is the last thing you want, as it removes any chance of local influence over growth.
Doug -Who is the SLO County official and his/her title? It makes all the difference. Otherwise, I would certainly never consider it as reliable. Many people ignore words without without attribution. Thank you.
-Steve
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Mickie -Please clarify “…in line for a profit…” Thanks.
-Steve
I should clarify one thing. There is no written promise that CCSD has given people on its own waitlist. My statements about CCSD’s obligations apply to all property owners, even those on no waitlist. The only superior right that goes with being on CCSD’s list is the time element. So ultimately, every legal parcel will get water service or be acquired by the rest of the residents and property owners. That’s one reason why buildout reduction is an imperative.
Regarding the issue of lawsuits related to the moratorium:
I am personally aware of one lawsuit pending by an individual and he’s going after both the County and Cambria. UnLOC is not involved in or endorsing that suit.
The specific reasons why we did not file a lawsuit upon declaration of the moratorium are as follows:
a. We wanted to try and be positive members of the community for the long run, because we plan to live there and become neighbors. If we did that by winning a lawsuit, it would not make for good neighbors.
b. Litigation is very time-consuming and expensive.
c. The fact that, as outlined previously, CCSD is allowed a timeout by law. We just don’t know how long.
d. In studying the similar cases with our attorney, we found that in nearly every case where a water district had enacted a moratorium, even after they prevailed in a lawsuit over it, they eventually found that the policy was economically unsustainable and voluntarily spent the money to develop more water supplies and lifted the moratorium. The life cycle on this appeared faster than the life cycle of a legal challenge. And it’s much more productive to put all our resources into solving the problem than into fighting over it.
The discovery that the moratorium is economically unsustainable is the stage that Cambria seems to be in today. All of the current in-fighting and angst over the financial state of CCSD is the clear and direct result of the fact that CCSD has for 30 years been a tool of the no-growth faction of Cambria. It’s history repeating itself again. It’s exactly what our attorney said in 2001 would happen.
Lot owners can contribute our resources to finding solutions, if we are not excluded or blocked. We would prefer to help, not just be a passive audience as the CCSD implodes.
Steve. the County official was a Senior Planner in the Planning and Building Department. He also is the person who said that Cambria CSD is the laughing stock (and cash cow) of all the consultants in California. “Get on the gravy train”.
What kind of comment is it that says the rest have never even bothered to get on a list, that communicates they don’t want to build…….The list was cut off in 1990 (CCSD water wait list) and the CSD has stated that they don’t recognize the County List (building allocation). People not getting on the list communicates that the list was cut off and they cannot get on a meaningful list.
There is no current value placed on a county list position as opposed to great value in a water list position. If the CSD doesn’t recognize this list and it has nothing to do with being able to build, you must have a meter prior to applying for a building permit, why get on the list. I think you grossly underestimate the number of lots that are buildable.
The lots that you say are unbuildable are only that because they don’t have a meter on them at this time, many of them qualify for the transfer of a meter making them buildable. Many more than the 1000 you talk about.