Water Agency, Builders Agree on New Charges

Representatives of the Antelope Valley’s largest water provider and builders reached a tentative agreement Tuesday on proposed new water facility fees of up to several thousand dollars per new home built in the region.

The agreement came only after months of negotiation. In the process, officials of the Antelope Valley-East Kern Water Agency accepted the Building Industry Assn.’s demands to exempt certain projects and phase in the fees over three years.

The charges are meant to cover AVEK’s estimated $132.5-million cost for providing water delivery and treatment facilities during the coming decade to a 2,300-square-mile area that includes most of the Antelope Valley and portions of Kern and Ventura counties.

The agency’s proposed developer fees range from $1,290 to $3,280 per home, depending on location. The most common levies would be $2,094 per home in Lancaster and $1,946 in west Palmdale, the AVEK areas where the most development is occurring.

Similar water supply fees also would be assessed developers of multifamily housing and commercial and industrial development. But officials at AVEK said they have yet to figure those amounts.

AVEK is the major supplier in the Antelope Valley of water from the California Aqueduct, which carries it from Northern California. Under its proposal, the new developer fees would be collected for AVEK by the 16 water agencies that provide retail service to consumers.

The tentative agreement came Tuesday after a two-hour meeting between the finance committee of AVEK’s board of directors and about half a dozen representatives of the Antelope Valley’s Building Industry Assn. A vote by the full AVEK board could come in February, officials said.

The water facility fees would be the first of their kind imposed by AVEK, even though many other water agencies have them. Until now, the agency relied on money from a $71-million bond issue approved by area voters in 1974 to fund water projects, but those funds recently ran out.

The agency’s move to impose the fees has been complicated by the fact that it is not legally authorized to collect them, and thus needs the approval of the county Board of Supervisors. AVEK officials said they were told the supervisors would not agree unless the builders were satisfied.