INSIDE

Water district sets date for connections lottery

By Meg Olson

After two years of a moratorium on new connections the local water district is set to start the complicated process of distributing the still-limited resource.

At a special meeting July 20 local water commissioners approved a resolution rescinding the moratorium on September 10, and setting that date to randomly allocate 100 water connections to lucky applicants.

Applications for the allocation will be available through the district office and on the district’s website www.pointroberts.com starting July 30. Applicants need to deliver the applications with original signatures by September 4, faxed applications will not be accepted.

Each application will be numbered as it is accepted at the district office and on September 5 the list of numbers will be sent to an accounting firm to be randomized. On the morning of September 10 district staff will match the top number on the randomized list to an application and issue an availability notice for the number of water connections that applicant has requested, decreasing the number remaining by that amount. Then they’ll move to the next number on the list and do the same until all the 100 connections are gone or all the applications filled.
“We probably all realize you’ll be getting a lot of interest in this,” said district attorney John Milne in a telephone conference with district commissioners.

Successful applicants will be notified by certified mail and have 60 days to pay their connection fees, a minimum of $5,500 per connection or the connections go back into the pool to be allocated to the next applicant on the waiting list. Once fees are paid the availability notice is good for one year.

“My apologies for the seeming complexity but it really works well,” said Milne. “It’s very fair, very predictable and everybody has a shot at it.”

Developers will also have a shot at 60 additional connections outside of the regular allotment process through the Major Infrastructure Reserve (MIR) process. The district is reserving those connections for developers who enter into agreements to build infrastructure that would increase system capacity and allow for more connections, such as a three-million-gallon storage tank as proposed in the district’s new comprehensive plan, now under state review.

“If they want special treatment, they want access to those 60 ERUs right now, they want that commitment from the district then they need to make a commitment to the district,” Milne said, in the form of an agreement to build the tank and a performance bond to guarantee the tank gets built “one way or another.”

The owners of the marina, the golf course and Stanton Northwest have all indicated they would be willing to participate in the MIR process, Milne said, but Stanton representative Randy Forsyth said at the district’s June 14 meeting they wanted an agreement in place prior to the beginning of the allotment process, or they would put their request for 80 or more connections into the regular allotment.

“It will be up to developers if they want to put their applications in for the general allotment or the MIR but they can’t do both,” said commissioner Renee Coe. Milne said any applicant could aggregate properties on one application, for example for a subdivision. “If someone goes into the regular allotment and wants 50 ERUS and they come up number one then they get them,” he said. “That’s their right.”

Allocations will be held every March and September as long as there are connections available, the next one scheduled for March 10, 2008.