Developers of the long-awaited Rosewood Miramar Beach Resort in Montecito are hoping to add bigger water lines to the property, a decision that’s been appealed within the Montecito Water District.
Los Angeles developer Caruso Affiliated filed the appeal last month after district staff members decided they couldn’t approve the re-sizing, citing a conflict with a recent ordinance that prevents officials from issuing any new meters.
The district passed Ordinance 92 in late 2014 in response to the ongoing drought, with a provision that it could be appealed to a two-member water district appeals committee and then go back before the full board for a vote, which will take place Feb. 11.
Caruso Affiliated filed its request with the Montecito Water District about two months ago, according to Dick Shaikewitz, president of the district’s board of directors.
Developers hope to replace five existing meters — three 2-inch meters, one 1.5-inch and one 1-inch — with two 6-inch meters to serve the 170-room resort set to be built on 16 acres overlooking the Pacific Ocean and Miramar Beach in Montecito.
Caruso Affiliated would pay to resize the meters, which is always a customer’s responsibility, according to the water district.
While developers would have more access to water overall, Shaikewitz said he was less concerned because the water district could still oversee how much is used.
“In theory, it would give them the ability to pump more water through, but, on the flip side, we could still regulate it,” he said, noting the availability of fees and other penalties. “We have enough controls. We can stop it.”
Developers hope to break ground in mid-April at the earliest, with a completion date in April 2018, Shaikewitz said.
Caruso Affiliated waited eight years for the right combination of financing and approvals after buying the beachfront property in 2007, twice receiving approval for past iterations.
The Rosewood Miramar hotel gained final approval in April 2015 under the promise to use no more than 45 acre feet of water per year.
The proposed improvements are supposed to bring the resort in line with best engineering practices for a 5-star, campus-style resort hotel, which requires fire flow and domestic water demands to be combined in a private water system with two points of connection to public water mains, according to the appeal application filed by Peter Hayden, Caruso Affiliated’s senior vice president of engineering.
New meters would be available for an unlikely fire event at a flow rate of 2,000 gallons per minute, Hayden said.
Montecito Fire Marshal Al Gregson said the resort has to meet a fire flow capacity of 1,500 gallons per minute per hydrant. He said he wasn’t surprised developers were trying to make improvements, since the hotel configuration will drastically change.
With new meters, developers would go from paying monthly water service charges of no more than $221.45 per meter (a 2-inch) to $1,384.08 per month for a 6-inch meter.
Hayden argued water consumption would not increase, showing updated estimated site water usage at 43.71 acre feet annually.
If the appeal fails, Shaikewitz said, the water district could work to amend Ordinance 92 before the developers break ground — an avenue he’d rather not go down.
The Montecito Water District board of directors could also just side with developers next week.
“We anticipate that they’ll get what they want,” Shaikewitz said. “It isn’t a problem. They’ll be paying us more money. It’s to the district’s advantage to do it.”
— Noozhawk staff writer Gina Potthoff can be reached at gpotthoff@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.