April 19, 2023 Study Session
Transcript
Describer:
Study Session Agenda
Wednesday, April 19 2023, at 4:30 p.m.
7404 Yorkshire Drive, Castle Pines, CO 80108
I. Call study session to order.
II. Denver Parks and Recreation Presentation- Brad Eckert
a. Extraterritorial Water Service Agreement RE: Buffalo Enclosure.
III. Recommendation for conservation rebate augmentations. - Nathan Travis
IV. Adjourn.
Board President Chuck Lowen:
There we go. Thank you. Terrence. It's roughly 4:32pm. Since that clock is running a little fast, the study session, is now in order. And fortunately, it's a short agenda, but we're, pleased to have, Brad Eckert here to talk, from Denver Parks and Recreation. Nathan, would you like to introduce Brad and give us a little background?
District Manager Nathan Travis:
Yeah, absolutely. So what we're talking about, for those of you that may not know, out of, in the Amberidge subdivision, we have a tap that runs through an easement, to supply water to the buffalo enclosure. The current agreement, at least the most recent one that we can find, provides service to the east side of the pasture, but not necessarily the west side of the pasture.
So what? Which is where the caretaker houses. And so what we're what we're working on is just basically expanding that agreement to provide water service to the other side as well. We're not talking about, like, any kind of huge demand. It's basically, like one more residents that would get put on there. This isn't a heavy using account anyway.
Right now I think it just fills two troughs or one trough right now. And so when we initially did this install, we had kind of anticipated that that would be the ultimate goal. So the existing infrastructure in the ground, as far as we know for now, should be sufficient to supply it. We just need to get, an agreement in place that allows them to very clearly take water further beyond where they currently do.
I got this to to Kim. There's the amendment needs some work. Mostly, just like making sure that correct terminology and that kind of stuff is used, but so we'll do those reviews. And so really the point today is to just give, Brad the opportunity to talk to you guys about kind of the property history and then what they're looking to do from this point on.
Chuck:
What does this entail? New piping that we have to dig trenches. What?
Nathan:
Everything that would be done from as far as we know right now, everything that would be done from an additional utility expense would all be handled by Denver parks. We don't need to do anything. All of our infrastructure is in place already.
Chuck:
And we don't need any easement rights or change.
Any..
Nathan:
Easements are taken care of and everything else happens on their property. We did, have to get one easement agreement from a homeowner that allowed us to put that line in, I don't know, 5 or 6 years ago now. And so everything on our sides, everything's on on our side is dialed.
Chuck:
And the water is metered is as it currently is.
Correct. And it'll just be added to that line. And no, no additional meters.
Nathan:
Nope. No additional meters. No additional taps. This would be an extension on the existing infrastructure.
Board Member Director Tera Radloff:
So you keep saying that as far as we know and that the existing infrastructure can accommodate it, how will we know and what will happen if it can't?
Nathan:
That's something that the agreement would take care of.
So if there was, if we did determine that there was a need to upsize that tap for whatever reason, the full financial responsibility for that would fall on Denver parks, tap fees, any infrastructure costs. So, like, pay the full tap fee, run the new line, install the new meter. There's really no reason that the internet, the inch and a half tap is more than sufficient to supply their water demands.
What they're really going to come up against is more of an issue of pressure loss. This is a very, very long run for an inch and a half line and you just lose a lot of pressure to friction. And there there are ways to mitigate that as well. They can install, you know, their own small tank and a booster pump station, things like that, to carry that distance.
And so that'll be the the more targeted goal, largely driven by the cost, the difference between an inch and a half meter and or inch and a half tap and a two inch tap is like double. It's it's an extremely expensive upgrade. So I would be I would be very, very surprised if the existing system design didn't handle it, especially since that's what we designed it for when we put it in five
Chuck:
Inch and a half.
Correct. Will there be any maintenance responsibility for this district on that line?
Nathan:
No more than any other service. So, any other accounts that we have, the same responsibility that we already have taken. We'll just be carry forward. There's nothing additional. So we own, like every property we own from the water main to the curb
Stop. Which is the first valve, usually sits right at the property line. This one's a little bit different because it goes behind there, but we own the water main to the curb. Stop. And then we own the physical water meter itself. So gasket to gas gasket on the water meter, same same ownership and responsibility standard that applies to every one of our service connections.
Chuck:
I'm assuming we already have an agreement between the district and Denver for the initial water that we're providing.
Nathan:
Correct? Yeah. And so the the current agreement only covers what we're currently serving. It doesn't include the basically the land and the caretaker house. So the initial agreement just talks about what's on the east side of, Daniel's Gate or Daniels Park Road.
And this would expand it just to say, hey, you can also take this water line across the street. It's really just a, more than anything else. It's kind of like a geography, like reconciliation of what they ultimately want to do with it.
Chuck:
Would this be a new agreement or an amendment to the old agreement? new agreement, a new agreement, okay.
Different terms or same length of time. Do we know?
Nathan:
I don't think there was any time constraints put on it. It's just, Yeah, it's just an agreement to service that account, basically. So there's no like, there's no sunset on it, like 20 years or whatever. It's like any one of our other customers, we're agreeing to serve water to that tap for ever.
Basically.
Board Member Director Chris Lewis:
So, so pretty much it's size. It's design and size correctly. We have an agreement in place if if the Denver water, needs to do anything, they're going to incur all the costs. They're going to extend it from where it is today to the Bowl tall Bowl Memorial and to their caretaker lot or whatever.
So why are we bringing this up? Well, I mean, is this just to memorialize in a document saying that
Tera:
Because they need water to the west side,
Nathan:
Right. So we do have to put a new agreement in place to service that West side. and so that does that the west side of Daniels Park Road or Daniels Gate Road, whatever it is.
And so that does require, an action by the board for an extra territorial like, like Kim kind of fill in on what why this is necessary, but kind of like bringing it to you guys. The way that we've been doing most of our IGAs are agreements like priming the fuze at the study session so that we're better prepared to quickly move on it at a board meeting.
Chuck:
Is that something you want to show us Brad?
Brad Eckert, Denver Parks and Recreation Presentation:
Yes. I can, comment.
Nathan:
Yeah, I was gonna say I'm more than happy to turn it over to Brad and ask him,
Brad:
What are our our lines across
Nathan:
Brad? Brad, would you do us a favor? Yeah. Step up to the podium. And then there's the thank you for the talk on it.
Press that for the red light here. I'll pass it out for you.
Describer:
After Brad was speaking while he was seated off-mic. He steps up to the mic and passes Nathan some handouts for the board and staff.
Chuck:
The one with a little voice on it down at the bottom, kind of coming out of the mouth of the. Thank you. Your red light should come on. Thank you. There you go. There we go.
Brad:
Can you hear me? Yes. Thank you. Brad Eckert. Denver parks and recreation. Thank you. 101, West Colfax, Denver, Colorado. So, yeah, thanks for having me here.
But as Nathan was saying, generally the intent is just to either remain, amend or restate or produce a new agreement. We feel like the existing agreement is limiting us to, only providing water to the bison on the east side of the road, which is adjacent to the properties that Nathan was describing. The easement goes through. So what we're looking to do is provide water service to the rest of the park, and it's mainly for bison caretaker use, some programing use.
Right now we have several areas in the park that we do provide, facilities. If we go to the first page background in the problem. Again, just quick background on Daniels. It's a thousand acres, donated to City and County of Denver in the 20s by Florence Martin. So we have the old Florence Martin homestead there.
We have the east and west Bison pastures, the Tall Bull Memorial grounds. We have our operation and maintenance area, which is adjacent to the caretaker. We have a hay barn and garage and, keep, you know, some of the heavy equipment. And then on the point there's a shelter in the overlook. But, the water system at Daniel has been comprised of at least in the, in the, in the, in the last, you know, 20, 30, 40, 50 years of three wells.
There's a well at the caretaker house. We'll call that. Well, number one, and in 2013, I'm sorry, in 2014, we, we had problems with iron bacteria in that well, and had to replace, the pump. And then we also put in a water treatment system, basically a contact tank. And, that's been working pretty well. But every 3 or 5 years we've been having to replace the pump because the iron bacteria is just gumming it up.
So, that's, that's kind of leading up to, you know, our problem. In 2010, the well, house number three, which is in the East past years, the one that failed. And that's when CCD and Castle Pines North entered into the existing agreement. And, and one thing we do want to point out is it's an extraterritorial service agreement.
So inclusion is not, part of this. We will the easiest method for us to be treated as an out of district customer. And, you know, if that requires a little more, you know, payment where we're we'd rather do that then go through the, the legal nightmare of, working through an inclusion agreement. That's kind of where this kind of stalled.
We've been working on this with previous, board members in the last, you know, 5 or 6 years. But we think we have a pretty good point of where we're at now just requesting for extraterritorial water. And then the well, at Tall Bull Memorial Grounds, I'm not quite sure when, but, our Department of Public Health and Environment, who test, our wells every year, they've basically said that water is non-potable.
It's for drink or it's for just, you know, cleaning. And when they have their powwows down there and things like that, they can clean and wash hands. So, so. And as Nathan said, we might have not been leading up to it at that time, but you guys knew it was coming. So it kind of is coming. We've got three wells that are failing.
We've had, you know, preliminary estimates of drilling new wells of half million and no guarantee of water, you know, could be 1500, 1800 feet deep. So, we thought since we already have an existing agreement, the easiest route, which we hope to be an easy route. And it sounds easy, but we're at this point where we're thinking that just amending the agreement and, putting the onus on Denver to, pay all system development fees, pay the operational fees, the water fees that, that come with delivery, the water as established by CPN, CPNMD the existing agreement.
I think there was some reduction in the, in the rate of the tap rate just because I think we were a governmental entity. But that's we're not asking for that. If you guys go through your, review and, and want to offer that, you know, we would gladly probably accept it, but we're not requesting. And as Nathan said, we would be solely responsible for all improvements internal to the park.
We've had some preliminary, engineering completed. As Nathan also mentioned, our demand is pretty low. I think at the caretaker house right now, we're we're probably around 50 gallons a day. Tall Bull probably would be considerably less. And, I'm not quite sure what the meter reads on the east pasture, but that would be interesting to to see that, you know how much the buffalo drink.
They, they're they probably drink quite a bit, but, probably not as much as, you know, taking a shower and doing dishes and things like that. And then what's also, I thought I'd like to point out in the agreement is, is we also thought, there is this concern, you know, about wildfire and, and wildfire mitigation in all of our, open, open spaces and natural areas, you know, from what we saw up in Superior.
So, we, we're we've got language in there that we have a lot of, resources when it comes to that. We work with South Metro, we work with a lot of the front range jurisdictions that deal with wildfire mitigation. And, and I think what we would propose is that, you know, let's let's work cooperatively, in those areas around Daniels and, and Castle Pines north areas that, that, that where we can work with, you know, wildfire mitigation and wildfire finding and, and combining resources on that.
So, so that's kind of the short spiel. Our wells are failing. We want to continue to provide bison water, and we want to continue to provide water to our caretaker. And we'd like to offer water to the call Memorial grounds so they can continue their educational and cultural programing down at Tall Bull Memorial Council. So, with that, I'll, I'll open it up to questions and, we can talk maybe a few items about the contract that you guys might want to discuss.
But, that was a draft. And our attorneys put that together with the intent of of you guys looking at it in your attorney, looking at it and, you know, redlining it and coming back to us with, with how you see this working. So, again, it's just a draft, but that's our general outline. I'll let our attorney and your attorneys, you know, debate over the language, but I think the intent is we want to be, extraterritorial, paying customer, and have limited, you know, water services.
I don't think we're interested in any irrigation. I don't think we've historically irrigated and and we're kind of operating the herd as a, as a natural herd. And, and they're eating the grasses out there. And we supplement that with hay. So, and it would be household use mainly and, and program use.
Chuck:
Thank you. Brad, I, I did one quick clarification.
Maybe I'm missing that, but it sounds like your three wells are are on the way out or they're not going to be producing what you need for the Buffalo.
Brad:
Yeah. Well, we're we're already down to two because, well, three has has failed. And that was that one. When it's only like 50ft deep..
Chuck:
Are we going to dig a new well or are we bringing the water from a well.
Nathan:
So this would just be tied into our distribution system. So comes out of the treatment plan, goes into the distribution piping, goes through the service line like it. Every other service connection that we have.
Tera:
Okay. And so when we talk about our existence, Cliff, first of all, Brad, thank you so much for being here. the the buffalo are a very popular, amenity.
I think everyone that lives in the community feels like they belong to us. And so we certainly enjoy them. And we, I know, would not want to do any harm. And of course, we need the caretaker to take care of them. And then my question for Nate, though, you know, I think first, do no harm to our existing subscribers.
So does this diminish the availability or supply of water for current subscribers in any way?
Nathan:
Not in any way that's impactful. I mean, we're talking total system demands this. I mean, this would be tenths of a 10th of a percent in terms of their their total usage. You know, anytime we add service to any customer, we're drawing against our resource.
But this isn't anything that's going to have even really a noticeable impact on operations or water production. It's just not much water.
Tera:
It's not like a whole new neighborhood. It's that we're already supplying kind of half of it anyway. And that's just adding.
Nathan:
Yeah, I mean we've yeah, we've put for in terms of inch and a half services.
We're building three houses in Whisper Canyon right now that all have inch and a half services. It's a, it's a pretty standard size. yeah. It's, it's really just it's not going to be, especially since they're not like they mentioned. They're not looking for any things like to do anything like irrigation. I think it would be smart to call that specifically out in the agreement, like very narrowly defined.
This is what you can use this water for. But yeah, I mean, if we're, we're just talking about like basically one of the residents and then some programing and stuff, I really don't think it's going to be a huge amount of water. We do have some precedent, in terms of servicing outside of our district boundaries.
I think that it would make sense to do, or at least look at the option of adding a premium. So like Hidden Point pays an extra 25%. I think carrying that through just for the sake of consistency. I think that only applies to their, water rates, water and wastewater rates. Another thing to consider in this is it doesn't take any of like our our wastewater treatment plant capacity.
None of this water is going to be coming back into our collection system. So the the tap fee adjustment on that, it that also affects the amount of the total tap that would be put in. And I'll have to go back and look and see if they paid the 175 for the inch and a half. I'm sure they did.
but so that's, that's reduced by a factor. I mean, it's, I look, it's, about 14, about $28,000 less than a full tap fee because per SP, 7400 and dollars and some change, is for the wastewater connection fee. And so since they're not connecting to our wastewater system, we don't have to charge that fee. It'd be more of a discussion.
We get to it. If they did decide they wanted to go up to a two inch, that's where it gets a little bit tricky. That 175 300 that they paid for. The inch and a half would straight up double. They owe us another $175,000. Just because of the way those single family equivalents scale. yeah. Thank you.
Chuck:
Go ahead. I'm sorry. Go ahead. I like the buffalo. My kids like the buffalo. My grandkids like the buffalo. I want the buffalo to have water. Is this an agreement that, council is working on, or, what's the status of that? And do we, review it at our board meeting next week?
Legal Counsel Kim Seter, Esq.:
I have a copy of it from Brad.
Started redlining it today, and I will get it in the packet for the board meeting next week. Great.
Chris:
Meaning we can review it or vote on it. Review it? When can we vote on it? When can you vote on it?
Kim:
You may be able to then, if you don't have really significant changes, I'll try to get a copy back to, Denver's attorneys so that they have a chance to respond.
But if that doesn't happen, then we may want to wait to vote at the next board meeting. Okay. Yeah. Because based on my understanding, our tap is just the same tap. We're not doing anything. We're just, updating the document. So I don't know why this should take any length of time. Yeah. Just me.
Chuck:
That's a little there.
Great. Thank you very much. yeah. Nathan. Thank you. Any other questions?
Board Member Director Denise Crew:
Just to say to me this is an absolute no brainer. Yeah. We need to proceed. Keep them fed or keep them watered. easy, easy. And I think it could be adjustment to the tab fee because we're not doing stormwater is is something we absolutely should do.
So it's all good to me.
Nathan:
And just for clarity, the adjustment to the taffy is for sanitary sewer not stormwater there. Okay. Separate.
Tera:
So nothing further about the water. But Brad, I sure would love for you and your counterpart to come back and actually talk a little bit about the buffalo herd up there. I mean, maybe there's some, collaborating on communications that can go on because I know that there's a story there that you're trying to change.
So maybe, maybe we can invite you back in the future. Would love to hear about that. And you could tell me why. Why the horses all alone? Some of the time It makes me sad.
Brad:
That that's a story for another day. Story for another day. But thanks for having me here. And and I think, we would love to come back and, tell you more about our story of Daniel's and the mountain park and, the buffalo.
You know, we we'd love them to. I think that's just one of the unique things about Colorado. So, you know, we're glad to be here and look forward to working with you on this. I'm glad you see that. It was easy, but it was not easy to get to this point. We had to be a little patient, and let the kind of the dust settle.
I know, you know, with the inclusion and and all that stuff. But I think we're at the point now where we're ready to move forward. We still have design work to do. We still have to figure out kind of what that system looks like. It's not going to be a cheap, you know, service line, as you probably realize.
But we're in it and we want to protect the buffalo as much as we want us.
Chuck:
Well good. Let's let's get it done. Thank you. Okay, you can bring one of those buffaloes up here if you can put it on a leash. Yeah. Brad. Thank you very much, Nathan. Thank you. All right. Thank you.
Thank you. Nathan moving on to agenda item number three.
Nathan:
Yeah so I apologize for not getting I didn't get this memo out to you guys until, later today. Part of what I've been working through, in this proposal is expanding our existing partnership with Resource Central. They are who we've always done the Slow the Flow program through. They've got a bunch of they're, they're working with like, 40, 40, some odd 48 into like, local municipalities and similar areas.
And so I've been having conversations with them. Really what it comes down to is whether or not they have capacity for us this year. So if they don't, they will next year. And so it kind of gives us a little bit of a dividing path in terms of what we're looking at, for specifically the residential rebates.
So we can kind of roll through this, roll through this document.
Chuck:
Clarify what does Resource Center actually do for us?
Nathan:
Currently, Resource Central provides, facilitates a program called Slow the flow. So slow the flow. we have historically put a $10,000 contract in. And what that allows our residents to do is work directly with, Resource Central.
And Resource Central sends out basically irrigation system monitors. It's a really, really cool program. They'll come out to your house, the district picks up the tab once that $10,000 is full. It's it's done for the year. Is we went back and looked at it, for the last five years, at least, we've gone 100% filled that contract with, somewhere between 20 and 40 residents waitlisted for the following year.
And so we're drastically outpacing our demand. But so they come out and they do the audit and that does several things. So I'll give you a bunch of recommendations, for plant materials, plant types, watering schedules. They'll teach you how to go through your irrigation timer. They'll look at lot application rates of your existing system. And then they'll give you recommended watering schedules based on weather patterns.
Just individuals as to that one home. And so there's four services generally speaking, the resource central provides that slow the flow is the only one that we've been partnered with on so far. There they have another program, which is it's honestly really, really cool. They have developed partnerships with, I think they said 19 or 20 area landscape companies.
And so what that allows them to do is through us subsidizing the program, they use their reduced, reduced fees they get from the landscape contractors. See if I can explain this.
More succinctly. So through their partnerships with the landscape contractors, they will actually provide the actual removal of Sod or removal of these like whatever high, high, high use irrigation. They have, in-house design reviewers. They handle that entire process. And so the district's responsibility inside of that program is we basically set what is the maximum amount we want to spend per customer, and then what we're going to contribute.
So the way that we're currently looking at it would be $1.50 that we would contribute to per square foot of sod removal. And then they'd use their contracts, which gets reduced rates, and it allows them to do all kinds of things. There's online planning tools that they can use. There's like the garden and a box stuff that they can go through that gives them a really wide variety of options for their front lawn.
And so there's been kind of play with how, how they want to utilize that benefit for their, for their yard. And all of it gets high water use stuff out of the ground. And so we cap that on that end. And then the end result is that our residents basically just pay Resource Central a dollar per square foot for their project.
And that goes up to like 666ft² just because of the way that's designed. Their, they kind of cap out it like $1,000 maximum benefit. And I think following the work the Castle rocks done in the work that Aurora has done, that's still even less than they're doing for, their overall plans. And I think that it just it's it's a crazy cool benefit to our residents.
Chuck:
Is it voluntary? Yes. Or you're not. This isn't something you want to make mandatory for the district.
Nathan:
Correct. Now this would be yeah, this would be all residents would have the opportunity to take care of this, to take part in this program. Up until the same way that the irrigation system audits work, that they could participate in this program up until basically our budget cap is met.
And so it'd be limited annually, first come, first come first serve basis. You have to remove at least 200 200ft² of sod in order to qualify. And then it caps out at that like just under 700ft² Mark
Board Member Director Jason Blankaert:
Nate is all the HOAs buy into this? ...
Nathan:
So we're not we're not talking about HOA fees at all yet.
Jason:
But there's some properties inside HOA that won't allow this to happen.
Nathan:
The kind of sort of technically true, the state, the state legislator, the HOA is can put anything they want to in their documents. Colorado state legislature has come out many, many years ago pretty strong and saying like, yeah, you can write it in there, but it's not actually enforceable. One of those is the requirement for HOA is that HOA have to have like Kentucky Bluegrass.
You really aren't legally allowed to enforce it. It has been challenged and it has failed. We haven't really had that problem with our HOAs. We, at least in the ones that I've been dealing with, over the years, I've just never had an issue with an HOA coming out against a zero yard. So they can't put requirements in, like you can't hardscape the entire yard, like they don't want you to, like, pave concrete over, but they can't have rules and bylaws that require you to have high water.
Use plant material in your front yard.
Chuck:
How does something like this, maybe it doesn't, affect our neighbor, the ridge, for instance. It just completely eliminates them. And they can water all they want.
Nathan:
It doesn't have any impact on the ridge agreement. Since the ridge is fed through, primarily fed by our reclaimed wastewater out of. It's a it's a different system. We do have the ability to directly send them, well, water.
But this isn't anything that would really be helpful for them. This program we're specifically talking about is also would also be limited to single family residences. we're kind of we're kind of I'm looking at doing more of a two pronged approach. So we have like this is a much more effective program for single family residences.
It's not a great utilization of funds for HOA and multifamily. There's a there's ways we can get more bang for our buck there. Especially since those are going to be handled by like property management firms are going to have designated landscape contracts, all of that kind of stuff. So there's really not not as much of an incentive for them to push this.
So I think we're better dividing our funds, specifically setting this site amount for the single family, this amount for non single family, and then having two slightly different program tracks for them to follow.
Chuck:
Obviously our our goal is water conservation. But if this were offered to the community how do we measure whether it's being successful or not or a waste of time.
Nathan:
So that's one one thing that's nice about the Resource Central program is they do all of that tracking automatically as part of the agreement. So everything that we that gets run through them, they're going to give us an annual report that shows exactly how much water was saved, how many square feet of sod were removed, what those expenditures looked like.
They'll give us a really detailed report of how that looks. and that's all like I said, if we can get on board with them this year. And so that's, it's really kind of a good way to, like, dip our toe in a little bit for this year. And then as we approach budgeting season next year, we'll have a whole summer worth of data to really look at.
And, that'll it'll help us out a lot in terms of like setting this program up for next year. So we're going to get a lot of information out of moving down this line that will help us better inform an augment it. Resource Central also helps develop those more fully realized, conservation programs, too. So they'll be collecting information, providing recommendations.
And that's something we can adjust as we move into 2024.
Chuck:
Would there be any benefit to do this in tandem with the cities, since they're they provide the building permits? And I think it was Aurora when we spoke to them. They required new single family residence to be zero scape?
Nathan:
The I love those. Castle Rock has got a very similar rent direction with all of their new single family stuff.
There's really just not a lot of benefit for us in that arena. Basically we have we have. We there's like one parcel left or one, not one parcel, one property left that is as of yet to be fully developed. And that's really it. And it's not a huge chunk of land. So everything else that's currently being built has already been approved.
It would get grandfathered in. We can't change the the rules on them after they've already started the game. And so because we're so close to being built out within our existing boundaries, there's just not a lot of meat on the bone to like put out this like really robust restrictions on like new construction, new builds. Just because we're already there are we have so much stuff that's established and in place of we're much better for it, we're much better off focusing our resources on like mitigating and removing what's already been put in over the last 30 years.
Chuck:
Okay. And makes sense to me.
Denise:
Can you take me if I'm a homeowner and I want to be involved with this program, what what are the steps and what's my cost of it? Is it just for your front yard? They call the metro district. Set it up. Get on the way.
Nathan:
Yeah. So for so for this specific program they would cut they would work directly with Resource Central.
They would call their resource central has an online tool. They can go through. They basically put in their customer account information. We do have a quick verification that would happen on our end. Just like, we saw this. We agree with your assessment. And so the the minimum requirements would all be really clearly defined. They can go through, decide how they want to best utilize their benefit.
You know, if they need to work with our HOA to get plans approved, that's going to be on their response, their responsibility. And so they'll work with Resource Central. Get a plan approved. Resource central will engage one of their partnerships that they have with the landscape contractor that landscape contractor will come out actually physically do the work. They'll remove the sod.
They'll put down new plant material. Whatever they decide they want to do. And then the customer would be responsible for paying Resource Central, $1 for $1 per square foot, for all of that. So the total cost of of each square foot removed, they're projecting to be well, they're planning will be $2.50. We pay $1.50 of that.
The customer pays the other dollar, and then that gets them into that ballpark.
Denise:
So I think did I hear you say this is just for front yards or. No, it's for any side backyards also.
Nathan:
Correct. Yeah. Any any. Yeah. Any any stuff they want to remove
Denise:
We have not participated in this I know we've done slow the flow.
Nathan:
Correct. Yeah. We would we have never participated in this. Yeah
Denise:
Okay. And this is actually moving forward I don't see why we wouldn't do it. I mean it's a huge step towards water conservation.
Chuck:
This is an idea that's, this concept is, is not going to be mandated by the district. It's going to be offered correct. Okay. I just want to make sure that people are hearing, don't think we're making a mandate that you're going to tear out your yard and put in dirt.
This is, by choice.
Nathan:
Yep. Correct. And so the budget for this specific program, I'd be asking for a $35,000 to fund that residential for that program with, With Resource Central, that includes a $4,500 just participation fee. That's kind of like, you know, we help run the program that covers, resource, general staff and everything that they need to do to get this thing going.
And then after that, there's really not a lot we have to do with it.
Denise:
So you're 15 partnered project. You're estimating what we would budget would serve 15 residences. Correct. Okay.
Nathan:
And that's 1515 like something to keep in mind that is that that's assuming that everybody takes full advantage of like the like everybody the participates does the full allotted maximum rebate, which isn't something that's actually likely going to happen.
So in reality, we'll actually more than likely be working with several homeowners. But this basically says like if we if 15 people use 100% of the benefit, that would wipe out that entire program cost. Okay.
Chris:
So I like you said, this is like nothing, right? We've talked to other organizations. And if the intention is water conservation and to entice the homeowners to do that, this is like absolutely nothing.
Right. So I understand that we have no, new developments and maybe 1 or 2. But what about new landscaping? Every homeowner every so often does their landscaping all over again. New landscaping. Maybe that should be an option where we say pretty much it would be like a new home in Castle Rock. You have to essentially go in there and reduce your your sod by whatever, 90%.
Right? Something like that. So I think we we got to look at it in tiers and that way is, think outside the box. We're trying to do, water conservation, but it's not just new homes that get built. We everybody does landscape thing almost.
Nathan:
Yeah. And so and that's something I think I'd probably have to have some conversations with Kim around in terms of what we can and can't require.
Because we have service agreements put in place, like these houses were built out with a certain square footage that all goes into the tap fee and the allotted use. I don't know that we can go to an existing resident and tell them that if they decide to do a new lawn, they have to remove anything else? I don't I don't know if we can do that or not.
Chuck:
I don't think we have,
Chris:
Legal to tell us. So
Chuck:
we don't have any enforcement.
Chris:
So we'll we'll hear that from the legal and that we can decide what to do. That was just one of the other thing was on the, on the, the, the budget budgeted requirements here, $35,000, 15 people. Okay, let's double that. 60 people. We got 3500 homes.
Yeah. And we asking for something like, I don't know, 10% of that covenant.
Nathan:
So that was that dollar amount was set around resource Central's capability to put this program in place. And then also, based on their based on the size of our district, the percentage of residents that they have seen over the past several years actually take advantage of it.
So it's a reasonable budget number that was set up really through a lot of their recommendations to make sure that we don't over budget for program utilization. And then as we go through this, that's not the only the total asking I'm going to be looking for is closer to $100,000. So we're just talking about this one specific residential program.
Chris:
Okay. So let's just stay with this because you didn't. Are you going to outline the rest of the conservation process too? Yes, sir. Okay. Yep. So even for this, I think we should incent. You already said that there is over, what, 40 or more people every from last year that weren't able to benefit from this because there was no budget.
So what I'm saying is ask for more money. Let's see if we can we can support this the way we should. So do we have some conservation effort? And then I did want to mention on Jason's question because I'm I'm part of that HOA too. And we've had this conversations, we've been waiting under the, district to essentially come out and give us like good guidelines
on, on, on, on water conservation, zero scaping and stuff like that because we're in whatever, you know, the district says we want to, I don't know, go to whatever percentage of your sod being zero scape. I think that's something that's supported right now, at least in the Castle Point North homeowners association CPN two. Yeah.
Nathan:
And we do we do have some resources that we've had for a long time now on really like really solid zero scape principles like what we're looking for in terms of appropriate plant materials, design stuff.
All of that is on the website. I mean, the ultimate goal is really to get rid of. I mean, if there's a piece of grass that isn't part of a park, that somebody is actively like sitting on a blanket on, or playing a sport on top of, there's really no reason for it to exist. And so, visually, some HOA is or some homeowners are always going to want their little patch of green for whatever reason.
But our ultimate goal is to get as much sod out of the ground as possible. And then we want to make sure that we're using our money effectively. And I think that that's part of something else to keep in mind is like, this is moving into this program for this year. If we have a huge demand that far outpaces outpaces the $35,000 for our initial run.
And that's something that we can plan for and have a much better idea of what it's going, what it's going to look like. We also want to make sure that we're not getting ourselves in a position where we have more money available than we're actually able to deliver on. We're, you know, we're limited by the number of contractors in the space available.
The resource central has for the specific partnership program. And so there is some incentive beyond that. And so the under that residential rebates, that first bullet point, we would still keep our separate from this program. We would still keep in place. Right now it's $0.40. We move it to $0.50 for our residential rebate for sod replacement.
And so what that allows us to do is assuming that somebody does not want to go through this program, or even if they do, there's still an incentive there. So we'll still give you a $0.50 per square foot that you remove if you do it outside of this program, the we're just going to be limited with the amount of capacity inside of the program.
And so what becomes really cool about that is it's like a double incentive to also go through the Resource Central program, because upon completion of that program, you know, they pay, they're like anybody else, they're paying resource Central as their landscaper, that a resident would then be able to submit that to us again and then get like an extra $0.50 off.
So like, you can get 600 and almost 700ft² of sod removed in your yard for $0.50 a square foot cost to your to the homeowner, and then any. But once that program is exhausted, there's still, somewhere in the neighborhood of about $10,000 that would be sitting in there for people to utilize just the 50 square cent or 50 cent per square foot rebate.
So it it allows us to move beyond just that program.
Chris:
How much did you say? What was that number
Nathan:
$0.50. So the. Yeah. So 35,000 total
Chris:
Or it is $0.50 too it's 35,000.
Nathan:
The $0.50 per square foot is just included in that number
Chris:
Included And $35,000 or the 150 already. Correct. Okay. Wow. So that's covered in two programs. 35,000 is cap cover.
And, the Resource Central Program plus is cover and Metro district program for $0.50. Correct.
I'd asked for more money.
Nathan:
I will put that number, whatever you want it. but we are going to be limited in terms of, like, how much we can do through that resource central partnership program. Beyond that, if we want to put, you know, whatever amount you guys want to in there, we absolutely can.
Chris:
Because because if I went out and I did, I zeroscaped my whole side yard, I didn't come back and ask for any money.
But if I as an individual homeowner went and says, I want to do this myself, we can still come back or they can still come back and ask for $0.50. Correct. Submit the information so that doesn't have to go to resource correct. So that's an an additional incentive that we can put out there. So that's been separate.
Chuck:
Exactly. Nathan. are there any other districts contiguous to Castle Plains that are doing this now that we can maybe look at their program, learn a little bit of more about it, and see if it's successful or not?
Nathan:
Yeah. Resource central, I can I can send you guys some website links. They'll kind of run you through their program details.
Like I said, they're working with 40 plus other water providers in the area. South Gate Centennial works with them. There's a lot of people that are right around us that work with them, and then they all use various degrees of whether or not they're they're partnering inside of the, inside of the sod removal program, if they're just using the, slow the flow, there's various levels of partnership among those 40 plus utilities.
But this is something that's been going on for a long time with a lot of success. It might be Interesting to, sit down with another district manager and say, how's it working?
Nathan:
Yeah, I can reach out to, Erie was one that they that we talked a lot about. There was had a lot of similar program goals.
Chuck:
You know, Centennial was thinking about it.
And I don't know if, Aurora has enacted that or, you know.
Nathan:
Yeah. Centennial does have a relationship already with, with this company. I don't know what their level of involvement is. I'm not sure what where they're partnered or which which ones are using, but I can certainly and certainly reach out,
Chuck:
Will you know, by next week at the board meeting if there is room in Resource Central for us.
Nathan:
Yes, I'll know by Friday. By Friday. Yep. Okay.
Chris:
Okay. What's the alternate solution? Let's say Research Center comes back and says, no, I don't have room. What's our next two, three, four on contractor work with?
Nathan:
So barring the availability in that resource Central program, what I would ask for is we adjust and again, I'll have this by Friday is we keep that $35,000 number in place regardless.
And then instead of having that without the ability to have that partnership and partnership program in place, we move to a $1.50 per square foot removed, with a 400 square foot minimum, or replacement of entire front yard and then a 2000 square foot max. We use the same amount, we use the same dollar. We just lose that partnership and then we'll apply it just much more directly.
Chuck:
Right. Good job. Good. Sounds good to continue working on. You'll find out a little more about it. Thank you Nathan.
Tera:
Thank you Nathan. Oh yeah.
Nathan:
Yep. Yeah. So we're just we're just through the residential stuff.
Tera:
I know, but so just on what you've said so far. So you are anticipate doing that. We would do the resource center all this year.
Correct. You said that there is staff on our time. There is staff time on our side that we would have to verify things. Do we have the bandwidth on the staff and who is that staff? Since our staff just went to the city.
Nathan:
You're looking at it. yeah, it's really not. I was talking to about a day in terms of like the program verification on that site.
It's it's 30s to check an email.
Tera:
And, you know, I feel like we really jumped in to the nuts and bolts of this conversation, whereas I thought we were going to have a broader conversation about water compensation, you know, conservation. I mean, we haven't even talked about water conservation in general. And, you know, unless you had goals in place that I did not see on our website, you know, I'd like to know what our goals are.
I think we, the board should have a discussion about what our goals are. I heard a goal of we're trying to remove all sod. I don't know that this board, at least certainly not a discussion that I was part of, said that we want to remove all sod. I think, you know, having a bigger conversation about water conservation and fitting into the regional and regional needs and how we're going to communicate these things, because there could be a lot of people right now since we've had, we've had so much snow and rain.
That's why, you know, it could be a hard sell this year to do water conservation. Since we don't we are not into drought, which we're always under drought. Let's be serious. We live in a high desert. But I think you know what I'm saying. But, you know, when I look at a conservation program, it's a overall program. There's a communications plan for it.
So people know, know about it and know how to take advantage of it. There's, there are goals I think getting obviously, resource central must know that they need to track that they do have goals, but before we put a program in place, I would certainly like to know what it is that we're trying to achieve. And to, you know, Chuck's point.
So we know whether we achieved it or not. And I just feel like we jumped into the nuts and bolts of this conversation without having the broader conversation about water conservation.
Chuck:
Tera, I understand your concern, but, the way I view this is this is a, a first look at first blush, at what can what we can do.
We should look at it further. And I think as we decide that it sounds good or it's beneficial, will be profitable to the community by saving water, then we move into the next stage. and we set a budget. We set a goal. We, really try to determine how we're going to market the program to the community.
Those are all things that come in the second and third paragraph. But I think that, just knowing that, we have a concern for water conservation, there's a, a, an outsource for us to look at. I think we ought to pursue it and review it. But the more we learn, I couldn't agree with Tera more, the more we need to learn and ask questions.
And, make sure that this is the appropriate direction to take, and that it is beneficial to the community rather than just jump into it. I don't think we're going to jump into it tonight, that's for sure. And I don't think that the next board meeting we will, but, I think it's a good start. We get to start somewhere.
And so I think Nathan is a good start. And I, I'm interested in seeing, it pursued to see what is out there and how other districts feel about it. Then we can go into different phases.
Tera:
We also need to know how our district feels about it.
Jason:
Nathan, did you said that we've been a part of this, resource central for the previous years?
Nathan:
Yeah, we've worked with them on the Slow the Flow program for about ten years now, ten plus years.
Jason:
Okay, I'm on thier website and I see a bunch of cities on there, but we are not on there. So I was just curious.
Nathan:
Yeah, we're I'm not sure why we wouldn't be to.
Chuck:
Tera has an interesting question. If if this is something we feel is is valuable to the community.
Kim, maybe you can answer this. Is this something that we need to bring forward to the community for a vote and understand that the community even wants it, so even proceed in this matter?
Kim:
No. It's within your jurisdiction to decide.
Chuck:
So that's why we're here, correct?
Kim:
That's where you get the big bucks. That $0. Yeah. We'll talk about that later.
Chuck:
Okay. Tera, Chris.
Chris:
I for one, since we've been talking to the districts, which is over a year now, this has come up over a year now. So it's certainly not new. And we were waiting on the presentation. I know we've talked about this a couple board meetings ago and I when I say a couple, I'm thinking six where pretty much you were going to come up with a proposal for us to, to review.
So I think, you know, in general, you know, we're progressing. You know, we talked a little bit on the details, but I think we need to, you know, just keep working through this. It's renewable water is one part of the whole deal of conservation is the other part. Right. And that's the direction of all the other districts we've spoken to.
Aurora, new new houses. Right now they have pretty much the same regulations, almost like Castle Rock.
Nathan:
And I can I can certainly go back through and kind of, definitely reformat this. We can we can put in mission vision stuff. We can make sure that it's, just a just differently written, I'm an operator, so I go straight to nuts and bolts, like, that's where it's at.
I want to know how it works. I don't really care how it feels, and I want to know if it's going to be effective. So built into that, the overall mission of vision is to reduce water usage as much as we possibly can. The projected water savings on this current plan with the residential would be, about $750,000 annually.
And that's in, in-perpetuity. So you're going to keep building on that year after year. From a commercial perspective, this investment would save us about 1.5, 1.25 million gallons of usage per year. And then again, that keeps building up. And so those would be our specific targeted goals in terms of our water reduction. But I think putting in that in the format of just a brighter, broader mission vision values, and then applying that to, you know, our, our already stated mission makes a lot of sense.
In terms of the metrics that are used for these, we're using data that's, data and projections on water use that are regionally accepted. I got some of from Resource Central. I pulled resources from Castle Rock. I've looked at, analogous I've looked at a but I can't I have to go back and look like 8 or 9 other districts.
And specifically if their water conservation programs to see what they're doing, what they're doing. I've had conversations with Resort Central, I've talked to Castle Rock. I've also talked to, somebody that works with, the state around, like what they're seeing that's hyper, that's really, really effective. And so it's kind of like picking and choosing out of that.
So the other drive here in terms of conservation isn't going to be just that rebate program. So I'd also be asking the board to, put specific watering restrictions in place, which is something that we haven't done from an from an enforcement perspective. We're not really going to be at a point where we can enforce an every third day watering schedule.
What we can do is enforce watering timeframes. That's much easier to do. So we can say 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. is industry standard for the region. That is when you're allowed to water. If our staff members, if we have staff members seeing you watering outside of that, you're going to get a warning. And if we can get that in place this year, what I'd like to do is do nothing but issue warnings for the rest of 2023 and then, like, let them know with that warning, hey, 2024, you'll get one warning, you'll get a progressive fine structure after that.
And then that's obviously more aggressive for the commercial side. And so we want to we want to have policies in place that encourage restricted use, that also encourage sod removal. And then we'll do the best we can to track that data and see the efficacy of these programs. But everything that's recommended here, are all things that are very, very tried and true.
Like this is these are types of programs and policies that have been in place with a variety of districts for, for a long time. And I also lean more toward the aggressive side in terms of like how much we're going to compensate individual homeowners for getting this stuff out. I'd rather have 15 homeowners go all in than, you know, 30 or 40 homeowners, kind of like take little patches out of their yard.
Yeah, but I can I can rewrite this,
Tera:
And I appreciate that. I'm just saying, if we have, you know, an overall vision and our community supports that and is on board with that, there may be people who who maybe haven't even thought about it, who, even if they're not getting a rebate, may go, oh, wow, that's great idea.
Nathan:
Yeah. We have we have a backlog of people that are waiting for us to ramp this up. I get we get multiple calls from a whole number of homeowners every week, weeks. I've got two separate HOA's that have consistently reached out. I've got a third one that I've had one conversation with, like there is a very stated desire from our community to move forward as aggressively as we as we can.
Tera:
While you're hearing from, you know, hearing from the people that are passionate about it, that doesn't mean that that's you're not hearing from the vocal minority. So we have to be careful with that. But yes, absolutely. I understand that there is a need. All I'm saying is we, I think we have an obligation to the people that we represent.
I don't I to me that everybody else is doing it. We should do this doesn't work for me. I'm I'm not representing other districts. I'm representing this district. And I want to do what's right for them. I understand there's, interest, which is awesome, but we also need to make that widely, as advertised as possible. So it's not just for people who are really looking for it, that
Everybody, has the opportunity. Yep.
Chuck:
I think before we get into involving the world, on our soapbox, we ought to find out a little bit more about it ourselves. I'd like to hear from resource. Maybe at the next study session, we can have, them come and tell us the problem in more detail. The nuts and bolts, as you said, Nathan.
And see what, they can do for us. And then, the more we learn since we've opened up this, idea, we should pursue it, on into whatever it takes to make a final decision. But there's a lot of learning that has to be done. And there's. There's the people that are getting will be involved, and there's money that's going to change hands.
So I'd like to know a lot more about it and what the benefits are and what the costs are, before we, open it up to the public. I mean, something we should know and learn first. So if Resource Central is our current vendor of choice, maybe you could invite them at the next study session. And, like we did with the buffalo and, we'll ask some questions in it.
Nathan:
Sounds good. I will yeah. So we the way that we've been tracking this,
Chuck:
If they want us, I should say they may.
Nathan:
Well. Right. And so that's something to keep in mind is the is delaying another month out will likely take the resource central completely off the table. They're going to need to know in or out. What if they if they tell us that they do have capacity for us, they're not going to be able to sit on it for another month.
So that would just change our direction for this year. I can't
Tera:
We absolutely. If they have capacity, we know we probably have enough demand to meet what their capacity like. We probably may even have more demand than what their capacity is. I'm not saying that that's a bad thing. But because clearly we have people. But I think we also, as you acknowledged, don't want to jump in on the nuts and bolts.
We also need to have a bigger, vision that we can include our community. And and just so I'm clear, so it would this be the ask for our, council? I mean, our board meeting on Monday night would be a total increase, a budget of 91 for everything. It would be, yeah, it would be amended budget, a budget amendment.
Nathan:
No. So it'd be a reallocation. So looking back through the and we're just looking at what we haven't already pulled out of the communications budget, I don't think we're going to actually have to change the bottom line of the budget anyway. We're going to have a lot to look at, especially as we get through, like all of the parks, trails and open space IGA and the general fund stuff.
There may be some shifts that happen there anyway, but the, the existing, that $91,000, there's no reason that we should really absorb it. It's really just a it's really just permission to you to reallocate funds inside of the existing budget so it wouldn't change the bottom dollar or the bottom line item on the budget, which is the only thing that requires an amendment, is if you're adjusting the total amount.
So we would steal this from other areas or reallocate it from other areas that were not we're not using funds from.
Tera:
And you will be able to detail those areas.
Nathan:
Yeah. It's it's out of two communication line items. I can I can include those, okay. Good. Thank you. Nathan. Anybody else would just like you very much. That's pressing.
That's, that's that's the end of our, study session agenda items. I'd like to take a few minutes just to chat about, the forum tonight and the process. Kim, do you want to, lead off? And let us know the, the format that, will follow, and, let me interrupt real quick. Nathan, do we have, name nameplates for, the guests?
Nathan:
Yeah, we do. So we're going to need to the way that this is kind of scheduled, this will close the study session. Now, the other one will open at 6:00. So I think we'll probably wait until the end of Kim, go through everything. that's going to be time to get clean water glasses. Replace all the nameplates.
That's good. Get paperwork up at the front.
Chris:
Okay. I do appreciate that, because I was going to say I don't want to be part of anything where were you guys are talking about how we're going to do it.
Chuck:
The study session is done.
Chris:
Okay. We are adjourned. Good job.