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Spring City to draft ordinance requiring water shares for annexations
Summary
Council directed staff to draft an ordinance to formalize water "exaction" requirements for annexations. The draft would use Horse Irrigation Class A shares as the preferred water right and defines share counts tied to access to secondary water, accessory units and irrigated area.
Spring City Council instructed staff to draft a municipal ordinance formalizing water-right exaction rules for annexation agreements, specifying how irrigation shares can be used to meet the city's water requirements.
Staff presented a proposed framework, developed with input from the irrigation company and legal counsel, that prefers Horse Irrigation Company Class A shares as the source of annexation water rights. The draft language staff described would generally require:
- One Horse Irrigation Class A share to be transferred to the city for each residential connection when the property has mapped access to the irrigation system's pressurized sprinkler system.
- Two Class A shares per residential connection when the property does not have access to the pressurized system.
- An additional share for each accessory dwelling unit (ADU).
- One additional share for every extra 10,000 square feet of outdoor watering beyond an initial 10,000 square feet (about one-quarter acre).
Staff said alternative water rights could be used if an applicant demonstrates an equivalent quantity and a transfer/change application is filed and approved before annexation is finalized. Council discussed the need to ensure applicants retain enough secondary water for irrigation after any transfer to the city and asked the staff to add clarifying language to address that possibility.
Legal counsel told the council the proposed provision will require a public hearing as part of an ordinance amendment. Councilmembers directed staff to draft the ordinance language and either insert the provision into the city code or create a standalone annexation ordinance; staff said a standalone insertion could take about two months to complete if the council prefers to convert the entire annexation policy into code.
