The Joshua Basin Water District board issued a conditional will-serve letter for the controversial Alta Mira housing development last night. Reporter Mike Lipsitz said the board was reminded they were not a land use agency……
At last night’s standing-room-only meeting of the Joshua Basin Water District, members of the public addressed the board to express opposition to the District’s granting a “will-serve letter” to developers of the planned 248-unit Altamira project. And while directors individually expressed their sympathies with the public’s concerns, District Counsel Gil Granito and General Manager Curt Sauer explained that any environmental and land use considerations in this context are outside the district’s authority. So at the end of the day, the board was obliged to approve a conditional will-serve letter with Director Rebecca Unger opposed. The action does not give the project a green light, nor does it guarantee the project service in the foreseeable future, at least as long as the drought emergency is in place. In a related matter, directors denied a will-serve letter to NextEra Energy for their planned solar plant at the old Joshua Tree Airport. That action because the County has yet to approved the developer’s request to combine ten parcels into just one.
JOSHUA BASIN WATER ISSUES ALTA MIRA PROJECT WILL SERVE LETTER
