Securing water access often means purchasing or leasing water rights, or accepting trade-offs. To get one of its communities in Colorado—Sandstone Ranch—incorporated into that water district's source area, M3 offered to build a water storage facility that would benefit the town of Perry Park. M3 recently completed a study to gain water rights for an 8,000-home master plan in Eagle, Idaho, that, in part, “calls for us to develop water sources ourselves,” through retention and reuse, says Brownlee.
The likelihood that Aperion Cos., a Scottsdale, Ariz.–based developer, would break ground within the next two years on Rio West, a 12,000-acre community in Sandoval County, N.M., improved markedly last summer when the county discovered water 3,400 feet below ground level. David Maniatis, Aperion's president, hopes that source can eventually provide most of the 18,000 acre-feet of water Rio West, with 30,000 homes, would need annually. (One acre-foot equals 325,851 gallons, or what two households consume in a year.) This water contains salt, so Aperion plans to build a desalination plant, the cost for which would be defrayed by selling purified water to other districts in the state, Maniatis says.
John Laing Homes and Village Homes are jointly developing an 803-acre community in Aurora, Colo., called Southshore, whose runoff, and that of nearby Semac Creek, funnel through man-made wetlands and a series of drop structures that oxygenate the water so that when it reaches a four-acre retention pond, “it's crystal clear,” says Susan Peterson, Southshore's general manager, who calls this process “water polishing.” This water irrigates landscaping and the grounds, but when Southshore builds a second creek system, it will return some of its water as drinkable fluid to Aurora's reservoir.
Credit: U.S. Drought Mitigation Center
Water utilization, in fact, is now central to many developers' plans. “There's truly an amazing amount of water available through conservation,” says Ritter of Focus Property Group. By installing xeriscaping and low-flow fixtures and appliances, Focus' Mountain's Edge community uses 25 percent less water than a similarly sized community without those features. Mountain's Edge includes a “demonstration garden” of desert plant life and provides residents with a manual Focus has coordinated with a local nursery, which conducts quarterly xeriscaping seminars.
Four years ago, the Las Vegas Water District launched Water Smart, a program that certifies builders, developers, and their communities that comply with water-conserving guidelines. New homes with front yards less than 50 feet wide must install xeriscaping instead of sod, and the District pays owners of existing homes $2 per square foot when they replace sod with xeriscapes. Doug Bennett, conservation manager for the Southern Nevada Water Authority, says this program conserves 56 gallons per square foot, a 75 percent savings compared with homes with turf. Bennett adds that this year, the Authority will require all new homes to include drip irrigation systems that sense soil moisture and rain, and by Jan. 1, 2009, 1.28-gallon toilets must be installed in all new houses.
The initial results of Water Smart are positive, as Las Vegas added 480,397 residents between 2000 and October 2007, but now uses only about 80 percent of the water it consumed in 2002. “Water Smart is starting to gain traction with builders here,” says Bill Hoover, Southwest regional president for Las Vegas–based Pageantry Homes.