2014-006 - Santa Ana General Plan Housing Element and Public Safety Element Updates

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HOUSING CONSTRAINTS Water Infrastructure The sole source ofwater for Santa Ana is a municipally owned system operated by the Santa Ana Public Works Agency. Santa Ana is a member of the Metropolitan Water District and receives approximately between 30 and 35 percent of its water supply imported from northern California via the State Water Project and the Colorado River via the Colorado River Aqueduct. The City of Santa Ana receives the remaining 65 to 70 percent of its water supply from groundwater wells accessing the Santa Ana River groundwater basin. The City's 2010Urban Water Management Plan (UWMP) indicates that existing water supplies and planned capacity improvements are sufficient to meet anticipated water demands. Therefore, on a citywide level, the availability of an adequate supply of water is not a constraint to the production of housing. The UWMP also did not indicate the presence of undersized water mains that would preclude the development of housing in the community. Adequate fees are in place and revised to maintain, repair, and replace water mains as necessary. Sewer Infrastructure The City of Santa Ana maintains approximately 390 miles of local sewer lines. Main sewer trunks within the City of Santa Ana are owned and maintained by the Orange County Sanitation District (OCSD), which provides sewage collection and treatment service. The City's sewage is diverted to Reclamation Plant Number 1 in Fountain Valley. The Reclamation Plant has a design capacity of 60 million gallons per day (gpd) and is planned to provide capacity ofup to 120 million gpd. OCSD requires all developers of residential projects within their service area to pay capital facility charges that are designed to fund the construction, maintenance, and improvement of facilities. The 2003 Sewer System Master Plan states that, in general, the capacity of the major sewers is adequate under dry weather flow conditions except for minor surcharging in a small number of sewers. Additional surcharging would be expected during most rainfall events. Under extreme peak wet weather flow conditions, expected to occur less than once in five years, more sewers will surcharge and a few of the worst may overflow. Capacity limitations in OCSD trunk sewers cause or contribute to many of these problems, and coordination with OCSD will be required to achieve an acceptable solution. The City's two lift stations were found to have adequate capacity under all conditions. The Sewer Master Plan lists the recommended interceptor improvements and their associated planning level costs. Projects on OCSD trunk sewers are not included in the list, as those projects are not the responsibility of the City (Sewer System Master Plan, Executive Summary) . Please refer to Appendix C regarding the adequacy of the sewer system for the Metro East Mixed -use Overlay District, transit corridors, and proposed Transit Zoning Code district. To date, many sewer infrastructure improvement have been completed since the 2003 Sewer System Master Plan that have alleviated some of the worst case conditions. B -34 CITY OF SANTA ANA GENERAL PLAN HOUSING ELEMENT