It’s been an almost 24-month battle between the city of Arroyo Grande and future resident Michael Harris over drilling a water well on his 55-acre property.
City staff originally recommended that the Arroyo Grande City Council deny the project, but Harris fought. In mid-November he finally got the green light to drill.
Harris is no stranger to the county. His grandparents lived in Nipomo, he attended Cal Poly from 1981 until 1986, and his children later followed in his footsteps. Eventually, he wanted to move back from Sacramento and settle down on the Central Coast.
“I had been looking for probably a year and a half for properties where I could build a house, and I eventually found this property,” he told New Times on April 3. “It’s off Noyes Road and they don’t connect to a city street and there are no city services on the property.”
That’s where his problems began.
Since October 2022 Harris has spoken with city staff about putting a water well on his property, which is at the intersection of Noyes Road and Equestrian Way. On March 20, 2023, Harris said he received an email from Arroyo Grande Associate Planner Patrick Hall confirming that his well application would be on the consent agenda at the next council meeting.
“So, they were clearly going to approve it,” he said.
But that didn’t happen.
On May 1, 2023, Harris received an email from Hall claiming that the city decided it wasn’t in its best interest to have a domestic well at that location, so staff recommended against approval.
“I definitely think there is individual discrimination going on for sure,” Harris told New Times in previous reporting. “I think that’s without question; I mean, there’s plenty of proof.”
According to a Feb. 27, staff report, city staff determined that it was both feasible and practical for Harris to connect to the city’s water supply because his property is adjacent to the city’s Reservoir No. 5, a 1.2 million gallon above-ground storage tank.
The city also said that a residential water service connection couldn’t be made directly to the city-owned water main from the tank. But, the city added, a connection could be made on Harris’ property line.
“The connection from Reservoir No. 5 to Mr. Harris’ property would be approximately 50 feet in length along generally level land, with minimal surface restrictions,” the staff report reads.
Harris said it wasn’t “feasible and practical” for him to connect to city water and having to do so would result in a financial blow. He said his land, which slopes up 30 degrees, houses dozens of protected oak trees and resistant sandstone. Harris said it would cost him around $300,000 to dig a trench to connect his property to city water.
“[They] asked us all this information about our cause and about why it’s not practical and feasible, and we provided all of that. Now they’re saying we don’t have to consider you,” he told New Times in April.
According to the Feb. 27 staff report, city staff bases what’s practical and feasible on what it would cost the city to reasonably provide a domestic water service connection from the city water line to a private property.
“Staff does not believe practicality and feasibility criteria should be based upon the private property owner’s costs associated with installing domestic water service, nor should it be based solely on the topography of the site,” the staff report stated.
Since 2017, the city has looked at four factors when considering a domestic well application: the distance from existing municipal water infrastructure, any necessary infrastructure improvements, any easements that might be needed to connect to the municipal water supply, and whether the proposed water connection is located outside city limits.
There have only been three domestic well applications since 2017, and the city said none of them considered the applicant’s cost, the staff report stated.
During a May 28, 2024, City Council meeting, Harris again reminded the council that connecting to city water wasn’t feasible for him because much of his property contains oak trees protected by the Arroyo Grande municipal code in the community tree program.
“The report that I paid for from the arborist covers in detail the impacts to the trees, but that’s not only impacts and their impacts to wildlife, but then of course erosion,” he said during the meeting. “I think the environmental impacts are significant,”
Many community members following his case voiced their support for him, including Shannon Kessler, who said she saw it as a personal attack on Harris’ property rights.
“I’m also curious why the prior wells were approved, since from what I saw they were mostly [agricultural] wells, which are more intensive and have more of an effect on the water table than domestic wells,” she said.
The proposed well site also sits outside the adjudicated Santa Maria Groundwater Basin and is located in the Los Robles Aquifer. Staff said there’s no anticipated interference or depletion to the city’s system from the requested well, according to the Feb. 27 staff report.
During the May 28 meeting, City Council decided to approve the well application but with 15 conditions that Harris would have to follow.
Shortly after receiving the conditions, Harris hired legal representation claiming that a number of the permit conditions were unwarranted and should be struck. In a June 19 letter to Arroyo Grande City Attorney Isaac Rosen, Harris’ lawyer, Paul Beard II from Pierson Ferdinand, claimed that seven of the conditions were “unlawful.”
The letter stated that three of the conditions were unique to Harris—that no other similar well permit contained such conditions.
According to a May 28 staff report, condition 6 states that this approval is only valid for the construction of a single-family home. Any additional development would require connection to city water. Condition 7 states that the well application is only valid for the existing parcel, and condition 13 states that with additional development, Harris must return to the City Council for a new hearing and approval to use the well.
“Conditions 6, 7, and 13 create barriers to further residential development that state law affirmatively encourages,” Harris’ attorney’s letter states.
Staff met with Harris and his lawyer multiple times between July and September to negotiate the permit’s conditions, according to a Nov. 12 staff report.
They agreed to consolidate conditions 6 and 7; remove 13; remove 9, which required the well to have a backflow device; remove 14, which required the well to comply with applicable state or federal law; and revise 15 to say that the well would be subject to city penalties.
The City Council approved the permit with revised conditions. Δ
Reach Staff Writer Samantha Herrera at sherrera@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Dec 5-15, 2024.