Hutto City Council may start saying no to water requests from developers

Hutto City Council plans to start being more picky about who it gives its limited amount of water to. 

It's part of a balancing act, making sure Hutto has enough water for the long run, but it could have a huge role in shaping the surrounding area’s growth.

Why would Hutto say no to water requests from developers?

The backstory:

It’s no secret Hutto is booming.

"We are in a water constrained area, and we just happen to be growing faster than almost any other area in the United States and so when you add those two things together it becomes an issue that we have to thinking about the long term," said Matt Rector, the city’s engineer. "Every single day we get a new project coming in saying ‘we want water, we want wastewater, we want whatever' and so it’s an ever-changing picture trying to balance that out and figure out how we provide consistent reliable service for not only the people that are here and the people that are building here right now but the people who want to be here in 5–10 years."

Hutto only has the responsibility to provide water to certain areas, called CCN. Most of that is inside the city limits.

Anything outside the CCN is more fluid. The city can say no to a water request here, and it’s likely that they’ll start doing it to some developers.

"They need to make the case to us," said Peter Gordon, city council place four. "Here’s why we think you should serve us and here’s why we won’t make it a burden on the existing repairs?"

Hutto already has two contracts lined up for more water in the next few years.

All together, it will bring in nine million more gallons per day, but with how fast the area is growing, Rector says that may not be enough.

"It’s very possible that we could outgrow those future contracts by just saying yes to everyone and so the idea is to be a little bit more picky and let city council decide which projects that are outside our CCN would merit us giving up water that we would normally use for our people inside our CCN," said Rector.

What's next:

If the city council does in fact say no to water requests, Mayor Mike Snyder said he's likely to do it to residential developments.

"Water is the one thing we have left," said Snyder. "It is the only tool we have left to protect the development, so we don’t have to give it to residential, we can just say no, and it won’t get developed. To me, it’s okay if a portion of the city doesn't blow up, and we throw 5,000 new homes in the next three years."

If Hutto needs to add more water in the coming years, Rector said it will likely come from the two additional suppliers the city already has a contract with.

The Source: Information from interviews conducted by FOX 7 Austin's Lauren Rangel

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