The city hopes to save up to 2.5 million gallons of water per year if the City Council votes Tuesday to require that low-flow toilets be installed in all homes that are remodeled or sold.
The proposed requirement – which would require sellers to retrofit toilets at the point-of sale — was introduced in March by the city’s Environmental Task Force, along with other sustainable building practices that were adopted by the city.
The council put the toilet retrofit program on hold after the South Bay Realtors objected to the measure, saying it unfairly targeted home sellers. At that time, council asked staff to bring back more information regarding the proposal.
At a Nov. 3 meeting, staff recommended that the toilet retrofit requirement be adopted as part of a larger ordinance aimed at aligning city practices with new California Green Building Standards. If approved next week, the ordinance will go into effect on Jan. 1.
“Toilets are the biggest water wasters,” said city building official Carol Jacobson, who noted that toilets account for 30 percent of the water used in a home.
The city met with South Bay Realtors director of Government Affairs David Kissinger a few times over the last several months to find methods of implementing the retrofits, which would require toilets that use no more than 1.28 gallons per flush. A typical toilet uses 1.6 to 3.5 gallons of water per flush, depending on when it was manufactured. A federal mandate in 1994 required that toilets use no more than 1.6 gallons per flush.
While Kissinger agrees that water conservation is important, he objected to requiring only some residents to implement such measures and said that it would not be the most effective way to conserve water.
Instead of using the point-of-sale method, he proposed that the city instead use a “date certain” format, in which all residents would be required to retrofit toilets by a target date.
“That would mean you either have 100 percent compliance or something less than 100 percent with a record of those who aren’t compliant that you could reach out to,” Kissinger said in an interview this week.
Jacobson said that such an approach would be much more labor intensive, as the city would have to send notices out to homeowners and continually check up on non-compliant homeowners.
“This way, they just need to show a simple certificate,” she said.
With 15,000 homes in the city and roughly 400 sold per year, Kissinger argued that it could take up to 50 years for all city residences to install low-flow toilets.
“If it’s so important, it should be for all 15,000 homes in Manhattan Beach, not just the two to three percent that close every year,” he said. “It should be required for a much larger part of the population, instead of a teeny subset of people selling their homes.”
While a typical 1.28 gallon per flush toilet costs roughly $100 to $200, higher end toilets can cost much more.
According to experts like this plumbing repair service, a home with five toilets could easily cost $1,000 to replace toilets, not including additional work that might be necessary, such as plumbing labor and possible floor repairs.
He also said that the sale of the home can be threatened if buyers and sellers refuse to install the toilets or rely on advice from a realtor who is not qualified to discuss proper plumbing practices. Therefore, look up plumbing services in Rancho Santa Fe, CA and nearby areas before it’s too late.
“When a $9 million dollar home is on the line, the wrong advice could break the sale,” he said. “Nobody wins if the sale falls apart.”
“We have to move away from the idea that it will burden one particular industry,” said Councilmember Mitch Ward at last week’s meeting. “What is the additional effort to check off low-flow toilet in a $1.5 million dollar home? I think it’s worth it.”
No other South Bay beach city has such an ordinance in place. Other cities that require point-of-sale retrofits include Santa Monica, Morro Bay, San Francisco, Napa and Santa Cruz, most of which require multiple plumbing fixture retrofits, including faucets and showerheads.
“It’s a common retrofit requirement, such as installing smoke detectors or strapping water heaters,” Jacobson said.
“It would minimize the enforcement element we’d otherwise have to attend to,” Councilmember Portia Cohen said.
The city will vote whether to approve the toilet retrofit program, along with other sustainable building measures, at its regular meeting at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday. ER
