The Fountain City Council on Tuesday approved a deal that will increase the city’s capacity for new water taps for the first time in years.

“This is excellent bang for our buck,” said Councilmember Gordon Rick.

The new water deal increases Fountain’s share of a three-way lease on wells at the Venetucci Farm in Security-Widefield. While Fountain previously had 10% of the water, the Security Water and Sanitation District has agreed to give up part of its portion to bump up Fountain’s to 38.6% by 2030.

The agreement will last until 2076.

With the new water, the city estimates it will be able to add about 2,000 more taps. For several years, Fountain has been near its peak water capacity and has been denying new development requests. The deal creates opportunity that the city has decided to manage preemptively.

As the water supply comes online, the city will allow developers to use 50% of the new water for homes — the equivalent of about 1,000 new rooftops, said Fountain Water Resources Manager Taylor Murphy.

Deputy City Manager Todd Evans told the council that the city already had about 3,500 standing housing development applications, while 5,000 to 6,000 could be expected to infill around the city.

“When you look at the overall requests that we’ve gotten over the years, a thousand more taps really isn’t a huge request,” he said.

The city will also allow 30% of the taps for new commercial development, while 20% will be held in reserve for projects with a public benefit.

Murphy said the agreement, which includes no major infrastructure upgrades, would not make much of a dent in the city’s water budget. He said water “source of supply” costs for the city are now at $3.3 million.

“These are fixed costs that we really don’t have any flexibility on,” he said.

This year, the Venetucci deal will add about $40,000. By 2030, the first year of full portion use, the added cost is estimated at $190,000.

The lease deal with the foundation that owns Venetucci Farm is a “take or pay” scheme, wherein the participants pay for their full share of water at the beginning of the year regardless of how much they actually use. Fountain will gradually up its amount in the coming four years to follow demand.