OUTCOME OF THE 2007 OPEN SPACE PRESERVATION DISTRICT

The property owners of the City of Santa Clarita voted overwhelmingly in favor of the City’s Open Space Preservation District.

Overall, the Open Space Preservation District was approved by sixty-nine percent (69%) of the weighted assessment ballots. Single-family homes and condominiums held sixty-five percent (65%) of the weighted ballots and, therefore, controlled the outcome. Ballots for approved, un-built developments accounted for only $148,737.50 or 8.7% of the total potential assessment vote of $1,707,378.56. If you “back out” the ballots for approved developments, the District still passed with fifty-nine percent (59%) of the assessment ballots.

• The assessment vote of single-family residential properties was sixty-two percent (62%) in favor the preservation district.
• The assessment vote of condominium owners was seventy percent (70%) in favor of the preservation district
• For commercial property, the vote this year was fifty-three percent (53%) in favor of the preservation district.

In conducting the Open Space Preservation District assessment ballot process, the City of Santa Clarita carefully followed the requirements of Proposition 218, the “Right to Vote on Taxes Act,” which amended the California Constitution. Proposition 218 requires that in an assessment ballot process, “In tabulating the ballots, the ballots shall be weighted according to the proportional financial obligation of the affected property.” (California Constitution Article 13D, Section 4e).

The Proposition 218 Omnibus Implementation Act also states that a change in land use that results in the assessment going up is not defined as an assessment increase, as long as the methodology was approved by property owner ballot. By allowing property owners to vote at the potential maximum assessment, it puts them on notice that the assessment will go up when the property develops to its highest and best use. The application of “highest and best use” is a practice that has been in place for assessment districts dating back nearly 100 years to the Municipal Improvement Act of 1913.

It is because of the requirements of Proposition 218 as described above that assessment ballots are prepared and tabulated differently than in a typical municipal election.