Property owners back neighborhood maintenance districts in special ballot votes
Under California’s strict tax caps, cities frequently rely on hyper-local assessment districts where neighbors chip in directly for upgrades that benefit their specific blocks
The Palm Desert City Council held two special assessment ballot proceedings Thursday, both of which saw less than a tenth of the voters protesting either action.
Though no property owners spoke at the meeting, vote counts were read aloud while the council took short recesses. According to the vote counts read at the meeting, 93% of voting property owners in the Corte Placitas cul-de-sac voted to integrate into the Palm Desert landscaping and lighting district. Yearly fees will cost around $500 for these 20 homes.
“Its homeowners association approached the city seeking alternatives to reduce its costs,” explained Chris Gary, a city planner.
Additionally, 95% of commercial property owners in Presidents Plaza III on El Paseo Drive voted to renew their district. The total cost of $111,219 is expected to be split between the sixteen properties according to their size.
Many cities such as Palm Desert fund lighting and maintenance through special assessment districts, requiring residential property owners to pay for the street lighting and cleaning near their homes and commercial property owners to pay for parking lot improvements near their businesses.
California’s Proposition 13 caps general property taxes at 1% and requires any “special tax” to pay for specific city improvements to receive a two-thirds approval. Special assessments however are levied against property owners in a particular geographic area with the funds legally required to be used for those owners’ benefit.
Given that, wherever a city can’t show that a special benefit is received for a particular portion of a special assessment, cities must fund that portion via other sources. Because of this, 4% of the President’s Plaza III improvement district facilities will be paid for using other city funds.
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