The proposed annexation of a housing complex near Lompoc is a point of contention between city and Santa Barbara County officials because of the potential tax revenues it could generate for whichever government has jurisdiction.
On April 15, an ad hoc committee comprised of Mayor Bob Lingl and Councilmember Dirk Starbuck met with supervisors Doreen Farr and Peter Adam to hash out revenue-sharing details for the Summit View Homes development that Lompoc wants to incorporate into city limits.
The annexation must first be approved by the Local Agency Forming Committee (LAFCO).
The city and county agree that there are two issues at stake. One: Who gets to have the tax revenue from the property once it’s built and if it becomes annexed? Two: How will the two governments split public services to the complex.
Lompoc City Manager Patrick Wiemiller said the site’s developers approached the city in the hopes of annexing it from the county to the city because they would be able to build more houses on the 10-acre parcel (it breaks down to 44 houses in Lompoc versus 31 in the unincorporated county), essentially getting more bang for their buck.
Wiemiller said fewer houses would be able to go up on the property if it stays in the county because of green space requirements. But that issue goes away if it’s annexed. Lompoc already accounts for green space elsewhere in the city, with a ratio of 4 acres to every 1,000 residents, Wiemiller said.
The process has been ongoing since before January. The recent ad hoc meeting happened because the county Board of Supervisors didn’t approve the second round of negotiations with the city. Wiemiller said the county sent a letter to Lompoc asking to withdraw the application without including a reason.
But there’s nothing the city can do to force the county into a tax sharing agreement, he added.
“The county has some concerns with how the city has approached annexation, whether in the past, or perhaps particularly with this annexation,” Wiemiller said. “There is a process of mediation and arbitration, but unfortunately it’s not binding.”
Tom Alvarez, the budget director for the Santa Barbara County Executive Office, said with only 10 acres of land, there may not be enough revenue to go around.
“The challenge is that there’s just not that much revenue to be split up based on how it currently looks,” Alvarez said.
This is a bit of a cart-before-the-horse kind of a situation, Alvarez said, as revenue negotiations typically happen after LAFCO approves the annexation. When an annexation is proposed, LAFCO is supposed to review the proposal and find out where services are needed.
Alvarez also cited other issues, such as who gets to bear the responsibility for repairing roads within the development and which fire department is responsible for responding to calls from the complex.
The next step is for the county to draft a letter for the Board of Supervisors to present at a meeting in mid-May, outlining details from the ad hoc meeting.
This article appears in Apr 23-30, 2015.
