Lompoc will expand its city limits to include a 10-acre parcel for the construction of a housing development, following a 6-1 approval vote by the Santa Barbara Local Agency Formation (LAFCO) Thursday, Jan. 7.
Lompoc City Administrator Patrick Wiemiller estimates the annexation will go into effect mid-February, preceded by a 30-day wait period and the recording process.
Lompoc applied for the annexation in January 2014, spurring city-county disagreement on how to split property tax from the planned development, called Summit View Homes. Property tax comprises 1 percent of the appraised value, of which 42 percent goes to the city and county. The remaining 58 percent is distributed among school districts and other local agencies.
Wiemiller said it was determined in August that the county would take 31 percent of the tax revenue, leaving 11 percent for the city.
Developer Stephen Hester agreed to pick up the slack by shelling out an annual portion of Summit View Homes’ revenue for Lompoc, starting at $5,254. Wiemiller said he expects that number to increase as the parcel develops.
Summit View Homes will sit on 10 acres just north of the city’s current limit. Wiemiller said annexation was ideal for the development plan because Summit View Homes will include 44 units as a part of Lompoc, where it would have been limited to 31 units on unincorporated county land.
Last month, Lompoc’s City Council halted plans for a new fire station and department headquarters, despite Fire Chief Kurt Latipow’s claim that a new station was necessary to accommodate population growth. Meanwhile, Lompoc’s growth continues, with Wiemiller expecting Summit View Homes to attract between 120 and 130 new residents.
Wiemiller said the development is unlikely to reignite the push for a new fire station, as the need for one is due to decades of city growth, not any one project.
“It adds incrementally,” Wiemiller said, “but not enough by itself be a game changer.”
This article appears in Jan 14-21, 2016.
