Council overrules landscape district protests

One of Yorba Linda's more controversial issues – who should pay for what in the Landscape Maintenance Assessment District – continues to draw protests, with many residents challenging the annual fees levied on property owners for “special” landscaping benefits.

But – again this year – the City Council overruled all protests regarding the assessments and forwarded a list of payments due from city property owners for nine arterial (major street) and 46 local landscape zones to the county for collection with 2015-16 property taxes.

The list sent to the county also included fees for three traffic signal zones, a citywide arterial street lighting zone and a non-contiguous local street lighting zone. All together, the fees will total $5.7 million, plus a $1.1 million “general benefit” contribution paid from city funds.

However, despite a 1.3 percent consumer price index increase from the prior year, the $6.8 million total is still short of the some $9 million in expected expenditures for 2015-16, so the shortfall subsidy also will come from the city's general fund.

Many of the protests concern one or more of the local landscaping zones, which now total 46, up from 12 four years ago, although the zones cover the same area. And some residents say the city should not maintain landscaping with no public benefit and on private property with no easements.

“Special” benefits are defined as “aesthetic benefits to the properties within each respective zone and a more pleasant environment to walk, drive, live and work,” noted the latest report from a city-hired consultant that handles many of the landscape district's legal requirements.

“General” benefits are described as “limited tree management, weed abatement, rodent control and erosion control services for the various landscape easement areas,” with a $752 per acre cost for flat or moderately sloped areas and $1,073 per acre for slope landscaping.

The city-paid “baseline servicing, unlike the enhanced aesthetic services funded through the district assessments, would provide benefits to the general public and to the properties both within and outside of the specific benefit zones,” according to the consultant.

Of the city's total 21,142 single-family homes and 1,083 multi-family units, 11,091 and 524, respectively, are within the 46 local landscape zones; single-family owners pay from $46.30 to $479.65 for “special” benefits, depending on the zone.

All properties are in one of the nine arterial landscape zones (single-family owners pay from $43.87 to $52.89). All are in the arterial street lighting zone (single-family: $1.40), and most are in the local lighting zone (single-family: $18.08) and one of the three traffic signal zones (most single-family: $6.26).

Fees for multi-family units are 20 percent less and vary for mobile homes and nearly 1,500 acres of other developed, school, park, golf course and vacant land.