Point in Fact: All Real Estate Is Local
August 23rd, 2008 categories: Buying San Diego Real Estate, San Diego Real Estate, Selling San Diego Real Estate
It is said that all real estate is local and that point is demonstrated by this story in our local newspaper. The article concerned a local dispute by a homeowners association group with a local school board district. I guess it is not all that uncommon but tax paying citizens who are assessed special taxes for designated projects in their area expect the projects to be built ( eventually at least). In this case it was a Middle School.
At a local school district board meeting recently a case where a Community Facilities District , a CFD ( Taxing Authority where bonds are generated to pay for infrastructure in a specific area. The Tax is called Mello Roos) was established to build a new middle school and the board announced that it did not now plan to build a school on the parcel that was procurred for the school. The funds from the bond are currently being used to support other nearby schools in the district.
It seems that even though residents have to pay the special add-on taxes due the school district, the school district now reports that the enrollment projections made back in the 90’s ( when the CFD was formed) for a new middle school in the area has not panned out and now there is now no need for the school.
A local homeowners association is demanding a guarantee in writing from the school district that if it ever intends to sell the land that is currently not being used that was procured for the intended Middle school, that no commercial or residential development may ever be built there.
And it wants it in writing, not just for assurance but as a legally binding restriction on the deed to the parcel. It was also reported that the school district has been paying the state of California a hefty non-use fee on the land, a policy that the state set up decades ago as a way to help recover some of the tax revenue that it might have otherwise collected had the land not been originally procured by a school district.
As a means to possibly curtail the on going fee, the school district has suggested it may consider using the land for a school lab for studying environmental and ecological subjects.
A dispute like really does make the point clear that all real estate is local and that tax payers care very much that land use that they pay for in these CFD’s should be used as it was intened and designated.
I am sure that everyone involved had the best intentions but often ” Life Happens” and gets in the way of these ‘Best Intentions’ and then as is often the case, it becomes riddled with all sorts of the possible unintended consequences.
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