Staff costs needed to effect the change to parcel address on the property tax roll, the Geographic Information System maps, and the County Land Information System will be funded by the General Fund.

In 2019, various residents living in the unincorporated Saranap area asked Supervisor Andersen and the Department of Conservation and Development to investigate the possibility of changing the city place name of 465 Saranap properties from Walnut Creek to Lafayette. Properties in this area have a Walnut Creek Zip Code of 94595 but are located within the Lafayette School District and the City of Lafayette Sphere of Influence. These properties are shown on Exhibit A, attached.  
  
After petitioning the United States Postal Service (USPS) to make the change, USPS agreed to add Lafayette in its mail routing system as a recognized city mailing address for these properties. USPS now recognizes both Lafayette and Walnut Creek as city addresses for this area. The Zip Code for the properties remains 94595.  
  
Many residents in the unincorporated area of Saranap are requesting that the property tax rolls be changed to reflect city address of Lafayette. The property tax rolls associate a property with a city in 1) the mailing address and 2) the situs address, i.e., the description of where the property is located.  
  
For purposes of the situs address, the Assessor has discretion to associate a property with a city, including changing the city name from Walnut Creek to Lafayette for the properties listed in Exhibit A. Such a decision is within the scope and course of the Assessor’s responsibilities because the Assessor is statutorily charged with preparing the property tax rolls. (Rev. & Tax. Code, § 601.) At its expense, the County will provide for the legal defense of the Assessor and his Office in civil actions filed by owners or former owners of properties listed in Exhibit A asserting damages resulting from the city name change.   
  
If the Assessor updates the situs address to associate the affected properties with Lafayette, rather than Walnut Creek, the change would not place the properties within the City of Lafayette. The properties would remain in the unincorporated area of Contra Costa County. Additionally, the city name change would not result in reassessment of the properties or affect which laws and regulations are applicable to the properties.   
  
If needed, the Department of Information and Technology will work with the Treasurer-Tax Collector to enable issuance of tax bills with the changed address for the 2022 tax bill. In addition, the Department of Conservation and Development will update zoning maps to reflect that these properties are in unincorporated Lafayette.  
  
With respect to mailing addresses appearing on the property tax rolls, the Assessor’s Office uses a program that directly inputs mailing address information from USPS’s database. For this reason, these mailing addresses would continue to reflect Walnut Creek as entered in the USPS database.   
  
  

That 465 affected properties in the unincorporated Saranap area would retain a situs address of Walnut Creek on the property tax rolls, despite being located within the boundaries of the Lafayette School District and the Sphere of Influence of the City of Lafayette. However, the situs address can be changed to reflect Lafayette.  

Speakers:  Gus Kramer, County Asessor; Joyce Coleman, Walnut Creek; Steve Segal, Walnut Creek; Lynn Lopez, Saranap; Derek; Chris O'Brien; Glen Zamanian; Elizabeth S.  Written commentary provided by Thomas M. Cassani (attached).