The existing Countywide Landscaping District contains thirty (30) benefit zones comprised of frontage and road median landscaping, pedestrian bridges, parks, and recreational facilities installed by developers as a condition of their development. The annual assessments associated with the Countywide Landscaping District 1979-3 (LL-2) fund the operation, maintenance, and capital replacement of the facilities within the various benefit zones.
The Landscaping and Lighting Act of 1972 requires that an annual Engineer’s Report be prepared each fiscal year to identify any changes in the improvements and to set the ensuing fiscal year’s assessment rates.
The Fiscal Year 2020-21 assessments will be calculated by considering all anticipated expenditures for operation, maintenance, utilities, administration, and capital replacement costs of such facilities. If excess revenue from a benefit zone is available from the previous fiscal year, it will be credited against the proposed expenses for that benefit zone. The assessment rates may or may not change from fiscal year to fiscal year, dependent upon projected costs to maintain the facilities within each benefit zone. However, the assessment rates cannot exceed the maximum amount set when the benefit zone was originally formed, plus an annual cost of living adjustment, if a Consumer Price Index (CPI) adjustment was established when the benefit zone was originally formed.
In accordance with the Landscape and Lighting Act of 1972, the assessment amounts proposed to be levied for the Fiscal Year 2020-21 tax year, will be shown in the Preliminary and Final Engineer’s Reports, which will be filed with the Board of Supervisors in May and June 2020, respectively. The June 2020 Board meeting will be a noticed public hearing to confirm the Fiscal Year 2020-21 assessment rates.
Without Board of Supervisors’ approval there would be no initiation of the process to prepare the Engineer’s Report and to assess levies for the Countywide Landscape District 1979-3 (LL-2) for Fiscal Year 2020-21, and thus funds would not be available to maintain the landscaping and other improvements in the benefit zones throughout the County.