Panel to Tackle Developer Fees : Financing of New Santa Clarita Valley Schools at Issue

Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich said Tuesday he will appoint an ad hoc committee to help resolve the dispute between Santa Clarita Valley developers and educators over the financing of new schools.

The group will try to reach agreement on a school financing proposal to present to a joint committee of the state Legislature when it begins holding hearings Aug. 11, Antonovich said. Members of the committee, who will be named this week, probably will include two school administrators and two representatives of the building industry, the supervisor said.

The committee idea grew out of a meeting Monday of Antonovich, state education officials, members of the Building Industry Assn., county planners and the five Santa Clarita Valley school district superintendents.

Developers have become alarmed over proposals for large fees on home construction to pay for schools.

Antonovich aide Dave Vannatta said the meeting reinforced the need for state participation in the financing of new schools.

New Schools Needed

Since 1970, the Santa Clarita Valley’s population has more than doubled to 103,000 and the area’s five school districts have been hard-pressed to find classroom space for the influx of students. More than 30,000 residential units are in the process of obtaining county building permits. If all are built, local school officials say, the area will need at least four new elementary schools and another high school by 1991 to accommodate a school population that is expected to double within two decades.

Clyde Smyth, superintendent of the William S. Hart Union High School District, said the districts have no funds to build the schools. As a result, Hart and the other districts--the Castaic, Newhall, Sulphur Springs and Saugus elementary-school districts--will ask voters Nov. 4 to approve ballot propositions imposing special fees averaging $6,000 on each new residential unit to help finance schools.

Developers have said they are willing to pay some toward school construction but oppose the special fees as excessive.

Appeals of Project Approvals

Since last fall, the five districts have appealed all county Regional Planning Commission approvals of housing tracts in the Santa Clarita Valley to the Board of Supervisors. In most instances, the supervisors, at Antonovich’s request, have then required the developers to participate in assessment districts or to pay fees for school construction.

No assessment districts have been established and no fees have been set, however, because of concerns that they could preclude state financing. Antonovich said state officials at Monday’s meeting declared that this is not the case.

“They have no objections to fees being imposed,” he said.

Antonovich said he was “very encouraged” by the meeting.

Smyth, who has been a spokesman for the school districts, praised Antonovich for taking “the leadership to set up the meeting and to appoint the ad hoc committee.”

“You can never resolve anything unless you’re willing to talk about it,” he said.

But Smyth said state funding is “absolutely not” a panacea for school financing. Even if voters approve an $800-million state school construction bond issue on the Nov. 4 ballot, there is no guarantee that Santa Clarita Valley school district will receive any of the money, he said.

“We’re saying, ‘Give us a safety net,’ ” Smyth said of the proposed developer fees. “We will only impose the fees if there isn’t anything else available. Our bottom line is that we maintain our top-quality schools.”