25-Year Roads Tax Proposed in Santa Clarita Valley

A ballot measure was proposed Tuesday that would ask homeowners in the congested Santa Clarita Valley to add from $75 to $200 to their property-tax bills annually for the next 25 years to pay for new roads.

Lou Garasi, spokesman for a subcommittee of the Santa Clarita Valley Transportation Committee, which made the proposal, said that taxing existing homeowners would generate $41 million by 2010. Another $115 million to $200 million would be raised from future homeowners, assuming that a projected 48,000 new residential units are built by 2010, he said.

A recent yearlong study by the Southern California Assn. of Governments estimated that the valley would need $340 million for construction of new streets and highways by 2010. A separate report by the Automobile Club of Southern California put the figure at $800 million.

“We would still need all the help we can get from the state and the county,” Garasi said.

The subcommittee, which is chaired by Connie Worden, a Santa Clarita city planning commissioner, will present the proposal to the Santa Clarita City Council on Jan. 24. Garasi said the plan will also be submitted to Los Angeles County.

Garasi predicted that the council will react favorably to the proposal because its members have made roads their top priority and are looking for ways to fund them. But, he added, “We’re not looking for the city to support it, only to put it on the ballot.”

Mayor Pro Tem Jo Anne Darcy said that the council members have not yet discussed the proposal. “We certainly would set up a study session on it,” she said.

Part of the proposed ballot measure calls for the city and county to form a joint-powers agreement for constructing roads in the valley.

The subcommittee proposed that the measure be put on the November ballots for the city and for the unincorporated county area of the valley. The measure would require a favorable two-thirds vote in an area coinciding with the boundaries of the William S. Hart Union High School District.

The Hart district serves students in Val Verde, Castaic and other unincorporated county areas, as well as in the communities of Newhall, Valencia, Canyon Country and Saugus, which comprise the city of Santa Clarita.

J.J. O’Brien, a retired California Highway Patrol captain who heads the Transportation Committee, said that funds raised by the tax would be a start. “When you can come up with matching funds, you have a better chance of obtaining state or county funding,” he said.

O’Brien said the issue will be “a tough sell” to voters.

“I hope the voters will be convinced to do something about the traffic congestion up here instead of just bitching about it all the time,” he said.

State Sen. Ed Davis (R-Valencia) put it best in a speech in the area last month, O’Brien said. “Davis said if you want it, you’re going to have to pay for it,” O’Brien recounted.

Unlike the school fees on new development that were approved by voters in 1987 and are being challenged in the courts, the road tax would be on all homeowners, not just newcomers, Garasi said.

Under the proposal, residents would be taxed according to the sizes of their homes. Senior citizens would be exempt.

The Transportation Committee is an offshoot of the Canyon Country and Santa Clarita Valley chambers of commerce. The boards of both chambers unanimously endorsed the proposal Tuesday, Garasi said.

“We all created it,” Bonnie Bernard, executive director of the Canyon Country chamber, said of the proposal. “We all should pay for it. We all moved here from somewhere else.”

The valley has an estimated 38,000 housing units.