Tract Fees Approved Over Buyers’ Protests

Despite protests from homeowners, the Simi Valley City Council will allow the developer of a new housing tract to collect from residents up to $1,680 a year for 25 years to help pay for utilities and services.

The council voted 3 to 0 Monday night to approve special assessment fees that will be charged to the owners of 63 houses in the Greenbriar tract, built 18 months ago by Griffin Homes. Council members Glen McAdoo and Sandi Webb were ill and did not attend the meeting.

Tim Hodge, one of about 30 homeowners who attended Monday’s meeting, told the council that Griffin sales representatives told many buyers that fees probably would be far less than $1,680 a year. He said some residents were told that the assessment district probably would never be formed.

Under the plan approved Monday, homeowners will have to pay $1,680 a year for 25 years or the lump sum of $17,557. The money will be used to help build streets, sewers and drains in the Greenbriar subdivision southwest of Royal Avenue and Corto Street.

Charles J. Dragicevich, senior vice president of Calabasas-based Griffin Homes, said the developer had done everything possible to adequately inform residents about the potential fees they would have to pay. He noted that all of the homeowners had signed disclosure statements informing them about the special fees. He said many had signed the documents three months before the close of escrow.

“That’s plenty of time for them to know what’s going on or to ask what the assessments are for,” Dragicevich said. “We feel the disclosure was timely and that the disclosure was correctly made.”

Dragicevich, however, said Monday that the developer was willing to work with the homeowners by offering them two different payment plans.

Under the first plan, homeowners would not have to make a payment on the assessment fees until 1994. Thereafter, they would be required to make two payments of $840 each year.

The second option would be for Griffin Homes to lower the principal sum homeowners would have to pay from $17,650 to $14,025, which would reduce the amount they would pay annually from $1,680 to $1,332. Residents would make payments of $666 every April and December for 25 years, beginning in 1991.

“We made the offer because we feel for them, not because we did anything wrong,” Dragicevich said, adding that the developer’s offer would be open to homeowners until Dec. 29. He said it was unlikely that Griffin would make any further concessions.

Council members said they had little choice but to go along with the developer’s request to form the assessment district because residents had signed the disclosure documents informing them about the possible fees. However, they told the homeowners that if they believed they were misled, they should take the developer to court.

“The problem is between you and the person you bought your home from, not the city,” Councilman Bill Davis said.

Mayor Greg Stratton agreed, saying that homeowners “chose to believe what they were told and not what they signed.”

“When you sign something, you are bound by it. If you did it under duress, that’s a matter for another authority. We are not the authority that can make a ruling on whether or not you were defrauded,” he said.

Hodge said that homeowners would meet today to decide whether to sue the developer.

“As it stands now, my perception is that there is enough to seriously consider a lawsuit,” Hodge said. “We don’t want a lawsuit. If we can work out something amicably, terrific. But if we can’t get satisfaction any other way, then other options have to be considered.”