West County Issue / View Tax

To offset beach maintenance costs, Port Hueneme recently imposed a special assessment of $66 to $184 a year on beach-area homeowners, based on their view of and proximity to the ocean. The assessment is unprecedented in California. Should property owners pay an extra tax for beach upkeep based on their proximity to the shore?

Jerry Sanford, Ventura County assessor

I have a very large concern with that. When my appraisers set the value on those beach properties, the value they set is the value that the buyer and the seller have agreed that beach view and access to the ocean is worth. That is all included in their property tax. To attach another tax on top of that, a tax for being close to the beach, is double taxation in my opinion. We appraise and tax those benefits that are put into real money terms when someone buys for the beach location and view. A special assessment would be no problem as far as double assessments, but when they say it’s a tax for that person’s proximity to the ocean, it’s covered in the property tax. A house next to the ocean is worth X number of dollars. These people have already paid their dues for being next to the ocean. For any other taxing agency to put on an additional tax, like I said, is double taxation.

Leah Bahr, Director, Anacapa View Condominium Homeowners Assn.

People are concerned because they just don’t know where things are going to stop. We have a situation with these assessments where there is just no limiting factor, like Proposition 13. The assessment process has its own natural tendency to barrel on through. We’re going to have to find a natural predator to kill this tendency toward assessing, or it will spiral itself right out of sight, a multiplication of assessments ad infinitum. This shows the lengths to which government is willing to go to come up with a source of money in difficult times. For us to be singled out as if we were the primary or exclusive recipient of the beach is inaccurate, in the same way it would be wrong to charge the elderly for senior citizen services or younger people for schools. It was easy for the city government to isolate one small group of people at the beach, and no one outside would care, even if it was grossly unfair. But they can do it again and again with some other little group, and you will always have this situation of divide and conquer.

John Grether, President, Ventura County Taxpayers Assn.

The association is opposed to this particular tax primarily because we feel the beachfront homeowners and those in close proximity are always paying higher taxes based on their property tax. We’re concerned in general that many municipalities and county entities are using special assessment districts as indirect property taxes that violate the spirit of Proposition 13 and create problems for individual taxpayers. In many cases, while the fees in and of themselves don’t seem onerous, they have a cumulative impact that makes it difficult for businesses and individual taxpayers to survive in Ventura County. The question then becomes: Should one pay a higher tax because one happens to live closer to a library, or pay a special fee to Caltrans because one lives closer to a freeway on-ramp? There’s a point at which adding special fees becomes contradictory to the idea that the resources of a city belong to, and should be maintained by, all the people who live there.

Orvene Carpenter, Mayor, Port Hueneme

The assessments are fair because the way we maintain the beach affects the values of those homes. The cost of beach upkeep is $450,000 a year plus police protection, and those are tangible benefits. People who live away from the beach don’t get as much use out of it and ,if they do go down there, they must pay parking. Any time we can enhance the beach, we do it. One of the ways we helped to offset the cost was we rented a parking lot near the beach to a company for their employees. We’re trying to do everything possible to raise revenue fairly. As for property taxes reflecting the value of the beach to those homeowners, that’s simply not true. Many of those units were bought prior to Proposition 13 and, unless they changed hands since then, the property taxes don’t reflect the true value. It’s not the proximity to the beach but the time when they bought the property that’s now the basis of their property taxes.

Dwight French, Assessment district engineer

As an assessment engineer, I reviewed the assessment and certified it for the city of Port Hueneme as being properly spread in benefiting the properties. I’ve been involved in creating quite a number of assessment districts where proximity to the improvement being maintained or constructed is reflected in how much you pay. This is not an ocean-view assessment. This assessment is based on the view or proximity to the improvement to the beach. These people are not assessed for the total maintenance of the beach. They are assessed for about one-third of the cost. The city recognizes there’s a benefit to the city as a whole, so they’re only assessing these people for the portion of the benefit directly related to their property. The method of assessment must be based on the benefit to the properties. If you put a junkyard on the beach, people would immediately argue that it is devaluating their property. That is why these people are assessed a portion of the cost of maintaining the beach.