Tax District OKd to Pay Builder for Land : Calabasas: The Baldwin Co. will be paid up to $28 million. In exchange, it will spend extra money on parks and give $1.5 million to a homeowners group.

After years of intense public debate, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors unanimously voted Tuesday to create a special tax district to pay a development company for land it once agreed to donate for a park in Calabasas.

The agreement ends five years of extensive lobbying and negotiations by the Irvine-based Baldwin Co., which plans to build 550 houses on rugged land southeast of the Ventura Freeway and Las Virgenes Road.

In return for the tax district, the company agreed to spend extra money on parks and to donate $1.5 million to a homeowners group.

Forming a tax district, technically known as a Mello-Roos district, to reimburse a developer for land dedicated for public use is rare, say attorneys who specialize in creating such districts.

The 640 acres of parkland involved in the Baldwin project is thought to be the largest such parcel ever funded by such a district statewide.

However, parks are among the community benefits included in a 1982 law allowing creation of such districts, in which public bonds may be sold and later repaid by the project’s future home buyers through an annual tax.

As approved Tuesday, Baldwin’s portion of the district will be a maximum $63-million bond issue, of which up to $28 million will be paid to the company for the 640 acres of Santa Monica Mountains land. The remainder will go toward more typical tax district expenditures, such as road improvements, water pipelines and widening the Parkway Calabasas interchange on the Ventura Freeway.

Because establishing a tax district requires a county ordinance, the measure must return, as a formality, to the supervisors for a second vote before it is final.

Robert Burns, president of Baldwin’s Los Angeles and Ventura counties branch, said the $28 million should be viewed as a loan, not as a payment to the company.

The company will use the funds to start its project, on which grading for the first 150 houses is scheduled to begin in November, he said.

Although the new homeowners will have to pay off the bonds through increased property taxes, Baldwin will have to lower house prices accordingly to compensate for that debt, Burns said.

A phalanx of Baldwin lobbyists and attorneys attended Tuesday’s board meeting and negotiated with county representatives, homeowners and representatives of other developments involved in the Mello-Roos district up until minutes before the vote.

When Supervisor Mike Antonovich asked those who favored the agreement to stand, the former Calabasas opponents rose alongside the Baldwin lobbyists. The Calabasas residents had sued to stall the project after Baldwin proposed paying for the parkland with the tax district.

Supervisor Ed Edelman, who represents the Calabasas area, had postponed a vote on the agreement in February because he said it unfairly put the burden of the “gift of open space . . . on the backs of the people who purchase the future homes.”

Since then, the developer agreed to give the Calabasas Park Homeowners Assn. $1.5 million and agreed to require that future Baldwin homeowners join the homeowners association and pay its $150 annual dues. On Tuesday, Baldwin also agreed to Edelman’s request for another $3 million to build more neighborhood parks in Calabasas.

Burns said funding for all but the annual dues would come from the Mello-Roos bond monies.

Edelman had been the only supervisor to oppose the Mello-Roos district in February but supported it Tuesday, explaining: “It was pretty clear it was going to go in this direction. . . . I felt, ‘Now I’ve got to get what I can to meet the needs of the community.’ ”

Representatives of the homeowners association said they agreed to drop their lawsuit against Baldwin because the county assured them that most of the Mello-Roos money would be spent on improvements in or near the new city of Calabasas.

The $1.5 million given to the association will go toward dredging Calabasas Lake and paying legal bills accrued during the fight against Baldwin, they said.

“Whenever money is exchanged, you can say somebody’s being bought off,” said David Guthman, a homeowner association board member. “But there’s a lot more than money being exchanged here.”