Seaside Property Owners Angry Over Hazard Status

Ventura County Assessor Dan Goodwin came to this seaside community Saturday with the unwelcome news that property taxes might be going up. But while residents were not overjoyed by Goodwin’s message, they chose instead to complain about something he has little control over: how the county has dealt with La Conchita since the 1995 landslide.

The property owners’ chief complaint is that four years after thousands of tons of mud and rock tumbled from the slope above their homes, the entire 11-street community is still labeled a geologic hazard area. That designation by the county building and safety office has decreased property values and presented continual headaches in mortgage refinancing and home improvement, residents said.

But until a geologic study of the collapsed hillside can be done, which could cost $250,000, the county will continue to label the neighborhood a hazard, even in those areas set well away from the most serious damage.

La Conchita resident Mike Bell said he has interviewed more than a dozen of his neighbors who ask that the county reconsider which homes are at risk from landslides.

“They all said, ‘Go ahead and raise the taxes as long as you address the geological hazard,’ ” Bell said.

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Immediately after the slide, which destroyed nine homes and forced the evacuation of two-thirds of La Conchita’s residents, property assessments were slashed, which led to lower property taxes. Last year, 130 of 230 parcels in the community along the Ventura Freeway just south of Ventura County’s northern border were assessed at zero value.

That will likely change with July’s round of assessments, Goodwin said, but not by much. “These are not going to be aggressive values,” he said.

Because homes and lots have changed hands since the landslide, Goodwin is required by law to take another look at property values, he told about 75 La Conchita residents who gathered at a nearby firehouse Saturday.

“The clear fact is there is value in the property,” Goodwin said after the meeting. “It’s not fair to say zero.”

To prove his point, Goodwin showed the residents a list of 29 property transfers from the last two years, from a mobile home sold for $2,500 to a 2,200-square-foot home that went for $275,000. Even that property, the largest sale on the assessor’s list, is still appraised at only $12,825.

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Such gaps--between the sale price and the assessed value--are what is prompting a new round of appraisals, Goodwin said.

Goodwin’s warning of higher taxes did not seem to bother people at the meeting. What concerned them most was that for their contributions to the county’s coffers, they still will not receive the post-slide improvements they have pleaded for.

“They’re putting the cart before the horse,” said Randy Stone, whose two homes in La Conchita are currently assessed at 10% of their pre-slide value. “They’re saying raising taxes is going to improve the community without improving the community first.”

In particular, Stone and other residents want the county to remove the mound of earth that tumbled onto homes. They also want pedestrian access to the beach and ocean without having to cross a busy freeway.

County Supervisor Kathy Long, who represents La Conchita but did not attend Saturday’s forum, said the county is working on both those improvements. Bids for removing the toe of the landslide are due in September, and Caltrans may have a plan for improving beach access by the end of this month.

But Long disagrees that the county is ignoring La Conchita.

“We have had our road department out there on a regular basis,” she said. “I don’t think they’ve been neglected.”

In January, 146 La Conchita residents lost a $24-million lawsuit against the ranch above the community, whose irrigation, they claimed, caused the landslide. A separate July 1997 lawsuit between residents and the ranch was settled for an undisclosed amount.