Council Backs Tax Vote for Parkland

The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday backed a plan to increase public parkland in the Santa Monica Mountains by taxing property owners from Griffith Park to Topanga Canyon.

The final say on the proposal will come from the property owners themselves as soon as next month.

They will be asked by mail-in ballot whether each single-family home should be taxed $40 a year to buy open space near their homes, protect wildlife and clear brush for fire protection. Businesses would pay about $120 per acre, and apartment building owners would be assessed on a sliding scale.

The tax would funnel about $2 million annually to the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, a regional park agency that owns about 35,000 acres of wilderness in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Remaining open space in the mountains that is privately owned is under constant development pressure, conservation authority officials say.

Jerry Daniel, chairman of the board of the park agency, said he is pleased that the tax district plan is moving ahead quickly with little public opposition.

“There are many, many properties that could otherwise go to single-family or multifamily development,” he said.

The park agency has drawn up a wish list of 50 to 60 parcels totaling 2,500 to 3,000 acres.

The City Council’s 10-1 vote Wednesday, with Councilman Nate Holden opposed, allows the park agency to create a special tax district straddling the Santa Monicas, if the mountain-area property owners approve it on a simple-majority vote. The district would stretch from Topanga Canyon Boulevard on the west to the Golden State Freeway on the east, and from Ventura Boulevard on the north to Sunset Boulevard on the south.

“This is the first time we’ve tried this approach, where people being assessed will feel the effects in their immediate area,” Daniel said.

Ballots could be in the mail by mid-June. The number of households in the proposed tax area is between 40,000 and 50,000, officials said.

Other areas of California, including Marin and Santa Clara counties, have used special tax districts to preserve open space, park agency officials said.