LAFCO approves Campus Park West annexations

The annexation of the Campus Park West development into the Rainbow Municipal Water District, the San Diego County Water Authority (SDCWA), and the Metropolitan Water District (MWD) of Southern California will still need final approval from the SDCWA and MWD as well as final paperwork and fee payments, but San Diego County’s Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) approved the annexation by an 8-0 vote Feb. 2 while also detaching that area from the San Luis Rey Municipal Water District.

The CWA has provided two of the three necessary board approvals in the process, including a Jan. 22 approval of MWD’s conditional approval of the annexation which also requested that MWD set formal terms and conditions. MWD’s second and final approval is the next step.

“We will wait for recordation until we hear from Water Authority and Met,” said LAFCO executive officer Mike Ott.

Campus Park West, which was approved by the San Diego County Board of Supervisors on June 18, is located on the northeast side of Interstate 15 at State Route 76 and will ultimately consist of 283 multi-family dwelling units, 513,000 square feet of commercial use, 120,000 square feet of limited industrial use, and 31 acres of biological open space in a 116.5-acre area.

Some of that land is already within the Rainbow Municipal Water District, CWA, and MWD boundaries, so only 99.94 acres would be annexed into Rainbow, the CWA, and MWD. The annexation also includes 141.3 acres of California Department of Transportation right-of-way, although the Caltrans area will not be subject to the annexation fees and property tax assessments.

The first step for an annexation into MWD and the CWA is for the CWA to receive a resolution from the member agency requesting concurrent annexation. Rainbow’s board approved such a resolution, including a request for formal terms and conditions, in September 2013.

The second step is for the CWA board to approve a resolution establishing preliminary informal terms and conditions and to request that MWD grant conditional approval for annexation. CWA staff reviews the documents for compliance with the CWA annexation policy.

In February 2006, the CWA board adopted a set of 13 annexation policies covering relationship to LAFCO and MWD policies, protection of member agency supply reliability, conservation and local supply use requirements, annexation fees, priority for annexations to an existing CWA agency, concurrent annexations to other water agencies, necessary connection facilities, environmental compliance, consistency with land use approvals, annexation of commonly-owned lands, avoidance of surrounded annexed or un-annexed territory, administrative costs, and annexation of tribal lands.

The only policies which were not satisfied were the payment of the annexation fee, which will be part of the final conditions, and documentation of conservation measures and environmental compliance. The CWA board approved a preliminary annexation resolution and request to MWD on May 22. The estimated potable water demand for the area to be annexed is 270 acre-feet per year.

MWD approved the resolution of conditional approval Dec. 9, while also approving the CWA’s statement of compliance with MWD’s current water use efficiency guidelines. The informal terms and conditions included an annexation fee of $454,520.12 based on MWD’s 2014 annexation fee rate of $4,498 per acre and a $5,000 processing fee, although the final terms and conditions will reflect MWD’s 2015 annexation fee rate of $5,062 per acre. The property would also be subject to MWD’s standby charge of $11.51 per acre or per parcel of less than one acre and to MWD’s property tax of 0.0035 percent of the property’s assessed value.

While MWD’s proposed annexation fee reflects the annexation of 99.94 acres of the development but not the Caltrans land, whose annexation would eliminate an un-annexed area surrounded entirely by annexed territory, that 99.94 acres includes 20.95 acres of biological open space preserve.

The CWA is recommending that the open space preserve area be excluded from the annexation fee and that only the 78.99 acres for residential, commercial, office, and industrial use be subject to the annexation charges. The CWA’s current annexation rate is $2,929 per acre, so the total CWA annexation fee for 78.99 acres would be $231,361.71 along with a $3,000 processing fee. The exemption of the 20.95-acre biological open space preserve area would include a condition prohibiting the use of any water supplied by the CWA on any portion of the preserve.

There was no CWA board, staff, or public opposition to the Jan. 22 annexation step. Jimmy Ayala, who was seated that day as one of the City of San Diego’s representatives on the CWA board, recused himself since he is an employee of Pardee Homes and has been active in the nearby Meadowood planned development.

MWD’s next step is to adopt a resolution along with consent for the annexation while fixing terms and conditions. The CWA will follow by adopting the resolution to approve, conditionally approve, or deny the annexation and accepting MWD’s terms and conditions for any approval.

LAFCO, which is responsible for jurisdictional boundary changes, will then file a notice of completion after the terms and conditions of the water agencies are satisfied. A reorganization also requires a sphere of influence update, and during the April 2014 proceedings which transferred the planned Meadowood development from the San Luis Rey Municipal Water District into the Valley Center Municipal Water District and from the San Diego County Regional Fire Authority into the North County Fire Protection District, the LAFCO board updated the sphere of influence, along with a Municipal Service Review study which determines boundaries best served by a particular agency, for a larger area including the Campus Park West land.