Attention Seascape Property Owners
Did you know that a small portion of your property taxes funds special services in our Seascape neighborhood?
Our County Service Area 3 (CSA3) maintains our Seascape medians
and enforces County safety rules on Sumner Beach. This CSA3
assessment has not been increased in over 25 years, requiring
significant service cuts in the last few years.
A modest increase to this assessment is now being proposed. You
will be asked to vote in April 2025 on an increase of $50 per year
for residences and $400 per year for businesses.
Your vote matters! Please watch for your ballot arriving by
mail this month. Ballots must be returned by April 28, 2025!
A neighborhood meeting on this will be held in late March. Date, time, and place will be posted here in the next few weeks.
FAQ’s
1. What is CSA3?
CSA3 was created in 1965 by the Local Agency Formation Commission of Santa Cruz County (LAFCO) to provide enhanced services to the Seascape community. A map of the neighborhood encompassed by CSA3 is here on the web site. Over the course of the last 60 years, LAFCO has approved the provision of five specific services: (1) road median landscaping maintenance (1965), (2) street sweeping (1965), (3) beach access maintenance (1965), (4) beach patrol (1994), and (5) beach litter control (1994). While a revenue stream was implemented with the 1965 formation, the benefit assessment has not changed since 1996. As a result, the CSA has had to drop street sweeping and beach litter control due to the limited funding source and rising costs.
2. What is the benefit assessment?
Every year, as noted on the County’s tax bill is an annual assessment for the above noted services. This assessment is paid by property owners. The amount has not changed since 1996. It is $50 for each single dwelling and $400 for each of four local businesses.
3. What is the ballot for?
To change the annual assessment, half of all property owners must vote in favor of the change. In order to keep pace with the cost of services and inflation, the CSA3 Board has asked to double the annual assessment from $50 to $100 for each single dwelling and from $400 to $800 for the businesses. Without an increase in the assessment, the budget will require further limiting assigned services.
4. What is, who is the CSA3 Board?
In 1965, the initial board that oversaw the functions of CSA3 were the developers of Seascape. The board lapsed sometime in the 1990’s and the month-to-month services and payments were handled by the personnel in the Department of Public Works (DPW). In 2019, the DPW encouraged local property owners to re-establish a local board. In the fall of 2019, after a couple of local meetings, a local board of volunteer citizens was established. The current board was elected this past fall and consists of five members. Further information is available on our website, which is also a volunteer effort.
March, 2024
Seascape County Service Area (CSA3) services currently include:
• maintenance of the 15 medians on Seascape Blvd, Sumner Ave, and the lower end of Rio Del Mar Blvd, and
• a nightly security patrol on Sumner County beach, between the Trestle Bridge and Via Gaviota (commonly called Beer Can Beach). This service consists of a security guard visiting the beach every evening between 11 pm and midnight, breaking up large parties and ensuring fires are extinguished and alcohol is removed.
There has been no increase to our CSA3 $50/year assessment since 1996 and costs have more than doubled since then. This has caused us to:
• drop other services we’ve had in the past, including street sweeping and trash pick-up on Sumner Beach, and
• cut back on median maintenance to primarily removing weeds and renovating one median every couple years.
You can see our CSA3’s 5 year financial record here on the website.
In 2021, the new CSA3 Board adopted a Median Renovation Plan to return our medians to attractive, planted areas that enhance the beauty of property values of the Seascape neighborhood. Unfortunately, that plan requires more revenue than the CSA currently receives.
In the last 5 years, the CSA3 board has twice asked Seascape home owners to consider an increase of $100/year in that annual assessment, to a total of $150. The 2021 vote lost 59% to 41% with 48% of owners voting. The 2023 vote lost 52% to 48% with 54% of owners voting. This year, the Board has reduced that request to only an additional $50 year in your property taxes.
The CSA3 Board continues to believe that as more owners become aware of the CSA services and participate in these votes, the more they will support a reasonable increase to proceed with the renovation of our medians and return Seascape to the beautiful oceanside development it was originally planned to be.