San Diego Housing Bubble News and Analysis

When Mello Roos matters . . . .

On thing that will prevent people coming in from outside Poway school district (at least in the 4S Ranch schools within the district) and attending these schools is a contractual provision the Poway school district signed with the developer of 4S Ranch, Newland Associates. The provision simple provides that school district policy of "attend any school you want" is suboridinate to the contractual clause that people which pay Mello Roos which is used to fund the schools in proximity to where they live have first priority over non-Mello Roos payers. This and the simple fact that there is not excess capacity effectively bars anyone who does not live in 4S Ranch attending Poway school disctrict schools within 4S Ranch if there is no excess capacity. I personally saw this in action with friends who had lived near 4S Ranch but outside the Mello Roos boundary. They had anxiously waited for years for the promise (made by Poway School district) that they would be able to attend the new elementary school (Stone Ranch) built in 4S Ranch. The expectation was that there would be room. The reality was that there was not room. Parents complained that "they had waited for years and it was not fair that they lose out to people who had just moved into the area weeks or months ago." But . . . the newcomers pay Mello Roos, my friend and others did not and they were not allowed to send their kids to the new school due to a lack of capacity.

Not sure if other school districts have this but before the 4S developers dedicated all the free land to the school disctrict they extracted this contractual provision for the benefit of the buyers in 4S. Another interesting side not is that Poway School District tried to make the new 4S high school into some sort of "High School Lite" High School academy. Another provision obtained by Newland is that if the Poway School district used the free land they were granted to build a high school the high school had to have inter alia. A football stadium wiht x-number of seats and announcers booth, a full size Olympic swimming pool, and other provisions consistend with a full curriculum high school. Someone told me that when RB High School was built they promised a pool but in the end didn't build it. To ensure the Poway School district didn't take the land and then screw the people in the area paying Mello Roos who want a full high school, Newland put these provision right in the contract. This actually caused Poway School district to dump their idea for the "High School Academy" they were already going down the road to this when their attorneys advised them . . . "uh if we don't build the full high school we don't get all this land [10+ acres] for free . . . . DOHHH!" :-)

Sometimes (most often not) Mello Roos pays.