Anaheim Hills Homeowners Vote on Tax for Landslide Pumps

Public money will soon dry up for a groundwater pumping system safeguarding Anaheim Hills homes from landslides.

Property owners in a special district must choose between taxing themselves by the end of the year to continue pumping or risk another devastating landslide, the Orange County Register reported.

The City of Anaheim put in the pumps after a landslide in 1993 destroyed homes and forced dozens of families to evacuate.

Homeowners in the special district have until July 27 to vote on a two-year, self-imposed property tax assessment from a few hundred dollars to more than $2,000 a year.

Residents have voted twice against attempts to levy a tax. The district includes homes off of Avenida de Santiago; Leafwood, Burlwood and Rimwood drives; Georgetown Circle; and other streets on the south side of the Anaheim Hills neighborhood.

“Something has to be done,” Barbara Agahi, whose home suffered damage to its driveway and garage from the 1993 landslide, told the Register. “It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when.”

The Santiago landslide occurred after winter rainstorms saturated the ground, which then slipped in a 25-acre area. What followed was a legal dispute over blame, which took years to reach a settlement.

The city created the Santiago Geologic Hazard Abatement District in 1999 to install and maintain the pumps, seeding it with $3.5 million. The city then turned control over to a board made up of elected residents.

Its 37 pumps sends about 33,800 gallons of water a day down city storm sewers.

That city seed money will soon run out as the district spends more than $300,000 a year to run the pumps. If the assessment doesn’t go through, they could shut off by December.

An engineering report in July said if the pumps quit, the homes in and around the landslide would “be in imminent threat of landslide reactivation.”

District Chairman Craig Schill has long tried to get his neighbors to agree to the tax.

He said this month’s landslide in Rolling Hills Estates, in which a dozen homes were destroyed, only highlighted the risk of inaction.