EarthWorks Geospatial Catalog

This polygon shapefile depicts the boundaries of spheres of influence for water districts in the County of Santa Cruz, California: Central, Lompico County, San Lorenzo Valley, Scotts Valley and Soquel Creek. A sphere of influence is defined as a plan for the probable physical boundaries and services area of a local government agency as determined by LAFCO (Local Agency Formation Commission). The sphere defines the extents the city or special district will probably expand to within the timespan of its current general plan. (pg 47 A Guide to LAFCO Procedures -- San Diego LAFCO 1995). A water district has an elected Board, qualifies as a special district and is tasked with supplying water and sewer needs to a community. LAFCO was created in 1963 to encourage orderly formation of local government agencies, preserve agricultural land resources and discourage urban sprawl. LAFCO is responsible for coordinating logical and timely changes in local governmental boundaries, conducting special studies that review ways to reorganize, simplify, and streamline governmental structure and preparing a sphere of influence for each city and special district within each county. This layer is part of a collection of GIS data created for Santa Cruz County, California.The Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Unit falls under the purview of the County of Santa Cruz Information Services Department. The GIS Unit serves all County departments and external customers and provides data on land, features and people of Santa Cruz County. Santa Cruz County encompasses 4 cities and approximately 265,000 people. This coverage can be used for basic applications such as viewing, querying and map output production, or to provide a basemap to support graphical overlays and analyses of geospatial data.