Road Maintenance and Lighting County Service Areas Spheres of Influence: Santa Cruz County, California, 2015

Author(s)

Garcia, Paul and Price, Matt

Description

This polygon shapefile depicts the sphere of influence (SOI) boundaries for county service areas in the County of Santa Cruz, California. 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 the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO). The Sphere defines the extent 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). 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. Because counties often consist of large and diverse geographical areas, providing a consistent and adequate service level across all areas can be difficult. Residents of urban communities may want more services than those residing in rural areas. The County Service Area Law (Government Code §25210.1 et seq.) was created in the 1950’s to provide a means of providing expanded tailored service levels in areas where residents are willing to pay for the extra service. When a county service area exists, property owners will pay taxes and fees to the county service area instead of the county for the services provided. 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. County of Santa Cruz Information Services Department. (2015). Road Maintenance and Lighting County Service Areas Spheres of Influence: Santa Cruz County, California, 2015. Santa Cruz County, California. Available at http://purl.stanford.edu/dz907gg3631. GIS Layer Number = 7U/The polygons for this layer are derived from existing tax code boundaries. They are parcel based and require alignment. Each polygon represents a Sphere of Influence boundary which is associated with road maintenance or lighting. Spheres of Influence are areas which may be annexed into an existing road/lighting CSA sometime during the 10 year timespan of the existing General Plan. These data were compiled from many different sources; therefore, the accuracy of the individual layers varies significantly, and some layers do not align exactly with others. In the urban areas, data are generally accurate within five to ten feet of their true geographic coordinates, but in the rural areas, data may be accurate to only within three hundred feet. With these limitations, the County of Santa Cruz disclaims any responsibility for the accuracy or correctness of this data. This disclaimer is exclusive and in lieu of any warranties, fitness for particular purpose, and/or any other type of warranty, whether expressed or implied. This layer is presented in the WGS84 coordinate system for web display purposes. Downloadable data are provided in native coordinate system or projection.

Publisher

County of Santa Cruz Information Services Department

Collection

Santa Cruz County, California GIS Maps & Data

Place(s)

Santa Cruz County (Calif.)

Subject(s)

Unincorporated areas, Special districts, County services, Spheres of influence, Municipal lighting, Roads, Boundaries, Utilities and Communication, and Transportation

Year

2015

Held by

Stanford

More details at

https://purl.stanford.edu/dz907gg3631

Use and reproduction

This item is in the public domain. There are no restrictions on use.

Copyright

This work is in the Public Domain, meaning that it is not subject to copyright.