Two listings land in the same search. Both are gated, both are single-family, both quote HOA dues in a similar range. A buyer comparing them side by side reasonably assumes the monthly carrying cost is roughly the same too. It isn't, and the reason has nothing to do with the HOA.
Calabasas runs a layer of city-administered special assessments that sit on top of HOA dues rather than inside them, and that layer can differ by more than double between two otherwise comparable gated communities. It doesn't appear on the HOA's resale disclosure packet. It shows up on the county secured property tax bill and in the preliminary title report, which means the buyer who only reads the HOA documents during escrow can miss it entirely until the numbers land on their own bill.
The Number That Lives in a Different Document
The City of Calabasas maintains four Lighting and Landscape Assessment Districts, known as LLAD 22, 24, 27 and 32, plus a fifth district, LMD 22, that functions as an ad valorem property tax. Los Angeles County established LLAD 22 back on June 12, 1979, and it now covers the largest share of the city's gated and planned communities.
The city's Landscape District Division page describes how this works: parcel owners within a member HOA zone are assessed annually, the county collects the funds, and the city administers the budget for each zone. Member HOA boards receive monthly statements from the city showing how their zone's money was spent. That's a real layer of accountability, but it's also a real layer of cost that exists independently of whatever the HOA itself charges in dues.
Because the assessment is collected through the county tax roll rather than through the HOA, it doesn't live in the same document a buyer typically reviews first. HOA dues show up in the listing sheet and the resale certificate. The LLAD assessment shows up as a line item on the secured property tax bill, and a title company will confirm it during a preliminary title report, but a buyer who stops at the HOA packet can close escrow without ever seeing the number broken out.
What the Assessment Actually Funds
This isn't a generic add-on fee. The city's fiscal year 2025-26 assessment statements, the most recent full-year figures published before this year's rate cycle, show LLAD 22 per-parcel rates of $1,018.78 for The Oaks of Calabasas, $1,460.57 for Calabasas Park Estates, and $2,191.01 for Westridge. Three gated communities, three very different bills, and none of that difference is explained by HOA dues alone.
| Community | FY2025-26 LLAD 22 per-parcel assessment |
|---|---|
| The Oaks of Calabasas | $1,018.78 |
| Calabasas Park Estates | $1,460.57 |
| Westridge | $2,191.01 |
The money funds real, specific work. City budget statements for The Oaks show funds going toward brush clearance, park maintenance and irrigation repairs. In Calabasas Park Estates, the city has repeatedly approved landscape maintenance contracts for common areas inside the same district. LLAD 24 covers a different footprint entirely, the Malibu Lost Hills corridor along Lost Hills Road, Calabasas Hills Road and Meadow Creek Lane, with its own history of annexations, including Saratoga Ranch and Saratoga Hills joining in fiscal year 2002-03 and Mont Calabasas joining LLAD 27 in fiscal year 2016-17. Zone boundaries move over time, which means a community's name alone doesn't guarantee which district, or which rate, actually applies to a given parcel today.
Not every gated-adjacent amenity is even private. Braewood's Freedom Park sits inside the community but stays open to the public during daylight hours through a pedestrian gate, a detail that matters if privacy expectations are part of why a buyer is drawn to a gated address in the first place.
Why It Doesn't Behave Like a Regular Property Tax
Buyers who know California's Proposition 13 rules sometimes assume every tax line resets or scales with the purchase price. LLAD assessments don't work that way. They're structured as flat per-parcel or per-zone charges rather than a percentage of assessed value, which means a $2 million sale and a $2.4 million sale of the same floor plan in Westridge carry the identical LLAD line. The assessment isn't triggered by a change in ownership and it doesn't move when a property is reassessed at sale. It moves only when the city or the zone itself changes the rate.
The Two Different Ways These Numbers Actually Move
HOA dues and city assessments increase through two separate processes, and conflating them is where a lot of confusion starts.
HOA dues increases follow the Davis-Stirling Act, which generally caps a regular assessment increase at 20 percent over the prior fiscal year without a membership vote, and caps most special assessments at 5 percent of the association's budgeted gross expenses without a vote. An HOA dues increase from $156 to $170 a month, effective August 1, 2025, in one Calabasas community's own board materials is the kind of routine adjustment this framework allows.
City-administered LLAD rates move differently, through Proposition 218 balloting. When the city or a zone proposes a rate increase, property owners of record vote by mail. In fiscal year 2018-19, the Classic Calabasas Park zone within LLAD 22 saw a proposed 8 percent rate increase rejected by majority protest vote, and the rate reverted to the prior year's level plus a 2.79 percent inflationary adjustment instead. That single ballot shows both how these increases are supposed to work and that owners have real leverage to push back when they organize around it.
Where to Actually Confirm the Number Before You Write an Offer
The practical fix is simple but easy to skip under deadline pressure. Ask for the current secured property tax bill for the specific parcel, not just the HOA's assessment statement, and confirm the LLAD zone and rate directly rather than assuming it matches a neighboring address or a prior year's figure. A preliminary title report during escrow will also list the assessment, and it's worth reading that section closely rather than treating it as boilerplate. Because zone boundaries have shifted before, going into and out of LLAD 22, 24, 27 and 32 over the years, a rate that applied to a similar home a few years ago isn't a safe stand-in for what a specific parcel owes today.
Why the City Isn't Positioned to Make This Cheaper
There's a structural reason these assessments aren't likely to shrink. According to the city's own fiscal outlook materials, Calabasas retains only 4.7 percent of the property tax collected within its borders, the second-lowest share of any of the 88 cities in Los Angeles County. The city is currently working through a structural budget gap driven by rising costs for public safety, wildfire preparedness, insurance and contracted services, and it held a special all-mail election on May 5, 2026 asking voters to consider a local sales tax measure to help close that gap.
None of that election is about LLAD rates directly. But it's a useful signal about the fiscal environment these assessments sit inside. A city with this little room in its general fund has limited appetite to absorb landscape and common-area costs that gated communities specifically requested and voted to fund themselves. If anything, the pressure runs the other direction over time.
A Few Questions Worth Asking Directly
Does every gated community in Calabasas pay into an LLAD? No. LLAD 22, 24, 27 and 32 cover specific member zones, largely tied to communities in the Calabasas Park, Malibu Lost Hills and Lost Hills commercial areas. Confirm zone membership for the specific parcel rather than assuming based on the community's general reputation as gated or planned.
Can this assessment be paid off or removed like a Mello-Roos bond? The research here didn't surface a payoff or sunset mechanism tied to a bond maturity for LLAD 22 specifically. Ask the city's Public Works Landscape Maintenance Districts Division for the current status of a given zone rather than assuming it behaves like a fixed-term CFD bond.
Is this the same thing as a Mello-Roos tax? No. Mello-Roos taxes fund infrastructure through Community Facilities Districts and typically run for a set bond term. LLAD assessments in Calabasas fund ongoing landscape maintenance and are administered annually under Proposition 218, a different legal framework with a different renewal cycle.
The HOA dues figure on a listing sheet is a real number, but in Calabasas it's only part of the carrying cost story. The other part sits on the county tax roll, and it's worth pulling before an offer goes in rather than after.
If you're comparing gated communities in Calabasas and want a clear-eyed read on what a specific address actually costs to carry, the Denise Marks Group can walk through the parcel-level numbers with you. Request your free home valuation to start.
