EMID

Defendant County of Santa Barbara (County) approved a resort hotel development on a 73-acre beachfront parcel north of the City of Santa Barbara. The parcel is within the boundaries of plaintiff Embarcadero Municipal Improvement District (EMID). The County conditioned its approval of the hotel on the annexation of the parcel to two other special districts, defendants Goleta West Sanitary District (Sanitary District) and Santa Barbara Metropolitan Transit District (Transit District). The annexation could only go forward if the County and the affected districts agreed to an allocation of future tax increment generated by the hotel. EMID challenges the amount of tax increment the County allocated to it in the tax allocation agreement. The trial court sustained the demurrers of the defendants without leave to amend on the ground that the action is barred by the statute of limitations in Code of Civil Procedure section 863.

We conclude that the action is barred both by the statute of limitations and EMID's lack of standing. We will affirm the judgment.

EMID was formed in 1960 and contains approximately 1,200 acres. Highway 101 separates the 73-acre parcel from the…