On the property tax bill for a single-family home in Dos Vientos Ranch, one line has nothing to do with the home's assessed value. It's a flat $345.89 for fiscal year 2026-27. It goes to the Conejo Recreation and Park District, and it pays for the ballfields, courts, playgrounds and trails at the western end of Newbury Park.
Buyers comparing Dos Vientos with older parts of Newbury Park often read that line as Mello-Roos, a bond that eventually gets paid off. It works differently. It's a maintenance assessment that the park district renews every June, with no end date, and part of each year's levy is already set aside for projects that haven't been built yet. It belongs in a monthly budget as an ongoing cost, the same way a buyer would count a utility bill.
A Condition of Building the Neighborhood
The charge is formally called Landscape Maintenance District No. 94-1. According to the district's FY 2026-27 engineer's report, it was formed in 1996 to pay for maintaining and improving the parks, recreation facilities and open space in the Dos Vientos Ranch Specific Plans No. 8 and No. 9. It came out of agreements and conditions of development approval between the park district and the property owner. The CRPD board created it on June 13, 1996, by Resolution No. 061396-A, after a petition from 100 percent of the property owners.
That history explains why the cost works the way it does. The neighborhood's parks were planned and built along with its homes, and the obligation to maintain them was attached to the land before most of today's owners arrived. The district now covers 2,044 single-family homes and 299 multifamily units.
Rancho Conejo, a few miles east, has a smaller version of the same arrangement. CRPD formed Landscape Maintenance District No. 92-1 in 1992, also from development agreements, for an area of 970 single-family homes and 354 multifamily units. Its first annual levy came in fiscal year 1998-99, after the first phase of park improvements was finished.
Why It Never Pays Off
Mello-Roos taxes are usually tied to bonds, and bonds have a final maturity date. The City of Thousand Oaks lists two community facilities districts on its CFD page. CFD 1994-1 paid for Marketplace pedestrian and parking improvements, and its debt matures in 2031. CFD 1997-1 paid for Promenade parking facilities, and its debt matures in 2028. Neither is a Dos Vientos residential district.
The district's documents set no end year for LMD 94-1. Each year the board orders a new engineer's report and holds a public hearing, then votes on whether to continue the assessment. The board can raise the rate each year by an adjustment tied to the Los Angeles-area Consumer Price Index, capped at 5 percent a year. The board held this year's hearing on June 4, 2026, and adopted Resolution 060426-B. The resolution levies the FY 2026-27 assessment, has the county collect it at the same time and in the same way as county taxes, and limits the money to maintaining, servicing, building or installing the district's improvements.
The current rate of $345.89 is below the district's FY 2026-27 maximum of $424.87. A buyer planning to own for ten years should expect the charge to go up, within the CPI limit, rather than stay at today's amount.
| Assessment | Area | FY 2026-27 rate per single-family home | What it maintains |
|---|---|---|---|
| LMD 94-1 | Dos Vientos Ranch | $345.89, maximum $424.87 | Four parks, about 50 acres combined, plus open space |
| LMD 92-1 | Rancho Conejo | $125.97, maximum $130.06 | Rancho Conejo Playfield, 12.89 developed acres, plus open space |
| Districtwide 62-1 | CRPD area | $46.72 in Zone A, $23.36 in Zone B | Districtwide park maintenance and recreation improvements |
Rancho Conejo's rate rose from $120.33 in FY 2025-26 to $125.97 in FY 2026-27, an increase of about 4.7 percent. Over the same year, a 2.93 percent CPI adjustment raised its maximum rate from $126.36 to $130.06. The districtwide 62-1 assessment is a separate charge. Its amount depends on which zone a parcel falls in.
What the Money Maintains
The difference between $125.97 and $345.89 reflects how much park each district maintains. Rancho Conejo's district covers Rancho Conejo Playfield at 950 North Ventu Park Road, built in three phases between 1998 and 2001. It has two tennis courts, a basketball court, two softball fields with soccer overlays, a sand volleyball court and a tot lot.
Dos Vientos's district maintains four sites:
- Dos Vientos Community Park, 27.8 acres, finished in January 2003. It has three lighted and two unlighted baseball diamonds, two sand volleyball courts, a group picnic area, two playgrounds, two tennis courts and an indoor sports building with a recreation center.
- Del Prado Playfield, 13 acres, finished in January 2013. It has two lighted pickleball courts, a lighted tennis court, a lighted basketball court, three lighted baseball and soccer fields, and a playground.
- Dos Vientos Neighborhood Park, 5.1 acres, finished in December 1998, with a sand volleyball court, a basketball court and picnic tables.
- Sycamore Neighborhood Park, 4.5 acres, finished in June 2006, with a similar set of facilities.
Together that is about 50 acres of developed park, nearly four times Rancho Conejo's 12.89, spread across roughly 2,270 benefit units compared with about 1,207. On top of the parks, the Dos Vientos assessment covers equestrian and hiking trails, wetland maintenance and resource protection on 1,245 acres of open space. Of that total, 1,205 acres are currently in the maintenance inventory.
Homeowners don't pay for all of it. The FY 2026-27 budget estimates $1,068,430 in total annual cost: $750,835 for park maintenance, $191,595 for open space, $114,000 for capital improvements and the rest for administration, legal and engineering. Ad valorem property tax revenue covers $283,384 of that, and the assessment covers the remaining $785,046. That means the line on the bill pays for about three-quarters of the cost of running Dos Vientos's parks.
The Next Decade Is Already in the Rate
Each year's levy also pays toward projects that haven't been built. The engineer's report lists capital improvements that cost too much to raise in one year, so it spreads their $1.14 million total over ten years at $114,000 a year:
- Del Prado Playfield: additional pickleball courts with lighting, $650,000
- Dos Vientos Neighborhood Park: perimeter walking path, $150,000
- Dos Vientos Community Park: replacement perimeter fence, $135,000
- Dos Vientos Community Park: picnic area, $75,000
- Dos Vientos Community Park: concrete paving and curbing at courts and fields, $55,000
- Dos Vientos Community Center: office renovation, $40,000
- Dos Vientos Community Park: sink and barbecue for Picnic Area 2, $20,000
- Del Prado Playfield: concrete curbing at softball fields, $15,000
Any money not spent in a given year goes into a capital improvement fund. The report projects that fund at $466,698 on June 30, 2026, growing to $580,698 by June 30, 2027. The most recently finished project was a $50,000 resurfacing of the Dos Vientos Community Park parking lot in FY 2025-26.
For a buyer, this means that closing on a Dos Vientos home makes you a contributor to a fund that is already partly built up. The largest item on the list is the Del Prado pickleball expansion, and current owners are paying toward it now. A household that moves in this winter will help pay for the remaining work and will be in the neighborhood when it is built.
Setting It Beside the Price
The California Association of Realtors put Ventura County's median sale price for existing single-family homes at $930,000 in September 2026, up 3.3 percent from a year earlier, with a median of 38.5 days on market. Those are countywide figures. At that price level, $345.89 a year is under $29 a month.
That $29 also sits alongside other recurring charges. Monthly costs in Dos Vientos include three recurring items an older Newbury Park tract may not have, or may have in smaller amounts: the LMD 94-1 assessment, the districtwide 62-1 assessment for the parcel's zone, and dues to the Dos Vientos Ranch Community Association or the Dos Vientos Ranch West Master Association. The West association's site puts its documents and billing behind an owner login.
The City of Thousand Oaks adds its own charge through Landscaping and Lighting Assessment District 79-2. Nearly every property pays the lighting portion. Only about 40 percent pay a landscaping assessment, and that rate depends on the zone. The city directs owners to the property tax bill for the amount on a specific parcel. Because these charges vary by tract and zone, the clearest comparison of two Newbury Park homes comes from their actual tax bills, read one line at a time.
Quick Answers
Is the Dos Vientos park charge Mello-Roos? No. LMD 94-1 is a landscape maintenance assessment under California's Landscaping and Lighting Act of 1972, renewed by the CRPD board each year. It is not a community facilities district.
Will it end at some point? The district's documents give no end date. The board continues the assessment each year after an engineer's report and a public hearing.
Can owners weigh in on the rate? Yes. CRPD publishes a notice before each annual hearing. For Rancho Conejo's FY 2026-27 hearing, the notice ran in the Thousand Oaks Acorn on May 22, 2026, and the district also advertised the budget process in its Spring Recreation Guide.
Do older Newbury Park neighborhoods pay nothing? Not necessarily. Rancho Conejo has its own district at $125.97 for FY 2026-27, and the city's LLAD 79-2 lighting assessment reaches nearly every property. A parcel's tax bill shows exactly which charges apply.
This post is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Please confirm the assessments on any specific property, and how they affect your own plans, with the right tax or financial professional.
If you're comparing a Dos Vientos home with one elsewhere in Newbury Park, Karen Sandvig can pull the current tax bill for each property and lay out the full carrying costs side by side before you decide. Request a complimentary home valuation and marketing plan, or a carrying-cost comparison for the homes on your shortlist.
