In Westlake Villages, the Lower-Priced New Home Can Carry the Higher Tax Rate

When you buy a new home in a California subdivision with special taxes, the number that matters most comes on a separate sheet of paper. State law requires the subdivider, or its agent or representative, to hand you a Notice of Special Tax and get your signature before you sign a purchase contract or deposit receipt. After that, you have three days to terminate in writing if the notice was delivered in person, or five days if it was mailed. In north Stockton's Westlake Villages II, that sheet changes how the homes compare to each other.

The City of Stockton's own bond documents for the district list a home with a base price of $589,990 at a projected total effective tax rate of 1.73%. A larger home in the same village, priced at $708,990, comes in at 1.68%. The lower-priced home pays the higher rate, and the reason has to do with how the special tax is built.

The comparison sits in a city bond document

Westlake Villages II is formally City of Stockton Community Facilities District No. 2018-2. It sits in north Stockton, south of Eight Mile Road and west of Highway 5. Improvement Area 4, the newest phase, is planned for 1,240 homes. As of August 2025, 511 of those were Lennar-owned units, with 140 built and sold, and 729 were Spanos-owned units that hadn't been developed yet.

When the city issued bonds for this area in 2025, the offering included an effective tax rate analysis for sample homes. It used base prices from an appraisal dated July 3, 2025, general tax rates from FY 2024-25, and special tax rates for FY 2025-26. Here's how the Village B homes compare:

Without the district's levies, the same city table puts these homes at 1.15% to 1.16%. The rest of each bill is the 1% base property tax, about 0.11% in voter-approved bond rates, and $230.40 a year in smaller assessments for landscaping, water, mosquito control, and the local reclamation district. On the $589,990 home, the facilities and services taxes together come to $3,419.83 a year, about a third of the projected bill.

Why price and rate move apart

Most of a California property tax bill grows with price, because the 1% base rate applies to assessed value. The Westlake special taxes don't work that way. The facilities tax, which the city calls Special Tax A, is set by square-footage tier. For FY 2025-26, the tiers ran from $2,762.37 for homes under 1,800 square feet to $3,822.07 for homes over 3,000 square feet. The services tax, Special Tax B, is a flat $657.46 per home no matter the size or price.

That means the effective rate depends on where a home's price falls within its size tier. Village A in the same bond tables shows this most clearly. A 3,308-square-foot home at $767,990 and a 3,175-square-foot home at $742,990 both fall in the top tier and pay the same $3,822.07 facilities tax. Spread over a lower price, that tax lifts the $742,990 home to 1.75%, the highest rate in either table, while the more expensive home lands at 1.73%.

A dollar figure helps here. The district levies on the $589,990 home work out to about $285 a month. On the $767,990 home, they come to about $373 a month. A buyer who compares these homes on list price alone sees a $178,000 gap. The special taxes shrink that gap only slightly, because they don't scale with price the way the rest of the bill does.

A bill that lasts and grows

Annual amounts only matter in light of how long they last. The Improvement Area 4 facilities tax runs through fiscal year 2071/72, and it rises 2% every year. No FY 2026-27 levy had been published in the documents reviewed for this post. As an estimate based on that 2% rule only, the FY 2025-26 tiers would become about $2,818 to $3,899 this fiscal year.

The services tax grows too. A 2021 city staff report set Special Tax B in Improvement Areas 3 and 4 at $562 per single-family home for FY 2021-22, with an inflation factor of up to 4% a year. By FY 2025-26, the bond tables showed $657.46. City staff describe the services tax as paying for part of the cost of police, fire, ambulance and paramedic services, parks, roads, streets, open-space maintenance, and city property operations.

The bonds behind the facilities tax have already closed. According to the final official statement on EMMA, the city issued $27,380,000 in Series 2025 bonds, dated September 30, 2025. The city's March 2026 annual disclosure reports that FY 2025/26 was the first year Improvement Area 4 was levied. That levy totaled $1,410,092 across 371 parcels: $1,166,175 in Special Tax A and $243,917 in Special Tax B. The August 12, 2025 council presentation authorized up to $90 million in bonds for Improvement Area 4, so the first series was only part of what's allowed.

Adjacent streets, different districts

These figures apply to Improvement Area 4. They don't automatically apply to every new home in north Stockton. The district has been redrawn more than once. It was split off from CFD 2006-2 in 2018 and amended in February 2020 and again in December 2021, when it was carved into Improvement Areas 3 and 4. A city document says Regatta Lane separates Westlake Villages II from the existing Spanos West CFD.

Even earlier phases of the same district were set up differently. In 2020, the city's Improvement Area 1 presentation listed FY 2020-21 facilities taxes from $1,402 to $2,971, using different square-footage cutoffs. Those are older figures, not current bills, but they show that the rate schedule depends on the phase and the parcel, not just the neighborhood name. Current rate tables for the surrounding districts weren't available, so the fair comparison is between specific parcels.

How the countywide numbers fit

Countywide numbers describe a different set of homes. In August 2026, the California Association of Realtors reported a San Joaquin County median sold price of $560,000 for existing single-family homes, unchanged from July and 4.7% higher than August 2025. The same C.A.R. August 2026 report put the county at 3.7 months of unsold inventory, with median time on market up to 31 days from 27 in July. C.A.R. notes that median prices can shift with the mix of homes sold, not just with the value of the same homes.

The new-home base prices in the Westlake bond tables, which range from $589,990 to $767,990, are higher than that resale median. And because the special taxes come on top of the general rate, the yearly cost of owning a Westlake home is higher than its price alone would suggest. Comparing a resale home and a new Westlake home only makes sense once you know what each one's tax bill actually is.

Where the special tax shows up in a transaction

The city places CFD special taxes on the property tax bill. They show up in a transaction at a few specific points:

1. New subdivision sales. Under Government Code section 53341.5, the subdivider or its agent provides the Notice of Special Tax and gets the buyer's signature before a contract is signed. The buyer then has three days after in-person delivery, or five days after mailed delivery, to terminate by written notice.
2. Resales. Under Civil Code section 1102.6b, the seller "shall make a good faith effort to obtain" the notice from each agency that levies the tax and give it to the buyer if the agency makes it available.
3. Agency requests. Under Government Code section 53340.2, the levying agency must provide the notice within five working days of a request and may charge no more than $15.
4. Parcel lookups. The San Joaquin County tax portal can be searched by fee parcel, assessment number, or street address. The county cautions that its online tax data may be out of date or inaccurate and should be checked before anyone relies on it.

Quick answers

Does every new home in north Stockton pay these exact amounts? No. The figures above are for Improvement Area 4 of CFD 2018-2. Regatta Lane marks the boundary with the separate Spanos West CFD, and earlier improvement areas used different rate schedules.

Is the services tax paying off the bonds? No. The bonds are tied to the facilities tax, Special Tax A. The services tax, Special Tax B, pays for part of the cost of ongoing city services like police, fire, parks, and street maintenance.

What is this year's exact bill? The latest published rates are for FY 2025-26. The facilities tax rises 2% a year, but the FY 2026-27 amount for any single parcel will appear on that parcel's county tax bill.

If you're weighing a new Westlake home against a resale elsewhere in Stockton, the Notice of Special Tax and the parcel's county tax bill are the two documents worth reading side by side before you sign anything. LJA Homes LLC is happy to pull them for the homes on your list and walk through each line with you, so your comparison starts from the full yearly cost. Let's connect.

This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.