MERCED — Developer Fox Hills, which once planned to build thousands of houses near Los Banos, owes more than $1.5 million in delinquent property tax payments.
A group of limited liability companies owns the land where Fox Hills hoped to build. Collectively, they owe $1.58 million in overdue taxes, including interest, according to public records.
By state law, the county tax collector must publish a list annually of all property owners who have failed to pay their taxes for the past three years. This year's delinquencies were made public this month. Together, the Fox Hills LLCs owe more than anyone else on the list.
No one associated with Fox Hills could be reached for comment last week, but by all available accounts, plans for the development are long dead.
Envisioned to cover 1,250 acres southwest of Los Banos, Fox Hills was billed as an upscale, country club community that would include a golf course and more than 7,000 residents.
A group of investors proposed the project's first phase in the early 1990s. The Board of Supervisors handed the investors their last approval in 2006, but Fox Hills never built any houses.
The California Farm Bureau sued the county in 2007 over the board's decision to OK the cancellation of a state preservation contract that was meant to prohibit development on a small part of the land where Fox Hills hoped to build.
The Farm Bureau lost, but the preservation contract has remained in place because Fox Hills never paid fees associated with the cancellation, county officials said.
The county's assistant planning director, Bill Nicholson, said it's been more than a year since anyone from Fox Hills has taken steps to move the project forward.
Some of the Fox Hills corporations that owe the late taxes have been suspended, according to the California Secretary of State's Office.
When property owners fail to pay taxes, the county tax collector's office must charge steep interest. But the government has little other recourse for the first five years that taxes remain unpaid, said Karen Adams, Merced County tax collector. If an owner fails to pay for longer than five years, their property can be auctioned.
The only other property owner on the delinquencies list owing close to what Fox Hills owes is a company called Point Center Financial Inc., based in Aliso Viejo in Southern California. Point Center owes about $835,000, according to the tax collector's office.
