RANCHO SANTA FE -- A drive for cityhood is afoot in opulent Rancho Santa Fe, where average home prices are by far the highest in the county and where the U.S. Census Bureau in 2002 declared per capita income as the highest in the nation.

Proponents of cityhood, which in government lingo is called "incorporation," say Rancho Santa Fe could better protect its rural environment if it were self-ruled.

They say a city could create its own police force and better maintain and manage traffic in the sprawling estate-filled community. To pay for such services, a new tax would appear on utility bills and fees would be levied against new development.

However, in a place where homes are ensconced on lushly landscaped properties and thoroughbreds graze behind white fences, it can be tough to argue that anything needs fixing.

While no opposition group has formed to challenge the incorporation drive, some residents already are questioning the benefits of such a move.

"I'm not convinced a big need exists," said Dick Doughty, a retired architect and civil engineer who lives in Rancho Santa Fe.

He said cityhood proponents are "hyping a big idea that doesn't really have merit, and at the end of the day, we'd end up paying considerably more than we're spending now."

Keeping local powers local

Citizens to Protect the Ranch, the community group driving the incorporation proposal, says the benefits of an incorporated city are worth paying for.

One of the group's leaders is Marion Dodson, a former Solana Beach City Councilwoman who participated in that community's successful incorporation effort in 1986.

Dodson runs a business in Rancho Santa Fe and has owned property there for 25 years, she said. She has lived full-time in the community since 2004.

"We'd like to keep our local powers here, instead of down at the county," Dodson said.

Those powers include seats on the boards of regional commissions and committees, such as the San Diego Association of Governments and the North County Transit District.

Dodson said Citizens to Protect the Ranch plans to launch a petition drive next month as an early step toward incorporation.

Long process

To become a city, the citizens group must receive approvals from a government body and from Rancho Santa Fe voters.

The government body is the state-mandated Local Agency Formation Commission, which comprises various local elected officials. Among other duties, the commission approves city boundaries and incorporation proposals.

The agency requires that incorporation backers collect the signatures of 25 percent of registered voters. In the case of Rancho Santa Fe, that translates as 1,100 signatures in a city that would have about 4,400 registered voters and 6,500 residents.

Once the first signature is gathered, proponents would have six months to amass the remainder.

Proponents also must show evidence that the new city could support itself and not cause economic harm to the county by its secession.

"First and foremost, they need to demonstrate that revenues would support the levels of service they have proposed in their petition," said Michael Ott, executive officer of the commission's San Diego office.

Ultimately, the final decision will rest with voters, who could reject the entire effort after a single day at the polls.

Earlier attempt failed

This isn't the first time Rancho Santa Fe has tried to incorporate. A cityhood proposal appeared on the ballot in 1987 and 73 percent of voters rejected it.

One sticking point was that the proposed city would have extended beyond Rancho Santa Fe proper, a 10-square-mile area now covered by a set of community rules called a "protective covenant."

Under the previous cityhood proposal, Whispering Palms and Fairbanks Ranch -- communities that opponents said were dissimilar to Rancho Santa Fe -- would have been bundled into the new city.

The bureaucratic requirements of cityhood also worried opponents, and so, inevitably, did the cost.

For similar reasons, an incorporation effort in Fallbrook failed that same year.

New city, new taxes

The new incorporation proposal for Rancho Santa Fe would be the first one in the county that hinges on voters simultaneously approving a new tax.

To pay for a proposed police force, residents would need to approve a so-called utility users tax. The 5.5 percent tax on household utility bills would translate as $400 a year for most ratepayers, according to proponents.

In addition, a "road fund" would get revenue from a $1.90-per-square-foot fee the town would levy from new construction.

Cityhood proponents say that heavy equipment and construction vehicles already damage the two-lane roads that twist and turn through Rancho Santa Fe, and that builders should shoulder some of the responsibility of road improvements.

"So many of our roads look like a patchwork quilt," Dodson said.

Cityhood opponents say they don't like the sound of new taxes, as well as the costs of municipal employees' salaries, benefits and retirement pensions.

While the new city would provide some services, fire protection, water, sewer and school services would continue to come from separate, taxpayer-funded districts.

"I'm convinced it will end up costing more money," Doughty said, "and I'm convinced adding another layer of bureaucracy is not to our advantage."

A powerful association

Bureaucracy in Rancho Santa Fe takes the shape of a powerful homeowners association, with an elected board of directors that enforces the Protective Covenant, a document dating to the community's founding in 1928.

Among other things, the document prohibits drilling for oil or using residential property for a saloon, brickyard or cemetery. The earliest editions of the covenant prohibited nonwhite people from owning property in the covenant area.

The covenant area is subdivided into more than 1,900 parcels, some of them as large as 30 acres. Most parcels range in size from two to four acres.

As one of the first official homeowners associations in the state, the Rancho Santa Fe Association wields substantial land-use authority. It's board and an appointed "art jury" are first lines of approval for subdivision and development proposals.

While the association's board conducts regular meetings that look and sound much like those of a city council, the association is not bound by the state's sunshine laws requiring government transparency.

The association funds its operations with annual assessments of up to 14 cents for every $100 of valuation per property. That adds up in Rancho Santa Fe, where in November, the median home price of $3.27 million was by far the highest in the county, according to the North San Diego County Association of Realtors.

Some officials leery

Association dues also pay for a security force to augment services provided by the county Sheriff's Department.

The Rancho Santa Fe Patrol's officers "certainly provide a lot of good service but they basically are baby-sitting until the Sheriff gets there," and that often takes far too long, Dodson said.

She said a town police force of 15 officers would guarantee that two patrol cars would work the streets of Rancho Santa Fe day and night.

Sheriff's deputies serving Rancho Santa Fe are dispatched from the Encinitas Sheriff's Station, where Capt. Don Fowler said that his deputies cover a large unincorporated area.

He said claims of sluggish responses result from lumping the response times of nonurgent calls with those that are urgent.

He added that by employing the Sheriff's Department, communities receive every level of law enforcement service -- from sergeants to SWAT teams to helicopters -- and that there's always a deputy to cover if one calls in sick.

He warned of the liabilities small police departments face.

"One lawsuit, one bad shooting, one bad collision could wipe you out," he said.

More warnings came from county Supervisor Bill Horn, whose district includes Rancho Santa Fe.

"The homeowners better think hard before they decide they want to put a new tax on themselves," Horn said. "It's never cheaper to incorporate. Just talk to the cities that have."

Contact staff writer Adam Kaye at (760) 901-4074 or akaye@nctimes.com.