North Park MAD

Welcome

A Maintenance Assessment District (MAD) is a legal mechanism by which property owners can vote to assess themselves to pay and receive services above-and-beyond what the city of San Diego normally provides. This above-and-beyond service level is called a ''special benefit.'' What the city of San Diego normally provides is called the ''general benefit.''

In the past, MADs were also known as:
Landscape Maintenance Districts (LMDs) or
Lighting and Landscape Maintenance Districts (LLMDs).
Because many districts include more than landscaping and lighting, the city changed the name to represent the nature of the districts better.

MADs usually pay for maintenance services but can also pay for construction and installation in limited circumstances.

MADs are usually used to provide funding for higher levels of maintenance services in the public right-of-way, for example:
landscape maintenance, such as
 irrigation
 pruning
 pest control
 dead tree removal
 Fertilization
 weeding
 plant replacement
 turf mowing/edging

street maintenance, such as
 sweeping and weeding of street medians and curbs/gutters
 removal of graffiti
 maintenance of street benches

open space maintenance, such as
 safety tree trimming and removal
 litter removal

street light maintenance for light fixtures which exceed what the city of San Diego provides, such as
 energy costs;
 graffiti removal  light bulb and damaged post replacement

litter removal seasonal decoration installation/removal
sign maintenance
banner installation/removal

Some of the services MADs do not pay for are:
brush removal (which is performed on a City wide limited basis by a Brush Management Unit)
maintenance of slopes which cannot be seen from roadways
retaining walls, clean water retention basins, and landscaping along Caltrans property approaching freeway on-and-off ramps