With the end of World War II, California experienced a tremendous population increase resulting in the sporadic formation of cities and special service districts. The results of this development boom became evident as more of California’s agricultural land was converted to urban uses. Premature and unplanned development created inefficient, expensive systems of delivering public services using various small units of local government.

In 1959, Governor Edmund G. Brown, Sr. responded by appointing the Commission on Metropolitan Area Problems. The Commission’s charge was to study and make recommendations on the “misuse of land resources” and the growing complexity of overlapping local governmental jurisdictions. The Commission’s recommendations on local governmental reorganization were introduced in 1963, resulting in the creation of Local Agency Formation Commissions, or “LAFCOs”.

Each LAFCO is composed of two county supervisors, two city council representatives, and one public member. These five members operate with three main objectives:

• To Encourage the Orderly Formation of Local Governmental Agencies: Fifty–seven LAFCOs work with nearly 4,000 governmental agencies, 500+ cities, and 3,000+ special districts. LAFCO decisions strive to balance the competing needs in California for affordable housing, economic opportunity, and conservation of natural resources.
• To Preserve Agricultural Land Resources: LAFCO must assess the effect of all proposals on existing agricultural lands. By guiding development toward vacant urban land and away from agricultural preserves, LAFCO helps preserve California’s valuable agricultural resources.
• To Discourage Urban Sprawl: Urban sprawl is best described as irregular and disorganized growth occurring without apparent design or planning. This pattern of development is characterized by the inefficient delivery of urban services (police, fire, water, and sanitation) and the unnecessary loss of agricultural resources.