Dear Mayor Boley;
First, thank you for forwarding our September 17th letter regarding the City's ability to lawfully create "benefit" districts for Queens Road. We were forwarded a response from the City's bond counsel which appears to clearly indicate the Commissioners are being advised to move forward without "initiating petitions" and to fully rely on its "no protest agreements" to keep the project from being stopped.
While we may or may not agree, the purpose of this letter is not to respond to the bond counsel's advice but rather, to present another serious concern we believe the Commissioners should also consider. Namely, how Resolution 5614 - "Administrative Policy for Development", presented at the meeting of September 4 as the Citywide policy containing the rationale for determining and apportioning total, allowable and assessable project costs is, or is not, being applied to the project as currently proposed.
As a Citywide policy, it would seem the rationale would uniformly apply to all roads within the City, including Queens Road. To illustrate our concern, we applied provisions contained in Sections 4.0 and 5.0 of Resolution 5614 to the Queens Road "benefit" district project without regard to the costs for intersection signalization. The result indicates the allowable portion of the $4,831,000 project cost to be assessed to individual properties would be less than $2,018,000 and, leave the City and developers responsible for paying an amount greater than $2,813,000 rather than the $348,250 currently proposed.
Specifically, Section 4.0 disallows the cost of storms drains (subsection C), sanitary sewers (subsection D) and water facilities (subsection E) from being included in assessment financing. Furthermore, there is no consideration of the City's 50% participation for sidewalks serving substantially developed areas (subsection B) such as those in our 50 year old neighborhood, among others. And, it states that property owners are to be assessed only the cost for 27' of paving and 2-curbs and gutters (subsection A) rather than the full cost of the widened street less bike lanes and additional width for multi-use paths.
Provisions in Section 4.0 would reduce allowable project costs imposed on property owners by $482,000 for waterlines and by $392,000 for sanitary sewers. Furthermore, property owners would not be responsible for the cost of storm drains or a portion of the cost for sidewalks which cannot be determined here because they are not called out as separate line items in the construction cost estimate. And finally, if the cost of widening the City standard collector street by 32%, from 57' to 75' from back-of-walk to back-of-walk, an order of magnitude estimate of the corresponding reduction in its allowable cost, although plainly underestimated, would be an additional $1,266,000. The above unallowable costs total no less than $2,140,000 and, when subtracted from the $4,831,000 project cost, would result in a maximum allowable cost used to serve as a basis for assessment to property owners to be no more than $2,691,000.
Provisions in Section 5.0B state that a maximum 75% of allowable project costs ($2,691,000) are to be assessed to individual properties. This would reduce allowable project costs by another $673,000 and result in a final assessable cost to property owners of no more than $2,018,000 rather than the proposed $4,486,000. In this example, it would leave the City and developers responsible for paying all costs in excess of $2,018,000.
Perhaps a rationale other than Citywide policy outlined in Resolution 5614 is being used to determine, apportion, and assess project costs. Or, perhaps the City has overlooked monies collected over the past 18 years from developers since the area's first subdivision in 2000 in the form of fees, direct payments, reimbursements, letters of credit, bonds or other instruments contributed to the City's general, special and utility funds. In any case, further explanation of total, apportioned and assessable costs seems clearly warranted.
When combined with our earlier concern regarding the creation of the benefit districts, we continue to believe the City would best be served by pulling the agenda item from the meeting scheduled for October 2, 2018. If for no other reason, to give the parties involved an opportunity to focus on solutions which can be more widely embraced rather than to waste everybody's time and effort going through the same process once again.
Again, please feel free to distribute this communication as appropriate to address the matters noted above. We look forward to your response. Let us know if we can answer any questions or be of any assistance. Thank you.
Kurt Schaake & Kenna Capps
550-590 Queens Road
Duane & Karen Braden
530 Queens Road
Leo & Ramona Langlois
510 Queens Road