Minutes - Public Works Committee - 02/17/2004

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could rather easily be divided into two projects, one for the townhomes and the other for the single-family homes since the street serving each type of land use are well defined. If the short segment of Cobalt Street between the Clinic and Bill's is considered a townhouse related street, this also becomes easily assessable on a per unit basis. The remaining two developments are not that easily resolved. A survey of other communities was conducted and six cities responded with their townhouse assessment policies. . Andover - assesses on a per unit basis whenever possible. . Maple Grove - policy varies based on type of project, type of units, and whether driveways front on private or public streets. Generally, however they assess 60% of a single-family unit. . Plymouth - The area of the townhouse development is divided by 18,500 square feet to arrive at an equivalent number of assessment shares. Plymouth noted that on a 2003 project townhome owners paid about 60% of what single-family homeowners paid. . Maplewood - assesses single family on a unit basis, but commercial, industrial and multifamily on a "comparable front foot "basis increased by a multiplier (50% for townhomes). A single-family home is assumed to have 75 feet on frontage. . Eagan - Townhouses are typically assessed 75% on a single-family unit. . Prior Lake - assesses townhouse (condo) units the same as a single-family unit. A review of other cities townhouse assessment policies suggest that the method currently proposed for IP 04-14 (that the 12 townhouse unit receive a single assessment share to divide among themselves) would be a substantial deviation from how other communities surveyed are handling the assessment of townhouse units. Although there is variation from one community to the next, for the most part townhouse units are treated much similar to single family units. However, there is usually some consideration given to the economies offered by the density of the townhouse development by offering these units a percentage of the assessment applied to single-family units. The justification for charging multifamily units a fraction ofthat assessed to a single family unit can be based upon the rational that these units generate fewer daily trips and therefore are benefited to a lesser degree. It would be best to aggregate townhouse into individual projects wherever possible in order to be most consistent with our past policy of assessing subdivisions as individual projects because of the large variation in street servicing needs. This, however, would still leave a couple a difficult situations such as Sunfish Ponds and the current IP 04-14. The following discussion presents a number of alternate methods for assessing this and similar townhouse projects. A brief description of each method was provided to the Committee in a table illustrating the assessment for each single-family unit, townhouse unit (TH), and the golf course (RRH) under these various assessment methods. Method 1 represents the method presently proposed in the draft feasibility study where the townhomes were assessed a single unit and the golf course three units, one for each outlot. Method 2 represents the project assessed on a strict front foot basis, which is another commonly utilized assessment method. The reason Ramsey has not used this method in the past is apparent in reviewing the difference between the high and low assessments for individual single-family lots (highlighted in bold). Method 2 also transfers a high percentage of the project cost to the golf course, for which Public Works Committee/February 17,2004 Page 4 of9