Agenda - Council - 02/08/2011 - Laserfiche WebLink

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CC Regular Session Date: 02/08/2011 By: Tim Himmer Engineering/Public Works Information Title: Consider Request to Purchase a Drainage and Utility Easement at 7319 162nd Lane NW Item #: 7. 3. Background: In 2006 the City undertook improvement project 03 -20, the NW sanitary sewer and watermain extension project; which extended municipal utilities to the BROOKFIELD and SWEETBAY RIDGE developments. Since many easements were being investigated and secured through this area of the City it was the direction of Council to include the acquisition of drainage and utility easements to facilitate the restoration of county ditch 3/66 to its original dimensions. At the time the easements for the ditch cleaning were being investigated, Council was advised that consistent with state ditch law an inherent easement existed for the perpetual maintenance of the ditch. The Council, however, decided that to be fair to the property owners impacted by the ditch on their property the City should make offers to purchase formal easements. For those property owners who did not accept the easement offer, the ditch law would be relied upon for legal access to the properties for the restoration project. The ditch cleaning project has already been implemented and was completed in 2007. The property owner is now requesting that the City follow through with the purchase, as there was no sunset date on the correspondence. He further stated that there was no communication with him on this matter, other than the initial correspondence (see attached). Staff has reviewed their notes and logs from that time period and was able to locate multiple points of contact following the initial correspondence; including a letter from the property owner to the City with concerns of dewatering, a couple of discussions related to the "duck pond" located on the subject property, and discussions about the existing and proposed pond and ditch elevations. This item was discussed by the Public Works Committee on January 18, 2011, and it was their recommendation to deny the acquisition request pending a legal opinion from the City attorney on whether the May 1, 2006 correspondence requesting purchase of easement was still enforceable (see report from public works on the consent agenda). The City attorney is still reviewing this matter and awaiting some feedback from others, so he will provide his opinion directly to the Council at the meeting. Observations: In the recent past staff has been contacted by another property owner that received a similar offer to purchase a drainage and utility easement in connection with the same ditch cleaning project back in 2006 -7. They were told that the project was already completed and that the direction of Council was to rely on state ditch laws if we were unsuccessful in securing these easements through direct negotiations. Should Council choose to advance this easement acquisition it could potentially lead to others coming forward that originally did not want to sell such easements. Attached is a map outlining all necessary easements for the NW sewer and water project, with those that were never acquired shown in red. In reviewing the project file there were 39 property owners that the City offered to purchase ditch easements from in an amount totaling approximately $83,630. At that time 25 property owners accepted the offers, and 14 did not. The remaining 14 easements, if considered for acquisition today, were valued at approximately $46,940 in 2005 -6. Funding Source: