Agenda - Council - 12/12/2000 - Laserfiche WebLink

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-272- h~ researching the modified method, by decreasing the lot size from 20 acres to 10 acres and. increasing the impervious percentage from 15% to 20%, there would be 2 parcels affected and this would amount to a decrease in revenue by $1,772/year. (The parcels that would be affected by this change would be New Song Church and Diamond's Sports Bar.) ~ Decreasing the lot size criteria to 5 acres and increasing the impervious percentage criteria to 25% (which is close to residential), there would only 2 more parcels that would be affected and this wBuld amount to a total decrease in revenue of $2,760/year. (The additional parcels that would be affected by this change would be Northern Counties Secretarial Services and Craftsman Concrete.) City Staff recommends changing the resolution establishing the credits available for the storm drainage utility credits to 5 acres and 25% criteria. This would allow any property, other than residential, larger than 5 acres that is developed less intensively than residential property the opportunity to apply for this credit. Retroactivity The issue ofretroactivity must be looked at fi-om two different aspects. The existing Ordinance and resolutions do not allow retroactivity since Staff does not believe that when someone makes an application for a credit two years fi-om now that credit should be retroactive to the implementation of the charge. Staff does believe, however, that in this initial implementation phase of the storm drainage utility, they should be retroactive since the property owners did not have the ability to apply for a credit prior to the charge being introduced onto their bill. Discussion was held at the 11/21/00 Public Works Committee regarding the issue of retroactivity. The consensus of the committee was that we should write an article in the Ramsey Resident and publicize that any credit application received at City Hall before a certain date would allow retroactivity to the beginning of the charge. The deadline for articles to be written for the Jan/Feb issue of the Ramsey Resident is December 8, 2000. We will try to get the article published in that issue, however, since the City Council is meeting on this issue tonight (12/12/00), we cannot fully write the article until we receive all of your input. If ail goes ~ell and we get the article in that issue, we will set the deadline for credit application requests for February 28, 2001. City Staff recommends that any correspondence written prior to FebrUary 28, 2001, regarding requests for credits that are currently available entitles that property owner to retroactivity. This is, of course, contingent upon the successful approval of the credit application. This will give the City an opportunity to write an article in the Jan/Feb issue of the Ramsey Resident and process the requests before the next billing cycle. Potential increase in credit percentages Mr. Gary Gruber had mentioned that there were other municipalities that offer credits of up to 80%. Through past experience, Staff knows this to be true, however, we do think the reason there is an opportunity for larger credits available at other municipalities stems from the land use structure that is used so often in the implementation of storm drainage ut.ilities. When determining, what a particular land use should pay per acre, there are assumptions that are made regarding percent impervious that are not necessary for Ramsey's utility. For example, the commercial / industrial land use typically is approximately 70-75% impervious and therefore gets a Residential Equivalence Factor of around 5. Diamonds Sports Bar has an impervious percentage of 20%, which is equivalent to a REF of 1.82 in Ramsey's system. Had Diamond's been in a City that used land use instead of Ramsey he would started out with a quarterly fee of $2,096.64 instead of $763.06