Agenda - Parks and Recreation Commission - 10/10/2013

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RAMSEY CITY OWNED LANDS PROJECT OVERVIEW BACKGROUND Each February the Ramsey City Council develops, and prioritizes, strategic goals for the upcoming year. In 2011, the Ramsey City Council identified the need to develop an inventory of City owned lands as a high priority. The objective of developing an inventory of City owned lands was to specifically identify City owned parcels that are underutilized; and, to evaluate which parcels should be considered for disposition. As outlined by the City Council, disposition of underutilized City owned properties has a number of benefits: reduced property maintenance costs, reduced City liability and an increase of taxable parcels. NOTE: Increasing the number of taxable parcels within the City reduces the tax burden per property. GENERAL FINDINGS The City of Ramsey owns over 250 parcels city-wide. The majority of these parcels are wetlands, existing or planned trails, existing or future right of ways (ROW) and greenways. The remaining parcels are open spaces, existing or planned parks, Ramsey Housing and Redevelopment Authority (HRA) properties, Ramsey Economic Development Authority (EDA) properties and locations of various municipal facilities. Under direction of the City Council, City staff identified a list of City owned parcels that are underutilized, potentially developable and no longer needed by the City. Furthermore, staff investigated the disposition process for each of the said properties. In summary, staff identified 36 total properties as underutilized and potentially developable. After further investigation, of the 36 total properties 24 properties were found to be legally dedicated/ restricted and eight properties were found to have free and clear title. The remaining four properties were omitted for various reasons. DEDICATED PROPERTIES The majority of dedicated/ restricted parcels were acquired from developers and originally intended for park use. However, for a number of reasons, were never developed into parks and have stood vacant for many years (more than twenty years in most cases). The most common title restriction of the 24 dedicated properties is a "public use only forever" dedication. Meaning, the 24 dedicated properties cannot legally be used for anything but a public use, regardless of the owner. Furthermore, because the City is a trustee of the 24 said properties, and not a free and clear owner, the City does not have the ability to sell said properties. In order for the City to release dedicated parcels, the "public use only forever" restriction would first need to be removed. After removal of title restrictions, properties would need to be offered back to the original owners. At this point, the City is investigating which of the 24 dedicated/restricted properties should be taken through the legal process to attain clean title and be returned to the original property owner.