Agenda - Council - 10/13/2015 - Laserfiche WebLink

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the new pavement. Six-foot wide concrete sidewalks are being constructed within City right-of-ways along the east side of Garnet Street and the north side of 168 th Avenue. The new sidewalk will connect the existing 6 -foot concrete sidewalk east of Garnet Street between the dead-end sidewalk stub south of 169th Lane and the existing concrete sidewalk north of 167th Avenue, as well as to the new sidewalk constructed with Brookfield 6th Addition this year. The new sidewalks will all connect to the regional bituminous trail west of CSAH 5, closing a significant gap in the existing pedestrian facilities in this developing area. Public utilities were also constructed with this project including 8 -inch DIP watermain under Garnet Street and 168th Avenue with 1" copper water service lines extended into each property, and 8 -inch PVC trunk gravity sanitary sewer with 4" PVC sewer service lines extended into each property. Preliminary Assessments The City's adopted Special Assessments Policy targets special assessments amounting to 25% of eligible street reconstruction project costs. However, the 12 benefiting residential properties abutting the improved streets all have large lot sizes (2+ acres) and property frontages (200+ linear feet) so the preliminary special assessments were approved at an amount much less than 25% of eligible street reconstruction project costs. Staff received input from certified real estate appraisers who were subsequently retained to complete a special benefit consultation report with Council approval. The appraisers recommended targeting an assessment rate less than $7,000. The assessment rate was therefore preliminarily approved at a flat rate of $6,500 per each property accessing an improved street, regardless of property location, size, length of frontage, or number of accesses. Per the City's adopted Special Assessments Policy, the costs to correct unsuitable subgrade soils, construct new sidewalks, and construct public utilities, are not eligible special assessment costs. These costs must therefore be paid with City funds. Public Comment A Public Information Meeting was conducted for this project on January 29, 2015. Property owners from 7 of the 12 assessable properties attended the meeting. The general consensus at the meeting was that this project was long overdue. Most questions pertained to the installation of public utilities including whether services would be stubbed to each property, whether property owners would be assessed for them, and what impacts they might have on a property owner's ability to subdivide their parcel. Other questions pertained to the intent of the proposed sidewalk, and whether property owners would be assessed for them and/or required to maintain them. Any questions not addressed at the meeting were followed up on afterwards by providing additional or updated information via email, by meeting with the property owner at City Hall, or by visiting the property owner on site to discuss their concerns. An Improvement Hearing was held for this project on February 10, 2015. No comments were received at the hearing. Notification: Notice for this hearing was published once in the City's official newspaper, the Anoka Union Herald, on Friday, September 25th. Individual notices of the hearing were also mailed to property owners proposed to be assessed for the improvements. Attached is a copy of the Assessment Hearing Notice that was mailed to residents on September 25th, which exceeded the 2 week notice requirement as defined by State statute. Observations/Alternatives: Observations: Construction is not yet complete but the project will be substantially complete within the next few weeks. However, since the vast majority of work is complete and because the remaining work is easily quantifiable, Staff is confident the final construction costs will be very close to the project bid price of $823,126.51. Final project costs will be presented in detail at the time that Council is requested to approve final payment, but this will not occur until next spring as time is needed to verify that turf establishment was completed properly, and to allow approval of all punch list work items following final inspection in the spring.