Agenda - Council Work Session - 11/10/2015

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November 18, 2014 - City Council reviews the draft Special Assessments Policy at work session and provides additional comments for incorporation into the draft policy based on input from City Attorney Langel and Mr. Jason Messner of Patchin, Messner and Dodd, a firm specializing in real estate appraisals. Based on their input, Staff was directed to provide Policy language allowing Council to order appraisal consultations on improvement projects as needed to help verify that the amount of the special assessments will not exceed the benefit to the property. As discussed, typical fees for special benefit consultations range from $5,000 to $7,000 depending on the type and scope of the public improvement project. December 9, 2014 — City Council adopts the final draft of the Special Assessments Policy which incorporated comments received from the Public Works Committee and City Council. January 13, 2015 - City Council adopts Resolution #15-01-016 amending Section 6: #4: Interest of the Special Assessment policy. The amendment was to reflect the accurate rate of interest to be charged on bonded projects. The City Attorney reviewed the Policy prior to adoption to ensure proper legal form and conformance with the special assessment requirements outlined in Chapter 8 of the Ramsey City Charter, which is attached for reference. Attached is the Special Assessments Guide (SAG) as developed and distributed by the League of Minnesota Cities (LMC) which assisted with the development of the Special Assessments Policy. Policy Implementation /Lessons Learned The current Policy was implemented in 2015 and was successfully applied to three separate improvement projects. These included the 2015 Street Maintenance Program — Division B (Overlays), the reconstruction of Garnet Street and 160 Avenue, and the reconstruction of Jarvis Street. Following the application of the policy with these projects, staff recommends reviewing and modifying several sections of the policy prior to approving proposed 2016 City Improvement Projects to ensure that the policy is adequate to address anticipated project elements. All 2015 improvement projects levied special assessments against benefiting parcels based on the "per lot" method of assessment. This means each property was assessed an equal amount regardless of parcel size, location, orientation, or front footage. Staff believes this assessment method worked well for the 2015 projects, which all served residential properties. Staff will therefore propose using the same method on future projects as along as lot sizes area reasonably similar and the resulting benefit to each lot appears to be generally equal. Special assessments were only applied to properties having direct Access to an improved street. The intent of this is to assess each property for one reconstruction and two overlay improvement projects over the service life of the improved street serving the property, or the street the property directly accesses. However, this becomes an issue when a property has direct access to two or more streets. And the issue can be compounded further when more than one street that the property accesses is improved at the same time. The 2015 overlay projects included numerous corner lots, but none had access to more than one street receiving improvements. The 2015 street reconstruction projects included several corner lots, but again none had access to more than one street being improved. Policy Modification Highlights At this time, staff recommends reviewing several sections of the Policy to allow the Policy to be modified prior to Council approval of any of the 2016 proposed improvement projects as needed. These sections include: Section 1 — No modifications are recommended at this time. Section 2 — No modifications are recommended at this time. Section 3 — No modifications are recommended at this time. It is important to note that the language in Section 3 referencing a four-fifths majority vote comes directly from State statute 429.031 and therefore cannot be modified.