Agenda - Council - 02/22/1982 - Laserfiche WebLink

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I I I I I I I I I I 2 The Metropolitan Council Act of 1967 Chapter 473.181, Subd. 2, has expanded this A-95 review and comment authority to approving or disapproving acquisition grants according to the Regional Recreation Open Space Policy Plan. In implementing this responsibility and because there are limited funds, the Council ranks the applications for funding. ISSUES A. POLICY PLANNING AREA ALLOCATIONS For the past several years the grant funds were allocated by the four policy planning areas (Fully Developed, Area of Planned Urbanization, Freestanding Growth Centers, and Rural Areas). This allocation was originally based on a formula of 60 percent population and 40 percent fiscal effort tax base of the planning area. The policy area shares, based on this formula, fluctuated a great deal when the formula was applied for the Fiscal Years 1977 to 1980. Since Fiscal Year 1980 recommendations were approved the Commission and Council have used the same allocations. It was hoped that the local comprehensive plans would provide a more realistic measurement of local recreation need. Although many comprehensive plans provided good data on future recreation needs (i.e., project concepts), there wasn't sufficient detail on recreation project costs to formulate a ' policy planning area allocation for FY '83. Communities should be encouraged to further refine capital 'improvement programs, for it is this data which indicates not only the financial need for recreation facilities in the next fiscal year, but also the long-term needs for recreation facilities. These long-term forecasts will give the local, state and federal legislative bodies a better way to allocate funds for recreation capital improvements while balancing the financial needs of other public services with recreation. Staff reviewed three factors to determine a policy planning area allocation: comparing total costs of projects by policy planning area from the past four years; e comparing the 1981 total assessed valuation (tax base) of each policy planning area; 3. comparing the 1980 population of each policy planning area. The comparison of total project costs by policy planning area, shows that: Approximately 50 percent of the total cost of requests came from the Fully Developed Area. 36 percent of the total cost of requests were from the Area of Planned Urbanization. Seven percent of the total cost of requests were from the Freestanding Growth Centers. - Four percent of the total cost of requests were from the Rural Area.