Agenda - Council - 11/23/2004 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Councihnember Cook stated he sees a lot of the concerns with Town Center coming from the unknowns. Coburn's has not started because of unknowns about if they will have to pay for road, sewer, water, etc. He wants to be sure there are not a lot of unknowns out there with this. Cotmci hnember Strommen stated her concern is by limiting the assessment to the core, that is the area where they are looking for small, more independent owned businesses. The assessments may bc more taxing to the very businesses they are trying to attract to that area. Also, the City is the owner of several of the lots in that core, and they would be looking to themselves to pay maintenance charges. She would rather see the City assume maintenance contracts than give dis- incentives to the types of businesses they want. To do this they need to determine where that revenue is coming fi'om, and she would encourage them to look at alternatives now. Counci hnember Kurak questioned what the limitations are on the assessment area. Mr. Bray replied the assessment has to be on the property benefited by the parking. The design is that thc businesses in the core will not have their own surface parking and will rely on the structure parking to satisfy their parking. Councihnember Strommen stated from the Council's perspective the benefits are to the entire area. The benefit to Coburn's coming in on the edge is the housing. The project needs to be looked att as a whole. City Attorney Goodrich explained Shingobee Development is objecting, saying they will have surface parking and do not want to pay for additional parking. He explained Shingobee Development is subject to the entire Master Development Agreement. RTC does not want to go by that agreement because Shingobee could walk. City Administrator Norman stated there was a great deal of discussion on this. A couple of months ago they had a different amendment to the development agreement and the City's team did push that and used Councilmember Strommen's very argument. Shingobee Development was very adamant and said that is a deal killer. He explained when this document was started Bruce Ncdegaard of RTC made an attempt to resolve the issue by saying he would put cash into this, and offered to contribute a one-time lump sum of one million dollars to resolve the issue. Staff indicated they appreciated the gesture but would like some sort of ongoing cash flow from the core, and the area was changed from the whole 320 acres to the core. If they want to go back to the 320 acres it will be very difficult and will put RTC in a difficult position. They have a closing coming up on Thursday and it will likely be a deal killer. Councihnembcr Cook asked if the language can be worked out with an alternate way of paying fol' thc maintenance that does not include a tax in that area. He expressed concern of adding taxes onto tile businesses, as the hardest part of starting the project is to get the commercial going. Mi'. Lasher replied as Paragraph No. 6 would develop, a draft budget could be prepared of dollars that arc being discussed. He explained this is a bit of a moving target because they have already City Council Special Work Session/November 9, 2004 Page 4 of 11