Agenda - Council - 01/08/2019 - Laserfiche WebLink

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placed over the compacted reclaim material to meet the City's standard pavement design for residential streets. Ditch sections may require minor surface grading in a few areas to re-establish positive drainage. Estimated Costs The engineer's opinion of probable costs for the proposed improvements is $502,555.46. Estimated costs include 5-percent contingency costs plus 23-percent indirect costs for administrative, engineering, finance and legal costs. A summary of the engineer's opinion of probably costs is included inAppendix B in the attached Feasibility Report. Funding Program This improvement project, which is listed in the City's current 10-year Capital Improvement Plan (CIP), is proposed to be funded using a combination of special assessments to benefiting properties, street reconstruction bond proceeds, and storm sewer funds. Twenty-one benefiting parcels are identified in the Feasibility report. Benefiting properties are proposed to be equally assessed for 25-percent of eligible project costs using the "per lot" assessment method identified within the City's adopted Special Assessments Policy. Preliminary assessments are $4,418.30 per benefiting property. Final assessments are based on final project costs. Costs incurred to date include all Staff time required to prepare the Feasibility Report and the draft plans and specifications. Consultant costs incurred to date include NTI's fees for completing soil borings and a Geotechnical Report at a cost of $3,250, and Hakanson Anderson's fees for collecting topographical survey at a cost of $4,100. Public Comment Staff conducted a public information meeting for this project at 5:00 PM on Thursday, November 8, 2018. The purpose of the meeting was to present the proposed improvements, estimated costs, funding program, and preliminary project schedule to benefiting property owners, and to receive public input on the project. Property owners from 2 of the 21 identified benefiting properties attended. The property owners generally agreed that the pavement was in poor condition and needed to be repaired but thought the estimated project cost was too high and questioned why the City could not maintain the roads in a less expensive manner. Staff explained that the pavement is past the point of applying an overlay, as it would fail well before the end of its anticipated useful life of 20 years due to the poor condition of the underlying pavement. It was discussed that overlay projects generally cost about one -quarter as much as a street reconstruction project, and that the most cost-effective manner to maintain streets is to crackseal and sealcoat pavement every 7-years or so, to overlay the pavement every 20-years or so, then to reconstruct the pavement after two overlays at approximately 60-years. This is a widely accepted standard pavement maintenance schedule for cities such as Ramsey that have good underlying soils. One of the property owners asked if the project was already a done deal, or if they had any ability to stop it. Staff explained that Chapter 8 of the City Charter provides a petition process for City Council initiated improvements such that if a petition is signed by 60-percent or more of the owners of real property proposed to be assessed for the improvements, the Council cannot vote on the same improvement for at least one year following the Public Hearing. Petition Opposing Improvement Project #19-02 On December 10, 2018, the City Administrator received the attached petition opposing the project. The City Engineer validated the names and addresses of the fifteen petitioners, which represents 71.4% of the twenty-one benefiting properties. On December 18, 2018, the Public Works Committee unanimously passed a motion accepting the petition as valid and directing Staff to mail letters to all benefiting property owners to clearly define the project, ramifications of signing the petition, and options to withdraw their signature if desired. This direction was based on input from Staff that several property owners had contacted Staff after signing the petition to ask questions about the project scope and the ramifications associated with signing the petition, and that after Staff provided information to the property owners they said they were led to believe something different.