09-10-13 Agenda - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

II. Land Use and Market Values There are four major land use types in the city: Commercial/Industrial, Tax Exempt, Residential, Streets and Highways, plus vacant that can be in any of the first three. These can be further broken down to about 52 more detailed categories based on an interpretation of the classifications and codes in the Ramsey County Assessor's file. The definition of land use is an ongoing process as more information becomes available. Table 8 summarizes the land use in Arden Hills by these detailed categories. Since the TCAAP property consumes so much of Arden Hills' land area, the land use percentages without TCAAP are also provided. The table also shows the 2012 gross market value from Ramsey County and the approximate 2011 taxable indicated market value, as used for the Fiscal Disparities program. It would be impossible to show a single map with all of the detailed land use categories. Therefore, four maps show each of the major categories. Map 4 shows residential land use, Map 5 shows Commercial / Industrial, Map 6 shows Tax Exempt and Map 7 shows Streets and Highways. In some cases there are residential uses among the commercial and exempt categories. They are categorized as commercial or exempt accordingly, however. III. Population A major factor that influences finances in Arden Hills is population. We do not have population numbers down to the parcel level. Even the Census Bureau collects population down the city block level only. Therefore, we must allocate population to parcels based on the best information we have available. The parcel data includes the number of housing units in many, but not all, cases. For single-family housing it provides the number of bedrooms. In some cases data is missing at the parcel level and has had to be added in manually. By using the housing unit and bedroom counts, with the control totals of population and housing at the block level, population has been allocated to the parcels. Of course, this will be estimated population only. At the parcel level, the population count will be expressed as a decimal, such as .9 persons, or 2.25 persons. Some of the housing units may be unoccupied, but we do not know which ones. We do know that the summary numbers equal the census block totals. This is the best we can do. This is somewhat of an art as well as a science. Table 9 summarizes housing and population counts by type of housing unit. Map 9 shows the population distribution. IV. Fiscal Disparities Arden Hills is a net contributor to the Fiscal Disparities pool. That is because Arden Hills has a large amount of Commercial and Industrial development compared to other units of government in the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area. With the abundance of Interstate and other highway access, Arden Hills has a geographic advantage for attracting Commercial and Industrial development that other locations do not have. Cities and townships receive a distribution from the Fiscal Disparities pool based on a formula that is based on the inverse of taxable market value per capita. Those with market values per capita below the regional average receive more than those with values that are above the average. Arden Hills, with its wealth of Commercial and Industrial development and rather high residential market values per capita, receives less, back as a distribution, than it contributes to the pool. 11