CCP 03-13-2000 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

. . . '\ Lake Josephine East road City Council Page 2 the neighbors were deliberately dragging their feet. After being brought up to speed by the Planner, we decided to try to get the parties together to see if there was a way to mediate this conflict before going to the Council. We invited Ms. Rushenberg and Mr. Wesslund to City Hall to discuss their position. We indicated that we would be meeting with the developers and going through the same scenario. We asked Rushenberg and Wesslund ifthey had responded to the offer from Evertz and Wesslund. They indicated they had not. We asked them if they had any counter offer and they did not. We then asked them to determine a value, by whatever means they thought appropriate so that the discussion could move along. We gave them a month to determine a value and set up another meeting with them. We then met with the developer to hear their "side" of the story. They indicated that they had not been able to get the neighbors to respond and wanted to move ahead with their development. They indicated that the City and the neighbors had "cost" them a lot of money and they were not happy. We then told them what we had expressed to Rushenberg and Wesslund. We also indicated that we would meet with them in a month to review what we had learned from the other parties and mediate with them. We directed the City Engineer go out to the site and measure the distance from the edge of the existing road( across Rushenberg and Wesslund property) east and west to a width of 60 feet (for a right of way acquisition) and between the end of the road north to the adjoining property line with the developers. Given these measurements, we would then be able to calculate a cost for acquisition of property outside a given public access point (the neighbors did acknowledge that this short piece of road had been in place for some time and was recognized as their access to their property). This would give us some reference point for discussions with Rushenberg and Wesslund should they come back with a cost for acquisition. It would also tell us whether or not the previous offer made by the developers was reasonable. After a month, we meet with Wesslund, Rushenberg was ill that day. He did not have a value for the area to be acquired. He indicated that they did not know how to determine that value. We told Mr. Wesslund that we had calculated that area outside of the road surface and placed a $2/per square foot cost, based on what we were offering in other, similar acquisitions. The value we had determined was $6,000, $3,000 each for the acquisition of the property for r-o-w. Wesslund did not know how to respond and told us he would be seeing Ms.Rushenberg and would pass along the information. After the meeting, Ms.Rushenberg called to tell me that she was not in agreement with our calculation. She inquired as to why we seemed to be negotiating for the developers. I told her we were not negotiating for the developer, we were trying to move this process ahead and get the parties to agree.