2005-06-28_PWETC_AgendaPacket - Laserfiche WebLink

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ASSESSMENT DISCUSSION: State Statute 429 has two major points to consider when justifying assessments, first, the assessment has to treat similar properties equally, and second, the amount of the assessment has to be equal to or less than the resulting increase in property value. We have explored a number of different options for establishing an assessment rate for this year's project. All of these options include the private drive properties being assessed at the rate established by Option 1: Use footage of 349 S. Owasso, the first lot that accesses the private driveway and apply to all lots on private driveway. Option A: Use assessable frontage to establish assessment rate. ($47.91/ foot) The City's practice has been to set the assessment rate using actual assessable frontage on the road. The majority ofS. Owasso Boulevard is single loaded. Between the Railroad tracks and Dale Street, the majority of the houses are on the north side of the street. About half of the houses between Rice Street and Western Ave are side yard frontages which are calculated at 10% of the actual lot line length. Strictly applying the City's assessment policy, the assessable footage for this project is 8440.48 feet. This is a little more than half of what is could be considered "assessable frontage" if this street were double loaded (had house fronts on both sides of the road). As a result using the actual assessable frontage of this street to set assessment policy, sets the assessment per foot rate at $46/ foot. This significantly increases the proposed assessment amount. The assessment rate for this option would be $46/ ft ($4,600 for a 100 foot wide lot). This assessment rate is more than double our average historical assessment rate of $20/ foot. Option B: Add in Railroad frontage to determine assessment rate. ($34.49/ foot) Set the assessment rate for the project by adding in the railroad property frontage (3282.95 feet). This increases the total assessable frontage to 11,723.43. This decreases the assessment rate to $34/ foot which is closer to our historical average. Option C: Centerline length times two to determine assessment rate. ($26.66/ foot) S. Owasso Boulevard is 7582 feet long (1.44 miles) Since the road is a single loaded (i.e. the majority of the street only has houses on one side) the cost for this street is almost double the cost of past assessment rates. If we were to use the actual length of the road to determine the rate per foot this rate would be even closer to what has historically been the assessment rate. We recommend that the City proceed with Option C to set the assessment rate for this reconstruction project. While the rate is still higher, this is consistent with what we have been experiencing with construction projects. With the increases in the price of oil, we have seen all of our project costs increase in the last 5 years. Project P-ST-SW-05-06 S. Owasso Boulevard Reconstruction Feasibility Report 28