10.02 - Wildlife Trail Project - Laserfiche WebLink

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�..- If we think we are going to have a difficult time establishing that the assessment amount equals the benefit to the property then we need to consider how much the city will contribute toward the costs of the project. If the property owners truly want to proceed we could ask that they waive any right of appeal regarding the assessment but based upon what i have read that probably won't happen. If the city wants to proceed with the project i think we need to pay close attention to the cost/benefit analysis and make sure that is not out of line otherwise the city may have to deal with appeals. if so we need to be prepared to show that the benefit at least equals the cost which means a 3rd party is not going to have to be able to establish that (appraiser or otherwise) for the city. All of that has to be weighed against the likelihood of appeals by the property owners. I think someone raised a good point in the information I read which is does the city want to accept road/streets in the future if they are not improved to city standards, i.e. paved. As a matter of policy the city may want to consider not accepting those streets as a city street which means we don't maintain the street. In the future if there is a gravel road that the property owners want the city to take over as a city street it is up to the property owners to then improve the street to city standards before the city takes it over. To Sandv Peine from Tim Houle: If the city council decides that this is a project they would like to proceed with i think before we do that, we should do some research on cases where assessments have been � challenged on the basis of the amount of the assessment exceeds the benefit to see what we can do to either defend that or determine that the risk is not worth it. Ultimately if an appeal is successful the city will simply end up spending more in terms of covering the cost of the improvement to the point where the amount of the assessment is somewhere close to the benefit. �..