04-27-2022 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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STAFF REPORT TO: Mayor Keis and Members of the City Council FROM: Chris Heineman, City Administrator DATE: April 27, 2022 RE: Planning Case #1348 Outstanding Debt ACTION TO BE CONSIDERED The City Council is asked to consider a writing off of uncollectable debt for the outstanding developer fees from July, 2016 – April, 2017 in the amount of $6,328.82. BACKGROUND In 2016, the City of Little Canada was approached by Danny Lincoln with The Lincoln Group with a proposal for a single-family housing development at 3000 Labore Road (Sculley property). Mr. Lincoln submitted a formal planning application in January 2017 for a concept review. The Planning Commission and City Council reviewed plans on two separate occasions and were making progress, but Mr. Lincoln opted to not move forward with his project in late March 2017. Due to the topography and other complexities of the site, the review process required significant staff time to provide feedback on the applicant’s proposal. The city was still using a planning consultant at this time, so all of the planning time spent on this proposal were billable hours. The applicant paid an initial application fee of $750.00 for a Concept Plan Review in January, 2017. The applicant was invoiced for the additional costs, but the developer had walked away from the project by March of 2017. After multiple attempts to collect the debt, the developer informed staff that he would not be paying and it could be assessed to the property owner. All planning applications require a “Cost Agreement” to be signed by the applicant. If the applicant is not the property owner, the Cost Agreement must also be signed by the property owner. The Cost Agreement is an acknowledgement from both parties that they are responsible for any costs incurred by the City of Little Canada in excess of the application fee, and that these costs could be assessed to the property. A representative of the property owners had signed a Cost Agreement at the beginning of this project, and was understandably upset these fees were not paid by the developer. Attempts were also made to collect this debt from the property owners, and they refused to pay the outstanding costs since they had not been made aware of them as these fees were being incurred. A total of $6,238.82 in outstanding developer fees were incurred from July, 2016 – April, 2017. City Staff looked into additional options to recoup the costs, including placing a lien on other