08-14-2013 Council Agenda - Laserfiche WebLink

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Attachment 5 Memo clgRInG ASSO(IATtS TO: Honorable Mayor and City Council Members FROM: Lee Eifering, City Engineer DATE: August 9, 2013 RE: Arkwright- Sunrise Area Proposed Project Little Canada Portion of McMenemy Street TAUT NOW The City of Maplewood is pursuing the reconstruction of the Arkwright - Sunrise area located south of TH 36 and east of Interstate 35E for construction in 2014. Included in the project is McMenemy Street, which is a border street between Maplewood and Little Canada. East of the McMenemy Street right -of -way centerline is Maplewood and the west is Little Canada. Due to the separation from the rest of Little Canada created by TH 36 and Interstate 35E the entire street has been plowed and maintained by the City of Maplewood and municipal services to the lots that have service are from Maplewood's systems. For those reasons we believe it would be beneficial to have Little Canada's half of the street completed with the larger Maplewood project. Some members of the City Council may remember a very similar situation in 2008 that involved the Kohlman Lane area and Beam Avenue, which also separates the two communities along its centerline. At that time each City had their own method for calculating the assessments to adjacent properties, but the final assessment amounts per parcel were very close. However, since that time Little Canada has maintained the same method for assessment determination, but Maplewood has made substantial changes to their method, which has resulted in proposed assessments on the Maplewood properties being $4,125.00 or $4,500.00 depending on the size of the lot. These amounts have been determined by an appraisal report of the lots within Maplewood. We created a preliminary assessment role based on the Little Canada assessment policy and the assessments varied from $4,893.75 to $8,156.25. This of course raises some concerns as to the equity of assessment to people living on opposite sides of the same street. There are differences between the lots in Maplewood and Little Canada. Specifically the lots in Little Canada are in general much larger than most of the lots in Maplewood, with 5 of the 8 lots being over an acre in size. The report prepared for Maplewood tied out the assessable amount to 7.5% of the land value and we utilized that as a quick check of our assessment amounts. Based on the County Estimated Market Value (EMV) for each lot our proposed total assessment amount is vary near to this value with some individual property assessments higher or lower than the 7.5 %. This would in theory add some credibility to the amount determined by policy. However, residents may still perceive an inequity in the assessment amount varying on opposite sides of the same street. A copy 10062 Flanders Court NE — Blaine, MN 55449 — Ph: (763) 780-0450 Fax (763) 780-0452 Z:tPROJ■120167E • McMenemy (Maplewood)Wemo-080913•CC (Adtwrght•Sunrise Update)doc 44