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City Council Meeting Minutes February 9, 1999 Page 7 1 Ranallo stated the City does not seize private property but purchases it on a willing seller/willing 2 buyer basis. 3 4 June Stuhr, 3403 Maplewood Drive,presented a letter prepared by herself and her husband, Jim 5 Stuhr. "We have been residents of St. Anthony Village for 10 years. We are currently employed 6 as full-time real estate agents with RE/MAX Real Estate Guide, specializing in residential real 7 estate. Jim has been in the business for 26 years, and June for 17 years. We are both familiar 8 with real estate values in St. Anthony and the northern suburbs. 9 10 The block bounded by Harding Street, Silver Lake Road, and 30th and 31st Avenues is unique. 11 Anyone who has seen the spacious back yards which adjoin one another to form a park-like 12 setting has to be amazed. It's undoubtedly the most beautiful residential land in the entire 13 Village. 14 15 It is our professional opinion that if the beautiful back yards are replaced by a big, ugly hole in 16 the ground which would closely resemble an open mine pit,the properties adjoining it would 17 lose approximately 20-30%of their current market value. Depending upon how extensive an excavation would occur, some properties could be devalued by as much as 40% or more of their current market value. 20 21 Buyers will pay a premium for space, privacy and trees. Buyers will not pay for big ugly holes 22 in the ground. You don't see other municipalities digging holes in the middle of already- 23 developed residential blocks to solve drainage problems. 24 25 Real estate agents don't just deal with the financial aspects of buying and selling. We deal with 26 people's feelings. Therefore we can almost guarantee that a secondary result of digging a big, 27 ugly hole in the middle of that block would be that the current owners of the lots would 28 experience such a profound sense of sadness over the loss of something so beautiful that they 29 treasure that most of them would no longer want to live in their homes, and those would could 30 afford to sell would sell them rather than having to lookout their windows every day and be 31 - constantly reminded of their loss. It kind of takes the heart out of people. - 32 33 There's one more issue that we need to address. The highest and best use of low-priced property 34 adjoining an ugly pit would be rental use. It's just a given. It's reasonable to expect that a good 35 number of the block's homes would turn into rentals with the accompanying absentee-landlord 36 problems and diminishing property values/tax base that other municipalities have had-to face. 37 Everyone in that neighborhood would be impacted. Right now we don't want to elaborate on 38 this point too much although, as residents of this Village ourselves, our concerns about this outcome are very real."