01-08-1990 Council Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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MINUTES OF ORONO COUNCIL MEETING OF JANUARY 8, 1990 • PARR DEDICATION FEES CONTINUED that we have any finding showing how much is needed. As far as the money that would be a developers concern, what somebody did was to analyze what the fee would be under our present system and what it would be under the 10% system. As Mr. Flint indicated, 10% is apparently 10% of the value at the time of preliminary plat application, taking into account its value at subdivision. So, its an amorphous position, it's not the prior tax value, and it's not what it will be after the roads go in, it's what it is taking into account the fact that it's about to be turned into something like a 17 -lot subdivision. It's going to cause a bit of a problem with the Council having to come up with that value. It seems that some other cities have taken care of that procedure. So assuming we can get by that, the issue is how much money will that generate. What the Park Commission did is look at the old value and then looked at 4 recent subdivisions. I would suggest, from being involved with the last two major transactions in the City, involving large parcels of land, that these values that were placed on these 4 subdivisions are far too low. They are low by a factor of 3 or 4. As they (the Park Commission) note here, in one case, the old fee would have been $1,000.00 and would go to $18,000.00. In another case it goes from $1,000 to $8,000, from $2,000 to $11,000, and from $1,200 to $5,000.00. I suggest from my knowledge of the values of these • properties, that if the Park Commission would have had a chance to talk to a few people involved in this, you will find that these values are far in excess of what they thought they were. You are going to generate perhaps 3 or 4 times more money than you thought you were. For example, there was one property in Orono, Foxbend, that recently paid their fee, I imagine they paid $3,400.00. I would suggest that under the 10% fee, they would have paid about $100,000.00. This is a huge increase, and I think that you should take into account the fact that 10% is probably going to develop a lot more money than the Park Commission thought it would develop. I'm not sure that we need that kind of money. I would like to see some kind of information on how we are going to use this kind of money and how much is needed before I would want to see us take that kind of money from the residents. Point two I would make is that I think that it is in fact Orono residents who will be paying this fee and I think that there should be some kind of Public Hearing on that point. When there is a subdivision, that lot price that has been arrived at is rather inflexible. There is only a certain range of prices that the consumers will pay, and as a consequence, the fee gets moved back down to the property owner. It gets moved to the guy in Orono who owns that property and that's true whether the fellow who owns it is going to subdivide it himself or if he is going to sell it to a developer. The developer is going to take a look at what the public is going to pay for the lot and he • decides what his risks are, how much he has to buy the property for in order to come out right. So, once again, it's that Orono property owner who is going to pay that fee. I suggest that it is the property owners in fact that own the 2 -acre or 5 -acre 4