Sewer/Water connect - park fee analysis

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Dunbar Fees Analysis February 7, 2001 Page 2 I. SEWER & WATER CONNECTION CHARGES ANALYSIS The Dunbar project involves developing within Outlot F, Sugar Woods, a 62-unit senior housing building and a 27,000 s.f.office building. The senior housing building is expected to equal 62 SAC units. The office building is expected to net out at approximately 10 SAC units,although this could increase to perhaps 12-14 units depending on the extent of medical office fixtures installed. For discussion purposes,the two buildings will be considered as requiring a total of 75 SAC units. One SAC unit is the equivalent of 1 City sewer unit or 274 gpd. Outlot F 1989 Assessed Unit Allocation The document controlling the use and assessment of sewer and water units for Outlot F is the 1989 Petition for Local Improvements submitted by Otten, Wear and Rebers. In 1989 Otten, Wear and Rebers were each assessed for the costs of the SugarWoods/North Highway 12 sewer and water trunk(Phase I)and each were assessed for the Phase II improvements which included a)well,pump station, and connections for the assessed parcels; b) sewer upgrade to connect Phase I trunk to MWCC interceptor;and c)water tower construction and connections.Each were allocated a specific number of sewer and water units. The project was assessed on the basis of a total of 329 units,with 40 units allocated to Otten, 10 units to Wear and 69 units to Rebers. The remaining 210 units were expected to be used and paid for by future development in the Highway 12 area. Of Rebers' 69 units, 25 were attributed to the Sugar Woods residential development. Rebers paid off the assessment for the 25 Sugar Woods residential units in 1989; the remaining 44 units were specially assessed at a rate totaling approximately $6,300 per unit, and final payments for Phase II will occur in 2002. Of these 44, 3 were sold to Service 800 in 1999 for use in Sugar Woods Outlot E, and the remaining 41 are available for development within Outlot F. Because Rebers' remaining allocation of 41 units is less than the 75 units that will be required to serve Outlot F, a total of 34 units are technically lacking. While the 1989 Petition clearly specifies that the petitioners will be reimbursed for unused units at the full assessment rate plus interest upon full development, it says nothing about purchase of additional units should the development exceed the number of allocated units. It might be assumed that the extra required units should be purchased by the developer at the current connection charge rate for the 1989 Highway 12 sewer/water project. One might argue, however, that Rebers simply paid for a share of the sewer and water system at a rate that was determined by a unit allocation but which didn't limit him to that allocation.