Breezy Point has a Road Improvement and Assessment Policy
that was written perhaps 20 years ago.
This policy needed updating in a number of ways.
The policy went into detail about county roads and the fact
that these are not maintained by the city.
As a city policy it made no sense to keep this in the policy. The policy also included one road that was
given to the county, Fawn Lake Road.
Another is no longer part of the city, Nelson Road. We had a reference to Plant Road which has
been renamed to Thrane Drive. These aspects needed to be dealt with.
There was listing of roads considered Limited Access Roads
which generally declared them substandard in some way but beyond that really
had no policy implications. These roads when upgraded will require some special consideration, such as not
meeting minimum specifications for an improved roadway, but no details were
included as to what will or should occur.
Minimum Maintenance Roads were defined as roadways “with no
improved properties on them”. Following
this in the maintenance section of the policy was a statement that these
roadways would be improved upon the building of a residence. We don’t allow the building on properties
that abut a minimum maintenance road until the roadway is brought up to
standards. This definition had been
changed to “roadways not meeting minimum city standards”. This change concerning how minimum maintenance
roads are to be addressed was made when the city adopted standards for these
roadways in 2005. The change was made to
the policy to reflect these current approaches.
The threshold for a petition for improvements under
Minnesota Statutes 429 requires a 35% of the frontage of the property to be valid. The policy required 35% of the property owners abutting the roadway,
rather than frontage. Another concern
was the city policy has been changed to require 70% of the abutting
frontage. The larger threshold for a
petition required a more committed group of property owners to want the
improvement. The lower threshold
required the city to incur engineering expense to determine a cost, which in
most circumstances resulted in property owners objecting to the proposed assessments. The petition threshold was changed in the
policy to be consistent with current policy.
The financing of improvements required a two year assessment
period at 7% interest or 1% over the cost of a bond. The 2 year duration for assessments was
difficult at best for property owners to deal with. The interest expense was high, should not be
set in policy, and should be determined by the city council based on the market
at the time of the assessment. Another
problem with this is the city currently is financing improvements in house,
there is no bond for the improvements. Changes were made here.
Assessment policies typically deal with corner lots paying
for one side at 100% assessment and a 50% credit for the other roadway. The policy had this in mind but defined the
100% side as the primary access side.
This didn’t address vacant property, what side is the primary access? In addition we have a few lots with double
frontage, front and back, and a few with triple frontage. How are these handled? To address these situations it was felt the
first side of the property that is improved is assessed 100% of the cost and
the second side assessed at 50%.
Properties with triple frontage would see assessments for only 2
sides.
Finally the policy required at all times a 5-year Road
Improvement Plan. A number of road plans
were adopted and halted due to the cost of improvement, the extent of debt
service requirement, objections by home owners or other reasons. The 5-year Road Plan was felt to be
unrealistic as it assumed too many things would fall into place to make it
happen. A plan for road improvements was
wanted but it needed to be achievable and realistic. The required, “at all times a 5-year Road Plan”,
was removed and we now work on road improvements as conditions allow.
This rewrite of the policy clarified a good deal of the
issues with it. It really didn’t substantially
change how properties would be assessed.
It did bring some clarity into the policy that was lacking. It brought the policy up to date and it
currently includes a track record of how projects are assessed. We believe the policy as now written has
removed the majority of the problems that plagued interpretation. Hopefully these clarifications will
accomplish the goal of a more straight forward policy.
