City Council Minutes 2020 02 18 - Laserfiche WebLink

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City Council Meeting Minutes February 18, 2020 Page 14 of 18 Kim Crawford, Butler Snow (City's public finance counsel), stated none of the District's debt is the City's debt. The downside of it not developing or it not proceeding as planned means there is likely a downturn in the market that is detrimental to everyone. For the applicant to issue bonds they have to present the plans to bond counsel and no bond counsel is going to recommend proceeding unless they can demonstrate appropriate cash flow. The developer is trying to guess right now what they can do with the property over time and basing the numbers on that. Councilmember Dickinson stated the risk for the developer is that they can't get anyone to invest in the project and nothing happens; the risk for the investor is they won't earn a profit on the project; the risk for land owners is that the mill levy may increase way beyond what is now anticipated. However, there is no risk for the City or its residents. He stated he is comfortable that the risk is not the City's. Mayor Stolzmann asked staff when the financial information was submitted. Director Zuccaro stated staff has been working on the project as a whole for many months, but the financial numbers were submitted about a month ago. Councilmember Brown is concerned the rent of senior housing on the site would be affected by a large mill levy. He is worried the developer is not bound to a particular development plan at this time. He is also worried that at some point the developer would need to build single family homes to discharge the debt. Councilmember Dickinson noted the City would have to approve such a change and that is not the pulse of this Council. Mayor Stolzmann stated she is concerned about risks of incomplete infrastructure if the District is unable to perform their duties. She has concerns about condemnation authority being given to the District and there being condemnation of City facilities through that. She feels this has not been adequately reviewed to know if the City is protected or not. She believes there are other potential risks for the City. She added this proposal has a presumed land use mix, but if it doesn't develop as proposed there will be pressure to change land use. Councilmember Lipton asked if the residential senior housing would be individually owned or part of a complex. Bakaul stated the proposal has no individually owned residential. Councilmember Lipton stated these would all be rentals and rental rates can be affected by the taxes, but this is not the same as some districts we have heard about where individual homeowners have been directly affected. Public Comments John Leary, 1116 Lafarge Avenue, stated the request is to zone the property for senior living, but it is not for a specific type of senior housing. He stated the first two criteria are intuitive and require a lower level of evidence but the second two require proof. If the