| | | | | | | | Council Communication
Department: City Clerk
Case/Project No.:
Submitted by: Matt Walsh/Wendy Schultz | Resolution 18-132 | Council Action: 4/23/2018 |
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| | | | | | | | Description
Resolution approving the Inventory and Disposal Policy for Surplus City Property dated March 14, 2016. |
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| | | | | | | | Background/Discussion
Prior to 2015, the City did not have one centralized list of all the properties it owned, managed, or maintained. Multiple departments dealt with the parcels they had something to do with, managing them in very different ways. As a result, many parcels slipped through the cracks and no one really knew whether we owned it nor needed to maintain it or if we wanted to sell it. To drive this point home, our Sanitarians would even post weed notices on some City owned parcels because they had no idea that it was ours.
In 2015, a City Owned Property Committee was formed, consisting of individuals from each department that had anything to do with these parcels. This committee began by creating a consolidated list of all of the City owned parcels. The committee then took all of those properties and broke them out into 4 categories; Infrastructure, Public Space, Transitional – Dispose, and Transitional – Preserve.
The Infrastructure list consists of all of the parcels that house pump stations, streets and street right of ways, and items similar to that. The Public Space list consists of all the City parks and building structures such as City Hall. These two lists are looked at as more permanent parcels that we wouldn’t typically ever get rid of, however they will be reviewed once a year to make sure there isn’t anything that needs changed. For example, at some point, we will put a plan together to dispose of, or demo the old Animal Control building since the Animal Control group has been relocated and we no longer have a use for that building.
The Transitional – Dispose list consists of parcels that we want to sell or dispose of as soon as we can. These parcels are items such as the 657A properties we have acquired or parcels given to us by the State after they’ve acquired land for some development and had a small amount left over that they didn’t need, or remnant parcels that we don’t need/want and can’t do anything with. The longer we keep these parcels, the more money they cost us to maintain and can be a liability to us. Just because these parcels are on the dispose list, however, does not mean that they will be immediately placed on the for sale list. Many have legal restrictions attached to them. For example, on a 657A property, the owner has a certain length of time to come back and claim it if they can come up with the money to bring it up to code. In these cases, we have to wait until after these timeframes before we can place it on the for sale list.
The Transitional – Preserve list consists of parcels that we have some future plans for. The City has spent several years and expended funding intentionally acquiring and cleaning up these parcels for a future desired use. The parcels on West Broadway that the City owns is one example of parcels on this list. The end goal is that we would sell many of these parcels, however, we will be intentional about who they would be sold to ensuring that whatever it is would fit in with the plan for West Broadway and the 1st Avenue Corridor. Other examples of parcels on this list are those identified for the Mid-City Corridor. These parcels potentially would not be sold, but combined for the City’s Mid City Corridor Plan that we would develop.
The City Owned Property Committee meets on a regular basis as we acquire new parcels and sell some off the Dispose list on a regular basis. As a group, we define what list each parcel should be placed on and then if it is on the Dispose list, how we should dispose of it. The Surplus Property Disposal policy was put in place by the Committee and presented to the Council at Study Session in March of 2016. The intent was that the policy applied to the Transitional – Dispose list as any parcel on the other three lists were not for sale.
In recent months, there have been a couple instances where there has been some confusion with citizens offering to buy parcels that were not on the Dispose list, hence, they were not for sale. Even though the procedure is in place and has been approved by the Council, it can be a bit difficult to enforce without an official Policy by Resolution in place.
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