4/18/1995 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

M M W Two Major Requests for County Assistance: Due to the DeBartolo Corporation's April 19, 1995 deadline, the Board must consider at its April 18, 1995 meeting the request for the county to collect impact fees from tenants and reimburse DeBartolo, and the request for the county to provide a contribution of up to $1.1 million for the project's off-site improvement costs. The Board is now to consider the two major requests for county assistance. ANALYSIS: Since the DeBartolo officials contacted staff and requested the County's assistance, staff has met several times and attempted to accommodate reasonable requests to facilitate the project. The meetings have included discussions of alternatives staff has proposed to help DeBartolo minimize construction costs. Representatives from the County's budget, community development, public works and utilities departments, as well as the county administrator and county attorney met several times both on a staff level and with DeBartolo officials to address DeBartolo's requests. The stated goal of the DeBartolo representative is to make the project's "numbers" better by $4 million. To accomplish this, DeBartolo has requested county assistance by: Collecting for DeBartolo $2.9 million in county utility ($.8 million) and traffic impact fees ($2.1 million) from project tenants (original, "first-time" tenants); and Contribute to DeBartolo $1.1 million to cover the difference between DeBartolo's estimate of off-site road improvement costs ($3.2 million) and the project's TIF assessment ($2.1 million). As a result of several meetings, staff has reached a consensus on these two DeBartolo requests. Collection of Impact Fees from Tenants This is an issue for DeBartolo because the developer has already prepaid utility impact fees and will be paying traffic impact fees "up front" to reserve capacity and obtain concurrency approval for his project. Utility impact fees have been paid in cash, while traffic impact fees will be paid by crediting roadway improvements proposed to be constructed by DeBartolo. The developer has indicated that, if the County collects the impact fees and reimburses DeBartolo, it will save DeBartolo considerable money, since impact fee payments are usually negotiated out of tenant contracts. Thus, according to DeBartolo, the county could collect money from tenants that DeBartolo could not recoup in usual tenant contract negotiations. In assessing this request, the county attorneys office raised concerns that county collection of impact fees and reimbursement of fees to a developer could constitute use of public offices for a private purpose and might not be legal. However, the attorneys office has determined that such a county collection function could be legally defensible under certain conditions, including full disclosure to tenants and an administrative change to Cover county costs. Please refer to attachment $2, a memo from the County Attorney addressing the tenant collection request. 35 BOOK 9FAEE 92 APRIL 18, 1995