University Hills Streets Project
UHills Streets Committee
Meeting Minutes,
Next Meeting: June 6th at First Presbyterian church at
Attendees:
Committee Members:
Tom Sontag
John DeHart
Dale Brodsky
Henry Moglia
Allan Morby
Bob Morley
Adele Tuchler
Claud Eley
Gary Francesconi
Rob Klahr
Tom Keating
Jason Gottlieb
Trustees:
Larry Connor
Jim Wheeler
Tim Moffitt (Department of
Public Works)
Review and Approval of minutes from committee meeting of
Minutes approved without any changes.
Selection of committee chairman:
There was some discussion of a revolving chairmanship and
of a multi-person chairmanship. The committee finally agreed on the need for a
single person to take on the responsibility of being chairman. Tom Sontag volunteered and the committee approved. John DeHart was then "volunteered" as Secretary and he
accepted.
Report of the Engineering Subcommittee:
Allan Morby was the primary
spokesperson for the subcommittee with all members in attendance making
contributions. A printed summary of the subcommittee's activities, findings,
proposed options and plan for next tasks was distributed to all.
A summary of the written and oral reports:
Activities:
April 9: walking tour of streets
April 26: Meeting with
representatives of Reitz and Jens.
April 28: Meeting with
representatives of MSD.
Reitz and Jens very quickly backed away from their
recommendation that the streets needed to be completely replaced and agreed
that other less costly options were possible.
The subcommittee raised concerns and discussed some of
the risks involved in a streets removal and construction project.
·
possible damage to trees
·
removal of existing
streets may lead to undermining the foundation below if not done properly.
·
necessity for careful
and time consuming oversight of construction process by an experienced person.
·
level of inconvenience
during construction should notbe underestimated.
MSD claims there is not a major problem with the sewer
under Kingsbury but indicated that we might get better results if we went
through customer service as a committee instead of as individuals.
There seems to be no concern that MSD will have to do
major work on our sewers in the near future to address mandates from the EPA.
Four options were put forward by the subcommittee for
addressing the issue of UHills streets:
1.
Do no major work,
continue as we have with yearly repairs and patching.
2.
Selective repair, patching and replacement of
curbs, gutters and pavement. Redo the "chip and seal" surface.
Drainage improvements. Repair any damaged or failing drainage structures by
MSD.
3.
Selective repair, patching and replacement of
curbs, gutters and pavement. Add an asphalt overlay. Drainage improvements.
Repair any damaged or failing drainage structures by MSD.
4.
Complete removal of all curb, gutter and
pavement. Drainage improvements. Repair any damaged or failing drainage
structures by MSD.
Concerns were raised about option 3 and how well the
process of putting an asphalt overlay on a "chip and seal" pavement
would work.
In general, the subcommittee's conclusions were:
·
there is a lot of
visible curb and gutter in need of replacement.
·
the pavement problems
seem to be mostly along the edges of streets.
·
the conclusions of the
Reitz and Jens report were very exaggerated.
The full committee requested that the engineering
subcommittee put together a summary description of our streets and define some
of the common terms used in street construction (milling, chip and seal,
asphalt overlay, ...).
TASK LIST for Engineering Subcommittee
1.
meet with MSD customer
service representatives.
2.
divide options 2 and 3 up into multiple grades,
For Example:
·
Identify 3 grades of curb conditions (Poor,
Fair, Good)
·
Identify 3 grades of gutter conditions (Poor,
Fair, Good)
·
Identify 3 grades of pavement conditions (Poor,
Fair, Good)
·
Identify 3 grades of aprons conditions (Poor,
Fair, Good)
3.
inventory the streets,
aprons, curbs and gutters classify sections into grades listed above.
4.
start developing cost
estimates for the proposed options 2 and 3.
5.
Summary description of our streets and define
common terms used in street construction and maintenance, such as:
·
milling
·
chip and seal
·
asphalt overlay
·
etc.
Report of the Finance/Legal Subcommittee:
Rob Klahr was the primary
spokesperson for the subcommittee with all members in attendance making
contributions. The subcommittee has identified three options for financing a
streets reconstruction project.
1.
Neighborhood Improvement District (NID)
·
requires petition approved by 2/3 of property
owners
·
U. City oversees project and obtains financing
for it.
·
cost cannot exceed proposal by more than 25%
2.
Community Improvement District (CID)
·
requires petition
approved by residents representing 1/2 per capita and 1/2 of property value.
·
requires forming a new
legal entity (e.g. non-profit corp.)
·
new entity would need
to obtain financing for project.
·
new entity would
oversee entire project.
· assessments/payments for CID might be able to be treated like property tax and thus may be tax deductible.
3. Special Assessment
·
requires subdivision
approval which is defined as a majority of attendees at a subdivision meeting.
·
subdivision would need
to obtain financing for project.
·
subdivision would bear
responsibility for overseeingentire project.
The subcommittee distributed a plat map of the
neighborhood which identified exactly which lots were part
of the subdivision. Some corrections were made to what was included and
excluded.
The Legal/Finance subcommittee has identified 4 options
for how to do an assessment for paying for a major streets construction
project.
1.
By frontage feet with halving for corner lots.
(As is done for regular annual assessment)
2.
By assessed valuation
3.
By lot size
4.
Flat per lot except for School, Park and Church.
The subcommittee will work on estimates for how the
different assessment options would look across the whole subdivision.
TASK LIST for Legal/Finance subcommittee:
1.
Contact Wilhelm & Wilhelm CPA to obtain
official lot and assessment info
2.
Obtain St. Louis County Assessor's records for
assessed valuation and size of each lot
3.
Contact Frank Ollendorff,
U City City Manager with following questions:
·
At what cost level would UCity
be unable to finance our street improvements out of currently available funds?
·
What is estimated cost to bring our streets up
to UCity standards?
·
What is future cost savings of UCity maintaining our streets?
·
What are implications of dedicating our streets
to UCity?
4.
Obtain information about interests
rates for recent NIDs and CIDs and contact various
financial institutions regarding possibility of Trustees obtaining private
financing base on special assessment imposed pursuant to the indenture.
5.
Circulate memo regarding implications of a tax
lien.
6.
Circulate copies of other NIDs
pursued in Clayton and UCity.
7.
Prepare spreadsheets identifying impact of
various financing options on individual homeowners. (They can then be modified later
as the engineering subcommittee refines the options).
Report of the Communications Subcommittee:
John DeHart was the primary
spokesperson for the subcommittee with all members in attendance making
contributions. The subcommittee has assembled a list of criteria for describing
and evaluating the construction options which includes
·
Cost
·
Appearance
·
Impact during construction
·
Lifetime
The full list will be distributed to committee members
via email.
The subcommittee has outlined a plan for disseminating
information out to all residents:
·
What:
o
Meeting minutes
o
List of construction options
o
List of criteria for evaluating options
o
Financing options
o
Other documentation
·
How (will vary based on the "What"):
o
Web Site
o
Email
o
US Mail
o
Door-to-door
·
When (will vary based on the "What"):
o
After full committee approval
o
After subcommittee approval
o
Immediately
It was decided that meeting minutes would be emailed to
committee members as soon after a meeting as possible. Committee members would be
given one week to review and comment on the minutes. They would then be posted
on the subdivision website and tagged as "Pending approval at next full
committee meeting." After they were approved at the next meeting they
would be tagged "Final".
It was decided that the subcommittee should draft a
letter to go out via US Mail in the next few days to inform residents about the
existence of the committee and where to find information about its activities.
Residents would be encouraged to use the subdivision website as their primary
source for information from the committee.
The Communications subcommittee will meet with the web
site manager and begin the process of placing committee materials on the web
site including a mechanism for requesting email addresses from residents who
visit the site.
TASK LIST for Communications subcommittee:
1.
draft a letter to send out to residents with
information about committee and the subdivision website
2.
work with web site manager to get committee
information online
3.
email evaluation criteria out to committee
members
4.
email to committee
members the plan for disseminating information to residents.
Next Meeting: June 6th at First Presbyterian church at
