I have pretty much built a record of thinking - It was an unwise project, and the land could better have been conserved for commercial and industrial expansion - and jobs.
It was not.
Decisions were made. Met Council advocated growth and past councils opted for growth.
James Norman played a role, but does so no longer.
Moving City Hall without a referendum is something I condemn; but it's done, and is water under the bridge.
The market now is a factor. Perhaps bad goals and anticipation played into a market that was a bubble that burst. Perhaps only market effects are being seen now. My guess is it's always been a sow's ear, with the housing bubble posing a possibility it might be quickly built out and for a very brief instant, appear to be a silk purse. The bubble burst and the Nedegaard effort did not move quickly - the saturation effect for townhomes being a factor neither City, Met Council, nor Nedegaard could overcome. And now, the trend is our friend. It shows the bubble's burst; the future is uncertain with "subprime" now being a nasty word, and how such housing that looked profitable in 2004 - 2005 will fare in the future when mortgages may be harder to get, is the big uncertainty in any planning.
I think the city is right to hold to the plan they negotiated with the Nedegaard interests - that the bank and any new buyer would enter with that being the floor everyone stands upon. If there are modifications, that is negotiation, and I trust staff to negotiate well, from now on and that is trusting on hiring a better city administrator than past office holders - which is a judgment opinion and a hope.
Marketing it as "shoppes and restaurants" was false, but also is water under the bridge. For now, as Patrick Trudgeon has stated, the anticipation is 2400 housing units total, for 322 acres; with commercial and park development a part of things.
Calling the PACT school, the Medical Examiner, City Hall and the Ramp "commercial" cheapens things. A better approach would be to negotiate that a housing-nonhousing split can be viewed as triggering a phase II, but that there a strongly restrictive definition of "commercial" will have to apply. And TIF for that is questionable.
But lying now about what is "commercial" rather than expressly changing and lessening the deal is dishonest and simply should not be done. The senior housing - it is to be housing - each unit counting as an additional unit; as with ACCAP.
TIF for any housing, as with the ACCAP proposal, is unwise and a burden on existing Ramsey taxpapers and uncalled for, although it appears a done deal.
All of that said, the focus for the future has to be the Comprehensive Plan.
And Town Center is only a part of that Plan. For now, it is not the major part. That is because the greater uncertainty lies in what the remainder of the plan will be.
Ms. Steffen has stated at one recent session, where Sen. Jungbauer was a keynote speaker; that we should anticipate no major changes from the last comprehensive plan.
That is a statement, but ambiguous. However, she spoke at a work session where Met Council planning staff attended; and that situation will be reviewed in a later post.
That session, and the statement she made recently, that "no major changes" should be anticipated, does help define expectations from that direction. Presumably staff there, within those bounds as vague as they are, from Ramsey and Met Council shall be in contact and working within those parameters.
The major question is what "property rights" advocacy means, and is it good or bad for Ramsey? There can be an agreement on conservative spending, eschewing subsidy, again a somewhat vague term, while "property rights" might mean a range of things to a range of people.
Starting with staff notes from the RAMSEY3 process, and from the "no major changes" expectation, we can have some view of where the city is headed.
One aspect left open in the tardy but ultimate last comprehensive plan - environmental regulation and effects - can now be better defined because there have been wetland surveys, areial mapping for topographic data, more wells, and a better underatanding of the factual situation needed to ground a more exact Comprehensive Plan for water, be it surface, ground or drinking/household supplied, by the City, from the existing wells and/or the river, and treated via a new capital spending binge. How that water treatment cost will be allocated, when it is the new growth that will be its cause, is a question of fundamental fairness that existing residents have a stake in formulating in ways that fairly tax their property.
The earlier town center mantra, "The Developer Shall Pay" should not be abandoned or shelved in the 2008 City of Ramsey Comprehensive Plan formulation process.
If there are profits to be chased by the crabgrass contingent; they, not us, should bear their profit-seeking risks. ENTIRELY. There should be no risk or cost shifting to existing taxpayers. That would be a market distortion favoring marginal or unproductive development; and the market should exist to weed out the illadvised or undercapitalized adverturers. We, the existing taxpayers, should not subsidize those landholders and developers wanting windfall profits. Neither by cost shifting for sewer-water capital expenditures arising only because of accomodating growth, nor by forced hookups or special assessment fees imposed in lieu of or in the absence of forcing a hookup. Ultimately, it is the special assessment that hurts; not the forcing of hookups. Hence, protective Comp. Plan language should be to stiffle wrongful impositions of such assessments against existing homeowners who already have invested their own capital in wells and septic systems for their properties. They should not have to pay twice, simply because they had to install and maintain and upgrade priviate systems when their homes were built or purchased, and municipal sewer and water adjacency to the properties did not exist.
Existing homeowners in such a class have a common interest in assuring that the new comp plan will recoginze them as stakeholders entitled to a vote in a majority voting process when others propose the routing of sewer and/or water piping past their homes. Without that, the charter and plan can say one thing, and state statutes and Met Council unter its Land Planning Act jurisdiction can say another; and the threat faced is that the courts will side with the larger forces saying their interests trump local control and local concerns - once the pipes are in the ground and people are saying they do not want to hookup OR be assessed for something that was done to benefit the profit-making of others.
Hence, the protection that should be in the comp plan is an intent by Ramsey, blessed by Met. Council approval, that existing people - as a local right and power, can force the holding of a vote on any future proposed routing past their single-family homes and properties with each property along the proposed route being a stakeholder with a vote.
More on that concept. More on the Met Councilmember's visit earlier at a work session. But not in this post. In the future.
Planning probably, ultimately, is better than no planning. But unfair planning is a lesser goal than fair planning. And the core measure of fairness is the short term - to ten year enhanced tax burden that planning for growth will impose on those now in Ramsey. What better measure is there? I know of none, when "fair planning" is the only proper goal? Who else would you be "fair" to? What else would be wholly fair to Landholders and developers wanting a windfall profit via subsidizing taxes, than to hold them instead to a fair profit, in line with not shifting any of their risk or cost to the general taxpaying Ramsey public now living in the City?
What's fairer than that? Nothing. Having the many subsidize the gaining of greater wealth by a few is inherently unfair. There's no two ways about it.
If the landholder-developer plans and hopes cannot survive the test of a fair and unbiased unsubsidized market, then their plans and hopes are not good - not good for them, and not good for the rest of us - and a rational person in their place, held to follow the market, will do what the market allows as profitable, and avoid what the market suggests as a risk and cost beyond anticipated benefits, and hence a bad plan or deal. But let the market work without distortions and without subsidy. Do not bias the market to favor crabgrass.
