What was the deal?
Met Council money? Other grant money? Did it correspond in any fashion with the letter James Norman sent Met Council saying Ramsey desired to be a developing area?
That means taking on an average of 3-5 units per acre in development load - and the cost that goes with that so there could be an unneeded ramp - if that was the quid pro quo. Otherwise, the city put that burden on existing residents without getting anything in return. Either way, who will step forward and say he/she wanted that ramp bad enough to have a several hundred dollar tax increase - or worse?
And can we say, in that range, this comp plan, we want three, not more, certainly not five, and that is per buildable acre on average, with the wetland and the impacted non-buildable protected surrounding areas subtracted from the quota?
What does it mean? What Faustian bargain's been struck, if any? Who has that answer?
I would like to see someone at city hall produce numbers about what the trade-off was for any outside ramp financing. And the tax impact per $250,000 home.
And don't say the calculation cannot be done. Or that many assumptions are needed. Every forecast the city's done has had many assumptions. Somebody's been forecasting the growth absorption the market here would have, without saturating, and the price reductions going on now do not fit any non-saturation scenario.
