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Thursday, October 16, 2014

RAMSEY - PSD, LLC wants our city to alter zoning as part of a Town Center proposed development. Zoning is to be changed. The original Deal offer has lapsed. Lower density requirements are a part of things, but ramp-building cost is where things converge.

So, the zoning will be altered before any post-rezone purchase agreement offer will be accepted. Discretion to accept a post-rezone PSD, LLC offer is not presently compromised, and Jim Deal is on record as still interested in a particular project.

QCTV has online full video meeting coverage, here.

Nitty gritty: There need not be a developer financed ramp per the changed zoning. Zoning has not yet been changed because there is a binding timeline requirement - a statutory procedure with guidelines that must be met. But zoning will be changed.

Eric Hagen's Oct. 16 ABC Newspapers reporting, online here, does delve into the "will a ramp requirement be waived" essence of the question facing the city as owner upon making a change - if changing the use profile of the real estate are you drastically changing its marketability (including market value being boosted)? Is it now of interest beyond the PSD, LLC consideration of record?

ABC wrote:

The Ramsey City Council next month will consider a zoning change that would make it possible to continue working with a local development company on a $1.9 million land deal.

[...] The COR Development Plan forecasted 435 housing units for the 9-acre parcel. PSD’s conceptual plan for a development called Parkview East includes a four-story, 120-unit apartment building in the first phase and a three-story, 90-unit building in the second phase. Community Development Director Tim Gladhill said in a memo to the HRA that this density would be acceptable.

The [potential] hotel, conceptually, would be three stories tall and have 73 rooms. A “future parking ramp if needed” is located between the hotel and apartments.

The Ramsey Town Center and The COR master plans both included a second parking ramp in this area. A COR-1 zoning district was established within a quarter-mile of the Northstar Commuter Rail Station to establish high density requirements. Due to PSD’s request, the council is considering lowering a requirement within the [entire] COR-1 standards called the floor area ratio. This would allow any developer of the three vacant parcels in this zoning district to develop at a lower density.

Gladhill said lowering the floor area ratio, “reduces the likelihood that you may see structured parking but it doesn’t eliminate the possibility with future projects.” The city is not obligated to pay for a parking ramp itself in the future.

Will there still be a single suitor or not, given the change? Bottom line then, there need not be a developer financed ramp per the changed zoning. That alters how the market may view the property, and should PSD, LLC having let its deal lapse, be made to face a competitive market, should one emerge, or has it gained entitlement to an inside track on at least the one of three impacted parcels on which it already offered?

A reflective contrast, (the mirror that only reflects on its right side), congers boogeyman dimensions to Jim Deal, while not clear on issue dimensions here and here.

This is from a vocal arm of the naysayers to whom council member Tossey alluded in QCTV video, online here.

For those wanting a name, The Reflector's present wording divulges:

After my comments, which also pointed out that the council and HRA are creating the perception that no other developer should try in Ramsey, because Deal has the city in his pocket, PSD’s assistant manager took his time making his way to the podium, because I knew he was trying to come up with some rebuttal. The first words out of his mouth were about how PSD wasn’t trying to stuff bad people into Ramsey and then he continued, claiming the opposition to the project was purely political. Pure emotion and ad hominem.

Well, go to the QCTV video to see who spoke first before Jim Deal's PSD, LLC rep, and you learn who THE REFLECTOR IN RAMSEY is, the only remaining mystery being whose opinions beyond his own might he be reflecting in this anti-Jim Deal mindset?