March 24, 2009

City votes to phase street work

By Rodger Nichols
The Chronicle

     The Dalles City Council steered a middle course Monday night between full steam ahead on a local improvement district on the West First Street, Bargeway Road and Terminal Avenue area and totally postponing the project.
     Councilors chose a phased approach, which will result in improvements to part of the area, but postpone similar improvements on the remainder of the property for a minimum of two years, but not more than five. The plan is conditioned upon receiving signed agreements from the majority of the remaining property owners to extend existing nonremonstrance agreements for an additional five years.
     The delay on phase two was at the request of a number of business owners in the area, who said adding assessments to their properties in the current business climate would be an undue burden.
     According to an engineer’s report given to councilors at the meeting, those affected under Phase 1 will be Meadow Outdoor Advertising, The Dalles Cherry Growers, the City of The Dalles (for its new public works headquarters) and the Union Pacific Railroad.
     That includes a total assessable frontage of 5,069 feet and assessable area of 14.47 acres. Phase 2 will include the remainder of West First Street and Bargeway Road west to Webber Road. The total assessable area of Phases 1 and 2 will be 42.90 acres.
     The city had come to a decision point on property improvement because a 20-year nonremonstrance agreement is due to expire Jan. 1, 2010.
     That agreement was signed with the Port of The Dalles when the port asked for the property to be annexed into the city.
     As a condition of annexation, the port agreed that it would not fight the assessments of any local improvement district, and it would bind anyone purchasing or leasing port property in the annexed area to a similar nonremonstrance agreement.
Improvements in the area have been postponed previously for similar economic hardship reasons. The total cost of the project is estimated at $2.275 million, with the bulk of the development costs in Phase 1.
     The decision to proceed with a phased plan was unanimously approved by the three council members who voted.
     Councilor Bill Dick, who also represents the Port of The Dalles, recused himself from the voting, and Councilor Dan Spatz abstained, saying he had only received the 20-page document including the engineer’s report and the staff recommendation at the beginning of the meeting and had not had time to study them adequately.