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<p class=MsoNormal>Greetings,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>First item in PAZ was an amendment to the covenants for the
Valley subdivision. This is five or ten acres about two miles out Mullan road.
The covenants had a provision that said no basements would be allowed due to
ground water considerations. It also said that particular provision could not
be amended without governing body approval. The developer hired Geomatrix
to do a hydrological study and determined that for some of the lots it would be
OK to build basements. So they brought it back for us to amend the covenants
before filing final plat. Our flood plane administrator had reviewed the study
and sent a letter in agreement with the findings. The state flood guy was also
OK with it. I figured this would be about a ten minute item. But I was
wrong.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Some number of years ago there was a subdivision near this
one that did flood and the residents sued the county for allowing them to build
there. Nothing like the specter of a law suit to get some of the council members
running around in circles. The question was asked in about sixteen
different ways by Renee, Jon, and John if there was any way to provide the council
absolute legal immunity if we allowed for this change in the covenants. Ed
pointed out that along the same purely hypothetical and speculative lines we
could be sued for not approving the change after a qualified consulting firm
had done a specific study of the property and the city and state flood
professionals had agreed with the findings. On what grounds were we denying the
request? The only argument offered was that in the past a law suit arose from a
property close to this one so maybe we could get sued too. Even our
attorney advised us, with all the standard disclaimers, that we were on solid
ground.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>When it was time for the vote, it in fact failed. Renee,
Dick, Lynn, Jon, John, and Jason against. Ed, me, and Pam in favor. Everyone
else was absent.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>When I later asked Jason, his reasoning was something like
this: We didn’t need to be exposing ourselves by getting involved
with this since it was not a condition of subdivision and just a part of the
covenant. The covenants are a contract between the property owners in the
subdivision. The city is not a party to that agreement. The developer
could just change those covenants any time he wants to as long as he is the
only property owner. No reason for us to get involved. We’ll get to
discuss this on the floor Monday night so Jason will probably clarify his
position then.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>My take on it is that may be true but we approved the
subdivision with that condition in the covenant. It specifically said that
there would be governing body approval to change it. It may be correct that the
developer could legally change it all on his own but it certainly wouldn’t
look good. Much more prudent to bring it before the council. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The one point this did bring out was that we should make sure
these types of things are conditions of the subdivision and not just in the
covenants.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>In other business we voted to postpone the proposal to
require affordable units in the CBD for densities higher than 16/acre.
The planning board recommended that we wait until the zoning rewrite is done
because it will probably address this in some way.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>In A&F we approved the RFP request for the Fox site. This
is to try to find a developer who will build something there that we like. Most
of the discussion centered around fees that MRA wanted to charge developers of
the site. They wanted a $100,000 deposit that would be repaid upon completion
of the project. This sounded reasonable. They also wanted a ‘developer
fee’ of 1% of project cost not to exceed $500,000 to cover expenses
associated with the project. This caused a little more commotion. My concern
was if this was a standard practice that outside developers would not baulk at.
If so than I have no problem with it. Usually when people come to spend a big
pile of money they expect us to give them something like a parking garage. I’ve
never liked that so it would be nice to see it go the other way. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>In Public works we discussed the expansion of the sidewalk
project around Trempers. They are finishing up the system that comes in on
North and around Oxford and Kemp. There are a couple of property owners who had
not signed on to the project but they were at the meeting to air their
concerns. It sounded like their issues could be worked out. We all want to see
the whole project get done all at once. We approved the change requests and are
hopeful that Engineering will work things out with the last two people to be
able to do a complete project.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>It was a short day so that was it.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Thanks for your interest,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>Bob
Jaffe</span><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>Missoula
City Council, Ward 3</span><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><a
href="mailto:bjaffe@ci.missoula.mt.us"><span style='color:blue'>bjaffe@ci.missoula.mt.us</span></a></span><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>406-728-1052</span><o:p></o:p></p>
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