City Council Slated to Direct Staff on Funding Plan for Road Reconstruction

The Apple Valley's City Council at its Tuesday meeting is slated to tell city staff which funding plan to proceed with for future road reconstruction.

Reconstruction Needs

In the near future, about five miles of street will reach its 50-year service life each year. The condition of most street pavement in Apply Valley is expected to decline based on current available road maintenance funding levels. Microsurfacing, seal coating and crack sealing can extend pavement life, but eventually the return diminishes.

“Everything is in need of maintenance and replacement eventually,” city Director of Public Works Todd Blomstrom said in November. “If you get a backlog built up, it is so very difficult to come back from that situation.”

The cost to fully reconstruct an urban street ranges from $800,000 to $1 million per mile.

Funding Options

At the council's Nov. 22 meeting, city staff presented two funding options to obtain an additional $960,000 per year for its road reconstruction plan. Several sources already provide money for pavement management, including the road improvement tax levy, utilities and state aid, but the yearly shortfall is the $960,000 amount.

The first option would be to increase the road improvement tax levy by $960,000 a year, which would be gradually adjusted over eight years, according to a city presentation.

The second option proposed was a combination of tax levy increase—$300,000—and a special assessment to those whose properties are adjacent to the reconstructed roads that would generate the remaining $660,000 per year.

Under the tax-levy-only option, as an example, the owner of a median-value $197,800 home in Apple Valley, would pay $105 in property taxes to the road improvement levy—$30 more than they normally would without the levy increase.

Under the assessment option, the assessment would be set per unit for residential properties; properties along the road reconstruction area would be assessed $2,500 each to be paid over 10 years.

Commercial and industrial properties would be assessed by foot of property along the road in question, at $48 per front foot.

More Discussion

The Apple Valley Chamber of Commerce hosted a meeting of its members on Tuesday morning to get more feedback from the business community.

Chamber President Ed Kearney said it's not the need for road reconstruction that's the concern, as much as having enough advance notice and time to understand the funding options and get the best sense from business owners about which funding option would be preferable.

"We're not arguing the need," Kearney said Monday. "We see the need."

He and Chamber board member Mike Maguire said Monday they thought a public hearing on the topic in front of the city council was necessary.

Council member Ruth Grendahl at the Nov. 22 meeting also said she thought there should be a public hearing.

The city council meeting is scheduled for 8 p.m. Tuesday at the .

The city has posted a slideshow on its website that includes information and maps of road conditions in Apple Valley, and the proposed funding options.

Come back to Apple Valley Patch for more on the topic from Tuesday's city council meeting.

What do you think of the proposed funding options? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below.