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Current Events
- If you or people in your area want to meet and discuss current/future topics related to the city, reach out to me to set up a time to visit. (email, phone call, or in person)
- As you're driving on the river road by Stephens' park, you'll notice construction on the south side of the road. That's the new central water system treatment facility in progress. It is scheduled to come online sometime this coming summer!
- Many of you are familiar with the phrase "rural look and feel" or "rural character." Dayton residents have said this is important to them and I agree. It's even in our mission statement. We've had a couple work sessions on the topic and I believe it'll result in a list of ideas we will be prioritizing for the future. If you have ideas, please let me know.
Work Session (Parkway Neighborhood)
Over the past year or so the city has been in talks with a developer that wants to put in market-rate (non-low income) townhomes and apartments on a property on the far side of the freeway (property immediately to the south after crossing the interchange).
Here are some points relevant to the project:
- The property has had trouble getting any development proposed due to the access, wetlands, and the shape.
- In general, you can’t get commercial into an area without a lot of homes.
- This project will be done in 4 phases, the first 2 will occur fairly quickly and provide about $400k in tax revenue to the city and 340 units in about 3 years.
- When completed, the project is going to provide 650 units.
- There is quite a bit of infrastructure the city is having the developer put in including:
- Design and construction of a public road that connects this development with the Dayton Parkway (about 1,000 feet). This road will also service the property to the west and any commercial going in nearby.
- Utilities
- A traffic signal at the intersection with the Parkway.
- Trails/sidewalks outside the development.
- The residences will consist of apartments and medium density housing such as townhomes.
- This type of density is necessary to keep our other developments lower and is on a major roadway (I94).
The developer doesn't believe the project can go forward with the infrastructure expenses everyone has agreed need to be implemented.
This came up at the last December meeting as a surprise and, in order to get better numbers and options on where to go, it was pushed out to this work session.
Whenever these type of issues come up we typically rely on a consultant the city has used for many years and so far it seems like they give good advice. His approach was to look at realistic expenses versus realistic revenues and his suggestion was to use tax abatement to partially reduce the taxes the development will be paying for some number of years. Tax abatement means the property will pay the full amount of taxes, then we will return some portion of it back. Periodically the numbers will be looked at to see if the abatement is still needed. The amount we keep should pay for the city's expenses of the development and this way there's no risk of a city bond going into default.
We'll see the specifics in the next month or so.
Item O (Local Board of Appeal)
If you wish to disagree with the value the county has placed on your property, you should contact them and let them know why. If you don't get the answer you wanted, show up at city hall for the meeting on April 8, 2025 at 5:30 P.M.
This is for the VALUE and use classification for your property. Not for your tax amount. The tax amount is determined BY your value and the city's tax rate.
Be prepared to logically claim the value is wrong such as having a few comparable properties that have sold for less, etc.
If you agree with your property value but feel you pay too much in taxes... contact ALL 5 of the council to help back me up 🙂
Item P (Quilling Concept Review)
Dayton is full of administrative property messes that have accumulated from years back. This is just one more example.
This involves what should have been a private easement between 2 properties. Nobody seems to know why but the parties involved back then (early 2000's) included the city in what should have been a private easement agreement which turned it into a "road" easement. That makes it fair game to expand its use. In this case, one of the parties has decided to do just that. Unfortunately that easement is 40 feet from the other parties front door.
The proposal was to re-arrange 3 contiguous Ag1 properties in such a way that one of the lots would end up being 5 acres. Given our current ordinances, that isn't allowed... though one of my goals is to allow that. The other issue that came up was a requirement that any new property definition needs to have 300 feet of frontage (not a fan of that either).
These 2 issues precluded re-arranging the property lines (for now) and the current thought is there is nothing we can do about the easement. This will come back to council once we get better answers from the attorney.
Item S (Planning Commission Appointment)
Six residents applied for the opening we had when Sara was elected to council. From the discussion, all 5 council members had one individual ranked as #1 and that was Jeff Sargent. He had/has a background that told us he likely would have a good grasp of the position right away. A few of us also agreed getting someone way outside the discipline would have been better but we had that opening up for a while so keeping it open didn't seem like a good solution.
Item T (Cannabis Use Zoning)
Well, if you're looking to open a Cannabis shop... we now have locations approved once the state clears up their mess. I wouldn't get your snack pile too high yet though as it's going to be a mess to weed through all the state red-tape.
As always contact me for questions, concerns, comments...