Public Services and Multi-Family Development:
Presented by: Public Works Director, Nolan Kirkman
o Multi-family housing and current levels of service
- Two or more single-family dwellings attached as one are considered multi-family housing. These can include condos apartments and town homes.
- The focus of the discussion was owner-occupied units.
- Sanitation is currently serving developments with less than or equal to six units.
- 6,937 multi-family units are currently in the city of which, 393 are currently being publicly served.
o Challenges to providing public service in multi-family developments
- The City utilized automated waste collection (using curb-side carts)
- Driveway density in multi-family developments
- Street width of private streets
- Structural integrity of private streets
- On-street parking
- Liability issues as a result of property damage (caused by above factors)
- Multi-family developments lend themselves to being better served by dumpster (verses carts and curb-side collection).
o Tax Burden Analysis
- It costs approximately $15 a month (per household) to provide sanitation services. $4.26 of this is provided for by solid waste fees (not including recycling fee).
- About $9 per month (per household) of the cost to provide public sanitation services is provided for by the General Fund (taxes).
- It would cost approximately $165,000 per year for sanitation services and $15,000 per year in lighting to service owner-occupied (condo/townhome) multi-family developments.
o Staff Recommendations
- Continue to provide sanitation services to developments with less than six units.
- Provide a credit to owner-occupied units in developments of more than six units (the credit would be based on the tax burden for services not received).
- The logistics for this proposed credit have yet to be thoroughly examined.
- Provide a street light credit for City-standard lighting.
- Reevaluate City Ordinances concerning multi-family developments to mitigate similar issues in the future.
o Next Steps
- This will be brought back to the Council in March with further details and additional options.