04/10/1978 Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

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The Mayor questioned whether the utilities in the urban renewal area had already been paid. Mr. Allen said the sanitary sewer, a major 4It effort, has been completed within those boundaries in cooperation with urban renewal funding. He said at least 80 percent of the utilities within those boundaries are completed. Mayor Keller then wondered on the average price of a home in Eugene what the systems development tax would be. Mr. Gilman said the tax was based on the building permit value, thus only applying to the structure and not the land. He said it would range from 1.2 percent to 1.6 percent of the building permit value with the variation deter- mined by the time of annexation to the city. Mayor Keller then wondered what the assessment might be on a commercial building valued in the area of $250,000. Mr. Gilman said in the area of $300,000 assessed value, the tax would be $4,000 to $5,000. Mr. Obie requested that Betty Niven, Chairman, JHC, respond to the tax and what implications there might be. Ms. Niven said JHC remains basically opposed to the systems development tax. However, if there is going to be one, the changes made in the ordinance are a consider- able improvement over what was originally proposed as it would not be a lien on a house and there would be an option to spread the payments out over a considerable period of time. Mr. Obie then wondered if Ms. Niven had any data regarding how this tax might affect the price of houses and how many buyers might be left out because of the increased amount of purchase price. Ms. Niven said two or three years ago a study was completed which indicated an increase of $1,000 in a $23,000 home would eliminate 21,000 persons in the state, approximately 800 in Eugene. She said as a rule of thumb, as the price of housing increases, more and more persons would be removed from the market. e Mr. Obie wondered if the committee had considered exemptions on lower cost housing, $40,000 and less. Mr. Anderson said the whole matter of exemptions was felt to be the responsibility of Council. Manager noted the ordinance does provide for that exemption of lower cost housing such as mobile homes. Manager noted a change in the wording of the ordinance to provide for an effective date would be as follows: To change the term "governmentally authorized" to "of which governmental authorization is validly applied for". The reason for the change was to clearly indicate whenever a valid effort had been made to secure a building permit. He noted Council must fill in the effective date, which would be April 11 if the ordinance were adopted this evening. - 4/10/78--5 :t32.