Ordinance No. 20046 - Laserfiche WebLink

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as the Bellah's praperty. The Bellah's property can be served by the newly installed sewers and is therefore benefited by the sewer installation. It is appropriate that the standard portion of the Bellah property should be assessed. Lever of the Systems Development Charge As with all previous sewer assessments in the River Road Santa Clara area, the proposed assessments are combined with the standard systems development charges ~SDCs}. Properties of less than an acre are assessed for the entire area of the parcel for the local pardon of the SDC. Properties larger than one acre are assessed for only a portion of the property. The only objections to the SDC in this round that appeared at the hearing were the objections stated by the witnesses representing the Eagles Aerie. The SDC are levied at this time so as to afford the property owners the opportunity to take advantage of the financing system attached to sewer assessments. The Eugene Code does not provide the Hearings Official any authority to recommend a change in the SDC. The base of the Eagles' concern is not just with their primary focus, the SDC. The Eagles argued that as a charitable fraternal organization they should be exempted from the assessment, or that the assessment and the SDC should be restructured in recognition of their special circumstances. The nonprofit character of the organization is not itself reason to exempt the organization from assessment. For profit and not for profit organizations alike have been assessed. The Eagles are concerned that this assessment process is the start of some larger pattern to make the organization subject to taxation. That is apparently not the case, because assessment is not taxation, and is regarded as different under the law. In the same way, the Eagles internal structure does not alter the fact that the organization itself is the owner of the property and is responsible for payment of the assessment. The members may chose to each pay a part of the assessment, but the city should not assess them individually. Apart from the effect that this might have on the validity of their legal claim to be a fraternal organization, it is impractical and unrealistic to expect that the City should create a special procedure such as they suggest. It would mean that the City would never collect the assessments, because new members would constantly be replacing the old members who had gained a deferral, The Eagles also argued that their golf course should be considered undeveloped and therefore not assessed. Undeveloped property is property that is presently available for development, without a change in use. The golf course is, i~n this sense, developed, and is not eligible for deferral. The Eagles argued that their only recourse will be to sell the property, thus forcing development of the property. It does not appear to be the intent of the city to force development on any property owner. The motive force for construction of the sewers is the existing contamination of groundwater caused by past development. The City has chosen to require the property owners to pay most of the cost of the sewer construction. If this leads to further development it is an incidental side effect of the sewer canstruction. The city of Eugene is not forcing development, but the city has not forborne the sewer projects because of the side effect of further development, SANTA CLARA AREA SEWER BASINS "N" "P" "Q" AND "R" Page S FINAL ASSESSMENT -FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIQNS