VALLEY CITY, N.D. (NewsDakota.com) – The City of Valley City is proposing a Paving Improvement District (130) that affects property owners along 2nd Street N from 3rd Ave NW to 5th Ave NE and a couple of other connecting streets.
In total, approximately 10 blocks of Urban Streets will be fully and or partially reconstructed at a cost of $9,857,500 million or approximately $1 million per block.
A group of Valley City landowners believe numbers like this are unreasonable and are not sustainable. Several impacted property owners have expressed concern for the cost of the project combined with what the scope of the project is.
For example, the group says, why replace perfectly good sidewalk with new “pigmented” sidewalk. The property owners do not want to see money wasted. They don’t want to see things being replaced that have useful life remaining.
At this time, many residents are requesting that the city provide more time to address concerns and pinpoint critical design decisions. They are asking the city for more transparency in the process and do not feel as though one informational meeting is sufficient to accomplish that. The city property owners say they are looking for fiscal responsibility and transparency from the city of Valley City.
One city official said the State of North Dakota is picking up the lion share of this nearly $10 million dollar project, or 90 percent. The city also believes special assessment won’t be any higher for city property owners in the district compared to other projects like this in the past.
The attachments about the project by the city of Valley City and the protest letter from concerned property owners are listed below.
protest-letter-to-city-of-valley-city
res-declaring-necessity-of-paving-improvement-district-no-130