Forest Grove Park land twice as valuable as property city will get in land swap

The new Forest Grove Park land the city of Bettendorf plans to swap with a subdivision developer is twice as valuable as the property the city will receive, according to a city appraisal obtained by Bettendorf.com as part of a Freedom of Information (FOI) request.

The 4.6 acres Ven Green Development is acquiring are valued at $38,500 per acre, or $177,100, according to a February 2014 appraisal by Douglas C. Nelson of Nelson Appraisals. The 3.7 acres in three parcels the city is receiving are appraised at $25,000 and $15,000 per acre, amounting in total to $89,750.

Part of the land Ven Green will gain would be used for construction of a shared access street to the park and subdivision, Spencer Hollow First Addition, reducing the size of land available for homebuilding to approximately 3.6 acres. However, even with the reduction in acreage, the developer would still gain 11 building lots.

Residential lots for sale at a nearby subdivision range from $55,000 to $70,000 each. Based on those prices, the 11 additional lots would be worth between $600,000 to $770,000 to the developer.

The city also would be contractually obligated to pay two-thirds of the estimated $656,000 cost to build the shared access road. The developer's share of the road under the agreement would be capped at $225,000, even if the cost of the street escalates beyond the $656,000 estimate.

Normally, access roads to subdivisions are the developer's financial responsibility and would be built on subdivision property.

In an unusual move, city officials – after the proposed contract was approved by the park board and subsequent to inquiries by Bettendorf.com – have modified the agreement to add additional financial protection for the city in case the developer takes advantage of the option to hire a contractor to build the road and not wait for the city to install the street.

Under the park board-approved version, there was no limit on the city's share of building the access road if the developer opted to build the street. The revised agreement now gives the city authority to review contractors' bids and accept or reject the bids obtained by the developer.

The public hearing on the land swap is on the agenda for the city council's July 1 meeting. After the public hearing, the council is expected to act on the land trade.

City's park consultant urged better integration of park with subdivision

Other emails obtained by Bettendorf.com in its FOI request indicate the city's park planning consultant, RDG Consultants of Des Moines, tried without success to better integrate the proposed subdivision with the park improvements on the east edge of the park.

The consultant had to shelve its design of the park's Phase I development almost a year while working through nearly a dozen different subdivision plat configurations of Spencer Hollow First Addition beginning last year until this spring. The city paid RDG more than $8,000 just for the Spencer Creek plats and analysis.

RDG Consultants had urged the city staff to better incorporate the subdivision layout with the shared access road and include more than one access street onto Forest Grove Road, or connecting the new subdivision to the existing Sterling Woods subdivision to the west.

In February emails to the developer, even city park officials were unsupportive of the land swap now before the city council.

"The 4.25 acres section in yellow (city owned land) that would be proposed to be sold to you has greater value to us than the green areas (owned by Ven Green) as it is good flat land that could be incorporated into the parks design to allow greater flexibility for the design of the Community Corner, the Edge, and the Hub and their parking areas, and probably a greater amount of area for the Great Lawn," Parks Director Steve Grimes wrote in a February 2014 email to the developers, City Administrator Decker Ploehn and Community Development Director Bill Connors.

Yet just three months later, Grimes and Ploehn urged the park board to approve the proposed land swap with the developer, exchanging the prime park land for a just over three acres of the Ven Green property which is unusable for park development because of its steep terrain. Moreover, the developer under the agreement retains the right to use those parcels for its storm water runoff retention areas.

So why did the city give up much more valuable land to the developer, agree to pick up a third of the cost of the street serving the subdivision, and opt not to follow the recommendation from its planning consultant?

Grimes said Tuesday (June 24) he changed his mind after seeing the appraisals saying the land (minus the property to be used as street for the shared access) that the city was giving up was $137,000, compared with the $89,000 for the land the city would receive.

He said the steep unbuildable parcels the city would receive would enable easier trail development in the park.

The city during the talks with the developer also dropped its initial plan to obtain a small 0.3 acre section for a pocket park at the northwest corner of the subdivision. Grimes said that was because the developers did not want to attract traffic into the residential area. Grimes said the city would retain an easement in the northwest corner of the Ven Green property to access park land in that area.

Also during recent meetings between city officials and the developers, one of the fire department's primary concerns – lack of a second access road to a subdivision with more than 30 residential lots – was resolved without requiring a second access, but by making the access road somewhat wider from Forest Grove to the subdivision's first three lots.

The Ven Green development's first addition contains 34 lots, but the subdivision eventually could have more than 90 lots.

The second addition with the 60 lots can't be developed until sewer is extended north of Forest Grove Road, but that extension is in the city's five-year capital improvement plan.

City Administrator Ploehn did not return a call asking about the land swap. He told the park board at its June 18 meeting the land swap was "a pretty good trade," and cited the increased tax base from the new home construction as one of the factors for supporting the deal.

Bettendorf.com's request for all emails and documents concerning the Ven Green land swap did not include a single email or document from the city administrator to the city council, any of the city's department heads, Ven Green developers or the developer's attorney, former Bettendorf city attorney Greg Jager.