Austin City Engineer Jon Erichson is willing to negotiate, but he hasn’t had much luck contacting businessman Michael Heise.

Friday, April 21, 2000

Austin City Engineer Jon Erichson is willing to negotiate, but he hasn’t had much luck contacting businessman Michael Heise. Heise is not happy with the $82,000 street assessment the city has said he will have to pay for the construction of Eighth Street NW from 18th Avenue NW north.

Heise questioned his assessment for what he calls a "driveway to the Cooperative Response Center" at Monday’s City Council meeting.

"Mr. Heise said he had no potential buyers, but right now he has an unfinished lot with no way to get to it," Erichson said. "When we’re finished there will be street, sewer and water."

Erichson said some land in the area around 18th Avenue NW is on the market for between $130,000 and $180,000 per acre.

"The cost of putting infrastructure in works out to about $30,000 an acre for Heise’s land," Erichson said. "$82,000 sounds scary, but when you look at the cost of land out there, it’s not so scary."

Erichson said he was looking at several options, but needed to see what was acceptable to Heise. However, the city engineer hadn’t been able to contact the Austin native and Twin Cities businessman since Monday’s meeting. He hopes to have a proposal ready by the council’s next meeting on May 1.

Also on the Public Works committee agenda Thursday:

n It was announced that Assistant City Engineer Dan Fick has resigned, effective May 5. Fick resigned to take a position as city engineer in Rosemount, a Twin Cities suburb.

n A preliminary developers agreement has been reached for Orchard Properties. The developers would like to proceed with the third phase of the development.

"They are selling lots so rapidly out there, I’m sure they’d like to get started tomorrow," Erichson said. The city engineer said he thought the agreement would be on the May 1 council agenda.

n A proposed expansion at Oakland Park, a mobile/manufactured home park west of Austin, was discussed. Erichson said he had sent the owners a letter outlining the city’s requirements for a developer’s agreement. He explained that the current park services are partly taken care of by the city, and partly by the owner. Anything not up to city standards is the responsibility of the owner.

"We have to make sure they do any expansion right the first time," Dick Chaffee, council member at-large, said.

Erichson said he was waiting to hear back from the Oakland Park owners.

n The moving through Austin of some extremely heavy equipment for Great River Energy was discussed. Erichson explained that the city’s usual weight limit for its roads was around 80,000 pounds, but the turbines and generators Great River Energy want to bring through weigh 800,000 pounds. Erichson said he would hire a private consultant – at GRE’s expense – to study the effect of the load on city streets.