According to an article which appeared in Thisweek, Dakota County has run into serious budget overruns due to the high cost of negotiating with landowners surrounding the CR-70 and I-35 bridge upgrade. One of the County Commissioners wondered if those same problems would come up again with all the land they plan to steal from residents along Cedar Ave for BRT.
In what Dakota County officials call “the entrance to the Twin Cities”, which apparently differs greatly from Eagan’s “gateway to the (Mall of America) Twin Cities”, there has been some major money lost due to estimation errors during construction of a bridge that currently leads to nothing more than an overgrown truck stop and some hotels but will hopefully be a large growth area for Lakeville in the future. These errors which the article claims were led by a 59% underestimation in land acquisition costs:
Total appraised values were $9.56 million, and the county included $10 million in its budget for acquisitions, but settlements totalled $15.2 million for portions of 36 parcels.
The County ends up picking up about half the tab for the overruns while cash strapped Lakeville has to pick up the rest (the article reports ~$2.7 million). Dakota County seems to have a real problem lately with budget overruns and then forcing cities to come up with cash to fund their own mistakes and pointless project add ons.
With these overruns, County Commissioner Tom Egan wondered if they would run into the same high costs of land acquisition when then take land from about 150 residents along Cedar Ave for BRT. Dakota County’s Engineer claims that it’s an entirely different animal and that there will be smooth sailing when they pry more land from the people along the BRT corridor because those aren’t undeveloped commercial properties.
While I hope that the County doesn’t continue to lose money due to poor planning and the high cost of land acquisition (it has been speculated by one Lakeville resident that they have waited for the economic downturn to occur so that they can acquire the land at reduced cost), I would love to continue to laugh at all the problems faced by the BRT project. Anything to make everyone realize what a gigantic douchebag Will Branning is and what he is doing to waste your tax dollars.
So what do you think about the budget overruns with the CR-70 bridge? Do you think that it’s fair that Lakeville residents have to get double fucked because the County planners didn’t have a fucking clue? Is this really the “Entrance to the Twin Cities” or is it Eagan’s “Gateway to the Mall of America” (TM)? Maybe you have another gateway suggestion (I suggest the MN-13/35W interchange due to all the hookers and drug addicts that like to congregate there–what says “BIG CITY” better than that?) that you’d like to offer? Whatever you think about the County underestimating a project by nearly six million dollars and how it could relate to BRT go ahead and comment on as I’d love to hear what you have to say!
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December 3rd, 2009 at 10:47 am
Dakota County’s Land Acquisition Problems: http://tinyurl.com/yfjs4k5
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
December 3rd, 2009 at 3:15 pm
I’m surprised that this happened, as the county is usually very good at hitting estimates as well as ensuring the best price for any property taken.
That being said, I guess if I was Lakeville, I would ask for a review of the financial for the project to verify the overages taking a look at some of these property negotiations that were so far off on appraisals. This for two reasons, one to make sure something fishy isn’t going on, and two to take a hard look at the appraisal process and make sure the current system isn’t leaving some property in that area that is under-taxed.
December 3rd, 2009 at 5:01 pm
I’m surprised that the land owners didn’t get screwed by eminent domain. Congratulations to the county for actually negotiating with asset owners.
December 3rd, 2009 at 6:55 pm
Don’t forget that bridge also leads to the popular Lakeville 21 theater.
That bridge really needed to be changed. I’ve encountered traffic on the ramp from I-35 southbound backed up almost to I-35. And that was not during rush hour.
Plus, many people couldn’t grasp the fact that if there wasn’t a stop sign on the east side of the overpass where the ramps were, that there might be one on the west side. Twice I’ve had people blow through the stop sign on the west side when I had the right of way. And I don’t go that way that often. I’m only down there to go to the movies.
December 3rd, 2009 at 9:33 pm
There is also a new high school, lots of new subdivisions, and a decent sized industrial park down there. Those generate a lot of traffic to and from the interstate.
As a Lakeville resident, it does piss me off that we are going to get stuck with a multimillion dollar bill for Dakota County’s fuck up. The old bridge was a decades old undersized clunker and it needed to be replaced. $2.5 million is not cool though.
I don’t think of that area as a gateway to the cities, just the beginning of the sprawl.
December 4th, 2009 at 3:47 am
Dakota County’s Land Acquisition Problems | Bill Roehl http://bit.ly/8ZeAt8
This comment was originally posted on Twitter