TWO TAXING DISTRICTS IN VICTORIA
MOST OF THE CITY IS URBAN, NOT RURAL
With the passing of a resolution and adoption of an ordinance, Victoria coun-cilmembers formally created two taxing districts in the City of Victoria.  As City Attorney Mike Norton explained, "Every-thing is taxed at the urban rate unless it's rural."  The rural rate is 40% of the urban rate.  One might also say that the urban rate is 2.5 times that of the rural rate.
In order to receive the lower rural classification, a parcel must be at least ten acres in size, rural in nature, not devel-oped for commercial or urban residential purposes, and less benefited by municipal infrastructure and services that are paid for by general taxation.
Planning Consultant Mark Kaltsas said there are essentially twenty properties in Victoria that are classified rural.  In other words, they have yet to be devel-oped.  Some of these properties lie along Bavaria Road.
Kirk Rosenberger, a Victoria resident at Foxglove Circle, believed his property should also be taxed at the rural rate and raised objection to his urban classifica-tion.
"My general comment is about the size issue," said Mr. Rosenberg, whose property is 1.5 acres in size.  "Why ten acres?  Why not five acres or three acres or one acre?" he asked.
He said that the operative word in tax classification is service.  "It's about ser-vice," he said.  "It's a rural service district and an urban service district.  I don't have a lot of service.  I don't have street lights.  I don't have city water.  I don't have city sewer.  I live on a private road.  We pay for road repairs and our own snowplow-ing.  Our stormwater system is the nearby wetland."
"I'd like to have some kind of equity," he continued.  "I'd like my prop-erty to be considered rural."
Planner Kaltsas pointed out, "There are a lot of properties like that in Victoria.  It's up to each individual community to classify property.  When a property is sub-divided for a home rather than a farm, then it's urban."
Foxglove Circle is a neighborhood that was subdivided for residential homes and municipal services are available should the neighborhood request them and be willing to pay for them.
Replied Attorney Norton, "The pri-mary consideration is not service, in my opinion, but whether the property is de-veloped for rural or urban use.  Service is an element.  There are miscellaneous ser-vices available to a property owner such as police and fire that are paid for by gen-eral taxes.  The real basis is to look what's on the property."
Planner Kaltsas also pointed out that properties in the rural taxing district have not been developed for urban residential use and, in fact, some still have an origin-al farm house on them.
Regarding Foxglove, Mayor Jerry Bohn stated, "It is clearly a residential neighborhood.  It's a secluded area, but not rural area.  It's not farmland.  The city would provide services that the neighbor-hood doesn't want.  The neighborhood is clustered enough that the city could pro-vide sewer and water.  I think you're ask-ing for a-la-carte services, and I don't want to go down that road.  People could say they don't use the Field House so don't want to help pay for it."
Councilmember Terry Bishop added, "The statute puts the decision with the governing body.  We have the ability in our judgment to determine what is rural or urban.  A house on a 1.5-acre parcel is not rural in character."

GEARING UP FOR GROWTH
AND THE VICTORIA CHANNEL AT SMITHTOWN
Planner Eric Zweber reported January 12^th on two documents received from the Metropolitan Council.
The 2008-2030 Comprehensive Plan Systems Statement "gives us guidelines to follow in developing our Master Plan," said Eric.  "The Met Council heard our re-quests, even though they didn't change it exactly as we asked.  They want to make sure we don't run wild out here."
After some revision, not exactly as requested by the City of Victoria, the Met Council projects a 2030 Victoria popula-tion of 28,000 people with 10,200 house-holds and 5,100 jobs. 
The Draft Victoria and St. Bonifacius Area Facility Plan describes the proposed sanitary sewer improvements to serve the expected growth of Victoria, Waconia, St. Bonifacius, and Mound.
Explained Eric, "The Met Council is very concerned about how they're going to provide sewer out here.  The majority of the [proposed] infrastructure will run through Victoria, even though it serves other cities."
One part of that infrastructure in-volves the construction of a manhole in Victoria's South Lake Virginia Shores Park.  "They thought what a great thing to put their infrastructure in our park," said Eric.  "The park would probably not be useable while they're working.  It would be simply a manhole on that park site at the end of the day … There should be many public hearings."
The proposed infrastructure repairs to the sanitary sewer system include a deep tunnel from the Smithtown Road culvert to the current Schutz Lake lift station.  A second deep tunnel would be constructed from the Baycliffe lift station to intersect with the Rolling Acres Road deep tunnel.  The intersection, and subsequent manhole, would be in the location of the South Lake Virginia Shore Park.
According to the city planner, "By constructing these deep tunnels, the Met Council is able to abandon the Schutz Lake and Baycliffe lift stations which can benefit the city due to the recent failures or near failures of these lift stations which can cause human waste to be dumped into Schutz Lake or Lake Minnetonka."
The Victoria city engineer was directed to review the two documents named above and make comment to the City of Victoria, at a review cost not to exceed $1,500.  It was generally agreed that the city will expend the dollars for this purpose, with expectations that the Met Council will restore the South Lake Virginia Shore Park, which will probably be a mess from 2007 to 2008.  The Met Council plans to build the tunnel in 2008.

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