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A Main Street Landing fight over $15,000

At issue is whether an application for a special taxing area is valid, since it did not come with the required fee.

By JODIE TILLMAN
Published August 9, 2006

NEW PORT RICHEY - If an application was filed without a $15,000 application fee, was it ever truly filed?

The question divides city staffers and Main Street Landing representatives, and threatens to create an impasse in talks over a plan to revive the stalled $33-million project.

Looking at a state land use law, the city says no, the application isn't filed and can't be considered. Looking at the same law, Main Street Landing says yes, the application is filed and should be considered.

And everybody else waits.

"If the thing stalling this is the $15,000 fee, then that is mind-boggling," said New Port Richey lawyer Scott McPherson, who contacted City Council members because he agrees with Main Street Landing's interpretation, although he does not work for the developer.

Here's how it started. Just before City Council members on July 17 revived a defeated financing proposal by Main Street Landing, project partner Peter Altman turned in an application to create a special taxing area known as a "community development district" that includes the project.

Cash-strapped developers want to use the CDD as a legal mechanism for collecting a portion of property tax money generated by the project each year for 23 years. That money would be used to pay off roughly $6.7-million for a construction bond.

But Altman did not include a $15,000 check, as city officials had told him to do, instead asking that the city bill his group for the actual costs.

The $15,000 figure comes from a state law governing CDD applications. The fee is intended to cover the city's costs of dedicating the staff to work out the details and hiring lawyers to consider the complicated legalities of an application.

The law explicitly says proposed districts encompassing at least 1,000 acres must pay a $15,000 fee with their application. In the section aimed at smaller districts, like the one Main Street Landing is proposing, the law says applicants must do a number of things required of the larger developments.

That second section, however, does not explicitly say that applicants of smaller projects must pay the $15,000 fee. But it also does not say the fee is waived.

The current debate turns on this omission.

Altman said he interprets it to mean that governments dealing with smaller districts can set their own fees.

But City Attorney Tom Morrison said, "By not explicitly saying the $15,000 is excluded, it's included."

City Manager Scott Miller on July 27 wrote a letter to District Management Services, the Tampa firm handling the CDD application on Main Street Landing's behalf. Until the $15,000 check arrives at City Hall, Miller wrote, "the application is not complete and it cannot be processed."

Main Street Landing representatives have not yet formally responded to the letter. Altman said on Tuesday that he continues to "respectfully disagree" with the city's interpretation of the law. But he said he can't rule out the possibility that his partners - Gainesville developers Ken and Linda McGurn - would pay the fee.

"We want to do this properly," Altman said. Going ahead and paying the $15,000 "is certainly an option."

Morrison said the brouhaha over the $15,000 may miss the point. Add up all the city's costs associated with examining the application and negotiating, he said, and "our costs may be more than $15,000."

Jodie Tillman can be reached at 727 869-6247 or jtillman@sptimes.com.

[Last modified August 8, 2006, 23:08:16]