If you own property or a business located in downtown Oxford’s southeast parking quadrant, you’ll want to attend a public hearing set for 7 p.m. Monday, Jan. 17 in the village council chambers at 22 W. Burdick St.
The topic ? a proposed special assessment on 18 downtown properties to help finance the renovation and expansion of the southeast parking quadrant.
Construction is expected to begin this spring on the estimated $1.560 million bond project, which will include increasing the quadrant’s parking spaces to 175 (158 lot spaces and 17 street spaces), laying a new asphalt surface, improving drainage, adding new lighting and landscaping and relocating Mill St. (between E. Burdick and Stanton streets) about 100 feet to the east.
The project will increase the total number of lot spaces from 128 (108 paved and 20 unpaved) to 158, all paved.
Southeast quadrant property owners are facing a total assessment of $708,006 (plus an estimated 4.284 percent in interest, bringing the total up to an estimated $950,653) over a 15-year period to help pay for the project being coordinated and overseen by the Oxford Community Development Authority, which will cover the remaining bond project cost of $852,000.
Property owners will only be expected to help pay for the actual parking lot construction, not the estimated $139,000 relocation of Mill St.
How those assessments will be allocated is up for debate. Three proposals for how to base each assessment are being considered ? 1) total useable square footage of each building; 2) useable square footage on the first floor of each building; and 3) total square footage of each parcel.
Village Manager Joe Young said when the OCDA met Jan. 4 the board discussed the issue at length and the ‘consensus? was to base the assessments on the total square footage of each parcel.
‘That’s what they’re leaning toward,? he said.
OCDA member Mark Young, owner of Mark A. Young Jewelers, said the board seemed to feel parcel square footage was the ‘easiest? from which to ‘calculate and maintain? assessments given it ‘won’t change,? it remains constant.
Useable building square footage can change as a result of reconstruction or additions, which would require revisions of the assessments, therefore making this method ‘not practical,? said Young, adding there was also some question of how to define ‘useable? space.
‘It’s not clear,? he said.
Young said the OCDA is waiting to see how southeast quadrant property and business owners react to the three proposed assessing formulas at the upcoming public hearing before making a final decision.