Increases for Proposed Woodbury Drive Assessments Upsets Property Owners

The city’s portion of the $12 million cost for the Woodbury Drive project has gone up, and so have proposed assessments for some property owners along the road.

In some cases, the assessments have gone up 30 or 40 percent from what they were originally told, according to those who spoke at last week’s Woodbury City Council meeting.

“Something has gone awry,” said Bill Harper, who has a law firm on Woodbury Drive. He called the change a “fundamental unfairness.”

Woodbury Drive is being expanded from two lanes to four from Park Crossing to a quarter mile south of Bailey Road. The project is expected to be complete by November.

Kelly Monkman, an insurance agent who has an office at the Woodbury Drive-Lake Road business park, said two tenants have left since the project began and there have been issues with power outages and confusing signage.

He said property owners felt blindsided by the increases, putting them in a “very tough position” so late in the process.

There are hundreds of components of the project, and Woodbury’s share has gone up, said City Engineer Klayton Eckles, who admitted the system of formulas and agreements is “confusing.”

He told the council he couldn’t remember a similar situation.

For their part, council members decided they wanted more information, and opted to table the matter instead of adopting the nearly $250,000 in special assessments on those properties. (The city’s portion of the project is about $3.1 million.)

Councilman Christopher Burns said he would like to see some of the specific items that are now the city’s responsibility to pay for, and said the information would help the city in dealing with future county projects.

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