See below to compare what you will be paying against what Paul Allen and other big property owners will be paying for the Paul Allen Streetcar LID (charts follow narrative below): 

Here's a breakdown of how much each of the big property owners will be realizing in increased value and how much they will pay in the way of a total LID assessment.  It also totals up what portion of the LID assessment each will pay and in total how much of the assessment all 17 large property owners will pay.  In total these 17 property owners own over 43.3% of the property in the LID area and receive 52.5% of the increased Value.  This of course means that if all 17 of these owners support the trolley, it would be impossible for the remaining property owners to assemble 60% opposition and collectively overturn the LID.  However, if any individual property owner or group of owners believe they are being charged unfairly - and our look at how much smaller owners far from the line are paying suggests that this is going to be true for many - there still is a real opportunity to challenge your assessment first before the City Council and then before the Court if necessary.  Factors to look for in determining whether you were overcharged include 1) Any amount over and above any increased value you receive, 2) If you don't believe you receive any value or minimal value then that's the first thing to dispute, 3) If you are being charged an amount in excess of what you believe you should be paying in relation to comparable properties.  For more information, contact us at 632-0668.

In the chart of the 17 large property owners, you'll see that the city is charging itself about $973,000 in an assessment for the $25 million Trolley LID.  So much for the City Council's claim that the local taxpayers weren't going to see the City's general fund drained to help pay for the streetcar. We ran some numbers just to see what would happen to Vulcan's required LID payment if the City exempted itself from the LID payment.  If the City paid '0' dollars towards the LID assessment, Vulcan would about another $630,000 in LID payments. 

Also, it is questionable whether many of the properties and property owners being charged $2 a sq. ft. or less are receiving any benefit at all from the streetcar. Most of these properties are located far from the line or they are properties with longterm businesses located on them that have few employees and/or they are located in close proximity to bus lines.  Other factors raise questions about whether they should be paying anything or at least a lot less in the way of an assessment. If all these property owners were exempted from payment of the LID since they receive little or no benefit, another $450,000 of the LID assessment would have to be paid by Paul Allen. 

In addition, our examination of documents (obtained through disclosure request) raise several other questions about how the City's consultant's put together their formula for calculating how much each property owner in the LID area will play.  For starters, the City's consultants offer no clear explanation of why they chose the particular boundaries that they did for the LID area.  Some properties just inside the LID boundaries are charged of course even when there appears to be no discernable benefit for them while some properties just outside the LID area are not charged at all even though at least in some cases properties just outside the LID area appear to be in closer proximity and are ideally zoned or have on-site uses that suggest they will clearly benefit.  Also, the consultant hired by the City has set up five tiers or areas of analysis based on distance from the trolley line.  In our review of city documents including those summarizing the criteria used in determining each LID assessment, we cannot find any basis for setting up five tiers.  Why not 3 tiers as the consultant's originally proposed? Why not two tiers?  This is obviously important because if your property happens to fall into a tier identified as closer to the trolley line you're payment would be adjusted upward but in many cases there are properties that could have just as easily been placed in a lower tier further from the line where you'd hence pay less.

Finally, we found city documents that raise questions of possible conflict of interest when reviewing who played a role in the development of the final formula for use in calculating assessment rolls and how much each property owner in the LID area would pay.  The City hired consultants with a track record in putting together LID assessment rolls.  There is no indication they have done prior business with Vulcan or other affected owners - none at least that we could find.  But there is evidence suggesting they consulted directly with Vulcan and the "Build the Streetcar Campaign" during their process of setting the formula and ultimately how much each owner would pay.  We don't know the nature of these consultations but we do know they communicated with each other and this alone raises questions of appearance of fairness if not downright conflict of interest. Since a minor adjustment to any one of the variables used in determining assessments (such as how the boundaries and tier areas are drawn and how zoning and current use are factored into the forumula) it is easily possible to greatly skew who pays what and especially how much the big property owners ultimately will pay. 

Charts Follow Here Showing Top 17 Properties and then additional chart showing how much each property owner will pay:

The following provides a full list of affected properties within the LID area including yours no doubt if you are an owner within the LID area.  We've chosen to organize the list according to how much each property owner will be paying per sq. ft for their LID payment rather than by address or lot number so you can more easily access your property and compare it to others. However, you probably can copy and download the file below into an excel file and then sort it to your hearts content for comparison purposes of your own.  You also can take the lot number below and find that lot on a map of the LID area which you can access by clicking here: