Just an update for those interested. We are still making progress on this. As things go, we have run into obstacles that we've had to overcome.
The biggest and most unexpected was during a meeting with the city. We had about 15 people in that meeting including my whole team, our civil engineer and his team, the mayor, the city lawyer responsible for the easement provisions, the city planners, road sewer and utilities, and city engineers.
There were typical concerns around noise levels, but those were easily assuaged. There was some discussion around our impact on the conservation easment and whether we were willing to support (i.e. pay for) the city plan for more river walkways and bike paths. Ultimately the city wants this development because it means about $4MM additional taxes annually coming from an area that otherwise won't create much tax base at all.
Everything went well, and then out of left field at the end, the engineer exclaims that he is planning to submit a reclassification with FEMA to declare about 95% of the 185 acres as flood zone. This is in contrast to the roughly 10 acres that is currently classified as such. Because the excavation of this project moves 450,000 yards or dirt, we are changing the grade pretty significantly. His argument is that this shoves the flood waters to the other side of the river. He claims to have documented evidence that this does actually flood.
Long story shorter, we inserted ourselves into his reclassification process with the consultants coordinating with FEMA and have re-engineered the grading to accommodate their proposed 100-year flood event without shoving it to the other side of the river. That should be completed this month along with a wetland mitigation report. Then it's on to the army corps which will take several months.
Steady wins the race I guess.
