1988-01-26 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Meeting Minutes January 26, 1988 I In response to Benke's question, LeFevere indicated Gunn has sug- gested there may be a distinction between state and federal regu- lations and, because he was not the attorney who handled the liti- gation, LeFevere suggested he obtain a report from John Bannigan to the council as to his advice about what District Court decided in that case and if, in fact, there is some entitlement to attor- ney's fees beyond what is already been awarded, then council should take a look at that before making a final decision. Brandt stated Owalt referred to 'housing of last resort' as being an exception to the $15,000 limit and characterized that statute as being applicable where the city does not find housing at the time, and asked if that is what the statutes says or if the sta- tute says that the comparable housing is simply not available. LeFevere read from Section 42.601 of the 1979 Federal Regulation Section which, he believes, were still in effect in 1980 when the displacement occurred. Brandt asked if that set a time at which that decision has to be made and is it limited to a state agency, or is it broadly applied in the context of this particular case. I LeFevere stated again the reguiations are not contemplating what happened in this case, they are contemplating a federal require- ment that the regulations were intended to provide for and under- stands that federal regulations provided that a project could not go forward until people were provided with decent, safe, and sani- tary comparable dwellings and sometimes $15,000 just would not be enough. There simply were not replacement dwellings available at that price, or perhaps any price, to provide replacement dwellings so that the project could not proceed. This language gave the acquiring authority the power to exceed the $15,000 regulation in order to make housing available so that their project could go forward. It was not intended to cover the situation here but the question is whether or not comparable replacement dwellings were available in a timely basis to the person to be displaced. Ashe understands the claim that has been made, LeFevere stated replacement dwellings were not found by the city nor were they shown to Oswalt by the city in 1980, because in 1980 it was not known that there was on obligation on the part of the city to do that; and does not know if the applicant is now or has ever made the claim that comparable replacement dwellings were not available at that time. I Gunn had no idea if the comparable replacement dwellings were available or not, but had no reason to think there weren't; it is difficult to do something in 1980 that you do not know you have to do until five years later; but noted the court found the city did take Oswalt's property in September of 1980 and the city then has obligations to do certain things: (1) come up with compararable replacement housing. Oswalt has never applied for comparable re- placement housing, he had to go out and get a replacement house on Page 15