Title
Reconsideration of Process for Sale/Development of Three County Parcels: A-8, A-12, and A-13
Recommended Action
In order to proceed with this action, three motions are required. The first is a motion to suspend the Council Rules, next would be a motion to reconsider, and finally would be a motion regarding any potential action. Each motion/vote would occur independent of the other actions.
1) I move that the County Council suspend the Council Rules for this agenda item.
2) I move that the Council reconsider the Process for the Sale/Development of Three County Parcels: A-8, A-12, and A-13.
3) I move that the Council not adopt the process outlined in the attached document for the sale/development of three County-owned parcels, A-8, A-12, and A-13, but instead direct the County Manager to initiate a process to solicit proposals for the sale and development of County Property in alignment with the Council's Strategic Goals.
County Manager's Recommendation
The County Manager recommends that Council approve the motions as requested.
Body
At the Council's December 6, 2013 meeting, a process for engaging a real estate agent for the sale of certain County property was approved. This process is outlined in the attached document (Attachment A). Since that time, there have been several conversations regarding how to implement this direction, particulalry in situations where developers contact County staff directly. In such cases, would the agent be eligible for a percentage of any ultimate sale, or should such instances preclude the participation of an agent and if so would an agent be willing to fully commit to the marketing of the property. Other concerns have included what role a real estate agent would play in the sale of County land, as the intent of such a sale would not be for speculation, but instead the expectation would be that such a sale would include a development agreement, with specific time parameters for completion of development and the potential for "claw-back" (return of ownership to the County) of a property if the development does not meet such requirements. It is unclear if a real estate agent would be the proper person to negotiate these items, and also if a purchase/development agreement takes a significant amount of time to be fully executed, when would the agent be eligible to receive his/her compensation.
It is understood that over the past several years the sale of County property for development has been limited. This is largely believed to be the result of market factors external to any County interest in pursuing such sales. More recently, however, with an improving construction and investment environment, as well as recent statements from LANL regarding their intent to hire in excess of 2,400 new employees within the next five years, interest in development within the County has escalated significantly. Presently, the Economic Development Administrator is fielding several calls of interest each week, and similar reports are emanating from LACDC staff.
Most recently, during the January 10 meeting of the County Council, Councilor Chrobocinski requested that the previous action be revisited by Council in order to possibly address some of the concerns stated above. Under current Council Rules, such a reconsideration of a prior decision would be outside of the established time frames, however such rules may be suspended by a vote of Council. The rules also would require the request for reconsideration to come from one of the Councilors who voted in the affirmative on the original motion, and Councilor Reiss has agreed to propose the reconsideration so that Council may have a discussion regarding the potential alteration of this prior action.
Alternatives
The Council could choose to take no action on this item in which case the previoulsy apoproved action would remain in effect.
Fiscal and Staff Impact/Planned Item
The fiscal impacts of these considerations are largely the revenues from any sale of property, yet in the event that the current direction remains, such revenues would be reduced by any negotiated percentage of the sale relevant to the real estate agent's commission. Staff impacts are assumed to be similar in either case, as it is anticipated that the bulk of the negotiations and preparations for Council consideration for any sale of property would remain the responsibility of County staff.
Attachments
A - Memo from Council Packet on December 6, 2016