Board of Aldermen 02-23-2021 Page 14
Alderwoman Lu
Thank you. | just wasn’t sure if that would qualify as parking. My understanding of the RSA that applies to the
real estate taxes is that lease has to specifically name the lessee as the party responsible for the real estate
taxes. Unfortunately | wasn’t able to view the lease and | felt due diligence to ask is that going to be included
in the lease because my understanding that if it’s not it becomes murky.
Attorney Melville Yes | believe the tenant has to pay the taxes and I'll take a look too Alderman Lu, I'll take a
note of that to answer your question.
Alderwoman Lu
Unfortunately | have to vote on this tonight. | am not sure where Director Cummings decided to send that
lease but | certainly haven’t seen it and | have asked, | think, half the Board if they had seen it. OK | just have
a couple of other points. So | understood that we had an amended piece of Legislation but what | didn’t realize
is that the redlining would not show on the Resolution face page. | didn’t see until tonight because at the
Budget Committee meeting it wasn’t discussed, | wasn’t there, but | did read the minutes that there’s a new
further resolve that we are escrowing $40,000.00 from one fund and $60,000.00 from another. And just for a
point | think that if we have a redlined contract that the golden rod copy if there are changes, maybe there
ought to be some way for us to identify them as well. Because | was looking for red ink. And my last comment
is that, my understanding, | mean it seems as though, now Mr. Melville said 49 spaces and someone else said
30 spaces and it didn’t seem clear at the last Budget Meeting how many spaces would be in that parking lot. Is
there anyone that can give me an answer to that? If not | will just finish my point.
President Wilshire
Mr. Melville, you’re on mute.
Attorney Melville | apologize. I'll just answer that | am looking at the plans that | had from Peter from earlier
that said 49 spaces. | am looking at the actual plans.
Alderwoman Lu
| figured with 30 spaces it’s about $83,000.00 per space. It’s way out of what the going rate for parking
spaces. So that is a concern of mine that — my understanding is that like $20,000.00 to $25,000.00 per space
is a round ballpark figure but we are paying a lot more, maybe twice as much. Thank you. | also think it would
be prudent to defer this until we get answers to the information that we are asking. I’m all set, thank you.
President Wilshire
Alderman Dowd?
Alderman Dowd
Yes just a couple of things. This is entering into a Master Development Agreement, it does not finalize any
construction plans whatsoever. It allows the City to make a commitment to the developer that we are allowing
him to build this apartment building with the parking spaces underneath and it gives him some level of comfort
in going out and spending a lot of money doing the drawings for the plan. | am sure that the final plans will
come back, if through no other body to the Planning Board, and | am not sure about the parking space cost. If
you are talking about an outdoor parking space, that’s X but if you are making a parking space that has walls
on three sides of it and is an underground garage, | am sure the costs are much more especially with the other
things that you have to put into the garage that you wouldn’t have for an outdoor lot.
