Agenda - Council - 07/08/2008 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Case #2 Consider Policy for Construction use of Sidewalks in Ramsey Town Center Background: Staff stated that since the streetscaping in Ramsey Town Center is almost complete there has been discussion of whether to create a policy or to have the stipulations included in the development agreements to limit damage during construction projects. Some things staff would like included would be: take pictures of the sidewalk before any construction activity ;. require an escrow to cover replacement costs; include replacement of damaged features in the development agreement; that they must contact Connexus so the light poles can be removed during construction; and install a barrier around the planting beds. Staff has contacted both Minneapolis and St. Paul and their standard procedure is to take pictures before and after. Neither City has a specific policy, but includes language in the development agreement. The Committee stated that they would hike staff to develop language and present an individual Case at the Council meeting for both a formal policy and City -wide inclusion in all development agreements. Committee Action: Ratify the recommendation of the Public Works Committee. Case #3 Temporary Signs in the Right of Way Due to the recent storms and this being an election year, staff wanted to review the current policy. The policy states that all signs will be placed 15 feet behind the curb or edge of the road, outside of the vision triangle. Last year, staff was instructed to take down signs that didn't follow the policy and keep track of them. Since last May, public works has collected 773 signs with the two biggest contributors being contractors and real estate companies. After the recent storm, there were probably 150 signs picked up. The policy information has been give to contractors and most were fairly cordial. One of the problems with the removal of signs is that once they were removed from front yards, contractors swooped in and asked to take a look at the homeowner's roofs again. The City has made courtesy calls to the contractors requesting they move there signs out of the right of way and they have cooperated. This information will be posted on the website and the Police Department has asked public works staff to be on their T.V. show to discuss the problem with signs and why they remove them. The biggest reason this was presented to the Committee is because this is an election year. It should be noted that the local people aren't too bad, but there have been problems with the national candidates. Action: No action required.