Agenda - Council - 08/24/2010 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Page 5 A more forward-looking land -use pattern that more fully captures the river's social, ecological, and economic value would preserve a string of public open spaces along the river corridor. Areas such as Rivenwick in the City of Ramsey, downtown Hastings, and the Mississippi River Gorge through Minneapolis and St. Paul have protected the riverfront as open space. In exchange for the protected open space, development can be clustered at higher densities away from the river. In fact, Executive Order 79-19 talks about protecting open spaces through cluster development, which it defines as, "a pattern of sub -division which places housing units into compact groupings while providing a network of commonly owned or dedicated open space." The rules for District A should adhere in spirit to the intent of the Urban Open Space district and reinforce the existing approach to open space protection under Executive Order 79-19. RECOMMENDATION 2.1 Eliminate District I, and move all land in District I to District B. In general, the undeveloped lands at the northern end of the corridor and southern end are similar enough to be protected by a common set of standards. Existing legal constructs — such as whether an area is in a township or an incorporated city — are of little consequence when it comes to the nature of the actual resources to be protected. RECOMMENDATION 2.2. In the undeveloped parts of Ramsey and Dayton, put most of proposed District E into District B (except the land beyond Dayton River Road and US 10, as we specify under Recommendation S.1). As we will explain, we prefer treating rural, undeveloped areas as a single cohesive district. At the northern end of the corridor, the proposed districts divide the corridor into District B and District E. This seems intended to provide lower densities on the riverfront, while allowing for greater densities away from the river, where the impact of density on the river's scenic, cultural, and ecological functions is likely not to be as great. But dividing the rural part of the corridor in half creates two problems. First, when it comes to actually drafting the standards, this would likely have the unintended effect of making it harder to write regulations that will allow the transfer of density within the corridor, making clustering away from the river much more difficult. This stretch of the river has a requirement for 50% open space protection that can be used to facilitate cluster development, and we don't want to see that disrupted. But under the proposed districts, instead of being able to write regulations that allow the transfer of density from the riverfront half of the Critical Area to the landward half of the Critical Area, we may be stuck having to transfer density only within the narrow proposed corridor B. That is incontrovertibly a less protective scheme than currently exists, and one which would result in less open space being protected. We think the rural densities required under existing DNR regulations were not meant to simply codify a temporary, undeveloped condition, but rather to provide an opportunity to permanently protect the lands in the river corridor. We are unwise to give this opportunity away. Second, clustering only works if the overall density requirements are low enough to make clustering attractive. Current DNR regulations have set an expectation that the cities of Ramsey and Dayton to maintain low densities (I unit per 5 acres in the interim ordinance) in unsevered areas of the Rural Open Space District. Likewise, as mentioned, this area has an expectation