Minutes - Council - 02/06/2012 - Special

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to revisit these cross jurisdictional options. He noted financial considerations may factor into this decision, as extensions into adjacent communities would provide for cost - sharing opportunities on infrastructure investment and add additional users to the system, and utilizing adjacent community service would allow for potential future tax base in Ramsey without the capital expenditure of infrastructure. Mr. Himmer continued that staff has had discussions with the Metropolitan Council and they agree amendments will likely be needed to the forecasts, with the City experiencing ultimate build -out of the Future Land Use Map beyond 2030. The Met Council has begun working on the 2040 Framework, which will provide the City an official opportunity to comment on these forecasts, among other items. It is expected that the Met Council will begin providing communities with updates on the process in October or November of this year, and the official comment periods will begin in 2013. City Engineer Himmer stated again — we want to focus only on density and growth to evaluate the existing system. We will come back for more policy direction on developing a CIP and how we divvy up costs. Councilmember Backous stated we are talking about the next 18 years. Who knows what will happen and he feels staffs guess and assumptions are as good as any. We go forward as we need to — there's no way to really change anything. We have to be a little flexible with regard to septic systems. Acting Mayor Wise stated he assumes Trott Brook is a major hurdle on the future land use map. City Engineer Himmer replied no — back when we did this plan, we were growing pretty fast. We were being told by the Met Council if we did not use the capacity of their big pipes, that they were going to give them to someone else. That would have made it impossible to expand. We made some very conscientious decisions at that time on not limiting our expansion of services. He added he does not know if he is telling Council to assume higher or lower and added that Senior Planner Gladhill can go over the history of the past ten years or so. Councilmember Strommen stated she does not have expertise in the market and where it's going. We felt Met Council's numbers were very aggressive back then but she wondered if we could come up with any better numbers. She asked if staff thinks the Met Council numbers are aggressive as well. Senior Planner Gladhill stated that staff put together a power point that shows what's in the 2030 plan from an historical perspective. For the purpose of review tonight, we are working on the 2040 Framework. We do not have a good public outreach until November of this year. He talked about the Comp Plan cycle and stated that it's appropriate to update the sewer and water plans now. Having this discussion now is good for the regional framework. He showed the future land use map, the MUSA line, comp plan assumptions, forecasts, etc. He stated that the Met Council has prepared population, household and employment projects for metropolitan cities. These projects are not requirements imposed on community — they are projections to provide a framework for the plan. He commented that we will be more focused on corridors — it will be a much different forecast. He talked about Comp Plan amendments — Legacy Christian, Stoney River, The COR. He suggested the forecasts aimed for 13,000 households by 2030. Mr. Gladhill stated that the 2030 Land Use Plan was developed through a citizen - driven process. The household forecast for 2030 was almost 11,000 — we are now at about 8,000, which would City Council — Special Meeting — February 6, 2012 Page 3 of 11