Minutes - Council - 05/11/2004 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Case #15: Implementation of Comprehensive Growth Planning City Administrator Norman reviewed that comprehensive growth planning has become a focal point of discussion. This has been discussed in Council work sessions, the Council has met with staff and representatives from the Met Council, and has held a joint session with the Planning Commission. Feasibility studies for two major areas for infrastructure extension have been completed. A separate, yet related item is concerning the stormwater drainage project of County Ditch #66. Some of the design and easement acquisitions for the infrastructure extension can be combined with the ditch clean-up project, thereby reducing the costs of both the utility extensions and stormwater and ditch clean-up project. Assistant Community Development Director Trudgeon explained one crucial and necessary step of the Growth Planning process will be the Comprehensive Planning Amendment process. Staff would propose that the Comprehensive Plan Amendment process consists of several components. The first necessary task would be collection of data and other base line information. Staff.' would propose to limit this data collection to the rural and large lot area south of the Trott Brook. The data gathered would update the information collected in 1998 as part of the full Comprehensive Plan process. Once the base information is collected, the second stage would be the integration of various land use layers within the area south of the Trott Brook. The layers to integrate would include trails, green corridors, wetlands, roads, parks, future sewer and water lines and other necessary layers. Once this is completed, the City should have a template to use when the City proceeds to the next stage. The third stage would be to look at potential land use patterns in these areas given the layer template created in the second stage. It is envisioned that there could be several different alternatives as a result of this process. In order to keep the process manageable, staff would propose to only look at a couple development nodes. The last few components would be citizen participation and public hearings looking at the alternatives and finally formal action by the City Council and Metropolitan Council. Assistant Comnmnity Development Director Trudgeon explained the Planning Commission would conduct the public hearings and make recommendations to the City Council as well as participate in joint workshops with the City Council to review the data and shape the alternatives. Staff would propose that the Community Development Department be assisted in this process by the City's contracted land use planning firm, Hoisington Koegler Group, h~c. Hoisington Kocgler wrote the 2001 Comprehensive Plan and has a tremendous knowledge of Ramsey and its I'~SO[lrces. City Administrator Norman noted staff met with Hoisington Koegler Group this morning and they have made a slight change in their proposal. They would like to remove the environmental review fi'om this approval and into the planning portion of the process. Assistant Community Development Director Trudgeon explained there will be a clearer view of how the environmental review will be accomplished in a couple of months, and it would fit better into the planning portion of the process. Councihnember Strommen asked what fund the $90,000 will come from. City Council/May 11, 2004 Page 27 of 36