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

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CASE #: /,~ IM PI.EMENTATION OF COMPREHENSIVE GROWTH PLANNING By: James E. Norman, City Administrator Patrick Trudgeon, Assistant Community Development Director Brian Oison, Assistant Director of Public Works Background: The City of Ramsey adopted its most recent Comprehensive Plan on February 26, 2002. The community has entered into a phase of rapid growth, especially considering the development of The Ramsey Town Center. Growth planning was a topic at a Strategic Planning Session the City Council held on February 2 and 3, earlier this year. As part of that action, staff was directed to bring forward a process for the comprehensive planning of growth in the community. On March 16 of this year, the City Council met in joint session with the Planning Commission and it was agreed that a formal Comprehensive Plan for growth was necessary. In addition to all the discussions of growth planning, the City received feasibility studies last year of two major areas for infrastructure extension. One area included large tracts of land in the central part of the City and the other feasibility study request was in the commercial node area adjacent to the Rum River Hills Golf Course. The feasibility studies were completed in March and it was recommended that it was advantageous to proceed with both projects in combination due to thc savings from the watermain loop. A separate, yet related item is concerning the stonnwater drainage project of County Ditch #66. Some of the design and easement acquisitions l'or the infi'astructure 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. This case will discuss the separate elements of the comprehensive growth planning and outline Council action necessary to implement the planning process. Comprehensive Planning: One crucial and necessary step of the Growth Planning process will be the Comprehensive Planning Amendment process. Staff would propose that 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 con'idors, 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 m these areas given the layer template created in the second stage. It is envisioned that there could be several different alternatives as result of this process. In order to