Agenda - Council Work Session - 03/15/2005

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Name: James Overtoom and KathY 0Ppel~Overtoom Address: 16660 Jaspar St NW Phone: 763-753-4217 . General Comments: The City needs to define growth areas for higher density single family housing, such as Met. Council MUSA line concept. This is a rUral development area north of Alpine.- Grow the urban part of the City first, then add density to rural areas, not the other way around.. We must be responsible in our growth. ; Where sewer and water utilities are needed is in,the "urban" part of town, not in the rural part. When sewer and water is provided to all areas of the City south and Or east of the MUSA, THEN a review of the COMPREHENSIVE PLAN will be necessary. Until then, the residents of this area moved here to have room around them to live and play and raise families in an open healthy environment. Not in a_packed d~velopmeni of 1~4 'acre lots. The traffic infrastructure of TH47 and CSAH 5 are not capable of handling the morning rush now without congestion. The City does not need another 238 houses in the Brookfield Addition (and therefore) cars at this time. We were extremely disappointed that we did not receive a l~tter informing us of the FebrUary 7th sewer alignment meeting, as were a great namber of others who were at the meeting. (It was just bY chance that we found out a few days before the meeting and informed others). When we brought this up at the meeting, we were told we were noi dir. ectly affected, therefore no notice. The letter stated, "since your property may be directly or indirectly, affected".' We are, at the least indirectly affected ar have asked that we, and our neighbors who surround the Brookfield AdditiOn, be notified in the futur Another response we got was that it is to6 eXpenSiVe to notify those not directly (define directly) affected and that they didn't want people from other neighborhoods attending. All I can sayis "MY G OODNES S!" - With all the dOllars that are Spent, I would hope that you could put some of that money into notifying the residentsof Ramsey, the owners of property that Will be paying taxes, assessments and connection fees on'all this expansion to enable us to be voiCes in the decision makinl process that affects US! If some residents from other neighbors attend meetings I look at is as a good thing. Hopefully they would bring some expertise and also go back home with the facts to Pass on to others. Better informed residents help make'better decisions. ' We are asking for open meetings in a larger room;(rent the school or a Church) where we can each get up, ask our question and get a straight answer. At the February meeting I believe the room was filled to over capacity. We waited our turn to get to speak to each representative (2 hours in total) and then sometimes got different answers .to the Same question. We all need to be on the same page to be able to trust the process. ' We have questions about sewer and water costs. We got conflicting information when we read the public notice in the Anoka Union and when reading the comment page of the January 24th letter re: public meeting. We got conflicting information at;the 2/7/05 meeting re: being required to hook up to sewer/water and how we would be charged.~per footage or per lot or per how our lot coUld be Please keep us better informed in the future by putting notices on the website in a timely manner, by using the Ramsey Newsletter and by Circulating notices to a wider area. Thank you for your anticipated consideration of our comments.