Bolten & Menk, Inc and Northwest Associated Consultants, Inc.

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cpss NAC - olw/. m mow, As the community looks to its future, creating an achievable vision for Ramsey's long-term development .01 needs to happen now. Resolving the potential conflicts between urban and rural neighborhoods requires an exploration of many alternative land use and transportation options. The importance of this issue is highlighted by the emergence of the Ramsey3 initiative. As a grass-roots movement,the visioning process being undertaken through this process holds great promise for Ramsey's planning success. .. NAC and Bolton & Menk, Inc. look forward to building on the momentum of the Ramsey3 process. It is an underlying component of our proposal that the Ramsey3 steering committee will continue to be involved in the Comprehensive Planning process to ensure that the Ramsey3 vision is realized. We further anticipate the opportunity to work with the steering committee to help shape the format of the Ramsey3 recommendations, easing the translation of that vision into the Comprehensive Plan activities. The Ramsey3 process will be actively monitored by NAC and Bolton & Menk to allow the infusion of this extensive public comment resource into the planning process. As an initial task,the consulting team will work with City staff to develop a set of outcomes for the Ramsey3 process, with the goal of helping the participants and organizers to elicit results than can be most effectively used in the City's Comprehensive Plan. With this task,the planning process can be significantly streamlined, utilizing the ongoing public participation to test ideas and land use concepts that will best meet the City's expectations. As an overarching project objective,NAC and Bolton & Menk understand this Comprehensive Plan Update as needing to resolve the future land use patterns outside of the developed area to satisfy the requirements of the Metropolitan Council, but also address the potential conflicts between existing :, rural uses and developing urban uses. Further, we would seek to ensure that the future urbanizing ^ areas have adequate levels of public facilities, and the entire community has strong connections to the Ramsey Town Center, as well as to .-� the rest of the metropolitan area. In the sections that follow,we describe the components of our planning process, utilizing the work programming outline from the Request For Proposals. It is our belief that this process will help the Ramsey community discover a development pattern that is: (1)complementary to existing neighborhoods, (2)forward-looking in its attention to environmental factors and emerging growth pressures, and(3) efficient in its ability to deliver the variety of public services demanded by a growing area. Proposal for Professional Planning and Engineering Services Section 2-2 2008 Comprehensive Plan Update Submitted by: City of Ramsey, Minnesota NAC and Bolton&Menk