Agenda - Council - 06/14/2005 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Terrance Petro 6140 157m lane NW Ramsey, Minnesota 55303 (763) 427-6833 May 21, 2005 Tom Gamec Mayor, City of Ramsey 15153 Nowthen Boulevard NW Ramsey, Mn 55303 Mayor Gamec, I am writing to express my concerns about a new housing development under consideration in Ramsey. The development specifically is the Shade Tree Community proposed between County Road 5 and Potassium, and south of 157 Lane NW. I have lived at my present location for 26 years now, on 1.38 acres of land, with my immediate neighbors.to the East also living on at least 1~ acre lots. The property to our south has been zoned RI Single Family for this entire time. I am not totally naive about development in Ramsey. [ always expected this property to be developed, but my expectations were that someone would put single family homes on reasonable sized lots as the zoning calls for. I did not expect that a town home devetopment would ever be considered for this property. My concerns are as follows: Transitioning from 1 acre+ home sites to PUD - The preliminary site plan calls for seventeen "detached townhouse" units to be built adjacent to my neighbors and my own home. Average lot size for these units would be approximately 3500 square feet. This is next to existing homesites that are between 42,000 and 60,000 square feet in lot size. Putting a road against our property lines with a retaining wall and a row of immature trees is not an acceptable transition. When John Peterson developed the property to our east, the transition was to '/2 acre lots with single family homes. I expect the same considerations for this development. City Streets on front and back of existing homes - It is not acceptable to put a road along the south property lines of the existing homes on 157th Lane NW. It is common knowledge that adding this road would lower the property values of the existing properties. I do not see any effort to discuss this with the existing property owners and compensate them for their loss. My information states that this road could amount to a 3-7% decrease in property values. This could amount to as much as $15,000 per home on those houses(based on approximate values of $250k per home). I would expect that the Greenberg residence could be much more as they will have busy streets on three sides of their property which is totally unacceptable. .. Cul-De-Sac Exceeds City Code and is too Narrow - The plan for 157th Ave. is to exceed the maximum length allowed and to make it four feet narrower than recommended. With the excessively high concentration of homes on this street, and very short driveways for these townhomes, there will be significant parking on the streets. Even if parking was allowed on only one side of the street, access for fire and emergency will be very limited, with no way for a large fire truck to mm around. If there is a fire in one of these homes, is the plan to access them with fire trucks across my property? Increased Traffic Flow - With all of the housing units in this site plan, the increase of traffic will be huge. 157'h Lane has already turned in to a through street between Cty 5 and Hwy 47 since the development to the East was added (there was a gate promised to pr4vent this, but this was deleted without notice to the existing residents). I don't see an adequate plan to handle traffic out of either the north or the south. There was discussion on upgrading and realignment,of Old County 5, but il~is:unknown as to who oWns this road. This shou d be resolved,betbre site plan approval. ' '