Agenda - Council - 03/08/2022 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Ave begin having events scheduled at the same time? Once this property is rezoned can the school increase the size or volume of traffic? The current anticipated amount of traffic may increase over time and with evolving use. This traffic impact from all of the proposed uses needs to be studied and the application should be denied until such study can be done,including looking at safe sightlines on Variolite and the capacity of 16 It-'Avenue. Brookside is built on nearly 35 acres and is 135,000 square feet. Ramsey Elementary is built on 52 acres, Ramsey Elementary is similar to Brookside I was unable to get an estimate. PACT Charter school will be built on 18 acres(51%of the size of Brookside's land) 115,000 estimated square feet(85%of the size of Brookside),but they proposed future enlargement. This mean there will be no buffer form the school on the proposed parcel. PACT has residential properties both north and south of the improvements with insufficient buffer. Because there is no buffer within the parcel the adjoining neighborhoods will also be affected. The parcel sketch shows near complete coverage of the parcel with improvements and expansions. Both Ramsey and Brookside have a playground and possible gym use during the day outside. PACT will have a stadium built up to residential backyards. Since they are not prohibited from using flood fights they are a possibility at some point similar to the ones in central park. Bringing noise and light pollution to both the adjacent backyard and nearby houses in the neighborhood to the North. A comparison to the safety concerns for the rezoning and building of brookside should be looked at prior to the rezoning of this parcel. This is a similar sized yet not similarly situated school. The commission should be looking into the challenges that these schools face even in their more advantageous locations before concluding that the proposed area can handle this type of rezoning. This zoning is not consistent with the uses currently in Ramsey and not consistent with the development of the surrounding area. I would also like to address environmental concerns regarding the proposed rezoning. The current sketch plan shows near complete coverage of the 18 acres with improvements. Since this proposed development will remove a significant amount of natural drainage on the parcel where is the accumulated water will have nowhere to go. Brookside has a large drainage pond located by its paved areas. If the school is constructed as proposed there will be nowhere to build a stormwater retention pond. I would talk about where are they going to put the snow from the parking lot but that is a concern,they will face. The melting of that snow however is our problem along with salting of the parking lots. Without natural drainage this would require a large easement on adjoining land to handle the runoff. I have heard that we will have storm sewer coming to the area.However,the taxpayers should not be paying for the storm sewer construction and maintenance for runoff solely caused by rezoning and building of this school on a parcel of land not sufficient to handle this runoff. In addition,if they were to use adjoining public lands for drainage the cost to maintain the drainage and the loss of use to the residents of Ramsey should be compensated. The school is used for education statewide the costs should not be borne exclusively by the taxpayers of this city for the limited number of students that attend from this city. I am requesting the city consider the effects of the lack of space to create drainage and the contamination cause by the additional salts that will go into the storm sewer instead of some filtering by natural drainage. I don't know if the City of Ramsey has any standards for this but a consultation with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency would be a good step to see what we should be considering in terms of required drainage. This parcel does not have sufficient space to accommodate large scale natural drainage. I am urging the committee to recommend that this rezoning application be denied pending study of these issues. If this rezoning is approved,I would request significant litnits be placed on the size of the building on this property. It should also be looked at if the traffic for daily use and increased Sunday use