Agenda - Council Work Session - 03/04/2003

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CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION Topic Report: Development Policy By: Brian E. Olson, Principal City Engineer Background: In the latter part of 2000, the City Council began discussing the topic of developing a policy to help provide a guideline for residential development in the City of Ramsey. In recent years, all of the residential housing projects have been designed and installed by the Developers, engineers, and Contractors under the Developer's employ. Inspections: The engineering firm that was under the employ of the Developer also performed inspection services prior to 2000. After 2000, the City initiated an inspection escrow that has been paid for by the Developer upon final platting and covers the cost of the City hiring an inspector from a qualified engineering firm to perform inspection duties. This helped the City ensure that the public infrastructure was installed correctly and in the best interests of the City of Ramsey. It also provided a time savings as there was conversations with a single firm or individual daily rather than multiple firms. ,4ndover's Policy: This process is contrary to the process that the City of Andover has taken in their housing developments. Attached is a copy of their Development Policy Guideline and the attached memo written on May 6, 2002, by City Staff to the City Council listing some advantages and disadvantages for the process that Andover has taken. Interestingly, since the last discussion of this topic at a work session, the City of Andover has asked a series of questions to the City Engineers throughout the State of Minnesota. This e-mail has been attached for your information along with the responses that were received. It appears that although there are some communities that do allow for private installations of public infrastructure that in most cases the trend is towards the City designing and installing all public infrastructure as a capital improvement project at the request of a developer. The main reason is that since the municipality will be maintaining the infrastructure, that there should be more control over the design to try to minimize the tendency to design the bare minimum. Design and Surveying: The Engineering Department is not currently staffed to accommodate internal design of these subdivision proposals to keep pace with development. We do feel, however, that there is an opportunity to accomplish the same objectives (keeping the City's interest in mind when designing a specific project) with the use of a City consultant to provide the design services and contract administration.