Agenda - Council - 03/25/1997 - Revised

Home

CASE # PROPOSED ADOPTION OF A MORATORIUM ORDINANCE By: Ryan R. Schroeder, City Administrator Background: At the March 11, 1997 meeting, Council introduced an ordinance, (attached) adoption of which would provide for a 180-day moratorium against future residential development. Within this ordinance, the Alpine Estates, Apple Ridge, and Sunfish Pond developments are excluded (meaning development may continue within these land parcels). All commercial and industrial land was also excluded. At the meeting, Attorney Goodrich informed Council that, at time of adoption, the excluded parcels could be removed from the ordinance but that parcels could not be added without holding a reintroduction of the ordinance. What brings rise to the need for this moratorium is the Council desire to complete a Comprehensive Plan process initiated by the last Council and to review the validity of the most recent Comprehensive Plan. In review of the most recent process, staff and the City Attorney have met with the law firm of Kennedy and Graven. We have requested that they review the most recent Comprehensive Plan as well as zoning activity/past practice/state law requirements and the City Charter relative to land use planning and development. It is expected that they will be able to provide some guidance by your March 25, 1997 meeting on the Comprehensive Plan. It is not expected that the zoning issues will be completely evaluated by that date. We have also been informed that a developer proposing a residential subdivision, Good Value Homes, will also be submitting a legal memorandum on the issue. If available prior to delivery of Council packets, this memorandum will be included herein. Council has discussed the need to receive proposals from consultants relative to an update to and completion of the most recent comprehensive plan process. Toward that end we have met with one consulting firm to date. The firm, Dahlgren, Shardlow, and Uban, expects to provide a proposal for consulting services to the City by April 4, 1997. We have asked that they respond to the need to finalize the most recent process and also to provide for housing and environmental elements. We have also requested that they provide an option for master planning boundary areas wherein urban development will bump into existing rural development at some point. We have also asked that they provide a menu of process options such that if the budget becomes constrained, portions of the work program could be delayed to the 1998 budget year. It is their expectation that the six-month moratorium timeline may be too constrained to provide for the visioning process that may be required. In order to provide for consulting services, Council will need to allocate funding toward the project. We have just been verbally notified that we have received a MNRRA grant (Mississippi River, shoreland and related planning and ordinance review from the Metro Council) a portion of which could be utilized toward this process. This grant could be matched with unallocated block grant funds and/or planning funds within the existing budget ($25,000 is within the budget for storm water planning and $2500 is in the Council budget for team building). Given this, it appears that there is funding capacity to provide for at least a large portion, if not all of the project, At the last meeting, staff provided a spreadsheet detailing the premise that our zoning activity post comprehensive plan updates was minimal. It now appears that there were significant errors in that document. Attorney Goodrich has determined that, in addition to rural and commercial platting, there have been fifty-seven urban residential plats approved since 1980. Of those, forty- 3