May 11, 2021 Council Meeting Update

Here's a couple of definitions that might be helpful here:

• Land use: How the CITY wants your land used in the future.
• Master Planned Development: In this case, 500 acres of land fully planned out to include a mix of residential density and types
  coupled with neighborhood commercial properties. This land is on the south side of the river road and roughly centered on Vicksburg.
• PUD: Planned Unit Development. A form of development approval that allows almost everything to be negotiated.

During the finalizing of the 2040 comprehensive plan last year, the Master Planned Development was created and placed into the 2020 staging area. Not only did I think we had too much land available for development, but I also thought we had too many development areas currently in play. So my push was to move that to the 2030 (or 2040) stage. The majority decided to push roughly 300 acres out to 2030, but left the remaining 200 acres in the 2020 time frame. I didn't think it made sense to split a Master Planned Development like that but... I was happy with moving most of it out.

The other key item was, the city understood that a single developer has control over all 500 acres. For one reason or another this turned out to be false. The developer has the east 113 acres and presented a concept plan for that piece. When the planning commission looked at this they were concerned that there was no master plan. Everyone agreed this piece would likely look similar regardless of a master plan, the developer had no ability to create a master plan since they didn't control the land, and the bulk of the remaining land was in the 2030 stage, yet there was still a couple of the planning commission members that didn't want it to proceed.

The bottom line on this is it's really two issues. Do we allow this concept plan to move forward and what do we do with the Master Planned Development.

To complicate this further, the council recently decided (HERE) to increase both the side yard setbacks from 7.5 to 10 feet, and the front setback from 25 to 30 feet. This concept plan did not meet that, which means that this development will likely need to go under a PUD.

When presented to the council, we agreed to a few things:

1. The development is independent of the Master Planned Development.
2. The development's land use will change from Master Planned Development to Low Density (roughly 2.5 homes / acre).
3. The development would need access to the river road at the north side to help minimize the construction traffic. It's likely that a lot of the south traffic will utilize Pioneer Parkway.
4. The remaining 100 acres in the next lot to the west will be moved to the 2030 staging area.
5. The remaining Master Planned Development area will either have to be planned by the city (I see no reason to fund that anytime soon) or a future developer.

Item J (concept plan for a lot split at 12300 Overlook Rd.)

This item has generated a lot of discussion, but not due to the lot split.

All of the large lots in that area were advertised back in the 90's as "ghost platted" for future sewer. Ghost platting is simply drawing lines on a plan that indicate what a future split could look like. This owner submitted his property with an updated ghost plat (16 lots), and that's what caused all of the concern.

While this property will be allowed to split the 5 acres into two 2.5 acre lots (it does have sewer), I would be very hesitant to want it to split significantly more. Other than one 1/4 acre lot, the property is surrounded by large lots. And with those large lots is an expectation that the zoning of neighboring lots wouldn't significantly change.

Item K (Kwik Trip truck stop concept plan on the interchange)

This item also generated angst with 2 planning commission members and one council member.

The concern by the planning commission was they felt that a warehouse or some other commercial facility would look better than a truck stop. The council member was worried about the crime it might bring with it. The Kwik Trip representative made it clear they completely light up the parking lot and that this will be a relatively small facility (47 truck spots). The council supported the idea 3-1. I supported it.

Item L (Pineview Roundabout Landscaping)

This was frustrating. Apparently with all the money we spent (See rant)  on Dayton's version of the omnibus bill (the Pineview project) we didn't have funding in there to landscape it.

There were 3 plans to landscape the inside of the roundabout. Keep in mind the roundabout center is about 50 feet in diameter. The three plans were a $34,000 plan, a $44,000 plan, and a $9,000 plan.

All 4 of us agreed to the $9,000 version. I would have preferred just grass but the police chief wanted to make sure a car couldn't successfully drive through the roundabout.

Item M (Special Vehicle Ordinance)

This ordinance allows ATVs, golf carts, utility vehicles, etc. to operate on city roads.

This was a no brainer for the 4 members. The only comments were that we wanted the permit to last 3 years and the fee to be limited to what the costs are to the city.

Keep in mind this is for CITY roads, not for county roads. Many of our roads are county roads and we have little say on what is allowed there.

Item O (Water Trails Study)

Another study... This one to look at Dayton's waterways (Diamond Lake, French lake, Crow River, and Mississippi River.

To look at what this study would be used for, see the Agenda packet.

I don't think we need a study (especially a $47,000 study) to tell us what we likely already know, but that study could be used to bring in grant money which could be significant.

Given that the study was over $25,000 and there was no publication for bids, it was sent back to staff.