03-27-2013 Additions II - Laserfiche WebLink

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These trees are important to us in that they block some of the eastern side of the proposed development and any new plantings would not be tall enough to block housing that is graded 3 -4 feet above our property grade level with 3 stories of windows directly facing down over our single story home. Our property is the most adversely effected by the development plan with 4 of 15 houses abutting our land all with back yards facing our house with minimum setbacks. The house on lot #11 sets in what visually appears to be our back yard and in the middle of the row of pines that were intended to be saved to block the view of the house on that lot from our property. We believe the City of Little Canada and Masterpiece Homes should honor the intent of the agreement with the Kupferschmidts to retain the row of pines and revise their street or lot plan accordingly if the street easement is vacated and awarded to Masterpiece Homes. The vacation of the street easement directly effects the access to a lot at the back of our property bordering the street easement, which was formerly planned for development by Masterpiece Homes in conjunction with developing the property at 2966 Arcade St. The current plan for the Pine Tree Pond development along with the vacation of the street easement, with the assumption of ownership being awarded by Ramsey County to Masterpiece Homes, would make the 13,175 square foot lot at the back of our property inaccessible. This same lot was part of Masterpiece Homes' proposed development plan of the 2966 Arcade when they were utilizing the 33' street easement as the planned access point to the property. The City Engineer has recently submitted a possible plan to access the back of 2925 Labore Road utilizing the 33' easement being considered for vacation and 17' along the eastern edge of the Bilek property as in the earlier Masterpiece Home plan to construct a 50' wide street from Labore Road to the lot (see map #2). The engineer's plan would require a 50 foot diameter street turn around at the front of the future back lot. The proposed street would produce a side set back from the existing house of 28.7 feet instead of 30 feet. According to the documents presented by the City Planner for this meeting, the city would not want to approve the development of our lot based on this plan due to cost, maintenance and side setback. We object strenuously to this recommendation being made without due process in order to facilitate the street easement vacation without consideration for another access to this developable lot. We would like to note that Masterpiece Homes working in conjunction with the Little Canada City Planner had plans to develop this same 13,000+ square foot lot at the back of our property from 2006 -2010 (see dated 2009 Masterpiece Homes development concept plan) with the exact same side setback and did not require a 50' turn around at that time. A verbal offer to purchase our property was made by Masterpiece Homes in 2006 when Mr. Howe originally attempted to purchase and develop the 2966 Arcade property. Until securing the Rosauer and Kupferschmidt properties for access to develop 2966 Arcade, the development of a 50' street and side setback was not deemed an issue by the City of Little Canada Planner as it was in the best interest to