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• <br />Agenda Item 5A <br />Staff Originator: Marty Asleson <br />Environmental Board Meeting Date: June 2, 2010 <br />Topic: Amendments to Zoning Ordinance and Subdivision regulations Chapter <br />of City Code Regarding Development in Environmentally Sensitive <br />Areas, Tree Preservation, Landscaping, Planned Unit Developments, <br />and Platting <br />Background: <br />The Environmental Board discussed the site layout, landscaping, and tree <br />preservation standards on May 4. The P & Z discussed those and the <br />collaborative design process on May 12. Some revisions have occurred since <br />those meetings. The revisions are attached to this memo for discussions by the <br />Environmental Board on June 2 and the P & Z on June 9. <br />Since the late 1990s Lino Lakes has been pursuing a more environmentally <br />sound means of handling new development. The city's Handbook for <br />Environmental Planning and Conservation Development was printed in 1999. <br />We followed that with the 2004 Parks, Natural Open Space /Greenways and Trail <br />Plan. The I -35E Corridor Alternative Urban Areawide Review in 2005 <br />established a "conservation design framework" for all development within the <br />study area. The draft new Comprehensive Plan further promotes the <br />conservation design principles laid out in all these documents. Chapter 2 creates <br />the Resource Management System Plan, establishing an open space system <br />that corresponds with Environmentally Sensitive Areas created by plans and <br />rules of the Rice Creek Watershed District. <br />Now the City is creating and amending official controls to implement the ideas <br />and plans. The subjects of the public hearing tonight are sections of the zoning <br />ordinance and subdivision regulations, the primary controls for regulating new <br />development. (A new stormwater management ordinance also is in the works.) <br />All the different ordinance requirements need to work together toward the goals <br />of preserving and creating a city wide greenway system through the identification <br />and protection of Environmentally Sensitive Areas. <br />The Rice Creek Watershed District is the governmental entity that regulates <br />wetland impacts and the public drainage ditch system. Extensive environmental <br />research by the District and Lino Lakes resulted in the creation of an overall <br />Environmentally Sensitive Areas (ESAs) map for Lino Lakes. The District's new <br />rule RMP -3 is designed to identify and protect ESAs on individual development <br />sites. The District's rules protect wetlands and include requirements for <br />