09/08/2004 Council Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION SEPTEMBER 8, 2004 APPROVED • 1 2 FOX DEN — CONSERVATION DESIGN — MICHAEL GROCHALA 3 4 Community Development Director Grochala stated the City Council recently adopted the 5 City's Parks, Natural Open Space/Greenways and Trail System Plan. An integral 6 component of the plan implementation is to pursue conservation development through a 7 collaborative City/Developer process. As Jeff Schoenbauer from Brauer & Associates 8 previously discussed with the Council, the proposed Fox Den Acres subdivision provides 9 an excellent opportunity for the City to begin implementation of the plan. 10 11 Community Development Director Grochala advised Royal Oaks Development has 12 submitted a conventional development plan for Fox Den Acres to the City for review and 13 approval. While their proposal does attempt to provide open space and minimize impact 14 to wetlands, City staff, with the assistance of Jeff Schoenbauer, have identified several 15 opportunities to further improve the design through the conservation development 16 approach. 17 18 Community Development Director Grochala reviewed the preliminary sketch noting the 19 public values the plan strives for. While Royal Oaks is still pursuing a conventional 20 development plan, they have agreed to work concurrently with the City to explore the 21 possibility of a conservation development. As part of the process, the Rice Creek 22 Watershed District is providing in-kind engineering services to provide an in-depth • 23 assessment of the area wetlands to aid in planning. It is anticipated that staff could have a 24 preliminary design laid out by the end of September. 25 26 Community Development Director Grochala stated during discussions with Royal Oaks, 27 they have continually expressed concern over "losing their place in line" and the 28 availability of lots in accordance with City's growth management ordinance. This is the 29 primary reason for pursuing approval of a conventional subdivision. This concern 30 routinely comes up in staff/developer discussions regarding conservation development 31 opportunities. 32 33 Staff has been evaluating options to alleviate this concern while still meeting the 34 Comprehensive Plan's policy which provides for a "limit residential growth to an 35 average of 147 units per year...". One possible alternative is to allow a developer to 36 advance lots under the phasing guidelines set forth in the growth management ordinance 37 in exchange for the conservation development design that provides the identified public 38 values. 39 40 Community Development Director Grochala reviewed an example in relation to 41 advancing lots to a developer. In return for the conservation design the City would allow 42 the developer to advance the 2006 lots for construction in 2005. While this method front 43 loads 2005 by 44 lots it would still decrease the number of lots available in 2006 by 44 44 lots. The end result is that the same number of lots would be created over the two year 45 period. • 46