11/03/2008 Council Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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• • • CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION November 3, 2008 APPROVED 191 Council Member Stoltz left the meeting. 192 12. Comp Plan Review — Community Development Director Grochala reported. 193 Staff has received questions from council members to which they will respond. Housing 194 and management of development seem to be overall themes of the questions. The 195 Comprehensive Plan Update ("the Plan") concept is really that the market will dictate 196 growth and the city should plan to be ready for that development when it comes along. 197 Reviewing a map, he noted that the areas indicated in purple basically represent the next 198 ten years. Using that basis, they have looked at how and when utilities can be provided in 199 those areas. The city remains the "driver" of the extension of utilities and staff suggests 200 that the extensions should be built out from existing infrastructure. 201 Mr. Grochala provided an explanation of sewer districting and how other entities' 202 (metropolitan for example) utility plans could impact new infrastructure development in 203 the city. There was also discussion of how infrastructure is funded and the city's 204 preference to have developer involvement in those costs. 205 There was discussion that the county is leading plans for some improvements to the 35E 206 interchange in 2009. Mr. Grochala pointed out that the improvements are somewhat 207 premature to the other development plans in the vicinity of that intersection and suggested 208 that there could be deferred assessments involved. 209 A council member suggested that there needs to be a compromise on the pace of 210 development called for by the Plan. Staff responded that the council can make that a 211 discussion point but there are underlying Metropolitan Council requirements (such as 212 density and affordability) that should be considered. Staff is presenting the proposed Plan 213 and explaining how it would function; the proposed Plan is based on market forecasts 214 and, when the council raised concerns about market changes, that information was 215 brought to the citizens task force and there was a change. 216 On the matter of sending the proposed Plan out to adjacent jurisdictions for review, staff 217 explained the purpose of that action. Sending out the plan doesn't indicate that it is final. 218 A council member raised the question of the council's comfort level with the proposed 219 pace of development. There was discussion about density, distribution of density and 220 how distribution could help reach affordability goals. It is not necessarily a goal to have 221 all affordable housing bulked together. Staff explained that there are ways, such as 222 density bonus programs, to bring affordability into different types of developments. 223 When a council member mentioned that the 6600 new units seems high and concern 224 about the city's ability to provide services that keep pace with that amount of growth, 225 staff pointed to the five-year planning process that will allow the council to plan for 226 future growth. It was also mentioned that the council maintains the ability to amend the 227 Plan based on continuing evaluation.