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Village Area Policy Review Memo <br />Page: 9 <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />Lake Elmo Design Guidelines <br />Purpose: To ensure development of the Village area is high <br />quality and meets the goals and principles of the City. <br />Specifically, high quality site design and building materials, <br />promote open space to support the existing character of the <br />city, accommodate vehicles that respect pedestrian <br />environment, utilize natural ecosystems (stormwater) in <br />development, cohesion of development into the neighborhood <br />and community, and to foster connections through theming to <br />create unique community identity. The Design Guidelines and <br />Standards were last revised in February 2022. <br />Regulatory Impact: The Design Guidelines are intended to influence how sites are developed. They <br />cover the Village Area as well as the I-94 Corridor Area and is for parcels within the MUSA public utility <br />service area. Sites are reviewed for compliance at the final stage of development review or building <br />permit review. The guidelines terminology are primarily recommendations and not requirements. They <br />are written with lots of “recommendations”, “may”, “should” verbiage opposed to “must” and “shall”. <br />There are some required elements such as sidewalks, lighting, and signage. However, some of this <br />language is subjective rather than prescriptive. <br />Design Guidelines and the Village Area: Only applies to high density residential, commercial, business <br />park and mixed uses. The Zoning Ordinance references the design guidelines in the Village Districts in <br />general, Mixed Use, Commercial, and Public/Quasi-Public districts (commercial uses). The guidelines <br />address suggestions for: <br />• building placement <br />• streetscaping <br />• landscaping <br />• parking & delivery areas <br />• building design, mass/scale, roof, entries <br />• building materials <br />• lighting <br />• signage <br /> <br />Considerations: <br />• Identify the purpose of the design guidelines to ensure they still align with city goals. <br />• Certain sections or requirements may be seen as higher or lower priority. Issues directly tied to <br />City goals could be codified in the zoning ordinance. <br />• Not all projects will reasonably meet all requirements in the design guidelines. Discussion is <br />needed on the process for good projects to receive flexibility. <br />• Projects receiving PUD’s could be required to comply with some or all design requirements.