Laserfiche WebLink
<br />2 <br /> <br />could not support infiltrating the amount of water needed for a community septic system. This is <br />described in greater detail below. <br />Issue with OP-PUD: <br />Community Septic System - After conducting numerous soils tests, we believed that we had found an <br />area of the site that would be acceptable for a community septic system. Our consultants were very <br />confident and that is why we moved forward with the preliminary plat and with a fully designed <br />community septic system. Our consultants held severa l pre-application meetings with the state <br />regarding our application. We thought we were well on our way. <br />During one of the final meetings with the state it became clear that the state would be requesting a <br />study we had not completed called a mounding study. This is a relatively new requirement for <br />community septic systems. <br />We completed an initial mounding study. That study indicated there could be some issues with the <br />hydraulic conductivity assumptions we were using that came from tests done by the St. Anthony Falls <br />Laboratory of the University of Minnesota. So, to be safe, we hired Braun InterTech to conduct <br />additional soil tests to make a more precise hydraulic conductivity assessment of the soils at Highpointe <br />Crossing. These tests were completed in late December. The results of the test were entered into the <br />water mounding model in early January. After entering these test results into the model, it became <br />clear, based on the mounding study, that the community system would eventually fail and could fail as <br />soon as in the first year of operation. A surprise to us and our consultants. <br /> <br />Now What? <br />This left us with a couple possible alternatives. <br />1. See if a rural lot individual septic system development was feasible. <br />2. Develop Highpointe Crossing as approved except with a connection to a municipal sanitary <br />sewer in the City of Lake Elmo or in the City of Oakdale. <br />Alternative 1 - Large lot rural development with individual septic systems vs. community system <br />We spent a couple months evaluating plans for individual rural septic lots. We initially tried this using <br />the Residential Estate (RE) zoning district. In the end that zoning district did not provide us with enough <br />homesites to pay for the development of the neighborhood. Also, some of the standards in the district, <br />like the 100’ front yard set-back, created constraints that would have made it difficult to locate individual <br />septic systems on the homesites. <br />So, we then designed a neighborhood using the Rural Single Family (RS) zoning district as our guide. We <br />realize that this is an older district that is being phased out and that it has only been used in limited <br />situations. That said, it is refenced in the Comprehensive Plan as one of the two districts that were <br />combined to create the Rural Single Family (RSF) designation which is what the Eberhard property is