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<br />Item No: 8B <br />Meeting Date: March 26, 2012 <br />Type of Business: EDA <br />Administrator Review: ____ <br />City of Mounds View Staff Report <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />To: Economic Development Authority <br />From: Heidi Steinmetz, Economic Development Specialist <br />Item Title/Subject: EDC’s County Road 10 Beautification Recommendations <br /> <br /> <br />Background <br /> <br />At the January 3, 2012 Work Session, the City Council discussed possible County Road 10 <br />enhancements and requested that the EDC provide a list to the EDA of County Road 10 <br />beautification items that could be implemented as early as this summer. <br /> <br />Discussion <br /> <br />In order to create the list, the EDC reviewed the following: <br /> <br /> County Road 10 related improvements included in the City’s 2012-2016 Five-Year <br />Financial Plan <br /> 2002 County Road 10 Redevelopment and Redevelopment Plan Preliminary Cost <br />Estimates <br /> EDA’s unobligated Tax Increment Financing (TIF) balances <br /> <br />On March 9, 2012, the EDC ranked several County Road 10 beautification items, which are <br />numbered on the attachment in order of importance for the EDA’s review. There are two <br />items ranked as #1 (trash cleanup and mowing) because the EDC agreed that those two <br />items are equally important. <br /> <br />Regarding the item ranked #2 (plant trees along Right-of-Way), Ramsey County Public <br />Works staff provided City staff with the attached page from MnDOT’s Road Design Manual, <br />which shows that on a 50 mile per hour road, the required obstacle-free clear zone is 40 <br />feet. This is measured from the edge of the driving lane. Since the distance from the edge <br />of one driving lane to the other across the County Road 10 median is typically 50 feet, it’s <br />not possible to avoid the clear zone. Crash testing has determined that a 4” wood structure <br />(a tree, mailbox post, sign post, etc) is the maximum size that does not constitute a <br />hazard. Therefore, planting trees in the County Road 10 median is not practical. If the road <br />were converted to an “urban” section, with curbs, trees would be permitted under MnDOT <br />standards, as long as they were 10’ behind the curb. The cost of rebuilding the road as an <br />urban roadway, however, would be something like $4 million per mile. <br /> <br /> <br />