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City Council Regular Meeting Minutes January 6, 2004 Page 4 1 District at 3501/05 Silver Lake Road. 2 3 To further show the importance of protecting R-1 residential property, Section 1615 of the City 4 Code does not permit a fire station within an R-1 District. It permits only the following: a) 5 single family detached dwellings,b)public or parochial schools, c)publicly owned recreational 6 facilities including parks,playgrounds, swimming pools and athletic fields, and d) certain state 7 licensed facilities permitted under Minnesota Statutes, Section 462.357. 8 9 Section 1615 goes on to state that a fire station(also police stations, essential service structures 10 and religious buildings)is permitted within an R-1 District only if a conditional use permit has 11 been issued for that use by the City Council. The framers of the St. Anthony City Code wanted 12 the City Council to take an extra hard look at fire stations before permitting them to intrude into 13 R-1 residential property. There is no evidence that before granting a conditional use permit the 14 Council took that extra step by scrutinizing available sites, or even requested for example, 15 professional traffic or response time studies that would support the Silver Lake Road site 16 recommendation it received from the Public Facilities Study Group that consisted of City 17 residents. 18 {; _ 19 According to the June 2003 Public Facilities Study Newsletter, the recommended fire station site 20 at 3501/05 Silver Lake Road had the following advantages: 21 22 1. Central location provides the best community response times for the Fire Department 23 2. Location adjacent to City Hall connects to other City functions. 24 3. Land is immediately available. 25 4. Allows Fire Department to consolidate operations at one central location. 26 5. . Meets Fire Department needs for the next 50 years. 27 28 With respect to response times, there has been no technical analysis or other persuasive evidence 29 presented to show that response time from a central fire station location in a residential area of 30 St. Anthony Village is substantially better than the response time from a non-residential location. 31 For almost 50 years the City has provided excellent to superior fire department response times 32 from the old fire station in the commercial zone on Kenzie Terrace. From the Kenzie location 33 on the south side of the City,the Fire Department has protected Apache Plaza since the 1960s 34 when it was at its zenith; also the Apache Medical Center, the residents living on Silver Lake- 35 and the users of the Salvation Army Camp, as well as all R-1 zone residents. All these years, 36 response times have not been a problem, and there has been no evidence a dramatic change in 37 recent response requirements makes it necessary to move the fire station into the residential 38 setting. But the skill and dedication of the St. Anthony Fire Department is appreciated by all. 39 40 On the second advantage, for the past quarter century the fire station has been at a separate 41 location from City Hall without noticeable impact on Fire Department operational effectiveness. 42 There has been no evidence of recent or future problems introduced demonstrating that the fire 43 station needs to be adjacent to City Hall at the expense of intrusion into an R-1 residential zone. 44 45 The third advantage was the immediate availability of land for the Silver Lake Road site,which 46 was immediately available at a price of$500,000. One can imagine that for$500,000 a lot of