[Music] You want screwed this up. you liked or you just Yeah. sandwich. Yeah. your tastes in terms of never a good start for us. Oh, funny. Yes. Oh. Oh, all right. Uh, it is 7 o'clock. I'll call the meeting to order. Please join me for the pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Can I get a motion to approve the agenda, please? I'll make a motion to approve the agenda. Second by Council Member Pchman, second by Council Member Pasco. Any further discussion? All those in favor say I. I. Oppose. Same sign. Motion passes. All right. Is anybody here tonight for community comment for anything that's not on the agenda tonight? Okay, then I'm not going to read my little disclaimer. Um, all right. We have no presentations and reports. We have no public hearings. Can I get a motion on the consent agenda, please? I would mo make a motion to approve the consent agenda. Got a motion by council member Besco. Second. Second by council member sir. Any further discussion? All those in favor say I. I. Oppose. Same sign. Motion passes. All right. Moving on to business items. 8.1 the Summerfield concept plan. Miss Smith. Thank you, Mayor and Council. Tonight, we will be reviewing a concept plan for Somefield. So, tonight at the meeting, we're not looking for a formal recommendation. We're looking for feedback and comments to the developer who's in the room tonight. This is generally step one in the process. There are many unknowns, so you might ask us some questions that we can take back and think about. We likely won't be able to answer many of them tonight. And we're looking for general feedback about a project. It's essentially what you want us to think about. Should the project move forward when it comes before you at preliminary plat? So, what changes we can take in tonight as we start to develop more information about the project, as we learn more, as the plans start to get more real and applicable to the actual site. So, some details about Summerfield. It's proposed by Summergate, who is typically a project developer, not a builder. So, Casey and the Summergate team typically create the lots and then sell them to a builder. So this happened previously with Summergate in Oak Tree and Timber Creek, both of which went to LAR. Summergate has owned several of these properties in the project area since 2006. So it has been a while since we've been working on this project, thinking about this project, talking about this project. There were challenging market changes obviously in 2008 2009. And then there's also been a city utility gap that the city council has been working on for the past couple years. thinking about our trunk area charge that was put in in 2025. So during uh this fee schedule for 2025, the city council added a trunk area fee of $3,300 per lot that can fund utility projects that we've recognized to be city gaps. So our current city utility stop at Overlook Drive, which is in the bluffs. It doesn't extend down to our uh southerntherly mo most um extent of city limits which is not typical for us. We typically require that developers go to the edge of every single property line. We don't know how this happened. It might have been a miss. It could have been a negotiation XYZ but it was several years ago where we have had a gap for a long time which has left this area uh challenging to develop not a cost that one developer can bear based on the scale of the utility project that needs to be completed. Zooming out a little bit to get our bearings on the left is the general project location. So the neighborhood that you can see here is the bluffs. So Overlook Drive stops here. So there's a utility gap in this general area. And then in our comprehensive plan, which is on the right, the areas identified by that really light yellow is residential, low density. Uh the darker the yellow, the higher the density for the comprehensive plan. So you'll see a majority of this area is guided for low density residential, which this project generally meets. You'll see throughout the presentation that there's likely a mix of housing types which will likely be required to raise the density of the project knowing that there is topography some challenges uh road right ofway wetlands ponds etc that need to be included that gets netted out of the density so we need to apply some heavier density in certain areas to bring that up to our three units per acre which is required by the Met Council. So generally we're south of our current city limits. The gravel pit is a good frame of reference for where lo where where we are located and where the county roads puts to go to Jordan. So generally the project area is highlighted on the screen now. And we've been working on this project for a really long time. Casey's been working on it for a really really long time. But this is a concept that we saw in 2020 um that started to show some of the properties that Summergate has under contract or purchase agreement the general area that we've uh started working on it. So again in 2020 we hadn't contemplated at the trunk area charge at that point. We had contemplated it but we didn't go forward with it. So again in 2025 we started that additional fee that allows us to fill utility gaps in the city. So we've been seeing ideas of this project. We've been talking about it for a while. Just an example of what we saw in 2020. You'll hopefully recognize this slide. We worked on it pretty aggressively in 2024 uh with the trunk sewer extension. So, the general area of where that trunk sewer needs to be extended, that $3,300 per lot will fund the city portion of that requirement. And then the utilities will be picked up by the developer, which is typical for us. And they will be required to bring it to every property line that could develop. So, when the project ends, the utilities need to be at the property line so the next developer can hook in. So, the next developer does not have to go into the already developed site to grab the utilities and pull them through. It starts at their true property line. So, the concept plan is now on the screen. Um, the city council reviewed this as a project preview at a meeting in early March just to get your arms around it because it's a really large scale project, the largest scale project that we have seen. So, I gave you a little bit of extra time to think some thoughts, uh, talk to anyone you might need to and just digest digest the project a little bit more. So starting north and moving south, the blue is identified as an active senior uh community. So uh think about like Edlewood and Chesco where it's an active adult community where they have some increased um services. So it could be a clubhouse, it could be exclusive uh pickle ball courts, trails, etc. Moving south again, light yellow generally identifies low density residential and then some of the darker yellows start to identify higher density. Um, red is commercial. Generally, we're slated for a really large park in this area. So, you'll see on the concept plan there's a 50acre park that's contemplated, a community scale park. Tying this to the park's master plan, we generally are calling for fields to be pulled out of community park and brought to this general location. So, knowing that we have a pretty extensive XL energy, I think it's XL, is it XL? A a utility easement through community park, which really limits the amount of work we can put in that park. Um, knowing that the Black Sox are a competitive and fun team to watch, potentially pulling them to this area at a grander scale than what we are offering them at Community Park. So, thinking through likely several baseball fields, softball fields, fields in general, but then also contemplating some other users since it is 50 acres, that's a substantial park. So offering different uses to the community to just beyond field. So in case you're there watching one kid play baseball and you have two others in tow that want to do something else, giving them a range of things that can happen. You'll also see in the summary that we are thinking about a school site. I will give the biggest flashing disclaimer I can right now that nothing is set in stone. We are hoping that that might come to fruition. uh we work really closely with the school district and we understand that there likely will be needs with the increased population in the city of Carver. So this is our way of letting them know we're thinking about it. Uh we'd love to have another school in Carver just knowing that generally a school makes for a really great community asset. Something people want to live near generally leads to a really successful community. So again we don't have any information about it. We're just being really hopeful and wishful about potentially having a school site there. Something that I think is really helpful on the concept plan too is that Summergate has put together density ranges for different units. So there's a low unit count, realistic, and then high. So generally I've been sticking to the realistic number of about 2,355 homes in total. So you can see the ranges here. So generally sticking to this number here has been my safe spot. We'll obviously learn a lot more as we start the preliminary plat process and we start to consider topography, road access, how things are going to lay out generally. So it's a large scale project. It's a lot to take in. There's a lot of information and frankly we don't know a ton of details yet. So this is the time in the meeting when you can take the opportunity to say we love this, we hate that. We'd be open to seeing XYZ. So in general, this is the project layout really subject to change as we start to learn more. And then part of obviously that really large scale project we are going to have a phased project likely of many phases which is typical for us like Timber Creek the LAR project came in in five phases. This is not anything new for us. It allows a developer to annex certain property for a portion of the development. So uh summergate wouldn't be responsible for annexing the entire project area at this time. we could do it on a phased approach as we um begin review of preliminary plat and final plat. So in general this is phase one which is roughly 113 acres total of 255 units 80 town homes 3755 50 foot lots and 13860 foot lots. So you can see we're right at the intersection where the county road splits to Jordan. This uh slated to be a roundabout with the county. So, we've been working really closely with a lot of partners on this project. Uh, the county is a really big one, obviously, since we'll be extending utilities under the county road. Will require a major improvement on the county road with a roundabout. So, there are a lot of cooks in this kitchen already thinking through what we need, what it's going to look like, traffic counts, etc., etc. So, there's a lot of eyes on this project, which is great. There's been a lot of uh coordination and collaboration, which will continue through the preliminary planning process. So in general this would be phase one of the project. So it shows mixed use town homes 50 foot wide lot 55 no I keep saying 55 50 foot lots um 60 foot lots and then future uh higher density on the southern portion of the project. Thinking through the road system in this project is going to be really imperative. Making sure we identify collectors throughout the project that can move traffic quickly. So making sure we have a collector system that doesn't generally have driveways so people can move a little bit faster to get out of the site into the larger county system. So we're thinking through every checklist that we have, talking to a lot of folks, uh learning all that we can about the site just at console plan so we can work together with Summergate to offer a preliminary plot that meets what we need, meets what they need as well. So again, concept plan here, 2355 slated units. I'll come back to this one. I just have a couple more slides. And then I wanted to call it the general phase one project area in relation to the comp plan. So it's highlighted on the right in yellow. Generally you can see that the project is in agreement with our comprehensive plan. Depending on where we hit with densities, uses, etc., etc. Comp plan amendment could need to happen. At this point, I'm not sure how we're going to shake out, but something that we do pretty regularly with the Met Council. So, it's not a process we're afraid of. It's just long and arduous, but something we do frequently. So, uh comp plan amendment is not contemplated today. It might be in the future, but obviously there are several processes that also need to happen for a project of this scale. So, first, uh the big item that we've been starting to think through is an AUR. So thinking through um it's an alternate urban area review. Yes, thank you. That R was hard. So it's a process through the environmental quality board which is the same office that processes an environmental assessment worksheet which we just saw with the United Properties project which I'm going to talk about with the Enclave in the next uh presentation. So, it's a hybrid of an EAW, which is kind of their baseline environmental review, and then an environmental impact statement, which is their next step. So, it's both of those two processes pulled together. Uh, it's a really large project. We've been thinking about it at a staff level as kind of a mini comp plan for this area. So, it takes a look at how things might develop, how it would impact um different pieces of the community, the built environment, the natural environment, what it would look like if those uses changed a little bit as well. So we don't go in with just one development idea. It's what if mixed use went here and what if high density went here. It takes a look at a really holistic approach of a project. Gives us a ton of information that we can use through preliminary plot to think through traffic noise uh what it will look like with a park etc etc. So it's an adapted EAW form but the level of an EIS. So it's a really extensive envir environmental document that you will review. Covers a wide area. Something that's great about it is that the document lives with the city and it can be updated. So if Summergate goes through this entire process, looks great, everything went well, but the project directly south changes a little bit, we can use the AUR that Summergate completed to inform decisions that we would make on properties adjacent. Um, we also recently met with our Met Council sector rep and mentioned that we're starting this AU AUR process and how it dovtales nicely into a comprehensive plan process. So, it allows us to really dial into a specific area, learn a ton about the area and the development implications depending on which direction it goes. The city council will review that document as part of the review process. So, next steps. Oh, this is my planning commission slide. Should have updated it. Planning commission did their review at their March 20th meeting. Um, concept review is by city council tonight, April 7th. Uh, annexation would be the next step after that. review by the township, resolution by city council, forwarding on to the state. We'll get started on the AUR or the alternate urban areawwide review, preliminary plat resoning, final plat. Casey with Summergate is here. I'm going to ask you to come up and join our conversation. If you want to introduce yourself first, that would be great. Uh, good evening. Uh, my name is Casey Walsher. I work with Summergate companies and uh I'm here to discuss this with you if you have any questions. All right. Um I didn't know you had a last name, Casey. You've always been Casey. It's kind of hard to say, so we usually avoid it. Now I realize that we don't use your last name when we're referring to you. Um welcome. Uh questions, comments, thoughts? So when I look at this, all of these exceptions on here, these are properties that the land owners have not sold. Correct. Yes. Most of them are were developed previously into three 2acre 5acre lots, the ones that are kind of in the middle there. Oh, sorry. It's not. So, could this go forward if none of those property owners sold their properties? Uh, we weren't intending to acquire those properties. It's not really economically feasible to purchase in most cases a small house. Yeah. Uh to redevelop it, but that doesn't mean in the future uh part of the process. I'm sure she'll elaborate that it's not dependent on right. It's not dependent on it. No. And that's I just wanted to be sure that since it there's lots of little blocks uh intertwined in this that it wasn't dependent on that. Um, got other questions around the future of like the County Road 11 and Jonathan Carver Parkway intersection. That's a roundabout and we're planning on that. Uh, I talked to Brent about this earlier today. Uh, do we really think that a roundabout is sufficient for traffic there? And my concern may be a little selfish. coming out of Carver Bluffs. Um, you got to have a running start as soon as you see a car come over the ridge. And if we have a roundabout there, traffic is moving even faster. Um, so is it worth when's the last time we did a traffic study that would include 2355 homes in that area? Yeah. So, the county did a traffic study. I don't know the exact year. It's it has been a number of years ago already and that contemplated the roundabout for that intersection control. Um there will be a a traffic study required with the AUR process. So that will help inform that um intersection um decision at that time and we can refine refine that accordingly. And just a little appendage that so because Summergate has kind of been in the community for a number of years, their concept was used to inform that study was done by WSB in partnership with the county and the city. So I want to say it was around 2015 2016 and that right before the school. Yeah, right before Carver Elementary is built because at the time uh Carver Carver Elementary not named at that point. they were considering either a site closer to this uh uh neighborhood or the site where it eventually uh ended up at. Um but as Erin said, those um traffic numbers uh will be investigated with the upcoming environmental understood. Thank you. I'm sure I'm going to have more, but go ahead. No, once you're done. Um anything I do have some questions. Erin, can you go over those numbers again? Um it's the one highlight in pink the realistic and I understand too it's a r you know best estimate range so is it residential homes or actual anticipated it's homes it's units so it could be in the form of single family homes town homes etc but it's units and then um if I understood correct so phase one would be you look at the 113 acres and then about 225 five units. Correct. And what what do you where do I see phase one? And can you remind me again? Or maybe that's in the yellow outline on the right hand side of the screen. So in general, it's this area right here. Okay. I'll go back to the other side that shows it, but it's right at the county road to get access with likely a collector system into the site. Oops. But then in our comp plan, it's this area. Got it. All right, thank you. That answers it. Is that for you? That's all I have at this moment for questions. Kayla. Yeah, just to get to what some of the questions Eric had. So, we had um at the planning commission, we actually had a large number of the residents that you were talking about that are in township owned larger lots. Um and they were there. They really wanted to make sure that um they could remain township residents uh should they wish. uh kind of keep their options open. They're very very organized people which I appreciated. They showed up with documentation from a meeting that was what Erin like seven years ago. No, it was like 2005. 2005. Yeah, 20 years ago. Showed up with signed documentation from 20 years ago. So, um they're very passionate about their property and um I think it's good that the plan doesn't require that because when you say a large number of folks, how many were there? Uh what did we have? We had like eight. Yeah, I would say eight people that represented maybe four households had that group the group that right off Mount Carmel, that exception area between Mount Carmel and the first phase. So this area here, right? Right. And to summarize some of the concerns that came up with those residents as well as with the planning commission, we had a lot of discussion about what um connectors and feeder roads are going to look like, what uh fire department access is going to look like. There was a lot of concern with those um township residents that with Mount Carmel eventually being um shut down as a through road to Jonathan Carver Parkway um that there would be some issues with emergency services and things like that. So um that came up a little bit there as well. And um I think that they walked out reassured that the new collector, major collector roads will take care of a lot of those issues and actually probably speed up reaction time because they are larger roads that can handle more traffic than Mount Carmel Road itself. Um but yeah, otherwise I don't have any questions. This is my third time looking at this. So uh it's been it's been eye opening and very interesting. Um, but hearing what the planning commission as well as those township residents had to say was um, very helpful. So, thank you. Um, I don't know that I necessarily have any questions, but I'm going to ask questions for you to walk us through the process. Not necessarily for us, but for the folks who aren't here, for for the folks maybe who are here and just this might be their first time with the pro process. So, we're looking at the concept plan tonight. There are a couple other steps in the process. Can you kind of talk that through and kind of anticipate a timeline if you can look in your crystal ball? Sure. So, uh, the big lift for a project is done at preliminary plat. So, typically between concept plan and preliminary plat, it won't go before the planning commission and city council likely for several months. During that time, we are working really hard at a staff and developer level. So, for this project, they would submit all of their plans. We would check them against everything that we require in the city of Carver. So, we check it against the comp plan, the zoning code, our standard detail plates for the public services department, the fire department reviews it. We get everyone's hands on it um to red to complete their review. We send back and forth comment letters between the developer and staff typically three to four times. The first comment letter is usually pretty brutal. We rip apart a project and tell them everything we don't like about it. uh we make recommendations about what we would like to see. Those comment letters are uh lengthy for us and for the developer to work on together. So we review everything, put together a letter. They're then responsible for addressing everything in our letter. So again, we go back and forth several times. Uh even before we get to preliminary plat, the city council will need to consider annexation for this property. We can't make any land use decisions until it's annexed into the city of Carver. So we cannot offer an opinion on preliminary plat until it's in the city of Carver. The AU work can begin on that uh with our orderly annexation agreement knowing that the city of Carver is likely to be the LGU or the local governing unit. So the AU work can start but generally I'm I would suspect that that goes handinhand with preliminary plat. So this portion of the project gets a little bit tricky where we see this project a couple times and then it goes dark for a while because we're working on preliminary plat uh reszoning is also required. Anything that comes into the city of Carver, their default zoning is egg. So that's set out in our orderly annexation agreement. So the city council considers reszoning. A public hearing is held by the planning commission at preliminary plat and reszoning typically happens on the same night. There are notification requirements of that. So it gets mailed to property owners within 350 ft. It goes in the city news city newspaper, the Wakonia Patriot, gets posted at city hall. And then final plat typically comes a little bit quicker after preliminary plat. Our staff specifically likes to push preliminary plat to be the biggest review just because typically after preliminary plat, the developer starts acquiring the property. So they begin to own the property, they have vested land rights, they can start making decisions based on our review. So preliminary plat is our big lift. final plat uh comes later. I love nothing more when I can come into this room and say the final plat is consistent with the preliminary plat makes the review really easy since we did the heavy lift at preliminary plat. So, it's a lot of process, but if anyone in the audience or watching has questions, I'm happy to talk through it, any of the details, how people can stay involved. The project, um, Summerfield and the Enclave both have project pages on our city website, so if anyone wants to follow the process along, um, Brenda will make sure I update the website. I'm not great at that personally. Um, but it'll show dates. I typically try to link to planning commission and city council reviews, too, should someone want to watch the meetings, watch the dialogue. So there are a lot of steps. It's a lot of process, but it's what we do day in and day out in my department. So none of it feels scary or completely off-the-wall. We'll find something scary probably, but typical processes that we run for any development project. Great. Thank you. I realize that was a little bit duplicative with your slide, but I kind of wanted to hear the process to share with the public. Um, and then Casey, the only other question like like Erin, I'm um always curious on your process. Can you kind of walk me through how a developer goes up to a land owner and how that conversation is initiated when you're looking to purchase any one of these properties? Sure, if you don't mind. Sure. Uh really the process doesn't start as much with the landowner as it does with the city staff. Again, uh they help us identify in the map, you know, where the most likely locations are, where utilities and things will be available. Uh once they've done that, you kind of that that's like a almost like a a highlighter to what you have to do. Uh generally we do our best to get a hold of the land owners that are going to be closest to the project we're we're working on. Uh and you get a hold of them, go meet with them and kind of discuss the idea of development. Uh for most people, this is usually the biggest thing they'll probably ever do. That's in our business. you know, it's a commercial transaction for us, but for them, they're selling usually family homes or, you know, family homesteads. Sure. So, it's a it's a big deal. Uh, and they go through a whole process on their end of even just contemplating the transaction. Uh, but, uh, you know, once uh, you know, commercial terms are are are acquired, uh, you know, managers feel a great relief usually because it's the hard part's over for them, right? you know, then then the hard part starts for everybody else. Thank you. I appreciate you playing along with me. I think sometimes folks have a an idea in their heads that the city kind of looks at different parcels and says like, "It's time to sell your home. It's time to sell your home. It's time to sell your home." And that's not the way it works. So, these are willing land owners who are looking for a new use for their property. So, thank you. That was my only request of you guys. Um, did you think of other questions? You know, I I think I'm gonna hold off until we get further along. Okay. I did think of another question. Not you. No. Erin, can you pull up again the phase one? Um, my question is on Mount Carmel Road. Will that continue to be maintained by the township? Will So, Mount Carmel Road is here. Uh generally when property gets annexed in, we are responsible for it at a city level. This one is a little bit tricky since there is a pretty significant stretch in this area. I suspect it'll be a conversation with the township um talking about maintenance of it specifically like snow plowing because our uh city limit will go further west than Mount Carmel. But again, all part of the process, something that we'll figure out unless Erin, do you have a crystal ball of what we'll do yet? Okay. No. And yeah, we have we're not that far along yet. So, all right. Hard to say right now. Thank you. Just looking at that parcel and I don't have the uh county's map up, but those there are those I think it's four properties and then there's a Yes. a piece a really skinny piece of green that runs north and south. Just a wonky It's likely like a cart path or a way to get into property here. So if um someone needed access to their property here and Mount Carmel was the only option, this likely was their access point to it. Okay. So that is part of this development. Correct. As wonky as it is and it will likely just reading the tea leaves be a road at some point, but not with this potentially not knowing how those exception pieces would develop. Uh I can't say for sure that it would be a full city street that would go through that area. Okay. Okay. That is getting a little Okay. Thank you. And yeah, as we're talking about Mount Carmel Road, just as a reminder for people who haven't been staring at this map for ever, um the county has limits on how many access points onto county roads you can have per mile. And so eventually the plan would be for Mount Carmel Road to dead end before it gets to Jonathan Carver Parkway. So that the roundabout that's what the that's what we were told at planning commission. So that the roundabout would be the access point to the county road, not Mount Carmel Road. Is there anybody from the public here tonight that has comments or questions? I'm one of If you don't mind, I'm going to ask you to come up because we've got tens and tens of people who are watching tonight. And if you can just come up, introduce yourself, and speak in the microphone, please. Hi there. My name is Dean Stewie. I'm one of the land owners actually a little bit further closer to Jonathan Carver Parkway than in the great area there. And um Yep. And so as they described, you know, we had just shared some of our concerns, but then I just asked that the petition letter that we had submitted goes into the record. And I'm assuming that would be part of the U, whatever the acronym study is. A maybe it's in there and I'm not seeing it, but we can send that letter out to the council and include it as part of the packet. I think it's already part of the record, if you will, because you submitted it planning commission. So correct. I think like if that's what you're worried about. Yeah. I just didn't see it in what we saw for today. So, okay. We don't necessarily get all of Okay. Like every piece of paper that Aaron has ever worked on for this project, we wouldn't see because it would be a 4,000 page packet. So, it's not necessarily always included in the packets. I still have it. It's on my desk. Excellent. Okay. We continue to be impressed that you kept it for so long. So, I told her you can thank my wife. That wasn't She's the organized one. Well, she can write a book on filing an organization. Yeah, absolutely. Yes. Um, so that's set. I think the AU getting involved with that, that would be a process that you would work with. Casey, can you explain? So, Zenza, it wouldn't be part of the project area. We could recommend that uh Casey and Summergate includes it, but it would be up to Summergate since it's outside of the project area, but as indicated at the planning commission, we got some general head nods of like yes, that generally makes sense to be included. So because we're literally sandwiched between the different phases. Yeah. As you noted. Yeah. And on that note then similarly I I guess you all are maybe confirming one of our questions that it would be when one of the subsequent phases like the one to the north is when most likely that Mount Carl would probably get annexed and that would be a become a city street to service that area up above. Does that sound about right? Erin, can you speak a little bit to the future of Mount Carmel of what we think might happen? To be honest, we haven't had those conversations with the county and I'm not I don't know what the access spacing guidelines are. So, I can't speak with any sort of definition of when that road or if that road would close access on Jonathan Carver Parkway. So, I I can't speak to that detail tonight. So, I can add that the property or the road would only become a city street if uh property owners like yourselves would petition the city to be annexed. The city um would not um ask for you to petition into the city. The only way that would occur is if I would say the the collection of your entire neighborhood, so to speak, would request uh or petition to be annexed to get access to city sewer and water. But um there are many examples in the local community and other parts of the metro where lots like yours remain in township kind of um jurisdiction in perpetuity frankly just because of their lack of need for city services. So, um I would say just based on one person's opinion, I would see those properties remaining in the township for the next 20 to 30 years until folks septic tanks and wells start going out and there is a need. Um but there's really not a benefit for the the city um to take over that street in any meaningful way. Well, other than in the subsequent phase, if you get that senior community, they're going to want a city street to get up there. That's going to be their only access according to the map, right? Well, if the Aaron, like Aaron's saying, we don't know for sure, but the likely scenario is that Mount Carmel Road access would be eliminated. And when that happens, all the development, if you kind of look at the master plan, all the access is going to actually come on main roads. It won't be filtering out that way. Got it. So the only people using that road would literally be the existing residences are out in the township kind of feeding into that. Okay. So you would feed back to here and then get back out to the main road. Very good. So if you don't mind me asking a question and jumping in on you. Is that okay? Okay. Um, so just how you were showing that Mount Carmel because it doesn't show a street there. It does not become a city street just because of how this is laid out. So we would need to be on part of the property either north or south would need to develop. So thinking about like Oak Tree on Dogrren Road is something similar where they had to extend City Street and pavement to their westerly most property line. Got it. As we continue to move west, more portions of Mount Carmel could become part of the city. But again, there's likely going to be the gap here. It's going to be a tricky situation, I suspect. I don't think we could say yes, it's definitely going to go one way or the other because we'll work with the county and the township to figure it out. So, but in general, our process is a developer is responsible for any street to their westerly most property line. Okay, that is helpful. Just one more note, Mayor Council, this is a really good window into like what development review process looks like. So, I think your concerns are very valid, but I would say um like just like um as an example, like when I'm in that room, I'm going to probably tell the team I don't like the idea of closing down Mount Carmel. I'd rather have it just cross and you maintain your access. But that'll be part of one of a dozen different opinions on it. So we although it's a very real concern, we owe you some responses in your neighborhood. I think it's premature for us to go over scenarios of how this might look because right now it's just some different colors on a piece of paper. So we owe a robust conversation to you. We're just not in a position to have it right now. But your concerns are noted and very valid and we need to find a solution that works for everybody. But you can see where I'm coming from where it's grayed out there and that's certainly looks like it should be or would be a city street to get running east west and then to go onto Caramel Lane. How does you know it's like you can't from here type thing. Right. My my response to that would be that they would use the main access where the roundabout is and go through the neighborhood that way. But again, um I would agree with you. I wouldn't want it would be, in my opinion, bad planning for the city to uh gain access to a new city development that would get access through a township road. That would be irresponsible on our part. So, we'll make sure that that concern is noted um and rectified in a final plan or the next phase of the plan. I shouldn't say final. Um, but uh we hear you and we're we're not going to let that happen. Appreciate it. Any other questions, Mr. Stewie? No, I'm good. Appreciate it. And just like Eric, if you think of some in a few minutes, you're welcome to come back. Thank you. Yeah. Anybody else? All right. I think we're ready to move on from this. Yes. Um, up next is the play concept plan. You again, Miss Smith. Thanks, Casey. Thanks, Casey. Have a good night. You, too. Okay, so this is going to feel really similar process-wise, slide-wise, conversationwise. So, next on the agenda is reviewing a concept plan for the Enclave at Carver Creek. Again, no recommendations tonight. Feedback and comments to the developer. Step one in the process. There are many unknowns. Answers might not be available tonight. We're looking for general feedback about a project, things you would want us to think about before preliminary plat review. The Enclave is proposed by Dr. Horton, which is a developer that's done some work in town in Meridian Fields and Hawthorne Ridge. The properties that are contemplated for development are the Lensen property and a Hammers property and city utilities are available via stub streets in current city limits. So thinking through the differences between the project, we needed to find uh that utility gap for this project. We've been planning for this one for a long time. Um thinking through Timber Creek, the preserve, etc. Um sizing utilities correctly, making sure streets directly above their westerly most property line. So for some context, the project areas outlined in yellow. So the north neighborhood here is the preserve, which is a product offered by Brindle Anderson. And then this is uh phases four and five of Timber Creek which is the LAR project that's currently under construction. Um this is phase five. So you can see how far south uh Timber Creek goes. So in general you can see that there are several connections into the project. So I think it's Timberlane, Balsam Drive, Monroe Drive and then Old Oak Road in the preserve. Monroe obviously being our collector, the street that is going to carry the most people through the project. the street that we have sized for development 243. So we've anticipated this project for a long time with construction of Monroe to handle the amount of traffic that not only this project will generate but several west from the general area. And then uh the inlay is the comprehensive plan design carver. So again the really light colors are low density residential. So it's lens and property lens and property hammers property. So you can see that the hammers is a little bit darker directly adjacent to highway 212 with some higher density offered on that piece. So in general the concept plan uh conforms very nicely with the comprehensive plan. Um thinking through densities generally it's three units per acre for low density five to six on the higher density piece which is the hammer section. On the screen now is the concept plan that's been submitted by Dr. Horton. So in total it's 530 lots. Uh you can see thinking through the low density, low density, high density. So lens in generally a single family home and then Hammers has a town home unit along 212 which will drive the density up to meet our medium density requirements in the city's comprehensive plan. Dr. Horton is offering two single family home sizes. So a 45 foot wt wide lot. I'm really stumbling on those tonight. And then 65. So the different colors are those um different product types. So 45 is the green, 65 here in the purple and the peach. The different colors are different housing types. So it's split entry and then down to a rambler, rambler lookout, rambler walkout, split entry, split entry walkout. So um same size of lots but different offerings largely based on topography. Something we think about specifically with each lot, what type of house can sit on a property? How can someone access their house? So, same size of lots but different offerings. And then town homes in this general area, 129 total. I didn't do that breakdown. And then the remainder of single family homes. So again, several entrances into the project. Timberlane, Blossom Lane, Monroe, Old Oak Drive Road from the preserve entering into the site. So a really robust street system that offers really good connectivity into the system. We talked a little bit at the project preview that we had for Dr. Horton about this park. The city council had concerns about parking. So, a large park uh that would not have off- streetet parking that would rely on the culde-sac for um parking of people visiting the park is something that we heard shared with Dr. Horton, shared with the planning commission. They shared similar concerns. Mike Sol Horton promised to take us out there because he said the views in this area are fantastic and it would be a shame if the public wouldn't have access to it. So, we're going to think through that what it looks like um what the park offerings might be in this area. You can see throughout that there's a trail system that connects from Timber Creek. So, in Timber Creek, we mirrored the trail system in Hawthorne Ridge. So, it's that rustic trail. Uh that's likely more challenging than what a a typical city trail would be. Um it's fieldit. We go out several times with each developer to figure out the best way to get through some of these properties because they're tricky. Um thankfully in Timber Creek it again was largely a rail bed that we followed. So if you've been on Hawthorne Ridge there are some great natural trails that you can see from the former railed. Similar in Timber Creek we would pull it through the enclave as well in this general area to offer people a different trail system throughout the community and then as you can see connects direct directly into that culdeac. So would it offer connectivity to the entire enclave site and hopefully we'll continue west and north with overall goals from the county and from the city of Carver to connect Wakonia and Carver with the trail system. So we're building a piece by piece generally trying to keep that general trail corridor open and available for residents and visitors to the community. Something that we talked a little bit about and then was included in your packet was some information about a 212 overpass. So, it's something we've had pretty lengthy conversations about at a staff level and with Dr. Horton. So, in this general area, kind of smack dab in the middle of the enclave, in our previous comprehensive plan, and our current con comprehensive plan, there's an overpass over 212. So, when that originally was put in, development was different. So, in the previous comprehensive plan, we had um industrial and commercial kind of lining the entire 212 corridor. As you know from sitting in these seats for a little bit that uh the market has changed, development patterns have changed in Carver and we have slated in design Carver, our current comprehensive plan that both sides of 212 in this area are residential. So they're a little bit denser along Highway 212 and then uh go a little bit lower in density as you move away. So the number of trips in our current comprehensive plan is significantly lower than anticipated when the overpass was included in planning. So, originally we saw this uh 212 corridor as a major commercial and a space where people would need to get over 212 in several spaces, but knowing what we know now, seeing development patterns, having this project in for concept plan, it became apparent to us that the number of trips that would travel over 212 in this area was low and it generally would get people from one residential area to a different residential area. It's not moving you towards a huge commercial node. Something else to note that is really tricky is that we cannot gain access down that sounded so motan. We cannot gain access down to Dalgrren Road with this development. So it doesn't become a through street to Dogrren Road. It doesn't relieve pressure in that area due to topography along road. Uh as you all likely have driven it sometime in your lifetime. It's a really tricky area. It's really steep. The road isn't in great shape to support uh traffic generally and we can't get down there anyway. So, the addition of the 212 overpass has felt uh like something that uh staff personally doesn't feel like we should move forward with. In general, the numbers that Aaron had in the memo that's in the packet puts it at a $6 to 8 million city-led project for the overpass. And then it would also include an additional $1 million required for property acquisition. So, thinking about an overpass, there is substantial property required for where it touches down. You can't just have a touchdown and then have houses directly adjacent to it. The right of way required is large. So, we likely would need to acquire the city would need to acquire a property in total to be able to have right away for it, which could include um like the property sale and then relocation cost for the people who are living there as well. So, in general, this project we feel like exceeds the benefit that would come with the 212 overpass included as part of this project. We've talked about it a lot with the county. We've talked a lot about it um with Dr. Horton. So, just all getting on the same page, sharing perspectives, sharing what we know, but there's a memo in the city council packet tonight that Aaron and his team to have put together about traffic counts, assumptions, what we think development will look like. So, looking forward to some conversation about that with the council and Dr. Horton when they're invited up. Oh, I updated this one. That was better. So, the planning commission reviewed this concept at their March 20th meeting. City council is seeing it tonight. Again, you saw that project preview at a meeting earlier in March knowing again this is a really large project for us. Uh it's going to have some implications for the work we do at the city council level on residents etc. So, wanted to get it in front of you as soon as we could. Annexation will be required with this project as well. So, review by the township, resolution by city council, review by the state. An environmental assessment worksheet will be required based on the number of units. So again that's the process run through the environmental quality board which will take a look at the built environment and the natural environment how this project will impact traffic noise uh animals native species etc. So again a really large document that would be required with this project and will go before city council for approval. Then preliminary plat reszoning and final plat. So both of the projects you're reviewing tonight are large. They require a lot of review. Um, again, we might go dark on a couple of them for a couple meetings, but we're likely working on one of these items as we start the process, but it'll be a while probably working through all of the information. With that, Deb, Mike, do you want to come up? Will you introduce yourselves before we chat? Good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Deb Rididgeway. I'm with Dr. Horton. And I'm Mike Su with Dr. Horton. And with us tonight, we also have Kurt Quinton, our engineer on the project in case you get a tough question. That's what we do, too. I would like to start by saying that we are excited to be back in the city. It's been a few years, but there's a lot of familiar faces still, so we're excited. Yeah, it's been a while. I think you were here during co times. I think that's right. All right. Uh, questions, comments, thoughts? Kay, you want to go first? Yeah. Um, so this was another project that came before planning commission at the last planning commission meeting. I have hats off to planning commission because that was it was a very long meeting and they they did well, but then also say it was fun. It was fun. We laughed. Wrong order. As as Aaron said, uh we we always laugh at planning commission. Um the big things that came up with the planning commission were access to the park. Um independent of what we talked about in city council, they brought up the idea that this is a large park area. Um and if it's going to be utilized well, um there should probably be larger access and probably parking facilities to relieve some parking congestion on that culde-sac. Um the other thing that came up similar to again what came up in city council was this far southeast culde-sac concerns with um just kind of maybe making that a throughway or some sort of some loop of some kind to relieve some pressure with city services and plowing and all of that good stuff. So those came up during planning commission. Um otherwise, yeah, mostly their comments that have been coming up in our previous meetings as well. Um but just kind of give you guys an idea of what they what we talked about at planning commission. Any questions from you? No questions for me. All right. I don't have any questions, Eric. So, what does that look like uh for access to parking? because it looks like there's a path between lots if you zoom in on it. That's just a a path, right? Correct. 77 and 89. So, what does it look like if you Well, don't look at this one anymore. I think we're all in agreement that we'd likely Yeah, we'd likely lose a lot too to get a parking lot in there. And this was based on conversations with staff. So, it was originally up by 212 and so we thought, well, it'd be nice to have it in the southern portion off of the trail where it can be utilized by people walking on the trail. Um, but we do realize that there will be need there will be needed parking out here. Um, if the location stays in the same spot, then I will not pay attention. Uh, well, that was the conversation we had last time. Uh, I think we've covered the 212 overpass. That was really the other conversation we had. So, gosh, at this point, I don't think I'm going to come up with another question. I mean, you can still ask. I will. Um, okay. Um, let's see. Just a few things from me. Um, thanks for all the work on the overpass stuff that I'm always feeling like if the engineers say we probably don't need it, we probably don't need it because who am I to say like no, we should spend way more money on something we don't need. So, I appreciate that, but I also appreciate the rationale and kind of everything that you went through as to um with the changing of the the zoning and what we thought that that area would look like, doesn't make sense to build an overpass for 100 car trips a day or whatever that number might be. So, thank you for that. Um, let's see. Just kind of piling on. I think you guys have received a message about the park, but just I think this council probably has more than a little bit of parking PTSD based on kind of what we've heard from our community. And even in the last year, we had a a park in a neighborhood area that didn't have sufficient parking when there was a soccer tournament or whatever. So, we have enough heartburn from parking that we just can't do a park without parking. Just in case that wasn't clear. Um, let's see. The other question that I have, um, and I forgot to mention this with Casey, but I want, uh, the record to show that I feel this way regardless of the project, but, um, I would like to see some larger lots in here. And I know that you guys are working on the Met Council math and that that gets tricky, but maybe this is one that we throw the engineer because I think um in the city of Carver, we pride ourselves a lot in having housing for all stages of life and we're doing a good job right now. If you drove in along Jonathan Carver Parkway and you really really looked, there's not one but two apartment buildings that's going in. So, we kind of have that for the affordable side of things. Um, but even if it was five one acre lots or something, you know, even 1% of the homes in here, I said that solely because last time I said it, it was misconstrued if I said five acre lots and it was really close. So, um, but even if it was 1% of the total homes, you know, if we look in the bluffs, there are a number and probably butdding up on two dozen of those lots that are a acre or larger. So, um, would love to see kind of that end of the spectrum filled with this project. Um, let's see. My only other question, and it's a little bit unrelated, it's a lot unrelated to this project, but Delgrren Road, when are we going to pull that trigger? I feel like we're always like, "Oh, it's undevelopable. It's so hard." Like, we're probably going to have to figure that out sooner rather than later. [Laughter] Are you saying you want to figure that? I mean, the current strategy is we don't believe there's any benefit to the city to do anything with it. I mean that unless properties adjacent to it petition to annex um there isn't an impetus to take it kind of just take it over similar to frankly Mount Carmel um a little bit different um but there is a you know kind of a string of what I'd call single family or larger lot single family developments and until you know Muellers decides to do something you're going to kind of create a gap at least on the south side were um a little out over my skis here, but the cost benefit probably wouldn't work out and you're not going to be de developing large tracks to the north because it's one home and then a big bluff and so um you know who am I to prognosticate especially if you looked at my bracket but um I don't see road being developed for 20 30 years Um well as somebody who got second place in the women's bracket at work um um I got first to say that friends um okay so thank you the that other road comparison was helpful and that makes it sound like I'm starting to say what I don't want the impression to be for this is like we should just take that and we should just fix that up and make Delg Road all nice which is not where I'm coming from but I see it as a hindrance to development and it feels like something that we're going to have to potentially take the lead on so that that can be the only figured out caveat that I'd add mayor is there's not developable property along township or along road right um until such time that Mueller's redevelops and there's no indication that that's going to happen Um, and it was kind of stealing a little bit from our strategic planning session. You'd be adding what would amount to be a, you know, a major roadway with topography issues and utilities and really not any adjacent tax base to like help support it. So, and it's not providing any um traffic uh support for the city road system. So there you're you don't have to use it to get to anywhere. And the areas that we do have it approved um do support residential. So going going west I just I don't see it unless there's a large track. Now again if property owners along that stretch deed water and sewer then you know it's a different story but you can you know it's not that long ago we remember the 2019 project in Carver where the Lensen property is you know where that development was brought in at significant assessment and costs and so it um now if there's something out there that I'm not aware of about somebody wanting that road to be improved that's a different story but I don't I'm not familiar with Okay. And thinking through like specific properties, this is the Wgner property. If you will remember um Timber Creek Lenar at Final Plat, we asked them to provide access to this area of the property. They very kindly did it um to allow for some development on the site because the remainder is not developable. It's too steep. Uh we couldn't bring it into the city with our bluff ordinance. So, this is the Waggner piece. This is a little remnant of Timber Creek. So the time when pieces along Dogrren start to maybe become developable is this area. And then there's a really significant gap of what we would need to backtrack to do to get over to that space. And frankly, the road corridor is hard. It's really tricky. It's really steep. So I don't know if we could even fit a city standard street in that area with sufficient drainage with how water moves down that corridor. No. Okay. Okay. Thank you for talking me through that. I appreciate that. Um I think that is it for my list. Yes. Anybody else have questions? No. Go ahead. Erin, can you go back to the um first map that has the colors for the different type of um product? Um I see the trail um by where the area for park would be for me like from my feedback is I would like to see even more trails it they're just not on here. Sidewalk or trail is always required on one side of the street. Okay. But even like I'm a huge fan of the um in the Hawthorne Ridge. So like when you go from the lower one, you can connect on the trail to the upper and then an Ironwood Drive, there's a like there's all the homes in the middle. Yeah. There's a trail that cuts through it. Yeah. Which I think is just well planned. Um that's a Dr. Harton project. It's the right team. I know. But um yeah, just trail connectivity. Okay. Um beyond just the sidewalks. Um but Okay. I would would I would I would be happy to see more of that as the plan unfolds. That was my feedback. I do have a question. So, since the mayor asked about larger properties, oneacre properties, I'm curious, is there a demand for a product like that in a development like this? I'm up in the bluffs and yeah, there are some large lots, but that was 20 years ago. What does that look like today? Do people want a oneacre lot in this kind of development? Do you have Before you go, can I add some narrative to that? Yep. So, the bluffs is interesting because if the bluffs came in today, we wouldn't develop it. We wouldn't develop it the same way. So thinking through the bluffs, a lot of property owners in that area have bluff on their property where today if that came in, our process would be to hold the bluff in a city outlot. So having several large lots in the bluffs wouldn't be replicable today. It's like in Copper Hills, um several of the ponds extend through property lines. We would never do that again. And we're moving forward like the Hawthorne Ridge lots could have been twoacre lots if they extended the property lines into the bluff area, but we've moved to a place of holding those specific areas, the areas that um we want to preserve that our bluff ordinance thinks about in city outlot. So applicable on lot size, but we if the bluffs were to come through right now, I think we'd approach it really differently. Go ahead. Um, I would say people would love to have an acre plus lot, but we just don't offer that. And quite honestly, the cost of land today is so high that we have to get what we can get as far as homes. And I don't know, Mike maybe wants to add a little more color to this, but um, we don't we just don't provide it. So, we don't really have the opportunity to know what the demand is because and I think most production home builders like us are the same have the same business plan is we we don't do the large lots. I'll just follow up on what Deb said just to kind of give you an idea is the lots here along the bluff just straight up development in the land are probably 115 120. So when we start going from quarter acre to an acre, the cost starts getting up there at the price that it'll take to buy a city lot of one acre. You probably go out in the township and buy two two and a half acres cheaper. So yeah, I think people would like it, but the cost makes it hard. Um, now that we hear the whole story about your five acre lots, because that's what we had heard that you're Stop. No, you heard five them all. May maybe maybe we could make some of the lots that are backing up to some of the farm fields there. You there's areas out there that we're not developing in our farm fields that maybe we can make some bigger lots to try to get some bigger lots. I don't know if we'll quite get one acre, but we may be close to an acre and some. But as Aaron says, and she's really good at pointing out when we cross the lines that we have to stay within Yeah. the ordinance. make sure we're on our property. So, but I think we can look at that. I think there's some down by the depending on where we put the park. If you take my idea, I think it should be down there. If you and I do understand why people think more center makes sense, but when I get these two out there and walk it, maybe they'll come to my way of thinking. And I will never say no to compromise, but they bear the same stars of Yeah. No, no. on parking on parking. When Kurt sent it over, first thing he says, there's no parking lot in here. We need a parking lot. Anyway, it's just, well, let's wait and find out from staff and from you folks. Do you want it closer to the road? Do you want it farther down? I mean, we haven't even thought park design here. So, there's a lot of work to go into it. But we we did talk when it first came over that we'll lose, as Deb said, we'll lose a lot or two just to make it work. But, and the three non-engineers were like, great, no problem. Right. Right. Well, and this is a content plan, right? So, this is the course creating portion for me. The then lens that I'm looking through this, this is 530 lots. And if we can't do larger lots here, where are we going to do it? Taking a bigger picture. We certainly can't do it with a 22 unit development that comes in. Even some of the other previous developments, you know, that aren't hundreds of homes, it's going to be harder to do to work out that Met Council math. So, um, I appreciate you guys considering that. Can we just ask you a question? So, when you're saying larger lot, are you saying the same product type that we're offering but on a larger home site or are you thinking a different home on a larger lot? Because again, we're a production home builder. So that would entail having a I think system in my mind it is a different market probably because again in kind of trying to balance out that range of housing that we have it would be probably more in that I hate the word luxury but that's the only thing that's coming to mind y perhaps um but probably not the same you know one of six or eight options that you have for the rest of this so Are you thinking millions? Well, this is a movie. No, no, but but you but you represent a segment of a market that we don't hear from a lot. So, it's to be clear, it's kind of it's I have no business at all. I represent you may maybe hear from some of your residents that talk about it. Yes. So, it's interesting because we don't hear this feedback at other meetings. So, it's kind of why we're interested. So, are you thinking a million dollar or cuz what we're thinking right now is these will be 650 700 7 $50,000 home. So, you start going with a bigger lot, you go with a custom home, we're going to start be over going over a million dollars. So, we just Yeah, I probably a million dollars. You know, to be really clear like this has nothing to do with me. This is just again where I'm looking through that lens of having that broad spectrum of housing. Um, so for the folks who are not like me and can afford something that is a million dollar plus home, yeah, I don't have it drawn out in my head as far as if it has four single car garageages in the back and a dog washing station in the garage, you know, like, but those are cool. Um, but you know, like I don't have it drawn out. I don't have a a price point or a budget in mind, but I I just think and again like I forgot when Casey was here, but my comment and feedback is the same is that when we're doing these largecale developments that if we're not providing one of those ends of the spectrum, it's my desire to start working on that higher end level of the spectrum to make sure that that keeps up because we haven't seen it in a long time because we're doing so many of these production builder subdivisions. And just I would add my voice to the mayors on that. I very happily live in Murdy and Fields. We were probably your fifth home that you built there. Uh we we bought our house before COVID lockdown and moved in after. So we were right in the prime of it. But I agree that I've also heard comment that there's just a dir of or a lack of um those larger higherend properties. So good. Thank you. You know, like it's essentially a move up property. Somebody spending 600 or $700,000 on a home here. Y where do they go from there? Sure. Yep. There aren't many places, right? And stay within your city, right? Okay. Um any residents that came here to comment tonight? Nobody's making eye contact. Except for Shane. Um okay, I think that's it from us. He's making it. Uh, okay. Thank you guys. Thank you. Thank you very much. Um, all right. Um, let's see. Now, we are going to So, before this meeting, we have a work session and sometimes there's not enough time. Tonight was one of those examples. So, we are going to do a work discuss or work session um topic and I always refer to the work sessions as our kitchen table conversation. So, it's a little bit more casual. Um, and this part of the work session is we're preparing for our strategic planning session that we're having on Wednesday night. So, um, with that introduction, why don't we have you take it away, uh, Erin, with your department environmental scans on community development. You're going to get me first. Means I have to scroll all the way to the end of it. No, you're going to start with Aaron's presentation, but I want to do uh an addendum to the mayor's roll out, if you will. Okay. Um so for those that are picking this up newly in the council meet in the council meeting from the work session. So we uh gave our team uh instructions to kind of go over a review of their department and their activities some interesting data and then provide a kind of a three-year outlook on short-term opportunities and challenges and then a three plus year. And the reason I wanted to kind of highlight this is we asked the team to be kind of bold and kind of what you saw kind of Erin's presentation on the concept plans. It was more like this is our process. This is what you see. These are the next steps. Um, you're going to hear and those that are watching are going to hear some editorial comments and they, you know, they're gonna, you know, from Erin and I's perspective and what you probably saw in the first part or those that are watching, they're going to push you to make have a feeling. And so, um, we say the I say that not, um, assuming that everyone's going to have that same feeling, but they're conversation starters or a way to, um, get that kitchen table going rather than everyone kind of looking at their phones, right? So, we're going to our goal is to get give you something to talk about so that we when you get in Wednesday, you can say, "Oh, I really like that or I didn't like that." Um, and one of the things I I'll get into a little bit later, but the one of the first things that we're going to do in the uh uh goal setting or strategic planning session is we've dedicated each council member uh getting five minutes to share their takeaways and expectations for that session on Wednesday. So, it's a chance for you to kind of, you know, share what you've heard, but to kind of shape how you feel this process should go, you know, what you took away, what where you think you should you should head. So, it's in a way like your own kind of mini presentation, if you will. So, as you're taking notes and writing down themes, um, keep that in mind because you'll be given time because that'll be that'll be basically kind of the first course of brick or or block when it comes to kind of building this plan update is uh hearing what you have to say based on what we had to tell you. So, now you can talk to Aaron. Thanks. Okay, I'm going to try to keep this as brief as everyone was in the other room, too. So, I'm going to give an overview of my department, talk through what we do, and then uh walk you through some big things that we've been thinking about at a staff level. So, I have the privilege of supervising the best department in the city of Carver. When Chief Trimbo said that, Brent looked at me because he knew I was going to be mad because I truly have the best department in city hall. I heard that public services is one. That's not true. I'm I'm not interested in that. We won both the brackets and the March Madness. We're really um we're a great team. So, if you've had an inspection in the past several years, it's either been Nick, our building official, or Brian Matson, our assistant building official. And those two people are so fantastic at their job and they really like each other, which is so fun. They're a really dynamic, fun team. They work through big problems together. And then we have Natalie Meyer who recently was promoted from an admin assistant to our community development specialist which was so welld deserved. She keeps us on track with all things permits. She is our BSNA guru. She keeps us in line. Um she is constantly pushing us forward on permit software figuring it out how we can offer it better to the community. So before I even start, I want to give a big shout out to my team because we are the best at the city of Carver in my personal opinion. So what we do um day in and day out is we guide the planning process. So it's Greenfield and now redevelopment which has come up a lot more in the past couple years. So thinking through the downtown projects like Charlie Mack, City Hall, Getaway Motor Cafe, um some new projects for our team to experience compared to just single family housing inspections. So it's been really fantastic to offer a wider variety to the team. U I serve as a liaison for the planning commission and city council. Um, I joke that we often have fun, but truly we do have fun. It's a really committed, fantastic group of people that I am grateful to work with on the planning commission. We tackle some really nitty-gritty issues with the zoning code, but truly they come with a great attitude. They are so prepared. They do a really fantastic job. So, I'm very grateful for the planning commission and city council. Obviously, we run all things permits. We do permit review and inspection and enforcement of the building code, zoning code, and design carver, which is the city's comprehensive plan. We're also responsible for researching, drafting, and preparing special studies for um all types of things like the parks master plan falls in that category. Um working through the trunk area charge with Bolton and M falls into that category. And then code enforcement is a big one for my team. So if someone's neighbor has a bunch of junk in their yard, you're usually getting Nick and Brian taking it on, writing letters, reaching out to the property owner to get some detail what their plans are, how they plan to move forward. We offer a lot of information and assistance to residents, developers, the business community. So, it's from someone calling and saying, "I need to put a fence in my yard to a developer saying, "I want to develop 2,355 homes." Like, it runs such a gamut for our department. Um, small things that are important to people, but then also large scale projects that are so impactful to our community. We answer a lot of questions and we create community and build relationships. I've moved away from the slide just because I want to update it, but I plan to bring it back in the future. But this is um what I've used to show the planning process. So, where we were at with the two projects we work on tonight were the very top of the road without light bulb. What we reviewed tonight were simply ideas and it shows the general uh way that a project moves through the process. So, preliminary plat final plat with obviously citizen feedback at public hearings. And all of this goes through chapter 42 of our city code which is subdivision. So it truly lays out how many copies of a plan we need to get at city hall and what the fees are etc etc. It carries us through the process. It gives us the framework for how a project is going to move through. Um we every process every project goes through the exact same process. There are different uh flavors, different residents, different feedback, but every single process is the same uh largely by state statute and our zoning code. So the city process is uh long. It's probably more work than we let on at a city level just based on the amount of review that we do through the prel preliminary plat and final plat process. And over the past several years, we've been taking farm fields and building neighborhoods and communities and places for people to gather and uh places for people to make meaningful impact for their families, communities, etc., which is um special, not something a lot of communities in the metro are doing. We've been in the headlines a bunch for the amount of development that we've been seeing. and we can call them single family developments, but if you take a step back and think about it, uh, more than that, it's likely the largest investment that most people make in their lifetime, and they're making it in the city of Carver for the community, the things we offer, the mentality we have, what we offer as a community. So, Brian and Nick are very busy people, specifically in the summer. Um, these were two snapshots of Brian's day for full inspections. They do a really fantastic job of jostling um inspections together. So they will at the end of the day look at their schedule for the next day and say like, "Oh, these inspections are next to each other but an hour apart. Can we call and try to figure it out so we can knock them out at the same time?" Uh also if like one plumber is doing a project at four houses, they try to line them up all so they go house to house to house to house which is really fantastic. and they also are taking time through Carver Oaks and Carver Place um one of the first apartment projects that both of them are working on. They are reaching out to their network and learning from their community. So, they're uh meeting frequently with Scott McCarti who's the building official in Victoria who's done more uh review of apartment buildings and Scott's walking them through the process and walking through an inspection and saying these are things you should look for and this bad thing happened to me once. So, it's been really impressive to watch them figure out how they can uh take their process, mirror it to others, change it how they need to, but they're are busy people, especially in the summer. So, in the spirit of the slides that you saw earlier, Brent asked us to put together opportunities and challenges for one to three years and then three plus years. So beginning with opportunities that we're working on in the 1 to threeyear phase of our lives here in Carver. Um we as a department are responsible for development which is fantastic and fun and exciting but also challenging when so many people feel so strongly about a small town feel and like making sure we think about that when we're reviewing these plots and these projects that are massive. How can we make something feel like a small town when it's a large neighborhood in a new neighborhood? So something we're responsible for and we think about often is expectations of all residents. So it's the person that just closed on their house in Timber Creek and the person who has lived downtown since the day they were born. And just trying to understand their experiences, how they interact with the city, their expectations, they're different um and just different life stages, different economic considerations that we need to think about. It's a range of people and the range is getting bigger I would say based on new people moving in. Uh downtown Carver is a draw for why many people move to Carver. So we also need to preserve that small town feel while we are developing large scale neighborhoods. So property property owners make big investments into the city of Carver. With that comes big expectations which I think we meet most of the time but we have misses and we learn from them and we try to figure them out. But as we continue to grow, the expectations become bigger. We are a really small and nimble team. So like I was mentioning, we will go from answering questions on the phone about finishing out a basement where a toilet needs to go to inspecting large scale projects. So just the range of things we work on can sometimes be challenging and um just remembering to take time with the small things because that small thing is a big thing to the person who's working on it. So keeping uh our team small and nimble and together just making sure we check in often um has been great with our current team. Something else is obviously education. So with new projects comes new experience for the team. So as United Properties continues to move forward with their industrial project. They both worked on Lake View. So we have some experience there, but it's a totally different project with different offerings. So I would say that's an opportunity for our team. If any of you have been here for a while, you know that Nick was here as a building inspector. He left for a minute and then he came back and he left and he worked for the city of Chanhassen for a little bit and he left because he wanted a more diverse range of projects. Uh he came back thankfully as our building official and we're offering that diverse range of projects projects now. So we're glad to have him back and we're glad that we can offer our building inspection staff a range of projects that it's not just you have to go to another footing and another footing and another footing. We also are working on new and exciting projects. Commercial and industrial growth over the past couple years has been pretty explosive for us. So we've had the opportunity to work on Quicktrip and Next Steps and Hometown and Lehwab Lake View, some of those projects that Carver hasn't seen in a really long time. But we've also had the opportunity to show and see the reinvestment that's happening downtown. So, uh, like the development of Getaway, I don't know if we'll ever replicate that process because it was so bizarre, but we got through it with some strong relationships, knowing that um the business owners downtown are investing heavily in our community and that's a responsibility that we need to hold. We need to be a team that is uh that can work with a project owner, but also making sure a safe a space is safe. So it's a challenging balance beam at times to make sure that we are meeting both of those expectations at the same time. So challenges in the next 1 to 3 years. Again it was an opportunity on my previous slide but we were working on a diverse project scope. So new challenges we don't know what we don't know about some of them. We're learning as we go on some of the projects. So thinking through that supporting the team how we can. Uh it also is tough to remember minor details on major projects. So we'll develop a housing project of 100 units and a resident will call and say like do you remember I thought I was going to have a retaining wall in my yard and it's just like like we can go back and look at look at plans but again that retaining wall is such a major thing to that one resident so we need to show them that we are thinking about it and we'll work on it let them know like yeah we'll look into it I don't know what the answer is yet but we'll figure it out. We also have really competitive market conditions. We have a really fantastic and fun relationship with the city of Chaza where uh people in the market will look at both of us and we both typically know that and we can uh playfully throw each other under the bus pretty frequently with developers like you go to Chesa, you're going to have franchise fees. Like we don't have those here. Um so there's it's competitive market conditions. We don't know sometimes why someone chooses a site over another, but making sure we're competitive with larger scale cities like Chesca and Chanhassen and Carver County. We also are trying to solve for things that we can't control. So, a narrative that we uh are going to start thinking about and I think we all collectively need to really embrace is that affordable housing probably isn't new construction. And that's hard because that's the housing product we offer right now. and it's uh new construction is fun and you get to pick all your finishes and your house is beautiful at the end, but that's not realistic for a first-time home buyer or someone uh that has different economic conditions than other people. So to say to to Dr. Horton tonight like, "Oh, you need to have some affordable units in your in the development." They would say, "We can't." And that needs to probably something that we think about in different ways. like is that something that we want to say we're committed to it so we're going to put X Y and Z in the budget that would allow for affordable units to be new construction because frankly today's market today's conditions today's costs do not allow affordable housing to be brand new construction for several reasons it's not one it's not the price of wood um it's several market conditions playing into it so as we continue to grow as we learn more as we see more development I hope we all can come to the conclusion that we likely aren't going to get a $200,000 house in a brand new neighborhood unless we commit to it in some way or if we partner with someone to commit to it in some way. It's not naturally going to happen in our current market conditions. So, Courtney the mayor has been thinking about the slide I had in our um strategic plan in like 2018. So, I did a little update of the slides with new market conditions. So, something we talk about a lot is low density at three units per acre. That's the minimum for the Met Council. So, taking into consideration the cost of land per unit. So, I took a property that is developing divided by the low density, three units per acre, included things like permit fees, utility and lot construction, and then all of the city fees that are required. So, it's park dedication, water connection, sewer connection, and the trunk area charge along with the construction of a home. Uh this would be base level for three units per acre. You're sitting at about half a million dollars. So something interesting and something I'm going to ask the council to think about is what it looks like at five units per acre. So the project the price is still so expensive and that's not affordable and that's not a firsttime home buyers economic reality probably. But when a developer comes in with a small lot, small setback project and uh the council says we don't want that, that impacts the affordability of a project. So we're seeing the lots at 5 foot setbacks on either side so they can drive the density up to bring the prices down. Say that again. They're driving the density up to bring the prices down. So offering that 5ft setback might not be your cup of tea, but it's people's. People are buying these homes. They're excited about these homes. What is right for you is not right for everyone. So thinking um at that five units per acre, the cost of land obviously decreases because you're doing everything divided by five instead of three. So thinking through small lots um again might not be for you, but the market is hot for it right now, whether that be the villa product, the single slab on grade. Um, but thinking through densities is an important factor when you're thinking about prices for homes. And I know people can say like, "Oh, I can touch my neighbor's house and I can see into their kitchen window." And I think the market needs to decide that a little bit more than us in this room. If for some reason those um th that product stops selling, let's have a conversation about it. But that hasn't been our history. And also just thinking through that everyone um wants a huge yard and they want to maintain it and they have a ton of time to mow an acre lot, which they might uh but a lot of people don't. They want that HOA small lot subdivision where they have neighbors they can build community. But I want the council to think specifically about density as we move into the next round of our comprehensive plan and the conversations we have in this room. Saying you don't like five foot lots is fine and we can take that as an editorial comment, but in general increasing sideyard setbacks is going to drive the price of a home up and that has implications for us developers, the end user and what that offers in our housing market. Okay. I thought you had something to add to that. So think about that different densities drive different price points. So, uh, the previous one, three units per acre was hitting about half a million. Five units per acre, we cut down about 100 grand on that end total price of a home with all the same conditions except for the land cost per unit. And again, these numbers are really rough. They don't consider a lot of things. It's just general round numbers. But a way that you can reduce home price is offering a smaller lot. Okay. Do you have a question? I just want to point out too though, the home is also a little smaller. 500 square f feet. Correct. Yes. Ready? Okay. Soap box one. I'm going to hop off it. Soap box two. Uh we are branding the downtown city park as the landing. And this is something that if you have known me for a minute. It's been something that I felt really strongly about for a really long time. I would say everyone has probably wavered on this project once or twice except for me. So, um, something I'm going to ask you to think about as we start moving into some of these bigger processes is the downtown park. And I know that we've gotten some specific feedback from people on Facebook that they don't want a splash pad in our community, and that's fine, but I'm going to offer the counter that this is much more than a splash pad. There are some water elements. Uh, it is a splash pad part of the park, but a majority of it is not. We are the plan right now is slated to include picnic tables, casual seating, enhanced parking lots. Uh we have a vision to bring the farmers market downtown into this parking lot, splash pad, cornhole, bathrooms, a flex plaza space, food truck space, branding, shade, and community. I know something a lot of people think about are if you are out on a trail is bathroom access. In the concept plan we have here, it's a physical building. So, it's an upgrade from a porta potty with screening, which our public services team does a great job um keeping up. But I know that some people feel really strongly about having a bathroom, like a full bathroom. So, the concept does include that. I'm going to boldly say that the landing is the entrance into the downtown that's akin to Jonathan Carver Parkway for the rest of the community. Thinking about the Miriam Junction Trail and where it's going to land, the landing um the access into should be marketing the access to the community. We can do so much with this and if we do not I think it's a I think it's a major miss. So um the parks commission when that was a group reviewed this felt strongly about it in the parks master plan. We also reviewed this information with the gateway to Carver group. So the county road 40 turnback project. We also held open houses and included this information and I think we had one resident showed up. there was like six of us in the church and we had one person show up. So what that tells me is that in general people either feel indifferent about that or they're excited about it. And I know that the people who say things loudly and often are often the people we think about the most, but I'm going to ask that you think more broadly about the community on this one. I also say I've heard from some people like, "Man, my kids are going to be too old to use that splash pad by the time it gets constructed." I would counter that. There are different park uses then. They can play cornhole. They can grab dinner with you at a food truck. You could grab a coffee at the Getaway Motor Cafe. You can grab ice cream and spend time here. This park is not just a splash pad for small kids. It's an offering for community across the spectrum of age. I am seeing the landing as an invitation to enter and stay in Carver. I also think that people coming over the Miriam Junction Bridge will have a choice. They're either going to choose to stay in Carver and spend money and grab lunch or use a bathroom or hang out at a park or they're going to choose Chaza and based on size and offerings. I would say Chaza is probably going to win because they have more restaurants. Uh they have places where people can gather. But I think this project could be a catalyst for our downtown in a way that is going to be impactful for business owners, for community members, and I think it's offering people a place to stay in Carver instead of traveling along into Chaza. So I think it's the first and most lasting impression into the city of Carver. So this is the general touchdown of the Marion Junction Bridge right now. And when I think about that project and the commitment that was made by Scott County and Carver County to bring this bridge across the river, I think that this is such a disservice to that project that you look at the back of a cinder block building. Nothing about this picture would make me believe like, oh, there's some great restaurants that we could check out or there's some great parks downtown. This looks like a place that you see on your way to Trasa. You would just continue on your bike ride moving to a community where there's more offerings. So thinking about this as our entrance, as our first impression is something that's I think important for the council to think about. So the general location of that bridge is the black across the river and then obviously coming into the downtown into the cinder black building or continuing on into Chaza. I want to skip ahead one more. So this is the work that was done by the gateway to Carver task force. So when we started rethinking the county road, thinking about what it could look like um as this park became more of a reality came to fruition. So there are some uh traffic changes that we talked about and we had a really large task force that we selected of downtown business owners, people that lived on the corridor, people that didn't live on the corridor. If you remember this one, it was like residents that have lived here 1 to three years, three plus years. like we were really thoughtful on gathering feedback from this task force about what was important to people across the spectrum in Carver and they were supportive of this project. They were excited. I get pinged on the gateway to Carver um web page fairly frequently like when is this happening? What is going on? Um from people on the task force and other people that are just perusing the website. So thinking about the work that was completed by the parks commission and that task force, I think being stagnant on this project now is a disservice to the work that they completed and the excitement that so many people from the community had on the project. So thinking through it, what we could have coming into downtown Carver, we could have a beautiful park space or the cinder block building. So thinking through the landing, I would like this to be a conversation. Dang, this is an old version because I had a different picture. Darn that. I might I might have you please hold in a minute because I want to pull up the other picture of it. But just thinking about it, thinking about our first impression, the invitation to keep people in the city of Carver, keep them downtown where we have a business community that is beginning to really invest in the spaces for us. Are you going to pull it up for me? That's nice of you. Okay, I'll continue on until you're done. And then we met with our Met Council sector rep this past week and we are already starting to think about the comp plan update which is exciting but also makes me kind of physically ill because it's a lot of work. Um I will say the comp plan update it's the most impactful document we draft related to growth, economic development, land use, transportation, sewer and parks. We are literally writing Carver's future. Like that's not be me being cutesy and funny. Like it is our commitment to what the future of Carver is going to look like. It's going to be a lot of work, but it's going to be good important work that we need to do. We also we use the comp plan so much that many of the studies that we complete, we complete them and then they're all done. But any meeting that Aaron and I go into, he usually has a couple maps printed out from the comp plan, developers come in and they say, "I see it's guided for this for the comp plan. Tell me more about it." It's our jumping off point. It's how we start conversations. It's really important work. So, uh, we're going to start teeing that off the comp plan update, what it looks like for us, thinking about a task force. Do we want it to be the planning commission and city council? Do we want it to be residents? Um, what voices are important? So, we do have some commitments in the comp plan, but we also have a lot of choices. So, we'll start that work soon. The comp plan is due at the end of 2028. We anticipate 26 and 27 as the important big drafting years. No, I'm going to say please old because Brent has my better picture of it. Okay, in preview for the folks that might say to you like it's the downtown splash pad, I would invite you to have the conversation with them that it's more than just that. So there's the other side of it. So thinking about this community gathering space with the community plaza, the food truck area, the branding from Jonathan Carver Parkway. So thinking through monumentation, plantings, uh the types of things that we can pull from projects we've done recently to remind people that they're in Carver and these are the things we're committed to. Um the monumentation I think we're doing has been beautiful and wonderful and it's creating like every time Dan Lis comes to town, he's like, "Man, your retaining walls are all the same color." which is like the nerdiest thing an engineer can say. But also coming from Dan Lis is like a pretty big compliment I think. But just the fact that we're committing to these design standards and these things that say hey you're in Carver and we are invested in this community. I think we could do a really nice job in the landing downtown slide. Okay, I did that one. All righty. And tomorrow's threeear challenges. uh making the best decision decisions we can today for people of the future. Um we joked a little bit about the utility extension that was missed at Overlook Drive and I can promise you I've made that mistake somewhere in my career while I've been in Carver. I don't know what it is yet but in 20 years they're going to say like dang they really they flubbed that like what were they thinking? So doing the best work we can today while thinking several decades in the future is it's hard work. It's big. It's sometimes really hard to wrap our arms around. Um, population is a challenge. So, more people, more expectations. Uh, this is cheesy, but keeping the main things the main things. We, uh, control the narrative of our story. People can have their opinions about our growth or what Jonathan Carver Parkway looks like and do we really need a roundabout here. But if we stay true to the narrative and the work that we're doing, I think that's really powerful, which can be an opportunity for us, but also a challenge for people who engage really periodically and just blip in and out when they want to. uh remaining open-minded when we've known the same processes and projects for several years. So, I could probably do a preliminary plat process in my sleep at this point, but how can we think bigger picture? How can we get a a unique project in Carver? How can we add those trail systems that bring people here? Uh economic development is something we talk a lot about. So, business, retail, and jobs. Something that you don't see as much on your side of the day as compared to ours is that residential projects fall in our lap. Commercial and industrial, we chase and we chase them hard and we uh try everything we can to try to get people interested and invested in Carver, but it sometimes just doesn't happen. Like we had what I thought was a pretty big fish on a hook a couple months ago. We were meeting all the people who said like, "It's really great that we're here and these are all indications that the project is moving forward and then we heard nothing." And we reached out a couple times and we heard nothing. Like they were um they had really cool business cards that were holographic that my four-year-old trashloving son was really obsessed with and I shared that with them and they're like, "Just wait, we're working on something for your son." And then we never heard from them again. So I was like, "What was the holographic?" So, uh, just knowing that when people say we need more commercial, we need more industrial, we know that to be true. We're trying really hard. Um, I would say there are no people that are more development friendly than we are when we get in a room to try to pe try to get people to feel comfortable and excited about Carver. So, residential you see a lot. It falls in our lap. It's what people are working on right now. We are constantly chasing industrial and commercial and doing the best that we can. And the community development department lives in two worlds. So we are um held responsible by contractors and developers and residents. So we can say to a developer like, "Hey, you need to street sweep your street more often, but understand that they're going to come out and do construction again tomorrow." So it's just having that relationship with contractors and developers, but also residents. So holding those two relationships equally in our hands can sometimes be tricky. Um we are I would say developer friendly. Deb Ridgeway saying like they're happy to be back. That doesn't happen everywhere, but we build relationships with these developers. We're a small, nimble team, but that also can likely translate that we give too much to a developers to say all they're doing is residential because they make it easy and they're lining their pockets, which I wish was true, but it's not. Um, so just living in two different worlds, the contractors and developers and residents were responsible to both, which can be challenging. Okay, that was longer than 10 minutes. Just one add on to Erin's economic development uh piece on number five just for an example the so the property that United Properties has in for their industrial concept in the northwest corner of uh Levi Griffin or not yeah Levi Griffin Road and Jonathan Carver Parkway. Um so that project that Levi Griffin Road was put in in 2011 and from 2011 to today um at various points we've said no to at least three town home development proposals another kind of mixed use uh residential um and we just had a a meeting today uh or let me back up one at one point and some of the council members are aware of this uh We contemplated uh signing an agreement with the existing property owner for a purchase agreement so that we could take over the marketing for that pro or for that parcel. Um out fasttrack to today we found out that uh United Properties project is coming in like a preliminary tax base estimate of $40 million when they complete. Um so it one it tells you it's worth waiting for that development. It does take a lot of time, but I would say at this point we're not aware of United Properties building any more than spec spaces. So even though there like we want to get this there just there's not an abundance of businesses and industries that are looking to build new capital building or start capital building projects, but we're we're working them hard. Um they don't always come right away like Erin mentioned. uh you know we were meeting with a company they flew their president CEO out of Atlanta to meet with meet with us at getaway and then we lost them. Um, but we often can't share the details of it because those companies don't want those details shared. But I think this is an opportunity for us to share a little bit of that story so that uh maybe residents and other interested community members are uh have some line of sight to the work that goes on maybe behind the scenes without knowing the actual detail. Because on its own, if you don't have that narrative, you can assume like why isn't the city pursuing that? It's just a hard story to tell in a newsletter article. And so, um, when we have those opportunities to share that story, we're taking advantage of that or at least trying to. Any questions for Aaron before I get into my stuff? So I wanted to to start uh app propo with our mission and so um and you have seen threads of this and or themes of this all throughout. I mean, I uh one of my favorite parts about having the role that I have is just seeing the commitment and energy kind of all in one. And that I think you got that exercise so that you can see from the fire department, the sheriff's office, admin, finance, public services, and engineering, planning, like you can see all this. And I at the end of the day, we're a service organization. This my opinion. Um, and the part that I really loved of the work that the council did during the last strategic plan was current and future residents with that understanding that yes, there are needs today. Uh, but really thinking about what are those future needs. To the point that Erin made, can we save uh future councils, future staff, future community members from struggles, understanding there is a kind of give and take in some of that conversation. Um just an overview of kind of our organization and a typical organizational chart. Uh you so you can see we don't often pull this up. Uh but when we do our updates I wanted to provide you with a line of sight to how our how our team is built. And then something unique. It's about 10 years now since the city uh by referendum switched this form of government from a plan A uh to a plan B. So council manager form. So, uh, residents elect a city council. Uh, the city council appoints a city manager. Uh, the council works on policies and ordinances and the city manager works with the team of staff to implement those policies and run the day-to-day operations of the city. Uh, just an overview of roles and responsibilities. um kind of the standard pieces and uh 10 would just be all duties as assigned, right? Um so getting into kind of the meat and potatoes um you know opportunities and challenges prioritizing strategic planning. You heard a lot of needs tonight. I would offer um if everything's a priority, you have no priorities. And so I think the really hard part is understanding, you know, what our priorities are and frankly having the council tell us and tell the community what those priorities are. You know, we'd love to build uh every single piece of infrastructure that has every single thing that we think we could possibly need and have uh staff that can handle, you know, every aspect. But I think you could kind of hear it in kind of the thread. So like I have no formal training in the Heritage Preservation Commission, but I'm figuring it out. And Vicky Son Ziden is working as a city clerk in human resources and going through that. Could we use a specialist in human resources? Of course. Um is that a priority? Can we afford that? Lynn is doing IT management. you know, she doesn't have any training in that, but the finance director is taking it on. And I could give you a dozen, two dozen different examples of each of our team members doing something that's really not in their area, but when you're a city of our size, I think that's something that you have to take on. Um, and then just kind of highlighting all the things that you already know. Thinking about the certified levy project, I thought Erin did a fabulous job talking about the Miriam Junction Trail project. I At least for me, uh, editorial cut, I don't think I fully kind of realize what kind of impact this is going to have to the community. My, uh, wife and daughter and I went down for a walk yesterday and kind of looked at that bridge area. They have one of the first peers popping out and it's going to be a massive structure and it's going to bring a lot of people to Carver that really aren't familiar with Carver. And so, what are we going to do with that opportunity? Uh, I've been fortunate to be here long enough where I've seen the downtown transition to a a downtown that was fundamentally open the third week of the month from Thursday through Sunday for the occasional shops to, you know, you can operate and do a business downtown every day of the week going to Charlie Mack or the getaway. You know, the ice cream shop has changed the face of the downtown. you know, plus the old kind of pillars of Harvey's the dog house and Lisa's place and, you know, Carver insurance. So, all the other things in between, but we've taken that step from occasional shops kind of we we used to have a Carver Business Alliance meeting that was just those occasional shop owners and now we have none. It's the full-time businesses. It's the veterinarian, it's the bank, um it's the coffee shop owner. And so I I say that to say that Berium Junction I think is going to provide that next step. Do we all know what that is? No. But I think we all maybe can agree that there's an opportunity. Uh I would offer that the public uh services department and their facilities is um one of the greatest challenges our community is going to face. You know, I think it's a generational investment. And so I'm happy with the process to date. I think to be patient and thoughtful about what the space needs are and engaging the community. I do think um we're going to get our most feedback when we have a product to propose. I think there'll be some folks that are very interested in the space study, but I think just with the the nature of um people's lives and how busy they are, I think we're not going to probably get and hopefully this is a jinx so we get a full council chambers on June 2nd. But I think you know at one point the council will have to decide like okay this is kind of what we're feeling about. What do you think? you know, and that will include, you know, preparing a schematic design of that building, you know, having land, getting a cost, showing the tax impact, you know, and then, you know, having that conversation. Uh, Southwest infrastructure development, we've talked about that a number of times. Um, one, it's needed to provide access to that development for utilities, but I think kind of below the surface, um, it's a way to ensure that connection fees come in at a rate that the investments that the city's already made in infrastructure for the water treatment plant and other utilities aren't born to the rateayer. meaning that if we don't have development uh occur at a rate that's consistent with our planning documents, we still have that debt service to pay on the water treatment plant expansion. So if development went to zero tomorrow, you know, that portion of that debt service would have to go to the rateayers. And so there is that balance of making sure that although we're not promoting residential development, we're providing the opportunities for it to occur. uh so that that that debt service can be paid and in the long run to kind of have our rates be somewhat static because the more rate payers we have fundamentally at the end of the day our rates should become more competitive with some of our surrounding cities. Uh I think public transportation I think is a huge issue. We're nearing the kind of the end of our uh rapid bus line uh grant agreement uh through the Met Council. um what does that look like? Uh what does prime look like? That's become a a a piece that start went from like 15,000 to about 50,000 in our annual budget. Um so I think that's a conversation thread for um the city. Uh I think residential growth and evolving service commands you could I heard a couple of these comparisons to other cities. So, Chan Hass and Chesa and Victoria and it's it's great having uh those neighbors. We have great relationships with their staff. I do think I would offer uh that sometimes that can be a constraint, meaning that folks are used to the level of services and the costs in Chesa and Chanhass and Victoria. Uh, but as a kind of a city nerd, I would say we're 7,000 people and they're 30,000. So if you know, I've used this analysis or kind of comparison of like we're in the awkward years of high school. I think we're we're kind of in those like we've just got our first job, we're getting these major developments, we're planning um but when Chaska and Chanhass were 7,000, we're talking like in the 90s. So they've got a good 25 year head start. And so how does the council want to reconcile that with infrastructure investments with services provided to residents with com uh competitiveness with utility rates taxes etc. Um knowing that the inertia is all pulling to the east that a lot of our new residents are from those communities or from Eden Prairie or Bloomington. And so getting that to kind of all balance out. Um water treatment and services, it's we've got had some great additions with Andrew and Jordan. Uh we're going to continue to make that but at uh those investments, but as you know, we've struggled with our narrative and our communication and and service related to water treatment. So how could we um take advantage of new opportunities and engage with the community in that conversation? And kind of a summary of that is just getting to that financial management, competitiveness, affordability, you know, what is your expectation? Where do you want to be? Um, and trying not to look at it from year to year, but it like literally looking at it in a three-year window or a fiveyear window. You know, what's the goal? I think one of the things that our team does really great is if the council says this is where we want to be, we we work like heck to try to get you there or provide you with the updates and tell you why or why not uh this is working. And that gets into that, you know, new residents, businesses, and expectations. The population from 5 years ago is not the population today. And so you're planning for people and expectations that aren't even here today. Uh which is thrilling, but it's also uh overwhelming at times. which which I only say that to say that the work that you're going to be doing on Wednesday and developing and updating our strategic plan and establishing new goals is a great way to communicate that not only to our existing community but to those that uh choose to invest in our community going forward. And then some of these things are are are duplicative but I think they're important. So that strategic investment so there are a ton of opportunities to invest uh whether it's in infrastructure facilities staff etc. But the challenges of today are can the residents and businesses afford to invest in those opportunities and deciding what your priorities are for those strategic investments. um from the first day that I started it, you know, and I think it's uh gone through my entire time here is downtown Carver is a special thing and people cherish it and have a high value towards it. So, what can we do to maximize that investment that's already been made and to continue that tradition that the community has had of preserving downtown Carver. Aaron was very passionate about one concept. I'm sure there are many others. Uh so I I would say that's a a thing for going forward, community organization and growth. I think one of the great things that not a lot of people know and I didn't really even realize until the mayor mentioned it, but you know, everybody uh with the exception of Christy who's been on city staff has been a member of the planning commission. So like how do you continue to like cultivate um folks within a leadership system to be involved Council member Pasco has been involved with state politics, but not everybody has had that opportunity. And so, how do we grow that community? Lynn had talked about education, an education piece. You know, are there different ways that we can engage uh the community and help them to be in a position where they can not just show up to a meeting, but show up to a meeting informed with the resources they need uh to make impactful statements. Uh, and that gets into community engagement, resident communications 2.0. I think we're really good at volume. I think we do a lot to communicate, but I think we probably have some antiquated models. So like in the vein of uh public notices and newspapers and um uh a open house from 4:30 to 6:30 on a some random Wednesday when you've got to bring two kids to softball and one kid to basketball and pick up another from daycare. It just I think it's an old model. I don't I can't tell you today what the new model is, but I think there's a conversation to be had about resident communications and how do we know that we're successful or not. And one of the standards that we've always talked about is we want to communicate enough where that when the resident shows up that the communication or lack of communication isn't the main issue. We're actually talking about the topic. And I think we've all been in a meeting where it's like I didn't get that notice or this is the first time I'm hearing about it or this is a done deal. I think we're I think we've got the volume piece down and again that's a a journey not a destination. there's always more work but I think there's a kind of a rounding uh exercise that we can do on understanding like what is the next step you know um I remember you know 10 15 years ago where people thought Facebook was a fad and they would never have to do it I think we're doing the website the social media what's the what's that next thing uh how can we engage with residents when they're ready and want to engage in a meaningful way Um, you know, it's great to have somebody in the audience, but we all know for the most part those seats are empty and I don't think that's an indicator of success with resident engagement. And I think that's an indicator that residents need to be engaged in a different way. And what is that way and how can we get to that way? Uh taxbased uh diversification. Uh we want that commercial industrial expansion and retention so that we can reduce the burden on our residential property taxpayers. I think we have a great team. I think you saw that tonight. I think you see that every day. you know, how do we continue to develop their skills and retain them? Uh, Chaza is about to make a major investment in their recreation facilities and services. Um, we know kind of informally when they do that that the scope of our recreation partnership is going to have to change because uh we have some indications that they're not going to uh be able to continue under kind of the current model after making a multi-million dollar investment into their facilities. Does that mean that we change our partnership with them? Does that mean the community wants to develop its kind of own carver facilities? Adding that to the list of other priorities that you're talking about? And so, um, and then kind of finishing up with, you know, uh, that sense of community and place, maybe that's recreation, but as that environment changes, how do you like maintain what Carver is? And it's through that. Is it through that downtown? Is it through a certain amount of branding? um you know, how will you know that you're in Carver? How will you feel like you belong when all the dynamics of social institutions and clubs and organizations isn't the same way it was 20, 30 years ago. Um and then, you know, I thought Andrew and Erin Schmidt did a great job of kind of highlighting infrastructure and maintenance demands. Um next to public safety, it's probably the most critical thing that we do. And so matching those services with the growth, it's, you know, it's somewhat exciting to look at all these new residential developments and, you know, new people and, you know, new population and new neighborhoods and friends, etc. Uh but the backside of that is, you know, plow trucks, plow drivers, uh fuel facilities, uh storing those vehicles. A plow truck of 3 to 400,000, do you want to have that stored outside or inside? And um it's the not so fun uh part, but the maintenance is is really critical. So that's kind of the the summary. uh that and hopefully you can see why we wanted to give you at least a day to to to go through that. Again, this will all be on uh YouTube. So, if you want to rewatch a certain presentation, um we've kind of highlighted five minutes uh for each council member to kind of have their takeaways and expectations. And then I also um just for those who need a little bit more time to kind of think, we're doing an exercise at the head end. um called the uh dinner for four or table of four that a lot of times I've asked as a kind of a interview question but each of the team members including the council are going to be posed this concept that you have an opportunity to take someone to dinner three people uh they can be from the h from history alive dead etc uh but who are those three people going to be and why and so uh we think that'll be a great opportunity for our team to connect and understand uh who each team member kind of values and the relationships um that are important to them and hopefully that builds some camaraderie. Um but I didn't want to just drop that on you and have you scrambling so you can you can kind of think about who you might be selecting for that. So happy to answer any questions or any logistic questions related to the strategic planning event. [Music] questions. All right, looking forward to Wednesday night. Um, okay, moving on. Communications. Kay, you want to go first? Yeah. So, um, planning commission went really well. We've talked about that multiple times today. I just wanted to highlight, um, one of the things that was mentioned today was the community park that will hopefully eventually house the new Black Socks facility. Um, but in the meantime, for those of you who are Black Sox fans, uh, there is good news. The Carver Lions approved a very large donation that will allow the Black Sox to be able to improve the field so that it is now going to be after this season a more competitive field that we can be proud of. Um, the field itself has gotten a little rudded and um, opposing teams often will make comments about bad bounces and things like that. Um, and it's a large expensive project to get that field redone to competitive standard. Um, but between some of the financing that the Black Socks were able to come up with and a large donation from the Carver Lions, by next season, we should have a nice competitive field again for the Black Socks. So, all right. Thank you. Uh, I don't have any updates, Eric. Uh, one update, and I've brought this up before, but just to mention it again, Southwest Transit has officially launched their 686 service, which by the way, Southwest Transit, uh, came into existence June of 1986. That's where the name comes from. So, uh, it's the express service is 5:00 a.m. to 700 p.m. It's hourly. Peak rate is 3:25. off peak rate is a couple 250 uh and you can have up to three kids uh go free with you uh five and under. The best part of the deal I think though is $5 a night parking for up to 21 nights. That is a heck of a deal. So if you're going to go to the airport, I can't think of a better way. Parking at Eden Prairie Station. parking at the Eden Prairie station, which is covered parking, $5 a night. So, great service from Southwest Transit. That's it. All right. Uh, a few things from me. March 21st, we had a business alliance meeting. The participation in that meeting still continues to be strong and we've got a really great group. Um, on March 25th, we hosted the chamers's coffee connect. Uh, coffee connect is something that the chamber does. I think it's I don't know the cadence on on Tuesday mornings. It might be the second and the fourth Tuesdays. I don't know. Or it's the first and the third, one of those two. Um but they have it at new businesses across our community. But what they're doing is they're doing a leadup for their first responders lunchon which will be later this month. And so they are doing it at every community in the four communities that they serve um before this. So uh it was good to do that. We had a really great turnout. Um, Brenda Good gets MVP because I think we were told that there were going to be like 20 to 25 people there and then the first person that Brenda spoke with that morning was like, "Yeah, we should have 50 or like it was like triple the number." So, Brenda scured up to Quick Trip and made sure that we were all well caffeinated and uh sugared up. So, thank you for that. Um, March 27th was the CAP agency ribbon cutting. They have a new location in downtown Chesa. I used to be on the CAP agency board, so that one's special to me. Um, and it's significant because it's the CAP agency of Carver Scott in Dakota counties. And up until um they moved into this building, they didn't really have a Carver County presence. So, um, if you're not familiar, Harvard or CAP agency is kind of a general social services agency. So, Meals on Wheels, um, Head Start, they have a, um, a food pantry in Shakipi, kind of a little bit of everything and they are involved with it. They do, um, energy assistance and those kinds of things. Um, so that was great to see them in Chesca. Um, last Monday on March 31st, I took advantage of not having a meeting and, um, I hosted commissioners Anderson and Fehee. We had been talking um kind of both of them and I about a separate issue and Commissioner Anderson who is brand new to the board was like you know I don't know a lot about Carver would you mind like kind of showing me through so um we went over the kind of it was like a night of plans the long-term financial plan the strategic plan the comprehensive plan we talked about um our two new developments that we saw tonight um and then we talked about some other topics, but was a really productive um kind of a long evening. They had a lot of great questions. Um but it was uh her and Commissioner Fehee um and he did a really good job of kind of like guiding and providing kind of color commentary if you will um based on my kind of nuts and bolts. So um it was a good really great meeting with them and I'm super excited to have um them interested, engaged, and perhaps most importantly supportive of our community. They both agree that cities are here to do our own thing which um can be supported by the county, but they believe that we are doing a great job and don't need any of their help for any of some of the other topics that have come up recently. April 3rd, we had Carver County Mayor's meeting. Um still having really good turnouts for those. And then last Friday, I had coffee with Lean Leo from the Minnesota Realtors Association. and um we meet probably maybe two to three times a year and she kind of shares with me all the latest um market reports and how the real estate market is in the city of Carver. So always fascinating if you guys are interested I'll leave these here. That's it for me. What did she How did she present the Carver real estate market? Well, I'm glad you asked. Um these are where is the um so this is the kind of monthly report and what it is is it's a report I think from February taking a look back um and as of February uh 2025 it's a 4 and a half% change in new listings um change in closed sales was down 60% year-over-year from last February and then um a 5.3 increase change in the median sales price. So, if you're interested, there's some more tidbits on there. Then, all the bar graphs on the other pages are comparisons to cities that she picked randomly. Um, I shared with her are our peer cities. So, she's going to start tailoring it so that it's the the Corkrins and the, you know, all the cities that we tend to compare ourselves with. So, thanks for asking. Um, with that, I don't think we have anything else. I would enter entertain a motion to adjurnn. I'll make a motion to adjurnn. We got a motion by council member sir. I will second and a second by council member Pasco. All those in favor say I. I. I. Oppose. Same sign. Motion passes. Good evening.