United States of America to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisibley and justice for all. >> All right. Any changes to the agenda? >> No, Mr. Mayor. Well, >> I get a Can I get a motion to approve? >> So moved. >> All in favor? >> I'll second. >> I'll second. All in favor? Hi. Um, we have one presentation from superintendent. Floor is yours, sir. [clears throat] Turn this on. >> Sounds like it's on. >> There we go. Um, Mr. Mayor and city council members, uh, city administrator, Mr. Terry, um, thank you for the opportunity to come speak tonight, uh, ostensibly about the bond. Before I do that, I would like to first of all apologize to this group and to you, Mr. mayor for my failure to steward the polling situation that transpired in our school district um a little while ago. Um I feel badly that I did not steward that effectively. I want to tell you uh candidly. I knew going into the conversation what I believe the this group's position would be on it around the potential disenfranchisement uh nature of it and I advocated very strongly to keep a polling site here in Elco New Market as we were consolidating in an effort to be a little more fiscally responsible with our budgeting for elections and I failed to be successful in that persuasion. Um, I accept the consequence of that. Uh, and I'm sorry it didn't go the way I had hoped it would go. Um, but we're in a political process and I have to respect the result of that, but I also want you to know that uh I apologize for not doing that uh to the best of my ability. So, with that, I do want to talk about a bond referendum. Uh, well, actually, I guess I should give anybody an opportunity to maybe say I don't I don't want to steal your meeting, Mr. Mayor. Uh, but if anybody would want to comment to me or tell me anything about that, I stand at your discretion. >> We understand the process. Um it's unfortunate that the folks that are down here this far south have to go, you know, that that far north. It's it is what it is and there's we can disagree with it, but that's what it is. Fortunately, that's >> Well, again, I it I always say that nothing is permanent and I will continue to work to advocate for our for Credit River and Elco New Market and see what I can do better in the future. So, I do want to say that to everybody in the room candidly and genuinely. >> Will there be I'm assuming there going to be some official signage for the referendum. >> Yes, sir. >> If so, could we have maybe one that we can post out front because I'm sure several folks are going to show up here, show up credit river, wherever like >> expecting to be able to vote. >> Okay. >> And and it'll be a redirecting sign. >> I will. >> If we can make that request, I think that'd be a >> And the same for Credit River. I'm assuming they'll have the same situation. >> Yes. and I will make sure our communications folks uh get that the way you would like it. >> Okay. >> The one other request I would I would make is that when because the polling place has to be identified on a regular basis that the next time that that discussion comes before the board to designate for the upcoming year that we are notified as well in advance as possible. Agreed. And uh I will not uh steward that incorrectly ever again. And I I can promise you that. All right. Let me share with you the the upcoming bond referendum. Uh and it the the long and the short of it is uh as your community grows, Lakeville grows, Credit River grows, uh it that puts a burden on the school system. The burden that it puts on the school system is that we have to expand our facilities in order to properly uh provide learning environments for our kids. If you could Tom go to the next slide. I'm go ahead one more. So [snorts] this is our vision and mission for our school district and one of the things I'd highlight in there is that uh we want to have safe and collaborative learning environments for our kids. Part of that is is being able to provide the ideal um class space and the ideal um room in any of our buildings for our students. We're going to get 3,000 middle schoolers in our 2728 school year. We have three middle schools and they are they are not going to be able under current configuration to assimilate all those kids uh with the right uh space for classrooms. And then as you can imagine if your classroom space is getting crowded all your common areas become an issue as well. In particular your your gymnasium facilities and your cafeteria facilities. I make it a habit to go to our schools and I serve lunch to the kids just as a way to connect and in our middle schools right now uh Century Middle School has uh 94% of it is filled to 94% capacity. You are crowded anything over 85%. Crowded means you're using non instructional spaces for instructional purposes and you are uh having too many kids in your common areas. And why is that? Well, you have special education supports that are in a building. You have um different types of classes like STEM classes, facts, those kinds of uh music and and art that you have to also carve out space for. So 85% of your gened instructional is a full building. So, uh I'll show you some other data on this and what it looks like for our middle schools if you could, Tom. So, [clears throat] as we always do in in all of our bond referendum uh situations, we go to the community. We use Morris Leatherman. Uh they do scientific surveying of whatever the topic is that you want. They're well known in the state of Minnesota and been doing it for over 30 years. Um, and in that polling, 90% of our community say that the quality of our schools is excellent or good. And 87% say the district does what is right. And I think when it comes to bonds and looking at options with bonds, it's about fiscal responsibility. And that is you don't overbuild and you don't uh overspend in terms of of what you're asking from your community. and you ask it when you need it, not because you want to do something uh I guess innovative or different. Uh and I think Lakeville is kind of known for being fiscally responsible. Um so I I think that all tracks whether it translates into successful bond is you know another question and why we we do ask our voters and try to share this information with them. If you could go next. So what is exactly going on? I I want to share this picture. Um the red is obviously Lakeville. The dark blue is here in Elco New Market and uh the light blue is Credit River. And based on our staff interaction and doing uh data collection, this is the picture we believe is occurring in our uh Lakeville area school district uh with these cities and what the growth pattern is projected to be. Now, over the last uh decade, we've seen about 17,000 new residents. And in the next five years, we're projected to see about another 5,000. And um I know here they're building. I know you guys are permitting uh in Lakeville. It's I want to say off the charts because it kind of is. Uh, and what this does and as as plans like this occur, what voters typically or taxpayers typically don't necessarily get from the cities is, well, that's going to impact your schools. Now, some people figure it out on their own. They understand that. Um, others are surprised that well, we have to we're taking on more kids and so we have to in uh expand our facilities and our capability to do that. Some of that might be a new school. Our strategy, at least in the time I've been in the school district, if you watched how we handled the elementaries, we went through a process first of changing non-instructional space into instructional space within our buildings. Then we transitioned to additions and put additions on elementary schools before we built another school, which is High View Elementary School. Um, that's the process we went through and we did that because we wanted to be clear about the numbers and make sure that the net tax capacity that was going to service that debt was going to be um legitimate and uh make sense fiscally for us because you don't want to be overleveraged in your debt service. So, um we're taking that same approach here. I do not see uh that this school district will need to build another middle school or another high school, but we will need to do additions. And we will need to do additions in our high schools in about two more years, maybe three years. We're going to have to deal with that problem as well. So, let me just show you here uh next chart. This shows uh what we we did. Uh we got three different demographers independently looking at what is going on with our birth rates and city growth within Elon Market, Credit River and and Lakeville. And this is the picture that we paint that uh about by 19 19 2040 I'm showing my age. I apologize. Um we'll be somewhere near or just around 13,000 kids. Um and so we have to plan for that expansion. That red line that you see running across there shows what our current capacity is in our district for the facilities that we have and I'm I'm referring to school facilities at 85% fill. So you can see we have a delta there that will be growing and it's also our kids are are going to age in. So, um, we think again that this is a a impact on our middle school, and I'll show you that a little more granularly here in a second, but also our high schools are going to be an issue. Next chart. This shows you uh what our middle school enrollment increase is going to look like over the next five years and why we definitely need to do something. And again, I'll just say candidly that probably in 2022 23 time frame, we probably should have settled this problem. Um, but it is what it is. This is when when I came back and reviewed all of this, I was like, we're going to have to do this and we have to do it now. And that's because we have this problem of 8% increase in our middle schools. And again, I I was hit with, hey, we need to put a new middle school in. But I don't see those numbers. And I think 230 million versus 139 million is a very different proposition that also services our problem long term. And I'll show you that here in in the next chart. This is what we would look like in our middle schools out to 2033 if we do nothing. So, our capacities will go up uh you know in 28 29 and they'll kind of bounce around a little bit over the the out years, but all of our buildings will be beyond full. Uh again, if 85% is full, this is this is distressing. Right now, Century Middle School is at 94%. Um and it it's it's a tough situation for that school right now. Um, next chart. This is what we're trying to create uh in our middle schools by putting additions into uh into our middle school system. And the reason you see that uh up to uh north of 3,400 like 3450 is we want to account for any variation that you can't uh you can't know. And then also what's the pace of of um folks moving in. While we have a nice uniform chart that shows the growth, we all know that the growth doesn't necessarily follow a uniform pattern because people buy homes, economy changes, etc. So, we want to make sure we're accounted for for years to come uh without having to add a whole another middle school. So I want to just share for facilities planning. Um we started with a facilities uh long range vision that we called uh facilities vision 2030. And when I came back we got started we took that information took the information my successor put together and we continued to work on figuring out what our facility needs were which kind of led us to where we are today. um that there's a there's I think it was teamworks did a very comprehensive community process with that um while I was away. Um, we also internally as I shared we got three different demographic studies and uh did those independently so that we could triangulate where our numbers were because the teamworks numbers were when I looked at them I had a big red flag and then I said this is this is overstating the problem and um decided we needed to do at least two but it ended up being three independent uh demographer for assessments so that I could validate that the numbers we were looking at had efficacy for now and into the future. And I feel very good about that because you're making a long range decision that uh the idea is to set a condition for the district to stabilize as it was before. The other thing we had to do is our boundary adjustments. Um that was that that combined with this is the effort to try to stabilize the district for a decade. Oh, uh, here's what, if this is approved, if you would, there are some builds here, Tom. So, what we want to do, obviously, if it's approved, is deal with the capacity problem. That's the first and foremost, but we're also looking at uh, you know, creating the right learning environments for the next decade of time that our kids are are coming through the system. Uh, so additional classrooms and gymnasiums address the capacity. Uh but we're also doing renovations to expand the cafeteria so that there's uh you know I call it throughput. So how many kids can you get through? You have three lunch periods that align with your curriculum schedule. Um you have to get your kids through there in about a half hour's worth of time. So through the line opportunity to sit down and eat, take a little break uh and and move on. Right now you know in Century where we do have the biggest problem. We have kids that are in the back of the line that maybe get five or six minutes of time to actually consume their meal. That's unacceptable. Uh and we're trying to avoid those scenarios. But also STEM and band choir are um our uh visual arts and media arts because we're going to have more kids in there. We need more space for them. Special education classrooms definitely need to be expanded. Uh our our population in in that is growing um across the system. Uh we also want to because there's more project learning opportunities for kids and this is becoming more the norm. We want to be able to uh set up our classrooms to have the right flexible learning spaces. Um and there's some parking scenarios where we have definite I don't know if any of you have been around Maguire or JFK uh when kids are getting picked up or let out the the whole backside of that is a real mess. Uh by mess I mean a safety hazard. Now, we take a lot of effort with our uh our staff to make sure that our kids are safe, but um we want to fix that problem as well. So, that's that's what if if we're approved, that's what we'll be doing across all three of our middle schools. And I'll show you some charts that give you a little bit better picture of what that looks like on the ground. So, this is Century Middle School. The dark blue represents additions and the light blue are renovations or tenant improvement in order to meet those goals. So, uh there's classrooms additions for Century and um the there's also an auxiliary gym or another gym space added on to uh Century in order to handle um the number of kids that we'll have there. And I think Century will probably uh continue to have the most kids, but the goal here is to get everybody back under 85%. So, Century uh Maguire and and Kenwood. If you go to the next chart, what we're doing at Kenwood is is much more minimal. It used to be a high school, so it has the classroom space, but it needs cafeteria and gym space adjustments. And then you can kind of see in the upper left there looks like a I don't know little gravestone. It's not a gravestone, but it looks like a a little thumb print or thumb on the top there. That's an addition to the parking because, you know, we need more space uh as we also have more staff in in the buildings, uh we're going to need more space for them uh for parking. And then next chart shows um Maguire. So Meguire has several uh classrooms uh and a lot of renovation internal to the internal classrooms. I don't know if you all ever get into Magguire Middle School, but this school was originally built in the 1950s and the classrooms were probably state-of-the-art for that time, but they were much smaller. Uh so we need to expand those. Uh we do need to add classroom uh classrooms in that building as well as an auxiliary gym. Um so a lot going on there. And then you can see around the perimeter there the uh change to the parking and the and the the vehicle pattern that we're going to do um to mitigate the challenges that we have there currently with JFK and Maguire being so close to each other and having uh crossing traffic patterns. tax impact. Uh I I show three different um uh home values here. The median for our school district is $500,000. Now uh so you can see the the uh difference there. Now the the financing is fixed over 20 years. As the net tax capacity goes up, the per month will go down for um for the bond. So this just kind of explains that the theory of distribution. I think all of you being on on a council understand how those processes work and what net tax capacity is. Um but essentially as people move in and they come online with property taxes, that fix goes down. We also look at refinancing all of our debt on a regular basis. In fact, we may be refinancing one of from 2019 as we speak. uh our financial adviser is looking at the prospects of that. Okay. If it fails, uh well, we're going to have increased class sizes. I think we will have to deal with overcrowding uh across our system. We'll have to figure out how to maybe adjust our staffing in order to try to keep the safety and security in the buildings as uh best we can. And I think it's just kind of self-explanatory that when you don't have enough space and you have a lot of kids, it's just going to be a crowded facility and not not necessarily ideal for our students and our staff. The ballot question asks for $139.6 million over 20 years. And that is for Meguire, for Kenwood Trail, and for Century Middle Schools and the things that I shared with you. Voting is on May 12th and there's early voting uh at the district office that starts March 27th. There is uh mail-in ballots. Uh so this election is supported by mail-in voting and then the uh polling all the the four locations will be open from 7 a.m. till 8:00 p.m. I think on May 12th. So ma'am, I'll take questions now. Well, I just have a a quick question. I understand you're at 94% right now in your middle school, but these middle schoolers are eventually going to go to the two high schools. >> Yes. >> Have you done this same approach looking at the high school to make certain that it's equipped to handle this large influx of 3,000 children coming into the high school or are you going to be looking in four or five years to have to do another referendum? >> We're going to have to do another referendum because we are going to have to do additions. Um we're trying to be a little more comprehensive by um looking at um our high school um and basing our facility uh adjustments on what our teaching and learning strategy is going to be for the next decade. And we are in the process of doing that now. But candidly we are going to have to come forward uh in the future uh with a referendum. And in my view looking at the numbers and we'll proof them out again. Uh I do I don't do a demographic study iter annually because that doesn't make sense. But I think in our third year after the one we just had is probably prudent. It used to be every five years but I don't think that's good enough. We do have an internal process that we do to confirm or deny um what those numbers are. So we have numbers for next year. We will bounce our enrollments against that and we we can go backwards in time and use historical data to do a a trend analysis to say okay predictively we'll be at this number the next year. But we also have to bounce that against permitting. So we do an internal process of confirming or denying. But all that tells us already we're going to have to do something in our high schools. It's not telling me build another high school. It's telling me additions. >> Okay. What is your Do you know what your cut off is for building versus adding on to? I mean, why do you say right now it's not building a new building? >> Well, a couple things. So, um, how many kids do we build for? So our our elementarymentaries when we started building elementaryaries back in the 90s and I wasn't here but the uh the basis was 600 students a 600 enrollment. Um when we built High View we used the we used 700. So, that's maybe a little bit of a shift, but for for each of our um middle schools and our high schools, we haven't established a number, but in my mind, it's the number that correlates with 85% fill for both of those. So, we did do that math and that's what we're going with. And so then you articulate that out to your your growth and your enrollment uh rollover year-over-year and you probably need about 1,500 more students in high school to justify a building and we don't see that. Um could that change? It would have to be a radical change that you all would like have to build, you know, thousands of homes in a very short period of time, which you're not planning on doing right now. But we obviously would want to be looking at that and we stay in contact with with Tom and his staff about that, with Justin and his staff, um, and with the Credit River staff to just know and see that coming. We're developing I I told uh so in our operations department we're developing um using AI and some other things some uh internal modeling capacity to really know with a high level of fidelity what the development pattern is going to be internal to the school district so that we're we're more precise about that than than [clears throat] we've ever been. Um so I think those are the right steps. Um the other thing I think we want to we want to um improve on is what's the levy picture. Um so we're we're doing that as well. Like everybody should know what that picture is because what gets lost in the wash is well the school district's growing. Yes, there's property taxes that the city has to have for infrastructure, but they don't articulate the school issue. It's up to us to do that. So, I'm telling everybody we need to do better at that from a prognostication perspective. >> Perfect. Thank you. Mhm. >> Speaking of long-term facilities, >> yes, >> I would be remiss if I didn't represent um the question that a lot of our community would have >> that our residents repeatedly are asked to support referendums for investment in facilities within the city of Lakeville proper. >> Yep. And while we may not have the student population to support facilities here today, what is the long-term plan related to facilities in Elon new market? Because it's not just our population, but everybody. There's a point between here and Lakeville City proper that would also come >> Yeah. >> to facilities here. >> Well, uh I know the internal conversations are about building south in our district and not north in our district. Um the I think there's a there's room for this city council and our school uh board to have conversations maybe a joint session or something to talk about that because I view that as the business proposition is in my view is not the hard conversation it's the political conversation and the representation conversation um and I'm I would also say I'm hopeful that uh you know there's an election in November And you know, representation on a council or on a school board says a lot and and maybe there's some effort to do that as well. I I did look into whether you know, Credit River and Elco New Market could have reserve seats and found out that that's not something I can influence, but you understand what I'm saying. In theory, it's like there's for sure three cities. Credit River used to be a township. I know you know all that all that stuff, but representation in the political process I think is one of the challenges, but maybe a a joint session or something where we're talking to each other uh and that representatives are talking to each other might be helpful. >> I think that might be helpful. Also, um I would suggest maybe engaging stakeholders from the community in the long-term planning process. I know in the more distant past that was um done although I was the lone person from this portion of the district on that in a in a large room of stakeholders and I know in this last round there was no engagement of the community in the long range planning process and I would just say suggest in the future that maybe that's rectified. >> Okay, we can talk about how to do those invitations. We do open invitations but maybe we are not um being like pointed enough about saying make sure we reach out to these people. So I will uh take that to heart and maybe you and I can work on that on how we do that better. >> I would be happy to do that. >> Okay. >> Kind of on that same note, I know because we have Eagle View Elementary here which is New Prague schools. I know there's a lot of families that are in the Lakeville school district that send their kids there. Sure. >> And then they pull in for middle school back into Lakeville schools. Were those are those numbers like statistically significant that pulled into like the 250 in the graph you were showing tonight or are they kind of separate? >> Um no. We we account for the those that are going out. Um and we're aware of the we consider it a problem. um we want our we want those kids to come to Lakeville, but it go kind of goes back to what Tom's saying [clears throat] that it's a it's a convenience in terms of choice, right? But it's also a relationship in terms of choice. So, um building an elementary school in the Elco New Market area might rectify that if that's in our future. The numbers don't say that right now, though. Um so, what what can we do differently? That's a that's a fair and difficult question to answer, but I you know I think that as long as our kids are going to a good school and I think new Prague schools are pretty good, that's most important to me anyway. Other questions? >> Thank you. >> Thank you. And uh I'll do better. >> All right. Anybody here for public comment on anything that's not on the agenda? >> Hi everybody. Jody Lucas, Xerxes Trail, Elco. I have a two-part question. First part is, do we have a start date for all the new infrastructure that's coming? No. Uh, water tower, water pulling, anything, any new pipes or anything like that? Whatever's needed to do all the expansion. >> So, most development they pay for and do their infrastructure for their development. >> Well, the new well and all of that that we're putting in. So you're talking about water infrastructure system infrastructure. >> So uh the city has already awarded a contract for the front capacity well which is needed basically it's a backup well to make sure that we can provide water >> if things are down on the system. So um the other >> item is we will need a water tower. >> Yep. Um, as has been discussed in the past, the timing of that has been accelerated a little bit because of having large users and other growth on the system. Um, but it was it's needed nonetheless. Um, we're in the process of doing design and site selection on that. >> Do we have final numbers on those? >> We do not. Okay. >> We're still working through that process. I am not sure when that will come back to council. Sometime within the next two to three months. Okay. Um I don't want to get arrested so I'm not going to say um also I would like to present to you at council to um let's put pause or a moratorum on if track brings any data centers meta centers or any high water users to town because we still have water issues that we don't know why. I mean, I'm working a second and a third job to pay for stuff to keep my house float with filters and filtrations and all this. It's not what was on my grandma era bingo card. So, I'd really like to have a moratorium put on that if we could bring that to the table. You know, we it wasn't on my bingo card either to be the center of other cities council meetings, but our name has been brought to Farmington has been brought to Rose Mount because Rose Mount is now sending out letters to their citizens regarding their water and the poisons that could end up and they also have a couple meta centers there. So, I'd rather and I'm not against the growth that I'm a realtor. I love it. But, you know, we have 36 new construction homes that do not have offers on them. It's a lot for a little town of 4,000. Granted, we want to grow, but like I said, responsible growth is always good. That's all I have. So, >> can you hear me now? >> Yep. Thank you, Alison. >> All right, great. I couldn't let Jody um talk without putting in my own words. Um, so I'm Allison. I'm a resident of Elco New Market and I just have a couple of suggestions. Um, while the lawsuits pile up against four Minnesota cities, Meta just announced that they've been quietly buying land in 2025 for a second Rosemont data center right across the street from the first. Um, I'm sure you guys know what's been happening in Rosemont or I'm sorry, in Farmington. Um, [laughter] this is coming everywhere, right? So, I know that the council doesn't want another community fight over water like the one we've been through before, but I also know that you can't simply refuse a lawful business use, right? So, in hopes of getting ahead of the wave of proposed data center developments that's making its way across Minnesota, I have a suggestion of three things that we could do right now to um assure that Elco New Market doesn't catch a lawsuit over data center either from the residents or the tech giants. Uh zoning when you're when you're talking about the zoning for data centers this year. I saw that was on the um 2026 list for the planning committee. We can write water impact requirements so strict that developers have to prove to us that they won't harm us, not the other way around. The other is a moratorum or even a proclamation. In February, the city of Egan was the first in the state to place a one-year moratorum on data center construction. Last year, Whitebear Township announced a proclamation. Two different tools. Pass a proclamation tonight stating the community's values and direct staff to prepare a moratorum ordinance for the next meeting. Whitebear Township's attorney confirmed a proclamation doesn't block approval. It just states your values first. Another one is an NDA talking to elected officials to advance a proposal. is lobbying. Lobbying should never be a secret. So, I'm asking you to prohibit staff and commissioners from signing NDAs on development inquiries. Um, I'm sure you know that both the NDA ban and the moratorum on data centers are moving in the legislature right now. But you don't have to wait to do the right thing when you know what the right thing is. So, I would like you to act on these um suggestions and then I know that none of us will feel like we need to file public record request every single month just to find out what's being discussed about in our community. [clears throat] >> That's it. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Anyone else? Yes, sir. Noah Henry, live on Xerxes Trail. Um, recently had a son and I'm wondering where the well progress is because I'm hearing all over, we're making great progress with the well owners. We're making great progress with the well owners. We haven't been contacted. Aunts and uncles haven't been contacted. So, where's this progress that we speak of? Cuz right now, we're just sitting here and we're buying filters by the case off Amazon and buying water bottles. >> And which household do you live in? >> Zer uh 26501 Xerxes Trail. >> Okay. So, you live with Jod. So, we have contacted Jod quite a while ago. We were referred to her attorney for information. >> Okay. >> Um this isn't the only well that we're making contact on. There's a number of well owners who would express concerns that we're investigating right now. Um we're currently working through those. Um your well situation is a little more complex because there are three homes working off of one well and we're in the process of contacting the other well owners who are connected to the well to get information from them regarding their experiences as well. So I would anticipate that we should be circling back with you at some point um and uh potentially for some additional information. And given that you're here, you know, requesting what the progress is, I would assume full cooperation um with any investigation that we might need to do. >> I'm just wondering when I can stop buying bottled water to put in my son's sterilizer and stop having to worry about what he's drinking cuz thankfully we don't need formula. But if we did, I mean, am I gonna have to just keep buying water and keep buying water and keep buying water till he's on solid foods? Or can I when's the point that I can just say, "Yeah, go ahead. Drink from the hose. It's safe. I did it as a kid. It's safe. I didn't grow up in Elco, but when can I when he's running around the yard and he just says, "I'm thirsty." Can I just look at him and say, "Grab out of the hose." or when I want to wash my dogs outside and I don't have to worry about them getting some sort of skin infection or getting sick from ingesting a bunch of water. That's all. >> Thank you. >> Anyone else? Is there anything? >> Second. >> General business. >> We have two items under general business tonight. The first item is asking the council to take a number of actions related to the CASAW 86 uh transportation study. Um Rene will give the report on that. I noticed in the packet that the um memorandum uh reviewing this seemed to have um there was no text in it. So I just want to confirm that. Is that what you saw as well? >> Um >> like cut off mid-sentence. Uh it looks like there's just a bunch of text missing. So I'll give a little more explanation than I normally would um on this. So um in the about a year ago, uh developer KJ Walk approached the city regarding a potential development of property they own adjacent to County Road 86 on the south side of the city in Beard Avenue. Uh the property is located just south of the Boulder Heights development. Um, city staff had uh concerns as the city grows whether Beard Avenue or the existing location of Beard Avenue and where it intersects County Road 86 is the appropriate long-term location for Beard Avenue. Um, so County Road 86 is currently a two-lane rural paved road under the jurisdiction of the two counties. Beard Avenue is a gravel road under the jurisdiction of the township. Once that develops that would uh Beard Avenue would be the cities. Um just worried about how the road comes into a curve. Um so we approached both Scott County and Lee Sewer County or I'm sorry, Rice County who agreed uh that this uh really demands further study. County Road 86 may be a a major east west arterial corridor uh into the future and identifying the appropriate uh location and spacing for intersections on that road in the future um is important. So uh Bolton and M has provided a uh proposal for the city and the two counties to study that corridor um and assist us through that process. Uh there's actually two they've broken it into two pieces. one studying the uh area more um nearer to the proposed development. And then uh one is a a greater study that uh would span from County Road 27 on the west, which is uh Texas, all the way over to Pillsbury on the east, which is on the other side of I35. Um the total uh cost of that study is um $41,440. Both Scott and uh Rice counties have agreed to pay um approximately $12,800 each would leave that would leave the city share um at about 15,700 of which um KJ Walk the developer has uh agreed to pay a portion of that. the result um to the city's budget cities uh it would impact the city budget total amount of $12,012. Um so with that information the um city council is being asked to approve a cooperative agreement with uh Scott and Rice counties. their boards have already approved those agreements and I do have their signed um agreements also to approve the cost share agreement with KJ Walk um for their portion. I do also have their signed agreement and then finally to approve the Bolton and Mink proposal for the county highway 86 access study. >> You could approve it all by one motion if you so chose. Is there a number or anything that needs to go there or we just say >> so moved? So >> second >> I >> just question the idea [clears throat] >> that will be one of the things that's looked at. >> Yes. Um that is one of the >> it is one of the things that uh Bolton and Mink will evaluate what the future alignment of County Road 86 should be. So if that curve should be softened um they're going to establish what the rideway limits should be and the and the design through there >> or the alignment through there. >> They'll also look at access and access points along that corridor as well. >> Yeah. It doesn't mean it's going to be built or reconstructed right now, but it is a plan. >> So, as properties develop around that, we'll preserve right away accordingly. >> Thank you. >> Correct. So, um, this item also, uh, Rene will handle. Uh, the council is being asked to provide feedback on the concept plan for Boulder Heights South. I should note that a representative of the developers in the room, uh, Luke Israelen, um, in case there's any questions or if he has any comments. >> Do you have any comments? >> Good evening. My name is Luke Islesen, KJW. Um I I don't have any comments in particular, just I am here in case you have any questions. Um been working through things with staff a little bit. We're looking forward to extending the Boulder Heights development to the south and um yeah, look forward to feedback from you guys. >> Okay. Um I am going to give a presentation uh on this concept plan. Um it is quite lengthy. It's the same similar presentation that would be given at a planning commission meeting. Uh but because this uh project does involve annexation, anything uh any negotiations as a result of the development is uh this is the time to uh really identify um any issues that the the city has. So I'll just uh get started here. Um so again, the property owned by KJ Walk is approximately 30 acres located immediately south of the existing Boulder Heights development. Um that one big hurdle in developing the property is uh determining that best long-term long range alignment for Beard Avenue which is on the east side of the property. Um again we've questioned this. We're working with the um counties on what that alignment should look like long term and [clears throat] the developer has submitted two concept plans. one showing Beard continuing on its existing alignment and one showing Beard Avenue realigned to the west. And uh KJ Walk is interested in receiving city council feedback and getting started with the portion of the development uh that would not be affected by any potential realignment. Um this slide simply shows the location of the proposed development in proximity to the current city limits. Uh the parcels are shown in red. Uh so this is concept plan number one. It in it shows 80 single family residential lots and a area reserved for approximately 72 apartments or town houses. And this is uh shown beard avenue on its existing alignment. Uh this is concept plan number two. Uh this plan shows 71 single family lots in an area reserved for approximately 88 apartments or town homes. And this shows the realignment of Beard Avenue through the development. Uh just uh reviewing the neighborhood conditions, you can see the almost fully developed u Boulder Heights neighborhood to the north. I think there's only 10 vacant lots left in the development and everything surrounding it is really rural agricultural or rural residential large lot like 10 acre lots. Um everything surrounding uh this is outside of the township um except to the or outside of the city limits except to the north. Um the city city's comprehensive plan um that guides the north half of the property to low density residential and the south to medium density residential and um the area to the north has to meet 2.5 to five units per net acre um residential units housing units and the south must develop at a density of 5 to 10 units per net acre. Um this slide shows the city's ultimate sewer service boundary for the city shown in brown and the proposed uh 20 or the 2040 growth area uh based on our comprehensive plan is shown in turquoise and the location of the proposed development is shown in red. Um the current zoning authority for the property is Scott County and is zoned urban expansion reserve. they reserve uh property or preserve property for um urban development. If annexed into the city, it would automatically uh be zoned urban reserve by the city. And then future zoning must be consistent with the city's 2040 comprehensive plan. Uh so those um future zoning designations would be R2 on the north and R3 on the south. And that is what the uh developer is proposing. um as indicated on his concept plans. [clears throat] >> This slide uh shows the minimum lot standards for the development. Um based on the information contained in both concept plans, the minimum lot standards will be met for the R2 district. That's a 65 foot wide lot about 8,125 square feet. And then um for the area that would be zoned R3, they have some options to do single family, two family or attached unit up to eight attached units. So there could be small apartment buildings or attached town home units. Um [clears throat and cough] uh specific layouts for the multif family area have not been um submitted yet. Uh there Beard Avenue is identified as a major collector street, a city level collector street. Uh there is additional lot depth and landscaping requirements that will be required for any lots that back up to Beard Avenue. Um and then attached housing uh does require 30% of the total site area be landscaped and inground irriation required. Um a landscaping plan will be required as part of any future development uh proposal. Um the city has tree preservation requirements. Um the site is almost entirely farmed. Uh but there are some small tree lines along the property occupation lines. Tree inventory will be required. Um or a statement from a qualified professional stating that no significant trees exist on the property. Um this is a clip out of the city's comprehensive sanitary sewer plan. Um the location of the property is outlined in green on the bottom of the map. It depicts the property is in sewer district 1 S6. And the city engineer has also conducted a downstream analysis of any limiting factors in the city sewer system and determined that our downstream system can handle the sanitary flow from the proposed development. Um this slide a little bit hard to see but the shows the existing sanitary sewer system. There's some green um sanitary sewer lines in the Boulder Heights development to the north. Uh sanitary sewer is available in Oxford Lane and um the Boulder Heights development is serviced by a lift station as well as some additional lift stations downstream. Um the developer will be required to stub uh sanitary sewer to adjacent undeveloped properties that may also flow into the system. Uh this slide depicts the city's comprehensive water plan and depicts a 12-in trunk water line um in the purple on the east side of the property and beard. Um so we will u look to implement the 12-in trunk water line running north south through the property as it develops. Uh this slide shows our existing water system water services available on the north side of the property at the south end of Oxford Lane and then also over at the corner of Beard and Lydia. Um again that 12-inch water man must be extended uh north south through the development consistent with the 2040 water plan and the city seeks looping of the water system through the development for redundancy and um the developer will be required to stub water to adjacent undeveloped properties. Uh this is the storm water map just kind of shows the drainage areas or wersheds. The property lies within two separate watersheds. Uh the Scott WL on the uh western approximate threequarters and then the Canon River watershed district uh approximately the east quarter of the property flows to the east. So these are the kind of two concept plans side by side that they depict one uh storm water pond kind of centrally located on the property. Um we don't have any further details uh at this point. It's still at a concept plan level. Um ponds will be dedicated to the city um as an outlet and city access to ponds must be provided for. Uh ponds require a 10- foot vegetative buffer and 35 foot building setbacks. Um a wetland delineation has not yet been completed, but is necessary as part of any future development applications. There are no female flood planes on the property and there are no DNR protected wetlands on the property. Um there's a DNR protected wetland to the east on the east side of Beard Avenue. Uh transportation on the property uh butts three streets. Oxford Lane, existing city street that's stubbed on the north side of the property. Um it's 28 ft wide and a 60 foot rightway. And this street will be extended into the development to serve uh the development. And then county highway 86 on the south. Again, it's a the existing two-lane paved um county road. Um, Scott County has this uh road identified as a principal arterial. And we think of a principal arterial that could be your Interstate 35. So, they have this uh potentially, you know, a pretty major east west corridor. Um, Rice County's transportation plan um is showing this road as a I think a minor arterial roadway. So, there's conflict between the two counties um comprehensive plans and we've called that out and they they recognize that as we they move forward with their next planning cycles um that may be rectified. And one of the uh things to note about that is um county route 86 for many years, probably as long as I've been around the new and uh new market area, there's always been some uh question of whether there could be interchange at 86 and 35 someday. So that's the reason the county uh really wants the Scott County really wants to preserve a a greater rightway through there um 50 or 100 years from now. Um that could could happen. It won't happen anytime soon. And then of course uh Beard Avenue on the east is that gravel township road under the uh jurisdiction of the township. Improvement of the road is recommended in connection with the proposed plat. Um the city collected traffic volumes on this road uh about uh six years ago. Uh they're very minor. Um we actually collected them twice. There's a couple hundred cars a day that um travel this this road. Um, again, we have it programmed as a major collector street, which we don't allow private accesses to major collector streets. The purpose of them is to carry traffic to uh different neighborhoods. Um, and that's all I have there. So, we have some uh recommendations for improvement of Beard Avenue. [clears throat] The existing Boulder Heights development to the north contains 125 single family lots. And although there are two platted streets that access the development, um Oxford Lane and Lydia Lane, only Oxford Lane is currently open to traffic. Uh Lydia Lane is currently barricaded at Beard Avenue. And this arrangement is a result of negotiations with New Market Township back in approximately 2015. Um, at the time of the pre previous development, um, Beard Avenue is barricaded at Lydia because it's gravel currently and the developer was required to pave approximately 610 of a mile of 275th Street from Oxford out to County Road 91 uh, at that time in lie of Paving Beard Avenue. and that was the really the only way to get that development done. It was just the township's requirement for annexation and uh that's kind of how it ended up. So the existing um Oxford Lane through the development was just designed as a local street. It's kind of acting as like a mini or a minor collector street right now because all the development from the traffic has to go there to get out of the development. Uh but it was just designed as a local road uh 28t wide. Um and we have concerns with appro approximately 200 additional homes using Oxford Lane uh to get out of the development. So uh staff is recommending that as a condition of the plat approval for the initial phase that Beard Avenue be improved from 275th Street to Lydia. And that's the area on the map uh on the PowerPoint shown in the yellow dash line. And then that Lydia be opened to traffic or at Beard Avenue. So that would result in two ways in and out of the development. Um the Beard Avenue road section could remain rural in our opinion uh with a paved surface and uh rural ditches between 275th and Lydia Lane. Um Beard Avenue south of Lydia Lane could be improved incrementally with future phase phases of the development. And if realignment of beard is required, uh the roadway could transition to an urban section with curb and gutter in the realigned area. U just some comments. Uh the first um I'm just going to pick out some stuff I haven't talked about already. Uh the f the first local road connection to Beard should be at least an eighth mile north of County Road 86 to allow for potential turn lanes approaching 86. [clears throat] Um staff recommends that uh and the planning commission that local road connections be provided to the property to the west. There are two 10acre properties to the west that have some developable area on them. should they want to develop. That was one of the conditions. Um yeah, [clears throat] we did run some traffic volume projections just based on the how uh res lot count numbers provided by the developer um for both the uh for both concept plan one and two. Um the development is going to basically generate about 1,300 additional cars a day. Traffic modeling um is planned to be included with that larger uh study that's being conducted by Bolton and Mink. Sidewalks and trails. Based on um the city code and comprehensive plan, we would uh recommend or require sidewalks on one side of all local streets and a 10- foot wide buminous trail on the west side of Beard Avenue. Um in uh related to parks, um the city subdivision ordinance requires 8% of land be dedicated for parks, um playgrounds or public open space, etc. or um cash in lie of be dedicated to the city. Um if no land dedication is required, the park fee has been established at 8% of the fair market value of the land. Um the city's comprehensive plan does not show any park search area. So the um on this property or in the near vicinity, the map on the lower left uh and then outlined in green shows the location of the property and you can see there are no park search areas. [clears throat] And then in addition uh our comprehensive park plan uh states that it's recommended that all neighborhoods be serviced by a park that's within a half mile. And that was established um believing that that was an acceptable walking distance, a half a mile, not having to cross any major highways or um roadways. And the map on the lower right shows the one half mile radius of Boulder Heights Park that's in the development to the north. Um so you can see the subject property is uh based on the guidance in our comprehensive plan it is able it is in the service area of the existing park. >> [clears throat] >> Based on this guidance in the comprehensive plan, staff have recommended cash in lie of park dedication and then the planning commission concurred with that recommendation at their meeting on um February 24th. The parks commission uh did not review this just because of scheduling. They did not review this until after the planning commission had reviewed it. And at their meeting on uh last night they recommended land in lie of cash. So the council is going to be asked for some direction on this and um just going to provide a little bit more information here. So [clears throat] there uh for the commissioners I read through the meeting minutes and I was not at the meeting but uh talked with the staff member that was the leazison Brandon at that meeting and then read he had already completed um kind of verbatim detailed meeting minutes. So for those that were in support of the land dedication, there was a he heavy emphasis that they weren't necessarily looking for like a fully developed park with a playground in it, but more just open space that where, you know, a kid could throw football or play a pickup game of soccer or something like that. um and they expressed uh disappointment that they did not get to uh review the concept plan before the planning commission. So, I'll just be upfront about that. They also recommended that if uh land dedication is um land is dedicated that it be on the west side of the property adjacent to uh potential development to the west so that maybe it could be added to in the future. Um I have on this map I've shown the location of Boulder Heights Park on the north outlined in green and then the de I superimposed the development on an aerial photo the proposed development and then there's again these two undeveloped parcels to the west or really I could say three to the west of Boulder Heights and there's some significant grade and wetlands um off to the less. So, I've highlighted in yellow with outlined in the yellow dashed line what I I think could reasonably be, you know, developed and added in this area. It calculated out to about 15 acres. Um, and I've also included some dimensions of or distances from the existing park um down in the in the proposed development. So, we have about 800 feet from the park to the northern boundary of the new development. And then uh the new development is about 1,200 ft. So I'll keep moving with the rest of my presentation. Then we can come back to the any questions that we have for the city council. Um annexation is required because the property is currently located in New Market Township and it would be uh recommended that it be achieved by joint resolution for or order orderly annexation. That's an agreement with the town uh which is maintains our relationship with them. If the city council is in favor of annexation for the purposes of the development as it's been shown, um the we would expect a petition for annexation from the developer very soon. Um, city staff would then work with the township regarding the terms of the annexation and prior to annexation, staff would recommend that we enter into a pre-development agreement with the developer to identify our expectations regarding the development and Beard Avenue. Um in uh in addition then there would also be a joint powers agreement between the city and the town that um will outline the transition of maintenance responsibilities related to Beard Avenue. [clears throat] Uh the city engineer and public works director's comments regarding the council plan were incorporated into the staff report. Um few com comments. Police chief just recommended temporary culde-sacs at the end of uh deadend streets. The fire chief did not have any comments. He did see the concept plan. No comments. And we haven't currently solicited feedback from the building inspector or the city attorney or the school district. Uh New Market Township is aware of this. They've uh I've distributed detailed emails. They have a leazison on our planning commission who was present during the review of the development. Uh they have expressed no concern and uh seemed to be supportive of the annexation under the uh terms that I've described. uh miscellaneous items. I've we've recommended a neighborhood meeting prior to any plat applications helps things go a little smoother on our end. And then that I ghost plaid, our high level concept plan for the property to the west be developed so we can um verify or determine that the road any road connections would be at reasonable locations to accommodate future development. [clears throat] So the planning commission reviewed this again at their meeting. I misspoke. This is not March 24th. It is uh was February 24th. They recommended support for the property being annexed into the city based on the developer's concept plans. They recommended support for the single family portion of the development that would not be affected by Beard Avenue realignment be allowed to develop at this time. and they recommended that any portion that could potentially be affected by Beard Avenue realignment um be re be delayed until um that alignment is agreed upon between uh the counties and the city. [clears throat] The city council is being asked uh for the same feedback being asked to provide feedback on the overall concept. Do you support annexation of the property based on the concept plans that you've been provided? Do you support immediate development of the property not affected by the road realignment? Um, do you concur with 30 comments and conditions identified by the planning commission and staff as outlined in the council memo? And then if you could provide feedback regarding the park dedication cash in lie of >> [clears throat] >> I can review the conditions if you want. Most of them have been outlined in the in the presentation or in the staff report. They were all included. I just want to point out that there was is one correction to uh condition number seven recommendation number 17 regarding proposed uh the spacing of uh local road connections to Beard Avenue. corrected to say that the first local road connection to Beard Avenue should be at least 660 feet north of County Road 86. Um there's some leeway on other other road connections [clears throat] on the spacing of those. And then number 25 uh regarding park dedication will need to be amended based on your feedback tonight. >> Can you go back to the specific questions for >> yes [clears throat] I do not have uh that concludes my presentation if Luke has anything to add you can add it here I'll turn it over to I agree. I I would take cash over land. Um and I approve of everything else. I just had a question on I mean if the southern half of the property is going to be more densely populated. >> I don't know the park thing is up in the air for me then because they're the ones that kind of would bear the burden of having to go up to the park. Mhm. So, attached housing um requires under our city code requires that 10 they provide 10% open space within their own development that's private recreational area. So if you have five acres on the south end, they'll have to provide a half an acre or 10% of the land has to be open space for their resident residents and that would be privately owned and privately maintained. Now that could be part of that could be satisfied by a workout room within the building or um a yoga room or um or it could be outside picnic area or outside playground. But detailed plans for that area haven't been submitted yet. >> I think that would satisfy it then for me for >> uh the zoning only allows eight attached units. So we don't have an exact plan for what that looks like. If it was an apartment building, it would be a very small one. um probably with garages underneath. So it'd function a lot more like a townhouse than a typical apartment building. So um but yeah, we'd probably be looking at at eight attached units per building just to try to meet the density standards. >> I think then the 10% would more than likely be outdoors. So that would kind of satisfy my concerns. >> Yeah. [snorts] >> To side with the planning commission. >> Okay. Yeah. So, if the southern I I don't think they could meet their density requirements by developing that south ha southern portion with single family. I think they're going to have to do some kind of attached housing. If it was all single family, then that open space wouldn't be required, but for any attached housing that would be required. >> Got any more? I don't think I have anything necessarily. >> I just I was [clears throat] trying to measure out what like 2,000 feet would look like. I'm just thinking about like as a parent, how far do I let my kid go by themselves to get to a park? >> Sure. >> And it's not very far. [laughter] >> So, I mean, it's half a mile is a long way for >> It's less than that, though, isn't it? I think from the southernmost portion to the park, like to the edge of the park, it's like when I did the math in Google, it was 37 miles >> like drawing things on the GIS [laughter] to get >> based on this. Is there even anything there or is it just open space based on what I'm looking at? >> They were talking just the parks commission position is that it would be passive space. So there wouldn't be any facilities or anything there. It would be grass. You're asking about the existing. >> Yeah. What's the existing? >> So, the existing one um consists of a playground structure and a pavilion um which includes a picnic tables and such in that it we also have portaotti there, dog station and the usual park things. There's a little bit of open space to the east of the pavilion. Um it's not big enough for like a ball field, but it wasn't intended to be. And then it's immediately adjacent to the open space of the wetland area where there's a trail around it that reasonably could be considered part of that space. Now it's wetland. You can't play football in the middle. Well, you could play football in the middle of wetland, >> but normally you're not going to. So, it's more the trail the the open space trail benefit the natural feature. >> Yeah. And I mean, Tom, maybe you could give me your opinion. you know, does this need to be decided right now, do you think? Or could just the developer be put on notice that this is still potentially an undecided issue, or would you rather give direction? >> Um, >> I mean, >> in my opinion, >> for what it's worth, I think I'm I'm on the fence, but also outnumbered. So, >> I think it would be fair to give the developers some direction because they're going to move forward with annexation >> and um they're and they're going to be making investments in construction design. >> I'm I'm assuming you would probably just preliminary plat >> and that's a lot of money to [clears throat] ask a developer to spend to say, "Oh, wait. you need to redesign the whole thing or redesign this whole portion of that phase of the development because >> we changed our our mind. The other part is we also want to have a clear idea of what we're getting if we're going to be annexing the property. >> Did I hear correctly that the parks commission they wanted the land, but they didn't necessarily want it for a park. They just wanted it as green space anyways. And if we're doing green space for the R3, then that kind of would take care of that green space. It's not like we would be putting a park park in there. It would just be green space. Did I hear that correctly in your presentation? That was the conversation at the meeting that um they felt there wasn't a lot of that type of space in the Boulder Heights Park because there's you know there's a big wetland trails um that that so that would be something that could be provided in this area. But keep in mind that anything that would be in that R3 under in in an apartment or townhouse area is going to be private, not open to it would be open to to the residents of that area >> or the owner, but not to the general public, >> right? But that general public that is in housing is that much closer to the park >> for walking distance, so to speak. If you >> The other thing I would >> You're splitting which way you go. >> Yeah. And while I know that I wasn't there for the discussion, the discussion was that it would be a place that somebody could throw a ball. >> Um was what I understood. It was kind of the gist of it. I can tell you based on my experience, if there is an open space in the neighborhood which is flat and available, we will be we will be requested to improve that parkland with um structures, play structures or other facilities >> and unless it's unless it's a completely natural area >> and I neglected to note that um the motion was a three to two so it wasn't unanimous. Um my understanding is it was the philosophical debate of get land or get the the it was the policy discussion and both sides represented their positions. Well, um but yes, it wasn't it wasn't it was a clear split. >> I'm still in favor of the cash in land as well. [snorts] I still >> still on the fence. >> Okay. Doesn't matter. [laughter] >> Doesn't matter. >> But yeah, I mean all of those things put together, it makes sense to go with cash. Okay. >> Okay. Um, >> we needed to >> No, we'll just I mean I think there there's support for the things that are are shown on the slide here. We'll translate that into the meeting minutes and the developer can move forward with annexation petition. >> Thank you very much. We'll move on to reports. >> Um, I have nothing specific under administration unless council has any questions for staff. >> See none public works. Anything to relay? Um, nothing specific. Just a small note. Um, they were doing a street repair. We had a service line that needed to be repaired. Homeowner homeowners responsibility up on Saxon Drive. So, they had to excavate basically good chunk of the front yard and the street because they had to take her all the way back to the main. It was a complicated job for the contractor. We had staff on site all day just in case because they were snaking between um water service lines and uh as they were doing the job and water main. So they were out there to one help make sure nothing got broken if it did to be able to turn stuff off right away so we didn't have a mess given the time of year. So >> they didn't hit the water shut off with their mower, did they? >> No. >> No. >> No. >> I did that. [laughter] It's got it's got to be repaired. Anything from the PD? >> Um we have a we're in the process of uh interviewing candidates. We have had an influx of candidates. We um interviewed uh candidate today second round which will not be moving on but we have two first round interviews for officer candidates uh early next week. >> Awesome. Anything from fire? Um, we completed our interviews for the fire officers and you will have recommendations coming forward for consideration at the March 26th meeting and we would be looking for um oaths of office for the entire command staff then at the first meeting in April. >> Sir, >> um update in the in the packet there. Uh happy to answer any questions uh on that. Anybody have anybody? >> I guess the only punch line I got for you is the weather outside tonight and this weekend, [clears throat] >> right? [laughter] >> Glad I don't work this weekend. >> Uh, what do we got from community development? We touched on all that already. [laughter] >> We have skip right past that one. Um, I think for parks kind of touched on that one, too. Um we we did just a side note I was doing some quick measurements um of distances like with inside the Windrose neighborhood we were talking 1,200 square feet um big portions of the Windrose neighborhood have a further distance to get to parks than than that with play structures. So big windows and little windows. [snorts] >> Okay. >> Not till next week. other committees and boards. >> Um, we did not have an executive committee meeting. Um, I should report that, uh, we did have an RTF or regional training facility meeting. Um, there is it was a lot of discussion about next year's budget. They're looking for confirmation of who's in and who's out. Right now, it only sounds like there are only a handful of entities that are still looking to continue to participate in the RTF. So Scott County and the cities um Jordan, Bell Plane, and New Craig. Um >> everybody's going first. >> Uh other people are other options. Um we as soon as we have uh confirmation of the signature from the city of Lakeville on the first center agreement, we've already gotten the bill, but once we have the signed agreement, um unless the council says differently, I'll be sending our official exit letter to the RTF board. And I believe what that will result in is we will be responsible for um if we do it before October, we're trying to do it well in advance. We may not be responsible for operational budget costs next year, but we would still be responsible for debt service costs for next year. So, um more to come on that. I'll I'll provide the council with an update uh when we get that far. And then we have scale uh tomorrow morning and that will be presentation by Michael Thompson related to um the assessment picture, property values and market uh feedback. It's always interesting but he'll be doing it at a county level. We'll have Michael coming to talk to us specifically about Elco New Market at our next council meeting. So, so um and then uh service delivery um we have a meeting that's been moved um the consultant that was hired to do the updated insurance consortium feasibility study um to have it done uh the meeting was moved to later in the month um so at the end of the month we'll have a presentation on that so I don't have anything to report at this time Anybody have anything from I35? >> Nothing major. We met this morning, had an update from 49435 interchange, so if anyone travels north, it will continue to be a nightmare. Um, and then talked a little bit about bonding, um, transportation isn't really high on the governor's list for allocating funds for this year. So, I think as we look for the funding, more funding for the bridge, um, it's not looking great. But >> did did Burnsville butt in line >> with >> because there was no talk about this this other bridge that they have and now it's starting to show up. >> I was just wondering if they kind of >> they there had been plans to to do the bridges. >> Um >> I know it was like 50 before us and then Burns showed up on the radar like hey wait a minute >> that um that that actually was before 50. So yeah so they're they're ahead of it. But that being said, for the I35 coalition, with these other projects getting taken down, our project should be moving to a higher place and priority on [snorts] the southern portion of uh the coalition's ser representation area. So any discussion Yes, ma'am. >> I would like to bring back around to what public comment brought forward and talk to you or figure out how you guys feel about a moratorum, what the staff is thinking, um what our attorney is thinking, how do we have this discussion so that these people know that their voices have been heard and we're listening to them. What What are our next steps? What do we do? >> So, But I don't want to kneejerk it either. >> I don't want to kneejerk it. That's why I need to know what our next steps are. >> So let's first talk about what a moratorum actually is. A moratorum is not an outright forever ban on any particular land use. A moratorum is a tool that cities can enact where you're basically putting a temporary pause on a particular type of development that allows a community to be able to evaluate the zoning subdivision regulations related to that if they're making changes. So you don't have stuff rolling in as you're trying to to get it done. Um the question and the question is always is there a need to actually have a moratorum in place given the particular situation. We make changes to our zoning and subdivision ordinances all the time and I think in my time here I think we've only put in less than a handful of moratoriums um related to items. Um, I believe that the interest at this moment in time and it was referenced as related to the planning commission's desire to as part of their goals this year to take a look at the definitions related to data centers. So, I think maybe what we should do first is ask Renee what's going on with that so you guys kind of have a little bit of context and what the real zoning issues might be that might come up. >> Yeah, I'll tell you my opinion. So today, if somebody came into Park I35 and said, "I want to build a data center." We would consider that warehousing and distribution. It's just warehousing of data and distribution of data. Um that's a permitted use in the industrial zoning district. So uh there wouldn't be any conditional use permit required for that. However, the city council a couple years back enacted a ordinance that states any user that wants to use more than 10,000 gallons of water a day has to come to the city council for a special permit. And if that water isn't available under our um current water appropriations permit, then we can deny the permit. Um, my opinion is that we have about 75 million gallons a year available under our current water appropriations permit because most of it's been allocated to Niagara and we reserved 75 million gallons for growth. >> No, some of it's been allocated to Niagara. We have the rest of the community which also uses water, >> right? >> Yeah. >> The the additional lab Okay, I think we're on the same page. Um, so today if a if somebody if a data center came so they wanted to locate, we highly likely don't have the water to give them. So I'm not particularly worried about it. That said, we did decide we had a conversation with the planning commission of should we take uh data centers and give them a separate definition in the zoning ordinance and treat them differently than other warehouse distribution. Uh treat them as their own entity and probably require a conditional use permit or we can put some parameters or conditions on it. And that is a high it was a high priority for them to do that this year. So um we plan on doing that this this year anyways. >> Y and and to be fair if you have a data center user that was to come in that is not a high water user because there are technologies more expensive ones which is why they usually want to be a water user for cooling and etc. But if they were to use an alternative system which didn't require that volume of water usage they'd go in. Although I suspect based on the comments tonight, the concern that's in place is related to water usage, not necessarily to the uh the nature of the use itself. >> So basically right now what we're saying because of the way our water appropriations permit was written when we did that, we currently would not even be able to entertain a data center coming into town >> if they were >> if it was a large water user. >> Water user. Okay. Yeah, but if we were to increase our appropriation permit at some time in the future and there was sufficient capacity available um they could reasonably apply for the special you know um industrial us significant industrial users permit to be able to utilize that water. In my opinion, to put a moratorum in place quite honestly is very is neutral um because the likelihood of it happening or being able to happen is very low if not nil within the time frame that we would be doing this particular work. However, um if the council wanted to for the same reason I don't know that there would be harm in putting a moratorum in place for us to be able to take a look at that particular user. question I would have for the city attorney is, do the circumstances justify us putting a moratorum in place for what we're looking at doing? >> If you're sorry, if you're looking at um studying the appropriate zoning and definition for data centers, then yes, I mean then that could be part of you need to have a basis for putting in a moratorium, which means you have to authorize a study of some sort. If you're doing that, then that's fine. You only get it for a year. [snorts] So, >> so you need to describe the work you're doing. >> Yeah. >> But we're already doing the work >> because you're already working on something real reason >> and if they come in as a large water user, we don't have the water for them anyways. So, right now >> as we sit today, we cannot accommodate them. >> Correct. >> Perfect. Okay. >> Unless they run those glycol systems like Tom was saying is super expensive >> for cooling. >> Have we had any inquiries even like a soft inquiry of anything in kind of the data center space? >> Uh not recently. There was one we had a couple years ago and there's a large electric transmission line that runs on the northwest side of the city. They really want to be close to that. So they were saying like, well, could we reszone that property out by Highlands to industrial? It's like probably not. Um, we don't support that. And and that's the last we've heard from a data center. >> Perfect. That's that's all I Yeah, that's all I need to know. Unless you guys wanted to talk more about it. >> I'm not a fan. they know enough to be dangerous. But now I've dove into started reading some of the like White Bear Township and Egan and what they did and like this one says some data centers have begun using modified jet engines to generate power. That's alarming to me. That's something that feel like would be environmentally concerning. But >> well, there's noise pollution. >> I literally only have just begun my >> research >> down the rabbit hole adventure here. So >> yeah, and that would be given some of the potential like uh the nature of it might be a reason why we would want to potentially consider making it a conditional use permit. Um but to the mayor's point, if they were doing something like that, if they exceeded the noise limits, they would be in violation of our city ordinance and MPCA rules. So um there so there there's things in place already for some of those items but I mean uh Andrea can walk us through the process but the process of putting a moratorum in place takes a little bit time and resources but it's not a giant hurdle to overcome. It takes a little bit of time and there's some process. >> And you can take that moratorum off at any time. We talked about this. What was it two or two years ago? Three years ago. We had talked at one time about doing a moratorum. >> Yeah, we've tal we've talked at different times about moratoriums. You can staff will always recommend that you set it for as long as you think you might need it and you can always make it shorter. I think the the the effort to put one in place is relatively low for the um potential of also low somebody coming in. The one place where you might run into it is if there was a proposal for a data center which was using a glycol system and not water where the if water if it's all about the water side of it. Um you would potentially block that project but you could also pull the moratorum back at that at that time. Um, you know, I I've done some research on data centers just because of everything that's going on north of us. There are other concerns other than just water >> that we as a city should should look at and make certain. So, >> I'm surprised they haven't showed up yet. Maybe we want to bring this as a topic of conversation in a future meeting or if if we don't want to make a knee-jerk reaction, maybe this some is something we need to discuss at more length about doing a moratorum until everybody is well aware of what all of the other factors are that can happen to an environment with a data center, not just water, pollution, there's a long different things that I've read and I'm I'm just doing the old Google search, right? So, >> down the rabbit hole >> down the rabbit hole and I don't even know if what I'm reading is [snorts] correct. So, maybe it would be a good educational thing for us to understand and know. I would I would suggest that if you feel that type of research at this point is necessary to put the moratorum in place because that's the whole purpose for moratoriums is to give you that breathing space to do research on particular on those types of things um without a degree of you know you've got adequate time and resources to do it. >> Shall we put one in place? I mean, >> we have to have definitions first. Is that what I heard? >> Okay. >> Like I said, I don't want to knee-jerk nothing. I want to be able to look at it from a 30,000 foot view before we start throwing paperwork at stuff. >> Um, I don't know, maybe a little bit of research from staff to >> Well, one one thing that we could do, I don't it would not be ready for the 26th, but we could schedule for consideration a moratorum on it. And as part of that we could provide a level of background information about the topic and what we would be looking at as in the coming year. Um and then you can decide to do nothing with the mortorium. You can decide to adopt the moratorium that night or you could direct decide to hold additional discussion or direct additional information be provided at that point. >> Do you as staff have time to do that right now? >> Question not for the 26th. >> No just in general. In general, I'm telling you no, in March and April, likely not. Um, I'm currently drafting an email to our consultant, planning consultant to see if they would have time to work on it. >> So, what would you guys like to do? >> I would like to move forward with it, but I don't think it's like crazy crazy urgent that I think it's okay if we wait till May or June. That's reasonable. >> We haven't had any inquiries on >> and currently right now. >> Yeah, that's reason. >> Yeah. Like I said, I don't want to need your >> if we want to do that. >> I don't want to just start throwing paper at stuff, you know, with an unknown unknown. I just Yeah, I think this can be >> I'd rather be well educated and >> this can be drawn out a little bit. [snorts] Okay. >> Thank you. Anything else? >> No motion to adjurnn. >> I'll second. All in favor? I