Um, any changes to the agenda? Um there is one change to the agenda >> agenda. I did not get the April 28th minutes um completed. I was hoping to get them done today, but I didn't. So >> um we will defer that take that off the agenda. >> Okay. >> So approval of the recommendation to make approval of the agenda um minus the April 28th minutes. So moved. Anyone want a second? >> A second. Okay. Go ahead. >> Okay. All right. All in favor? >> I >> I right. Um public comments. Looks like there's nobody in line. Announcements. No announcements. >> Um and then we'll skip over the approval of the minutes. No public hearings on to general business. Um, so the first one is the 2050 comprehensive plan update. >> Yeah. Um, if everybody could just make sure their mics are turned on um because it's uh we I think we can just keep them on at this meeting. Um, that would be helpful if you have questions throughout. Um, as you as many of you know, we do we are required um to update our comprehensive plan every 10 years and we're coming on that cycle now. And um I'm just going to give a little presentation on it. We gave the same presentation of the city council in a workshop session before their last city council meeting just to get them warmed up to the whole topic and uh what that means for the city of Elony Market. So I'm just going to go ahead and share a PowerPoint that I put together. Sure. >> Okay. >> So, just a little about what is a comprehensive plan? Um, I can't remember. I think Melissa was here through the last comprehensive plan. Um but definitely Ben, since you were not part of our last comprehensive plan, I want to um just make sure just review some really basic things. Um a comprehensive plan is just a document that describes a community's vision of itself and what it wants to be and where it wants to go. And it's really um a compilation of policy statements, value statements, goals, maps um which guide the future development of the city. And the purpose again is to guide development, document our goals for the public, serve as a communication device, and provide a legal basis for the ordinances that we adopt. So the ordinances or the comp plan informs the ordinances that we adopt. Um Minnesota statutes gives uh cities the authority to plan and comprehensive plan and zone. Um first through Minnesota statute chapter 462 um which was established in 1965 which grants cities throughout the entire state the authority to plan um and zone their cities. So that's kind of the early inception of zoning in Minnesota. uh most in the metro area were kind of the or in Scott County was the early 70s when there when zoning was implemented. And then um a little bit later through the metropolitan uh land planning act um Minnesota statute 473 established the metropolitan council in 1967 to coordinate planning and development throughout the Twin Cities area. And this uh this requires metro areas, that's the statute that requires metro area cities to adopt a plan every 10 years. So if you're outstate, you don't even have to have a plan. If you're outstate, you could adopt a plan every 20 years or every five years, but metro area cities are required to at least every 10 years so that we are consistent with regional uh goals and policies. Um the city's current comprehensive plan was adopted in 2021. Uh since that time there's been four amendments, mostly just uh applicant asking to reu a piece of properties uh guided land use uh from you know commercial to residential or something along that line. Um most of them were committed or considered minor amendments. The most um serious amendment was the RNF properties that looked at some amendments around the Elco Speedway to allow for some mixed use housing in that area near the post office. Um our uh plan has multiple chapters. Um, the plan, the 2040 plan that's currently in place was originally started with a consultant called NAC, Northwest Associated Consultants. There was another planner, Bob Kermas, that used to work with the city before the city had staff. Um, and in approximately 2000, uh, it was started in approximately 2015, but city staff kind of took the process over about midway through the process. Um then our engineering company Bolton and Mink was hired to um write the utility chapters which are the water chapters, sanitary sewer and surface water chapters. And then there's also a transportation plan that was a team effort between city staff and Bolton and Mink. Um, prior to the current 20 240 plan, there have been a number of comprehensive plans, planning documents adopted by the cities both prior to the merger and after the merger. Um, I think it's really fascinating to look back at a plan from 1972 for the city of Elco and, you know, sounds like a long time ago, but it's I think it's interesting to see what their visions were for for their city. So these are just some screenshots of some either comprehensive plans or small area studies. Um kind of in the late 90s uh and early 2000s there was um exponential growth occurring in this area of the county and the county was working with New Market Township, the city of Elco and the city of New Market to develop this joint plan u because both cities were so small. Again, I think the total population of the two cities was 800 before the merger. So, gives you an idea of how small the cities were. So, the county was really assisting them with that process. And you can see in 200 um or 96 the cities did a joint comprehensive plan. 2005 is when Scott County helped them with this um coordinated plan and then the great recession hit and um everything came to a screeching halt here and didn't recover until um pretty recently. Even when I started the city council was like begging for development and why don't we have any development and because it was starting in other cities but it just wasn't starting here yet. it took us longer to recover. Um, but here we are. So, um, again, why update the comprehensive plan? Uh, Minnesota statute 473 mandates local government units within the southern county metro area review and update their comprehensive plans, their fiscal devices, so our capital improvement plans um, and official controls at least once every 10 years. And the dicial uh review ensures that our local planning remains consistent with Met Council uh system plans. And on February 12th, 2025, the Metropolitan Council updated their regional plans and uh they published a document called Imagine 20 20 uh imagine 2050 and that document lays out their new vision for the region. And then the city uh has been served notice that of a requirement to submit an amended plan by December 31st, 2028. Um so cons consistency with their plan. Um the city's comprehensive plan content is set by state statute and the metropolitan council. They lay out the minimum requirements for a plan. um the plan needs to conform with their plan and the imagine 2050 is a regional development guide that sets policy foundations for counties, cities, townships throughout the sevenount metro. So it's not only cities, it's also applies to counties and townships if the townships do their own zoning. In Scott County, um the county handles the zoning for all of the townships. Um, and imagine 2050 sets policy on land use, housing, transportation, water resources, and regional parks and trails. And again, I keep repeating this, but our plan must be compatible uh with their plan and also the plans of our adjacent jurisdictions. So um like New Market, we don't want New Market uh township to have be planning a big industrial park, you know, in an area where we have plan for residential. So we need to work together. Um just a little reminder, an update on what the metropolitan council is. Um it's a regional policymaking body, planning agency and provider of services in the seven county twin cities metro area. They were established in 1967. Their original uh originally they were to operate the transit system in the metro area and they do operate metro transit bus and rail systems, metromobility and transit link. um in as far as environmental services they do um collect and treat uh 90% of the region's wastewater and that uh service started in 1969. So prior to 1969 all the larger cities Minneapolis, St. Paul, Shakipi um they were all handling their own wastewater and um I understand it wasn't always going well. So um they decided to form that regional environmental services division. um parks. They oversee uh many regional parks and trails in the metro and the parks uh component was established in 1974 and then planning which establishes long range regional plans for transportation, water resources, aviation and local comprehensive plans. Um again that was largely established in 1976 under the Metro Land Planning Act and they uh the Metropolitan Council took over uh administering um house federal housing assistance when the federal HUD section 8 program began in 1974. The Met Council is made up of 16 uh members representing geographic districts that are shown on this map and also a chair. So there's 17 all of whom are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Minnesota Senate. Uh they all serve four-year terms and their terms generally coincide with the governor's terms. So, all terms will expire on January 4th, 2027 um when the governor's term expires. And the city of Elony Market is represented by Deb Barber um of Shakpi and uh she's got the largest geographic district um shown in the map. She covers all of Scott and Carver County. Um again when we review their policy plans when we say water that applies to potable water uh sanitary sewer and storm sewer. So from their uh system statements that they've adopted in in Imagine 2050 they um or after adop adoption of their policy plan the Met Council provides system statements for each community. It's a it's best uh special document specifically for each community. A system statement is it's customized issued by the Met Council to local units of government. Um it outlines how their updated policies affect our community. It's local comp plan and it acts as a guide um for our tenure plan update. Um after the city is issued this document, we have three years under state statute to complete um our plan and we have received this system statement document uh for alcohol markets. So the first item outlined in this system statement that they've been that they've provided us is related to population, household and employment. And uh the Met Council uses forecasts to plan for regional growth, regional systems. And um communities must base their planning work on the individual forecasts established by the Metropolitan Council. So you can see here our forecasts um for 2040 and 2050 have to be clearly identified throughout our plan. We have to figure out how to plan for that many houses and that many people. um whether they're they come or not, we still have to demonstrate that we can. So, our most recent population estimate was published um uh last year, but it they're always a year behind. So, April 1st, 2024, they estimated our population to be 5,250 and with 1,672 households. And by 2030, they estimate we'll be around 6,200 up to 8,200 in 2040 and 10,500 in 2050. So, usually they've been a little aggressive. We usually haven't hit those numbers um but I think we'll get closer this time. They did kind of downgrade the numbers um a little bit from the last projections and um since we are seeing more residential growth and different kinds of builders in the community, I think that we will get closer to to hitting some of these numbers. Um the second item outlined in the city's system statement is related to housing and identifies the city's share of the regional affordable housing unit forecasts. So um their housing policy provides um again guidance on just regional housing needs and challenges and it provides a framework for supporting safe affordable dignified housing. Um the housing policy plan objectives are fair housing geographic choice that like not all the low-inccome housing has to be in one community in St. Park or you know that we all have a share responsibility in sharing that um that people be provided the options to options to own or rent um just stable housing quality housing cultural connections and well-being um housing equity and environmental justice. So those are things that we'll have to try to um identify in our plan. Cities and townships must uh include a chapter on housing and implementation program um to address the existing and projected housing needs. So overall the the total metro area the forecasted um affordable housing need is 39,700 units and um they have identified Elquin market must provide an opportunity for 399 affordable housing units in our next plan. And when and this is probably an area honestly that Melissa knows a lot more about than I do. She probably talk about it back backwards and forwards but um we're trying to target or we need to target people within certain income levels. So when we they're uh saying that we have to provide or demonstrate that we can um provide opportunity for 236 housing units for people earning 30% of the area median income or below. What that means is a a family earning 39,450. Um, so I've just on the bottom of this slide I just tried to include what some of those categories mean. 50% AMI is 65,750. And usually this can be accomplished by identifying areas for multifamily or highdensity housing. So, if you have enough acreage um available for high density housing that could accommodate up to 400 housing units, um that usually passes. Um the third item outlined in our uh system statements that we were given is a new policy related to climate and the state legislature amended the land planning act in 2023 to include requirements that local comprehensive plans address climate mitigation and adaptation. And the big focus is on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. And there's a much greater push for multimodal and trails and bike lanes and things like that. Um the next item in the system statements is related to community designations. The Met Council uses community designations to guide regional growth and development. And the designations basically group jurisdictions with similar characteristics um for the application of regional policies. Um communic community designations guide regional growth and development and they establish land use expectations. So if you're a cities like in the in the core metro, you're going to have a different designation and have different standards than more rural communities, detached rural communities such as us. We all have a different set of standards. Um uh we're identified as a rural center community. Um, rural centers serve as hypothetically serve as vital commercial employment and residential hubs for surrounding rural and agricultural areas. Now, even though that might not be totally true in our case, like we're not currently a a vital commercial or employment hub, but that is the goal and we um will hopefully serve the agricultural area or the rural properties around the city. Um this is a map that shows those community designations and you can see they're kind of colorcoded as as uh you move out from the core. Um so other cities that have a similar designation to us include Jordan, Bell Plain, Norwood, Young America, Cologne mayor, Watertown, New Germany. So you can see the similarities between our towns and I think that makes sense and I was glad to see that we're still considered a a rural center as opposed to changing us to a different designation and um there's some areas around the city. So, New Market Township has guided to two different classifications, diversified rural and rural residential. There's also a um the transportation uh policy plan informs the city's transportation plan. Um and we must include the following. Um we must address the following, highways, transit, bicycle, pedestrian, freight, aviation, um travel demand management and greenhouse gas emissions. Um, our water policy plan again must address wastewater flows and forecasts based on those population estimates that we were given and the city must decide staging areas or that's what we've been told so far. So most cities like Lakeville for instance have to they have this growth area around their city but they've had to identify that we think this area can grow in the next five years and this area can grow in the next in in the in the five to 10 years and they they set out staging areas and we haven't been required to do that previously and I hope that we can get around doing that because I think it's only my personal opinion that when you start to say, well, this area can develop first. That's going to drive up property values there. Whether somebody maybe those property owners don't even want to sell. Um, I just think everything around the city should be treated equally, if services can be provided to it and there's a willing seller that is at the stage in their life that they are ready to sell their property that we service it. I don't I think the stages staging just sets the stage for inflated property values. Um but we might have to have to do that. Um we do still have a number of on-site septic systems um homes in the community that aren't on city sewer. Um we just have to identify those in our plan and um we do have some plan for getting rid of those uh surface water. We are in both the Scott watershed management organization and the Vermillion River Watershed um joint powers organization and they those two organizations have to approve our plan. Our plan has to be consistent with their plan. Um, we do know that in the next planning cycle, I think, um, we'll have to be a little bit more strict in terms of storm water management because Scott County or the Scott WMO is currently a little stricter in their um, standards than the city is currently inforcing. So, we may see some changes there. Um, also just to note the we are the headways of the Vermilion River just north of town and the Vermilion River is listed as a priority water or an impaired water by the DNR. And then water supply. So that's our drinking water. Um, I will have to the chapter on that. Uh the DNR approves local water supply plans and we've recently updated ours when we went through the Niagara um project. So it's pretty up to date. Uh but we'll want to kind of expand on this chapter a little bit. on the the last the last time we did the plan, the direction from the city council was we're going to do it on a budget and um it's basically the 2030 plan hadn't been adop it hadn't been that long since the 2030 plan was adopted. The city put a lot of money into that plan. Um direction from council for the 2040 plan was, you know, bare bones. Just do the minimums you have to do to get through them at council. that um we may do a little more um this time around on these utility components and um we'll be contracting with Bolton and Mink. Um these are very expensive to update and you know it's a mandate from the state we don't have a choice talking with Bolton and Nink today high level numbers of u completing these three chapters is probably a4 million dollars and that is significant for a small city >> like us to especially to absorb in one year. Um there's a regional parks and trails. The policy plan identifies um a regional trail corridor corridor running east west through our community along, you know, basically along the county road two corridor, but uh doesn't have to be along County Road 2, but um so this regional trail corridor that's in the Met Council's planning documents would run all the way basically from Dakota County over um to kind of the Henderson area. um eventually, you know, could be hundred years from now, but um so our plan will need to um incorporate that trail in it. But this the park plan, our park chapter of our comp plan will primarily just address our local park needs. um land use as a rural center. We will be required again this hasn't changed to demonstrate uh that we can develop or will be developing residential at a minimum three units per acre per net acre. Um, we must guide sufficient land uh at a minimum density of 10 units per acre to meet our affordable housing allocation. And then within the Musa, the city needs to allow for more than one housing type in land use categories with residential uses. So, this is a new requirement and I'm not sure what that means. If so, in our single family zones, does that mean we have to allow for a duplex as well? So, it very specifically states that we need to allow for more than one housing type in any resident land use category that has residential uses. What I don't know is um we already allow accessory dwelling units. So maybe that uh meets the criteria, but I don't I haven't um I haven't met with them yet to figure that out. So maybe we're already good with it. But there's a possibility that we might have to allow two family dwellings in our low density zones, our um land use areas. >> Didn't we just do that with Beats Hill and and Sullivan's over here? The >> We did through a PUD. Um but they're saying it has to be or we did it on Pet Hill through planned unit development zoning, but they're saying it has to be a permitted use. And then we may also have to uh it's looking like we will have to enter into a master orderly annexation agreement with the with New Market Township. So, um, we plan for this area outside of the city limits and they're telling us we have to enter into an agreement with the township on the entire area that allows us to annex it or the terms under which we can annex it without their saying. um in most communities. Well, in fact, uh what I've learned is we are the only community in the entire metro area that wasn't required to do this in our last plan. Negotiating these agreements with the township can be really difficult and contentious because they're kind of giving up all of their rights in this area um to allow the city to annex it at any time. they want. So, it's um I don't know, we've been doing a good job just negotiating them one by one. And every property is unique and has different characteristics and the township may have concerns. You know, if there's a property that's adjacent to a township road, they may have different concerns than a property that's not. So, um I'm fighting back back pretty hard on this and uh not sure if we'll uh where this is going, but this could be really time consuming um part of the process if we have to do that. And this would be something that would be done through administration. I'll probably tax Tom Terry with with doing the meetings and negotiation on that. um if it comes out. But so our city attorney's telling me you're probably going to have to do it. And u but I think I'm maybe making a little headway at last week. I had a few meetings with Met Council on it. Um so this map here um depicts the planning area used for the 2040 count plan. So the areas that are inside the city limits are shown in gray and the areas that are um outside the city limits but within our uh plan 20 240 growth boundary are shown in blue. Um the total shaded uh areas were established um there as the there are the areas established where growth is reasonably expected to occur and where utilities are planned for uh within the 2040 planning cycle and the 2040 growth area was nearly the same as for the 2030 comp plan. There was hardly any change. Maybe a tiny. >> You got the Sullivan property, right? They're not highlighted right now. I mean, it's not gray. Yeah, that's in the city now. But the Sullivan property was in the planned growth area. >> But I think this time around we'll want to do a more detailed evaluation of what might realistically be developed, pull some back, add others. some, you know, for instance, the area um along County Road 91 and north of 86 when they where there's a whole bunch of 10acre parcels where really big homes have just been built. You know, we're not going to be developing that on city services probably for 50 more than 50 years. So, I don't know that we need to keep showing showing that area. in our plan any longer. But just generally speaking, I think we'll want to take a closer look at these and work and really sit down with our engineers to say where can we really extend sewer and water, you know, where is it close? What what properties do you really think we can service? Um and then rural center communities such as oops, excuse me, Elco market um must identify areas that will accommodate post 2050 growth forecast and implement strategies um to preserve the areas for future municipal growth. So as part of the city's 2030 comp plan, this boundary line uh around the city that's shown in tan here um delineates what is thought to be this ultimate service boundary that you know could could be hundred or more years out. Um but that area is what we believe could be ultimately served by municipal utilities or that big pipe that serves us from that comes down from Lakeville. So many factors were considered in determining um this uh physical constraint where physical constraints would make it difficult or cost prohibitive. Um ultimately a long-term public utility service area was determined which is shown in tan on this map. Um and there's always this term thrown out that you know Alpony Market could be a town of 70,000 people someday. And you know, right now we know that most of our community doesn't want to be a town of 70,000 people, but um that's kind of what this depicts and I don't think it's happening anytime soon. Uh but so it's kind of balancing that, you know, what what we can can be someday or what we need to plan for someday versus kind of keeping the small town culture. And um that's that's just the balancing act that the planning commission and council will have to work with. Um, I actually threw a line on here and then I threw it in the wrong location. I was trying to depict uh where the county line was with uh between Scott County and Rice County. And um it's this I meant the dash line should be here. So we're about on the cusp of actually probably reaching into Rice County in this next plan. So the Rice County boundary is is right here at 86. >> So I prepared some kind of preliminary timeline and tasks associated with the plan development. Um, and I know it's too difficult to see on on this uh zoomed in map, but the the first part of it is really just identifying a public engage the public engagement piece of it, which we've been talking about for a few months already. And and then once we evaluate the public engagement and community surveys, then we start to take that and mold it into the different chapters. And I think we'll largely write the the plan chapters in house or that's the plan at this point partially to save money because these are if uh we were going to hire a consultant to do that part of it. It would probably be over $100,000. Um there's a lot of cities going out for RFPs right now and there's not that many consulting companies that do this work. uh Bolton and Mink has land use planners WSB there's just not that many I'm not even familiar with others and then simultaneously Bolton and Mink will be working on those utility chapters sewer water storm and then our plan has to be we have to send it out to adjacent communities for review and they get six months to review it before we submit it to the Met Council. Um and then we also have to hold a public hearing and open house at the end when when the plan is ready um to get more community feedback. And then there's this implementation chapter where we take all this all these chapters and data and you wrap it up into like how we're going to implement it. Maybe we need to amend our zoning ordinance to allow two family dwellings or we'll have to make changes to our ordinances too. So um again the implementation chapter. So um for the rest of 2026 um is where I have develop a community engagement plan. Do the community engagement summarize the community engagement feedback. Um identify major issues and themes that are coming out of the community engagement and um then start writing those first two chapters. Those are kind of the goals for this year and then all of next year 2027 would be the remaining stuff remaining chapters. Natural environment plan, land use plan, housing plan, climate plan, transportation, parks and trails. >> Would you invite the whole group of people for that that plan or the overlaid how you get the public involvement? I don't know yet. >> Yeah, there's I think there's differences of opinion on getting public engagement from people that are just city residents versus city residents and township residents. Um so >> it's kind of revolves around the township. >> Yeah. Right. you know, a major portion of growth is because of >> if you if you survey 50 township residents that say they don't want the city to grow, um how do you what does that mean? And we still have a responsibility to plan uh regardless of if somebody doesn't want the city to grow. >> Say there are citizens that don't want it either. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. >> Do you know the township population off top your head? >> No, I don't. It's probably not much different than the cities, I would think. >> Well, we know that growth isn't popular. We know that. and we still have a shortage of housing and we still have all of these other issues that we are trying to solve for. >> And um just to support staff here a little bit, we know that the loudest voices generally are not the most prolific voices. >> Yeah. Right. So some initial and we had a public engagement plan the last time and I wasn't uh I didn't work for the city when the public engagement happened. Uh but I think they did individual surveys with selected community members uh certain members of the chamber of commerce, the business community, um people that represented different neighborhoods or maybe HOAs, um planning commissioners, parks commissioners, city council members, church representatives. just try to get a broad cross-section and do like individual interviews, one-on-one interviews with them. And then we also had a survey monkey that had a lot of the same questions, but that we served up to our website. But again, you kind of don't know who's answering it or if the same person answered the survey 10 times or so there's maybe a little balancing there. But you have it where you just sign in with one email and if you've got two emails, well, you sign in twice, but if you can't, you know, you have to have an email to sign in type thing. >> There's there's workarounds around something like that. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Yeah. >> Looks like the population of the township in 2020 with the census was 35 34. >> Okay. And I wouldn't think they've built that many houses in New Market Township since the 2020 census. >> I think they have. Well, they estimated for 2026 is 3556. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> About in line like you thought was us, right? So, >> say that again. >> That's about in line with our population, you thought. So, >> uh we're 5,200. >> But that's okay. >> Yeah. And there it's about 3,500ish. >> Yeah. >> Um Yeah. So, if you guys put any thought into it or if you know what I don't know if you guys are doing a comp plan in your community anytime soon, but >> Well, if that was a question, we did just do ours almost two years ago. >> Okay. >> Um, but Northfield, we weren't required to do to follow Met Council. We just did ours because we did ours. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So, >> did you do a survey? We did a lot of surveys and right now we're um updating our zoning code. We're doing a 100% rewrite and that's just shy of 200,000. It's a lot of money. >> Wow. Yeah, there's a lot of money. >> Are there questions on the survey that would be relevant to ours or not? >> You know, I'll have to look into that. I think maybe I did appreciate all the open houses that Alco New Market had at the last goround >> like in the other room. >> Yep. >> They do one at the >> Oh, the other >> library too. >> Yes. >> Or is that prior? >> No, there was one at the library. There was one here and then you did a presentation I believe at Scott County too. or am I for >> um that might have been for something else but >> um then we ended up getting >> mixed with co so a lot of our open houses were by Zoom >> hopefully it will >> and I was actually impressed with how well they were attended but maybe everybody was just bored because they were stuck at home but >> I thought they were attended pretty well >> that's how you can sell it bored at home wash >> then We loaded. Yeah. Right. And then we loaded So we recorded the Zoom. We did them chapter by chapter the open houses and we recorded them and then we loaded them up on our website also. It was the best we could do at the time. Um so we got a little bit of both. >> That may be a good idea to continue too as an option >> for people who can't attend but they can still look it up. >> Yeah. I like that. >> Yeah, I've started doing some research on just community engagement related to comprehensive plans and um you know it's just we got to get going. We got to get it developed and you know I want to make sure that everybody's okay with the plan. um the city council. Luckily, the city of Elco Market goes out and does a really detailed um community survey. It's not part of the comprehensive plan. It's just a community survey. They hire an outside firm called Morris Leatherman and they it's supposed to be statistically accurate. I don't know statistics, but you know, they they cold call a certain number of households in the community and they ask questions about the conditions of our roads and our police protection and fire protection and condition of our trails and um all kinds of questions. I mean, it's probably a 20 minute, 20, 30 minute survey on the phone, but and then they sum up and and we do it regularly every three years. It's pretty costly. Um, but the timing is right that we may be able to get some of our questions, the pertinent questions that could also inform the comp plan in with the Morris Leman survey. >> What are your thoughts on our housing stock or do you think our housing is generally in good condition or >> just our parks are >> might not know the answers to some of those questions, but >> if you reframe them in like an easier, you know, more language then I think you would get some answers. I remember wasn't there something about um grocery stores or something back in the day when we were trying to >> Yeah. >> had one to come and >> we usually ask you know what are the top three businesses or >> you know do you think we need business growth? >> Do you think we need industrial growth? >> What businesses? Yeah, >> it's always grocery store, hardware store. And I can't I mean we didn't have a second gas station until recently, but >> um so the city of Elquin Market is eligible for a $40,000 grant to support the comprehensive plan development. Um the grant applications are due in uh November. So I'll submit that to the Met Council and we'll get once it's approved uh or we have to submit a a resolution from the city council supporting the grant, a work plan, a project budget, and then a semiannual progress reports. And we get half up front and then half after it the plan is adopted. So, it's not much to offset the cost of the plan, but it's better than nothing. And um just kind of noting community engagement in this process is really um it's consistent with our COG philosophy, community oriented government philosophy that you know we want community involvement in in our decisions and we want public participation and we believe it will help ensure that the 20 50 plan reflects the goals uh and values of our residents and businesses. Are there any requirements that need to be met for community engagement? Certain number of open houses. It's no kind of a blank slate. >> Yeah, that uh we really don't even need to do any community engagement. That's more of our own philosophy and it helps us identify the issues like where are the where are the issues? What are we doing good? What are we doing bad? And what do people want? Yeah. which is um you know it's a difficult I think that you know what are we doing good what are we doing bad and what do people want is it's difficult because you could have 98% of the community saying we want to build a wall around the community and we don't want anything else to happen we don't want any more growth um but based on our mandates from the Met Council we still have to plan for it we still have to plan for the populations of uh whatever they were 6,200 by 2030, 8200 by 2040. So yeah, I think I kind of touched on these, but we got this is in the last plan, the targeted feedback, parks commission, planning commission, city council, local developers, business owners, chamber reps, school district, residential neighborhoods, and online survey. And then the topics were what are the community strengths and weaknesses? Uh what is your vision of the community? Um questions related to residential land uses, commercial land uses, industrial land uses, questions related to our transportation system. Just is it good? Is it bad? What could be better? Parks and trails, public facilities like police department, fire department, public works. um public works maintenance, meaning like do you think our the lawn our lawns look nice in our public spaces? Is our is the snow plowing good? And then questions about the natural environment natural environment protection. So I think that will be pretty similar as I see it. I think the engagement was pretty well laid out last time. I'd like to include the township and maybe youth, although I haven't really figured out without having like a strong base school district here of like senior high kids. I mean, I know they are broken out between the two school districts, but is there a way to survey some youth that are in like a senior high school about what they would want to see in the community if they would want to stay here? Yeah. So, just some early thoughts that I had. Um, as we're kicking off the planning cycle, we have to just that the city is seeing increased interest in development and building permit activity and that we will likely have a new interchange in 2030 to 2031 which uh may positively image the community and further increase growth. Um, we might consider just a new format or modernizing our our document for a new look. Um, evaluate that 2040 growth boundary to determine if changes should be made. Consider whether we approach this as an update or more of an overhaul or somewhere in between. I think I'm leaning to somewhere in between. um consider whether a steering committee should be established or if we just use the planning commission as a steering committee. I know that some communities have a steering committee which may consist of business owners or you know other representatives but historically here the planning commission has been the steering committee. So every plan chapter is reviewed pretty much just with the plan has been with the planning commission and I think that's the council's wishes. Um they didn't say explicitly but um I think that's would be what they would say. Um we could consider a use of consultants for c certain portions of the plan update. A consultant could even do the community engagement. You know a complete third party could do the community engagement but um might boil down to cost. And then this this was more for the city council. really need to consider the costs and the tax and impact on the upcoming budget because most of this work is going to be done in 2027. And we're going to start budget discussions here in the next month for budgeting for 2027. So like Tom made a comment today in a meeting like the police department is wondering if they can hire a new police officer next year. Well, they might not be able to because they because we have to do a comp plan >> and we just can't bear the tax impact of both at the same time. Evaluates uh we've this is a lot of internal discussion. We've had a lot of internal discussions on transportation policy related to collector streets. Um but and I We think we should do a more detailed overhaul of those utility chapters. >> Is a collector street. >> A collector street is uh so streets have functions and they range from like an interstate. The function is to move traffic at a high speed but not to provide access to properties. And a residential street's function like the street in front of your home is a local road. Its function is purely to provide access to to properties. And then uh there's streets in between like local uh collector streets and arterial roads. So your collector street might be can't remember what neighborhood you live in. The farm area >> farm. Yeah. like uh Natchez would be more of a minor arterial, but even Aaron Drive, I mean a lot of the little streets will feed to Aaron Drive and then Aaron Drive feeds out to um out to Nachez. And so you can see these layers of streets and they all serving different functions and the collector streets um or the major collector streets in our city access we don't allow access on them. So like Xerxes Avenue, I don't know if you know where Xerxes is, but it goes down to Pete's Hill, Petill area. There are a few old driveways, but we would never allow a new driveway on that because its function is to carry tra. But they're hard to build because um the city doesn't have any money to build streets and developers don't want to build them because they don't get any benefit out of them because they can't access any of their lots. And a lot of times they're if you look at our transportation plan map, they'll be centered like on a property line. uh between you know Marty Deutsche's property and Lane Jones's property and then who's going to pay for it and who's going to build it when it's shows centered on a property line and it's just implementing them is difficult. I think they're really important. If you like if you would go up to Savage now, I you can just see the the grids of the different function functional classification streets. >> Shak has a lot of good ones. >> Shaki has a lot of good ones. >> A lot of good ones. And every time I go to Shaki, I think, how do they build these beautiful streets? And then they're on top of it, they're all >> treelined, >> which really gets my gout because our policy is we don't plant trees in the right way. >> That's planners versus public works people. You know, planners want to plant trees along streets and public works people don't because that a lot of work public works >> and the potential damage >> what >> and the potential damage of the roots that caused >> Right. Yeah. And the sidewalks to the sidewalks and everything. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. But we have those sidewalk issues anyways with the root systems. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, that's all I have um on the comp plan, but just want you to know we'll be doing some heavy lifting here coming up. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, it's a great presentation. >> Before we move on, are one of you the host of the meeting? I can't get in. I look I'm stuck. It says the host has to let you in. >> I am the host, but I didn't see that. Oh, >> you are correct. Are you in? >> You're in. >> I don't know. There we go. >> Okay. All right. Second part of general business is sexually orientated business review and analysis. Okay. Share Okay, here we go. This was uh one of the items identified both last year and this year as a goal on our annual goals that we adopt for the planning commission is just to review our sexually oriented use um regulations to make sure that we're in compliance with case law and statute. Oops. Um so there's certain uses that are protected by the first amendment which is the freedom of speech and sexually oriented uses fall under that category of being pro uh protected by the first amendment. So that could include anything from you know strip clubs to adult bookstores and toy stores. Um the city cannot zone out out adult uses. um we can impose controls on where adult uses can locate in terms of which zoning districts they can locate and um case law has established that 5% of the total land area within a city is a reasonable benchmark um in your packet. This is I think the rest of you know this but um might be interesting for Ben. There was actually a strip club that illegally established where the end zone is and um the city had reviewed I think their sexually well it was a countywide effort. So this was a big planning deal uh in the early 2000s. So all the cities in Scott County, we all got together and were writing our sexually oriented uses use or ordinances in the city of Elany Market, our city of Elco and New Market adopted um these ordinances and um one illegally opened in the in the property that's now the end zone. So the city pursued a closure of the establishment. Um the building owner and operative of the strip club then sued the city alleging the city ordinance was unconstitutional. Um at the end of the day the courts concluded that the city's ordinance was constitutional and um the case was dismissed. I think it might have went to the Supreme Court but I can't remember exactly. Um but then it they didn't help themselves during that process then they kept going and were serving alcohol also which is not permitted. Um, so it was like a double uh double negative there. And then we reviewed this uh again in 2019 uh was the last time we just did a comprehensive review to see if we were generally in compliance with state statute and we we and the city attorney concluded that we our ordinance was defensible. So, um, our current or ordinance, uh, states that sexually oriented businesses are not allowed within 200 feet of residential zoning districts, schools, churches, daycarees, parks, or other sexually oriented businesses. They're also not allowed in um, any residential zoning district. They're not allowed in the B2, B1, and B2 zoning district, which would be your downtown or main street down in this in the core downtown of New Market and the core downtown of Elco. Um, and they're not allowed in special zoning districts, the urban reserve, institutional, flood plane, or certain PUB districts. They are allowed under our zoning ordinance in B4, B5, B6, B7, I1, and I2. So, those are going to be commercial zoning districts along County Road 2 um that are a little further towards the interstate. And then the I1 and I2 are on the other side of the interstate in the industrial park or in a PUD if they have those base underlying zoning districts. So what the question we're asking ourselves is where can they locate and what percentage of land area in the city um can they locate in and is that percentage defensible. So, I did a just a GIS analysis uh to buffer the school, to buffer a church, the church facility in town, to buffer any currently licensed daycare facilities. Um to buffer is this? This is parks. um 200 foot buffer from any residential zoning district is shown on this map. Zoning districts where they're just simply not allowed is shown on this map. This is our overall zoning map. But when I take and merge all those layers together where they're not allowed, um the blue highlighted parcels or tur turquoise parcels are where they would be allowed today under today's zoning. >> You had quick trip circle. >> Yep. and um just doing an analysis on the uh acres. So, of the 2,28 acres that are currently inside the city limits, 126 acres or 6.3% are available for sexually oriented uses. And I reviewed that with the city attorney today and um basically our recommendation is that uh we leave the ordinance as it is that this is defensible and adequate. Um but as the city continues to annex more land towards the you know along that commercial corridor if we saw that percentage go up to 10% you know maybe then you'd want to say they're not allowed in the B4 district anymore. you might want to restrict it further if that's your intent. Um, does that make sense? >> Okay. So, I think we just have to monitor our annexations and what the zoning is in those annex annexed areas or reszonings as well in this existing city. So, that's all I have. >> Okay. Thank you. And then data center update. >> Um at the last city council meeting um we did kind of reconsider a position on uh data centers and recommended to the city council that a moratorum be implemented on the establishment of data centers. Um so the the moratorum is in place for one year or until we get a ordinance established. Um the expectation from the council is that we don't drag it out as long as we can that we actually study the matter. We have to be studying the issue and um as soon as we get something adopted that we feel will protect the city um or residents around the city and land owners um then the mortorium would be lifted and we have asked a consulting firm WSB to help us with this um research and um just based on their workload I do and some other things that we're have also asked them to take on I it's probably going to be towards the end of the summer >> originally we thought this isn't a big concern because most data centers use a lot of water um but if there's a data center that is a new technology that doesn't use a lot of water. Um that they're rec cycling recycling their water somehow. Um one thing that we still don't have a real good understanding on is just uh the noise that could be associated or the constant humming that that's kind of what the some of the preliminary research is indicating that there's just like a continual noise. So how is that mitigated and um is it a concern? There aren't a lot of comprehensive studies out there. So, we're just just want to keep you updated. There's currently a moratorum. >> Thank you. >> A water tower down in Tennessee or something. There was a Google they called it the Google tower. It was a big >> one and a half million gallon hydropillar next to it. Must have been a data center. because they had all these cooling towers on top of the roof and whatever >> and you couldn't you know I I use a lot of street views Google street view >> for sure >> and they couldn't do it because there was a gated a guard check couldn't they didn't drive down the road to look at the tower or >> go through the data center it was just a Google image of the data center but >> okay >> so they excluded yeah themselves out of the >> street Google has the power. >> That was a huge I mean facility. I mean I don't know is there offices too? I have no idea. >> It's a hot topic. So it's on data centers. um don't have a lot of uh I'll have more information for you at the next meeting uh regarding legislative updates. Uh one update is that Representative John Cosnik was able to secure $1.2 million in funding in the tax bill that will help us start the design on the interchange. interchange is programmed currently to be reconstructed in 2030. And we have $7 million secured from a grant that the city applied for. Um, but we have a lot of money that we still need to find to make it happen. So, we're applying for another big grant. Um, Scott County is heading that one. It's called the regional solicitation and I think the max is 10 million on that. Um and then we'll just continue to advocate through MDOT um to have them add it into their transportation improvement plan or other grant grant funding funds. So, um, but we wanted to get, uh, need to get started right away on some preliminary design work, some environmental documents, and kind of identifying any rightaway acquisition that we might need to, um, pick up. So, thank uh, Cosnik if you ever have the opportunity for doing that. He fought hard for that. And then there is some new legislation regarding homeowners associations and Andrea's office, well, our city attorney's office will be putting out a publication of any um laws that were passed that pertain to zoning and I hope to have that in your packet next time. But one particular related to HOAs is cities can't require a developer to have a HOA. um if they don't uh if they want to have one on their own accord for some reason, but the city can't mandate that an HOA is established. So, >> do we require that now? I don't think so. >> No, I mean, if there's a private street, there needs to be an HOA and then Andrea has required that those documents be submitted to her for review. Um, and I don't know, maybe that's even overreach now. >> Those town They have common roofs and Yeah. >> poles, you know. I mean, that's what I thought it was for too, right? Siding and roofs. >> Yep. In the attached town houses, they almost always have them, but that's because they have to have them. Not >> not because of city mandates. But I think there are some cities that that maybe overstep. >> How prevalent are they? in town because I don't have one and I mean that was one of the selling points for me was that we don't have a HOA I mean are they are they common with some of the newer developments popping up >> mostly not mostly notes >> well I do can I can say though that 80% of new construction right now in Minnesota they do have an HOA of some kind but we are an anomaly because we um prefer single family homes Yeah, this development uh Parkway Meadows, which is under construction north of City Hall, the uh they they do have an HOA there um on their own because some of their products are like a villa where the homeowners don't do their own mowing. And I mean, they still own their full own lot, uh but they don't do their removal or services. >> Yeah. Yeah, >> not the whole development, just portions of it, just certain housing products. And we did receive the application for final plat approval of the remaining um portion of that development. So that development is called Parkway Meadows and I think they platted 37 lots and I think there's like 42 more. So they applied for final plat approval. Um they are waiting to see how lot sales go this over this next month before they decide if they're going to build it this fall or this summer >> the remaining streets. And then we're working on the Eagle View Meadows which is Joe Sullivan's 80 acres. So we got that through preliminary plat and zoning approval and Joe Sullivan is under contract now with LAR and LAR has engaged a engineering firm to prepare final plat application. I'm not sure how it will be phased yet or how many lots will be in the initial phase. So who's right here right now? Who's behind here? the city hall. Who's the develop? >> Uh Mi Homes >> and who's out there right now by the school? >> Dr. Horton. >> Yeah. Okay. So be a third. Okay. >> Yep. Well, Lenar Lar is kind of throughout Boulder Heights. But yeah, so it's MI Homes. I think they're the 13 largest home builder in the United States. And then Dr. Horton and LAR. I think LAR is number one. And Dr. Horton is maybe number two or three. Yeah, I think I've seen them over in like Burnsville or some of those >> cities. >> Yeah. >> Not so much here. >> Yeah. >> Because they just take a whole development and do it right. >> I do. >> I see you get a lot of the same houses. That's why I built my own up there because I didn't want to be like any of the neighbors, you know? I chose a builder from over here to build my house over here. >> Yeah, >> that's probably when the developments were open. Did you buy your lot from BART or Yeah. >> Yeah. Good old days. >> Um Bernie Mahold passed away yesterday. He was a developer that developed the farm. Him and his business partner. Sad. >> Was his family taken over? >> What's that? >> Was his family taken over or did he sell everything? >> They sold most of uh there was another 40 acre two 40 acre pieces that they had and they sold sold those to the Degross family. Yeah. So, it was always going to be a big park. >> Yeah. They were they wanted a family legacy park um down there and it just never came to fruition. >> Yeah. Anybody have any questions? I don't have anything else. >> Anyone want to make a motion to make a motion? >> Anyone want a second? >> Sure. Motion second. All right. All in favor? >> I. >> All right. Meeting adjourned at 8:21 p.m.