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_________________________________________________________________________________________ City of Arden Hills Planning Commission Meeting for September 6, 2017 P:\Planning\Planning Cases\2017\PC 17-020 - Zoning Code Amendment - Higher Education Land Uses\Memos_Reports_17-020 Page 7 of 13 Adding the information from comments 1 to 3 regarding the type of students that they are recruiting, as well as comment 4 about their status as a good neighbor, would not change the recommendations within the report. The comments regarding 50% of the new students taking class online may even strengthen the question of why Bethel would need additional building space when their campus master plan shows additional buildings and that half of the new students wouldn’t use that new space. The updated enrollment and online participation information has been added to the study report. The information regarding being a good neighbor was not included because it is beyond the economic impact and zoning regulation scope of the study. The economic information from comments 5 and 6 can be added for Bethel, but that same information for all of the commercial and industrial businesses within Arden Hills is not readily available and beyond the scope of this study. The information provided by Bethel are positive economic factors for the community, but it should be noted that the capital construction costs do not result in any additional property taxes paid due to their tax-exempt status. On pages 21 and 22, general statements regarding the other economic activities that the universities contribute have been added, as well as general statements regarding the economic activities that other large employers within Arden Hills contribute. Comment 7 supports the proposed INST zoning district and comment 8 requests that the Anderson Center be added to the INST district. A difference between the Anderson Center and the traditional campuses of both Bethel and Northwestern is their Comprehensive Plan designations. The Anderson Center is guided CMU – Community Mixed Use while the traditional campuses are guided for P/I – Public & Institutional. If the City Council choose to rezone the Anderson Center to INST, then a Comprehensive Plan amendment to the P/I guiding would be required as well. The preference to eliminate the limitation within comment 9 would be counter to previous City Council direction, but the City Council did not state a specific number or percentage of that limitation. Changing the limitation to a percentage of the total land area would be easier to implement, but may actually be detrimental to the amount of higher education uses in the B-2 zoning district. It is likely that new buildings will be built and existing buildings will be expanded creating additional room for higher education uses, but it is less likely that additional land within Arden Hills will be added to the B-2 zoning district. The proposed language within condition 10 does match staff’s intention of the HVAC requirement. Adding this language would not change how the HVAC criteria would be implemented. The HVAC requirement has been removed altogether and the reasons why are described in the summary of the August 21 City Council Work Session below. University of Northwestern Comment Letter The President of the University of Northwestern has a provide a comment letter (Attachment D). The letter does not contain any specific recommendations. The first paragraph of the letter states