03-20-23-WS - Laserfiche WebLink

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ARDEN HILLS CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION — MARCH 20, 2023 15 Councilmember Fabel said the City Council and the County would be working side by side. He thought they should open up the AUAR update process now so that as planning goes forward on TCAAP the activities and communication would be coordinated. Councilmember Holden stated that she heard him say that they are going to go through the planning process then give them information from the planning process to update the AUAR based on that. So her question was are they going to update the AUAR or is the JDA planning to submit information to them with which to update the AUAR from? Councilmember Fabel said the processes would be going on at the same time and many of the same people would be involved in both, City staff would be involved in both, the City's representatives on the JDA and it would be ultimately approved by the City Council. They would be working side by side and beginning now so they could work on it as the JDA plan moves forward. Councilmember Holden again asked if it's an update or new information being provided for the AUAR. Mayor Grant said Council needs to understand the City and the County don't do the AUAR, it is done by a third party. Councilmember Fabel said the third party would be talking to staff. Mayor Grant felt Councilmember Holden was asking when they would start the process. Councilmember Holden stated they can't start the AUAR and halfway through have the JDA say they want to add or change this or that. They're either updating the AUAR or they're not. The people updating the AUAR aren't going to wait around for the JDA to decide what changes they're going to make. Mayor Grant stated you need input to do an AUAR and there is a third party involved. Councilmember Fabel wanted to give staff the go ahead to get started. City Administrator Perrault stated there are two scenarios, the 1,500 is based on current city zoning code, the 2,500 is based on the maximum developable scenario. He would postulate that as the JDA moves forward they could work in tandem with Kimley Horn on the updates but if the updates aren't exceeding the 2,500 scenario the inputs aren't really changing and would still fall within the existing AUAR. Mayor Grant didn't know what they would gain by starting early. His bigger concern was what if the acreage from commercial and residential changes? Then you have an AUAR that doesn't match up with what you're doing. They may still be within the development scenarios but the environmental impact would be different. There are elements within the AUAR that change depending on how much residential and commercial there is. Councilmember Fabel thought that maybe the AUAR needs to be adjusted to create more flexibility.