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ARDEN HILLS CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION – FEBRUARY 10, 2025 4 Casey Byers added having a vision for the community can help housing markets and attract people to the community. Bryce Shearen said the third phase is identifying draft recommendations. This is where they are aligning community needs with what the community can support. It will then align those findings with the resources in the Parks Department. This is where we start to chart priorities, specific improvements and estimate a dollar value. These will have a broad range. They have done enough playgrounds and recreation amenities where they can provide accurate cost estimates to understand the impacts to the overall budget. This will factor in design/engineering, construction contingencies and inflation. This becomes the backbone for the implementation plan. Casey Byers said the fourth phase is the final plan document. This will be the City’s resource for fielding questions regarding parks and amenities and thinking about how to manage the park system. This will be used regularly when making decisions about park improvements. Casey Byers said the process typically takes about nine to twelve months. They like to align the overall schedule around community engagement, which is the driver of this entire process. During the summer months residents are out and using the parks and attending community events. They like to engage people while they are out utilizing the park system and thinking about recreation activities. Bryce Shearen said a Project Advisory Committee could help facilitate the entire process. They envision that would be two council members and two PTRC members, two or three staff members and the Bolton & Menk team. This committee would have regular meetings. Councilmember Holden asked if this was the steering committee. Bryce Shearen said it could be. This is the discussion they have had with Public Works Director/City Engineer Swearingen. This approach would engage everybody. He reiterated it’s important to engage residents while they are using the parks. Pop up meetings are an effective tool for this type of engagement. They go out into the parks and talk to residents. They ask what they like, what they don’t like and what they would like to see us do better. When commissioners and councilmembers attend these events, it is a great opportunity for them to hear what people are saying. He said there will be a community-wide online survey where there are images, so residents know the amenities that are being discussed. This will be customized for what makes sense for Arden Hills. Bryce Shearen said this is a great opportunity to use the PTRC meetings as public engagement opportunities. Residents can be invited to their meetings to give feedback. There are other enhanced community input opportunities. These include an interactive online community mapping. It’s a location-based tool. People can click right into a certain park or a portion of a trail and leave a comment. It is a moderated feature. They also use yard signs, trail graphics, materials in other languages and GIS asset management as a form of community engagement. Any or all of these tools can be implemented if Council thinks they are right for Arden Hills. Bryce Shearen outlined how this process is broken out from a budget standpoint. Project Management and Initiation is 10%, Inventory and Analysis is 15%, Public Engagement is 15%, Community Needs Assessment is 20%, Implementation Planning is 20% and the Final Plan is 15%.