CCP 02-22-2000 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

I I. I I I I I I I .. I I I I I I I. I I In addition, the City and the consulting team agreed to a very agressive plan completion schedule that would deliver a plan recommendation to the Arden Hills City Council no later than September I, 1995. This gave everyone roughly four months to review and digest site information that was already available, establish a vision and goals for its reuse, and develop a reuse plan that could respond to political and market forces likely to change during the life of the plan. The TCAAP Framework Plan was prepared under the direction of the Arden Hills TCAAP Reuse Task Force, a 14- member group comprised ofrepresentatives from the Plalming Commission and other City committees. This group fIrst met on May 3, 1995 and got down to work inunediately. Its first month of work was devoted ahnost exclusively to gaining a better understanding of the site itself: land use on and around it, infrastructure and ttaffic conditions, natural resource considerations and environmental contamination issues. (See Chapter II, Site Overview.) The Task Force met an average of three times per month and held four public meetings during the course of its intense four-month effort. In June, the Task Force developed a vision for reuse of TCAAP and a series of goals for the plan, as well as a set of criteria by which members (arLd the public) could judge any given plan's success or failure. (See Chapter III, Goals and Evaluation Criteria.) By mid-July, the Arden Hills Task Force was able to present four test concepts to the Reutilization Committee (Chapter IV, Concept Plan Development). In late August, the Task Force adopted a refmed plan for recommendation to the Arden Hills City Council (Chapter V, Plan Refinement and Preferred Reuse Plan). One of the major issues confronting the City was building support for a single reuse plan, so as to avoid confusion and conflict at the federal level when the property becom,,. available. In September 1995, the TCAAP Reutilization Committee (Vento's group) essentially endorsed the Ardeo Hills plan, with a few minor modifications. It adopted a slightly re-modified version of the plan in December, shortly before disbanding. Although the Vento plan has yet to be returned to the Arden Hills Task Force for review, the plans accepted by the two groups are so similar as to represent a general consensus that allows the 'Ilocal community'l to speak with a single voice in Washington. Principal Components of the TCMP Reuse Plan (Figure V-25) The foundation of the TCAAP Framework Plan is a large open-space preserve that will protect and allow public enjoyment of the site's considerable natural assets. Among these assets are Marsden Lake and its related network of wetlands; a series of rare prairie pothole wetlands; SunfIsh Lake; the Rice Creek corridor; and a kame, a glacial formation rare in the Twin Cities region and the source of the name of the City of Mounds View. The preserve contains nesting sites and other habitat for the threatened Blanding's turtle and prairie remnants with threatened Illinois tree tick-trefoil. The preserve also encompasses more than half of the contamination sites, which may help the local community to gain greater control over the pacing and extent of eventual clean-up. Iu addition to this spectacular natural area, three other sizable public open spaces have been set aside: . a city park, just north of the Army Reserve Center along Lexington Avenue; . a ballfield complex to be operated jointly by Arden Hills, Shoreview, Mounds View and New Brighton; and .. an area designated for "active or passive recreation", which may be put to any of a large variety of uses, depending on demand and available resources at the time of development The remainder of the site would be divided into five principal use areas: . A govemment center that would encompass Sunfish Lake and the City Park, as well as a civic campus and interpretive center for the open-space preserve; A village center that would include a small retail center, a school, semi-public facilities (e.g., churcbes) and some mid-to-high-density housing; . Camiros, Ltd.lSEH, lnc.l LHDL, Ltd. TCAAP Framework Plan Page 2 Executive Summary