CCP 02-18-2003 - Laserfiche WebLink

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I I. I I I I I I I .. I I I I I I I f I 6. The Guidant Corporation recently acquired both the Control Data property to its east and the Nestle's property to the northwest to accommodate the corporations' pressing growth experienced today and anticipated in the future. One of the many considerations for . purchasing the additional acreage and proposing campus expansion in this location, was the opportunity to construct necessary office and parking space on-site. Off-site parking would not utilize the existing campus acreage or benefit the Guidant employees and thus off-site parking is not being considered. 7. The Guidant Campus Expansion will maintain the natural landscape/buffer surrounding the 92.7-acre campus. This vegetated buffer will be further enhanced as part of the campus expansion through the planting of additional deciduous, overstory, and coniferous trees all along the west and northwestern portion of the site. These plantings will be included in Guidant's landscape plan to be reviewcd in accordance with 1-1 zoning requirements through the City of Arden Hill's Planned Unit Development process. The City of Arden Hills Zoning Ordinance requires landscaping to be maintained in accordance with Section 6D.l(d) and 6F.1(a) of the zoning ordinance. The visual buffer described in Item 26 of the AUAR will be maintained under this ordinance. 8. The 2002 background traffic (traffic not associated with the Guidant Campus) could be expected to grow 2 percent annually for 3 years. A 2 percent annual growth rate is reasonable based on historical traffic counts in the metropolitan area that show similar ratcs. Any increase in employment would be considered part of the Build scenario. The No-Build scenario assumcs Guidant maintains existing levels of employment. 9. The trip generation rates shown in Tables 2 and 3 show peak hour trip generation rates. These rates are for the A.M. pcak hour (7:30 - 8:30 a.m.) and the P.M. peak hour (4:30 - 5:30 p.m. only. Ten to twenty percent of Guidant employees are either 2nd or 3rd shift employees and would arrive/depart at off-peak hours. As with any workplace, all employees do not arrive within a single hour of the morning. Some Guidant employees arrive as early as 6 a.m. and othcrs do not arrive until 9 or lO a.m. 10. As part of the traffic analysis, traffic counts were collected at all entrances to the existing Guidant site and used to calculatc trip generation rates for 2002. These trip generation rates were compared to the ITE (Institute of Transportation Engineers) trip generation rates. The trip generation for the existing Guidant site was found to match the average ITE rates very closely. As such, the ITE trip generation ratcs for general office building were used in forecasting future (2005 and 2020 peak hour volumes on the site. For a general office building, the ITE trip generation manual jists an average trip rate per employee in the a.m, peak hour as 0.48 trips per employee with a directional distribution of 88 percent inbound and l2 percent outbound. These rates arc dctermined from over l60 traffic studies conducted throughout the United States. Based on these rates, 80 percent of the campus parking spaces would not be filled by traffic generated during the A.M. peak (7:30 - 8:30 a.m.). GuiJant Campus Master Plan Responses to Comments - 10- January 2003