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November 23, 2010 <br />Ms. Meagan Beekman <br />City Planner <br />City of Arden Hills <br />By email <br />RE: PHS of Arden Hills Redevelopment Project <br />As the proposed redevelopment project for the PHS campus in Arden Hills has <br />moved through the approvals process we have integrated changes based on input from the <br />City, County and neighborhood residents. At the Planning Commission hearing on <br />November 3, we heard comments from Roseville residents living south of County Road <br />D. Most comments related to concerns of increased traffic that may occur on Wheeler <br />Road. The residents have been concerned about student traffic cutting through the <br />neighborhood to class at Northwestern and feel our County Road D access will greatly <br />increase traffic onto Wheeler. <br />As traffic projections provided to the City demonstrate, the redevelopment is <br />expected to increase traffic slightly adding 52 trips over the current number today. Staff <br />from both cities acknowledged this is a relatively minor change that is not expected to <br />impact traffic. Of significant note is that trips made to and from practice and games by <br />those utilizing the soccer fields were not counted in the current site traffic numbers which <br />has a significant impact on Wheeler. In addition that traffic will not exist in the proposed <br />project making the projection of increased traffic even less likely. <br />Given the concerns voiced by the Roseville residents, PHS held a neighborhood <br />meeting on November 15 to further discuss concerns and solutions. This meeting <br />produced plan changes which are being incorporated into the drawings to be delivered to <br />the City. The most significant change is the reconfiguration of the access onto County <br />Road D. This access is now proposed to include a "right out only" from campus onto <br />County Road D. This will send traffic leaving the site to the Fairview intersection. This <br />relieves much of the potential traffic increase to Wheeler. There remains the opportunity <br />for traffic entering the site from County Road D to travel through Wheeler. We examined <br />making our entry a one way in a number of configurations and found that it compromised <br />movement of traffic within the site to an unacceptable conclusion. This would have made <br />residents from the Brownstone have to leave the site and drive "around the block" to <br />come in the main entrance to get to the main building if they desired to join in a meal, <br />chapel or other event. The second change was made internally to the site parking layout. <br />It will encourage much of the main parking area to exit out the main entry onto Lake <br />Johanna. The configuration was suggested by a neighbor at the meeting. We have made <br />this change to the plan. The third result is to meet with the neighbors directly across <br />