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HomeMy WebLinkAbout09-18-07 PTRC Minutes Approved: October 23, 2007 CITY OF ARDEN HILLS PARKS, TRAILS, AND RECREATION COMMITTEE MEETING TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2007; 7:00 P.M. ARDEN HILLS CITY HALL 1. CALL TO ORDER th Chair Henry called the September 18 meeting of the Parks, Trails and Recreation Committee to order at 7:00 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Committee Chair Bill Henry, Committee Members Jim Crassweller, Lanny Baumann, Roger Williams, Steve Zilmer, John Peck, and Joani Werner. OTHERS PRESENT: David McClung, Council Liaison, Michelle Olson, Park and Recreation Manager; James Lehnhoff, City Planner. MEMBERS NOT PRESENT: Rich Straumann 2. APPROVAL OF AGENDA: MOTION: Committee Member Crassweller motioned, seconded by Committee Member Werner to approve the agenda as presented. The motion carried unanimously. 3. APPROVAL OF MINUTES – June 19, 2007 MOTION: Committee Member Crassweller motioned, seconded by Committee Member Baumann to approve the minutes as presented. The motion carried unanimously. Council Liaison McClung provided the following updates:  The Council authorized staff to reapply for the Safe Routes to School Grant and will be th submitting the application again. The deadline is November 16.  Regarding the 694 improvements, the Council authorized Bolten and Menk, Inc. to do an analysis of the environmental assessment for the City.  Assistant City Administrator Shawn Johnson has taken a position in the City of New Brighton, and the City is currently interviewing for an Assistant City Administrator position  The Associate Planner position was just filled.  Regarding TCAAP, the City has extended an offer to purchase in a new amendment to allow more time to work on the mediation credits that still have to be negotiated. The master planning discussions have been suspended until the Council is able to discuss the issue of density with the developer  The Alternative Urban Area-Wide Review process, which determines whether an environmental impact statement needs to be done, was progressing. PARKS, TRAILS AND RECREATION COMMITTEE MEETING September 18, 2007 Page 2 4. PARKS, TRAILS AND RECREATION UPDATE Ms. Olson provided the following updates:  Fall Programs have started  Park and Recreation is working on some TEEN programs in cooperation with Shoreview, Blaine and Lino Lakes. The first event is this Saturday at Lino Lakes YMCA and will be a kickoff with a dodge ball tournament and ice cream social, the next event is in October at the Shoreview Community Center and will consist of a talent show, and the third event is in November.  An Eagle Scout Project was recently completed in August involving the assembly and placement of six new park benches (one at Cummings, two at Hazelnut, one at Floral, one at Arden Oaks, and one at Perry Park).  Staff is working on the annual Buckthorn weekend and will possibly do this in cooperation with the Eagle Scouts. Michelle will check with the Eagle Scouts to determine a date and park.  The tennis courts at Cummings are scheduled to be reconstructed this fall or early spring.  The city street contractor has been working on removing numerous dead, diseased trees. They found approximately 30 dead trees, a mixture of both Elm and Oak, in the Chatham trail area.  At the August Work Session the CIP was discussed. Staff had placed $7,500 in the budget for 2008 for a Disc Golf Course. The City Council made the decision to remove it from the budget.  Greg and Michelle attended a Parks and Rec Director meeting last week with all the area surrounding communities. Some interesting facts regarding disc golf came up. New Brighton has been getting petitions to have one of their Disc Golf Courses removed because of all the problems they are having. The issues were parking, littering, behavior, and location. It seemed to be attracting the wrong crowd to the neighborhood. She stated she has heard of positive results at the community parks – ones that are a little more open and not so close to the residents.  The Tony Schmidt Underpass trail is paved from Tony Schmidt all the way up to trail head where the lift station road is. Michelle indicated there are tentative plans to pave all the way from that trail head to County E2 in 2012. The Safe Routes to School Grant proposes to pave to Venus. Ramsey County is proposing to go from Venus all the way up to Mounds View. No timetable has been identified for this.  5. COMPREHENSIVE PLAN UPDATE & ACTIVE LIVING City Planner James Lehnhoff Mr. Lehnhoff indicated he has not had the chance to prepare anything further regarding th demographic information other than what he had at the August 8 meeting. He stated the City should be planning less for children and teens because that is the shrinking population within Arden Hills. The growing population is the 45 and up category. He indicated the information collected from the 50 people who took the survey at the August meeting indicates the median age being 61. He stated more programs are being incorporated for adults and senior citizens. Mr. Lehnhoff indicated the goal of the August 8 meeting was to essentially find out what people are concerned about and to get an idea of what general policies the City should have in place. PARKS, TRAILS AND RECREATION COMMITTEE MEETING September 18, 2007 Page 3 The results of the meeting showed support for several things; especially parks, trails, open spaces, and different programs. He indicated in the compiled results almost every question was related to parks and trails and connectivity of the trails, integration between the two parks and the ability to travel by foot and bike. He indicated that before the City starts developing programs and trails they need to know what people are looking for. Committee Member Werner asked if the Blue Cross Blue Shield would grant funds to help get more senior programming on a trial basis in order to see how the current seniors would respond instead of waiting for TCAAP to be built. Mr. Lehnhoff indicated he thought it would be a great idea but that the grant only can be used for Comprehensive Plan-related planning purposes. He indicated on page 5 of the attachment he handed out, it states “what can be done to make Arden Hills a healthier place to live,” and provides a whole list of ideas. Mr. Lehnhoff indicated the survey shows people were concerned about environmental quality from the 694 expansion, especially noise and air pollution related to that. Other issues were water quality and green building. He indicated we do have the first two green-certified houses in Arden Hills making us a leader in energy efficiency. Committee Member Williams indicated concerning parks, trails and recreation, he felt the various employers in Arden Hills could be contacted in regards to health of their employees, to see what interest they may have. There was discussion about meeting with EDC to promote the health planning idea. Mr. Lehnhoff indicated he included basic information from the entire 1998 plan in the handout on 6A with a vision from the 2006 mission statement and goals and the 1998 parks and trails protected resources goals. Mr. Lehnhoff stated if additional assistance is needed when putting the goals together, Council can ask the consultant from AGI, who helped with the 2000 plan. He does feel it is important to find ways to incorporate health and other aspects of the plan. Mr. Lehnhoff indicated he has spoken to Bill and Michelle about the idea of moving the PTRC meeting in October from October 16 to the following Tuesday in order to allow for the second Comp Plan Open House, He encouraged everyone to attend and was happy with the turnout in August. He indicated they would again send out invitation post cards to the community. Mr. Lehnhoff wanted to know if there was any interest in the Walking Workshop which consists of walking a trail while somebody points out problems. He is working with Blue Cross Blue Shield to have one of their experts provide comments once goals are put together in order to give insight on opportunities that maybe were missed. PARKS, TRAILS AND RECREATION COMMITTEE MEETING September 18, 2007 Page 4 Mr. Lehnhoff stated they anticipate having a plan that would be ready to share with the adjoining communities by April. Ideally he would like to start roughing a draft after the October 16 meeting and have the draft approved by the Council end of April or early May. He also indicated he anticipated changes to the zoning ordinance to help implement the new Comprehensive Plan as well as the Shoreland Ordinance. 6. BOCCE GOLF COURSE UPDATE Ms. Olson and Committee Member Baumann gave a brief update of the new Bocce Golf Course at Lindey’s Park. Ms. Olson gave an update on changes she made to the web page for trails and Bocce Golf. She is working on a project right now that provides information on the trails in Arden Hills. She added Bocce Golf on the web page under Announcements and Information, which links to the Parks and Recreation Bocce Golf page.. Ms Olson is going to check to see what the lawyer suggests be done regarding the covers being put back on the holes for the Bocce Golf in case of liability issues. She is thinking the City may want to possibly add some signage. 7. SHEEHY TENNIS COURT DISCUSSION Ms. Olson indicated that the Sheehy Tennis court was going to Council. The current fee is set at $10 per year and Ms. Olson has put together a draft on what she feels are the 4 viable options with the tennis court: Option 1 would be to either increase the fee to a number agreed to by Council or keep the lease at $10 a year but include a maintenance agreement that would require the association to be financially responsible for regular maintenance on the court. Option 2 would be to open up the area as a public park with tennis courts. The city would then need to assume liability, which is one of the reasons they didn’t want to keep the court public because then improvements would have had to be made. She would recommend that we resurface it on a regular basis and keep it up. Option 3 is to tear out the tennis court and maintain that area as open green space. In 2002 the parks, trails and open space plan did propose to remove the tennis court and maintain as an open space and explore the possibility of adding unpaved trails. The estimate for City staff to take out fencing, remove the court and seed comes to $9,000. Option 4 would be to order an appraisal of the area of the land that the tennis court is located on and offer that portion be sold to the association if they are interested. Ms. Olson has had discussions with the association and is under the impression the association does want to continue the lease and keep as a court. Committee Member Crassweller made a motion that the PTRC recommend to the City Council that Sheehy become a public tennis court. The motion carried unanimously. In addition, the suggestion was made for the City to add benches for nature observation. PARKS, TRAILS AND RECREATION COMMITTEE MEETING September 18, 2007 Page 5 8. OFF-LEASH DOG PARKS Chair Henry asked Ms. Olson if she found out what happened with St. Paul’s proposal of converting several city parks into Off Leash Dog Parks in order to determine if this would make sense for a couple parks in Arden Hills. Ms. Olson indicated she has not found out yet but will keep working on it. 9. ACTIVE LIVING – 1,000 BENCHES PROGRAM Ms. Olson’s wanted PTRC’s thoughts on a new matching-type program that Ramsey County Active Living has come out with that is called the 1,000 Benches Program where you can apply for benches along the various trails. General consensus was that the City go ahead and apply for the bench program. Some suggestions were along Elmer Anderson or Lindey’s Park. The PTRC suggested that staff look more into the proper location for the application. 10. REFERANDUM/BONDING PROCESS Chair Henry asked if they could put the Referendum/Bonding Process on the next agenda. He would like someone to provide information on what the requirements are and what is all needed. Ms. Olson indicated she will work on this. 11. NEXT MEETING – Chair Henry asked for Committee feedback on Michelle’s request to have the meetings start at 6:30 p.m. instead of 7:00 p.m. Everyone agreed and all future meetings will now start at 6:30 p.m. The next meeting is scheduled for October 23, 2007. 12. ADJOURN MOTION: Committee Member Crassweller moved and Committee Member Peck seconded a motion to adjourn the meeting at 8:55 p.m. \\Metro-inet.us\ardenhills\Admin\Committees\Parks Trails and Recreation Committee\Minutes\2007\09-18-2007.doc