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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCCWS 10-30-06 -SI EN• HILLS Approved: CITY OF ARDEN HILLS, MINNESOTA WORK SESSION MEETING OCTOBER 30, 2006; 5:00 P.M. ARDEN HILLS CITY COUNCIL CHAMBERS CALL TO ORDER/ROLL CALL Pursuant to due call and notice thereof, Mayor Beverly Aplikowski called to order the work session meeting at 5:05 p.m. Present: Mayor Beverly Aplikowski Absent: Councilmembers Gregg Larson, David Grant, Brenda Holden, and Vincent Pellegrin • Also present were City Administrator, Michelle Wolfe; and Parks and Recreation Manager, Michelle Olson Celebrating Arden Hills- A quorum of the City Council was not present for this meeting. Therefore, the work session meeting to discuss Celebrating Arden Hills was cancelled. Mayor Aplikowski adjourned the Work Session meeting at 5:05 p.m. Beverly pli wski Michelle A. Wolfe Mayor City Administrator • ~ ~~HILLS Approved: 2/12/07 CITY OF ARDEN HILLS, MINNESOTA CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION WITH EDC OCTOBER 30, 2006; 6:00 P.M. ARDEN HILLS CITY COUNCIL CHAMBERS CALL TO ORDER/ROLL CALL Pursuant to due call and notice thereof, Mayor Beverly Aplikowski called to order the work session meeting at 6:00 p.m. Present: Mayor Beverly Aplikowski, Counci1members David Grant, Gregg Larson, Brenda Holden, and Vincent Pellegrin. Absent: None. Also present were City Administrator, Michelle Wolfe; Community Development Director, Karen Barton; and Economic Development Chair, Bruce Kunkel. Arden Hills Economic Development Stratee:ic Plan- Ms. Barton stated that at the last Council meeting, Mr. Bruce Kunkel, Economic Development Commission Chair, presented the draft Arden Hills Economic Development Strategic Plan. The plan was being brought back for further discussion. Ms. Barton further stated that Arden Hills did not currently have a business retention program or an economic development program and was home to over 500 employers. Councilmember Grant asked if a list of business licenses for those 500 businesses could be provided. Ms. Barton stated that the City did not require licensing of all businesses therefore, a list of city licensed businesses could not be provided that would include all 500 plus businesses. The list that was available was one that the EDC created from a purchased list that contained SIC and NArC codes and their own research. Councilmember Holden asked what the definition of a business was, specifically if a massage therapist working out of their home was regarded a business. Ms. Barton stated that not all of the 500 businesses were required to be licensed by the City, but were licensed by the State. Small businesses could be as small as one person working out of their home doing massage therapy. Councilmember Holden stated that the business list for the Celebrating Arden Hills sponsorship letters only contained about 100 businesses. Since this list contained over 500 businesses, Councilmember Holden asked if the City knew that the other 400 businesses existed when the sponsorship letters were sent out. Ms. Barton stated that since there was no Strategic Plan, 1 Economic Development Plan or Business Retention Program in place, this information was not available until the EDC recently pulled it together. Ms. Wolfe stated that the City clearly did not have a very good comprehensive list of businesses. The generation ofthe business list was the biggest initial impact ofthe EDC's work and a side benefit was that it could be used for fundraising purposes. This list was used to send out invitations for the upcoming business luncheon and as undelivered invitations were returned, the business list would be updated. Mayor Aplikowski stated that the City did not have the extensive knowledge it does now. She thanked the EDC members who used their own resources to gather this information. Ms. Barton stated that one ofthe purposes oftonight's meeting was to hear the Council's questions, concerns and/or comments about the plan. Ms. Barton further stated that this plan was projected over a five-year period. Certain things would be started in year one whereas others would not take place until the fifth year. The costs associated with implementing this plan were outlined in the proposed budget. City Staff and the EDC members want to bring this plan back for Council approval at a regular Council meeting in the near future, so the implementation of the plan in 2007 could be appropriately budgeted for. Ms. Wolfe stated that this was a comprehensive plan and was proposed to be implemented over the next four to five years. The time constraint was with trying to finalize the budget to have a proposed budget at the November Work Session, and preparing for truth in taxation and the final levy, which are in December. Ifthere were going to be cost items implemented in 2007, staff needed preliminary direction to include them in the 2007 budget. If additional discussion was needed for the long term plan, we could continue to have them, but there was a need to talk about what items the Council was comfortable with that could be moved forward and budgeted for. Councilmember Grant asked what the final product of this plan was. Mr. Kunkel stated in regards to the Red Fox/Grey Fox area, if nothing was done with this plan, this area would be extremely deteriorated 15 years from now. Arden Hills residents would hold us accountable, one way or another, for what was not done. If done properly, this property could have a vitality and life that we could be excited about. We could see new businesses that not only serve our residents in terms of the services they provide, but employment of a significant nature as well. Also, an opportunity that could exist through a development plan would be working with the existing businesses to determine growth and where new businesses were if we wanted to retain all those businesses. It would be a strategic decision. We would probably not fight to retain every business that existed in Arden Hills, but we could strategically look at how the City could grow economically. Councilmember Grant asked if the northwestern quadrant of Arden Hills was seen as a redevelopment area and if so, what it would be designed for. Ms. Wolfe stated it would have to be done in phases. The first piece would be assessment, looking at strategic decisions and making them. The simplest answer was to be proactive instead of reactive, and possibly avoid the position of trying to quickly react because businesses were starting to leave the City. A proactive step could perhaps be trying to identify ahead of time factors that may prompt 2 businesses to leave: such as expansion limitation of their current location or building quality standards. Councilmember Grant asked if there were current statistics on Arden Hills businesses leaving and ifthere were problems to fix in that regard? Mayor Aplikowski stated from past experience of visiting businesses, some of it was the feel good stuff, but some of it was the need for more space. Would this business be one that we would want to cultivate since there was an opportunity of possibly encouraging businesses to grow within the city? Right now, we don't know what those pools of businesses are. Ms. Wolfe stated in response to Councilmember Grant's original question of what are would be getting, we would get resources, data and information. Councilmember Grant stated he didn't think businesses would say that they want to be in Arden Hills. He thought that as businesses looked for a location in the surrounding communities of Little Canada, Shoreview, and New Brighton, that the image of Arden Hills simply stood out as a more desirable location. There may be a nice building on a nice corner in New Brighton or Little Canada but maybe we have the trump card in being a more positively viewed community. Councilmember Holden stated that in addition, they would look at the bottom line. If New Brighton taxes were 15 percent and ours were 6 percent, this would be another selling factor. Ms. Wolfe stated that another factor and a key thing when businesses look to locate, relocate or expand, was the need for information quickly. One of the products ofthis plan would be the development of that information. In fact, some of the information that the EDC pulled together was used to provide to DEED when there was a company looking for a location. Councilmember Pellegrin stated that the thought of the increased involvement of Council with the upcoming TCAAP project and its implications in addition to the routine responsibilities of the Council was sobering. The Council already had to devote a lot oftheir time to their routine responsibilities and now there would be the added responsibilities associated with TCAAP. One of Councilmember Pellegrin's on-going themes, which were also mentioned in the plan, was the strengthening of the City Administrator position. Councilmember Pellegrin commented that he would like to see that change happen in year one because it would set the tone and give the person who was accountable and responsible the authority to carry out the mission. Mr. Kunkel stated that TCAAP didn't have to be developed in three years, and that it would be over the next ten to twenty years, which was still a staggering amount of work to do. Mr. Kunkel commented that in the time he spent with the Council over the years, he had been surprised and sometimes not surprised at the level of detail that the Council got involved in. Mr. Kunkel further stated that a way of empowering staff must be sought or those on the Council would be overwhelmed with the burden of all that needed to happen. Ms. Wolfe stated that such a change would require a referendum and it could be a big undertaking. She stated that since she was in that position she didn't want the appearance of 3 advocating for herself therefore she thought the consultant idea may be a good idea should Council choose to pursue it. The change would require some investment in terms of educating the public about what it would mean, the impact on the Council and their decisions, the impact on the community and the impact on how business was conducted. Councilmember Larson stated that the Council needed to put more trust in staff and more trust in acting as leaders and establishing visions. He voiced that he liked the broadness of the plan and the level at which it was drafted. There were different ways to bring fruition to some of the things in the plan. Staff should take this list of planned activities and come back to Council with recommendations of how to bring these things forward. Counci1member Larson further stated that that he thought ifthe Council was doing their job as Council members they should not be dealing in the detail since that was not what they we were elected to do. Counci1member Grant stated that he was concerned with the medium sized businesses that would want to relocate. Larger companies like Land O'Lakes or Boston Scientific could be acquired or their business downturns and they would likely have several plants across the country to consider. Small businesses, consisting of two employees or a mom and dad in their garage would move for whatever reason they choose and it will be hard to retain them. Ms. Wolfe stated that this related back to what Mr. Kunkel said about being strategic in determining where it makes most sense to target our efforts. Perhaps for business retention purposes, certain aspects make more sense to target medium sized businesses, versus small and large businesses. The underlying thing was a strategic approach, but first the information must be available. Mr. Kunkel stated that the City needed to be prepared to deal in the global economy, but if a decision was made to close Boston Scientific or Land O'Lakes, he believed that the Economic Development Commission would want us to be strategic. We would not be able to influence the decision makers of those companies regarding whether or not be keep those offices/operations here, but we would have a role in who we would want to bring in. That was where we would need to think strategically and this acquired knowledge would help us accomplish that. Councilmember Grant stated that the plan timeline was 15 years. If that was put up against the TCAAP schedule, would TCAAP benefit as a result? Would it be reasonable for TCAAP and the developers to be partners with this economic client since they would also be recipients ofthe benefit? Mayor Aplikowski stated it could be entirely possible. One reason for this plan coming together was because the EDC did not want a north and south Arden Hills. The intent was to blend the two sections. Everything in the plan would eventually benefit not only current business, but also future businesses. Ms. Barton stated that ultimately, when looking at this in relation to TCAAP, our efforts would benefit the developer, but would also benefit the City as well since we would be in a proactive situation as oppose to reactive. We would have more influence on what businesses are attracted here as opposed to waiting to see who would show up. 4 Councilmember Grant stated that the EDC wanted to blend TCAAP with the rest of Arden Hills to prevent a new town/old town scenario. He the questioned if there would be redevelopment in the Red Fox/Grey Fox area? Mr. Kunkel stated it was certainly part of it. Ms. Wolfe stated that there was concern that TCAAP would be separated from the rest of the City, but the rest of the City was also bisected by major roadways. Perhaps common themes, identities and/or activities, could be identified that would help blend the City. Ms. Barton stated that the next step in the process was to receive Council direction regarding how they felt about the plan. She asked ifthere were other changes that the Council recommended or wanted to see happen before the plan was brought back for Council action. Council Larson stated he would like to see the whole issue of staff move forward. It would take a conscientious effort from the Council to give the authority to the city manager and make that person accountable to carry out the mission. Councilmember Holden stated that she thought this was a very aggressive plan. She couldn't see the items listed under year one and two only taking two years. Councilmember Grant stated that he didn't think all the gateway signs could be put in in two years. Councilmember Larson stated he viewed the laundry list of things as starting points. The Council should accept the plan and direct staff to move forward with the process. In the course of making some of the things happen, this list could possibly change and be different as time went on. Councilmember Holden stated she had a problem with the development sites on page 17, number 12. She stated with the current language, it shouted out eminent domain. Her interpretation was that nonperforming or underperforming land would be taken to allow for higher performing purposes. Eminent domain was a sore issue and she would not approve the plan with the current language. Ms. Barton stated the intent was to focus on areas that were under utilized and to look at zoning changes and to provide incentives when negotiating with key partners. It was not the intent to focus on eminent domain, but the language could be clarified to state that the City did not intend to take properties. Councilmember Grant stated that when recruiting consultants, whether for parks, master plan or economic plan, they typically put everything on the plate. He stated he saw this as a cafeteria plan. He would rather see staff work on funding specifically with our developing partuer, since they stand to benefit greatly from this. Councilmember Holden stated that the financial plan that was adopted more or less stated that current taxpayers should not pay for operating costs of TCAAP. She further stated that she could 5 see where some current residents would want it funded by the partnership since money was used for staff to bring in businesses to TCAAP. Councilmember Larson stated that the economic development plan talked about public financing and that public financing would not affect the rest of the community. When staff came back to the City Council with their report they talked about the context of public financing. He further stated that there was a corollary to saying that we were not going to have any expenses whatsoever in the development ofTCAAP fall back on our taxpayers, which is that we would not have any revenue and benefits that fall back on the rest ofthe City either. Weare all going to benefit in the long run from TCAAP. Mayor Aplikowski stated this was a broad plan for the entire city and was going to cost us a little bit of money. The next step was to prioritize and get something into the 2007 budget if we were going to buy into this at all. Councilmember Holden asked ifthe traffic issues with people trying to get out of Boston Scientific onto Lexington was addressed? Mr. Kunkel stated that he did not recall talking specifically about trying to get people out on specific roads, but part of the dilemma was that some of the roads are out of the City's control. Ms. Wolfe stated that as the next step, perhaps staff could take Council's feedback tonight into consideration and come back to the Council at a later time with a year one proposal for Council consideration and possibly to be incorporated into the budget process. Mayor Aplikowski stated she wanted to see a list that could be prioritized down the road and recommended that the entire Council be informed of whatever feedback was given. Councilmember Larson stated that a lot of time and money was put into this. At a minimum, the Council should accept this plan; thank the Economic Commission for their work and direct staff to move forward to develop the framework to carrying out things. Mayor Aplikowski suggested the Council get feedback to Ms. Barton or Ms. Wolfe. The plan and feedback would be brought back to the next meeting and ifthere were substantial changes, it would then go back to the EDC. Councilmember Holden asked how the Chamber was envisioned to help in this. Ms. Barton stated that the Chamber needed to be a strategic partner, but that could be challenging since the Chamber did not work just for Arden Hills, but for a number of surrounding cities as well. It was definitely part of the plan to get the Chamber involved and to be more of a partner in our economic development efforts. Councilmember Holden stated that one of the concerns facing the existing businesses in the area by the corner of Lexington and County Road E was how to attract desired businesses without hurting the existing businesses in the City. Mr. Kunkel stated that it required being careful on how to proceed and that due diligence was very important. 6 Mayor Aplikowski stated that the bottom line was what was presented to staff, how it was handled by staff, then what is moved forward to Council and finally what Council would approve. She further stated that this was a good start since it provided a broad base for Council to work. Comments should be given to staff and staff would then bring it back to the November 13th . meetmg. Mayor Aplikowski thanked Mr. Bruce Kunkel for his time TCAAP Preliminary Development Ae:reement- Ms. Wolfe stated that during the update at the regular meeting, Ms. Barton mentioned that work was progressing in the preliminary development agreement update. This item was listed under this work session, but there wasn't anything else to update other than what Ms. Barton had already mentioned during the regular meeting, therefore, this may need to be put on the next meeting agenda. TCAAP Master Plannine: Process- Mr. Bruce Chamberlain, landscape architect and principal with Hoisen Koegler Group stated that they were a land planning and master plauning firm of Minneapolis. They have done a number of projects that have some similarities to the TCAAP project. Their involvement here was with the master plan component, working through the PUD submittal and also coordinating with the City on the comp plan amendment. There were other consultant groups that would be part to the team as well who were not present, but they were all working together as a team under the direction of CRR. Mr. Chamberlain handed out a cover memo and schedule for a number of components ofthe project. There were six phases of work that was identified, including the master plan, AUAR and PUD. Highlighted in the memo were a number of ways that Mr. Chamberlain suggested to keep the community involved. A tour of some of the other projects within the twin cities was scheduled for Saturday, November 18th. The focus was to look at a number of projects that were fairly recent around the twin cities area that was relative to the kind ofthings that may happen on the TCAAP property, both good and bad aspects. The project teams are listed on the first page ofthe memo. It was anticipated that there would be 50-60 project team meetings throughout the 20 month process from the master plan to the point where things started to happen on the property itself. The proj ect teams consisted of City staff, the development group from CRR, and the consultant teams. The focus would mainly be on coordination, to ensure all teams were communicating and that all bases were covered on all activities that needed to be addressed. Mr. Chamberlain also suggested the creation of an advisory team. This would be a smaller group and it was suggested that they hold 10 meetings, on a monthly basis. The advisory team meetings would be the first step in a two stage process in working with the community. It would be followed up by a City Council/Planning Commission work session, similar to this meeting. There would be about eight ofthose meetings throughout the 16- month time frame. Mr. Chamberlain suggested going to the public at large in an open house format a couple of times during that time. The first would be in January, in a town hall 7 forum. Mr. Chamberlain suggested having displays and making it an interactive opportunity to get feedback. It would be the intent to try to understand the community values to get a sense on where the community stood regarding the TCAAP redevelopment. The concerns and desires would then be use as a foundation for putting together some concept alternatives and land use alternatives. Also on the schedule were some major milestones. Those milestones were points in the process where City Council approval for certain items would be requested. Also suggested were five newsletters that would be mailed to the public as well as updated on a designated page on the City's website. The newsletters would come at key points in the process to keep everyone informed on the redevelopment process and the upcoming public workshops. The master plan process would be a fairly long process. It would be roughly a year starting now and going through until the ultimate goal of a master plan sketch plan approval, sometime around the first part of November 2007. Part of the January meeting would be the identification of some goals and strengths and the determination of land use plan and development program. We would also look at a number ofland use alternatives, stepping back or up in scale of what was part of the Framework Vision. And finally, the refinement of alternatives into a preferred master plan and making it part of the larger phasing plan. The AUAR would deal with traffic and enviromnental analysis. Those are the two key components of some ofthe background information that would be collected. It was anticipated that the final AUAR be adopted in NovemberlDecember 2007. Also projected for adoption in December 2007 was the comprehensive plan amendment. In the PUD process, schematic plans for the phase-one project would be prepared. Obviously this property would be developed over many phases and multiple years. Phase one of the PUD process would create plans for initial activities, review the PUD plan process, document preparation, in conjunction with City staff and City Council review. Finally that would lead to the point where some work could be done on the site starting with enviromnental clean up. The important point is that there is a lot of work to be done as part of the project. The development team is very interested in walking through this process with the City of Arden Hills and making sure communication lines are very open and making sure the result of what is created as part of this process is something that is a vision of the development team, but also the community. Mr. Eric Anderson stated that looking at the schedule, it didn't look too overwhelming, but this was only the land planning part. The big picture would have three concurrent linear processes that when looked at separately look pretty understandable, but when put together, they become a Rubix cube of a process with land planning, another layer on top of that with the enviromnental, not necessarily AUAR, but MPCA, PCA that type of enviromnental and then the development, structuring, financing, contracts, like the purchase agreement and amendment to that and the GSA activities. Councilmember Grant asked if the GSA was coordinating the other consultants in the process. Ms. Gen McJilton stated that was part of the master plan therefore they were working with her and Ms. Barton to coordinate it. The different consultants would feed into different pieces. Ms. Gen McJilton and Ms. Barton were ultimately the two coordinating it. Mr. Bruce Chamberlain's 8 role was master planner and he would bring in the plans for discuss whereas Ms. Gen McJilton and Ms. Barton would be quarterbacking. Ms. Gen McJilton stated that a list of everyone who proposed on the project and what they proposed their role to be was handed out. Across the top listed the firms that were selected. Some teams that came in were broken up to form what the development team and staff felt made the best team. Ms. Gen McJilton went through the list of those that were selected and the area they would be responsible for. Ms. Barton stated that staff recommendation of the development of the advisory team be one or two members of the PTRC, Planning commission, EDC, Council, a couple of residents at large and keeping it to 10-12 members. Ms. Gen McJilton stated that they would also have a technical panel talking to MnDOT, Ramsey County and surrounding cities to get their feedback. It would be done as part of the AUAR and be part of planning and understanding traffic. Councilmember Holden expressed concern about the newsletter. With a newsletter going out in March 2007, it would almost be six months before additional information was given. Knowing that there was a lot going on and in trying to get the community revved up for this, it may be better to send out newsletters quarterly. Ms. Barton asked the Council to check their calendars for availability on December 2nd for a tour. Once the Council has replied back with their availability, staff would them inform the Plauning Commission ofthe date and time of the tour. The list of possibly sites would not be r:nalized yet for another co]!ple-o.t:.wes:~ It was anticipated that the tour would include 10-12 SItes. ". ed the Regular City Council Meeting at! 0:35 9