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701 West County Road C Roseville, Minnesota 55113 May 14, 1994 Ms. Pat Johnson Roseville City Council City Hall 2660 Civic Center Drive Roseville, Minnesota 55113 RE: Planning Commission Meeting, May 11, 1994 Dear Council Member Johnson: As we discussed at the Planning Commission's meeting of May 11, 1994, I am writing to express my concern regarding the Commission's failure to adequately discuss proposed changes in the comprehensive plan for the area of County Road C and Dale. The City Council sent that issue back to the Commission with specific instructions that the Commission was to discuss and give reasons for either changing or denying changes in the city's comprehensive plan. Of course you were at the Commission meeting, and you are aware that they did no such thing. The Commission's discussion was not merely wholly inadequate, it was wholly nonexistent. At the meeting, the Commission approved a motion to recommend a change in the plan for the southwestern corner of County C and Dale from low density to medium density residential, provided that any medium density development take steps to ensure that traffic is guided away from residential streets. I am hopeful that the City Council will consider some very major objections to the Commission's treatment of this issue. First, the Commission simply did not respond the City Council's directive that it fully consider the issue before making any recommendation. Rather, as soon as the issue came up for discussion, one Commissioner moved to recommend the change to medium density, and the motion was passed with a five-minute, at most, discussion about the impact on traffic. No consideration was given to impact that the proposed changes will have on Central Park, which borders the area, especially the potential impact on the Park's wetlands. No environmental consideratlons were raised at all. There was no discussion as to the character of the area, whether the city would benefit from a change in comprehensive plan, whether the change fit into the city's goals for its future, whether the area residents were in favor of or opposed to the plan, nor any other relevant issues, except traffic concerns. Moreover, the Commissioners indicated that traffic should be steered away from "residential" areas, by which I assume they meant that those of us who live on County Road C either do not share the other residents' concerns about traffic, or that we are not sufficiently "residential" to count. The Chair of the Planning Commission rejected the possibility of further comment from the public in general, and from neighboring residents in particular. I have no doubt that this was procedurally correct, but the fact that the Commission was apparently unable to remember any citizen concerns other than traffic certainly showed that public comment was nonetheless needed. I live on the northern side of County C, directly across from the area for which changes are proposed, and thus I am very aware that there are many, many more concerns among the residents that traffic, although that is also a concern, since many of us have small children. There are many other quality of life issues that the Commission utterly failed to discuss, as well as the fact