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From: how11 Sent: Monday, July 05, 2004 11:40 AM To: city.council@ci.roseville.mn.us Subject: Twin Lakes Development My name is Howard Wagner, a resident of Roseville since 1965. As a member ofthe Human Rights Comission, I attended the Twin Lakes Development meetings. Missing only one meeting. I want you to know that I am against the development as presently definded. Roseville has been largely a city of private homes.with a few scattered apartments. The Twin Lakes Development will be virtually all large office and apartment buildings with some retail. The apartment buildings will be highly priced apartments with no low or moderately priced apartments. At the same time, the anticipated jobs will low to moderate income jobs. A great mismatch whem you consider the idea was that the people living in the developement would be working in the development. Maybe if both pardners were working and they had no children, they could afford to live there. I did not like any of the residential sites they showed us on the tour. They were all large, crowded, and not that attractive. I do not like the idea that there will be a large box retailer, but recognize the fact that without a large box retailer to attract customers, the small retailers, who are dependent upon walk by customer to stop and shop, will die. The small retailers need the large box retailer in order to survive. The only thing is that the large box retailer should not be one which would compete with those presently in Roseville. Something we do not have at present. Maybe a Lowe's, a Menard's, or a Home Depot. Or maybe you can convince Target to move their medium sized store on Cty Rd B to a larger sized store in the Twin Lakes Development. I know that the city would like seniors to sell their private homes and move into apartments, opening their homes for sale to new parents and thus provide children for the school district. But the times have changed. We no longer have stay at home mom's raising three or four children. Now you either have professionals who do not plan on having children or delaying them (then they have trouble conceiving children) or you have a family where both parents are working and they can not afford the child care payments for more than one or two children. The higher paying jobs which allowed one of the parents to stay home are just not there. Seniors who do sell their house and move into apartments are financially foolish. It costs me about $400 - $500 a month to operate my house and others can not be that much different. Apartments are renting for between $1,000 to $2,000 a month and they are not anything to brag about. For the difference in costs, I can hire a lot of stuff done. Inasmuch as I do not know how long I will live or what my health will be like, I have to play it conservatively. I could die tomonow or linger on for years in a nursing home, paying $5,000 to $10,000 a month. In addition, with a Republican Congress and Republican President playing with medical and drug costs, I wony that my medical expenses could rise drastically as my former employer cuts his costs and allows mine to rise. Finally, I see the Twin Lakes Development being a bottomless pit into which the city will have to pour money. At present, they are talking about a gap of $50 million, but that could easily rise to $75 to $100 million with the unknow costs for cleanup. The financial committment of the city need to be capped. Maybe a percentage up to a fixed number then nothing beyond that. I do not like the idea that my taxes could rise to pay to cover the costs of Twin Lakes Development while giving the developers a fat chunk of money. 8/412004