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Regular City Council Meeting <br /> Monday,June 3, 2019 <br /> Page 28 <br /> Councilmember Willmus stated that the Council often times directly engage with <br /> developers and focus on certain, specific areas to look for redevelopment. That is <br /> one of the things the Council does and why the Council plans. <br /> Councilmember Laliberte stated that is one of the reasons why she continues to <br /> advocate for an open house with developers, so the Council can actually do exact- <br /> ly that. She stated she was not inconsistent on that and is supportive of the City's <br /> goals and have also been consistent about the City needs to work with people to <br /> put them in the places where the City has done public process. While she agrees <br /> that the Comprehensive Plan is something that can be changed, and the Council <br /> has the ability to change whenever the Council deems it will do that. That being <br /> said, the Comprehensive Plan specifically requires a very public process and so <br /> she just thought that the City should be consistent. <br /> Mayor Roe stated he wanted to address a couple of things. First of all, the big <br /> piece of this decision that comes first is the Comprehensive Plan Land Use Map <br /> designation change. To him, in looking at that, he sets aside whether it is an af- <br /> fordable proposal or not. He looks at the use that is there now and at the types of <br /> streets that these are. He looks at other things that could happen under the exist- <br /> ing uses and he looks more broadly at the context of what has been mentioned, the <br /> Rice Street Corridor. He thought for those reasons it makes sense to make this <br /> change at this location. He thought, as has been mentioned with neighborhood <br /> business, a lot of things that can happen in a neighborhood business site could be <br /> built without any Council input and could be as tall, could be more intense, could <br /> create a lot of traffic issues and potentially other issues in the neighborhood. He <br /> stated the City does through this process have some control over what happens <br /> here, and he thought that the density of housing along a corridor like Rice Street is <br /> what tends to make sense from a planning point of view. He stated as was men- <br /> tioned very well by someone in the audience, the City does not necessarily want <br /> to put very intense uses in the middle of residential neighborhoods, the City wants <br /> to try to keep those at edges of neighborhoods. When looking at what is going on <br /> in Little Canada across the street and some of the development that is there as <br /> well as existing uses, he believed Rice Street is the edge of single-family neigh- <br /> borhood. <br /> Mayor Roe thought despite talking about looking at the corridor, which he is all <br /> supportive of, he thought the reality of the corridor is that most likely what is go- <br /> ing to come out of a study is going to be more intensity of use along that street. <br /> Evidence of that is being seen in Little Canada and also in Shoreview and he <br /> thought that is going to be a continuation going forward because it is a major arte- <br /> rial street and is the kind of place where these types of intensities should be locat- <br /> ed. That is going to mean there will be some transition from some existing single <br /> family and we have already south of County Road B, even without the <br /> Rice/Larpenteur activity that the Council talks a lot about and is going on right <br /> now. In the 2030 Comprehensive Plan the Council designated all of the proper- <br />