2004_1025_Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

Page 1 o f 2 Welsch, Dennis -.� � From: mwtraynor@comcast.net Sent: Wednesday. October 13.2004 7:45 PM To: dennis.welsch@ci.roseville.mn.us Cc: JMulder@mncounties.org; JMulder@mncounties.org Subject: Twin Lakes Input Even though I cannot attend the October 14 meeting where the Planning Commission is expected to provide the City Council with recommendations regarding the proposed Twin Lakes plan, I wanted to share my thoughts as a Roseville citizen and Commission member who has followed this issue over the past several months. 1) Although I have an opinion on the financing of this project, I will not address this given the Commission's role which is limited to addressing land use and zoning implications. 2) I believe that a city needs to be flexible in its planning activities because, as we all know, the world changes. Like many others, I would prefer more office use in this area than is currently proposed. However, I believe there �� a significant risk to waiting an indeterminate period of time for another, currently undeveloped proposal that more closely fits past ideals for Twin Lakes. If there have been real efforts on the part of the city and property owners to attract office uses, such efforts have been unsuccessful, and I think it is in the best interests of the city to re-examine our expectations and approach. Waiting means accepting the significant risk that the costs of future redevelopmentwill increase while the current uses and environmental degredation continue. Reasonable people can differ here, but I would rather not take that risk. 3) 1 have the following serious concerns about the "big box" part of the proposal: it undermines the ability to create an integrated, mixed use community chiefly because of the huge amount of parking that is necessary to support . this use; no matter what design standards are applied, it is likely to be a less attractive use than an office or housing use; it fails to further diversify our tax base by increasing our city's reliance on retail; and it creates traffic concerns, particularly during time periods when our current retail uses generate intense traffic (e.g. weekends and the holiday season). 4) So, on one hand, t believe we need to be pragmatic and try to work with this opportunity rather than wait for another proposal that may be a long time coming. On the other hand, the big box is a bitter pill for me to swallow. 5) For me to be able to support a project featuring a large amount of retail -- and particularly a big box -- I would need to see some special efforts to create as much benefit to our community as is possible. Such efforts would include: a) high-level design standards for the big box such that it becomes a model for big box development in Minnesota; b) on top of any parkland dedication or payment in lieu of land, a special contribution by the development team to create a specific park amenity in Langton Lake Park, such as as an ampitheateror pavilion; c) heightened attention to the "park-like" amenities such as creating green walkways through parking lots and fountains in drainage ponds; d) reserving a relatively small portion of the project for a reasonable period of time while the development team and city seek to attract grant funding to help develop more affordable housing in this project to balance the housing stock; e) serious consideration to the construction of a parking ramp to increase green space and reduce impervious, unsightly parking lots; '� � the city and development team develop a specific transportation plan with a goal to mitigate the projected ��#��i