the date here I will call the July 17th Eda meeting to order I'll make a motion to adopt the agenda thank you do I have a second oh second all in favor aye opposed motion carries next item approved the June 20 2023 Eda minutes any comments changes Etc I'll make a motion to uh approve is submitted thank you do I have a second all in favor aye aye Epstein okay thanks Tom opposed okay motion carries item number four the BR and E program update discussion thank you Julie the special Eda he's been discussing the need for and means to update the current BR and E program as this plan was adopted in 2016 the plan needs reviewed and potential updates reflect the new challenges faced by small businesses in the post-pandemic culture and the involved evolving business climate environment has exist in 2023 Christine Costello our community Economic Development representative for Connexus Energy attended our April 17th Eda meeting and reviewed the services connections provide to their Economic Development programs and discuss what they may be able to offer in the update of our brain program Christine is with us tonight for tonight's meeting to continue this discussion the Eda also met with Michael darger the University of Minnesota extension service and one of the primary authors of the current BR e plan with the Eda at the May 15 2023 meeting to provide a review of potential updates and or direction to the plan staff also met with the East Bethel Chamber of Commerce at their May 11 2023 meeting and updated the chamber on the eda's initiative to revisit our current BR e program and requested their participation going forward with the update staff has had two follow-up meetings with the chamber along with email Communications to determine their interest in partnering in the update their involvement is critical to moving forward on any direction of this program representatives from the chamber indicated that they would be attending tonight's meeting but we were informed at 4 30 PM that the chamber members would not be able to attend the meeting but they would send us a letter expressing their support for the program and their intent to partner with the Eda on the updates [Music] the summary of discussion of the last meeting was acknowledgment of and the need for the fact we are a different city now in the time of the original BR e with utility system that has emerged from its infancy to one that is now self-sustaining relative to operational costs has become our most stable asset in terms of being able to service new development in the corridor we have a section here that lists the following businesses located in East Bethel since 2016. the following expansions that occurred in East Bethel since 2016. and the major businesses have changed ownership since that time at this time staff request the Eda continue the discussion of the brna update as to its goals the availability of resources needed to complete the project and Implement its recommendations this time I'll turn it over to Julie and Christine to go over some of the discussions that they've had then uh see what we can do to outline some of these things and give us Direction on how we're going forward with the program thanks Jack yeah Christine Costello and I from Connexus had a chance to connect I thought just to give her a heads up of what the discussion would be like this evening I thought her input would be invaluable since she's gone through this twice with a slightly different methodology when you were with the city so if you'd like to come up and so I had a chance to talk with Julie earlier today my previous experiences in local government I worked with the city of Cottage Grove for six years as their economic development director and then their community development director so I initiated their brnee process there so I shared with Julie a little bit what we did there we did the original survey with the University of Minnesota extension as our first one and then we continue the following two years we did every other year we did it on our own kind of shared with her we took that original survey and pared it down a little bit because it's a lot of questions in for Cottage Grove we did it industry wise so one year we focused on Industrial and then the next year we focused on Commercial excuse me every other year so Julie and I discussed based on the lists of 28 businesses roughly that are in the staff report you could base it off of that of new businesses so it's kind of up to the Eda and City how they wanted to proceed but kind of here to answer any questions and told Julie and Jack I'm happy to participate in the interview process and interviewing businesses and I think it's great that the chamber will participate that's a huge aspect of it they have those connections with the businesses and you know if they're willing to one of their businesses Maybe as part of the process shared a letter with Jack that we had the mayor send out to our businesses that showed the support of the city just wanted to provide examples of my experience for Jack to have so here for questions in your experience doing this before uh we're home-based businesses ever included we did not um home occupations were always they're really hard to track you know they don't require a permit you know they could have pulled a building permit to do electrical or minor you know building work adding a wall or something like that but they're too hard to judge in terms of whether or not they're operating oftentimes home occupations are really good about coming to the city if there's a need to expand because they'll have questions on the process do you know of any space available so that was just two in the weeds for us to go into somebody's home and interview them for their business so we stayed away from those oh I believe East Bethel does have a burning process at least for businesses that come forward so I think as far as trying to track them down that'd be fairly easy do you think it would be worth it to say at least send out a email out a survey and just based right on home-based businesses and see if we can get responses if that would uh add to any of this business retention or I suppose the key part would be expansion if we can expand a home-based business into uh a larger your focus to be for your BR and e um whether it's kind of a cross-section of the businesses listed in the staff report or if you want to go industry specific you could send out a letter to home-based businesses and ask them if they're interested in participating or it's just sending a letter out to home-based businesses and letting them know if they have an interest in expanding their business to a retail space within the community you know here's the contact information for the community development director and they can you know kind of walk them through the steps of they need to get any building so you could kind of do it either or I think it's based on what the Eda would prefer to do okay thank you the discussions on the home-based businesses if we want to do this I think it should be a separate portion things can be hard to integrate the two I think we currently have about 60 interim use permits issued but we probably have three or four hundred home-based businesses in these Bethel maybe even more than that I think it might be good nothing else those that we do have on record is to send them a letter stating what some of their objectives are on this and asking them for some of their input and let them know they can contact us if they need any assistance for expansion or anything else in the operation of their business yeah that was kind of my thought that not to include them in the full survey but uh um maybe a similar fashion to the communication survey that we just had where it's say 10 basic questions and and this is how we can help so there's at least some feedback and written if we can help motivate some home-based businesses into a retail space it's good for the business and good for East Bethel or just let them be heard I think Kevin we were talking last time about it this is about communication and just connecting with our businesses and if we can do this kind of the non-traditional way rather than going through the U of M if we can gather enough volunteers and really let our businesses be heard that's kind of what I was thinking but we just need to figure out what the scope is what the questions are who's on the team What's the timing you know it's a it's a big undertaking that could be a valuable asset and volunteers too right we've got chamber we've got Planning Commission we've got I mean we've got a lot of us that are all volunteer Civic people already so yeah Christine could you tell us a little bit about when you would do the portions every other year in-house what were the the staff needs and and time requirements approximately to complete those it is a bit uh oftentimes we would have an in summer intern help with the calling or if an administrative staff member wasn't busy if they could help calling but we started out with a letter from the mayor saying that we were undertaking what the Brony is kind of explain it a little bit then we reach out to the businesses ask if they would be willing to participate letting them know you know we want to hear the positives and the negatives that they may have um sometimes it would take a couple phone calls if we had their email we would send an email as well so it is intensive in terms of you know they're busy running their business so connecting with the business but we used an intern to kind of help so staff could continue their work but had an intern or administrative staff when they weren't busy assist staff but I'd split the list with fellow staff members and we'd have our list to call and just how about like volunteers would you have volunteers we have volunteers our chamber was really great and willing to help um the county economic development director was willing to help and I told Julie and Jack earlier that um I strong-armed him a little bit no he was more than willing to participate so I know he and I are willing to help Jack consider reaching out to Greater MSP I know they're a bit short staffed but they're you know might be an organization like that but the chamber was really as well as the Eva willing to help Council went on a few of those interviews but staff also did the interview s most were in person we had a couple that were just I'm too busy they don't want to meet so we would send them the survey and they'd return it back to us but we really preferred that in-person meeting I think you get more out of it and then it was for staff a great chance to see how the business operates and learn about the industries in the community good thank you and you mentioned you might be willing to share your questionnaire yes from a second time because I think that's what we need to figure out what are the scope of the questions and so what are we looking to find out right so I sent to Jack uh the survey we did from 2018 and 2020 as well as a sample template of the letter we used from the mayor and then I also included um there are some results of kind of when we did those interviews what we compiled what we heard you know what we would hear Workforce internet connection um things like that or code enforcement issues so then we could take those major concerns that we heard plan for our academic development items we tried to work on than throughout the year so it looks lengthy the questions you know go fairly quickly in terms of is it a branch how many employees it's kind of all up to what kind of questions you want to ask in details you want to get how many full-time employees what's your pay range um did you start in the community or elsewhere and then the one from 2020 had a couple questions about covid there's some open-ended questions about what do you see as the community's weakness what are their positives so I would say I think it's about six pages but it does go fairly quickly we would always do a team of two one person kind of doing the talking and one kind of taking the notes and then we take the answers and then put them in the computer on a spreadsheet so you did them in person with hard copying not SurveyMonkey email yep we did hard copy yeah we we would send the survey in advance to the business so they could get a feel for the type of questions we were asking so they weren't feel like they were being surprised or caught off guard um and then we would yeah do the handwritten face to face it just I felt like we got more out of it and they were willing to be more open with us how many how many businesses did you uh would you typically visit on these biannual the very first time like you we had a big group uh 40 plus and then from there it would drop down to 20. okay um we would shoot four and sometimes we would get you know I can't won't do it so our pool would get smaller and maybe it was only 10 to 15. but for me I took it as a way any kind of information I could get or update on the business Community I took that as a win so I kind of knew what I needed to do at the city level for economic and Jack remind me how many the the list that you came up with how many businesses were you counting about 120. okay so I mean since it's been since 2016 and that that list was last updated in 2018 so I'm sure there's several others on there and several of them that are on there that are no longer in business or moved on so but it is a good base to start with along with the chambers directory and I think that gives a good list of ones that we can start to focus on and I should have looked back on the list but if I recall did we interviewed Brandy remember was it like 40 43 I believe 43 okay 43 companies and you guys did an in-person hard copy yep which I think is the way to go I think I think it could be possible to do it in a group environment for some of the chamber people especially those who are volunteers you know get them all together like at their breakfast and pass it out and then meet with them to discuss it you know let them fill it out there and especially those who are going to be the volunteers that are going to help and then from there go scatter yeah yeah but I think that would save a lot of time because a chamber has when they have their breakfasts that's when they get over half the businesses I think they're crowded the eight seven eight o'clock in the morning ones are busy the four o'clock in the afternoon ones we get 10 maybe 15 people I don't know how I didn't make the garfish one but there's about 15 people there I was gonna say 20 yeah 15 to 20. it was better attempted yeah so but the mornings the breakfast that's the big one that's one where we need to be yeah that's where you can recruit some volunteers volunteers yeah but we also had a lot of people that were on the interviewing committee that weren't members of the Eda or the chamber I mean there were people that I knew from you know my life my time and right community that just came out and how did they find out about it for your conversation or was it published in the newsletter meet here one evening or one afternoon or something I'm not sure exactly how they reached out to everybody but the ones I think they tried to send a notification to all the businesses to see which one's responding which one would really accept an interview and there were multiple means the newsletter was one form the website the Channel 10 and then a written letter I think to each one of those that they had an address for yeah because now even for those who are I'm too busy well some of us could do evening after hours Zoom calls with them right you know we didn't have that so much back in 2018 right that adds a whole new dimension yeah so is this a good idea is I mean depending on the scope and do we want to keep exploring this I don't know that we're going to get anything figured out tonight but do we want to just continue the discussion I think well I think we can continue it but I also think we we still have a lot of data and I think the new data even though we have new businesses I think it's going to all be kind of the same but maybe ranked a little bit different that's my opinion um unless we have and they might have some new ideas to put on there and you know where we put comments I think we should absolutely pursue this but I also think we got something to work on that in the meantime because they're all concerns sorry Christine when you did this for College Grove did you involve the University of Minnesota in your efforts or did you just do it totally in-house the very first time we did it we did it with the University of Minnesota and so we thought that was important because the community had never done one before to kind of lay the groundwork of what it was and then so some of the volunteers from that initial survey were willing to be volunteers again and do interviews with businesses so they're like yeah I like this process so they would kind of trickle along but then the proceeding two years we did it in-house and I think if we're going to follow that pattern and do this on a more frequent basis maybe it's time we looked at doing this one kind of on our own we've already had the brna experience with the U we kind of know where we're going with this I think it's just a matter of getting the surveys and shaping the questions and then getting it organized to have that done projector we have the paper copies of the old interviews I would have to get up with Doug Welter on that I do not have them but I'm sure they're around here somewhere I'd be curious because I mean most of the interviews that I did were within my industry and I'd be very curious number one I think that if you've interviewed them before you should look at what their answers were and you should go back and interview them again you know you can have a certain level of relating at the time and you know um I'd be very curious if we could find if you could find that out okay and then to me that's one of the things we should structure is I'm not going to cite the business by name but one of the businesses that I have talked about it before they said they had a problem finding help okay and they were looking for they could get help that had skill in one part of their business but they didn't have the skills that they needed for the other part and we gave them some suggestions to then see if they were able to find that type of that's a we had that exact same issue with a lot of our businesses in our industrial park and Cottage Grove so that's why we had the county staff person because then they could connect them with the County Workforce Development Group and here's where you can advertise your positions or there's the technical colleges so that's exactly right that's exactly what we did in Saint Francis High School and you know tech oh no good Tech yeah yeah and you'll probably still hear that again that's still definitely an issue that you're hearing from probably more so and I think you know I don't think it's the data points that are so important because we know they're probably going to end up being it's going to be broadband and employment and you know there might be some other things that come up but it's the process and talking to people and really hearing the individual comments and if you're looking for like statistical information Jack can reach out to deed Tim O'Neill's the labor analyst for the seven County Metro region and he can pull data left and right that he has access to and it's amazing what he can do with all those Labor Statistics so if you're looking for general labor information he can definitely get it down to county and he some can sometimes get it down to the city level so he's a good resource for that kind of General um data if you want that as well well in moving forward with the discussions and I think it's a good place to kind of kick it off as Suzanne mentioned at the chambers October breakfast meeting uh that will give us at least two meetings to come up with something to propose to them at the next meeting we can kind of provide an outline for discussion on how we want to proceed with this and that your direction I'll kind of develop a rough one and I will consult with Christine to see if she has any edits modifications suggestions for improvements and we can bring that back and have that discussion to see if this is what we want to use and then we can have another month to refine it and then roll it out in October at least for discussion of the chamber sure I think that sounds like a good plan Jack I'm not opposed to the idea of doing the next study on our own um I'm all for saving money and being economical and doing this I just want to be very clear-sighted about what this is going to take and that's you know my question I would hate for us to get to the point in October and kick it to the chamber and they say well how are you going to get it done right well what can we expect you guys to help out with it I mean that's just not going to go over well we need to have a strong project plan with real deadlines and real timelines and commitments of what it's going to take and and in the interim we'll still go to the chamber meetings to try to finalize some what they can do what people are willing to help out with so we'll have a better idea of what their participation level could be so another thought might be to Tom saying if with the last one we had leadership positions that kind of headed it up there's uh I think five main ones and then there's ten other ones that followed them up if we could at least put some leadership in place maybe or if we can brainstorm and maybe uh talk to some people and at least get that part involved that gets some commitment from a couple people so that we can when I go out of the chamber we can at least say we have these people involved there heading it up in uh third chamber members that might even be a lot better yeah I think we got to have it we have to have an outline how we're gonna right yeah if we could get some at least the leadership team informally put together I think that would be that's a good first stop yep Christine did you put together any process documents when you went through this I'm gonna have to look okay I I know I pulled the files files that would be great I think just anything that we can use and adapt to our own use absolutely so we're not recreating the wheel just so we can share with people what it is we're doing and what the process is and what the time is and not that where I did it was perfect by any means so if there's another community that is of interest um I'm happy if unless Jack wants to reach out to them um most of that information is public and in terms of the surveys that were filled out probably not um but there's somebody else's format that you like I'm happy to reach out to contacts I have too well we would appreciate anything you can provide us as as a guide and starting point you've done it both ways so you have experience in both of them and we value that and I think that's what we're looking for in this instance no I'm happy to help in any way um it's tedious in terms of getting the businesses together you know they're busy operating their business rightfully so um but I think it's such great information and valuable for the city to have to know what direction what the focus from an economic development standpoint any other comments or questions well we appreciate the opportunity to leverage you and your past experience that's great absolutely I like this stuff so good all right thank you okay then so at the next meeting we'll have a little more to find out time to start discussing how we want to proceed on this and then tweak that and try to get something more formal in September and have a goal at least to make some type of presentation with and or before the chamber at their October meeting is that what I understand so I think if we can outline the process um maybe we use our networks to talk to keep leaders who people who who could be a leader um you know reach out to chamber people that we know we could look at who led last time right touch base with them right off the bat and and then look at the I guess that's high level and then when we get more in the weeds we need to figure out what the what are the questions what's the scope of the businesses do we try to do everyone do we count you know do we do people with five employees or more or you know if you're able to get that information that might be helpful too Jack any other comments or thoughts or things that would be helpful well the only thing I was thinking is at the October meeting I and you guys can correct me if you think I'm rushing it but I think we should ex actually have a sign up sheet to pass out for people who are willing to participate in how many hours a day or what their time frame availability would be because I don't think you're rushing you know and I should have those conversations before just so people anticipate it's like that we are asking yeah for help give we got to give them a heads up right right yeah so because people everybody processes whoops that's one thing we will work with the chamber to get that done and make that one of their kind of hopefully they'll volunteer to be be their first assignment and let them know at least this is going to be discussed at that meeting and prepare some information for them or we can help get them some information and get them prepped for that meeting sounds good we're getting there so I would like to know um how the meeting at the chamber board went they all were uh where they because you went to the board meeting right I went to their board meeting in on June the 30th right and then I went to the meeting at garfish on June the 30th they were very interested in continuing the program uh they couldn't give us any commitment on who would be here at this meeting because I invited them to the meeting at the garfish meeting they said they would have a couple people there but apparently they had some things come up on their schedules that they couldn't make it tonight I did get a call this afternoon and they said they were very interested in continuing the program they supported the program and their intent was to partner with us to make something happen so we'll go to their next meeting which I'll have to check and see when that is it'll probably be the end of this month but we'll go back to their board meeting and tell them what what has happened here so far and work on getting some commitments and some names to people and let them know what our discussion is so they can start getting ready for that October meeting also okay thank you all right anything else and I was thinking I mean if depending on the progress there may be a need for just a work session between now in October but let's think about that okay all right let's go to item number five Capstone Viking Meadows concept plan concept plan for a 350 single-family home residential Community for the Viking Meadows Golf Course property was presented to the planned commission as a mixed use PUD for review after June 27 2023 meeting the concept proposal was presented by our Capstone homes of Ramsey Minnesota size located at 1788 Viking Boulevard Northeast and covers approximately 160 Acres of which 115 are developed on sure you're all familiar this is the property it's owned by Viking Meadows Golf Course this property they Market it now for several years they had a potential buyer a little over a year ago but for some reason the purchase agreement was signed but there were certain conditions that weren't satisfied and that sale fell through in the interim Capstone homes developed an interest in the property they have also signed a purchase agreement conditioned on several factors the sale has a command stories that final yet but they're very interested and have given some proposals for this so what they've given is the concept plan what we'd like to do is present that in general tonight just to get anybody's comments so we can pass it along there will be uh a little discussion of this the concept plan will be presented to City Council on Monday and then we'll go from there with the what the next step on this is uh the review of a concept plan is to provide feedback to the developer from the staff commissions and authorities and city council so what they're looking for are comments on this as to what we think of the plan what we would like to see anything we think that they've not touched on these are just kind of general concepts now the details are to follow the concept plan is essentially just a comment period so we're trying to touch base with everybody to get their comments because this is a big development that will have a lot of impact on the city and we want to make sure that we pass along to the proposed developers what these feelings of the city residents are the major categories of the project are the major points of entrance will be the intersection of Sand Hill Crane and Viking Boulevard which is already an existing entrance the entrance to the golf courses it currently exists the design of these intersections and the approval of their spacing will be determined by the Anoka County Highway departments uh this plan would also be presented to MnDOT for their review MnDOT probably would not have a lot to say except what maybe it's future potential could be on this existing intersection at Viking Boulevard there's also a potential entrance Point down here at 187th Lane which would go up Sand Hill Parkway there's an existing road that comes in from the west side or the east side of the proposal 189th Avenue it's currently an unpaved road that has a intersection it's a very bad sight line what we would recommend on this is that road not be a primary entrance if that would be used for emergency service vehicles and would be totally restricted through traffic it's part of the proposal too they don't show it on this plan but we're going to request that they show another potential Street going south somewhere along this point right here to access Sandhill Parkway again or to go down to Briarwood uh all the streets and cul-de-sacs along with utilities will be constructed in compliance city code section 66-164 which requires that streets will provide future connections to un adjoining unsubdivided land that would essentially be another require on this street right here the flying consists of a neighborhood of 350 new single-family homes and two lot sizes with a combination single level multi-level or two-story floor plans this is their concept that they presented there are some internal streets which are basically cul-de-sacs which aren't shown on this plan this just shows the overall proposal for the two types of homes that they're proposing along with the open space the walking trails they would have a city park within this that they would develop and pay for city services majority of the developments within the Metropolitan urban service area the single-family homes will be connected to city water and sewer system within this section of the development Mets Council has confirmed that a metropolitan utility service area boundary adjustment would require an amendment to the city's comp plan to extend utility service to the parcel outside of this area which is this is the 30 acre portion it's currently zoned rural residential this is the boundary of the Musa which goes three quarters of a mile from Highway 65 east and west of the highway so this has a low density designation and for it to be serviced would require a comp plan Amendment before this could be extended with utilities the plan proposes a density of 3.04 dwelling units per acre which is in the comprehensive plan density range and the target average of three dwelling units per acre in the municipal utility service area an environmental assessment worksheet will be required and includes but not limited to a detailed evaluation of land use natural resources water use geological features traffic air missions historical or archaeological resources and impact on infrastructure and the traffic portion would include the traffic study to determine the impact on the county roads and the city street that this project would access after June 27 2023 meeting the Planning Commission held a public hearing on the concept proposal and 10 residents presented their concerns with the projects their comments primarily focused on potential impacts relating to rural feel and character of the city and the increased housing density this project would provide and potential traffic concerns at the Viking Boulevard internal Street intersections that owned 189th Avenue and its intersection with Green Brook Drive city council reviewing all for comments on the plant or July 24th meeting and the concept plan will be placed on the Parks Commission August 8th meeting for their review and comments this plan would generate an estimated 389 thousand dollars in annual city property tax revenues build out in 2029. this estimate is based on an average of three hundred fifty thousand dollars for the estimated market value of each of the 350 years with a tax classification rate of 0.01 and using the 2023 city tax rate of 31.76 percent this estimate does not take into account any appreciation in market value of the homes to the projected five-year build out of the project the city will also collect one million nine hundred sixty thousand dollars in City sack and whack fees over the life of the project which is projected to be 2024 through 2029. this amount would pay off the majority of the Met Council Reserve capacity loan in addition The increased housing units would provide the demographics and income in the local market area which are needed to attract basic retail food and grocery services to the city staff is requesting the Eda to discuss the proposed concept plan and provide any comment to City Council on this proposal so I'll go through these slides real quick there's a couple more on here that we'll show but this is the basic layout which shows in the front there will be a call section which they call their Liberty homes which will be on their smaller Lots is there a labeled classic home will be on what they call larger Lots which are small Lots in East Bethel this will be where the multi-level and two-story layouts are these units here are going to be in the neighborhood they say smaller homes but they're going to be 1700 2800 square feet all of this area in this area will be served by City Water and Sewer this area back here is yet to be determined this is the current zoning of the area this area right here is in the mixed use which allows high density the higher density classifications and here could be from 12 to 30 units per acre but they're only proposing about three units this area is R1 which could be a higher density it'll be lower than what the highest density allowed and that is and this is the segment that's zoned rural residential uh which is currently outside the service area boundary of what we can do to extend utilities unless we modify the comp plan so overall the densities that are proposed in here are lower than what the zoning regulations do allow so it's going to be broken up to by this open space which includes a lot of ponding which they'll use for kind of borrow pits existing wetlands and buffering areas so there'll be about 45 acres in here which kind of splits and breaks some of these areas up here and makes it look like at least on the plan that there's some separation between some of these housing blocks so that they don't all appear to be back to back to back to back and you're just looking for our overall comments yeah we're just looking for comments and so they can be presented to city council so they'll get a feel from a wide variety of people that looked at the plan so for the council members here and mayor so I'm kind of interested to see what the traffic study is going to show I think that's my main thing when it comes up so if something's approved is it contingent on the eaw passing and the the traffic study I'm not sure how that process works um I believe that those factors would have to be presented to us okay um but it's also kind of uh Catch-22 where they have to develop a preliminary plant first right that costs a significant amount of money and in most areas the traffic study will come and indicate a lot for these two intersections here particularly this one this one is nearly finished the city does have to install a bypass lane on this one by 2025 but you know County highway department will dictate what the design is on that that design will be influenced by what the traffic study says and they'll also have some comments for this Southern section down here uh and I think when MnDOT sees this what they're going to recommend is at some point the solution to this is going to be to continue this service road down south and hopefully Ham Lake will connect their across town to 181st Avenue which would give two signalized intersections North and South for traffic to exit on at some point in the future the traffic study is very important and uh with the way this is going to be built out it's going to be built out in A Five-Year Plan and so it's going to be kind of incremental but in the end it'll be cumulative and I think the Anoka County highway department is going to have one of the bigger determinations in what has to be done to accommodate this traffic and how it's handled okay thank you any other thoughts from anyone my thought is just that this on top of the development that has already started with elevage and the 200 or so 200 221 something townhome um units to add this to that I can't imagine that level of traffic being accommodated within that Spectrum all of a sudden yeah like where where would they go I mean there's nothing here that there aren't that many extra roads or anything where would they go traffic circles I see coming will and again that that will be determined by the traffic study the traffic study will make projections on what they anticipate the volume will be how it'll break out in terms of daily trip averages and times and frequencies of peak loads uh I looked at uh over on the west side of Highway 65 where Jackson Street empties in and there's probably around 300 homes in there that empty on the Jackson Street we don't seem to have a problem there but maybe this is more concentrated and it's really hard to comment on you know is there a terrible impact or is it going to be one that's magical until we see the results of the study so I think that's the critical thing that we have to wait and see and if there are huge impacts then the developer will be required to address those and it'll be up to them to decide whether they want to proceed with the project I'm intentionally staying as quiet as possible tonight because I read the minutes and I talked too much last time and besides this year this is your Gathering you know I'm more of an observer I can blab plenty at a city council meeting you know what what you're raising is a very very important point and it's what's key for me and it's why I voted against elevage twice is because that was the most ridiculous traffic study I ever saw in my life that they didn't take into account the impact on Crosstown on Viking it was just about 187th and I looked at well this is on a real traffic study and this I'm going to be paying very close attention to the traffic study on this one because my I don't sit up night reading our comprehensive plan as much as I should but uh it's my understanding of the comprehensive planning in this whole met council stuff is if a project is going to get ahead of the Rhodes abilities to handle it so you're not bound by the zoning that you had put there if it's going to be that destructive and that's my fundamental like I said it's fundamental but just throw that out there but I think your point is very very well taken well the concern was too when they when they started mapping this out you know most of us moved here for the rural presentation of of the area and so elevage knowing that's going to add 200 some town home units and then have this right on top of it and they talked about these properties being like 0.3 something an acre and nothing out here is designed like that I mean most of our homes are on acreage they're on I mean my home's on two acres and I just find it a little hard to believe I know what's happening all over in Blaine and there are all these homes right on top of each other but it looks like a lot of them are unsold and I don't know I just I'm I'm curious as to how they would fit 350 homes in this space too and this is right on top of my house where we're not we're not you know on top of each other it just it makes you wonder about their I just think it does something to mess with the rural quality or city that isn't a positive well and I think the point of keeping the rural nature where it's zoned that way but our commercial Corridor was zoned that way for a reason so I mean this actually fits Within the calm plan but we just really need to be mindful about the traffic I mean it's not an Iron Maiden you're locked into you know yeah it's a plan and uh and it just just to be clear about it I live in the far south east corner of East Bethel this isn't going to have any impact on me at all but I don't assume that I'm representing myself on the city council or on a year or whatever it's everybody and you heard the reactions at the Planning Commission public forum and uh for the people who live near by it they're they're not too keen on the idea at all it's just because it's so inconsistent with their properties where you know they're 20 acres or 15 Acres or whatever you know so I have a question first I want to say that Golf Course is so beautiful and I think this is going to just take away that whole the whole beauty of that whole area um but why it's a golf course turned into a mixed use anyways I I don't know I could see where elevage is you know up right along Sandhill but the rest of it where the golf course actually is I would think that whole area should be R1 or RR I just I'm just not getting why they've zoned that mixed use the golf course area it's because it's within the three-quarter mile Highway corridor and it probably the other thought was it did a major intersection it has higher development potential than other places in the city but again I can't speak to what the final decision was that was originally zoned City Center which was something that was not practical so when the latest comp plan was done that was changed to mixed use but it kept the same zoning requirements within the ordinance can I ask you a question Jack as far as the mechanics of the deal is this a signed purchase agreement or as a deal been executed it's a signed purchase agreement it's depending on it depends on yeah okay okay thank you one question I have is that rural residential area in which we need to make an extension for city sewer and water because you have fewer homes in that area does that make fiscal sense well you couldn't extend silver and water over into this section unless you did that comp plan Amendment which would allow that higher density it wouldn't make but I'm talking about from the developer's point of view now from the developer's point of view that two acre lots is not doesn't make economic sense that's what I'm thinking yeah it doesn't doesn't make economic sense you know I'm struck by a I'm struck by a conversation I had when I first got involved with the city many years ago I called a friend of mine social friend of mine he was on the city council at the time I complained about the fact that oh I don't know exactly what the neighborhood's called you know what I'm talking about Jack um if you go across you go across the highway on 74 and you go you know I live in Quincy go past that that big sub development all into the north when I moved here that was all Farm fields I would take and I could walk a young bird dog down the pine roads that went there and uh get him into all sorts of pheasants and some Cattail swamps and that and I call this gentleman up and I said what the hell are we doing you're taking my dog training grounds away from me and his comment was Brian you should have bought it and you know what he's right I should have bought it because it would have made a lot of money on it but at the time I couldn't afforded the taxes on that parcel so to a certain degree that's that has always kind of hung with me in the whole time East Bethel isn't rural anymore it certainly isn't where you live Kevin that's about a higher density as you can have well yeah that's the Lake that's been built up since the 20s and 30s eggs thanks to the Star Tribune yeah yeah buy buy a scripture a subscription to the paper you can get a lot you get a lot yeah I am not a big Pro residential turn it into Ham Lake type of guy Ham Lake they're what do they allow now like acre and a half or half acre lots I believe one acre one acre the other thing is I mean it's kind of like when you have a farmer or a family that has farmed out here for all these years on this ground that can't produce I mean back it couldn't produce 80 acre a bushel 80 bushels an acre corn for you know at and they're struggling milking some cows and things like that and now when they get a chance to cash out you're not gonna let them you're going to say no you can't do it it just seems like a to a certain degree it seems like a taking of property rights to me um I think there's a lot of opposition to this um the traffic studies I fully agree with you Kevin that's going to be very very interesting and it has to be done properly yep I don't think it's going to have any impact on Highway 65. per se you don't you don't think this as proposed when you I'll tell you what when drive through Isanti drive through Cambridge the amount of houses and high density housing that's getting blown in there and they're growing like crazy up there those cars all come down south I how do you I would love to believe that you're right I would love that if it had no impact that would be great well and I I think that I think that when you look at the long-range plan that they had for the Improvement of highway 65. I mean the state is essentially gonna they're going to attempt to turn it into a high-speed Boulevard for lack of a better term you know they're trying to off ramps and all that yeah yeah we'll be long dead by the time that happens but I don't know they're they're talking pretty aggressively down in Blaine and Blaine is where they really have a problem then it just moves up here playing just recently got full funding I believe to do their whole Highway 65 project and that's I think anticipated to finish by 2030. somewhere right about's there so I I see a lot of challenges here I also see a lot of rooftops and for the people that want to have a grocery store this is the kind of thing that brings in a grocery store so I have a question is this going to be a HOA also I think they said there would be a minimal HOA on this but I'll they'll have to answer that question again but I think they mentioned that there would be a minimal HOA fee I attended I think I've attended every meeting on on this just out of curiosity and yeah they said it was going to be a very low profile HOA and so far as the fact that ah covering signs and things like that but they weren't the single family homes cut their own grass just more design standards and it is more for the the open space upkeeping yeah yeah well my only last comment is for all the people who say oh it's gonna be a share of the tax burden if you look at any other developing City their taxes don't go down they keep going up no matter how developed they get so it's not going to help our taxes any in fact it will probably hurt because the houses and the development up off of Tippy Canoe there are supposed to be six hundred thousand dollar houses according to Zillow and I'm like that means my taxes are going to go up because your house is based on the properties around you and so yeah it's not going to help Well here here's the way it will help and you are correct is development does not guarantee that taxes will go down and very rarely does it ever make them go down unless you have somebody like Google or Microsoft move in here would change the whole complexion of it but what it does it spreads the tax burden out further and probably keeps yours from going up as fast as it was if you didn't have developments but to say you know what makes taxes go down I agree you know there's no guarantee of that happening I have nothing else any other input it's just a question when would we expect to have further information about if they're moving ahead what they would move ahead with or uh like I say they're going to present this to the city council on the 24th and if they get uh positive review the concept plan then they will start their process for going to this environmental assessment and then the next step would be their preliminary plant they said if they're going through with this they would like to be moving dirt or moving Earth by sometime in in probably February of 2024 so probably the next thing that would come up as far as an approval thing would be a presentation to counsel sometime in September or early October on the eaw the environmental impact of it along with the traffic study and then was blessings from that they would go ahead with the preparation of the preliminary plant all right well I think our comments have been recorded and we'll watch for the city meeting all right with that we'll move on to item number six business activity report the holiday station project is the intersection of 187th Lane Highway 65. is still on schedule uh they did have a completion date of the end of this month they may be a week or two late but they're in the short rows of their project now the elvage project is still on schedule they begin clearing and grubbing last week they started some on the Northern portion of the site in the back portion of the property they hope to have site grading and streets and utility installation will follow the clearing and growing and they hope to have the first phase of the housing components ready to start by late fall or early winter quick strip construction began on June 1st and they've completed their site work and fuel tank installation they still stay there on completion for a project date of November the 9th 2023. I didn't notice they had a booth at Booster Days that they were seeking applications for employment and it seemed to be one that was fairly well visited uh the city council approved the conduit Bond financing for Nexus to July 10 2026 meeting as a condition of their approval a payment in little taxes agreement and an amended cup need approval these items are proposed to be presented to city council at a special meeting on August 7 20 22 2023 and the closing the sale of Nexus is scheduled for August the 15th pending approvals of these two items uh as I reported before staff has attended the chamber meetings to brief the chamber on the BRD programs and we'll continue to work with them to solicit enlisted their participation in the update of the program designing Earth Contracting which we have discussed here before the meeting has received all of their approvals of application for the project and City staff is awaiting final engineering submission forms from the applicant as soon as these are received building permit applications will be reviewed and construction is proposed to begin in August of 2023. on other items City staff has received met council's comments on the stone group's proposal for their outlawed at 209th Avenue in Johnson Street their interpretation of density requirements for properties that are not in the Muse area or approved for the mucin area only permit less than one unit for one unit per 10 acres for those areas not served by City service so the stone group this is where dollar generally is we approve that Frontage subdivision for commercial they're looking to get approval for the back I believe it's about 16 acres on the north side of Johnson Street for residential use but because that's not served by water and sewer and it's in the Musa area the zoning density is one unit and ten so that Council says that's what what they can do with that so they had proposed to put five Lots back there but apparently that's not going to be acceptable at this point uh the open application for a mining permit and site preparation for proposed Greenhouse Garden Center project north of 209th Avenue on Highway 65 is a waiting submission for approval pending Direction but the property owner the stratum meets and Bounds subdivision at 2836 221st Avenue was approved at the July 10th city council meeting and a concept plan for the rural subdivision of the Romanian Acres of this state has been received and will be presented the Planning Commission at their July 25th 2023 meeting the concept plan application has been received from Hidden Prairie which is formerly Hidden Pines the reason this name was changed is the developer found out that there was another development in Anoka County called Hidden Pines so he had to revise his name this request will be presented the Planning Commission through July 25th 2023 meeting and City staff has begun Research into an expansion request from Cedarwood Estates formerly Village Green North the request is to add 43 units on the lands within the existing development at a minimum this project would need a cup apparently there's no Cup on record there was the thing called a special permit issued but it was very vague in what its requirements were it would also need approval of Council of the legal non-conforming use to expand within the boundaries of their site it has to be approved by the MC mpca for additional discharge from the of the expansion to their treatment facility or an agreement to connect to the city system so this has been discussed at the council level Council has said you know we need to see what the issue is with the cup is first before we can proceed with it so staff has done some extensive research going back to the 19 actually going back to probably the 1950s when we became a village checking the records but there is nothing on record that we can find the cup was ever issued for this project so does anybody have any questions on what activities how long has Village Green or no cedar wood actually been there when did it start it's been there pre-1970s it was actually owned by two other groups before it became delivering North I'll have to look those up to see Aaron's done the research on it but it's been there for over 50 years and uh quite the interesting history and we didn't realize it went back that far we thought it was built in the early 70s but it actually goes back to the 60s and maybe the late 50s Brian I was going to say that ask your grandparents they probably know you're right they're absolutely right I mean when I moved here I don't know it was 40 some years ago it was yeah yeah my my grandmother still remembers hunters in as Lone Tree or Lone Oak Lone Oak bar and they went dancing there back in the day and the meal was to me it was Phil heck's joint yeah so any other questions so this um Cedarwood estate it's off a wet road is that off of is that the north one or no it's the South Southwest 181st over by Acapulco yes I don't know where they have room for this 43 units but actually within that they own like a three or four acre parcel that has it currently has a house in combination I think two apartments in it and then on the North side they own about another acre and a half two acres which is currently a playground it's kind of a there's a piece of playground equipment and they mow it so that's where the expansion would be I see okay so and that throws another wrench into it where they're expanding onto their own property and not another parcel all these properties are within the boundary of what they own so that's why we're having to do some legal stuff on this defined if it's permissible to allow them to expand within property they own if there was a cep it would have to find probably what those were but since there isn't we're having to do a little bit more digging and uh get a legal opinion on this okay all right if nothing else we'll move on to the city council reports uh thank you Julie I have a couple things we pass a couple things that we've been working on for a while the big one being the conduit Bond that Jack Curry talked about and we officially hired Aaron Berg as our official community development director position we dropped the interim office title I think that will be very beneficial for the city he is a very smart very hard working individual and I think he would like to stay here for a while [Music] um another item we started talking about the city budget at our work meeting I believe we'll probably be talking about the city budget over our next two or three work meetings to get everything flushed out on it okay where we like uh of course we had booster day this weekend I think it was really well received and well attended and uh it was a different format a bit where it was condensed all onto the east side of the booster except for the fireworks of course and I think that worked out pretty well I think also some lessons were learned that will make next year's booster day even more even or better uh and uh I just had a question on our last meeting we brought up uh possibly doing on the website revision uh when would we like to pencil that in is this something that we would like to kind of put out because we have the BR and E which is a big thing coming up and if we want to put it off until we finish that if any results that we get from the BR and E would lead to changes on the website if we should put off revisioning the website until we have that done but at the very least I just bring it up uh we we could talk about the next meme but I just wanted to very briefly bring it up so that we can pencil it in so we don't forget to do it or it doesn't uh good get covered up by other paperwork that's a good point relative to your question Brian I reached out to Civic Plus to discuss not that matter but the communications issues policy that we've discussed uh kind of been playing telephone tag with the person that's supposed to help us but in the last message that I got from them on Friday was that they had some ideas on how to better use the website to achieve some of their communication means and that they will be giving us some references to on some Consultants that may be able to help us in improving their efforts to communicate with their residents so maybe I'll have a report an update on that at the next meeting and we can discuss that see we want to try to integrate everything into the schedule okay yeah so just we have a read on when the next East Bethel bulletin is coming out it's uh I will have to check with Carrie on what that date is Kevin I can let you know on Thursday let's see usually oh it's a late August because usually with uh you're signing up for be a candidate you have to get your profile turned in within a couple days in order to make it into the the bulletin so I would say late August September that it comes out the next issue was supposed to be on about two weeks ago according to Gary list I might talk to her before the last time it was related to the same at least what Kerry told me because Civic plus acquired the people who do the printing on these Bethel bulletin in a composition or whatever is how I understood it anyway and that was slowing them down so if you're talking to him anyway maybe they can shed some insight on that and I'll I'll get up with you next week so uh those are my questions Uh Kevin do you have anything else to add nope you did a great job thank you question it's almost here and I'm just wondering if that's going to be published on the website at all or if there's going to be advertising of who's sponsoring them or anything like that it will be as soon as we get the information we haven't received the information as to the locations yet as soon as we get that from the county that'll be published immediately okay thank you that's August 1st isn't it It's usually the first week in August yeah yeah first Tuesday good point yeah I'd love to keep that conversation going about the website and the bulletin just figuring out let's get that on a regular basis anything else that's all I got all right I'll take a motion to adjourn it's all moved second all in favor all right opposed we're adjourned yeah