I’m speaking tonight, right now to make a have a recommendation to the committee, to the commission to table this particular, uh, initiative due to the fact that there has been insufficient, uh, reports and studies done in regards to the traffic utility studies and, uh, critical infrastructure.

If there were an application, additional information would have been required and provided tonight with the rezoning, such as the traffic studies that are being requested, that standard operating procedure for our site plan reviews.

My encouragement to, to the Planning Commission would be to focus on, you know, what are the possible outcomes in the future. Um, if the zoning change happens, right? Because if the zoning change does happen, then anything that’s allowed under that zoning district can happen in the future.

I think that that’s precisely right. And it’s like, um, you know, without knowing where the door, you know, once you get out the door, where you, where you head, we are opening the door. Right? Basically, you know, we are just, um, the request we are constrained. The request is just zoning. But zoning for what?

This property at 7016 Dutton was already approved for a single family lot to single family lots. And the applicant is now asking the city to change that land use framework to permit substantially denser development. What has changed?

Number one, I think it’s a violation of the city’s own land use standards. I know that we’ve talked about mixed use, but section, uh, 152.002 of the Brooklyn Park City Code mandates that zoning must prevent overcrowding and protect existing housing stock.

And I would caution folks that construction of Blue Line Extension LRT remains a really open question. There is no guarantee that it will be built anytime in the near future. And making neighborhood decisions. Um, I don’t think we should be making those with the assumption of what’s going to happen related to Blue Line LRT because, uh, those what happens to Blue Line LRT has a lot to do.

There are just codes that we have to follow. And, um, uh, if, uh, you know, the developer and whomever else meet those codes, uh, you know, we have to, you know, make, uh, or follow suit. So I think staff have done their jobs. Um, you know, we have to do our job.

The proposed amendments are intended to maintain the city’s ability to ensure that required improvements are completed, while replacing upfront financial guarantees with alternative compliance and enforcement mechanisms.

We really found that there isn’t a consistent model, but we also did find that what we are proposing works and that it is in effect in other cities, um, and that there are opportunities to make it so that we do not need to put a burden on our applicants who are wanting to develop in the city.

And it was advisement from our city attorney to not go that direction and to then replace it with just the strengthening of the special assessment language. So, um, the suggestion was you don’t need to tools for this level of enforcement.