03-08-2021 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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MINUTES OF THE ORONO CITY COUNCIL MEETING Monday, February 22, 2021 6:00 o’clock p.m. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Page 2 of 10 PUBLIC WORKS DIRECTOR/CITY ENGINEER REPORT 14. DIAMOND LAKE REGIONAL TRAIL MASTER PLAN UPDATE (REMOTE) Edwards said this evening they will have Three Rivers Park District giving an update on their Master Plan progress on the Diamond Lake Regional Trail. They have a number of representatives from the district, Marge Beard, who is the District 1 representative Commissioner on the Park Board will give an introduction and after that they will turn it over the Stephen Shurson. Marge Beard thanked the Council and said Three Rivers is excited to be here and they kicked this off about a year ago working on the Diamond Lake Regional Trail. Throughout the year with all the ups and downs they have had a great experience in working with Orono residents and Staff and are very excited to share an update. She turned it over to Stephen Shurson the project manager. Mr. Shurson showed a presentation on screen and gave a brief overview and update on the analysis. Ultimately this evening, Three Rivers would seek the Council’s support for the preferred route moving forward. Search corridors are part of the greater metro-wide plan that Met Council has put forth in the regional parks policy plan and the Diamond Lake Trail is one of those search corridors extending from the Lake Minnetonka area to Dayton/Rogers area. There are several different cities the trail would go through and it is about 20-21 miles long. This trail would be off-road, separated from the road, paved, 10 feet wide and one of the main goals of this project is to create a trail that is as park-like and scenic as possible. They would really like to see it as a destination-type of trail; Orono has many beautiful natural resource areas they would like to connect people to. It is a multi-use trail for pedestrians, bikes, in-line skating, dog walking, strollers, etcetera. Mr. Shurson pointed out being a Master Plan project, it is not something that will happen next year, it will take many years if not decades. After the Master Plan is complete later this year they will then begin to look into the property rights that are needed for the trail. The trail construction would not happen until that is complete which will take years or decades to realize the entire length of trail. He said they do need property rights from private property owners and they do not have much of that at all in the Orono area; they would do so on a seller basis only, negotiating that with the private property owners. He showed some graphics of the vision for the trail, a park-like, rural experience; where needed with big separated crossings of major highways which would be by bridge or underpass. He noted with all the wetlands located along the corridor, boardwalks would also be a key way to minimize impacts. About a year ago they had identified several different route alternatives in Orono and the entire corridor that the Council approved and Three Rivers made that public through public engagement. The public engagement happened from July to the end of the year and they had a lot of good information on the trails on their website. He noted people could place comments, as well as watch an informational video. To outreach, Three Rivers did a lot electronically with Facebook and newsletters, they put up a bunch of signs throughout the corridor, did pop-up events in parks and trails, and sent 3,600 mailings to property owners. As of today, they have already met with City Staff and the Parks Commission and today it is the Council’s turn. He noted they have a preferred route for Orono as well as the other six communities. They are drafting the Master Plan and will bring it back to the City at the end of the year. At that time it will include a 30-day commentary for the public. Stewart Crosby showed an analysis and comment summary on screen of the sub-segments in Orono to take a look at some challenges, issues, positives and negatives of each of those. Starting with O8 along Spring Hill Road there were some safety concerns with both O8 and O7 where the trail would cross over County Road (CR) 6 as it is high-speed traffic at 55 mph in both locations. Two options were reviewed going into Medina and going north; one is on Hunter Drive off of O7 and one is off Tamarack in O8. The