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A previous Neighborhood meeting and Public Hearing were held for the residents in the Foxridge <br />Neighborhood. At these meetings, the neighborhood residents requested that the area adjacent to <br />South Brown Road, between the Fox Ridge Neighborhood and Watertown Road, be included in <br />the project area. The sewer line to serve the Fox Ridge Neighborhood will be installed along <br />South Brown Road and will connect to the City of Long Lake sewer system at the Watertown <br />Road intersection, so a sewer line will be located adjacent to the South Brown Road properties. <br />Including the Brown Road properties will result in lower assessments for all of the residents, as <br />the project costs could be split among all the participating properties. The City Council recently <br />approved adding the South Brown Road properties to the project. <br />History of the Project and Evolution of the City’.* Sewer Policy <br />An understanding of the project history, and City sewer policies, is necessary to fiilly understand <br />the evolution of this project. For the last twenty years. City policy has been to only provide <br />sewer to the existing older developed areas of the City. New development in the two and five- <br />acre residential zones requires individual wells and septic systems. This policy has been in place <br />to limit the density of development in the City in order to protect the lakes and wetlands from <br />excessive storm water runoff. For areas to be eligible for sanitary sewer, they had to be included <br />within the Metropolitan Urban Services Area (MUSA). Approval from the Metropolitan Council <br />is required for any changes to the MUSA. <br />In 1996, the City obtained MUSA expansions to sewer ten existing developed neighborhoods <br />with smaller lots in which the options for septic systems were limited. The Fox Ridge <br />Neighborhood was one of the MUSA expansion areas. At the time these MUSA expansions were <br />obtained, it was very difficult for the City to obtain MUSA expansions. Therefore the expansion <br />areas were limited, only to specific neighborhoods. The areas adjacent to the sewer lines <br />required to serve the neighborhoods were not included in the project. <br />Since the MUSA expansions were obtained, both the City’s and Metropolitan Council’s policy <br />toward the provision of sewer service has been changing. The Metropolitan Council authorized <br />the City to connect fifty units to sewer, if they were adjacent to an existing sewer line, without <br />a MUSA amendment. <br />The City’s first policy change was that sewer service for properties located adjacent to sewer <br />lines, but outside the MUSA line, would only be provided if the property had a nonconforming <br />septic system and no replacement septic sites available. The Council just revised the policy to <br />allow sewer service to all developed properties adjacent to sewer, so all of the properties along <br />South Brown Road are now eligible for sewer. <br />All of the costs for providing sewer will be assessed to the benefitting properties that are included <br />in the project. Information on estimated project costs is provided below. Construction of this <br />project is planned for this summer.