04-22-1996 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

V. CITY OF LONG LAKE ISSUES A. Equity of Impacts Alternatives focusing on significant capacity expansion of existing TH 12 disproportionately affect Long Lake. Long Lake is concerned that the equity of impacts within communities in the corridor be evaluated for each alternative. In keeping with the MIS process, the social, economic and environmental impacts of the alternatives on economic and geographic subgroups should be compared. The selected alternative should provide equitable distribution of any negative impacts. As such, the corridor must be viewed as a collection of communities, as well as a whole While dispersion of traffic-related impacts is important the equity of negative impacts is particularly critical with respect to the effects of the project on economic activities and social cohesion. B. Community impacts The environmental « alysis process provides specific requirements for evaluation of social impacts. While the MIS process is flexible, the importance of evaluating land use. economic development, social, recreational and cultural impacts is not lessened under an MIS It is important that the socioeconomic impacts of the vanous alternatives be given appropnate weight in the evaluation process. Federal metropolitan planning regulations require that a Major Investment Study consider direct and indirect costs of alternatives, and such factors as mobility improvements; social, economic and environmental effects; safety: operating efficiencies: and land use and urban development impacts, historical, cultural and parkland impacts, and secondary and cumulative impacts Socioeconomic impact evaluation under an EIS must look at the total positive and negative effects a project would have on a community. This includes the effect of the project on taxes and property values, as well as community cohesion, availability of public services, and employment. Socioeconomic evaluation must look at the project’s impacts in terms of changes in quality of life; income distribution; community character, cohesion and segmentation; major employment centers; and housing stock, ownership and tenure While MIS regulations do not specify this level of detail in the socioeconomic analysis, these factors will ultimately have to be considered for the preferred alternative, and should be a factor in selecting that alternative and in particularly eliminating others C. Evaluation Methodology 1. Cost/Benefit Analysis Long Lake is concerned that the evaluation methodology be technically sound and in keeping with the spirit of the MIS process. To that end, a full range of costs and benefits must be evaluated. Quantifiable costs and benefits should be included wherever possible and appropnate. including the verifiable tax base impacts of relocations (this would be a requirement of the EIS process) However, the evaluation process must not be reduced to comparison of a single-digit cost/benefit ratio for each alternative. Professional planning practice over the past several decades has demonstrated that non- quantifiable costs and benefits have equal importance with quantifiable ones, and that a valid project selection process must consider both. Two difficulties confront planners evaluating the costs and benefits of public investment. The first is the complexity of quantifying the costs and bene^ts of elements such as historic preservation, quality of life issues, and environmental impacts to natural resources such as Long Lake. The second difficulty is in assessing who experiences the costs (negative impacts or direct financial costs), as compared to who benefits. This raises the issue of equity of impacts. PARSONS BRINCKERHOFF w;Vlongtake\report.doc