04-10-1995 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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April 6, 1995 Page 2 of 2 MUSA Amendment - Progress Update Provide Met Council with a revised date by which we expect to complete our stormwater plan as required by State statute. • We will have to provide Met Council with a sense of where our transportation planning, especially Highway 12, is headed. While they would like a deadline on when we will update our transportation plan, our argument since 1989 has been that without Highway 12 resolved, any transportation plan update would be potentially subject to change. I think we need to make the point that we are in the midst of a transportation planning process with Highway 12, and that it may be some years before we have the information necessary to complete a transportation plan amendment. • The issue of expanding Hfe cvcle and affordable housing can be addressed on a conceptual basis rather than "by the numbers". We will need to revisit the current Comprehensive Plan, identify how and w'here the City currently addresses housing needs, and indicate possible strategies to provide a broadei range of housing options. However, we don’t have any "quota" to meet at this time. Carl Schenk suggested that we consider a staging of the proposed MUSA additions. Met Council is currently only approving "year 2000" MUSA additions, and apparently would prefer not to expand the MUSA for projects we might do 10-20 years in the future. He indicated he would get some feedback from his compatriots on whether an abridged version of the amendment (say 3 hot spots and the hockey site) might be less controversial, but we haven’t heard back on this yet. As we all know. Met Council has a philosophical problem with Orono’s two acre development concept. They believe it is an inefficient use of land that will force metropolitan systems to e.xpand outw'ard prematurely. Further, they don’t like the fact that it will cost a fortune to sewer rural Orono in the future, due to the large lot sizes. At this point, 1 am proceeding to complete the documentation outlined in the February 9 letter, and hope to provide you with a draft plan amendment within the next few weeks, for your consideration before we actually submit it to Met Council. Finally, it should be noted that staff has delayed any action regarding neighborhood meetings, as w'ell as delayed widely publicizing the City ’s intent to proceed with sewering certain areas, pending Council’s consideration of Met Council’s apparent intent to encumber this amendment with a number of unrelated conditions.