Council agenda for July 6 – after the fireworks…

First, a small patriotic message.  The 4th of July is, of course, Independence Day and so I urge you all to take this seriously and consider that with freedom from a monarch comes the responsibility to govern ourselves.   This means more than whining about what’s happening, especially when it comes to local government.   Your voice matters and so does your participation when it comes to managing Northfield’s limited resources, making wise choices for the future of the City and for building a strong community.  Do your part.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled update. The Council packet seems pretty thick this week, but there is much which is housekeeping sort of action rather than big ticket items.    You can read the complete agenda, but here are what I see as the highlights:

Loan to Archer House for public access to restrooms as part of renovations to the hotel.  Other local media have not been putting this proposed action in a particularly favorable light (See the Northfield News editorial).  A few points to keep in mind:

Nature and source of the loan: the loan is “forgivable” – that is, it does not need to be repaid if  conditions are met including completing the work on the restrooms within 3 years and providing access.   The News complains that this means it’s not really a “loan” but if we call it a grant, or even a handout, I still think this one is a good idea. The source of funding is the Master Development Fund which must be spent on improvements (only) within the Downtown Master Development district.   Because we have this dedicated funding source, the real question is not about afforadability but suitability: is this appropriate use of these funds.  Yes – think leverage. The Archer House is proposing to spend $1.2 million to renovate its facility.  The Archer House is an anchor for the north end of Division Street and its economic success is vital to downtown.  For the City’s $100,000, we will see increased property taxes, improvement to a local economic development asset AND public restrooms.  The public investment in this private project helps the Archer House owners invest in Northfield and provides needed facilities for the public.   I think Northfield’s modest investment will be repaid even if the loan is forgiven.

Rental ordinance: There’s strong interest in the rental ordinance, especially the “20% Rule” but the item for tomorrow is one of those housekeeping amendments tidying up cross references, clarifying some fee requirements, requiring screening of permanent waste containers and adding owning an “excessive” amount of animals as an enumerated nuisance.  The Council has indicated a willingness to revisit the 20% density limit, but that’s not on the agenda for July 6th.

Initial discussion of the 2010-2014 Capital Improvement Plan. Almost nothing could be more important.

Land development developments

Oh my have I been busy with the draft of the land development code…I attended at least 6 meetings focused on the regulations this past week with many more to come.  You can look at the draft regulations, make comments, read others’ comments and find out who’s meeting to discuss the code here.

I am still not convinced the city knows what sort of development it wants to happen (or where it wants it to happen), nor how and to what extent it would like to regulate development.   To be fair, it is no small task to get from a Big Picture Comprehensive Plan to the minutiae of ordinance language.  If you want to know how to do it, read on.  If you just want the pretty picture, well, wait a few months and see what comes out the other end of the process.

Review: The 2008 Comprehensive Plan is the basis for the land development regulations.   The 2008 Comprehensive Plan (adopted by the City Council in November 2008) established Northfield’s goals and objectives for future development.  But a Comp Plan only guides development; it is not a land use control – ordinances are official controls.   So, Northfield must adopt a new land use ordinance to implement the Comp Plan’s goals.

Comp Plan in a nutshell: 12 Land Use Principles which guided the development of the Comp Plan:

1. The small town character will be enhanced.

2. The natural environment will be protected, enhanced and better integrated into the community.

3. The preference for accommodating future growth is in infill locations, then redevelopment/land intensification opportunities, and then on the edge of existing developed areas.

4. New and redeveloped residential communities (areas) will have strong neighborhood qualities.

5. Environmentally-sensitive and sustainable practices will be integrated into new developments and redeveloped areas.

6. Places with a mix of uses that are distinctive and contribute to increasing the city’s overall vitality are preferred.

7. Neighborhood-serving commercial will be small scale and integrated with the residential context.

8. A wider range of housing choices will be encouraged – in the community as well as in neighborhoods.

9. Rural character of certain areas of the community will be protected.

10. Streets will create an attractive public realm and be exceptional places for people.

11. Places will be better connected, in part to improve the function of the street network and also to better serve neighborhoods.

12. Opportunities will be created to walk and bike throughout the community.

and the Comp Plan’s land use goal: An efficient use of land resources that emphasizes strategic development, redevelopment, and land intensification, preserves environmentally significant areas and agricultural resources, preserves a strong and vibrant downtown, preserves of a sense of place, and promotes sustainable planning practices.

So now we need to write development regulations which will require or encourage (that’s 1 issue) land development which promotes small-towniness and pedestrian friendliness in an environmentally sustainable way.

Land development codes (can) regulate

• uses: What sort of activity is allowed a particular piece of land?  Typical uses are residential (subdivided by the type of structure – single family, two-family, multi-family), commercial (retail, offices of various sorts, service businesses…this can be broken up into a near infinite array of possible uses as well as by size), industrial, and “mixed use” (of which more later).
• physical form: This includes lot sizes (length, width and area), setbacks and build-to lines (regulating where on a lot a building is situated), building size (area, height, number of floors, etc.), building orientation (parallel to street, requiring buildings on the Cannon River to have “front” facades on both the street and river side), relation to other buildings (principal vs. accessory structures, relative size and shape)
• appearance: architectural features (windows, materials, roof pitch, and much much more), landscaping, screening undesirable features
• connectivity: parking, street design/width, sidewalks or not, bike parking, trails
• location: where in Northfield can homes be built?  large retail?  industrial facilities?
• review process: who decides whether you can build that addition on your home, new residential subdivision, franchise on Highway 3 or new building in the downtown historic district?  Can you put a medical clinic there?  What about a veterinary clinic?  And what procedural steps are required?

It shouldn’t be too hard to see that translating “small town” (for example) into these categories is not particularly intuitive.  Add in other interests such as promoting economic development, transportation improvements and parks and the task becomes even more difficult.  So let’s tackle these things one or two at a time…

Stay tuned for location and the zoning map…

Also on the agenda: EDA & Master Plan for new Business Park

Not much information on this in the packet, but I’m looking forward to the discussion between the EDA and Council.  I listened to Locally Grown’s podcast with Rick Estenson, EDA President and one of the leaders on the business plan project.

After the podcast, I have new questions. I’ve always had land use questions about the NW annexation site, and transportation questions, and environmental questions.  Now I have money questions.   Mr Estenson along with 2/3’s of the Locally Grown triumvirate talked about bonding for business park development and where on the city priority list this project would fall.  Given that $10+ million price tag for the Safety Center and the Library expansion which is in the works, where SHOULD this one be?  Yes, it has the possibility of generating tax dollars and other dollars for the City while the other projects do not.   What weight does that give?  Does everything I write have to end in a question mark?

And of course, the usual policy problem of how do we prioritize our decisions in Northfield at all? Do we prioritize or do we keep using the simming pool model – wait for facilities to absolutely fail before we act to replace what just broke?  How should we compare spending on facilities vs economic development initiatives?

Go Skateboarding Day is TODAY

Safety Center recommendation on Council agenda

The Safety Center Task Force was given 90 days to meet, review information and return to the Council with recommendations about the size, location and financing of a new Safety Center and here’s their answer:

1. Recommendation on Building Size: Having reviewed the data presented to the Taskforce, the Taskforce recommends to the City Council to construct a combined Public Safety Center of 47,500 square feet in size.

2. Recommendation on Building Location: Utilizing the Site Selection Criteria and after a thorough review of 13 sites throughout the City, the Taskforce is recommending two sites for Council consideration:

a. Valley Co-Op located on Highway 3
b. Cowles Property located on Riverview Drive.

Either site will meet the needs of a combined Public Safety Center. The Taskforce strongly encourages the City Council to do a detailed review of all flood protection criteria to determine what can be done at the current Safety Center Site and explore ideas relating to reuse of this site as “gateway” to the City.

3. Recommendation on Financing: Having reviewed the data presented by City Finance staff and the City’s Bond Council, the Taskforce recommends the City Council consider the following options for financing:

a. Voter approval through a referendum of the sale of $10.4 million in General Obligation Bonds.
b. City Council approval of the sale of $10.4 million in Capital Improvement Bonds, subject to a reverse referendum.

The Taskforce further recommends that regardless of which financing option the City Council chooses, a thorough public education process be done prior to approval to move forward with financing.

Read the full report included as an addendum to the Council packet

There are a lot of numbers in the report including 4 pages of square footage for each program or space in the current facility and then a new (usually larger) space requirement allotted by the schematic design for a new facility.   I do not want to debate each item, but I would like to know how the numbers were determined in a general way.  Were these numbers calculated from some industry standard which says for x number of police personnel the facility should have y square feet of locker room space (if so, what is that standard)?   Were they estimated based on inferences from other facilities in the region (if so, which ones?)?  Were they pulled out of thin air (I hope not)?  I am especially interested in how the future growth allowances were figured…

Some numbers are conspicuously absent from the report. In the “Project Budget” for the recommended 47,500 SF facility, the total cost is estimated at $10,400,000 not including site purchase.   The site evaluation matrix included “cost” as one criterion for selecting a location for the facility.   But just how much does the choice of site affect the price tag?  Cost of the property is one number, but what about site preparation, infrastructure and access improvements and any other site specific investments?   And is $10+ million dollars for 47,500 SF a reasonable amount at all?  Looks like $185 per square foot for police administrative spaces and $155 per square foot for all other spaces is the muliplier…where does this number come from?  What’s the per square foot cost of other, comparable, facilities?

Also missing: useful information about the current Safety Center site. The Task Force recommended 2 other sites rather than reusing the current site, but then indicates more information is needed about the current location.  Why is the Task Force asking for information about this so late in the game?   Some questions of reuse or rebuilding might seem to be downstream issues not relevant to the new Safety Center, but if we could sell the current site, for example, and collect property taxes from that highly visible corner, that could offset some of the cost of the new facility.   Or the City could be saddled with a difficult to reuse site.

Referendum or no referendum? At my Ward meeting there was some lively discussion about this one.  One the one hand, some thought that raising taxes for this project required the public buy-in that a referendum brings (assuming it passes anyway).  The other view was that asking the voters for approval on such projects was a step down the road toward California-style government by proposition (which is expensive, to say the least) and reverse referendum would be available if there was great public disapproval.  I tend toward the “no referendum” side because I think the Council is elected to make tough decisions and to lead the city.   Raising taxes is a step which must be undertaken only when truly justified to support the City’s operations.   The Council must be very sure that the increase is needed and that the dollars will be spent wisely…which gets back to all those questions above.

Another week

Last week I made my “to don’t” list including “don’t think about skateboards” and “don’t do any city council work” (aside from the meetings, of course)  — just a bit of burnout prevention there.  This week:

Regular council meeting: Get the full agenda or here are the highlights:

• Appointments to the Mayor’s Youth Council and Mayor’s Taskforce on Youth Alcohol and Drug Use
• Approving an RFP (that’s a Request for Proposal) for City Attorney services. As with financial auditors and other professionals who do work for the city, we periodically seek new ones: Maren Swanson and her firm Lampe Law Group have been probiding city attorney services since 1988 with RFPs in 1995, 1999 and 2001.  Much more information in the Council packet.
• First reading of the new assessment ordinance policy which changes the city’s policy for assessments against your property when infrastructure improvements are made.
• Consider making a recommendation on 800 mhz radio communication plan to Rice County.

Ward meeting recap

About 15 folks from Wards 1 & 2 came out on a rainy Saturday morning to the Safety Center to hear about the current facility and its limitations from the police and fire chiefs, plus Joel Walinski and Kathleen McBride (many thanks to these city staff members for taking the time to come and present information and answer questions); thanks also to Ward 1 Council guy Jim Pokorney and councilors Rhonda Pownell and Jon Dennison.

A snapshot about space needs: when the Safety Center was built in 1971 the police department had 7 employees and no computers; now there are 21 employees and much technology from computers on desks to fingerprinting.  Fire department staffing has remained about the same but the amount of equipment is about 1/3 to 1/2 more than 1971 and the size of vehicles has increased.    Aging vehicles needing replacement will be larger, too.

The Safety Center Task Force holds its final meeting this week on 6/11 with a report to the Council on 6/22.

Attendees asked some very good questions about facility needs, location, reuse of the current site as well as whether or not a new Safety Center should entail a bond referendum.

Beyond the Safety Center, questions about trees and tree protection, skateboards, communication with the public, working with boards and commissions, land development regulations, transit and probably a few more things I didn’t have a chance to write down.   Thanks again to everyone who came.

I also had a chance to ride my bicycle down the shiny new bike lanes on 5th Street to get to the Safety Center – a good improvement.

What I’m spending most of my time on

You may think that all I think about is skateboards, based on my blogging.  Nope, mostly I’m thinking about land development regulations.  The draft regulations are heading out to select boards and commissions and I’m part of the team to facilitate input from these groups (along with staff and planning commission members), local developers are also meeting to review the draft, the NDDC forum last week was on the draft, and I’m still doing my own reading and research.

On the worksession agenda

On tomorrow’s worksession agenda: skateboards, rental ordinance (staff is proposing some mostly technical changes to the ordinance after using it for a year, but the 20% density rule is also up fo consideration), the Holland MI promotional video, and community support costs (that is, what resources such as use of the showmobile, police, , street sweeping, etc. should the city devote to supporting community events like the Defeat of Jesse James Days, Taste of Northfield, Artswirl, etc.)

Skateboards on the Council worksession agenda

Still many questions about skateboards and the skateplaza – see the previous post.  But on the worksession agenda tomorrow, the Council is supposed to discuss the skatepark site selection process including (From the Joel Walinski’s memo in the packet)

education on the attributes of a skateboard park and the criteria for locating a succssful park, a public input process, and an evaulation process that tracks the evaulation and comparison of various sites

We council members are supposed to come prepared with criteria for selecting a site…I’m still working on my list.

I’ve heard from several people about the Council’s decision to take the decision-making away from the Park Board (and you can read about it in the Northfield News and on Locally Grown). In retrospect, I agree with the critics. My only explanation is that in the course of a meeting, I do not notice all the issues (procedural or substantive) – I can only juggle so many ideas at once, I guess. Looks quite clear the morning after, however. We should, at the very least, answer our critics tomorrow night even if the Council wants to keep hold of the reins.