Council Minutes

Minutes of the Grand Forks City Council/Committee of the Whole
Monday, July 10, 2006 - 7:00 p.m.____________________________

The city council met as the Committee of the Whole on Monday, July 10, 2006 at 7:00 p.m. in the council chambers in City hall with Mayor Brown presiding. Present at roll call were Council Members Brooks, Glassheim, Gershman, Bakken (teleconference), Kreun - 5; absent: none.

Mayor Brown announced that when addressing the committee to please come forward to use the microphone for the record, and advised that the meeting is being televised live and taped for later broadcast.

Mayor Brown commented on various events during the past week and upcoming events:
That many cities in the region are celebrating birthdays and had the chance to be in Thompson over the weekend for their 125th birthday, congratulations to Thompson and would encourage everyone to attend as many of these celebrations as possible to meet people in the region.
Tomorrow is important for the Grand Forks Air Force Base for change in command ceremony where say farewell to Colonel Bender and his family and wish them the best at the U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, Germany, and a welcome to Colonel Hull and hers.

COUNCIL MEMBER CHRISTENSEN REPORTED PRESENT

SUSPEND AGENGA

Council Member Kreun stated that due to the short timing the Planning and Zoning Commission met Thursday evening and weren't able to get the information on the agenda, and asked to suspend the agenda and add those items that were in the packet - items 2.9 through 2.16. Council Member Gershman seconded the motion. Carried 6 votes affirmative.

2.1 The Comprehensive Annual Financial Report of the City of Grand Forks for the year ended December 31, 2005 and the Independent Auditor's Report.__________
Council Member Christensen asked that they suspend the agenda to move this item to the
finance committee who serves as audit committee and moved to suspend the agenda so that this
matter can be voted on and moved to the committee this evening. Council Member Brooks
seconded the motion. Carried 6 votes affirmative. It was moved by Council Member Gershman
and seconded by Council Member Brooks to refer this matter to the finance committee. Carried 6
votes affirmative.

2.2 Bids for Project No. 5815, Dist. No. 624, paving Homestead Grove First Addn. 2.3 Engineering Service Agreement with CPS, Ltd. for Project No. 5939, S. 34th Street area storm sewer improvements. __________________________________________ 2.4 Create special assessment district for Project No. 5939, Dist. No. 448, S. 34th Street area storm sewer improvements.___________________________________________ between the cost of installing a larger pipe to go out to the drainway and the pond. Ms. Voigt, asst. city engineer, stated that because they are not bringing the engineer's report forward with those costs they would like to take some time to analyze that point, to see whether the pipe or the pond is more economical and to meet with the adj. landowners in that vicinity, discussions with the Park District that have large land holdings where could place the pond to see if that could be donated or not as that affects the cost substantially and until they work those details out they don't know which way is most economical; but also look at design considerations for saving storage volumes in drainway, which is best for the city overall because this is big project area and once they do that will bring the engineer's report of recommendation.

Council Member Christensen stated he has questions re. this project but too soon to create a special assessment district until have an idea of the improvement and how it will benefit those within the district., that to talk to the landowners that will be affected because these landowners are already paying special assessments to some degree for storm sewer improvements that have been put in but not funded with CDBG dollars. The second item is that the area on Exhibit No. 2B where you might have a possible storm water detention area is Park District property of approx. 40 acres, but he along with several members of this council have gone along the southend drainway and it is a wide expansive ditch and doesn't see where the creation of a storm water detention pond in this area is going to alleviate the capacity of that ditch because what they are trying to do is have a pond to hold some water when you have an extraordinary event, and why it would have to be detained in that pond if the pipe is wide enough to accommodate the runoff, could change the size of the district

Mr. Swanson advised that they can alter the size of the district but depending upon where you are in the procedure, can narrow it but enlarging it may put you back to re-creating the district and going back through public hearings and notices, etc. Council Member Christensen stated that can see that staff trying to create the biggest district with the idea of perhaps narrowing it. Mr. Swanson stated in most cases that would be the most prudent thing to do.

Council Member Kreun stated he disagrees, that he thinks it is wise to create the district as big as they can because those people will want to know if they are affected or not, and may want to look at a pond because if look at the development and the Land Code and what we are going to have happen in the long range plan, very prudent at this time to look at holding ponds to make sure that we do not inundate that drainway and back up into people's parking lots and yards. He stated we can look at both sides of it to make sure we are including the largest area and which is the most prudent way to go, and the detention ponds can be aesthetically pleasing and that we should go ahead with the special assessment district and look at both options before making decision.

Mr. Grasser gave clarification on the process, that they started out with very simple special assessment project showing connecting a pipe from Ruemmele Road down to the Southend drainway, they did some preliminary sizing of that and pipe is 54 to 60" range and about $200,000 project with current prices, but as started looking at that, that there maybe another way where they can save some money, wanted to have CPS go through those analyses, and give council the information about cost of pond and pipe and make recommendation as to which might be the best way to go, because right now don't have those answers, and have open process. He stated the reason for creating the district is so they have a mechanism for recouping those consulting fees back into the project otherwise take those consulting fees out of one of the utility funds or some other source. He stated they are looking for definite decision from council and if they don't want to consider a pond , then bring the assessment district back the next week with a straight up pipe and move forward and really a simple design from that perspective.

Council Member Christensen asked what are consulting fees that will have to expend to explore the creation of a pond vs. going forward with the $200,000 project. Mr. Grasser stated they don't have those figure broken down and the fees they have is to go through the actual design of either one of those two projects; and stated that the contract for the entire design fees is not to exceed an amount of $37,390.00 and that does include construction engineering.

Council Member Christensen stated that if there is some responsibility that the City should bear the $37,000 as opposed to laying it on the property owners, then should pick up the responsibility and bear it, rather than form a special assessment. Mr. Kreun stated there was no mistake and not like that, the problem was that the CDBG funds ended and the design wasn't completed and this will be completing the full project the way it was supposed to be designed. He stated it is the matter of a large building coming in with a large parking lot and now it has to have the design finished to complete the project that started after the flood and now when there are more people out there, finish the project, either with the large pipe or with the pond, and they all should probably share in that particular cost because everyone of them are going to benefit whether they are using it today or not, and still going to benefit because it will be able to handle that larger volume of water going down that pipe.

Council Member Brooks stated the recommended council action, to approve the creation of a special assessment district, direct engineering department to prepare an engineer's report, that is not real involved, they will come back with answers to some of the questions that have been raised.

Mr. Grasser gave reminder of our process, storm sewer is in general 100% special assessed without City participation rate, the CDBG monies that went in there, $300 or $400,000 project that went in to help development, to help hold costs down in that area, but if there are some special assessments that come back on this project it is still substantially less than what they would have been had we done our normal process of special assessed 100% and as to how we want to charge design fees, etc. that gets to be a policy issue and typically have rolled those into the special assessment project; and to clarify storm sewer the City does not participate in those trunk storm sewer costs and would be 100% special assessed.

Council Member Bakken questioned if we would potentially be expanding into areas that we aren't going to be able to collect assessments on. The city auditor stated that generally these areas that are now annexed within the city, set the assessment district and if a property does not pay their special assessments they are similar to a property that does not pay their real estate tax and in 5 years we then would take the property; we had to do that in the '80's on several properties and ended up selling those and collecting the back taxes, back specials on those; believes these are developing areas and that's where these are going into. We would take that out of the utility funds.

2.5 Request for extension of Grand Forks County Public Safety Answering Point joint powers agreement to correspond with lease agreement. _______________________
There were no comments. 2.6 Request for PSAP Relocation Project and lease agreement between PSAP and Grand Forks County.________________________________________________
There were no comments.

2.7 Bids for trailer-mounted vacuum excavator. 2.8 Appointment to Downtown Design Review Board.
There were no comments.
2.9 Request from CPS, Ltd. on behalf of Southern Estates LLP for final approval (fast track) of the Replat of Lots 6, 7 and 8, Block 1, Southern Estates 4th Addn. (located at 2293, 1301 and 2331 43rd Avenue South.___________________________________
There were no comments.

2.10 Petition from City of Grand Forks to vacate an alley located in Block 4 and streets adjacent to Blocks 1, 4 and 5 of Hubert's Addn.______________________________
There were no comments.

2.11 Request from Pribula Engineering on behalf of Violet Theis for final approval (fast track) of the Replat of Lot 10, Block B, West forks Too Resubdivision (located at 17th Ave.S. and N. 52nd St.)­______________________________________________ 2.12 Request from Planning Department for approval of ordinance to annex to the city of Grand Fork, ND the southerly 247.0 feet of the easterly 410.0 feet of lands platted as Lot 10, Block B, West Forks Too Resubdivision, being a Replat of Blocks 1 and 9, Korynta-Lemm Subdivision, Grand Forks, County, ND________________________
There were no comments.

2.13 Request from the City of Grand Forks, Tom and Mary Sand, and Paula Davis for final approval (fast track) of the plat of Hughes Second Resubdivision to the city (located at 3605 and 3611 Belmont Road.__________________________________
There were no comments.

2.14 Request by Dale Mellum of The View on behalf of Crary Development, Inc. for approval of a conditional use permit (CUP) for a rest home (memory care unit) (located on Lot 8 Block 3, Homestead Grove Second Addition on 4600 block of South 11th Street).____________________________________________________
Relative to notification to people that live to the east of the proposed project, Mr. Gengler
stated the normally do a 400 ft. mailing but this time targeted neighborhoods so went from the
easterly boundary of the development all the way over to Cherry , and got both cul-de-sacs and
some of the other multi-structures adjacent to Cherry Street and some to the south but all the
same property owners. Boundaries are Cherry Street, 47th Avenue South and South Washington
Street; property to the east will be single family (cul-de-sac) and property to the west is what have
in staff report as being subject property for the facility. Mr. Christensen stated at the last meeting
he asked that the developer sign the area to make sure that people know what is coming, that
signs put up so they see what they can expect to be developed in the area that they are going to
be buying homes in, but need to make sure that signs are up after approval.

2.15 Request from City of Grand Forks for preliminary approval of an ordinance to amend the text of the Land Development Code, Chapter XVIII of the Grand Forks City Code of 1987, as amended, amending Article 2, Zoning; Section 18-0208 R-1 (Single-Family Residence) District and Section 18-0209 R-2 (One and Two Family Residence) District._____________________________________________________
Council Member Christensen stated we are changing the width of a lot for single family
to 45 ft. Mr. Gengler stated as a result of some of the issues that they dealt with through the UND
neighborhood rezoning this is probably the last ordinance to come out, that he and Mr. Swanson
looked at it and they have equalized the R-1 and the R-2 setbacks to get away from some of the
non-conforming issues that may have been created by rezoning some of those properties from R-2
to R-1; this allows the same setbacks for a structure in the R-1 as in the R-2 throughout the city.
Mr. Swanson stated if you lived in an R-1 District then the setback requirements would come into
play. As it is right now, the concern that was raised by this council was that some people felt that
there were inequities between the R-1 and the R-2 as relates to setbacks because we had rezoned
property in the University area so as to ameliorate those concerns Mr. Gengler and he and
others had some discussion as to what is really the difference between an R-2 zone and an R-1
zone, that there wasn't a great deal of difference between an R-1 and an R-2 zones so they took
the least restrictive provision either of R-1 or R-2 and combined them for both zones; that if the
council wishes to do something different than that then their recommendation would be to act
similarly with respect to both R-1 and R-2, but as it is right now they were trying to eliminate
those properties that may have been made non-conforming by the rezoning that was done in the
University area and to allow the most use of the property within an R-1 and an R-2 districts.

Mr. Gengler stated as far as the underlying zoning, as they are in the process of updating the
whole land use plan and would result in some of those changes but a positive result of this is
allowing or encouraging smaller lots to hit on the affordable aspect and creating smaller lot sizes
and have smaller specials, smaller flood assessments. Lots in the near northend lots as small as
25 ft. Mr. Christensen stated they are taking the minimum lot size down from 60 ft. by 33% and
that those are the size lots that can be brought in and that becomes a pretty small area when
talking about sizes of homes and placing them on a lot, and might want to think about that before
approving that.

Council Member Gershman stated when they created the affordable housing districts they went
down to 60 ft. or 65 ft. and now going to 45 ft., and that he has some concerns with the issue and
it would be interesting to see on an elevation what size home you could get on a 45 ft. lot so
could get a sense of what would be looking at if they did this, fire danger and other things that
could pertain to this, because of the issue they dealt with has serious ramifications for the city,
will consider a motion to table this next week so can see more information.

Mr. Gengler stated there is nothing time critical or sensitive about this.

Mr. Swanson stated that R-2 which is the predominant zone in the northern part of the
community allows 45 ft. lots and not sure in the discussions whether you should change that or
not in conjunction with an R-1 but if you do that, keep in mind that you will be creating more
non-conforming properties; that he doesn't think that either he nor Mr. Gengler have any
particular issues with respect to this ordinance other than they were trying to address what they
understood were the requests from the council. In addition to those, there were other setback
requirements that are being modified between the R-1 and the R-2 zones.

Council Member Gershman asked for Planning to come back with site plans with various size
houses.

COUNCIL MEMBER McNAMARA REPORTED PRESENT

Council Member Christensen stated this is a way of correcting the setback restrictions that arose
in our rezoning of the R-2 to R-1, (R-2 is duplexes), that in the affordable housing district
there is row after row of duplexes that were created on the east side of the bikepath and homes
were constructed on 60 ft. lots and easy for council persons to view, and asked if we couldn't
have a modification of the setback requirements as they pertain to the area that we affected rather
than the whole city. He stated that we may want to think about an overlay district when we get
into our planning and zoning process.

2.16 Request from Dakota Commercial on behalf of Drew Lenthe Enterprises, Inc. for preliminary approval of an ordinance to amend the zoning map to rezone and exclude from the B-3 (General Business) District and to include within the R-3 (Multiple-Family Residence, Medium Density) District, Lots M and N of the Replat of Lots C thru I and Lots K and L, Block 1 of the Replat of Lot 1, Block 1, O.J.'s Addn. (located in the 3600 and 3700 blks. of 13th Avenue North.)_______________
Council Member Brooks reported that the area is located south of Gateway Drive and
west of Stanford Road, people to the south will be notified by letter of what is being presented . .

MAYOR AND COUNCIL MEMBER COMMENTS

1) Council Member Glassheim stated he wanted to go on record and would be willing to consider a dog park along the river on N. 3rd Street if temporary fencing used, that the Corps has done studies about four other locations along the river and found that it would not raise the surface profile, and knows there are some objections to it but wanted to raise the possibility of that.

Council Member Gershman stated he was approached by a gentlemen from PS Doors and that they are working on a collapsible fence that could be put in, that he talked to Nancy Joyner and the Humane Society is going to create a dog park and perhaps we should look at that as a first step to see how they do, that he is not opposed to a dog park in the greenway if cost is not high, came up with a matching program but need to see the cost of the fence before putting up a temporary fence which could be destroyed in a spring/summer flood.

2) Council Member Christensen thanked the auditor for the audit report, that he reviewed the pension area on pages 74 - 76 and would appreciate it if they would schedule a meeting for review of the unfounded liability on the pension plan and give them the most recent actuarial report because it has now gone up $2.5 million as opposed to the $12 and now $14.5 million. The city auditor stated he is trying to arrange that meeting and wants to bring in a rep. from the actuarial firm and will send out the revised and updated actuarial report.

ADJOURN

It was moved by Council Member Gershman and seconded by Council Member Brooks that we adjourn. Carried 7 votes affirmative.

` Respectfully submitted,



John M. Schmisek
City Auditor