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HomeMy WebLinkAbout01-24-06-06 City of Lakeville Economic Development Commission Meeting Minutes January 24,.2006 Marion Conference Room, City Halle Members Present: Comms. Brantly, Emond, Erickson, Tushie, Matasosky, Pogatchnik, Schubert, Bornhauser, Ex-officio member City Administrator Steve Mielke. Members Absent: Miller, Gehrke, Smith. Others Present: Staff present: -David. Olson, Community & Economic Development Director; Adam Kienberger, Economic Development Specialist. 1. Calt Meeting to Order Chair Matasosky called the meeting to order at 6:00 p.m. in the Marion Conference Room of City Hall, 20195 Holyoke Avenue, Lakeville, Minnesota. 2. Approve November 22, 2005 Meeting Minutes Motion 06.01 Comms. Pogatchnik/Erickson moved.. to approve the minutes of the November 22, 2005 meeting. as presented. Motion..carried .unanimously. 3. Election of Officers After a brief discussion, Chair Matasosky asked if anyone was interested in being an officer for the EDC. .Motion OS.02 Comms. Erickson/Emond moved to re-elect Jack Matasosky as Chair, Barry Pogatchnik as Vice-Chair and Bob Brantly as Secretary. for 2006. Motion carried unanimously. 4. Review of 2005-2007 Strategic Plan for Economic Development Work Program for 2006 Mr. Olson. reviewed the goals that were accomplished under the 2005 Economic .Development Work Program and presented ideas to the. EDC for the 2006 Economic Development Work Program. .Goal #1: Faci itate an effort to create a long term plan to promote downtown economic viability while retaining its unique and historical characteristics. Mr. Olson discussed the progress of the Downtown Plan and .reviewed the outcome of the joint work session held on January 17, 2006. He -noted that the plan is making Economic Development Commission Meeting Minutes January 24,.2006 good progress and is scheduled be completed in June. Creating the plan is only the first step. in the process. After it is developed, the next steps will involve how. to implement it. Goal #2: Implementation of a process to facilitate the development of East- West Corridors. Mr. Olson stated that Phase II of the .East-West Corridor .Preservation Study is currently being .completed jointly by the City and Dakota County that will preserve East-West Corridor extensions.. The City was an .active participant in this Phase 2 Study that involved the refinement of the 179th .Street and 185th.Street corridors in - the Lakeville portion of the study... City staff is actively working with both private developers and Dakota County to plan .for the construction of these East-West Corridor extensions.- The implementation of the actual construction of these corridors will be an ongoingeffort over the next five years or possibly longer. Goal #3: Completion of a study #o `determine. the minimum market value of a residential housing unit that generates sufficient City taxes to pay for the City services required by that unit. Goal #4: Facilitate a process with the City Council to establish affordable" housing. goals for the City. Mr. Olson stated that both goals 3 and 4 are recommended to be completed in 2006 due to staff and budget constraints in 2005. The. timing of these two goals will be advantageous because they will be worked into the 2008 Comprehensive Planning: process slated to begin in 2007. Mr. Olson added- that the Dakota. County CDA will be releasing the results of the Maxfield Research study done on affordable housing for all of Dakota County_ sometime in February. He also added that the Metropolitan Council will bere~easing their affordable housing allocations for all metro cities sometime in the near future. Mr. Olson indicated that Lakeville may look at having Maxfield do a study separately for the City that would. provide more detailed information on the demand for affordable .housing on a local basis. He added that there is money in both the. general fund and CDGB grant funds for .the .minimum market value and housing. studies. Mr. Olson noted that even though not on the 2005. Work Program for the Economic Development Department, transit options were investigated and. acted on based on demand and timing issues. The City Administrator's office spear-headed a plan to increase DARTS service in Lakeville in 2006, and worked with Economic Development staff to gain approval to use CDBG funds to expand operation .hours on a trial .basis. 2 Economic Development Commission Meeting Minutes January 24, 2006 - Mr. Olson added that a pending sale for a park and ride site at CR-70 .and I-35 would use RALF funds from the Met Council to preserve a future .site for park and ride facilities along I-35. Comm. Tushie asked. if MTC bus service vvould come to Lakeville -soon. He added .that-the Burnsville Transit Station is always packed and it would appear that there. is a demand for service in Lakeville. Comm. Emond responded that Lakeville opted out of the transit taxing district back in the 1970s. City-Administrator Mielke added .that operating costs for bus service is continually increasing and it would require a significant amount of extra tax dollars to get service in Lakeville. Even if Lakeville were included in the transit taxing district, MVTA still wouldn't be able to guarantee service to the City. The issue lies in the matter that ;there isn't enough operating. dollars for their existing services. Comm. Tushie asked how this issue gets resolved. City. Administrator Mielke. replied that there would likely have to be a Metro-wide transit tax imposed by the Met Council and the .State would have to allocate enough transportation funds to expand service which would startwith expanding existing service. Comm. Tushie inquired as to how a community the size of Lakeville gets bypassed when it comes to transportation services. - City Administrator Mielke responded that the CR 70 project will also be able to serve the area .south of Lakeville. The RALF money for the project is a long-term solution to the transit services for southern Lakeville. Mr. Olson added that it is a 5.2-acre site that will be able to accommodate approximately 400 vehicles. City Administrator Mielke further added that additional transit services in Lakeville would have to take away from the Apple Valley services because of the amount of money required to expand service. This would .only spread service. thinner throughout the area. Chair Matasosky asked if goal number 3 would also include analysis for commercial/industrial development and its cost impact on city services. Mr. Olson stated that the scope of the analysis hasn't been completely determined yet, but that it would certainly be considered. Chair Matasosky added that if we could see the return on investment the .interchange improvements brought the community, it would .bring some closure to residents. He added that the-CR-50 and. CR-60 interchange improvements relating 3 Economic Development Commission Meeting Minutes January 24, 2006. to Timbercrest and Argonne Village development could show a significant return on investment. The group discussed whether the interchange improvements caused the .development of Argonne Village or if they. would have located there anyway. Mr. Olson responded that we should do this analysis and it does not need to be part of the Work Plan for 2006. Mr. Olson discussed a new goal for 2006 would be to reconvene the. H~a-Tech...: Subcommittee to make .sure that business needs for high-speed Internet and data transmission in Lakeville are being met. He added that there has been a lot of discussion around the Metro regarding municipal wireless Internet and running fiber to the home by the local .units of government. Because of rapidly changing . technology, business needs can change quickly. He also .added. that several-other cities in Dakota County-are looking into this idea. The City thinks that it is important to stay abreast of these issues, but not` necessarily the first one to jump into a new City initiative. City Administrator Mielke discussed other municipalities that are undertaking this type of project and how the process has evolved. Comm. Pogatchnik inquired as to what benefits the cities receive from implementing city-wide wireless Internet. City Administrator Mielke responded that some. cities have done it for different purposes and that Chaska's was focused on providing residential high-speed Internet access. He added that some utilize an .older Wi-Fi technology which requires many .antennas typically on light posts, while the new technology appears to be something called W'r-Max. He further added that another option includes a wireless communications network in conjunction with a fiber backbone. Comm. Tushie asked who owns the fiber in Lakeville. City Administrator Mielke responded that the schools own their own fiber and that Charter Communications owns some of the fiber. ..The group then briefly discussed the option of all municipal owned fiber in the City. Mr. Olson. added that-the feasibility along with acost/benefit analysis would have #o be done first. Comm: Bornhauser noted that one positive of an expanded fiber network is that it would open it up for more competition and hopefully keep costs down for subscribers. More players would. be able to compete. for customers. Comm. Pogatchnik inquired about the installation of fiber in Airlake` Industrial Park. 4 Economic Development Commission Meting Minutes January 24, 2006 Chair Matasosky responded that a lot of the old oil pipes now. contain. all kinds of cables and data lines. City Administrator Mietke discussed an example in Eagan where a business ended up choosing a different city. because they were looking for a location ..that could provide multiple redundant data services to their business. Because of this, the. City formed a business commission to .help make decisions about what was needed for the business community in Eagan. Mr. Olson said than one of the roadblocks to additional services is that the current providers.. enjoy .their current. monopoly on the market and it can be difficult to get, them to cooperate in expansion efforts.. He added that one thing the High-Tech. Committee could do would be a survey similar to one -that was. done several years ago assessing the business community's current. Internet .and high speed data transmission needs. Mr. Olson stated that one other goal for 2006 will be to work with Airlake Airport to assist in their likely 2006 fixed Base Operator expansion. He continued by saying that staff would. worK with Aircraft Resource Center and MAC to potentially accomplish a plan for new facilities and: growth at the Airlake Airport. Mr. Olson concluded by stating that in addition to these proposed goals, there will likely be other activities that occur as projects .present themselves... He added that the City is working on wrapping up the Eureka Township annexation and that Adam Kienberger vvill be working on updating marketing materials for the City. Comm. Pogatchnik asked about the current staff workload and projected workload for 2006. Mr. Olson responded that the previously outlined tasks are manageable, .but there. could always be unexpected. projects that arise. The Highway 50 interchange project turned out to be very time consuming .last year, but the Highway 70 interchange project isn't anticipated to be nearly as time consuming for City staff. Motion 06.03 Comms. Tushie/Emond moved to accept the general goals as outlined and continue, to prepare more detailed work programs. Motion carried unanimously. 5. Summary of 2005. Development Project Feedback Surveys Mr. Kienberger reviewed the 2005 Development Project Feedback Surveys. He summarized the results by stating that overall satisfaction was very. positive with only a slight decrease in satisfaction from 2004.. He added because the survey response rate for 2005 was only 25%, compared to 39% in 2004., a smaller number of responses can have a greater impact on the overall outcome of the survey. Comm. Brantly asked if City staff was going to have customer service training this year. 5 .Economic Development Commission Meeting Minutes January 24, 2006. Mr. Olson responded that the function :had been moved to the Human. Resources department and that it was not in the 2006 budget. Comm.. Pogatchnik asked Comm. Tushie how .these results compared to his experiences with other communities. Comm. Tushie responded that some cities are very tough to work with and the public is increasingly making projects tougher to get approved because of their adversity to change. City. Administrator Mielke indicated that we might.. experience a similar. situation with the Downtown Planning Project. The group discussed possibly outsourcing the survey to a consultant to elicit a higher response rate. City Administrator Mielke and Mr. Olson indicated -that while possible, this can become a costly process. Chair Matasosky concluded that there has been no significant change in the trend of high approval ratings and .that overall the responses are very .good. Comm. Pogatchnik and the rest of the EDC congratulated all of the City departments. on a job well done in serving the Lakeville community. 6. Building Permit Analysis Mr. Olson reviewed the 2005 building permit ,data and noted that the residential permit numbers are down from an unusually high year in 2004. He added that the 2005 permits are more in line with the City's goals for manageable growth and development. 7. Director's Report Mr. Olson congratulated Comms. Emond, Pogatchnik and. Tushie for .their reappointment to new three-year terms with the EDC, and Comm. Erickson for his one-year term as a Board Alternate. Mr. Olson then reviewed the upcoming meeting schedule and noted a change in the March, 2006 meeting date. Mr. Olson informed the EDC. that the Life and Times newspaper has expressed. interest in `a monthly column from the EDC regarding business issues. The .group concluded that Comms. Emond, Brantly and Chair. Matasosky would meet with the Life and Times to discuss column parameters and topic ideas: 8. Adjourn 6 Economic Development Commission Meeting Minutes January 24, 2006 The meeting was adjourned at 7:25 p.m. ltespectfufly submitted by: Attested to: v Adam Kienberger Economic. Development Specialist R. T. Brantly, Secretary 7