NB council addresses development issues

By Barbara Brown
North Branchís contracted engineering firm, WSB Associates, asked the city council Monday night to spend about $200,000 on additional services.
Jay Kennedy of WSB asked the council at its regular meeting June 23 to pay $60,000 for digital topography maps from a company called Horizonís.
Several weeks ago, Horizonís flew over North Branch and took aerial photos of the town to sell to the city for planning and mapping purposes.
The company flew over the city of its own volition in an attempt to sell its finished aerial maps to the city.
Horizonís asked WSB for ground level global positioning satellite, or GPS, measurements of elevations at about 100 sites around town that would help Horizonís make the maps.
Kennedy told the council it would cost about $14,000 from WSB for the measurements and about $46,000 from Horizonís for the digital aerial mapping.
Kennedy told the council digital aerial maps could be useful for planning future development and in the current process of finalizing the cityís sewer and water plan.
He said the maps would be compatible with the countyís digitized maps.
Kennedy told the council that although he could do engineering work like the water and sewer plan update without the maps, they ìwould help it go along a little faster.î
He also said future prospective developers probably would be interested in buying copies of the maps.
Kennedy said that because the map would be useful to future developers, the city could pay for it out of the sewer trunk fund.
City finance director Dave Stutelberg told the council that the fund already is carrying bond payments of $85,000 per year for a 15-year bond for the recently completed Grand Avenue project. He said he wanted to take some time to see what else the trunk fund is supporting now and whether it would be able to support more expenses.
Mayor Gloria Karsky said she wanted to wait until the water and sewer plan was finished before approving the $60,000 purchase to see if the water and sewer trunk fund could afford it.
The city has not yet decided whether it will buy the maps.
WSB also asked the city to spend between $150,000 and $180,000 on a new lift station on property located near Casselberry Ponds 9th addition.
Casselberry developer Dave Melby is looking to build on a 10-acre site in the northwest section of Casselberry Ponds.
Kennedy told the council a lift station would be needed to furnish sewer service and because the station would service more than Melbyís 10 acres, the city could install the station using sewer trunk funds.
Again, Stutelberg told the council that the trunk fund was currently supporting bonds and he needed to do research to see if the fund could support an additional $180,000 in expenses.
Stutelberg said in a Tuesday phone interview that the city can pay for upgrades, improvements and expansion of its current sewer system so that it is ready for future development.
He said the strategy saves the city money because when developers come in later, the cityís side of the sewer service is ready with large enough pipes and efficient flow levels.
The council decided to table further discussion on the topic until after Stutelberg found out about the fundís financial strength and on the results of the updated sewer and water plan.
Included in the 40-acre coverage area for the proposed lift station would be a townhouse development Melby has asked to build.
He asked the council Monday night for a conditional use permit to build 15 duplex units off Hemingway Avenue to the west of Wellington Drive.
Several residents of the street were at Mondayís meeting to speak against the townhouses. Residents cited concern over changing the density of the area and drainage concerns.
The townhouse units would be allowed in the zone, R-1, according to city policy. However, townhouses are a conditional use.
City Attorney Tom Miller told the council conditional uses are allowed, but the council has more control over specifics such as drainage, proximity to other property, whether the townhouses could share driveways and entrances to the units from a city street.
Karsky said those were her main concerns about the plan and that she wanted more time to look at the proposal before taking action.
Council member Amy Oehlers said she was concerned that the lot sizes suggested ñ an average lot of 16,000 square feet and a minimum of 12,100 square feet ñ might be too small for duplex units.
A vote by the cityís planning commission failed when the count was 2-2 to recommend approval by the city council.
The request will be revisited by the council at its July 14 meeting.
Also at the meeting, the council approved a bid from Madsen-Johnson Corp. for $10.1 million to expansion and upgrade of the cityís sewer treatment facility.
The city received four bids, ranging from Madsen-Johnsonís $10.1 million to $11.2 million from Gridor Construction.
The cityís attorney, Tom Miller, had held the Madsen-Johnson bid for several days to research why it had included a bid bond for a Wabasha project instead of North Branch and why it did not include an experience qualifications sheet for the instrumentation subcontractor it planned to use.
Miller decided after some research that the questionable bid package errors were just mistakes and that the company holds a bid bond for the North Branch project and that the subcontractor is qualified for the work.
Also at the meeting, the council amended the cityís urban service area to include the planned expansion of the cityís Industrial Park. The expansion encompassed an area just north of 400th Street and south of 410th Street, west of CR 30 and east of I-35.
The cityís financial advisor, Kathy Aho of Springsted Inc., asked the city for the expansion because it was a requirement of selling the bond for the purchase of the property. No other sections of the urban service area were altered.

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