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Planning Commission Minutes -June 19, 2001 Page 3 Mr. Boylan explained there had been a study of the traffic patterns in 1998, and the county feels a new study should be done due to new developments and staff anticipates there will be some control at one or both of the involved intersections. Mr. Boylan also addressed the parking, stating staff feel there are shared areas which do not compete for the same time frames and will control some of the spillover parking. Commissioner asked if the owner is making plans for people to access the building from the office parking areas. Mr. Vogel responded that yes there is access from there. He also again addressed the parking saying th there is parallel parking on the 6 Street extension, off hour parking in the office spaces, with the concept having been for shared parking from the start. He stated there are 135 spaced in the heated area and 107 spaced on the surface area. He feels parking is more than adequately covered. Commissioner asked staff if when traffic reaches a certain point can residents be assured controls are going to th be put in place. Staff responded 5 Ave. NW and Old 8 are County Roads and talks with Ramsey County indicate they feel we may have nearly reached patterns consistent with the need for controls. Staff feels there is adequate time yet in which to address these issues as the building needs to be built and occupied yet which all takes time. There would be time to get traffic controls in place. Commissioner asked staff if that would include crosswalks. Staff stated it certainly could. Sidewalks were added and it would seem crosswalks would be appropriate to connect the areas. Mr. Dahms again spoke asking the commissioners if they would put in writing that there would be traffic controls and crosswalks. Commissioners and city staff discussed how the county would go about determining the need for traffic controls, the possible use of stop signs and the time frame involved before this would likely be decided. Len Pratt, one of the developers then spoke, making a point about the land plan at Main Street. Main street connects the parking lots to the offices and to the underground parking. Main street comes most directly to E-2 thth (not on 5) and E-2 heads east to the freeway. They are actually developing a parallel road to 5. Marv Kraus, 12th Avenue Northwest, also expressed concerns regarding the traffic and questioned the need to wait for a traffic study. City staff explained there needed to be an up to date study to determine current baseline traffic and then be able to add the potential increase to get an accurate count. Mr. Kraus also expressed concerns, estimating that 50 % or more of the city would soon be in multi-dwellings or rental housing. He would like the Planning Commission to look at this closely, although he has no objection to this current building plan. He feels this percentage will greatly affect the community in the areas of schools and police needs. Commissioner questioned city staff if the numbers were right at 50 %. Staff feels the numbers are more like 35 % for the total city, but south of I- 694 it is closer to 50/50. nd Tony Bona, 703 2 Avenue, spoke and requested a breakdown of the number of apartment units vs. town homes, owner-occupied units. Mr. Vogel responded, there are 121 units. There are about 15 different floor plate designs. There are one bedroom units, one bedroom units with dens, two bedrooms, two bedrooms with dens, three bedrooms, we have the townhomes, which are two bedroom and three bedroom. So there are about seven makeups in terms of bedroom to living room area kind of ratios but in each of those seven there are probably two to three different floor plan arrangements so there is quite a variety. There are about 21 of the two level town homes. About 50 % of the units are two bedrooms. From there it is a variety of three bedrooms with the dens and another probably 25 single bedrooms. This is a very upscale project. These are all rental units. The one bedrooms will be starting in the $900 range and the larger apartments will go up to $1800. The customers come from two major areas, the empty nester, and the young professional age 20 – 35.