2023.02.21 PC Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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STAFF Memorandum Ordinance to Rezone Properties to Mixed Use as Guided in the 2040 Comprehensive Plan To: Planning Commission From: Ben Gozola, Assistant Director DCAD Meeting Date: 2-21-23 INTRODUCTION Every ten years, all cities in the metropolitan area are required by law to approve a local comprehensive plan to guide development in their community for the coming decade. In July 2019, the City of New Brighton approved its latest plan, which established a new community vision and identified new goals for the City to achieve. The new vision and goals were the product of over two (2) years of community engagement secured through multiple platforms and avenues including on-line surveys, interactive maps, social media posts, community workshops, booths at events (i.e. Stockyard Days), Economic Development Commission meetings, Planning Commission meetings, and City Council meetings. One of the adopted avenues to address the City’s top three identified goals (“have a diverse population,” “provide a diverse stock of well-maintained housing” and “maintain a healthy business environment), was the guiding of four new areas of the City for what is known as “mixed use development.” Within such areas, redevelopment of sites may become residential only, commercial only, or a combination of both use types (i.e. commercial uses on the ground floor with residential units above). Within a fully developed community like New Brighton, providing this type of flexibility in strategic locations is essential to attracting reinvestment that will directly address the needs and desires of the community as a whole. COMPREHENSIVE PLAN IMPLEMENTATION Following adoption of a new Comprehensive Plan, cities must then take steps to implement the plan. For New Brighton, that initially meant reviewing two large mixed-use developments that came forward following Comprehensive Plan approval: Midtown Village and the Benedictine Health Center expansion. Both projects received approval through the Planned Residential Development (PRD) process, but only one was constructed as COVID-19 shutdowns brought most projects to a halt from early 2020 through mid-2021. During the shutdown, the City could not conduct effective public outreach to pen new zoning districts for the new mixed use nodes, so existing zoning classifications in those areas were simply retained, and mixed use development was forced to use the PRD or PUD process in order to proceed. One additional development, The Exchange Apartments, elected to use the PRD process in 2021 to authorize a new apartment building on the former US Bank site.