Minutes
Tuesday, August 27, 2003
The meeting was called to order at 4:01 p.m. Members present were: Alderman Koehler, Alderman Grabowski and Alderman Foeckler. Also present was Wayne St. John, Doug Schachtner, Rebecca Lane.
Alderman Foeckler made a motion to approve the minutes of August 12. Alderman Grabowski seconded the motion. All aye; motion carried.
In the contract, we opened the possibility of closing down this last phase of Puetz. The binder should be going down on Tuesday.
Pennsylvania is going to start Monday. They know that on every single address where there is a building, they have to declare to the bus company, to the Fire Department and to the Police Department whether they have to go north or south to get to it. Every time they pass a building, they need to make the change at those three entities. They’re going to start at Puetz and work south. They want to haul in gravel from Highway 32 on Puetz. They have offered us a bond and they will do all of the preconstruction videos. There are issues with where to take the material off the construction project.
The details of the pilot mechanized garbage program are still being ironed out.
Rebecca and Doug took a drive around Whitetail Ridge and Ridgeview Estates. The right of way is 15 feet from the curb to the property line in the right of way. They felt that this might be a good time to approach the CIP Committee, during their review of the design manual, to require street trees in those areas as well (in future development agreements). Alderman Grabowski would like to see that the developer be responsible for incurring the cost for the trees, per development. Doug indicated that they do now, but not in the Rural B subdivisions.
Wayne indicated that the Rural A section was the ditch section and you weren’t going to put trees in the ditches. The Rural B evolved and got rid of the ditches and has curb and gutter. The committee agreed to put the trees in.
Wayne discussed the need for more lighting with Mike Simmons and Jim Piraino. Their opinion was that that spacing in our urban section is determined by a uniform amount of light so that the retina in the eye doesn’t have to respond. They understand coming into an intersection where you’re going to call for that eye to respond because it’s lighter, but if you don’t do the same spacing, then the retina is going to go up and down as you drive through the subdivision. The committee recommended moving forward with the suggestion made previously.
(page 31) Our practice on driveway culverts is that when there is a new one, they pay for the materials and the installation. If it needs to be replaced because of age, rusting out, a damaged end, the land owner only pays for the new pipe. The installation comes free. We don’t repair their driveway. On 15th Avenue, all of the culverts there were redone as part of a storm water project where we changed the size. The condition they were in was irrelevant, it was a size change and the city paid for that. If it’s a city project that impacts the homeowner or the land owner (commercial as well), we end up paying that cost. If it’s the case of it just plain rotting out, they pay for the pipe, they don’t pay for the reinstallation. There are maybe six instances of this per year. There are a lot more people who want to extend their culverts. If they extend their culvert, they pay for both the pipe and the installation cost because it’s new.
(page 35) If the sanitary sewer is located in the same easement as another utility, then the easement shall be increased to 30 feet plus the distance between the utilities. The committee discussed the city’s limits on regulating matters where the developer has a two year time period after the sale of the home in which to claim an easement on the property. The easements are generally not established until the utilities are in. The city may be able to require that all necessary utilities be in place before the final plat. Wayne could check with Larry Haskin on that issue. Very few buyers really understand these kinds of problems, particularly first time buyers in a builders market. We try to avoid problems with the design manual requirements.
(page 35) Depth: sewers should be sufficiently deep to prevent freezing. Minimum depth is 10 feet, 12 feet and 4 feet for service laterals. Below that it says for pipe depth less than 4 feet. How could that exist if we require a 4 foot minimum? Wayne gave the example of St. John’s subdivision where the ditches were set up the laterals didn’t meet minimum cover under the ditches.
(page 48) Section G Thrust Blocks. In the fitting so that pipe fittings and joints will be accessible in such a manner that pipe fittings and joints will be accessible to repairs. How is that possible when you pour a buttress on the end of a water main you’ve encased the entire fitting. How can you make that accessible for repairs? Wayne did not have an immediate answer, but will get one.
(page 50) Paragraph L – Construction Requirements. Only utility staff shall be allowed to operate system valves. Should we not put in there “unless in an emergency”? If that water starts flushing out and if there are guys working on it, shouldn’t they be allowed to turn the valve off to keep from flooding out an area? Wayne believed that the context addresses when it is new. If they’re tying into an existing water main, it should be valved off. It shouldn’t be hot until they do the pressure tests. A lateral could be tied into a line along the street, but this is for a main line for a new subdivision. If we have a lateral going into a main line, it’s covered under plumbing. Main line into main line is covered under the design manual. The manual will be amended to address this.
(page 57) 19 D – why concrete or asphalt in Rural B instead of just concrete? It’s a carryover from Rural A. The reason why we wanted concrete in RS-3 and RS-4 is because they either go through a sidewalk or they have a sidewalk section in them in case the Council ever wants to put sidewalk on the other side. In Rural B section there will be no sidewalks, so it can go from the curb all the way to the garage and therefore it’s cheaper for the homeowner initially and that’s why it’s there. The committee felt it was reasonable to hold the line on requiring only standard concrete or asphalt on the approach (no brick, no stone, no colorized or textured concrete, etc.) for repair purposes.
(page 61) Item 25 on cul-de-sacs and dead end streets. The turnaround radius for a temporary cul-de-sac is 65 in diameter. The pavement is around 104 with a 140 foot right of way. We don’t have shoulders anymore, so all new subdivisions will be 109 for a permanent. A temporary is 75.
(page 62) Street lighting shall be provided at intersections. Wayne indicated that there would be a lot of changes to get Rural B on street lighting and around 300 foot spacing.
(page 68) Roadway—controller item I 5 calls for 120 power volt shall be provided in the meter socket. Chuck did not believe Wisconsin Electric would allow that in a meter socket. Wayne will get an answer on this issue.
There’s a typo on page 69. Item 7 F should be GFCI (ground fault circuit interruptor)
(page 70) A—all trenches shall be backfilled and restored to grass cover. That doesn’t necessarily mean that whoever is doing the work there is responsible to put the vegetative cover back on. It states how the developer contracts out is his prerogative. He may not have his electrician do that. He may have a landscaper.
Screen plantings (D2) – plans shall be prepared by a registered landscape architect and shall meet the Plan Commission and City Engineer’s approval. What about also for the Community Development Director. Wayne indicated that City Engineer is out and Community Development Director is in.
Plan standards (H) all required drawings, sanitary water mains, storm paving grading and street lighting shall be bound and submitted in one step. The city will not review partial steps. These are detailed drawings that generally are not done prior to plan approval. If the Plan Commission doesn’t give them approval, they don’t have a project.
The whole plan standard section is not related to what you see in the community, it’s the process by which we get stuff into our hands.
(page 70) Plan Standards #15 – existing trees 16” or larger shall be shown on the preliminary and final grading plans. This is old carryover language that doesn’t support anything now and can be removed.
Item 16 – the plan must also delineate heavily wooded areas and indicate the tree species. Again, old carryover language that can be removed.
Item 18 – show stormwater facilities including location size, required volume provided by the … wet or dry bottom. So when the developer comes in front of the city for prelim site plan, do they have to define wet vs. dry detention basin at that time? Wayne reiterated that the design plan standard is applied after the plan commission approval, not before.
Alderman Foeckler had a punctuation edit for page 79 c – “location and dimension of all best practice manual is including, but not limited to:”
Alderman Grabowski added that on page 79 it states, “sanitary sewer records shall be done in accordance with the MMSD regulation”. It also has to be without rules and regulations. Wayne indicated we’ve adopted them.
A temporary fix may cost approximately $400,000, but then the issue of assessments arises. As far as precedents are concerned, we are going to assess Tenth Street, Sixth Street is assessed, Forest Hill was assessed, all of the industrial roads in the modern era have been assessed. The one bad thing about doing the fix is that Wayne doesn’t believe the design, the utilities, and all of the construction can be done in one year. The design takes at least 4 months. It takes two months just to get utility contract awarded, bid and signed. The project would be 100% assessed. Wayne recalled that 10th Street was coming in $127 per lineal foot (for asphalt) and something similar would be in the ballpark here. If you have 500 feet of frontage, you would be assessed $50,000. The question is whether or not the front foot assessment is appropriate because a major consumer of that road is on the cul de sac that doesn’t have to be done. Whether or not the city will offset any of the costs is a policy decision, but it wasn’t done on 6th Street or Forest Hill. Some of the cost was offset on 10th Street because the creek in the middle caused extra curbs and extra width. Anything to do with the storm drainage the city took out of that project, but they paid for full pavement, curb and gutter, and approaches.
Alderman Grabowski indicated that Jenny Polachowski from the chamber of Commerce would have liked to have given her concerns in reference to Southbranch, but she was out of town and unavailable.
The hotel tax that’s generated is approximately $400,000 per year. In her conversation with Doug Seymour, she learned that it goes into the general fund and suggested that perhaps those kinds of funds could be somehow utilized according to the Director of the Chamber of Commerce. Her comment was that that money would be used toward community development or economic development and Alderman Grabowski felt that these types of projects would fall under economic development. Wayne indicated that 10th Street didn’t get any. Even if we had some of the state grant money, if we put it into a project that gives one part of industry an advantage over what someone else paid, it creates a problem.
Another way to assess for a street, instead of basing it on front footage, is to base it on the number of affected property owners (if there are 40 industries in the park, divide the sum by 40).
If the hotel tax funds are taken out of the general fund and used for roads, the decision is made that everyone will pay toward the road because then taxes will have to be increased to make up for those funds being reallocated. The state funds are committed to Pennsylvania, Rawson and 13th Street. None of that money is available until 2007 and 2008. Pennsylvania is 100% our project, so we’re using the 80% state funding and 20% local. On 13th Street (College to Rawson), we’re using our grant funds to pay our 30% share of the cost. We’re not spending 80% on Rawson, but we’re going to pay our total share out of that fund and the county’s going to accept that. The deal was that we won’t have to raise any revenue to do the repairs on Rawson all the way from Pennsylvania to 27th Street or on 13th Street from College to Rawson. You’ll never see that in our budget because it’s going to be 100% paid out of that grant and we’ve used up our allotment into 2007-2008.
Alderman Grabowski asked how we could get the grant allotment increased. Wayne indicated that the grants are calculated with a formula based on a road inventory and the need for more roads. Ours is gradually going up because of development.
Alderman Koehler believed that a paved road would wear faster over time than a concrete road. Wayne indicated that his experience was that it would not. A big advantage of a paved road is that it can be milled and retopped if there is a problem. Concrete has to be replaced. On 10th, concrete was going to be bid out as an alternative, and it wasn’t until the discussion with the property owners that the decision was made. Wayne intends to have the design of utilities done in 3 months, but then it will take 2 months to get it advertised and awarded and a minimum of 3 months construction time. We’re to the end of the summer with the utilities.
15th and Fitzsimmons was put on hold for a re-look at the assessment process. That was two years ago. Someone’s got to make a decision on assessment. If it takes 6 months, we can’t even go out with the first contract until that is done. The design was never started. The road is in terrible shape but nobody wants to put road money out there because there’s no sewer and water. The people near 32 need the sewer and water but you have to go by a lot of open land. There are no deferments.
Alderman Koehler suggested that the project be sent to design for 2004 with utilities. If Council decides different, it will be modified when the budget is adopted.
Alderman Grabowski made a motion to adjourn the meeting at 5:50 p.m. Alderman Foeckler seconded. All aye; motion adjourned.