05.03 - Downtown Plan - Laserfiche WebLink

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area. We would hope to have a large turnout from business owners at these meetings and will be scheduling them in the early mornings in order to make that happen. The second meeting each month will focus on community issues, including the trail park and issues of community character. We would hope to involve the park committee and any other group or individual that has an interest in these issues. The goal over the five months is to find commonalities between these two groups and develop an overall shared vision. This consensus vision will then be presented to the City Council for review and adoption. An examination of the City's zoning strategies and land use regulations in relation to the developed vision We are going to examine how our ordinances help or hinder the accomplishment of the vision and determine whether or not changes should be made for the downtown area. Any changes would likely be adopted as an overlay zone. An evaluation of the impacts of improvements to TH 371 and CSAH 11. Development of a strategy to capitalize on the improvement projects. The premise of the plan is that TH 371 is going to be expanded to 4-lane on its current alignment. There will be no disputing this premise or argument over the benefit of other highway alignments. Given the alignment, there needs to be some honest and frank discussion of the impacts the highway will have and how the City of Pequot Lakes can maximize the benefits of the improvements and mitigate the negative impacts. Part of the material that comes out of the plan will be a strategy to leverage the resources of Mn/DOT to accomplish the vision. Concept drawings of proposed improvements or themes. When we initially made the proposal last fall anticipating beginning the project in January, we had lined up a graduate Landscape Architecture student who would work on the project over the spring semester. There was some compensation for the student involved, but there is no doubt our contacts with the University presented a great opportunity to leverage the skills we needed at a significant cost savings. Unfortunately, with the delay we have had, the student we had lined up made other spring semester commitments. We have now been searching for a replacement and have a few promising prospects. We are waiting to do interviews. It is our plan that the graduate LA student would provide graphical representations of the community vision, including a schematic of the downtown as it could ultimately be developed. Development of basic architectural design standards for all new developments and renovations of existing properties. (Short-term strategy from Comprehensive Plan)