Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout1997 02-03 CPTFA I AGENDA COMPREHENSIVE PLAN TASK FORCE FEBRUARY 3, 1997 CITY COUNCIL CHAMBERS 1. Call to Order 7:00 p.m. 2. Introductions 3. Role of Task Force 4. Overview of Comprehensive Plan 5. Highlights of the Analysis of Conditions 6. Review Outcome of Joint City Council/Planning Commission Issue Identification Meeting 7. Discuss Draft Goals and Objectives 8. Establish Task Force Schedule 9. Adjourn: 9:00 P.M. City of Brooklyn Center A great place to start. A great place to stay. January 29, 1997 COMPREHENSIVE PLAN UPDATE TASK FORCE MEETING NOTICE The first meeting of the Comprehensive Plan Update Task Force will be on Monday, February 3, 1997 at 7:00 p.m. in the City Hall Council Chambers located at 6301 Shingle Creek Parkway. Subsequent meetings are tentatively scheduled as follows: April 7, 1997 May 5, 1997 June 2, 1997 July 21, 1997 These meeting dates will be finalized by the task force at the February 3rd meeting. Any questions or concerns can be directed to Ronald A. Warren, Planning and Zoning Specialist for the City of Brooklyn Center at 569-3300. RAW:rsc 6301 Shingle Creek Pkwy, Brooklyn Center, MN 55430-2199 • City Hall & TDD Number(612) 569-3300 Recreation and Community Center Phone & TDD Number(612)569-3400 •FAX(612)569-3494 An Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunities Employer CITY OF BROOKLYN CENTER COMPREHENSIVE PLAN 2020 ISSUES The following issues have been identified based on the strategic planning workshop with City Council and Planning Commission and the observations and insight of City staff and planning consultants. This list is a summary and distillation of many ideas, combined and grouped together for clarity and impact. An issue is a question about the future of the community that reasonable citizens might debate and that should be addressed in light of the other issues and hopefully resolved through the planning process. The issues provide a framework for the plan and will guide the preparation of plan goals, objectives, policies, physical plans and implementation programs. THEMES The dominant theme in the discussion is that Brooklyn Center has many strengths that are not reflected in its public image, and that the City needs to improve this image, in terms of both physical improvements and public perceptions. i Housing is another major concern -- the maintenance and improvement of the City's housing stock, and whether the current housing mix should be changed. A related concern is that of neighborhood design, and how improved design can contribute to neighborhood cohesion and livability. Another theme centers on the role of the City's businesses, most particularly Brookdale Mall, and what the City should do to improve the prospects for commercial development. Finally, there are many concerns about the best ways to maintain and improve the City's infrastructure and municipal services. A related theme is how best to overcome the physical barriers that divide the City internally, and how to link the City to adjacent communities. ISSUES Workshop participants used a "dot-voting" method whereby they assigned one or more stickers to the issues of greatest concern to them. Asterisks indicate issues that received these "votes," with three asterisks indicating highest priority. IMAGE AND APPEARANCE While Brooklyn Center contains attractive and well-maintained neighborhoods, an identifiable town center and an excellent .ff parks stem, its visual image has suffered because o y g f the deterioration oaewf f highly visible areas such as Brooklyn Boulevard. Meanwhile, the City's 1 • 1 value is directly related to the infrastructure that supports it, such as streets, trees, lighting, to natural amenities, and to anchoring institutions such as schools and places of worship. Creating stronger connections between these elements is the basis of neighborhood design. Zoning, while more technical in nature, is a primary tool for implementing land use change. ■ What role can New Urbanist design play in the City, especially in the integration of businesses into neighborhoods? ■ Should the City's grid street pattern be changed? ■ Should additional amenities be considered as part of routine street reconstruction, in order to improve the public realm? ■ How should the City zone adult entertainment uses? ■ Should the City rezone the area between Highway 252 and Humboldt Avenue (near High School)? ■ What is the best zoning classification for tax-exempt activities? INFRASTRUCTURE AND MUNICIPAL SERVICES Issues in this area range from the need for continuous upgrading of infrastructure (streets, utilities, etc.) to the role of the park system and the City's role in crime prevention. ■ What is the best pace (phasing, timing) for infrastructure improvements?*** ■ What are the most effective methods the City can employ for preventing crime?** ■ How should the City allocate its resources between infrastructure and social programs? ■ How much will citizens support in bond costs for capital improvements? ■ Is the City's park system adequate for its current population and recreation needs? Which parks need improvements or upgrading? TRANSPORTATION AND LINKAGES "Transportation" includes issues ranging from movement of traffic on key highway corridors to bus and light rail transit opportunities. Traffic movement along corridors also relates to the arrangement of land uses along these corridors and the other topic areas of "image" and "neighborhood design." "Linkages" encompass both connections between neighborhoods and between the City and its neighbors. ■ How should the City work to achieve upgrading of Brooklyn Boulevard, as proposed in the recent Streetscape Amenities Study? w CITY OF BROOKLYN CENTER COMPREHENSIVE PLAN 2020 PRELIMINARY GOALS AND OBJECTIVES 3 FEBRUARY 1997 The following statements are a first draft and based upon the previously- identified issues, background reports and discussions with staff and community leaders. Sources include the issue identification work done by the City Council and Planning Commission in Fall, 1996, the City's Goals 2000 report, the Brooklyn Center Housing Market report, and papers from the Forum on the First Ring recently produced by the University's Design Center for American Urban Landscape. These objectives are intended to be revised, refined and added to throughout the planning process. FUNDAMENTAL GOALS • Brooklyn Center will carve out a unique and desirable niche in the Twin Cities area by capitalizing on its physical attributes including its first-ring suburban location, good highway and bus access, sound and diversified housing stock, vibrant mixed-use center, attractive Brooklyn Boulevard corridor, and interconnected park and open space system. • Brooklyn Center will gain an increased sense of unity and place by: • Retrofitting the public elements of its neighborhoods • Focusing and linking these neighborhoods toward an intensified, mixed-use, retail-office-residential-civic core, • Making major street corridors and other public spaces highly attractive, and • Celebrating diversity. Brooklyn Center has the opportunity to build upon the community attributes listed described in these goals to become in effect a "suburban village." In other words, it can become a place that has the good characteristics we traditionally associate with a village -- an identifiable locale with a commercial and civic center and a central green or square, pleasant and intimate neighborhoods, safe, quiet streets, and a strong community spirit. Brooklyn Center possesses the "raw materials" of many of these elements; the challenge is how to retrofit, refocus, and link them into a greater whole. ■ Brooklyn Center will develop a positive public image and strong 1 I • Work with the owners of the Brookdale Mall to inject new life into that area and strengthen it as the visual, social and psychological center of Brooklyn Center. This could be done by adding different but complementary land uses, structured parking, transit service, and better public or community spaces. • Promote the eventual redevelopment of single-use, big-box retail sites into more diversified, mixed-use sites that have less overall parking and provide a more pedestrian-friendly atmosphere. • Improve the streets, corridors and other public spaces to increase their unity, identity and beauty. • Assist in the gradual evolution of the Brooklyn Boulevard corridor consistent with the 1996 plan so that it offers a positive, complementary but different environment from that of the city center. • Use the zoning ordinance to provide for a more flexible mix of land uses and to encourage good design. • Revisit the possibility of making the Humboldt Avenue corridor a terrific neighborhood amenity through a combination of public and private improvements. One aim would be to make this corridor a link between an enhanced 57th Avenue and the proposed new open space in Minneapolis. Extending the corridor treatment in some form all the way to Brooklyn Park should be another strong consideration. NEIGHBORHOOD IMPROVEMENT OBJECTIVES ■ Strengthen neighborhoods through improvements to the public realm. • Enhance neighborhood identity through elements such as identifying signs and better connections to parks and trails. • Improve the integration of different land uses into neighborhoods, through the use of common design elements, pedestrian and bicycle linkages, and landscaping improvements. • Improve neighborhood connections to natural systems such as lakes, wetlands, stormwater management ponds, streams and other waterways, that can serve both as water management facilities and amenities. ■ Bolster neighborhoods through community-building efforts that combine social service and civic functions, or which seek to leverage strength through collaboration. 3 1 i f HOUSING OBJECTIVES ■ Work to ensure that the City's housing can evolve to meet the needs and demands of its current and future population. • Accommodate changing family and household structure by providing a suitable mix of housing types. • Foster a mix of housing values and incomes, including introduction of higher-value housing in lower income areas • Encourage the development of more new high-quality single-family housing (of above the median neighborhood value) to balance the City's large stock of affordable single-family housing. • Help owners update their older houses to meet today's market demands through demonstration projects, education and financial assistance. • Support outreach efforts to potential homebuyers. • Continue to rehabilitate multifamily housing in targeted areas. • Institute or continue housing maintenance requirements such as inspection at time of sale and rental housing code enforcement. ■ Support residential neighborhoods by providing high quality public facilities and services: • Improve the "public realm' on key streets with amenities such as boulevard trees, sidewalks and lighting. • Continue to provide a high level of street and utility maintenance, snowplowing, park maintenance and other services. NATURAL ENVIRONMENT OBJECTIVES ■ Improve local public access to and awareness of the Mississippi River as a major natural amenity: • Work with Hennepin Parks and the City of Minneapolis to extend and improve River Ridge Park and link it southerly to the regional system. • Improve the sidewalks, landscaping and lighting along 57th Avenue to enhance the sense of that corridor as a passageway between the city center, the southwest neighborhood and River Ridge Park. 5 i 4 CITY OF BROOKLYN CENTER COMPREHENSIVE PLAN 2020 STRENGTHS, WEAKNESSES, OPPORTUNITIES AND THREATS Results of City Council/Planning Commission Meeting, October 30, 1996. STRENGTHS Community attributes Convenient location/proximity to large city Freeway access and exposure Scale and size are manageable A good mix of commercial, office and industrial uses Adequate commercial development -- good variety of retail uses Good public schools Affordable housing Strong residential character -- strong, close-knit neighborhoods Strong residential real estate market Tree-lined streets Good park system Good public transit Natural amenities Community center -- Library Earl Brown Center -- Earl Brown theme Community organizations Characteristics of residents A diverse population Good citizen participation Multi-generational community Intelligent, well-informed City management/fiscal characteristics The ability to learn from other suburbs A proactive City Council Strong City staff Good bond rating/low debt Strong tax base Flexible administration Well-maintained streets and utilities; good snowplowing! Code enforcement Volunteer Fire Department Activities Community festival Neighborhood Watch program Negative attitudes Lack of focus to prioritize and implement projects Not enough collaboration with Minneapolis OPPORTUNITIES Redevelopment/revitalization Brookdale -- mixed-use redevelopment Brooklyn Boulevard B. Blvd./69th Street redevelopment Earl Brown Center -- attract conventions Underutilized commercial properties Strip mall redevelopment Neighborhood street upgrading program Remodeling incentives Exploit access to Minneapolis -- develop sites along 694/94 Link to Minneapolis trails at river Growth of hospitality industry Expand City Hall Community-building efforts Create identity with a unifying theme Build community based on neighborhoods Meet the needs of a diverse population Create a crime-resistant city Redraw school district boundaries -- 3 instead of 4 Encourage winter sports activities New/expanded uses desired Sports bar More varied housing stock City management efforts Broaden tax base Revise T.I.F. Districts Improve surface water quality Learn from other cities Current comprehensive planning effort THREATS External threats Unfair competition from outer suburbs General economic downturn Negative perceptions Crime: media versus reality Maple Grove mall (retail competition) Natural disasters Legislative actions