Good evening, everyone. It is now 5:30 and I will call this
regular work session of the Burnsville City Council to order.
Um all council members are present and the
members of the public are always welcome to attend in person
or the public can also watch us uh on
burnsvillemn.gov/meetings
or Comcast channel 16 or 859. The public can also participate
through Zoom by joining us at zoom.us/join.
More information is available on our meetings webpage and in the
council agenda packet. So, this is a work session and we go
directly to the items on the agenda and the first item on the agenda this
evening is the city-owned property study and our deputy community development
director uh is presenting, Travis Bersetdo.
Travis, the floor is yours. >> Thanks, Mark.
Uh thank you, Madam Mayor, council members.
Um the item before you is another in the a series of capital improvement uh plans
and studies that the city has been engaged in uh over the past couple of
years. Uh specifically, this study is a comprehensive review and assessment of
all of the city-owned uh properties located uh
or owned by the city uh or the economic development uh authority. Thanks, Mark.
It's worth mentioning before I get into it, um this study was led by community
development, but it wasn't completed in a vacuum. Um staff from uh the clerk's
office, IT, parks, and uh public works, and the city attorney helped us with uh
this analysis. Um so, the initial purpose of the study
was to evaluate all of the city and EDA owned parcels uh in terms of where are
they all located, how big are they, how are they being maintained, what's the
zoning status of all of those parcels, and uh of particular interest to our
department, are there any opportunities for us to market and sell some of those
properties to support housing or economic development goals of uh the
city and the council.
So, breaking it down uh by the numbers, um
uh city services, which are lands that uh
» [clears throat] >> contain parks, trails,
um city facilities, or other open space was our largest category. Uh 51% of all
of the city-owned parcels uh have that type of city service on them. Uh the
next biggest portion were the uh parcels that contain utilities. Uh 23% of the
424 uh parcels that the city owns uh have
significant utilities running through them.
Uh 56 of the parcels, which is 13% of the total, are vacant and don't clearly
have uh uh a city use uh occurring currently on
them. And then another 13% are uh right-of-way uh properties used to
support city right-of-ways, particularly for transportation needs.
Couple of interesting notes as we were looking through these parcels, five of
the properties are currently owned by the EDA. Um we believe those uh
properties were uh acquired by the EDA for assembly
purposes in creating the heart of the city uh neighborhood, but they're still
currently owned by the EDA. And then we also have much to our
surprise, we found two properties owned by the city that are not located within
uh the city of Burnsville. They're actually located within the city of
Eagan and I did add a slide here that shows we have about 10 acres total
of properties that are located in Eagan, which are primarily wetlands, um
stormwater ponds. Um these are not creating any sort of
problems. We don't have any complaints. We're not doing any maintenance on them,
but much to our surprise, we do own these two uh small parcels that are
located within uh Eagan.
We did conduct a um maintenance analysis of all of the parcels.
Uh 57 58% of them are currently receiving regular maintenance by public
works, regular monthly or bi-weekly mowing. Um and these are sites that are
um integral to city a city function like a
park or a major city facility. There's another
subset, another 10% receive minor maintenance. These are parcels that are
uh vacant or might be trails where just a buffer strip is mowed regularly um
uh along that particular parcel. There's There's another subset, just
another 1 and 1/2% that receive annual mowing. These are parcels that have
significant utilities running through them, primarily down in the river valley
and those um the vegetation is cut back to prevent
any interruptions to um or any damage to those um
uh utilities that are running underground. And then the other big
portion is 30% are not receiving any maintenance at all
except for when we receive a complaint. If there's a tree that falls down and
it's impeding on a uh adjacent sidewalk or something like that,
uh public works will go out and uh address any complaints.
We also looked at the property tax status of all 425 parcels and the good
news is 99.7 I think percent of those parcels are tax
exempt. We do have two parcels that are um currently leased to private entities
and in those cases the private lessees are paying those property tax
any property tax payments. The two properties are there's one little
splinter parcel that has a telecommunications building on it um
and that company pays for any uh taxes due on that parcel and then there's a a
more significant parcel that is located just south of Ali Magnet um
that the city owns that has a small uh group home on it and in that case the
company that leases that parcel pays those property tax payments
and any special assessments.
We did also look at uh zoning classifications of all of the city and
EDA A-owned parcels and unfortunately we learned that 46% of them um are um
uh the zoning is misaligned with the current use.
So for example, we have stormwater ponds that are zoned uh residential. We have
some city facilities that are are zoned multi-family. We have other city
facilities that are zoned uh parks properties and it's a best practice for
and I don't need to tell you this, but it's a best practice for uh the zoning
to reflect the actual use uh of those of those properties. However, fortunately
we're stepping into the 2050 comp plan update season and this would be an ideal
time for us to address those um challenges.
We did also look at um all of these parcels to identify if any
of them were available or readily available for uh potential development.
And in terms of how we decided this list is
this analysis is somewhat subjective, but we we looked at each one of these
parcels and and identified are they currently being used to support any city
service. How big are they? What are the lot
dimensions? Are they developable based on their shape? Um what is the access?
Is it Is there easy access to um get on to one of these sites and develop it?
Are the slopes um uh
manageable in terms of uh getting construction equipment out there and
developing it? Are there any major utilities? Are there any wetlands? And
then we also in a very subjective manner looked at each parcel and said,
"What would be the neighborhood friction if we were to develop any of these
parcels?" So again, that's a very subjective analysis and from that we
identified 22 that we thought uh have the potential of of being developed. I
also want to point out that we did not consider any parcels that are identified
as natural areas within the parks plan. So, we immediately carved those out when
we looked at our or we conducted our initial analysis. But the good news is
there's 22 that have potential in our opinion.
And then we also identified 19 splinter parcels that are currently vacant and
also undevelopable. Um the challenge there is our current
policy doesn't allow us to readily transfer ownership of those parcels to
an adjacent property owner. Um and the fact of the matter is the the cost the
administrative cost and workload associated with transferring ownership
probably outweighs the value of the parcel itself. So, we might be looking
for some future direction from council on how we might want to treat those.
So, from that we have six um kind of recommendations and next steps.
Uh the first is um we need to share this information with uh public works,
especially with regards to the uh maintenance occurring on vacant
parcels. There's very little of that, but we [snorts] want to make sure that
uh uh public works is aware of those
parcels. But then the second, and perhaps the most interesting piece for
for our department, is uh how do we want to deal with those 22 potentially
developable properties? And our recommendation is that we come back to
you in 2027 with a prioritized list of properties that we would recommend uh
» [clears throat] >> developing. This also would require us
to do some uh due diligence on the title side of things and ensure that there's
no encumbrances in place that would prevent us from developing those, but we
would recommend coming back in 2020 uh 2027 with that uh updated list.
We also noticed a number of encroachments as we were conducting this
um exercise, where folks are building sheds or fireplaces or patios
um on city property, and um we need to take a closer look at our current
ordinances and policies, and and if they're not um
satisfactory, perhaps recommend um a policy change to address any
encroachments. Should we get a complaint around any one of these um situations?
Fortunately, that's not something that neighborhood services deals with a lot,
but if it were to happen, it'd be great to have an updated policy to address
situations like that.
Our fourth recommendation is to address the um
um zoning situation on city-owned
properties. And like I mentioned earlier, now is a perfect time for us to
do [snorts] that as we kind of step into updating our zoning code as part of the
comprehensive plan. So, we're anticipating that would happen in 2029,
2030 in alignment with our comp plan update.
Uh the fifth recommendation is to um explore
uh updating our land sale policy to address splinter parcels and see work
with our city attorney's office to see if there's a
economical way and easy way for us to transfer ownership of those parcels
perhaps to adjacent property owners that would be interested
in owning them. And then the last recommendation is to
consider transferring ownership of those five EDA owned properties to
the city in in future years. And with that I can take any
questions or comments. >> Okay. Questions for um
Travis. Okay, Dan. G. >> What would be the purpose of
transferring EDA property to the city being that
if at sometime the EDA property were to sell the money would go back to the EDA
who originally bought it as opposed to go back into just the general fund for
the city. >> Madam Mayor, Council member, the initial
discussion that we had was just to simplify especially for property
insurance purposes that if we just consolidate these under the city owned
category versus EDA that would be one piece of it is that we could just
streamline our ownership portfolio. But in terms of
transferring back and forth that's not something that we've explored.
» Yeah. And the properties that he's talking about are all in the heart of
the city. >> I know what they are but there's in the
future someday some of those properties might not be some property we're going
to have anymore and if we sell it >> and the
in center >> it is.
» Yeah. So and the and the parking deck. So those are the those are the
properties >> out for the interest of the EDA.
» Yeah. But you know, the EDA and the city are the same thing but
what Travis is saying what staff is saying is that it is
uh insurance purposes and making sure that everything is within one bucket.
Any other questions for Travis? Yes, Vince.
» Thank you. Um are any of these properties
potential for us to do something with like potential new park or something
where we could get creative in house instead of
selling? >> Madam Mayor, Council Member Yes.
» I don't see why not. They're city owned at this point. That would be a decision
that um the council would need to make, but
yes, I think they could be used for a city service that's not currently
contemplated on those properties. >> They're not like tucked into I mean, we
don't have to review every single one of them, but there's some that would be in
viable locations that we could get creative with. They're not
» Yes. >> all tucked into industrial zones or
things like that. >> Yes.
Yes. Madam Mayor, Council Member
A lot of them are Frankly, I don't know why there's not something a little bit
more useful on those on those parcels. Many of them are tucked away. There's
you know, sandwiched in between a couple of privately owned parcels, but there's
a few out there that um potentially could be you could do
something interesting with them or if a park or something that the council
wanted to explore, that's possible. >> We don't get to do a lot of new stuff
like that um just given that we're built out. Um so it might be worth at least
considering if it's >> Well, one of the things that I've looked
at because I've walked all those properties.
And we have the opportunity here in some of those properties ex-
especially the 9 acres down in southwest Burnsville.
Where we need single family development and it'll help to grow our tax base.
And so there are other properties that I would say that staff coming back to us
um next year after you evaluate and really identify what
uh the best use. And I would say
grow the tax base. One of the things we are in need of here in the city of
Burnsville is single-family housing. We have no
single-family housing uh land left.
None. And so we have the opportunity here to
grow the tax base and to have some single-family housing.
And uh those 22 potentially developed developable parcels, I would like to see
some evaluation and investigation of all of
those and to see if it is something that we
can do
um because it is
something we need. >> Madam Mayor, just a
clarifying question. We did carve out any parcels that were identified as
natural space within the parks plan. >> Yeah.
» The parcel that you're speaking of is identified as a natural space in the
parks plan, so >> Yeah.
» It'd be good to have direction on that. >> But it's
natural space. I have walked that. It's just
it can be re-
um zoned to housing.
9 acres is huge that we can add more
single-family housing. Now we have to talk with the
neighbors around that because usually when somebody something sits
there for a long time, then it's taken for granted that it's going to be that
way, but but we have a need for single-family
housing. Any other comments, thoughts?
» Yeah, Travis, I'd still think it'd be worth investigating if there is room to
do something like a park. We had talked in our one-on-one about like
you know the bike [snorts] parks at various communities if if there's a
way to embrace those areas if they are in fact
going to have to stay natural areas it'd be worth at least knowing that
information. >> Sure.
» [snorts] >> Council member remembers the council
both the council member Gattis's question and the council member
Workman's question or comment.
Six items as Travis went through in terms of next steps coming from this
study really our intention with all of our capital studies is to understand
what we have what condition it is in and what we ought to do about it.
In this particular case we plan six conversations that will both
address how we we might consider use of some of
the those more usable parcels as the council has discussed tonight
and then also later on down the priority list would be
a discussion of city-owned or EDA-owned versus
city-owned parcels and at those particular times
we're going to plan out these conversations of what is the council's
desired use or plans for for the property and then also questions get get
more into the details of questions on city versus EDA ownership.
» Yeah and and I like all of the six recommendations that you have here
because that will give us more information as we look into it
because if we're going to look at parks we have 76 parks now and I know we have
three categories of how we fund those. On the replacement and Jenny
the other is that you know how much money do we have if
we're going to build new parks and how much is in that
fund but you guys are going to do that but that's going to come back
when you're going to evaluate all of those properties because
we have so much money in replacement cost and in
uh enhancement What do you call it, Jenny, when we're building new new
parks? And I know that fund isn't big.
» Oh, the parks investment fund. >> Correct.
» [clears throat] >> Yeah. Okay.
So, members of the council are you in agreement with the six
recommendations that staff is um
presenting to us this evening and they're going to come back to us
with more information on each of these items
in 27.
» Yes, Mr. President. >> All right. Thank you so much and you
know that was very good work. Excellent. Thank you.
Really appreciate it. >> Thank you, Mayor.
» Okay, now we're moving on to sidewalk and trails. And
and our public works director, Mark Brey, is going to be presenting.
» Good evening. Excuse me, Mayor and council members.
Uh as with all of our studies, uh this one looked at kind of a comprehensive
analysis of the conditions, operations, maintenance, and system connectivity.
Again, what we have, what's the condition it's in, and what do we need
to do to maintain it going forward. Taking a large kind of step back,
looking at the city, we have 78 miles of sidewalk in the city with a value of
just over 70 million dollars. 12 miles of trails, generally those are
asphalt trails, just over 7 million. And then just for the community's reference,
little over 21 miles of sidewalk in Dakota County right away, little over 18
miles of trails in Dakota right right away or just
Dakota County trails. I do want to note that we do plow both the county sidewalk
and trails. Looking at funding for existing sidewalk
and trail system, preventive maintenance, kind of those day in day
out routine things, is a planned expense. It's is through the operating
budgets. Snow removal is funded through a bill on
the utility bills. And then we do work with our partners,
um, generally Dakota County, and then use
state aid to fund, um, some trails that we have in the city. Uh, otherwise,
grants are another big option, too. So, Greenwood sidewalk, for example, was a
grant. We got a regional solicitation. We got another grant for the trail on
Williams Drive, for that corridor, for example.
The condition rating that you see is the same as what we use for our pavement
manager plan. That was very intentional. This will be a consistent methodology
that you all are familiar with. Uh, as we look at the system as a whole,
the vast majority of our system is in a good to fair condition.
Uh, we do have a little bit of poor and critical needs
in the system, but as a portion of the large system, it is a a pretty small
percentage there.
This, for example, is a a shot of one of the sidewalk panels. One of the
challenging, not challenging, one of the deals with sidewalks is you can replace
one or two panels and address the worst part of it, and the rest of it might be
fine. So, while we scored sections of sidewalk
based on the worst panels, it's not like you need to replace the whole thing to
address the critical need. And so, that's why you see the value or
the condition of the sidewalks is in that fair condition,
but it's pretty easy to address the the panels through normal operations and
maintenance. This is a shot of, um,
the paver section in the heart of the city, right behind right off Pillsbury,
behind the Ames Center. As you can see, pavers are sliding off. There's a lot of
undulation there. And so, this actually is a scheduled replacement to be
replaced with concrete. Overall, our sidewalk conditions have a
score of 61. Again, that is lower than the trail condition score of 81,
but through fairly routine things, we can
address the problems with our sidewalk and and that life will extend much
longer than the normal kind of deterioration that you see with asphalt
trails. We do rate all of our asphalt trails
consistent to our streets every 3 years. Our concrete sidewalks do not
deteriorate the same way as asphalt and our snow removal operations clearly
identify issues in the sidewalk. So, for example, um trip hazards, so anything
roughly half inch or more, as we're clearing them, our drivers will come
into adverse contact uh with those trip edges and then we'll either, you know,
replace the panel or grind the trip edge down to address that need. So,
the sidewalk system is made because we're plowing it, we're very uh familiar
with where the problems are and we get them addressed. Fundamentally, the goal
is to maintain an off-street trail and sidewalk network that is accessible for
all users. Looking at the different management
methods we use, we're on the right half of the screen, so rehabilitation and
maintenance. As you can see, sidewalk, again, it's just panel replacements,
trip edges, and then sweeping. For asphalt trails, we might have a mill
and overlay, sweeping, crack sealing, and kind of similar things that you'd
see with uh street pavements.
Overall, the recommendation coming out of this is, pending what we see with the
comprehensive plan for 2050 that you all see, that would inform any plan on um
future potential sidewalk or trail things. I do want to note, we are
working with the county on some gaps along County 5 as well as County 42 uh
where there's not off-street facilities on both sides of the roadway.
Very clearly, we do not want pedestrians in the road on county roads. And so, um
we're working collaboratively with the county
through some grants to to close those gaps in the system. So, that is within
the next 5 years, those are planned. But, beyond that, any new sidewalks or
trails would be informed by the comprehensive plan.
With that, I'll take any fun questions.
» Any questions for Mark and the plan and it'll be updated in 2025,
but any
questions, comments?
» I just want to comment. Generally speaking, these comprehensive plans are
just as the city manager pointed out and they're from I think from all of our
perspective, they're one of the best tools for us to really make a
» decisions >> thoroughly educated decision, not just a
cursory review and some basic information and we're we're making a
decision. These are phenomenal tools for us.
» I love it because I have the information [clears throat]
to to evaluate and make good decisions
from. And especially when I'm looking
» [clears throat] >> on the strategy you have presented in
page 17 and 18, Mark, of the plan. That really gives us a lot of good
information about how you're going about all of this. And
also, I didn't know
but we are uh
snow removing and taking care of sidewalks that are on county roads, 5
and 11 and 42.
» Cliff Road as well, yeah. That's correct, right?
» Cliff Road, yeah. So,
good job because it it's about our vibrancy. We say one of
our the vision for the city is a vibrant community, but if the county's not doing
it, then we're doing it. But we don't get
reimbursed. We don't bill them, do we? >> That is correct. We do not.
We're good partners. We do things. We do it.
» We're [snorts] going to have to be better partners pretty soon, I have a
feeling. >> Yeah. Any
Any other comments for Mark?
Thank you so much. >> Thank you.
» Well done. Travis and Mark, great information and
Greg I know there are 13 of these studies.
They're very good. So, thank you. Okay. Um
council members, uh we're at round table.
Vince. >> Don't forget to vote tomorrow.
» Okay. Yeah. >> [laughter]
» Yeah. Now, any reports from you? >> Uh no. Uh we got a going away party, I
think what next week for Amy? >> For Amy? Yeah.
» the Med Cruise at 4:00 next week or the week before after.
» I think it's the >> May 1st.
» Uh a week from this Friday. I believe. Or is it this Friday?
» No, it's next week. >> Next week.
» Next week. Yeah, that that's a going away party at Med Cruise for her at
4:00. I think everybody should have gotten a
message [clears throat] on all that. >> Well, you Well, but
» And it's on Facebook, so I think the city got invited.
» Yeah. Well, just let our res- residents who are listening to us say
What? >> Oh, Amy is the the executive vice or the
executive president of the Experience Burnsville and she's leaving
us for a job in Green Bay because like
Diane Keeley, she's a Green Bay fan. And so, she's going home.
» I knew there was something about >> the championship rings. She's going home
to represent the Pack, so. >> I knew there was something dodgy about
her. >> [laughter]
» But it's a it's really a good opportunity. You know, she's been a one
person show for a long time ever since COVID and it's an opportunity for her to
work with a big staff in a in an organization that's so much larger than
our organization is and so, it's it's it's a great opportunity. And just so
you know, we already started our executive search for a new director, so
that is out there and we'll update you that. I'm I'm part of the search
committee, so >> Big shoes to fill.
» It's some big shoes to fill and it's I mean, she did a a from from payroll to
marketing to emails. You name it, she did it all. So,
uh she will definitely be missed.
And that's it. >> Okay.
» Madam Mayor, members of the council, just so uh the date for Amy's farewell
is Friday, August 21st for 21st at 4:00 p.m. at
» Thank you. >> uh at Mad Cruz.
» Yeah. >> And uh the board shared that information
with staff, asked us to invite our team, and to invite you. So, I think you
probably saw it in my weekly email to you. And anyone who is interested in
wishing uh Amy well and and farewell um is
welcome to attend. >> Okay. Very good. Cara, you have any
anything to report? >> I do not.
» Okay. Dan?
» Just a few [clears throat] quick things. The Chamber of Public Policy
Committee was last Friday, and uh it featured our new Chief of Police as the
guest speaker. He gave a
uh Chief Smith gave a really good
presentation uh showing the history of the department
going way back. I do remember that some of those photos
uh when uh your predecessor took office, but the way you did it, and there was
seems like there was a so much more information, and it really was
extraordinarily informational for everybody on the call
uh in the virtual meeting. Um it was great. Really great job.
And uh I I think hopefully the Historical Society has
tabs on all those photos, cuz there's some great photos of squads from way
back. >> Mhm.
» [clears throat] >> Uh the meeting it was recorded and his
presentation, so I think you can get the link on the Chamber website or their
YouTube channel. Uh Metro Cities Transportation and
General Government meeting uh was held in July, our first one, and next one's
coming up in late August. So far, no major contentious issues within the
General Government section or Transportation.
Uh Transportation got a big shot in the arm with the additional
uh, sales tax boost, so
a lot of projects are getting funded in Burnsville, ironically,
lately. Uh, NLC announced their leadership
applications opens on Monday the 17th and I'll run open till September 28th.
That includes the board, federal advocacy committee chairs and council
chairs, second VP and many more. They do note that you have to log in
your myNLC myNLC uh, to complete the application for
those interested. And then MVTA ridership report came out.
I sent it to Greg to share as he did. It just really showed strong growth across
the system. We did, I want to point out we did refine some routes.
Um, and it's it's really great to see when
we change a particular route based on some studies and feedback
when it gets a big jump in ridership, like instantaneous 20-30% jump in
ridership uh, after changing the route is is
really good good to see. Obviously, it affirms uh, the data set
the data pointed to making a route change.
That's it. >> Okay.
Uh, I don't have anything to report, but we had a great
turnout, I thought, for um, the distribution of soccer balls
for the uh, our youth. Our new emerging young soccer
players. So, that's it. And our Burnsville-Savage meeting was canceled
because nobody had anything to report. So, um,
that's it. And so, if there is nothing else, Greg?
» Nothing from staff, Mayor. >> Okay. We stand adjourned adjourned by
acclamation and then reconvene uh, Uh, at um,
6:30. 6:30 >> 6:30
» 6:34 uh, the budget meeting. Okay, very good.
Thank you.