Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Thank you. Bye.

Whenever you're ready. Well, my laptop says 5 o'clock. We can start that, definitely.

Let's call the meeting to order. So if we could do a roll call, that would be awesome.

Yeah. Knudson? Here. Ruadi? Rosner? Present. Lease?

Here.

Furniman?

Present.

Frisch? Here. And Miller.

Present. So I did understand that Nico is moving. I don't know if you've heard that.

No.

And I did talk to his father. And they were going to be moving in about a week, I think. So they're moving outside of the area because Nico is going to school. So he did express that he's very sad that he can't continue on with the park board. If you didn't hear anything about it, that's what I think was taking place. But I thought maybe he'd be here today. But a lot of it is for the distance to where he's going to school. So trying to reduce that travel time for drive time overall. So moving on to item four, public appearances, community input. I see nobody present, but if there was anybody, So we do have that opportunity to do that. So we'll move on to item five, reports from the village staff, the director of the public works report on the west side conservation parks.

Did we do the minutes?

Oh, I did miss the minutes? I missed the minutes. I jumped right past that. Excuse me. So we'll go back to the third item, which is approval of minutes. So the minutes were in the packet from August 18, 2026. We're available, so do we have any comments? Move for approval. That's met. Do we have a second? I'll second. Andy seconds that. Any other comments? All in favor, state by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. So moved. Jump back to five then. Sorry about that. She was trying to get ready. We're just getting organized here.

Sorry about that.

rush all right I apologize we flipped a couple agenda items on me here so I am trying to make sure I'm telling you the right thing okay all right so yeah this is essentially the packet just includes an update on some Pre-conservation work, we'll call it, out at the Westside Conservation Park. So this committee might recall that there was a discussion with the CIP last year of getting what's called a forestry head. It's a specialized piece of equipment that we can use to clear out bigger trees and brush, not, of course, your heritage oaks or your... you know, redwood trees, but trees in that four to six inch range that get a little difficult and dangerous to get rid of by hand and certainly can't be done with more automatically with the equipment that we had. So we now do have that piece and our team is looking to start some of this clearing and grubbing work. They are really targeting invasives in the Westside Parks area. So Assistant Director Nick Hack has put together this map of areas that he has seen a lot of those pop up. And this is essentially just an informational item saying that when weather and staffing allows, you might start to see some activity out there as they do start to go after some of that. buckthorn, honeysuckle, largely invasive volunteers. The goal of it being to start that transition back to a more natural native conservation area ahead of some of the projects in the CIP. So happy to take any questions. I'm sure Eric can speak to this as well if you have them. But otherwise, this is kind of just a heads up.

Any comments for the park board? I was just curious about the maple trees. Why is that considered evasive?

Are you referring to kind of this north or western?

It was a comment that was in here. It was in there.

It was on Nick's list.

I was just curious about that. I've certainly seen the other ones and was curious. assisted a little bit in what was taking place out in Anderson. And I don't know the difference from invasive, from big trees, but a lot did need to be cleaned up there. And once you, I think that's natural that all the stuff grows and you don't need it.

I think some, to that point, I think some maples are... I know that some maples are native to this area, but some I believe are not. There's also some that are a little bit more robust that we do target and we actually plant in our parks, but then there are also some species that tend to be much more of that fast in, fast out tree. So they're kind of... They're not your long-lasting trees, and they are, I'm guessing, kind of mixed in with some of these other invasives, and so this is an attempt to just kind of clear that out for a better subculture. I trust others.

I don't know the difference. That is wonderful.

So I just have one. This is awesome that we're doing something with it. But what's kind of, is there the next step? Because I know when I clean out, like, buckthorn and all that stuff in my backyard, it comes back in like three weeks. So to clear it all out and to just leave it for a long period of time seems like, is there a next step?

So that's a great question. The answer kind of twofold, and again, if Eric has anything to add, I'll certainly yield the floor to him. But this is a piece of equipment we own now, so we can certainly kind of stay on top of it if, as you say, this stuff is coming back. The real goal here is to allow us to more safely start doing controlled burns out here. So that's really kind of our target. goal is once we get this stuff out, then we can start developing those controlled burning plans with the fire department. And that'll kind of be our hold steady until some of these projects start coming up in the CIP.

Lauren, I was just going to say, are you going to treat anything after you cut it out? Are you treating it with any herbicide to keep it from growing back?

That wasn't our plan. but it's certainly something we'll look into. Um, I think the bigger thing tying into kind of, um, you know, getting on a more routine burn schedule with this is just, it's work we're taking away when we start to put in those projects into the CIP that we're not going to get charged for, have to pay for some things that we can keep in house.

I would suggest getting something like garland or something to spray the honeysuckle and buckthorn, maybe not the rest of the trees.

Yeah.

We found a lot of success with that because we also did an eagle project in the county park. And if you don't do that, all returns. Wonderful. Thank you.

I have a quick question. Yes. So this is just trying to understand. So with the control burns, I get that. But why are we cutting before the burn? You know what I mean? Why wouldn't we just burn it? I don't know the answer. I'm just curious.

So I think my understanding is it's mainly a safety issue. If you think about what can be controlled when you're out there burning, you really get into trouble when you have those trees. It starts to get bigger quicker. I think there are also issues with, on the flip side of that, what actually will burn. So you could get into a situation where these bigger trees are just kind of sitting there and you're not getting the removals that you want. So kind of both sides of it could get too exciting or you could be wasting a lot of time and resources trying to get something that's just not going to come down.

So like kind of mowing it down and then burning it is a better option? Correct. Yep. Yeah. All right. Yeah, yeah.

They're cutting trees down low. gases will burn more.

We learned from Arlen Kai when he was doing that. It was mainly just getting the ground cover and it's just a quick burn. It doesn't burn long.

Yes, it's fast. It's very fast.

Very true and scary.

I was just more curious.

That's a good question.

21 of the birds. Yeah, that's a great thing to learn from. So item 5B, Director of Community Development reports bike and head path kickoff event.

Yes, so this is happening. I think I mentioned this the last park board meeting. We had just set this date. So this is the Invitation to tomorrow night's event is 530 to 8 p.m. The community room at the library. I'll just be an open house event So not expecting folks to stay for two and a half hours, but just come whenever you're able Pop in we'll have probably two or three rounds of a short presentation by our consultants from MSA and then there'll be a variety of different stations and boards and tables and stuff to go around but the Our main focus is to try to route people towards this online survey, which is live. There's a survey, then there's also a mapping tool. And actually, I know the survey is live. We've already gotten like 115, 120 responses. I need to double check if the mapping tool is also live, because we're also working on some mapping layers and whatnot. But yes, the survey itself is live, and then there'll be similar activities kind of expanded activities. A lot of like look at the map, where areas of concern for biking, for walking, what areas do you feel are safe, what are missing links in our system, things like that. So there'll be a lot of sticky dots and little lines drawn and things like that. But the consultants are great from MSA. They've done a really good job. did some outreach at Ready Set Go conferences at the middle school. We were at one of the Sounds of Summer events too. They did a really nice job engaging folks and pulling them in. So you're welcome to come if you know anybody who's interested or you want to share this on your social media or whatnot. This will be tomorrow night and then we'll kind of lead into stakeholder interviews and things like that through the fall and then some updates for you guys and planning commission and the board as some of that feedback starts to come in and gets collated together.

Just an FYI. Comments from the park board? Wonderful. 5C, recreational programming update on the future events.

Yes, so as we speak, Universal Sound is setting up at Waterman Triangle Park, and they are going to go on from 6 to 7.30 tonight, and then next Tuesday and the Tuesday after that, again, we're going to have music in the park, so hopefully we get some beautiful fall weather, maybe even some pretty fall colors. But yes, just a note, it does start a half hour earlier than Sounds of Summer, just because the sun is setting a lot faster. And then stay tuned for more details because the village is having a gingerbread house decorating competition in December. So there will be more about that coming.

Is there anything that's planned to get residents into the parks during the winter time frame?

Not that I'm aware of, but typically when Wellness Coalition meets, that's one of the things that we discuss. So I'm sure we'll come up with something.

Okay. It's wonderful to be able to get people back into the parks. Exactly. Even in the winter, kids love to buff through the snow and still like to go down the slides.

Exactly.

Definitely. Wonderful. So moving on to Item 6, unfinished business. So we do have the draft of the 2027-2036 Parks and Trails Capital Improvement Plan. So that was all in the packet as well.

Yeah, I can speak to this a little bit. Um, so this has, um, changed only marginally since you last saw it. The bigger, I guess, issue is just that we have some procedural advice to you guys as far as how to move forward with this item. So the big and only change to the CIP since last month is, um, reflective of the Village Board's direction to change out $200,000 in intended borrowing for the Bethel Greenacre project next year to $200,000 in park improvement impact fees. So that has now been updated in the CIP. It's only in the project worksheet if you dig into that. So the rest of this remains unchanged. And after doing some, uh, some asking and making sure that we were kind of in the right, what we would recommend is we've provided a recommended motion for, um, sorry, I'm saying recommending like five times in one sentence and it's bugging me. Uh, but a motion to recommend to the village board approval of the CIP with no changes. if the board would like to see changes, then, uh, the motion would have to be modified to reflect those specific changes. And then that motion we would pass to, um, to our administrator Martin Shanks and then eventually the board so that it can, uh, it can be considered next Monday when the CIP is, kind of put forth for formal adoption. So, you know, it would be recommended motion, motion to recommend, um, with such and such project moved to such and such date. And then this committee would all, or this board would all vote on that motion and move it forward. So clear as mud. Perfect. I'll pass it off then.

Did you have a chance to go through it? There's a lot of information out there. Uh, any comments from the park board?

I have one, sorry. So, you know, Kaiser Firemen keeps always sticking to my crawl, right? And I think it's a great initiative and all that, but I'm hoping we can drive the cost down for the evaluation of it, sort of thing. So, like, we don't have the funding in the out years because we don't know what the funding is going to look like. And we talked about a village board, right? So, totally get that. I'm just hoping we can drive that down for the idea, for the ideation, rather. some way, somehow, and maybe that's possible, maybe it's not, and I just throw that out there for consideration. $70,000 seems like a lot for an evaluation, to me, at least.

Sure, so just a little bit, shed some light on that. It's not just an evaluation of what we would want. It includes the design of the park, too, and obviously, we don't know what those Improvements are going to be but those can be done in phases at a later stage.

That's correct We're talking about peanuts in the overall CIP and I get that and just I'm like man I see it's just like a big price tag upfront Yeah, I guess to provide some context Elise is right it will it will include kind of design to the level that the Bethel Greenacre master plan was that said it it'll be a far bigger document than what you saw for Bethel Green Acres. What we're conceptualizing at least now given the size and scale of Kaiser Fireman's would be much closer to a scaled down version of the comprehensive outdoor recreation plan. It would be a documented introduction to the facilities, you know, data search and kind of documentation of looking through all the plans. A big chunk of this, I expect, and why we kind of put this number in a little bit higher is the public outreach effort. So we anticipate that this will be a bigger effort than something like Bethel because it is a community park. I will be totally upfront that I am much more of a design engineer on the street side. I don't work in the master planning world. And so in putting this number in, it was kind of my best estimate at what this might take conservatively to do. So we want to make sure that we're not coming back to this board, to Village Board, and saying, oh, shoot, we put in $40,000. $60,000, is that OK? Because that puts this board in a tougher position. Whereas if you guys are saying, now, we don't really think we need that, it's a lot easier to say, now, we would like to refine that down to hit this number the way that you are doing right now so that we don't put you in that position down the line.

No, it's totally fair and that's been explained to me. I keep coming back to it just because I'm like, man, that's a big price tag up front, right?

Yeah, Lauren's right. The outreach really, that's a lot of consultant time. So anytime we're adding in workshops or outreach or interviews or things like that, which I think, we get a lot from that, a lot of good feedback, but it takes a lot of time. I know you've also mentioned some questions, you know, some concerns about the timing of that. So I guess that's a question I have for you is would you, is it more the spending of that amount next year? Is it more just spending of that amount in general that you are more concerned about? I guess kind of both, right?

And so the timing, I think, is the most critical part because, you know, as we start doing a plan, like I just, I would hate for us to go down the road where, you know, It's like, well, we don't know what we're doing with X, and then we're trying to make a plan around it. So I feel like pushing it out might be good, but I honestly defer to staff on that. Because whatever you guys think makes sense is fine. But yeah, the upfront cost always gives me a little bit of pause. But moreover, as long as we do it right. Because I think it's a critical piece of the community and the park system, right? So it's like, okay, so do we plan for this next year or the year after? And I don't know what makes more sense, to be honest with you. Yeah.

One thing, I don't know if you know this about borrowing, but we do have three years once we borrow to actually spend those funds on that project. So there's nothing to say because we borrow in May that we have to start that planning project in June. We could even start it next winter or spring of 28 or something and still fall well within that three-year limit for spending. But this is just saying, yep, we're committing to borrowing this this year. We can decide when is the appropriate time to start that given... Other projects going on. That makes a ton of sense, for sure.

And yeah, my thing is just like, let's not get ahead of our skis, right? That's really all I'm saying. It's like, okay, figure the rest out and then move on. Right, yeah.

But I think Lauren's point about this kind of being, you know, maybe a worst case scenario in terms of what we would get for an estimate. We spent about $70,000 on our comprehensive plan back in 2020. Obviously, there's been inflation. And that was village-wide, right? That wasn't a whole park. Our parks plan was like maybe $40,000 in 2022. So I think, yeah, this is a big number. It might be more than what we need. But if it's not used for this, it can be used for other... It can carry forward to other park planning projects and be adjusted next year, kind of once we have a better sense of scope. But certainly open to what you all think is...

And there's a lot of other components of that when you get the skate park involved into it. You get the tennis courts, and you have a high water level that's talked about. There's other things that can make it a little more involved. And it is a center area, and I think with the senior center coming into place, it's going to get different activity as well. So I don't look at it as a fixed price. It's not worth quoting on it, but want to do it right. And other comments on the park board? I had a few thoughts in regards to that. I see a variety of other things. When we look at the equipment, we're looking at all the budget prices on those that are including the accessories on that. Is that the intention that we're looking at?

Like benches and trash cans?

I'm looking at some of the motorized vehicle type of things. So I looked at some of those. I think it's for snow removal, some of the spraying type of things.

Yep, so and a lot of these equipment is kind of a multi-use, right? So like we use a couple of our mowers for snow blowing sidewalks. So these numbers include all those attachments for summer use and winter use.

We do have a lot of that overall. How is, do we do the maintenance ourselves or do we hire that maintenance for the equipment?

Yep, we have a mechanic in-house that we do all the maintenance.

Okay. I'm glad to see that there's pickleball resurfacing in 2029. It seems to be that we've got an understanding that it's a shorter lifespan than I anticipated, I think seven to nine years or something like that is what it quoted. So glad to have it in there because, as I said, I think we're kind of not getting the right value of the surface as it is right now. I like the timing on the Hawthorne Park, because we don't know what's going to happen over there. And so that Hawthorne Park is adjacent to that area, and we don't know what development is going to come into that play. With the, I'd like to see that we have some money budgeted for the paths, bike paths and such. How would that play into anything in regards to this bike study that we do? So if we do something in regards to that, does that budget have an impact if we do have more bike trails that's incorporated?

Yeah, I can take that one. So the line item in here is it's strictly for maintenance and repairs. So it's not for any new bike paths. So I would expect that like with know roads are a great analogy if you get more of them then likely yeah you'll start increasing that as you do have to do more maintenance out there um there did used to be a standalone bike trail project in here that project hasn't gone away um what we did is we actually moved it to we We moved up the adjacent street project and added that to that street project because that street, Park Street between Janesville Street and Perry is in pretty significant need of repair. And so you do kind of get those economy of scales as you can build those in. But certainly, you know, if another project such as let's say the Oregon Rotary Trail were to come up and suddenly be a viable option, we would expect to see that here in the CIP, and there's certainly precedent for it.

Excellent. What was the other one I had? I'm jumping on I mean right now, but So I don't have any other any Corrections modifications Matthew.

Okay. Just one question. Yeah Park security. What is that?

It's the access control. Oh, is that what it is? I just want to make sure I was like, hmm

It's great to move into that. I think that's a powerful one, Matt. I know you said that at the board meeting, the village board meeting, saying it's a great thing to be able to have a reduced number of keys, and we also get better security and better access to that. Yeah. So we're anticipating some new parks with a development on the northeast side. And so do you think the SIPP covers what we may need to do with those parks? I'm not sure if there's going to be any development because I think there's two of them in that area, that veridian.

Talking about the existing? Verdean neighborhood that's under development, the Northeast Greenview Preserve. So yeah, there are three parks total in that neighborhood. Two are already constructed. The third one would be in a future phase, and the developer will work with Verdean to determine if they want to kind of do some improvements ahead of time, like they did with, what is that called? Savannah Park? The little one with the... the little pocket park up there in Greenview Preserve.

We call it the one north of Maryville. Yeah, the one up there north of Maryville. I think it's Savannah Park.

It's the name of the street. They wanted to kind of have some equipment in there early on in development, so that was kind of a selling point and some amenity for people up there. We haven't gotten to that phase where they would be doing that construction, but there would at least be at least like a grassy field constructed and some construction requirements for Viridian. But as far as improvements, just since we don't know when that phase would be, that'll probably be, I wouldn't be surprised if we add that into next year's CIP or whatever, you know, that park becomes named. It'll be right off Perry Parkway. But yeah, that'll get probably added in later.

So that would be something that will modify in the future.

Yeah, but it can certainly exist as just kind of the basic. Green space that a developer will be required, you know, just have grass there and they'll have some, you know, landscaping requirements for trees and things. But we might decide we're just gonna let that be and let that neighborhood fill in, maybe see what types of families are up there and then. Down the road, we'll come in and do whatever it is, playground or basketball court. One good example is the park at 249 North Main Street by the North Point townhomes. Right now, it's really just green space. There's the trees. North Point did purchase some picnic tables and asked if they could set those out there, but there's no... real park improvements there, so that's right now in the CIP for a planning effort in 2028 and then construction in 29, but that's really just, again, sitting at that passive green space for now.

Just anticipating as people are moving in there, if there's kids, they're going to want sandboxes. They want something else, something to keep in mind that may be requested in the future, but nothing we've put into the plan right now. Any other comments? Hearing none, I'll ask for the motion. Matt, do you approve to approve the motion? I do. Do we have a second?

Second.

Lisa? Any comments? Any other comments in regards to that? All in favor, state by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Same sign. So moved. Thank you very much for putting all that together. Lots of good insights that we get from the staff, which I really appreciate as well. So moving on to item seven, a new business, and some discussion in regards to A, the bike ordinances in the Village Park. So last week we ended up having Last month we ended up having some comments from the resident talking about some experiences with bike After hours and such and so there's some comments in the Minutes regards to that so any ideas from the park board of what we might how we able to respond for for the resident Mark

Would you be okay if I provide a little bit of context? I was able to speak with the police chief about this and her thought, she was very well aware of this particular incident. The resident did reach out to her and I believe came in and actually met with her face to face to discuss. She kind of said in our conversation that it is certainly within the purview of the Village Board to change the ordinances. She noted that this particular ordinance regarding park closure hours was put in place largely due to security concerns and issues that they were noticing at the park. And she mentioned it certainly they can enforce it without, or they can, they can work without this kind of ordinance, but it will, these issues will likely come back up. So things that she referenced were illicit drug use in the parks. Um, you know, people staying there overnight that, um, that they would have to, you know, work with to, to make sure that they weren't, um, harassing residents trying to use the park. She also noted and I think rightfully so that If these issues were to come up, it would likely be not only an increase in operational costs for the police department, but also for the public work staff. You know, there would likely be increased cleanup needs in the parks. So just all things to consider. She did say that if the park board was interested in learning more about this and kind of getting into this and potentially eventually making a recommendation to the board, She was very happy to come and speak to the park board if that's of interest at a later meeting. And she can answer questions. She can give some of that background. She does have kind of that wealth of information that I'm just trying to relay secondhand. I'm a poor substitute for her. So this is all just kind of a suggestion from her. But it's really at this point kind of a discussion for you guys to go forward with.

I think it's worthwhile to discuss. The thought I had, because I agree with that entirely, the reason why there's limits all across states, nations, is for that same safety. So the only thought I had is that as we try to be bike-friendly, and we do have the ability that people can commute through bikes, and there are people that I've known that literally would ride from Oregon to Middleton, For work, you know, so that becomes a transportation We're in a big city and and we had a lot of bikes running through last weekend. I My thought was if you were properly lighted and you had the type of lighting that he had done and you are not stationary, you'd be able to just transfer it before. Is there some method that we could end up, you know, I'm not looking at changing the ordinance in a stationary perspective, but saying if it is a transportation going through it so it's not sedentary, not stopping, it was just transferring through it because it sounded like what he had stopped for was because he was in a park after the hours. And he had talked about how he uses fluorescent vests, he uses lights, and he had a light on his helmet. I just was curious if that could be an option because I do respect what the police department understands. I don't really want to stress them in any other fashion.

Can I add to that, Mark?

Certainly.

Yeah, so I think that's a really good point. And I thought about this a lot. This is one of the smaller issues, but it's a big issue because, you know, you've got this guy out there who's trying to work out in the morning basically, right, like riding his bike and that. I get the police department's perspective for sure. And I get that. I'm wondering if there's like, not a license plate, but some sort of like... sticker or something like so look I fish a lot and I've got to have a sticker to park my you know my truck after I launch my boat in any Dane County launch right is there a sticker we can give some of these folks so they're like pre-vetted sort of thing it's like hey look this guy's okay he's got a sticker I know that's tough for a police department you know what I mean like it's just like all right like hey just run a quick background you know sort of thing or whatever I don't know because the person that got pulled over that's not the one that they're worried about right so it's like how do we like kind of have like a pre-vetted sort of thing or like a TSA pre-check also a great example right like you know there's a way to do it it's just like we keep the ordinance and for the intent of it but um like just you know or is another flag I don't know but I think there's a different maybe way of looking at I'm open to anybody's input I just I thought that might be an easy kind of happy medium you know so I wasn't here

what happened okay quick recap so the there's a gentleman I spoke with him before because he actually approached me and asked if he could talk to the park board regards to it and so what he had done is he starts work early in the morning like 5 a.m. and so he goes out and rides his bike early very early it's a time of 434 o'clock and so he he was stopped by the police saying that he was in a park and the parks are not open at the time And part of the direction he goes out is Netherwood. And so there's a difference. You can go into the park or you can be on the road. And he had also talked about the issue of it's not safe to be on the road, certainly at that time of night, versus being in the park. And so that's why he was expressing that as well. And so he was pulled over by the police department and said that he can't be in the park. So that kind of raised that. And he was just asking for some different avenue. That's why he did approach the police department. And he ended up asking and have what's an alternate way of doing that and so though this suggestion was coming to the park board and I did talk with chief of police as well and she said you know whatever the village wants to do will enforce but got more more information about that is that the challenge is to enforce

I have a question for Lauren. Um, if I'm walking from Oak street to Perry through JC community park at 10 30 and I'm walking on the path, obviously the park is closed. Is it, I guess, does the path constitute being in the park or is the path a sidewalk or a path to be used?

We're talking about walking through, not like along Oak Street or along Perry there.

Walking on the north side of the baseball fields by the pickleball court.

Yes. By definition, that would be on park property. It's not in the public right-of-way. So that would qualify as being in the park. And yes, it would violate technically that ordinance.

Okay. Alyssa, did you have a comment?

Couple of them actually. I would like to possibly get more information with the chief just to kind of go over. A little bit more detail, I guess. I feel like, to what you were saying, Mark, if people are literally moving through the park, you can tell they're not just loitering. They're not just sitting there causing problems. Those are not the people that we're concerned about. And I don't understand really how ordinances work. I'm trying to learn that for sustainability, but it's over my head. But is there a caveat to them? Or is there ways that we can say, OK, if A, then they do this. If it's B, then you know what I mean? I would just like more information kind of all the way around about ways we can make it easier depending on who is in the park.

Do we have a copy of the ordinance?

We can certainly pull it up.

I believe it is in public safety.

Ordinances can be changed. You can add language. You can take away language. You can remove it. But essentially, it's a change. Usually it ends up being kind of changed to our municipal code, which is what the police enforce. So there could certainly be language about if you're doing ABC in a park during these hours, that's fine. But X, Y, Z, you're not allowed or whatever. And I think that's where having the perspective of the police chief is helpful because they're going to be the ones out there at that time of night. enforcing whatever it is that is written. And so it needs to be something that they feel is really clear and enforceable to enforceable. It's an important part.

Well, I was on the park board when we did have this ordinance going on and it was mostly for when people rented like weddings and stuff like that. The, um, you know, the park areas, then the police could say, we're done at 10. You know, so I think that's, and then they had people sleeping overnight. We don't want that in our parks either. So I think this has really cleaned it up, so I really hate to change it too much because I think it's, you know, we have one gentleman, you know, so I just, you know, but I like your sticker idea.

TSA PreCheck works. Yeah. Let's do Oregon PreCheck. I love it.

Well, and to what Andy said, too, like, if I'm going to be walking in that direction, I'd rather cut through the park than go all the way around to get, especially if my kid was walking home or something, I'd be like, go through the parks and off the streets. And then if, I don't know, it gets tricky.

Can I offer one more just perspective on this? We're trying to solve a problem. I think it is a problem. But at the end of the day, it's a very small problem, right? That's just my perspective on it. A sticker could work. Or it's like, hey, look, if you're going to be, how many people are up in Oregon at 4 in the morning riding their bikes?

probably surprise you.

It probably would surprise me, but I guarantee it's not going to be hundreds. So I think it's a small problem to solve, but I think it is because it's important for them to do it. And if you get stopped from time to time, I don't see it as a huge problem. I know it was a problem for him, but I get why he's doing it and why he brought it to us.

What time is the park open?

5 a.m. So this is the language of Section 918. I think we were saying this might be back when the village had an outdoor swimming pool. This was kind of where this lived, but it includes the park area as a number two. So this was the last amended in 2020. But no person other than an officer or agent in the village shall be present in any village park or greenway between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. except during a village approved event.

Simple, straightforward. Yeah.

I was just going to say the other part of that is after 10 p.m. Like some of us walk our dogs at 11 o'clock at night if we get home really late. Like what about those people who are like late night, the later night people? Right. It's the late and the early. So there's two sections.

Right. The way that's written, right, you'd only technically be allowed to walk on sidewalks or roads. Right.

Somehow we gather some thoughts, and I think it would be well worthwhile to have involved in the discussion with the police department so they get ideas. If we throw ideas out, make sure we get those before we get to the point to which discussion. I think it's valuable to look into a little bit further just for some of the other things you had pointed out that I wasn't aware of. Thinking about somebody just walking on a nice warm night. Yeah.

Should we work on perhaps coordinating with Chief Jenny and seeing when she might be available to come to an upcoming park board meeting, whether that's October or November, and then we can have that discussion?

For good request, I think that would be appreciative. Yeah, absolutely. And so she's certainly got a background with it as well, so... I don't have to explain it entirely.

In the meantime, are you guys going to start working on Oregon PreCheck? It'll be like a little pin or something, yeah.

It's going to cost you a lot of money.

Do you have to enter your passport information like five times in one application?

Very good. Thank you for considering that. So then a new business also was... Recommending for the village board for the proposed Viridian homes Featherwood trails neighborhood and the preliminary plot plan layout and fee in lieu of parkland Dedication proposal so there's a lot of information in the park in the packet as well Yeah, I can explain this a little bit since there's quite a few new folks probably since the last time we did this so I

Shifting gears, Featherwood Trails is a new Verdean neighborhood that's proposed. I'll just pull up the map in case anybody's not familiar. It's just north of the Highlands of Netherwood Park. So this area that's outlined in white is the area they currently have under contract. It's in the town of Oregon. Primary access points would be off of Netherwood Road. There's a proposed... pedestrian, like at-grade crossing, bike-ped crossing that would connect to the Helens and Netherwood Trails, and then there would also be kind of a trail going north-south more or less through the neighborhood and would connect actually to a midpoint of the Rotary Trail, which I think would be great in terms of just allowing people access to the trail at a different point. especially if you're walking, a lot of folks haven't even really seen the middle of the trail because it is a very long trail, about three, three and a half miles in length. So that would be the approximate connection point. And then they are proposing a small, we would consider this a pocket park, just given the acreage, about 0.6 acres. This site is relatively flat, so there's kind of a larger than average area dedicated for stormwater ponds. So there's And the stormwater engineers over here, if you want to learn more, but basically, because it's flat, they need more area to kind of spread out the ponds, and it's going to be slowly infiltrating into the ground there. So it's keeping all the runoff for the development on site, and then it'll be treated and infiltrated back into groundwater. what is kind of the charge and the role of Park Board any time park land is being dedicated is really one to make sure we're getting high quality park land that we actually can use and then also that it's consistent with our comprehensive outdoor recreation plan, our park plan, that this is kind of what we expected in the general location and to back up a little bit just so you kind of know how development and planning and things work. With every subdivision, so dividing property and a plat that records that dividing property, developers are required to either dedicate land or a fee in lieu of dedication for every dwelling unit. So this proposed neighborhood would be a mix of really all single family houses, some twin homes, attached homes, it's all for sale product that they do. But 278 housing units total, obviously this is built in phases over the course of usually eight to 10 years, depending on the market. But based on their total number of acres, They would need to dedicate just over 300,000 square feet of parkland or about seven acres, but they felt like given one, the proximity to the Highlands and Netherwood Park to the south, would that be a large community park with trail, with a large field, shelter, parking lot, things like that, those amenities that they didn't want to duplicate that right across the street. And also with those large stormwater management ponds, they're really going to have those be kind of a central visible feature that's highlighted throughout the neighborhood. So there's paths and sidewalks along all of those trails is another kind of extension of green space within the neighborhood. So, um, If they don't want to dedicate that much land, they have to pay a fee in lieu of dedication. There's a dollar amount associated with that as well. I believe it's here. It's $2,039 per dwelling unit that's paid for any parkland that's not dedicated that would need to be. So their proposal would be that pocket park that's about 0.6 acres, and then the fees that they would need to pay in lieu of parkland dedication would be just shy of $520,000. That goes into something called the Parkland Acquisition Fund, which accumulates over time as we have developers contribute to it at various times. And then that is only able to be used to purchase new parkland. It can't be used to improve existing parks or make upgrades. But obviously when there's Land available or if there's, you know, a development that we feel like, you know, maybe there's part of this land that we really for environmental reasons or whatever. We don't want to see developed. That would give the village some funds to be able to purchase land and then it needs to be used specifically for a park purpose. So, um. There is and so I included a couple of these contact context maps phasing plan. Um, this is the map. This is the future park. facilities map from the park plan that was done in 2023 and This is the Highlands Netherwood Park. So this is the this is the Jenkins property right now. We didn't necessarily anticipate, you know, don't know the order in which these neighborhoods are going to get developed. A lot of it depends on when the property owners, if they want to sell when they want to sell. Um, so there was a connection that was proposed as general location of, you know, it'd be great to get some connection from Highlands and Netherwood up to the rotary trail. So that, accomplished through the plan that they're proposing and then there's just this is NP is a neighborhood park that's again in this kind of general area there's an existing town kind of rural subdivision here but this is just placed in this general area was likely assumed that this Keller Alpine dairy farm property might be developed and that could be a location I think again it's sort of approximate. So this is, is a little bit smaller than a neighborhood park. It's a pocket park, but it's still kind of in that general location. And then there could certainly be in the future. We've got no indication for the property owners right now, but the Keller family could, um, you know, choose to develop in the future and there might be a park, um, or, you know, there's likely going to be some kind of greenway, just given the flow of Lake Barney to the south, that we would have some green space in that neighborhood anyway. So lastly, there's this park evaluation tool. I don't know if anybody had time to take a look at this, but this kind of gives like a scoring matrix of, you know, is the parkland, is it actually on our future land use map? Is this usable land? In the past, we've kind of got the scraps of land that wasn't developable as parks. Bethel Green Acres is a really great example of that. Here's the low-lying land. We can't build anything. Village, you deal with it. Is there appropriate stormwater retention? Does it have a lot of variety of different use types for park uses, whether it's playground, trails, things like that? Is it connecting different parks and trails? So I feel like the park, while it's a small park for a relatively large neighborhood, I think the reasons they've given with the stormwater pond, the rotary trail connection, and then the proximity to Highlands and Netherwood Park, I think this is a pretty fair and still a very usable park proposal here. We'll need some kind of motion that, you know, if you all are comfortable with this, that you are fine with the arrangement that Rudy is presenting here with this .6 acre park and then the rest being paid, likely in phases, not necessarily all at once, but into this parkland acquisition fund, about $520,000.

Does that make sense, reason what they're doing?

So they would have more pocket parks as they...

This would be the one pocket park so right here this this is the phasing map So this kind of shows all the stormwater would be actually built Initially, there's also a lift station that's needed to make sure the sewer can gravity flow And the trail connection would also be done in phase one the park would be included in phase one as well but they would just be doing this pocket park, and then the remainder of, kind of once they get to that equivalent dollar amount through, these get paid at building permit time, so once they get to whatever dollar amount is equivalent to basically .6 acres, they would kind of switch back into just paying those parkland acquisition fees with every building permit that's pulled, and then that fee just would come in.

So how many months are there? 278 homes So there's a couple two different fees one is a parkland

Acquisition fee so that's actually like the purchase of new parkland and then they would also need to pay what's called a park improvement fee that is used for maintenance and that's what's used for Park CIP projects and trail resurfacing and things like that, too. So there's basically two parties.

It's a parking back fee Yep, the park impact fee So then can we use some of that money to buy some of that land? or I mean, because if you've got 278 families there and you're going to put a .6 acre park in there, I'd say no.

Yeah, and again, their argument is, well, there's a connection to the rotary trail, so that's a recreational amenity that will be accessible to this neighborhood. And then also they're going to be providing, we haven't gotten to the exact details, but probably some kind of flashing beacon or something like that where the Highlands and Netherwood Park is literally right across the street. You would have to cross the street to get there if you were on foot or on bike. But that duplicating another larger park, in addition to all the stormwater that already kind of has to be there. I mean, of course, they're trying to, fit in the lots that they can build and make money. But they're also, you know, they're not able to just fully get out of it and say, this is the small park and this is what you have. They have to pay this fee. And then the village can use that to purchase.

So could we buy some of that land back for that fee?

Like home lots?

Whatever, yeah.

we could but then we would be it would be on us to you know do the improvement and plan for that and everything it's all going to be should this all move forward it'll be plotted for residential lots and then zone for residential so if the village decided well we're going to buy lots whatever 200 through 210 We would have to go through the process to probably replant them, combine them into one lot, rezone them. If it's something, if you think the park is undersized now, now is the time to communicate that. I think it definitely is undersized.

When you look at the size of this, it's concentration. It's not common to what Oregon has, except for the New Viridian. This is heavily concentrated. this many people in a short area. And now you have this park. Lisa, how big is this overall development?

Like acre size?

Um, I think it's about 60 acres and it's a little bit more, um, dwelling units than, um,

I mean, it's Greenview Preserve.

Yeah, it's a little bit more. They didn't do... They did very little kind of fee-in-lieu of dedication in Greenview Preserve. They pretty much had the park kind of land requirements more or less met. I think there was a little bit of a deficit there, but...

I mean, I'm... Sorry, Judy, did you have more that you wanted to go ahead? Okay. Um. I just have a couple comments on this. I mean, I like the fact that they can't use storm water as a park. Because it's not a park if people can end up walking around it or fishing or treating that as such. Great then it's a bonus. I would be concerned with what they want, how they're going to connect that development to Highlands and other would just because another would road. And with different varying speed limits and where it changes, you know, obviously there's gonna be but there probably need to be a change there and you know, if they do like a grade crossing there, there tends to be a lot more traffic on that. I guess that would be my concern about doing this. I mean, proximity of Howells and Ellerwood to that, I mean, I don't have a problem with them only having the small pocket park up there. But, you know, again, to a point that Mark had brought up in their last development, there's no yards here. So people are going to be either playing in the street or looking for a green space.

Yeah, the north side of Netherwood right now is planned to be converted to an urban section. We'll have the right of way to be able to do that. So the curb and gutter and terrace and then on-street parking lane, we would be working alongside the town to make sure there's consistent, recommend consistent speed limits. And we've heard as low as 25. We've heard 35. Lauren wants to kind of talk to some of the... Yeah, I can speak to that.

As Elise referenced, this would have to be a conversation with the town. That said, given the conversion to an urban section on the north side, I can't see the speed limit through this entire development being higher than 35 miles per hour going into town. I'll say that I live in the Allen Drive neighborhood that's just off of this page. I would guess that you would likely see that transition from 50 to 35 somewhere around where Allen comes in to kind of get people comfortable before the taper starts.

Is this going to stay in the town or is it going to be in the village?

This will be annexed.

Annexed, okay.

Yeah, we just don't have the right-of-way on the south side yet with those property owners to be able to build both sections, but that would be a later project down the road. Sure.

So, my understanding, there's 2 plans there.

There are actually. For pond area, so there's 1 here kind of in the northwest corner, a large about 4 and a half acre area. Here, yeah, there's kind of 2 ponds there. Right? And then. Yeah, central 1 would be again kind of a feature. Right there alongside the park and then yep, this upper northern area. Yep. And then there's a storm water and green space buffer against the existing town neighborhood and near this lift station. So yeah, 5 storm water areas that would be constructed early on. Looks like this might be part of phase 6, but. So yes, you're right. They don't count towards the parkland dedication requirement, but they do, and we like to see them have a dual purpose of being able to, they have to have a flat area to be able to be driven on for maintenance, but those are walking, kind of rustic walking trails.

Is it possible to connect the trail in both places, like in phase four and six?

Yeah, this is pretty steep. If you've been on that section of the rotary trails kind of near Lake Barney, there's a big, there's a house up there and kind of a big slope. So I think there was a fear that that would be maybe too steep of a connection. This is a little bit more at the same grade level. Correct.

And when you said it's going to be a natural feature, that middle storm water, and you said trails around there, like, does that mean there's going to be like native plantings and that sort of native plants? Yep.

There would be sidewalk all the way around as well as, um, I imagine probably on some of these areas, more moan paths around that would be for, for maintenance of the ponds, but then can also be walked on. There's some of that happening in green view preserve, like next to that. Savannah Pocket Park that we can't remember the exact name of. There's walking trails along the kind of tops of those maintenance drives as well.

And there are these greenways that haven't filled up with water, and so you can do some things, but you can't do a park. That's one of the issues even when we ended up having that request for hockey. Somebody wanted to do a hockey in one of the parks. It's like, well, we can't put it in one of the stormwater areas. Yeah.

I think one nice thing about the location of the park is obviously it's central, but it is closer to the lots that are more the smaller lots that have smaller yards. The ones that are in yellow are more your traditional single family home that are going to have a pretty large backyard. They're also going to have the driveway and front rather than alley loaded. So, um, you know, not to say that those folks wouldn't want to have a park nearby, but those The park is a little bit closer to those smaller lot residences.

So it won't have an alley like the other one does?

Correct. You have everything that's in orange or purple is accessed off of an alley that's kind of the zoning, different classifications for zoning, and then the different shades of orange or purple or yellow are just lot widths. So they vary between... I think like 31 feet is the narrowest, and there's ones that are much more traditional and much more similar to probably what you would see in like the Highlands and Netherwood neighborhood for large lots, single family homes.

I'm just thinking if I had little people, I sure wouldn't want to be by the water with them. That's why I'm looking at a park that would have... Do you know where they want to put this pocket park?

Yep, it's right here in the center. It's shown, it says park, 0.6 acres, so... Um, but yeah, like we talked about too, doesn't have any improvements planned, likely some kind of, I would imagine some kind of play equipment, but one question, um, is the development as a whole already approved by the village? No. So the planning commission has recommended approval of the preliminary plat, um, and the zoning and then that'll get, that's going to be on the village board agenda just again. It's all conditional on annexation. This has not been annexed into the village. Another step that we'll still have to go through planning commission will be the final plat. So there can be some, I believe, slight adjustments to preliminary plat from a final plat as long as it's kind of keeping with the spirit of the plat. And I don't know exactly, too, for Verdean, like, do they actually need all of the stormwater acreage? Is there some amount of swapping that could be done if maybe the central area gets a little bit smaller and that park gets a little bit bigger, or can there be another pocket park put maybe in the south? West corner or something like that.

That's something we'd have to have a conversation with them So I'm probably getting out of my skis a little bit But so if we could take all that orange out of there and put all yellow Spread it out a little bit I think that would help if we can do that up front on the park board side or the village board side Considering it's not annexed yet. I think that's important because getting that tight is just tough and then the second thing is expand the park if you can and And I don't know. I think this is a parkour thing, but I'm going to throw it out there. Maybe put like a kayak launch in there or something, you know, so that people can get out in the water a little bit. You can't do a boat launch. It's too small.

How often is there water in there?

It doesn't exist.

Well, I mean like most of our stormwater. Like the one just across the street, I mean half the summer it's nearly empty. Yeah.

Yeah, so it depends on whether how any particular pond is designed. So we typically see one of two ponds these days, just in general residential stormwater management, either a wet pond And those are typically at least three feet deep, usually closer to five to seven so that you get the appropriate sediment capture. And then you see infiltration basins and those tend to look like dry sunken areas most of the time. A lot of the ponds around this area were designed in more of your wild west regulatory days where There were regulations in place for stormwater quality, but they weren't. We didn't know then what we know now about them. So the hockey pond, I'll call it on the northeast side of this intersection here, that's about two feet deep by design. So in theory, supposed to be a wet pond, but in practice, anytime you get a dry spell, really doesn't look like much of a wet pond, particularly once all the sediments accumulated. It's probably realistically closer to a foot now. For this development, likely you would be looking at the wet ponds being wet most of the time, unless you were in a really bad drought situation. But likely you would see some water level, although it would fluctuate based on conditions. And the dry basins would likely look a lot like the highlands of Netherwood across the street from this. Again, essentially pretty dry. I will note that we tend to discourage access onto our stormwater ponds for recreational purposes. We technically can't disallow it. Just the way that the ordinances are written right now, it is permitted. But when people ask us, we do strongly discourage that. The bigger issue is, as I'm sure folks know, once you get into the wintertime, it becomes a real safety risk. And there's also the fact that these ponds are taking, again by design, runoff from roadways. They're not water that you would want to be coming in contact with. They're probably not water that you would want your pet coming in contact with. Every once in a while you do hear about a dog, unfortunately, getting sick. because this is a really pollutant, heavy kind of concentrated water body. So they're great to look at. They can be made into really nice amenities and Viridian has made commitments to putting in those native planting areas, but it's often a case of kind of look but don't touch here. You know, other areas like the lakes in our area or Bad Fish Creek are much better bats for recreational purposes.

I already know what my next question is, right?

Yes. I did tee you up a bit, didn't I?

How do we put barriers around these ponds?

That is a bigger question.

Well, in the parks right there, that's what my concern is. Exactly.

I had seen from the town of Oregon, because it's going to be annexed, they have a lot of questions. And I saw some of your responses as well. Since Lake Barney's there, and they have some concerns about where all the water goes and what happens. They're also very interested in what ends up happening if this develops into that. So I think they're asking some questions as well. This is a second plan, at least, I've looked at, because there's another property that wasn't incorporated, which is where the stormwater is in the lower left that was added and became available to them anyways. So they're certainly trying to deal with the stormwater. I just look at even having green space is really valuable.

We're really fortunate what we have in park areas.

And getting these concentrated areas of lots of population, the intention should be is to be able to enjoy someplace. You're not going to find the backyards being large enough to do much. And some of these places, at least even what you saw in the Northeast area, they don't even have front yards. The sidewalk is the front steps coming in. So maybe people don't want to do as much, but I Even looking at the the park plan that we had put together if you look at the next map some of the things that You are talking about is where could we purchase and take that money and purchase another park that would be useful for? for use for residents and so Reviewing that a little bit look at where these small parks are and the larger parks and they have a circle that goes around them and And it's not necessarily in this image, but in this image, it does show some potential areas that are future parks and future small parks. But when you look at trying to place some of those in the village, it doesn't address the larger number of people that this one does. And so how do we make parks available to somebody with a concentration of over 250 homes? Granted, you're right across the street

Westside parks, so you do have that's right there I Was just gonna say I mean I don't have That big of an issue with the lot sizes. I mean if you're buying into a Verdean development, you know what you're getting and So you ha you have to be okay with that. If you don't want a small lot, then you don't buy a house there. Um, I like seeing all the stormwater is green space. I like that. It doesn't count as parkland. I like that Highlands and Netherwood is directly across the street from there. And like I said, my, my only concern is how they're going to connect that. But other, other than that, I'm fine with the $520,000 roughly going into a park acquisition fee. Um, I mean, if you start wanting to put more plots in there, Viridian will probably say that it's not viable for us to have fewer plots or to make these plots smaller. I mean, it's a Viridian development. You know what that is. And the people that are buying into it know what it is. So as far as a park standpoint is, with everything I said, I'm fine with this. Lisa?

So I kind of ended up in the middle of an email chain with some ONA, Oregon Nature Alliance people over the past week because somebody was asking if in regard to the wetland buffer in the northwest part, there's a lot of people who are concerned about getting too close to the wetland buffer with some of those plots up there. I didn't even realize we were going to be talking about this part. But since I was in that email chain, I figured I'd bring it up. There are a lot of people who are concerned about having these plots that close to the wetland buffer. And yes, the 75 feet is technically the law, whatever the rule. But cramming all this stuff in here in this space and even with the stormwater, first of all, that one little park I don't think is enough. I think that there should be something else done in this corner where it's closer to the wetlands because now we're starting to get everything even closer to that area. And putting all of this stuff in here it's not, naturally it's not, it's not gonna be good even with all the wetlands, or even with all the stormwater drainage and everything. So that's just, that's my two cents worth from a sustainability point of view. Oh, and also the fact that with the ponds and climate change and everything, we're gonna be seeing a lot more heavy rains and dry areas. So if people are going by past experience, that's not gonna stay the same going forward.

I can speak a little bit to that if it's helpful. Yes. So part of the reason that you see so much stormwater in this plat is that it is what's called, it's composed of what we call enclosed depression areas. So when we start seeing those as stormwater engineers, we get very nervous because it doesn't have the safe overflow that a lot of lands do. Typically, if your pond overflows, great. It flows downhill. It flows away from all your infrastructure. That's generally okay. You don't have that option with an enclosed depression. And in a neighborhood like this, what's around it is houses. So in Dane County here, that comes with certain additional requirements above and beyond their usual stormwater management standards. That is largely related to infiltration and how much we want to infiltrate on the site. Carp C has, they have imposed some additional recommendations on this particular plat due to the fact that it is an enclosed depression area. They're very similar to what was requested of the Highlands of Netherwood neighborhood five years ago or so. And what this neighborhood is doing above and beyond kind of your standard practice is it is infiltrating 100%. It's getting 100% stay on essentially, which means for kind of normal storm events, it is infiltrating 100% of the area that it was already infiltrating. Typically, that requirement is 90% in most developments. These ponds are also designed to capture not only up to the design 200-year event and control runoff up to the 200-year event, which is what Dane County has gone to in recognition of the fact that we don't know what the 100-year event is going to look like in five years now. So the best that we can do at this point is work within the numbers that we do understand. So it is not only capturing and controlling that 200-year event, it's capturing and controlling the 500-year event. And then it is also capturing and controlling the back-to-back 100-year event. So what would happen if we got 6.66 inches of rain in a 24-hour period, and then the next day we got another 6.66 inches of rain in the 24-hour period? So we as engineers are trained to say if we're any good at our job that there's always going to be a storm event that will exceed the capacity of any storm water management system. With climate change, it's more possible and less predictable than it was even 10, 15 years ago, unfortunately. But Again, it's a bit of a balance between kind of your financial sustainability and what is really reasonably practical to design to. And let's understand that climate change is happening and let's take that into account using the best tools that we have. And this is kind of where CARP-C has come down, you know, just speaking for myself and what I've seen. I do think it's a reasonable kind of conservative belt and suspenders approach, but you're not wrong that that risk is always out there. And it's something that all of Dane County is grappling with. I think stormwater engineers across the country are grappling with and trying to find that balance. And there is no right answer.

I guess I'm just wondering if Really, I mean, I totally agree with everything you said. I guess my biggest question is with that area right next to the wetland buffer, do they have to have those lots right up literally next to it? Like that's where my biggest concern.

Sure. So I think Mark kind of alluded to this, but if you asked Viridian, they'd say yes. And it's a question that probably gets a different answer depending on who you ask. And it's certainly one that Elise and I are on an email chain with Nick Bauer, who is one of the lead staff members at CARP-C, to actually discuss that issue. because it did come up at the Carp C hearing last week. So we'll kind of talk through it and see where Carp C's head is at and see if they have any great recommendations. One thing I will note is that this property today is not a forest. It is an agricultural field that's planted in row crops that I would virtually guarantee are not being farmed organically. There is a lot of pesticide application that goes on. One of the biggest stormwater issues that we face in Dane County and again across Wisconsin is agricultural land because they're not required to control their runoff. really, I would say, as an urban stormwater engineer at all compared to what we do with development. And so, you know, this will be something that, again, we will work out and we will discuss with CARB-C. And frankly, we will discuss with Viridian because they're business people and they know what is good business. But, you know, as far as kind of impacts to Lake Barney, If this was a forested area, I would not sleep well at night. It being an agricultural area, it's certainly kind of a question with very little control off that back end. You know, I certainly do wonder how much is getting into Lake Barney right now that we aren't controlling at all.

Just a couple other things to add that to. Maybe think of 1 thing you can't really see on here is the grading plan, but those Northern properties, there will be a swale. There's kind of a ridge that goes. North South on this property, so properties on the West, their, their stormwater runoff will run toward that Northwestern that outlot 15 pond. and then to the east we'll run to this one so there's not going to be you know ability to put in swimming pools and things like that in that swale which is usually between five and maybe up to 20 feet wide that like kind of stormwater easement in the back so there's no grading allowed um one thing that was brought up at the carpsey meeting and if you don't know what carpsey is it's the capital area regional planning commission sorry there's like a million abc alphabet soup things we have to deal with, but they are, the Regional Planning Commission, they are in charge of approving extensions or amendments to urban service areas, which are the areas that municipalities are allowed to serve with public water and sewer, public utilities. So anytime we're making an adjustment to that boundary, we have to go through the CARP-C process. And their commissioners are from all over the county. They've got staff that are experts in these fields and yeah, they have limited review and what they can. Comment on and approve, but a lot of these comments, the wetland buffer and things like that did come up as well. There was a couple other suggestions and again, we haven't had time to. 1, digest it with carpsy staff yet and then to ask for Indian, the Rudy and staff were there at the carpsy public hearing last week, but. there was some suggestion about this will be a neighborhood that will have a HOA. Can there be some additional limitations on maybe restricting the use of herbicides and pesticides? And they do have a professional property management company that Maintains their common spaces and controls that each away. So I know that that is in place in all their neighborhoods. At least there's that kind of infrastructure as far as enforcement. Obviously, that could get a little bit more complicated, but having that commitment from Rudy, if that's something that they're open to, I think could be a nice gesture. But. Yeah, I think there's, it does look like on here, like, well, there's going to be houses and garages and backyard play sets right up along, you know, like the rotary trail and that wetland buffer, but that swale will provide at least a buffer from any kind of built infrastructure or like the ability to do grading and change that for those residents back there.

Okay. So is this in a flood zone or not?

It is not. It is up much higher. It's out of the floodway as well as the regulatory floodplain. Okay.

Then why all the ponds?

Pardon?

Then why all the ponds?

It's because of that enclosed depression issue that they're trying to control for.

So it's a higher area, but on that high plateau, it's all just draining kind of towards the interior area of that site.

I have one question. This is more just for the record and a little bit rhetorical, but is this development going to help with housing affordability in Dane County?

Again, depends on who you ask and how they would answer that. The word that Birding used is attainable housing. They don't say they're affordable housing developers. It's market rate. They have some of these twin homes in the Greenview Preserve neighborhood. And obviously, again, there's inflation. Prices are changing. But I think the lowest twin homes were maybe in the $409K range a few years ago when those were sold. But that is unfortunately the cost of new homes these days. They have a lot of efficiencies of the scale that they do. They are the builder and the developer. They come and do mass grading. I think they try to keep costs down when they can. But yeah, it's a denser development. It's efficient from a maintenance perspective as far as plowing sidewalks and maintaining, having consolidated larger stormwater areas and things like that. But housing supply is part of the housing affordability. puzzle too, right? Supply goes up, demand hopefully goes down a little bit, but demand is so high and there's been such a shortage of, the building really hasn't kept up with the need since the recession in 08, so there's a lot of catching up to do, but supply is a part of that piece. That's a very good answer.

What is being looked for for the park board for the village? For the village board, are we looking for approval of this or are we looking for comments?

So you can certainly make comments and suggestions about other things, you know, like the wetland buffer or whatever it might be and we'd like to see restriction on pesticide use or whatnot. I think the location, you know, general location, general size of the park and then kind of the balance of the fees and the parkland dedication is really the feedback that we need to have in some kind of a motion for the board. Just, you know, this is our recommendation. We are fine with the plan as is, or we would like to see the plan changed in this way. Obviously the village board can overrule the park board, or they could say, those are good things to consider. We'd like to see in the final plat Rudy and make, these changes to how the park land is sized or configured or located.

I just have a curiosity question. So that buffer, I mean that was put in place to protect the wetland, right? Is it smaller than it should be or should it be bigger? Like is that a real,

Yeah, so that's 75 feet is the statutory buffer.

Is that adequate? Because I guess I'm thinking if there's a buffer and then you're building up to the buffers there to protect. Right. Just trying to wrap my head around. So it...

I mean, the buffer's on the other side of the trail. Correct. Correct. Yes. Correct. So these will get built maybe up to the trail, but the buffer's on the other side of the trail. So some of the trail is there to... essentially cut it.

And the buffer is just saying you can't build within 75 feet? Correct. Or, okay. Is that an adequate number? Like, is 200 better? Because is that the concern? I'm just trying to figure out, like, the buffer's there, and we build up to the buffer, which it won't really be to the buffer, but is that 75 adequate?

That's, honestly, it's a great question, and it's one that... In the email to CARB-C, I will say I'm not a wetland biologist. I'm not an expert in that. So all I can rely on is that DNR scientists put this together and using whatever standards they had and felt were important, they implemented this 75-foot buffer zone. As Carp C commissioners said multiple times, there is precedent for requiring a larger buffer in particularly environmentally sensitive areas where a resource is of particular value. Certainly, you know, Viridian could choose to implement a larger buffer on their own. Otherwise, there can and will be and there should be discussions of is there something about Lake Barney that makes it particularly sensitive? Is it appropriate to be giving it more space because of you know, the habitat that it houses because of something particular about this slope that makes it very susceptible to runoff. And that's all stuff that I think CARPSEA will be looking at very closely before they make their recommendation. Because like I said, that came up, I want to say at least four or five times from different commissioners at the hearing. And that, you know, As the village, we don't have a ton of control over it. It is more in the purview of the DNR. But the village is certainly interested in finding out from specialists, what are your recommendations here? Tell us what is appropriate. So more to come on that. But it is a great question. I wish I had the answer to it. I don't. It's complicated.

I think, yeah, again, good question, but I think as far as what the park board's purview is as far as this recommendation, it's more the parkland. It's not necessarily those environmental buffers, but something we struggled with with CARPSEA. I think they wish they had more purview than they do, but that's kind of the way that these things are set up.

Well, who does have the authority to define the buffer?

The DNR.

DNR, okay.

Yep. CARPC makes their recommendation to the DNR and the DNR issues the final decision. Got it.

Judy.

I had one question and it's a little off, but you had mentioned about Keller Alpine and I thought we were going to, well, the village, thinking about making that the addition to the business park. Are they changing their mind on that or are they...

Talking about the Keller family, they are... Let me just go back to the context map so everybody can see. So just off this map is Cusick Parkway, and then there's Ticey and Lycon and all of that. This property here is owned by the Keller family. It's called Alpine Dairy, if you look on Access Dane. They... The older family members that were living there have since passed. There's a bunch of nieces and nephews and cousins that are in charge of the estate at this point. They're not interested in selling. They know that we are interested in potentially expanding the business park. It's not necessarily all developable land. Again, there's a greenway that goes through there, but that is our goal. But we aren't in the, you know, we're not going to be forcing any property owners to sell. But when they are ready, we'll certainly be open to talking to them. And I do check in with them once or twice a year just to make sure that they don't have any questions or if I can send developers their way. And then obviously I'm respecting their wishes if they don't want to be contacted. But there's the lift station that was shown here too. If and when that Keller family property would be annexed and developed, there's a possibility that the sewer could actually flow downhill that direction and that lift station wouldn't be needed anymore. So this is, potentially temporary, depending on the timeline for the Keller family. But we can really just look at what's in front of us. This land is in planned neighborhood for our future land use map and the comp plan. So it is an area we anticipated at some point being annexed and appropriate for a residential neighborhood. The order of which those neighborhoods and those properties become for sale and developers interested, we don't control. It's the market.

Do we have a motion by the board if they want to approve this, if they would want to make a recommendation, something different to the village board?

What can we approve? Yeah, I'm not sure what we're voting on.

Okay. I mean, I already expressed my opinion. I mean, I would approve it as is based on everything that's there. But I can make that motion. You guys can either second it or not or have a discussion and try to amend it if that's what you want. So, I mean, I will make a motion to approve this as laid out and stated in Lisa's memo.

I'll second it. So this part confuses me I feel like this should happen before the motion, but anyway, so can we say like what you had mentioned with like Herbicide and pesticide or like getting a little more information on the buffer Piece of it or stuff like that.

Yeah, so that is Those, I guess, answers to those questions are unlikely to impact the parkland dedication. It's more environmental questions. And I think if those are things that you're concerned about or would want to recommend, we can pass that along to the village board. But as far as the, I can just restate it, the purview of the park board with this is the amount of parkland land dedicated, the amount of parkland dedication fee, kind of fee in lieu of dedication that's proposed, you know, instead of the parkland dedication and then just the general configuration layout. You know, again, it's kind of a placeholder park right now. We know that it's going to be, you know, if the plat gets, the final plat gets approved and then nothing changes, it would be in that area, but we don't know the use, you know, the improvements or anything that would be down the road. But yeah, if you wanted the park in a different location, if you wanted it to be bigger, if you wanted it to be, configure differently, now would be the time to make those recommendations to the village board. You're not approving this and it's not getting plotted and recorded and annexed tomorrow. So there's a lot of steps still to come, but it's really just providing your recommendation to the village board. Do we think this is consistent with the future park kind of map facility plan that was in our park plan that we all reviewed and adopted?

Can I make a motion to amend? So basically, I think we double-sized that part. What's that?

They have to amend it.

One of the two of them?

Or you can vote it down.

I think you could propose an amendment, and then one of you would have to agree to that. Is that OK? OK. I'm going to propose an amendment.

So I think doubling the size of that park, it's .6 acres, make it a lot larger than that. Just call it double. They have a lot more green space over there, particularly in that middle piece. And then also I'd like to revisit the entire buffer zone for the entire development.

I think in that case we would have to deny the motion because that's a lot more than just amending the motion.

That's not in our purview, right? It is.

Yeah, the buffer is outside of the parkland dedication because that's more of an environmental buffer. That's not going to be park.

Can I recommend that during the bills board meeting then? Sorry, I'm just trying to lump everything together. It's weird. Okay, then yeah, making the park a larger, you know, I'd say double that size.

And would you want to see just one kind of central park or would you prefer to see multiple smaller parks?

I'm making this up as I'm going early, so I don't know. I mean, there's more green space in that neighborhood, you know.

Leave it up to Veridian to decide where.

I'd like a C-large park. Yes. Instead of all these pocket parks.

So we have a motion on the table in a second to approve as is. But I'm very discussionally to do that. Let's call for a vote on that to see, because then we can go into the next motion, which would be then to...

an amendment to double the size of the park.

Are you guys wanting to amend that?

And you mentioned that they might not need all of those acres for stormwater.

Yeah, I don't know the exact. I think they probably need close to it.

Yeah, I wouldn't count on them not needing all those acres. Their stormwater plan is actually pretty dialed in for development at this stage. So I would expect that they probably think they need all those acres for stormwater.

So that's seven acres, you said?

So seven acres is what they, if they didn't do any fee in lieu of land dedication, they would have to put seven acres of park in this neighborhood. Right now, they're only proposing 0.6, and then the rest of that is that fee that goes into that fund that can buy parkland in the future.

Well, then we take three acres and then get the other four acres in fees.

Yeah. You could definitely recommend that whether they do it or not is. Yeah.

It's ultimately up to the village board to decide, you know, what combination of land and fee that they're comfortable with. You all are, you know, you can say based on the number of homes here and everything, we feel like there's more, there should be more parkland, you know, maybe 1.2 acres or something we feel is more appropriate for this neighborhood. And then I think that would be sufficient for your recommendation for the board. You're not going to redesign the layout of this neighborhood.

But to Mark's point though, that's, that's what I'm recommending is 1.2, right? And then that's a secondary motion.

So if they're voting, except that amendment, if not, then we should vote that one down and then you can put a motion forward.

Yeah. Oh, I'll accept it. Cause I can vote no too. So it's fine.

Okay. So I understand the amendment. The amendment is to, sorry, increase to 1.2 acres?

Sure, yeah.

Is that what you said?

Yes.

Oh, Parkland.

Okay, and you're okay with that? Oh, I'll accept that adjustment, sure.

Same thing with the second. And then I'll, whatever. Other discussions about that. So we are now have a amended motion. It takes it to the park should be moved up to 1.2 acres. Understand any other discussion regards to that?

I mean, I think it's an arbitrary number and it's not really going to matter. So that's fine.

We're still talking that we get the money for the rest of the, yeah, that's going to happen regardless.

It's just whatever, ultimately to, it's still gotta be whatever ends up being part of the final plat. We'll figure out what that number would go down. Obviously, the dollar amount will go down if there was more parkland that ends up getting dedicated.

Make sense? Call for a vote. All in favor, state by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Aye. So one opposed and remaining. One opposed and everybody. I voted no.

Okay. And five.

He doubled what was there, which is 0.6 right now. So 0.6 times two.

I'll say no.

Okay, so two denied. Okay.

Okay. Okay.

Any other discussion? You did it.

Good job. The only thing is there was a lot of discussion for things that...

Yeah, and I think I mean you don't necessarily have to make a motion if you don't want to but I think those are all things that have been brought up by other groups that were you know already committed to looking into more and I think they'll They'll be addressed with CARPSEA and with the board as well. So we can pass that on that there was discussion here and questions and concern on those topics as well.

I think there's other avenues to express what you want other than through the park board for those environmental issues.

Yep, come to the CARPSEA meetings, come to Village Board. That's where I think, yeah, it's about to do that.

All right, very good. Good discussion. Thank you for that overall. So item eight, future meetings, any assignments that are going forward. Any other comments? Judy, do you have any comments?

No, I don't. Good conversation.

Alyssa?

I do not.

You don't? Matt?

No, just thanks for the discussion for sure, and thanks to Elise for shepherding the transportation study stuff tomorrow night, right? It's awesome.

Andy? Good. All right. Nothing for you, Jamie? Okay, we'll call adjournment. The next meeting is October 13th, and then the following one is November 10th.

That's normal again?

Yeah, back to the normal second. Yeah, this got moved because of the Labor Day holiday and the village board was last Tuesday when we would have normally met.

Very good. I'll move to adjourn. I'll move to adjournment. Second.

Did you get a second? Yeah.

Did you figure that? I didn't catch him. They're all raising their hands. Go Judy.

Go Judy. All in favor state by saying aye.

Aye.

No, that's okay. Yeah, I got one in the back.