St. Cloud residents turned out for Thursday night’s City Council meeting to voice their concerns about developmentrelated traffic and flooding in a final public hearing for an ordinance that would change the zoning of 10 acres south of Fertic Road and east of Michigan Avenue from agricultural to single-family zoning with a low-density residential future land use designation.
The Council voted instead to revisit the issue at its Oct. 10 meeting, once the applicant can present more detail about their intended development.
“Our concern with this property and the development of this property, is that right now the agricultural use fits in perfectly with what’s going on. It mainly has to do with … the drainage in the area is already encumbered,” resident Sam Duhs said. “And we have not begun to feel the brunt of that until Sky Lakes is fully developed. Also, traffic right now is really terrible along there. It’s not just serving us and our neighbors and adjoining subdivisions.
“There are certain times in the day where you just cannot go on Michigan, or you will be trapped for at least 45 minutes of your life. I know they have a traffic impact study. They say that it operates at an adequate level of service and is projected to continue to do so at the build out of the development, which I completely disagree with. Sky Lakes is not even 25 30% completed yet, and there’s going to be over 355 lots there. That’s two cars apiece. Where are they going to go?”
Flooding in the school zone on Michigan Avenue is also a concern, resident and former councilman Jarom Fertic said.
“Start working on drainage, especially on main roads like your schools, because how many schools let out on that? Quite a few.” Fertic said. “The concerns we have with development coming in—it’s nothing new, but it’s getting worse. What’s the rush to develop if we already have issues?”
While applicant Jesse Anderson noted the request at issue was only a zoning amendment, and the site plan is preliminary, other residents asked why a project like this would be brought forward without engineering completed. Deputy Mayor Linette Matheny— who is an engineer for the county—agreed.
“We’ve had these kind of applications come before us, and we don’t approve them because we don’t know what they’re going to put on there,” she said. “We’ve had that happen before, where we’ve said, ‘We’re not approving it, because we want to see what you’re putting on here.’ And residents were concerned. And so, we postponed it until they could come back with the full set of plans. We have delayed these approvals before and said, ‘No, not until you come back with all the details.’ I’m more comfortable with that.”
Hearing those concerns, the Council agreed to postpone action for four weeks in order to get more details from the planner and developer.
At the meeting, the Council did approve the annexation of small enclaves of 110 acres or less.
“I understand people don’t want to have to pay any more money on taxes, and being annexed may result in that.” Mayor Nathan Blackwell said. “But the problem is, all of you are riding on city roads, roads that are maintained by the city. You get on a turnpike exit … the city taxpayers have invested several million dollars in. You call EMS, or fire, or police … our City will be the one who will respond first, almost always, because we’re closest to you.
“The city taxpayers pay their salaries and maintain the fact that we can provide those kinds of services and maintain your safety and your security, and hopefully your health. We offer parks that are used by many of these people … and our parks are maintained, paid for, upgraded, made available to families and children and grandchildren, by the residents of our City who pay those taxes. And so, if you’re going to drive on our roads, use our EMS, our fire, our police, and benefit from those services, go to our parks, get on the turnpike … then you should have an investment in having to help pay for that, as well as to maintain that. I don’t want to pay any more taxes, either. But then, if I want to benefit from those services, then I should have to have an investment in that.”
THIS WEEK: The City Council will have an additional meeting tonight (Thursday) at 6:30 p.m. to give final approval to its $273.5 million budget and ad valorem tax millage of 5.1128.
