Decision time draws near for Arden Hills project

No maps. No graphics. No visuals of any kind.

Lack of an illustration might be what enables Arden Hills to end months of debate and meet two immediate funding deadlines for proposed road reconstruction at County Road 96 and Hwy. 10.

Trying to get a vote on a preliminary design for the project before the end of the month, the City Council agreed Wednesday to set aside wrangling over details in the initial project designs by Ramsey County and the Minnesota Department of Transportation.

Instead, the council is expected to vote -- possibly at a Feb. 25 meeting -- on a list of "desired elements" for the road project, which is needed in part to support redevelopment of 585 acres of the former Twin Cities Army Ammunition Plant.

By the time the former plant site is fully developed -- perhaps by 2020 -- it is expected to be home to some 3,500 residents. Another 7,500 people are expected to work in the area.

If the council OKs the list by the end of the month, it will stay on pace to meet two big funding deadlines.

The city wants to have a $29 million request to the Legislature near the end of the month, even though many in the city government have expressed doubt about getting all that funding in one year.

"I'm pleased that we've made another step forward," Mayor Stan Harpstead said. "... We need to keep moving forward and making discrete, significant steps."

It was Harpstead who called a special work session Wednesday and corralled divergent City Council members, coaxing them to move ahead -- even if it could do so only with written guidelines instead of an illustration for a project.

The lack of visuals irritated some residents and affordable housing advocates, who are working to minimize displacement of residents of the Arden Manor mobile home park, located in a triangle between I-35W, County Road 96 and Hwy. 10.

"They're going to write it up in a concept plan and not provide a visual? That doesn't educate anybody," said Russ Adams of the nonprofit affordable housing advocacy group Alliance for Metropolitan Stability.

On Jan. 28, the council voted down one iteration of the project, saying it would displace too many residents from the Arden Manor mobile home park, among other reasons.

Among other agreements the council came to: that the project can include an overpass on Hwy. 10 crossing County Road 96, as long as noise mitigation is studied.

Adams said his group plans to lobby the city to make its guidelines binding. Otherwise, he said, "there is no guarantee that MnDOT or the county will respect the request of the council."

Council Member Brenda Holden said Thursday that it's probably premature to talk about binding resolutions because more engineering needs to be done to refine the plan. But to do that, she said, a preliminary design needs to move forward. As for voting on a resolution without a visual depiction, she said, "I don't think it matters."