7. PRSR 08-10-2005 - Laserfiche WebLink

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ver MEMORANDUM TO: Parks and Recreation Commission FROM: Michele McPherson, Director of Planning DATE: August 2, 2005 SUBJECT: Primer on Trails This memo is written to provide information to the Commission regarding the use of easements versus land in fee title for public trails. Trail Easement A trail easement grants permission over a parcel of property for public access. This trail easement could be a specific corridor described along an alignment through a parcel of property, or it could be a large "blanket" easement, whereby a large portion of the parcel is encumbered by the trail easement and the City has wide latitude for constructing the trail. In an easement condition, the City does not own the underlying land; therefore, park dedication credit in the form of land is not required to be given. Fee Title In this condition, the City would be given land which it would own in fee title for construction of a trail. In this instance, park dedication credit would be given for land. An example of such a trail connection is Outlot A in Trott Brook Farms 8~' Addition. This is a City-owned 50' wide trail connection located between two homes which will connect Olson Street to Outlot K, Trott Brook Farms. Other Considerations It should be noted that when reviewing plats with wetlands, trail easements or trail corridors will need to be carefully sited to avoid wetland impacts. The Technical Evaluation Panel will require mitigation for any fill over and above the dem,,,~mus allowed by Statute. The mm;mum allowed is not a significant amount of area; therefore, wetland fill in favor of trail construction will need to be carefully evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Hopefully, this information will the assist the Commission in making its recommendations for trails and park dedication. S:\PARK & REC\OS 04 OS Packet\P.ttachment to direttots report OS 02 OS PR memo nail inFo.doc