6.8. SR 08-18-1997 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Scott and Ann Marie Breuer 19282 Dodge Street NW Elk River, MN 55330 241-0791 August 14, 1997 Steven B. Ach, City Planner City of Elk River 13065 Orono Parkway PO Box 490 Elk River, MN 55330 Dear Mr. Ach and Members of the Council: We regret that we are not able to be at this meeting personally, but could not change a prior commitment that was made months ago. This letter is written with the intent to express our concern about the request for preliminary plat approval of Hillside Crossing South Two. Our first concern is that the preliminary plat was almost approved without notification to the nearby residents that are directly affected by this requested plat. We were contacted the Sunday before the last scheduled meeting by a neighbor that this preliminary plat was being proposed. We immediately called Steve Ach at the City the next day with our concerns. We appreciate the fact that this meeting was rescheduled and that the residents were notified so that we could voice our concerns. We had bought our lot from Mr. Foster. Before we bought the lot, we expressed our concern of what was going to become of the area behind our lot. He told us that he had plans to build two or three rambler-style office buildings that would blend in with the natural surroundings and that we would hardly see them. The conceptual drawing shows a very large parking lot that comes within 12' of the back of our property line. Our home would overlook this parking lot of approximately 130 spaces, in addition to the turnaround as shown. The way it is proposed right now, there would have to be an enormous amount of trees removed for the parking lot alone. And without those trees for a buffer, Highway 169 and the present area businesses, along with the proposed businesses would dramatically increase the noise level for area residents and would also ruin the natural appearance of the lot that we originally bought. We feel that the plat as currently proposed would significantly drop our property values because of a lack of a tree buffer between commercial and residential properties. The reason we feel that this would decrease our property value is because all that we would see is a huge parking lot and the concern of parking lot lights and the lights from traffic coming and going that would shine directly at our home. In addition to a detrimental decrease in property values, we may not even be able to sell our home if this plat is approved as proposed.