7.8 SR 12-18-1995 - Laserfiche WebLink

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ORDINANCE 95 - CITY OF ELK RIVER AN INTERIM ORDINANCE ESTABLISHING A MORATORIUM OF THE APPROVAL OF CERTAIN SUBDIVISIONS WITHIN CERTAIN AREAS OF THE CITY OF ELK RIVER The City Council of the City of Elk River does hereby ordain as follows: Section 1. Purpose. The City Council is nearing completion of the process of updating the City of Elk River Comprehensive Plan. It is anticipated that this process will take an additional six (6) months. One of the major issues that will be discussed during this process is the extension of City water and sewer services. The most likely direction for extending utilities is to the east and southeast of the present sanitary sewer and water area, to serve the commercial and industrial areas along east Highway 10 and the residential areas along the eastern edge of the City. Extending utilities to the east and southeast will require a substantial City investment in trunk facilities and improvements to the City's waste water treatment plant. The City's ability to finance these facilities and improvements will depend on its ability to assess benefited properties which will be served by the new trunk facilities and plant expansion. The most difficult properties to assess when extending municipal utilities are large residential lots from two to ten acres. Properties which fall in this category are expensive to serve with utilities for a single residential unit, and are difficult to subdivide so that the cost of the utilities can be spread over multiple units. The City has experienced this problem in the past and is acting to prevent this from happening again so that this type of residential development does not prevent the extension of utilities to serve the commercial and industrial areas along east Highway 10 and the residential areas along the eastern edge of the City. The Metropolitan Council also recommends that rural areas which are intended to be served with municipal utilities be restricted to ten acre minimum lot sizes for residential lots. This interim moratorium ordinance is therefore adopted to protect the integrity of the comprehensive planning process and the health, safety, and welfare of the Citizens of Elk River by assuring that development within the affected areas of the City does not prevent the extension of utilities into these areas if the Comprehensive Plan is amended to provide for such extension.