Good morning.

Welcome to the regular meeting of the Climate and Infrastructure Committee for September 30th, 2025.

I'm Katie Cashman, Chair of this committee.

Before we call the meeting to order, I want to offer a friendly reminder to all the members, staff, and public that these meetings are broadcast live to enable greater public participation.

Therefore, we ask all speakers to moderate the speed and clarity of their comments so that the captioners can fully transcribe all comments for the broadcast.

Thank you.

At this time, we'll ask the clerk to call the roll to verify a quorum.

Councilmember Vita.

Councilmember Rainfall.

Present.

Councilmember Osmond is absent.

Councilman Chavez, present.

Vice Chair Cosking.

Present.

And Chair Cashman.

Present.

We have five present.

Let the record reflect we have a quorum.

And then if you're here for any of the public hearings, please make sure to sign up with Clerk Michael over here.

We'll start with our consent agenda, items four through eight.

Item four is passage of a resolution for the project designation and cost estimate related to the First Avenue South Reconstruction Project and setting a public hearing for November 13th, 2025.

Item five, accepting the 2025 local trail connections program grant for the Fallwell Park Trail part of the North Side Greenway.

Item six is approving the concept layout for the North Side Greenway.

Item seven is passage of a resolution updating the uniform assessment rates for construction and resurfacing of both streets and alleys.

Item eight is passage of a resolution for the project designation and cost estimate related to the Cedar Avenue Reconstruction Project and setting the public hearing for November 13th, 2025.

Colleagues, do you have any questions or items that you'd like to pull from the consent agenda?

Seeing none, I will move all the consent agenda items for approval.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed say nay.

Any abstentions?

That motion carries.

Next we'll take our public hearing items, starting with our hearing related to municipal consent for the Department of Transportation's University Avenue Northeast Improvement Project.

I'll note for my colleagues in public today that we'll be opening the public hearing and receiving testimony today.

And we will need to continue the public hearing to the October 16th for final action.

This was due to a clerical error.

And so we will take up most of our questions today in committee if there are any, and we'll be able to finalize this at the next CNI Climate Infrastructure Committee meeting.

So I'll invite Peter Bennett, Senior Transportation Planner, to provide an overview of this item before the public hearing begins.

Welcome to the United States.

Good morning, Chair Cashman and members of the committee.

I'm Peter Bennett, a transportation planner with Minneapolis Public Works, and I've been a staff liaison to the Minnesota Department of Transportation, or MINDAT, on this project on University Avenue Northeast, also known as Trunk Highway 47.

I'm joined in the audience by other members of the project team and representatives from MINDAT.

Today's presentation will give some details on the request for municipal consent on this project.

And then in the slides portion of the presentation, we will highlight some of the key features in the proposed content layout for your consideration today.

University Avenue Northeast is currently structured as a four-lane undivided roadway with time restricted on-street parking in the outside lane.

Some photos of the existing conditions are seen on the title slide of this presentation.

Altered access, increased or decreased traffic capacity, and or permanent right-of-way acquisition.

This project is proposing the removal of two travel lanes, i.e.

decreased traffic capacity, and the permanent right of way and some permanent right-of-way acquisition, thereby triggering the municipal consent process and the statutory requirement for a public hearing.

MINDAT has sent a letter seeking this approval, and that was included in your packet today.

And MINDOT will also require a resolution from City Council as part of this approval process.

The attachment also attachments also included a recommended resolution that meets MINDOT's requirements while restating city priorities.

Public Works recommends that the passage of this resolution and the approval of the concept layout.

So next I will share some features of the project.

MINDOT has identified and scheduled a reconstruction project for University Avenue Northeast from Central Avenue Southeast, also known as Trunk Highway 65, to north of 27th Avenue Northeast.

The construction is anticipated to start in 2027 and anticipated completion in 2028.

The project length is approximately 2.3 miles.

A project timeline and map are shared on this slide, and the majority of the engagement on this project was completed over the last two years.

University Avenue Northeast is identified as a high injury street in the city's Vision Zero program.

Many of the project features and benefits on this slide are measures to improve safety for all users.

Today's four-lane undivided arrangement leads to blocked lanes, weaving, and unsafe turning movements.

A three-lane section offers a consistent travel lane in each direction and dedicated space to wait while turning.

At key locations, the center turn lane can also host medions for safer pedestrian and bicycle crossings.

And streets that are included in the Minneapolis AAA bike network do cross University Avenue Northeast.

This concept layout includes nine locations for medians.

Curb extensions are used throughout the concept layout.

And this project does build a key two-block segment of our AAA bike network, all ages and abilities bike network, between central and first.

So let's look at some illustrations of selected blocks from the project from the concept layout.

Between 14th and 15th Avenues, this image shows a typical section with grass boulevards, curb extensions, and the three-lane arrangement.

At 7th Avenue Northeast, this illustration shows a median at a location where many people do cross the street for the farmers market, for church, or for restaurants in the area.

And this is in downtown Northeast.

This illustration shows the addition of parking bays near the businesses and bike lanes.

Lastly, two intersections with Hennepin County roadways were of particular focus during the layout development process, Broadway Street Northeast and Lowry Avenue Northeast.

This image shows Broadway Street Northeast.

The intersection remains signalized, but removes a separated right turn lane in the southwest corner.

And at Lowry, the intersection also remains a signal.

Lowry Avenue will shift to the south, and this design brings in multimodal facilities, safer turn geometry at the intersection while still preserving buildings and accommodating freight vehicles.

This concludes our presentation for the public hearing, and we are available for any questions.

Great.

Thank you so much, Mr.

Bennett.

I'll first see if any colleagues want to ask questions now, or we can wait till after the public hearing, but first I'll recognize Kal Samara Rainville.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Say I'm very curious about the timing of this project.

So we have Hennepin County redoing Marshall.

And then you we have which is a North South Street, and then we have this project, and I see when I see information from the county and I see information from the state, it appears that they're going to do it at the same time, which would be just a total mess.

I'm wondering if there's any comment on that, if that's been thought through.

Uh thank you for your question.

I will invite uh some uh MIDOT staff to come and answer further, but I will start the answer as a staff liaison to this project and to other Hennepin County projects.

Uh I have been involved in a few meetings and conversations where talking about Marshall, University and Central and Lowry have been talked about, so some coordination has begun with the city, state, and county, and will continue after this uh concept layout consideration.

With that, I will introduce Christina Profetti from MINDAT.

Yeah, just to reiterate what Peter Bennett said.

Um recognizes that we have both University Avenue and Central Avenue on our project list for the coming years, as well as Hennepin County's Marshall Street and Lowery Avenue.

Um technically there are some overlapping years, uh, and we are currently working on a plan to because these are multi-year projects, we would phase them appropriately so that um no section is really overlapping in terms of a north and south so that there would be crossing at Broadway or at Central appropriately so that people would still be able to cross over these roads if they can't drive on them when they're being constructed.

Thank you, Ms.

Profinius.

Good to see you again.

I've raised this issue for well over a year, and I'm I just cannot imagine why it hasn't been resolved yet.

Could you maybe enlighten me why no decisions have been made?

That's a great question.

Uh we are currently working on that plan based on our funding, just the fact that funding happens as has happens to be granted at the same time.

Um I think that as we get closer to the final design process, we will have a much better idea of how we can uh phase the project and and have certain uh certain construction treatments happening so that even though there are multiple streets being done at once, there would at least be some detours involved.

Unfortunately, because the funding is scheduled at the same time, it's not really possible to move the project, so we're trying to work with uh what we have in terms of treatments for construction.

And will there be a hotline for complaints?

Excellent question.

So we are working on uh our construction uh strategy for communications.

We recognize that people will have a lot of feedback, and we're working on getting those things put together since construction is a few years or out still.

Um we're also happy to be talking with your office and the city about um you know different strategies you would like to see as well.

Thank you.

Mr.

Bennett, what is the timeline here?

Is it a two-year project or one year?

Chair Cashman and members of the committee.

Uh MINDAT has uh in the scoping of this project informed us that this would be a 2027 and 2028 construction year project.

Um the action considered today is to approve a concept layout and move them on to their final design, which is a uh the fastest route towards making sure they make that 2027 construction year from in talking to some of the marshall and central teams.

Uh they may not start in that year, so this may be the first project of those three to go to construction, and uh taking this action today would be an excellent way to make sure this one goes first and is more out of the area uh before other projects begin.

Are there any other questions from committee members at this time?

Councilmember Chavez.

Thank you, Chair Cashman.

I just want to thank staff for giving this presentation and this update.

It's really helpful.

It's really great work, and we're very appreciative.

Thank you.

All right, so let's go ahead and open the public hearing and see if anyone has signed up.

Clerk Michael, do we have anybody?

Madam Chair, no one has signed up at this time.

Is anyone here for the public hearing on University Avenue?

All right.

So with that, we will continue the public hearing to October 16th, where we will also uh take action on this resolution and this municipal consent.

Thank you so much.

All right, next we have a public hearing on a resolution adopting the 2026 assessments related to tax exempt parcel street light operation fee.

And I'll invite Paul Keating, management analyst to provide an overview overview before we start.

I'm actually introducing two separate but related public hearings on proposed special assessments for non-governmental properties that are exempt from property tax.

The assessments, one for street lighting and one for street maintenance, are proposed to be collected in 2026 via the Henton Bay County property tax statement.

Taxable parcels fund these services through property taxes.

The average assessment is $92 per year.

The total assessment payable in 2026 is 108,503.

For street maintenance, the median assessment is 219 dollars per year, and the average assessment is 464 dollars per year.

Total assessment payable in 2026 is 541,777.

Taxable properties pay their share of these same costs through their normal property taxes.

Tax exempt properties also benefit from streets and street lights, so state law enables the special assessment.

This concludes my presentation.

All right, thank you so much for the presentation.

I'll now open the public hearing.

See if anybody has signed up for this item.

Madam Chair, we have no one signed up at this time.

All right.

Is anyone here to speak on this item?

With that, I will close the public hearing and move approval.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed say nay.

Any abstentions?

All right.

So we have another public hearing, which is a resolution adopting 2026 assessments related to tax exempt parcels for street maintenance.

So welcome back.

Mr.

Keating.

For the presentation, the uh introduction was for both public hearings.

All right, so I'll open the public hearing on this item.

Where that was there anyone who signed up?

Madam Chair, there are no people signed up at this time.

All right, going once, going twice.

Thank you so much.

We'll close the public hearing and I'll move approval of this resolution as well.

Was there any discussion from committee members?

Okay.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed say nay.

Any abstentions?

That motion carries.

I believe we have concluded all business to come before the committee today.

So without objection, we are adjourned.

Thank you.