The Rochester City Council met on September 8, 2025, at the RPU Community Room due to renovations at City Hall. The meeting included public comments, a consent agenda, six public hearings, and several reports and recommendations. Key actions included approval of a major land subdivision, a vacation petition, growth management and comprehensive plan amendments accompanied by an annexation petition for a 120-acre Pulte Homes development, adoption of the P2S Comprehensive Plan update, adoption of a new City Action Plan, and approval of $20,000 in start-up funding for the International Relations Committee.
Heather, will I get a cue for uh recording? What we're ready to go. Thank you. Good. Please rise as you're able for the Pledge of Allegiance. Yes. One nation under God. Liberty. Thank you. And welcome to our September 8th City Council meeting. Welcome to our temporary chambers here in uh the uh RPU offices. We'll be here for, I believe, maybe the next six weeks or so uh as the chambers at City Hall are renovated and uh brought to state of the art uh equipment. So uh starting off our council meeting, we begin every meeting with our open comment period. This is an opportunity for anyone from the public to speak on items that are that we will not be taking public testimony on during a public hearing later in the agenda. Each person has up to two minutes to speak for a total of 20 minutes. I will be keeping track of time through a couple methods, the uh clock in the back of which I can see, and then at the end of the table by the mayor, you'll see the stop light, and it will turn yellow at I believe it's uh 30 seconds. Is that right, Ann? 30 seconds? A minute. So you get the yellow, you that's half your time is up. So um and uh uh we'd also ask you to uh be concise uh to allow more people to speak during the designated time. Uh participants are further encouraged to limit your comments generally to topics which are within the scope of uh the city council and uh uh and if you have any materials to share with the council, you may give them to the city clerk and Casey over there at that desk, and she will distribute them. And uh the city council does not respond directly to your comments, but uh either we or staff will get back to you if you have requests. Um with that, I am going to start with Andris Wong. Andrew, thank you. I'm sorry. Sounds good. Well, good evening, council members. My name is Andrew Wong. I live in the Bamberwood neighborhood. I'm here tonight because our neighborhood is being asked to absorb new traffic from Ponderosa Pine Development on streets that your own staff has admitted, don't meet today's engineering standards. This admission is not new. As far back as 2002, public works memos and council discussions identified Bamboad Roads as substandard. Too narrow, too steep, and unsafe for added traffic. In 2007, the same conclusion was reaffirmed. In 2016, 15th Avenue Southwest underwent roadway improvements before connecting. Yet today, with the same roads now 20 years older, the city is allowing a full traffic connection with no improvements and no traffic study. At the 2023 neighborhood information meeting, residents also raised concerns about this road connection. The minutes submitted to the city by the applicant, emitted both our objections and the developer's statement that no connection would be made. The city has since said no objections were on record, but that's only because the record was incomplete. Our voices were silenced. This is a break in due process, and it undermines trust when applicant prepared notes are treated as official record. We understand the city values connectivity, but connectivity cannot come at the expense of safety, fairness, and trust. Right now, the city is applying modern traffic standards to 50-year-old roads and knows are already deficient. This is inconsistent. It is unsafe and it erodes confidence uh in the process. Given this history, our ask are straightforward and reasonable. Do not open this connection to vehicles until a proper safety traffic study is completed and mitigations are in place in the interim, allow only pedestrian and bicycle access. Implement safety measures for our neighborhood before vehicle traffic is introduced, traffic calming, signage, lighting, and pedestrian protections. Publicly acknowledged that residence concerns and developer response in 2023 were admitted from the record.