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HomeMy WebLinkAbout3.a. U of M Stormwater NegotiationsAGENDA ITEM: U of M Stormwater Negotiations AGENDA SECTION: Update PREPARED BY: Thomas D Burt, City Administrator AGENDA NO. 2 a. ATTACHMENTS: Proposal APPROVED BY: COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE: December 12, 2001 Staff meet with the U of M to discuss directing surface water on the University property The University was very interested and has developed a plan that would study the impacts of the impacts of urban development on hydrologic response of watersheds, water quality of streams and aquifers, the ecological balance among complex plant and animal communities, and the sociological well being of human communities NOTES: For discussion only CITY OF ROSEMOUNT EXECUTIVE SUMMARY FOR DISCUSSION UMORE PARK NATIONAL LIVING LABORATORY FOR INTERDISCIPLINARY URBAN /RURAL RESEARCH A PRE- PROPOSAL SKETCH 12 OCTOBER 2001 DRAFT PREPARED BY ROBERT D SYKES ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE Participants in discussions to date: Prof James Anderson, Dept of Soil Science and Director of the Water Resources Center Tom Burt, City Administrator, City of Rosemount Prof John Nieber, Dept of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering Steve Roos Research Fellow, Center for Rural Design Assoc Prof Robert D Sykes, Dept of Landscape Architecture Prof Dewey Thorbeck, Dept of Architecture and Director Center for Rural Design Prof Bruce Wilson, Dept of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineenng Prof Donald Wyse, Agronomy/Plant Genetics Other interested parties expected to join the discussion: John Carmody, Senior Research Fellow, College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture Assoc Prof Steven Weeks, Department of Architecture The pattern of development at the urban-rural edge of cities has presented several problems that have recently called into question the appropnateness of business as usual with respect to the fundamentals of that pattern The University's land at UMore Park offers a unique opportunity to engage these problems and issues through long -range research studies at a unique facility Vision. A unique and internationally recognized living laboratory for multidisciplinary research and educational programs that address sustainable urban development issues including impacts of urban development on the hydrologic response of watersheds, the w ater quality of streams and aquifers, the ecological balance among complex plant and animal communities, as well as the health and sociological well being of human communities Opportunity The City of Rosemount has the need to establish a permanent route for stormwater flow from areas around the UMore parcel to a regional receiving water They are m the process of studying alternatives with Westw ood Professional Sen. ices, including pumping its excess storm water to the Koch Refinery site It would be less expensive for them to route the water through UMore Park providing the opportunity for the University to partner with the City to handle its storm water (illustrated in the Master Plan for UMore Park) as part of an on -going research effort to control run -off from urban development at the urban/rural edge If thoughtfully designed, this route presents possibilities for a research facility at UMore that could have national significance It could help support research into innovative stormwater management techniques, which could in turn gn e rise to research possibilities for housing dc. elopment patterns, landscape alternatives, agriculture adjacent to housing, and affordable/energy efficient/sustamable housing concepts at UMore A proposal idea is being developed to take advantage of this opportunity by a group of faculty called together by the Center for Rural Design This sketch presents, briefly, the general structure of the idea as discussions to date have shaped it Research Program Idea To create a hvmg laboratory of national stature to engage m long -range studies of issues and problems pertaining to development and infrastructure at the rural /urban edge of American cities This laboratory would be available to support well designed. long term studies in all facets of community including (but not limited to) those pertaining to physical urban and rural design, Manning policy, development controls, development finance, land tenure. stormwater management, infrastructure design and maintenance practices, decentralized utilities (water sewer, energy), sustainable de elopment, affordable housing, the use of landscape plants urban wetlands. and sociological issues of community In all, the facility would be a place where the many disciplines within the university could engage in related research in a common facility Many of the issues and problems envisioned for exploration in this facility require that experiments take place and be subject to the rigors of a functioning community For example, m order to perform meaningful long range tests of storm water quality improvement techniques, they must be subjected to the kinds of pollution generated by the activities associated w ith land uses of various types found in most cities around the U S Traffic types and volumes must be those naturally occurring in various land uses, so that the types of pollutants generated will be representative of actual expenence The same is true with landscape maintenance with respect to mowing practices and the use of chemicals The Living Laboratory. The research project would consist of a series of built small communities that reflect conventional development approaches, current alternative approaches and novel approaches designed by a team of individuals from all the disciplines engaged in the long range studies These communities would include both residential and commercial /retail land uses of various types designed to both attract residents and businesses to the Umore Park living laboratory communities They could be entirely located within the UMore property or on a combination of UMore sites and sites in nearby City of Rosemount on the north side of County Road 42 The number, types, and locations of such living laboratory communities will require much thought and study However, it is anticipated that such communities would be located on UMore sites that are not currently committed to other uses Of course, the locations and designs w ill depend very much on the further refinement of this idea, the types of facilities needed and the disciplines involved to support national or world -class long -range studies Funding. Given the unique resource presented by the UMore site, long range base funding can be generated from the facility itself The fact that the University does not want to sell land from the UMore site presents a better alternative to selling lots for homes and sites for commercial buildings That alternative is to lease lots through land leases A portion of the annual lease payments to the University would be used to fund a pool of base research money that, together with the facility itself could be used as match money to leverage larger research grants from federal, state and other sources for individual projects Land leases are common throughout the world, especially in Europe They have also been used here In Minnesota for affordable housing development The general approach can be grasped by understanding how the funding could be genes ated The cost of' finished lots and sites ready for development is usually composed of 1/3 for the raw land. 1/3 for construction of land improvements. and 1/3 for "soft" costs such as marketing. Interest, overhead and profit Since there would be no land cost with the and lease approach, no interest on land loans, and no profit, funds normally allocated for those uses could be used to fund the research seed pool This would be somewhere between 40% and 50% of the annual lease payment For affordable housing with comparable for -sale lots valued at $25,000, this would yield an annual average cash flow of about S1 million from 600 homes plus associated commercial sites This example is probably low because of the affordable housing assumption Not all homesites need to be for affordable housing In addition, after 30 years, the cost of site improvements and associated interest would drop away leaving the full land lease payment a'. ailable for research funding Note that this provides for a very long term funding source for the facility, because land leases often run for 99 years and are subject to renewal In this way, the UMore site presents a unique resource from which to build a research funding machine as well as a research facility Governance as Research Infrastructure The University of Minnesota is, among other things, the equivalent of a municipality in state law As such, it can establish planning zoning and building codes that would be conducive to experimentation such as that described above Many innovations in community design are shut out by conventional development controls and building standards One rich area of experimentation would thus be the structure of such controls for the site, which would, in turn, allow innovations to be fielded without having to contend with the cumbersome and unpredictable political process that serves as a barrier in most municipalities The power and value of this potential for "invisible" infrastructure cannot be overstated It would be unique in the state and nearly so nationally Governance of Communities. The process of land leasing can also be used to create a system of local governance for the communities created within UMore The lease can create a covenant between the University and the residents businesses, as well as among the residents and businesses A local government completely structured in the private sector could be used here rather than taking on the burden of the University acting like the local governing authonty The precedent for this is the new community of Seaside Florida, which used restrictive covenants to set up community associations as private corporate equivalents of precincts and a town council with elected representatives to govern the community Assuring residents' path to participating in county, state and federal governance has not yet been explored, nor have regulatory interactions with higher levels of government Governance of the Living Laboratory. Because of the many disciplines involved in such an enterprise, governance of the and committed to this laboratory and in its immediate context would require the establishment of a unique gm emance structure This would mean a transparent, participatory gos ernance structure that assures a procedure for consideration of protects to be included in the facility over time This will be necessary to protect and assure academic freedoms of the faculty of the University that wish to participate This nature and structure governance structure is itself a researchable question, as it w ould require something for which we have no clear precedent Maintenance and Repairs. Streets and utilities normally managed and mamtamed by municipalities can also be handled privately using the community governance structure described above In Seaside, this is done via contracts between the community associations and the Seaside Corporation, which acts like a public works department Police. fire protection and other such services can be contracted with the City of Rosemount All of these costs would be paid by the members of the community association(s) through assessments like those used by townhouse and condominium associations Immediate Request for Action. At this time two action items are requested 1 An expression of official interest and support to this current group of interested faculty to approach and engage other members of the University Faculty representative of other disciplines seen to be important to this idea 2 An indication of where acceptable locations for such a laboratory might be within the Umore site, from the point of view of the management group Evaluation of Infiltration Basins Infiltration basins are increasing being used to reduce surface runoff from urban watersheds Surface runoff is diverted into these basins Relatively large infiltration rates allow this water to be removed by subsurface flow paths Different designs have been proposed for infiltration basins The simplest designs consist of a single treatment chamber Subsurface drainage is sometimes incorporated to improve hydraulic efficiency More sophisicated designs use dual chambers, where the first chamber is used to treat pollutants that are easily removed by settling The use of vegetation to improve the effectiveness of the infiltration basin is often an important consideration The layout of a potential study to evaluate the impacts of infiltration basin is shown m Figure 1 A channel system is constructed so that surface runoff from Rosemount can be diverted into one or more infiltration basins Five separate basins are shown in Figure 1 and are given as examples of a possible experimental design This number could increase or decrease depending on the availability of space and financial resources, and the particular types of basin would be selected after the number has been determined Furthermore, it is not necessary to study simultaneously the response of all of the basins The size of each basin is partially dependent on the anticipated runoff In the hypothetical layout of Figure 1, the first two infiltration basin are used to evaluate a single chamber with and without subsurface dram tubes The other three basins are used to consider the effectiveness of dual chamber designs, with and without subsurface drainage The impact of vegetation is an important expenmental factor in these basins The myraid possible infiltration designs are too exhaustive to be examined by purely experimental studies The best long -term approach for these designs is to use process based models Current modeling approaches are limited by an inadequate understanding of important processes in the basins For example, the reduction in permeability by sediment deposition is an important but poorly understood process Additional research is also needed to incorporate vegetation into the design Vegetal growth and maintamence of different plant species are frequently neglected or inadequately represented in process -based models In addition to these issues, solutions to surface runoff problem often result in problems for ground water systems Experimental research is needed to ensure that infiltration basins do not adversely impact the adose zone and /or nearby aquifers Another important benefit of the proposed research is usefulness of the proposed research to educate practioners Demonstrations and field trips for engineers, city planners, developers, and other citizens are powerful vehicle for dessimmating research results Infiltration Basms Cross Section Rosemount ��noff Divert Runoff into Infiltration Basins Sand Filters/ Drain tubes Treatment Chamber Return Flow Surplus Runoff Water balance An annual water budget for the infiltration basins on a volumetric basis can be written as AS A A ET GW SD) where P is precipitation depth, ET is evapotranspiration depth, RO is the runoff depth from the watershed, GW is the depth of water discharged to ground water (subsurface) pathways, SD is the depth of water through surface flows, A w«d is the watershed area. A is the total surface areas of the infiltration basins, and AS is the change in stored water volume To simplify, we will assume that, on average, the annual change in storage is negligible We then obtain 13 ET GW SD_ Aw«aRO +t P P P A P Annual precipitation for the area is roughly 30 inches, typical annual runoff depth is 5 inches (i e RO/P 0 16) Solutions to the above equation for 5% 10 and 20% of RO/P are given on the next page Therefore if the surface area of infiltration basin is 10% of the watershed area, we conclude that 13 1 5, 2, and 3 for the three different runoff ratios Annual lake evaporation is approximately 36 inches (i e ET /P =1 2 for ponded conditions year round) For properly designed systems, the surface discharged depth on average, is likely small relative to the ET and GW By using these alues_ we then conclude that the water a\ ailable for infiltration from the basins are 9 inches, 24 inches, and 108 inches respectively C2 1 10 1 1 1• 1 1 1 1 10 A „a/A, RO /P 20 (6 m) 100 r gtot&J O yvieL 7 0 a7'Z U 1 vee v w carir o r