River Heights panel adopts corrected minutes, hears transportation-plan recommendation

The River Heights Planning and Zoning Commission on Jan. 27 adopted corrected minutes from its Jan. 13 meeting and moved a fuller discussion of the city’s transportation master plan earlier in the agenda.

Noel, a city planning staff member, reported that a Jan. 26 meeting with consultants and other staff produced a recommendation “that the transportation plan be adopted as it is, and with a provision that they add the cap to the cap improve it, possibly, the 600 South.” He also summarized the study’s key conclusion that “all of our streets are handled traffic for the next 5 and 20 years as acceptable,” per the draft plan.

Commissioners reviewed several editorial corrections to the minutes — including naming the River Heights City Master Transportation Plan explicitly and striking or revising references to specific road segments — and approved a motion from Noel to adopt the minutes with those changes and to move the transportation discussion earlier on the agenda. The motion was seconded and the commission voted in favor.

During the transportation discussion, Noel and commissioners clarified that some road segments (for example, portions of 600 East and 10th East) cross city and county jurisdictional lines; Noel noted that the plan references an existing city resolution opposing the alternate alignment for “200 East” through Riverdale. Commissioners asked staff to tidy inconsistent numeric values in the draft (street-class widths listed as 60 vs. 66 feet in different paragraphs) and to make clear which streets are city-maintained versus county-maintained.

Noel said the commission should take the opportunity to review the general plan in tandem with the transportation plan; he flagged that accessory dwelling units (ADUs) are not presently addressed in the general plan and recommended a future public hearing and a coordinated review of both documents.

The commission did not take a final vote on the master transportation plan at this meeting; staff agreed to make the technical edits and return materials for further review.