Mark said, "Obviously the town is going to grow, but people like the feel we've got now with the existing wood-lands and vegetation, so people still think this is somewhat rural.  We've got pockets of multifamily but not so that people know it.  Most of the other communities are going to look like each other.  Victoria will look different.'

Platted v. Built Lots
In planning and preparing for growth in the City of Victoria and, subsequently, sewer capacity from the Metropolitan Council, Victoria city planners created a chart that identifies platted lots versus built lots.  Platted lots are those lots totally approved by the city; they can be built upon at any time.  Built lots have homes on them and are already using the sewer system.
The planners pointed out the advan-tages of targeting an average number of platted lots in the city at the beginning of each calendar year, and therefore the number of units that can hook up to the sewer at any time that year.
"We're not saying this is the only way to do things," said Mark.  "It is probably not an exact science as to how we are going to allocate units and control growth."
The chart indicates that the City of Victoria has 348 platted, vacant, residen-tial lots as of January 1^st, 2005, including 200 lots in the new Lundgren develop-ment called Laketown.  Additional lots projected to be platted during 2005 number 267.
According to the planners, the average annual absorption rate is 60%.  In other words, approximately 60% of platted lots in January should turn into built lots within one year.  Using that figure (348) the city should expect to build 212 units in 2005.
The chart also indicated that the City of Victoria has four developments in various stages of approval, including the Gallery, Krey Lakes, Rhapsody, and Madelyn Creek.  If all of them were approved as submitted, it would add up to 796 residential units.
Stated Eric, "We want 250 platted lots at the beginning of each year."
Over the next few years, up to and including 2010, the charts indicate that Victoria can build a total of 853 residential units.  "If nobody comes in with new property, everybody today could build everything they want," said Mark.  "We have a pretty broad ability to control growth, including a moratorium."
At the same time he said that the city should not be afraid to approve prelimin-ary plats because this will give developers assurance that their development will happen at some point.  But the city could hold off on approval of final plats of the various phases of a development in order to not exceed designated plat numbers for the year.
There was some discussion about un-developed and unplatted land within the City of Victoria - such as the Tony Kerber and Jerry Michel property -- that already has infrastructure available and does not require the construction of new trunk sewer lines or major roads.
There was discussion about having sewer capacity available for business and commercial properties in the city.  Planner Kaltsas said 15% of the city's capacity has been designated for commercial and 10% for high density.

REVIEWING ENGINEERING FEES
ARE THEY OUT OF LINE IN VICTORIA?
Because some developers have com-plained about the high cost of engineering fees in the City of Victoria, Admin-istrator Steve Sarvi gathered comparative data from other communities.  That data was presented to councilmembers at a January 24^th workshop.
The questions posed by Mayor Jerry Bohn were:  "Are our costs indeed higher?  Are our approval times longer?"  The city's engineering firm is TKDA; its consultant for Victoria is Jack Griffin.
Administrator Sarvi said he collected information from Lakeville, Savage, Wac-onia, and engineers from Bolton Menk.  He reported that 10% of the total cost of a project seems to be about the industry standard for engineering fees paid by the developer, "but there are a lot of variables."
In the City of Victoria the engineer-ing fees average 4.1%.  "As an industry standard, 4% is low," said Steve who averaged engineering fees on 26 recent projects in Victoria.  On total improve-ment costs of $14,308,153, developers in Victoria paid a total of $586,524 in engineering costs.
Stated Steve, "We did find out that the smaller the developer, the higher the engineering costs, but we don't believe they are out of line.  We don't hear the same kind of complaints from large devel-opers."
He said that the City of Victoria tries to catch issues at the front of a project so they don't come back to haunt the city after a developer leaves town.
Said Mark Kaltsas, the city's plan-ning consultant, "We give a lot of atten-tion to the sketch plat phase because that's where we can give a lot of direction.  Scheduling meetings and notification takes a lot of time.  We're actually not charging developers enough.  Several cities charge two and half times the city staff time.  We charge straight time."
Continued Mark, "We're putting a much higher detail upfront to prevent headaches down the road when the developer is gone."  As an example he said there are drain tiles in some people's backyards that the city didn't know exist-ed so nobody, including the homeowner, maintains them.  Yet the homeowner wants the city to foot the bill to repair or replace.  With upfront engineering and attention, such things are less likely to happen.
Mark also said that some trails in the city, which were constructed before TKDA was hired as the city engineer, have crumbled. 
The Victoria Planning Commission will be consulted for advice and sugges-tions about the possibility of eliminating a step or two in the sketch plat, preliminary plat, or final plat process.
Stated Administrator Sarvi, "We don't want taxpayers paying for a devel-opment."

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