More updates regarding city projects were discussed at the The Clear Lake City Council meeting on Monday evening.
A rezoning request from Brandon and Dennis Hrbues of Lakeside Acres back in December was re-brought to the council’s attention this week by City Administrator Scott Flory.
The request was to rezone a parcel of property by expanding an existing high-density single-family residential (RS-12) district by changing a portion of an existing community commercial (CC-2) district to RS-12 zoning and an additional portion of CC-2 to intensive commercial (CI-1); and establishing a planned development housing overlay district (OPD-H zone) for the same.
Flory presented the motion to refer property owner’s request for rezoning to Planning & Zoning Commission for review and recommendation at the May 28 meeting and establishing June 3 as the public hearing on said proposal before the city council.
“As the landowner had presented a layout at the last meeting that the concept has changed quite a bit from the first iteration that was put forward,” Flory said. “A lot of sizes are different, screen configurations and layout are different and, of course, the makeup of the dwelling are being constructed within the development have changed from that first iteration.”
The motion was approved.
Flory also presented his city administrator’s report, starting with the Three Stars memorial sculpture.
They did sign an agreement with Brodin Studios of Kimball, Minn.
“They were very pleased to get that work and wanted to pass on to the council their enthusiasm for the project,” Flory said.
He also mentioned the kick-off meeting for the North Iowa Children’s Museum Feasibility Study, set for May 24 at 9 a.m.
Mayor Nelson Crabb, council member Creighton Schmidt and Flory will be representing the city at this event.
Flory finished his report with the issuance of the RFP for the immersive museum integration and content development piece for the Music Enrichment Center.
“We put that out and got some pretty good interest from potential bidders on this work,” Flory said. “Really excited about some of the work they’ve done elsewhere and what they could bring to our project.”
Flory will bring that back for the council’s review in a few weeks.
City Engineer Matt Steding spoke to the council regarding three city projects he oversees, beginning with the Ludvig Wangberg Municipal Bandshell & Lakeview Room Improvement Project.
“The painters for the Lakeview Room are in and they’re set to be finished this week,” Steding said. “They proposed to paint the piece behind the bandshell area but they moved the band equipment and got up there and got that painted. So they’re going to be on schedule as far as that goes.”
The flooring for the room is set to come on Friday and tile for the family restroom to come next week. Then electrical will be finishing their portion of the project. They are waiting on some casework to finish the kitchen area, hopefully on time with the project that is currently on schedule. The public restroom portions won’t move forward until after Labor Day and will remain open to the community for the events going on this summer.
The Street Water Tower Painting Project is finished as of Steding’s report this week. The entire project process will be finishing up in the next period.
“Tim Wilson with Dixon Engineering, the project manager on this project, gave me a call last week. He’s like ‘hey you need to strap up and climb this thing,’” Steding said. “So, I went over, put a harness on, and climbed up to the top. And I have to say that pictures do not do justice [to] standing on top of a million gallon water tower.”
Steding went on to praise the workers who had been working on the tower, strapping themselves up to the top and hanging off the side to do the sandblasting and painting.
“They’re out there risking their life, basically, and they did a really good job,” he said.
Steding returned to the podium once more after that for the Surf District Destination Iowa MEIC Improvement Project update.
“Right now they have the foundation dug, they got fill brought in and everything stabilized. They got the footings in. Those are being completed as we speak and they’re pretty much wrapped up,” Steding said.
Weather has delayed some tasks for the project, creating less than ideal conditions for the work they are doing, but things should be moving ahead.
“I think you’ll really start to see things take place here in next few weeks,” Steding said.
The city council’s next regular meeting will be June 3 at 5:30 p.m.
