Anoka County, in conjunction with the City's of Ramsey and Anoka, has initiated a project to expand CSAH 116 (Bunker Lake Blvd) to a four-lane divided roadway between Germanium and Basalt Streets to accommodate current and future traffic in a safe and efficient manner.  Sound generated from traffic currently on the corridor, and expected in the future, has the potential to create noise that could impact properties along CSAH 116 and CSAH 57 (Sunfish Lake Blvd).

 

As a condition of using federal funding for the proposed project, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) requires the County to analyze environmental issues related to the proposed roadway expansion.  One of the issues that the County must analyze is traffic noise.  To better understand existing and future noise conditions in the project area, the County hired a consultant to complete the required noise analysis.  Results of the analysis indicate that there are three areas in the project area where noise walls are cost-effective and adequately reduce noise.  The three areas include:

Once it was determined that these three barriers were feasible and reasonable, property owners directly impacted by the proposed barriers were notified.  In early October the County sent out informational packets about the proposed barrier to property owners impacted by a potential barrier.  The packet provided information about the proposed barriers and invited property owners to attend a meeting on October 20, 2010 to find out more details.  Also included in the packet was a letter for the property owner to vote whether or not they wanted a noise barrier.  Property owners were to submit their vote by November 8th.  The vote letter indicated that if a property owner failed to vote on a proposed barrier, it would count as a “no” vote.

 

Attendance at the October 20th meeting was poor, with only two property owners in attendance.  The resulting vote on the barrier was poor, with only one or two votes per barrier received being.  The FHWA was concerned about the poor response and directed the County to contact by telephone property owners to determine whether or not they wanted a barrier.  The County attempted to track down telephone numbers for those that did not respond via letter.  A number of the property owners did not have a land line – they used cell phones, so those numbers were not easily obtainable.  A few additional votes were gathered as part of this process.  The results were presented to the FHWA and they directed the County to send a second letter via certified mail to the property owners asking for a “yes” or “no” vote by December 17, 2010.  Failure to respond would not count as a vote either way – it was neutral.

Responses that were received by all of the methods identified above resulted in a majority of “yes” votes for noise barriers in two of the potential locations – Areas 2 and 3 (along the north side of CSAH 116).  The votes received for Area 1 resulted in a tie; two votes were cast in favor of a noise barrier and two votes cast against a noise barrier.  The remaining (four) property owners did not respond.

 

The County then conducted a public hearing for the project on January 10, 2011.  Notices were sent out in advance for the hearing, and generally speaking the meeting was well attended.  There were more property owners at this meeting than the previous public open house.  Unfortunately, nobody who owned property in the Area 1 noise barrier location who had not voted was in attendance.

 

In one last attempt to get property owner input, the County contacted the manager of the development to see if they had any additional contact information for the property owners.  The County was able to obtain a few additional telephone numbers.  A message was left for two of the property owners and the other two numbers were either disconnected or belonged to someone other than the property owner.

 

Because the final vote resulted in a tie the next step is to take the information to the elected board of the affected City, and therefore the City Council is being asked to break the tie vote and either vote “yes” in favor of a wall being constructed or “no” against a wall being constructed.