votewojcik.org

A heart felt thanks to the 500+ volunteers that planted 1400+ trees on 5/5/12.  Your selfless determination has made a change to our built environment that will be apparent for the next 100 years.

People have different skill sets, but everybody found a way to help.  Many of you dug and planted trees, but others that were not able to do that found other ways of participating.  What an amazing event and an amazing group of people.

Great work everybody.  Read the rest of this entry »

Thank you to Bill Bruins for providing this link that shows some urban design contrasts involving complete streets and street trees.

This is still 20 minutes, but I cut 75% of the hearing out.

In short, myself and Randy Staver didn’t feel the variance met the legal standard.  Ed Hruska, Bruce Snyder, and Dennis Hanson, have never supported this.  Mark Bilderback and Sandra Means were willing to go along with the variance. Compromise passed 7-0 so we all suck equally.

Northwest Investments (Kwik Trip) will plant fewer trees, leave West Circle Drive treeless, donate trees to RNeighborwoods.  The variance request also removed power from the city forester, but we were able to restore that.

Edit, I see some video is missing so I will try to fix that.

Edit 2, Should be fixed.

Here is a link to an article that mentions a technology that we may use in urban areas.

Urban Trees

Those benefits, including reduced energy costs and better storm-water control, have been shown to march in lockstep with the size of trees.

“We tell municipalities that trees are as much a part of their infrastructure as the gas line, the sidewalk and the light pole,” says Mr. James, who is based in Vancouver. “And as such they belong not just to the arborist, but to the roads engineer, the streets engineer and the storm-water engineer.”

DeepRoot was founded in the United States in the 1970s with one product, a root barrier system that forces roots to grow down, not out, lessening the possibility of tree roots buckling pavement and sidewalks.

Over time, working with American landscape architect James Urban, the company developed the Silva Cell, a system designed to help nurture big trees in urban environments based on research that shows larger trees provide exponentially greater benefits than smaller ones. A 2010 report for the City of Toronto, for example, found a tree that’s 75 centimetres in diameter intercepts 10 times more air pollution, stores up to 90 times more carbon and contributes up to 100 times more leaf area to the city’s canopy than a 15-centimetre tree.

Here is an update, nothing but street tree compromise.

Here are the gory details of the compromise struck in a smoke [stack ribs] filled room.  Despite a few complaints the citizen initiated policy is popular, effective, and badly needed.  Developers wanted more flexibility and got it.  Citizens wanted strong scientific based standards, and they were maintained.  I presented some background information and listed 4 points of agreement. Read the rest of this entry »

I also sent out this same letter via email.  Here is what I wrote:

Dear Rochester Pedestrian, Cyclist, or Supporter,

If you are receiving this note directly from me, it is because you have contacted me on pedestrian / bicycle issue, are a part of the local growing cycling community, or your name was given to me.  I intend to use this network as issues come up.  I will not spam your inboxes but will send action alerts.  If you do not want to be involved in our collective efforts, let me know and I will remove you from my list. Read the rest of this entry »

First an update, while the weather in May and June was not particularly nice for us humans, it was great for newly planted trees.  As such I checked a few streets up in the NW and it appears that better than 95% of the trees are doing well.  This is good news after much poorer numbers last year in the Country Club Manor area, in part due to vandals.

I was sent an analysis by 3 students (Peggy Buehler, Neomi Runyon, Holly Berg) who looked at how much money we saved by doing a community planting.  In short, this is a great way to plant trees and improve neighborhoods. I fully expect they got an “A.”

Community Tree Planting Event reflection

Community Tree Planting

Here is the video, you can watch the entire video online at www.rochestermn.gov  I shortened the 1 hour discussion to about 14 minutes.  You can hear how the council is willing to compromise.  My guess it that we should expect tree lined streets and trails with visibility openings for signage when all is said and done.

• Northwest Investments is a different business than Kwik Trip, but is the same ownership group.  Kwik Trip has done a pretty responsible job in Rochester.  I’d love to see more urban designs in our city core and less of those ugly plastic signs in the boulevard, but as gas stations go they are as good as anyone.
• It is important to realize that the city council did not weaken our standards, but development has gone ahead anyway.
• There is some discussion about 35 ft. standards for commercial developments vs. 50 ft. for residential; this is actually the the same standard.  Staff studied this and found that a 50 ft. standard in residential area equates to the very same recommended 35 ft. due to increased utilities and curb cuts.
• Mayo and Menards have also come forward with developments and have no expressed any concern with the tree standards.

There are two fundamental views of economic development.  First you can try to be as cheap as possible with low standards, low wages, poor benefits, heavy subsidies, and no quality of life.  Many southern states have tried this strategy and have poor education, environment, healthcare, and quality of life.  It is a never ending race to the bottom.

The other way is to try to compete by being the best you can be and being a place where people want to or need to locate.  This is perfect or Rochester because we have unique skills, resources, and businesses.  One of the best ways to do this is a concept called placemaking. Read the rest of this entry »