JILL SCHRAMM/MDN A short section of Fourth Street Southwest, shown from the stop sign at Western Avenue to the stop sign at Second Avenue, would become a one-way under a plan advanced by the Minot City Council April 20.

A block of Fourth Street Southwest on the west side of Broadway would become a one-way under a plan supported by the Minot City Council Monday, April 20.

The council approved ordinances on first reading that create the one-way on Fourth Street between Western and Second avenues, which runs on the back side of First Baptist Church, and that reduce the speed limit on Second Avenue Southwest from 25 to 20 mph.

The changes were designed to maintain safety while accommodating a church building addition proposed at the corner of Fourth Street and Second Avenue.

City Engineer Lance Meyer told the council that sight distance issues became apparent when the church brought its building plans to the city. He said buildings typically are set back far enough from the street to avoid visibility issues.

“However, in this old plat from 1889, what happens is the land was platted without regard to topography. So, where we have Second Avenue is actually just a bunch of city-owned lots of land that were required to thread a street through there. What ends up happening then is the property line on this particular parcel – where the church is – is right on the back of the sidewalk. Because it is Central Business District zoning, by right, they’re allowed to build right up to the property line, so the building would be right on the sidewalk,” Meyer said.

Intersections of Second Avenue with Third and Fourth streets and with the nearby Minot Municipal Auditorium driveway all had visibility conflicts with the proposed building due to horizontal and vertical roadway curves, he said.

After a couple of months of working with various stakeholders on a solution, the Engineering Department’s fix at Fourth Street was to turn a small section of the street into a one-way going south.

“It’s a very low volume roadway. The detour around if you wanted to go northbound is a half a block over to Third Street,” Meyer said.

The conflict at Third Street and Second Avenue appeared more challenging, Meyer said.

“But the solution ended up being fairly simple,” he said. “If you reduce the speed limit on that stretch of the roadway by only five miles an hour, it changes the geometry of the sight distance triangles that we have to calculate and, really, with minimal changes to the building’s footprint, which they were already planning on adjusting anyway, we were able to make all of this work.”

The council voted unanimously to move forward with the crafted solutions.

In other business, the council heard from Principal Planner Doug Diedrichsen regarding the status of a review of the city’s extraterritorial area (ETA). Preliminary recommendations from the staff analysis propose working with Ward County to cede certain agricultural properties with low development potential back to the county.

Staff recommend the city maintain its jurisdiction over development along major corridors, where expansion is likely to occur.

“We do recommend that we annex our city-owned properties adjacent to the lagoon to try to get land use control in an area surrounding our critical infrastructure,” Diedrichsen said. “And we would recommend that we would expand the ETA northeast of the airport along 46th (Avenue) so that we could have control over our major corridors and future corridors.”

Another recommendation is to expand the ETA only as much as necessary when annexing property. Diedrichsen suggested ending the ETA at a property or parcel line so the owner is either in or out. He cited the existing situation at the Dakota Boys & Girls Ranch, where part of the property is in Minot’s zoning jurisdiction and part in Burlington’s.

The council took no action on the recommendations. Nor was action taken on items presented by residents during a public comment period.

Judy Nelson questioned why the city carries insurance to cover damages from failed infrastructure. Her home’s basement was damaged on March 17 when a city water line broke and again on March 18 when the line broke a second time following the city’s earlier repair. She said her homeowner’s insurance denied coverage, and the city’s carrier, the North Dakota Insurance Reserve Fund, also rejected her claim on the grounds the city did nothing wrong, leaving her with thousands of dollars in recovery costs.

The council will meet Wednesday, April 22, at 4 p.m. to discuss the matter in executive session.

Melissa Wright with Arny’s 2.0 addressed a previous decision of the council to revise the city’s rules for special event permits for liquor licensees. She said the council’s decision was unjustly targeted at her because she operated Off the Vine under a special use permit for a few weeks to complete the licensing year after buying the business. She said Off the Vine has been closed for remodeling, and she is in conversation with the city regarding a license.

Some of the council’s concern over special event permits had centered around license holders operating two businesses under one license.

“That was never my intention,” Wright said. “To be called out and unable to respond to some of that, I feel, is wrong.”

She suggested the city hire a compliance officer to educate bar owners and enforce local laws.