Source: Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier
By: Mike Anderson
CEDAR FALLS | The Pinnacle Prairie development is one step closer to reality.
The City Council approved an updated master plan for the 700-acre development during its Monday evening meeting.
The city required developers Merrill Oster and Lockard Development to update the plan to accommodate changes to the surrounding area’s land uses since the early 2000s, when the development was originally proposed.
Pinnacle Prairie sits within a mixed-use district, which allows for a variety of different property types, including residential and commercial properties.
The new plan has increased commercial uses for the property while also decreasing the amount of multifamily residences.
The previous plan included a Towne Center, absent in the updated master plan. The new plan also proposes seven miles of trails within the development, an increase of about four miles from the original plan.
The Pinnacle Prairie development sits on 700 acres north of Viking Road, behind the Wal-Mart and Blain’s Farm & Fleet. Bisected by the newly constructed Prairie Parkway, the property includes the Western Home Communities on 152 acres along Main Street, along with hundreds more acres parceled out into various commercial and residential subdivisions.
In other business, the council approved the second reading of an ordinance that will allow the city to conduct inspections for improperly connected sump pumps and footing drains.
The change is being undertaken as the result of an Environmental Protection Agency initiative to reduce sanitary sewer overflows.
The city needs to show it has a plan for reducing the overflows or face possible sanctions from the EPA.
Under the ordinance, the city will send out a notification to residences built after 1969 — the date sump pump and footing drain connections were made illegal in the city — to let them know they have 30 days to allow a city inspector onto the property or hire a private licensed plumber to conduct an inspection.
If the result of an inspection shows a property has illegal sanitary sewer connections, a second letter will go out notifying the owner he/she has 90 days to correct the problem.
Those in violation will then be required to divert excess storm water to the exterior of their residences via a hard tubing system estimated cost a few hundred dollars.
Any owners who fail to comply within the allotted time frames will be subject to a $100 per month surcharge on their sewer bills.
The ordinance requires one more reading by the city council before it is passed.