At last night’s City Council meeting, the City Council authorized staff to proceed with the preparation of an Environmental Assessment Worksheet (EAW) for the proposed Prospect Road project. Part of Prospect Road already exists. It currently intersects with Spring Road south of Grace Church. It is the primary access road for one of the new Hennepin Village developments. I snapped the middle photo of the current end of Prospect Road in July. This view is looking west. The photo on the right is a view of the future route of Prospect Road looking east from its future planned intersection at Eden Prairie Road.
Concerns have been raised about the Prospect Road project because the road will cut through area that is currently quite scenic. The road must also cross a creek which is planned to be routed through a culvert. These are two environmental concerns raised by citizens.
The road is important to City staff for two reasons. From a transportation viewpoint, the road will introduce an East-West connecting street from Eden Prairie Road to Spring Road, which are the two primary North-South streets serving southern Eden Prairie. From a public safety viewpoint, the road is important because it provides Police and Fire services a second way to access the current Hennepin Village development off of Spring Road and the future Hennepin Village development on Eden Prairie Road. Two methods of access to developments of 100+ housing units is important for Police and Fire to serve the area safely.
The Council’s action last night asked staff to research the environmental concerns and to present the findings of the research back to the Council in the Environmental Assessment Worksheet (EAW) format. An EAW is a report format that requires staff to answer a number of standard questions about a proposed development of land. In this case, in addition to the standard questions, staff will also be researching the impact of crossing the creek with a small bridge rather than the planned culvert. We will also be studying the potential hydrology impacts of the this project on the Miller Spring.
Staff will starting the EAW process immediately. We believe this issue will come back to the Council sometime early next year.
