REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL

 

Updating the

City of Northfield

Comprehensive Plan

And

Land Development Regulations

 

THE REQUEST

The City of Northfield, Minnesota, is requesting proposals from consulting firms to provide consulting services for:

 

1.        Major revision to the City’s Comprehensive Plan.

2.        A comprehensive revision to the City’s Land Development Regulations.

 

The City has previously requested “Statement of Qualifications” and has short-listed the original pool of 18 consulting firms/teams to six that are being given further consideration. 

 

The City is seeking qualified consulting firms that have had experience in preparing and updating City Comprehensive Plans and/or preparing zoning ordinances and subdivision regulations for municipalities.

 

The City of Northfield may select one consulting firm or a team of firms that bid on either or both parts of the project.  The City may select one firm or a team to perform the entire project or it may select separate firms or teams to perform the two parts of the project as a joint venture.

 

THE BUDGET

The City has funding set aside in the 2006 budget to begin this project.  The preliminary budget for 2007 will be established by the City Council in September 2006.  The budget for the Community Development Department will contain a funding proposal for the completion of the revision to the Comprehensive Plan and Land Development Regulations.  It is the expectation of Staff that the existing funding in the fiscal year 2006 budget, plus the budget proposal for 2007, will contain sufficient funds to enable a thorough and accurate effort at updating the plan and regulations for the City.   It is the intent of the City to enter into a contract for services with the selected consultant no later than November 1, 2006. 

 

PREVIOUS PLANS AND ORDINANCES

As stated earlier in the “Request for Qualifications”, the City of Northfield has long been involved in City planning, zoning and subdivision administration.   The first Comprehensive Plan for the City of Northfield was adopted and made effective in 1966.  Since the adoption of the first Comprehensive Plan of the City, there have been numerous revisions and plan updates.  The chronology of plan adoption by the City is listed as follows:

 

1966 – Original Comprehensive Plan

1977 – Major update to the Comprehensive Plan

1988 – Major update to the Comprehensive Plan

2001 – Major update to the Comprehensive Plan

 

The administration of development regulations in Northfield dates back to the early 1930s.  Since that time, countless revisions have occurred with major amendments in 1966, 1974, 1981, 1986 and 2003. 

 

In the five-year time space since the Comprehensive Plan update, several significant events or patterns of development have occurred.  These include:

 

• Continued growth and development in the City and with that a desire to retain to a greater degree the traditional development patterns and charm that has attracted residents to the City for many years.  City leaders would like to retain the charm that has been the history of the City and not imitate suburban sprawl and character.

 

• Significant focus has been placed on commercial revitalization in an effort to expand the commercial viability of the downtown commercial center of the City.  New significant residential condominium development and streetscape improvements have brought a renewal of the downtown area.

 

• The need to have a greater degree of interrelationship between the City’s Comprehensive Plan and other policy documents of the City, including the Land Development Regulations.

 

• The creation of various policy documents.  Recently, the City’s Water Plan was completed, as was a Natural Resources Inventory, a Downtown Streetscape Framework Plan, and a downtown building design guidelines book and an Economic Development Plan.  Other documents underway include a Greenway Corridor Plan, Sanitary Sewer Plan nearing completion, an arts, culture and entertainment plan (“ArtsPlan 06”), and in the near future a Transportation Plan and Storm Water Management Plan. 

 

Many other issues will no doubt surface as the plan and regulation updates progress. 

 

THE PROJECT

The project for which the City is seeking consultant services involves two basic parts.  They include:

 

1.        Major revision to the City’s Comprehensive Plan.

2.        A comprehensive revision to the City’s Land Development Regulations.

 

Updating the Comprehensive Plan and rewriting the Land Development Regulations have been long-time goals of the Community Development Department.  The timing of this project grew out of support from the Planning Commission and the City Council.  The Commission has been reviewing the current Comprehensive Plan chapter by chapter to identify the most important portions of the Plan needing revision.  The City Council has identified the revision of the Comprehensive Plan and Land Development Regulations as one of its top goals for 2006-2007. The City of Northfield is NOT under the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Council.                                    

 

 

 

Purpose

 

The Comprehensive Plan of the City serves as the fundamental guide to the Planning Commission and City Council in their development of the physical environment of the City.  The plan articulates the comprehensive policy of the City regarding land use and development.   The Land Development Regulations are the primary regulatory method the City uses to ensure that the development policies of the City are implemented. 

 

Recent Partial Plan Update

 

In mid-2005, the City retained a demographic consultant to revise the City’s population projections (Chapter 4 of the Comprehensive Plan).  Since May 2006 the City’s Planning Commission has also been reviewing the various chapters of the Comprehensive Plan to clarify which chapters are most in need of revision.   The Commission expects to have reviewed the following chapters by the time the RFP’s are received:  Chapter 3 (Vision and Guiding Principles), Chapter 5 (Retail and Industrial Demand), Chapter 6 (Community Identity), Chapter 7 (Land Use), Chapter 8 (Transportation), Chapter 9 (Housing), and Chapter 10 (Environmental Protection).  The goal of the Commission and Staff is to provide a comprehensive listing of Plan revisions to the consultant at the beginning of the project.  Therefore, the update of the Comprehensive Plan may require less effort than the update to the Land Development Regulations. 

 

Ordinance Update

 

The City’s Land Development Regulations include a zoning ordinance and subdivision regulations, as well as miscellaneous regulations relating to the building code, historic district, annexation, and site plan review.  The zoning ordinance of the City contains provisions that were first enacted over 40 years ago.  Although the zoning ordinance has served the City well, countless revisions and amendments have occurred that make the administration and enforcement of the ordinance difficult. Because of the extent to which the original ordinance has been amended, the continuity of the City’s zoning philosophy and the original thrust of the development regulations of the City have become greatly fragmented. 

 

The subdivision regulations have not been modified as extensively as the zoning ordinance, yet a revision to the regulations is still seen as important to the City. 

 

In general, the changes to these Land Development Regulations should accomplish, among other things, the following:

 

• Creating a greater interrelationship and consistency between the Land Development Regulations and the Comprehensive Plan, the Building Code, the sign regulations, and other development regulations of the City. 

 

• Create Land Development Regulations that responds to current planning and design practices, such as sustainability, new urbanism, traditional neighborhood design, and is appropriate to the development culture of Northfield.  

 

• Improve the administration and enforceability of the regulations by making the regulatory policy of the City clearer.  

 

• Improving the ordinances from the standpoint of making them more “customer friendly” and not pose an undue obstacle for the economic development initiatives of the City. 

 

• Improving clarity and streamlining, where possible, the procedural requirements of the ordinances.

 

Simply put, the City desires a series of development requirements that are clear to understand and relatively easy to administer, while at the same time accomplishing the planning and development policies and objectives stated in the Comprehensive Plan. The City of Northfield is seeking to enhance many of the identity elements of the City that make Northfield such an attractive and inviting community by continuing to create distinctive neighborhoods that reflect the traditional charm of the City.  The regulations should emphasize the importance of building form and their relationship to the public realm while providing a greater degree of use mixture. Creating appeal and interest in new development that includes identifiable design distinctiveness and special places and linkages to the broader community are the expectations and outcomes of the plan and regulation update. 

 

Geographic Area

 

The City of Northfield, located in both Rice and Dakota Counties, is positioned in the southeast part of the state and is a short 45-minute drive from the downtowns of Minneapolis and St. Paul. 

 

The area to be included in this Comprehensive Plan revision project includes the area within the corporate limits of the City, plus the areas beyond the City limits identified as the “priority growth areas” and “urban expansion areas” on the Future Land Use map of the 2001 Comprehensive Plan.   A critical feature of the Comprehensive Plan is to outline a clear and workable relationship between the City of Northfield and the surrounding governmental jurisdictions.  The Land Development Regulations at present relate only to the area within the corporate limits of the City of Northfield.

 

Proposed Schedule

 

The City expects to select a consultant in late September 2006.  A Scope of Work and Professional Service Agreement are expected to be approved by the City Council in October 2006. The duration of this project is not expected to take more than 12 months and should be complete by December 2007.  

 

SUBMITTAL OF PROPOSAL

The City desires to protect its traditional patterns of development, as well as create appropriate patterns of development in its future growth areas.  The first step in addressing these issues will be to confirm that the Comprehensive Plan clearly and concisely states this goal. After that step has been completed, the City expects to create a greater degree of consistency between the plan and the Land Development Regulations.  Therefore, the City requests that the consultant provide information in their Proposal in the following three areas: 

 

Revision of Land Development Regulations

 

The consultant is requested to describe their approach to achieving these goals:

• Innovative and easily administered ordinances.   The City has a strong desire to protect its traditional patterns of development, as well as create appropriate patterns of development in its in future growth areas.  As such, the City is eager to investigate form based codes, or other innovative ordinance techniques, to incorporate into its Land Development Regulations.   In order to accomplish its goal of providing excellent customer service, new ordinances should be easy to understand and administer.
• Neighborhood planning.   In order to protect and establish unique areas within Northfield, the City would like to investigate the possibility of establishing distinct neighborhoods.  Currently, the City has not used this method of City planning. 
• Mixed land use planning.  The City desires to see a mix of land uses, including not only a mix of housing types in a residential development, but also a mix of residential and commercial land uses.
• Site design guidelines.   For those areas outside the historic area, the City is seeking to have clear and concise site plan and building design guidelines that are found in traditional neighborhoods (non-suburban model) for both residential and commercial land uses. 

 

Management of Citizen Participation

 

The update of the Comprehensive Plan and revisions to the Land Development Regulations is expected to occur with a focus to implementation and decision making.  In order for this effort to be truly successful, an effective, yet managed, citizen participation process must be incorporated into the overall process. 

 

Northfield is a City of diversity with 5,000 college students in addition to the resident population, when combined with the two colleges that totals over 18,000 inhabitants. 

 

In addition, there is an active Chamber of Commerce, a commercial betterment association representing the downtown commercial area, and an active development community.  In addition, the City has enjoyed a close working relationship with College officials on development issues that affect both the City and the two private colleges. 

 

The City would also like to have an effective planning relationship with Rice and Dakota Counties, the adjacent City of Dundas, and the four townships that surround the City.  

 

The City of Northfield believes that a valuable educational opportunity exists when a City prepares or updates the City’s Comprehensive Plan and Land Development Regulations.  The City is interested in an active process whereby the consultant would challenge the citizenry  and the elected and appointed officials of the City to describe fundamental values relative to development, redevelopment, density, land use compatibility, development quality, and other fundamental aspects of the make up of a City. 

 

Given this environment, consultants are asked to detail an effective, managed citizen participation process that may include, but not be limited to:

 

• Efforts to involve those not traditionally involved in the formation of the Comprehensive Plan and Land Development Regulations: developers, builders, architects and other design professionals doing business in the City, as well as residents living in newly developed areas of the City.

 

• Efforts to provide for cooperation among various stakeholders:  County Staff, township board officials, City of Dundas Staff, and Staff from Carleton and St. Olaf Colleges. 

 

Proposals should detail the citizen participation methodology including frequency of meetings and intent.  It is an anticipated that the Community Development Department Staff, as well as members of the Planning Commission and/or City Council, will be the main participants (the “work group”) in the Comprehensive Plan update and the revision to the Land Development Regulations.  In past planning efforts that have occurred, the use of citizen advisory committees have been used along with other methods of citizen involvement.  Although this approach to citizen participation should not be ruled out, the City is seeking proposals that engage citizens and other interest groups but maintain a focus on the responsibility of the Planning Commission and City Council as the primary advisory and policy-making organizations of City government.

 

In an effort to optimize the citizen participation process, the Staff of the Community Development Department is prepared to assist and augment the process.  Consultants are requested to detail how the City Staff might be incorporated into the citizen participation process.

 

When needed, the City Council and Planning Commission will meet in a joint session to facilitate the preparation of the Comprehensive Plan and Land Development Regulations.

 

Consultant Costs

 

As part of the submittal information in the Proposal, the City expects consultants to indicate the cost either in absolute price proposed or a price range.  This information along with the other factors that are listed in the RFP will be used to identify those consultants that will be asked to attend a selection interview process.  Please note that the interview committee will not only review the cost estimate provided by each consultant, but will also place a high value on the end product that the consultant will provide.  As such, the interview committee is not necessarily looking to interview only low bidders.  

 

INFORMATION AVAILABLE

As part of the RFP

 

The City of Northfield currently has copies of the Comprehensive Plan and Land Development Regulations on the City’s website: http://www.ci.northfield.mn.us/.

 

As part of the Project

 

The City of Northfield has a fully developed system of maps and background information that will be made available to the consultant selected for this project.   The Water and Sanitary Sewer plan maps will be available in ArcView format from the City’s Geographic Information Systems (GIS) consultant with no additional costs.  The City’s storm water plan is available in Autocad only.

 

In addition, the City’s Water Plan was recently completed, as was a Natural Resources Inventory, an Economic Development Plan, a Downtown Streetscape Framework Plan, and a downtown historic district design guidelines book.  Other documents underway include a Sanitary Sewer Plan nearing completion, Greenway Corridor Action Plan, Housing Plan, an arts, culture and entertainment plan (“ArtsPlan 06”), and in the near future a Transportation Plan and Storm Water Management Plan. 

 

DELIVERABLES TO BE RECEIVED

Preliminary Documents

 

The consultant is expected to furnish a sufficient number of hard copies of the preliminary documents for the “work group”, as outlined in the consultant’s citizen participation plan, noted above. 

 

Final documents

 

All maps are to be provided in GIS, compatible with ESRI ArcGIS products, and all data files should be in Rice County’s coordinate system.  Maps and data should be furnished on a CD or DVD, and at the end of the project the City will own both the maps and data associated with the maps and these maps should be delivered to the City in their original GIS format.  Maps should be converted directly from GIS to PDF and submitted in addition to the final Comprehensive Plan document to preserve the clarity of the text on the PDF maps.   

 

The documents, including maps, figures, and tables, should also be furnished on CD in Microsoft word, as well as PDF, and the consultant is requested to provide three copies of any CD’s or DVD’s and 25 hard copies of the Comprehensive Plan, in color.  The Land Development Regulations should follow the required styles of the Municipal Code Corporation (“Municode”), and the consultant should provide two hard copies of the revised Regulations.

 

CONSULTANT CONTRACT

The City of Northfield retains consultant services on the basis of a lump sum cost-not-to- exceed contract.  The Consultant selected will be requested to prepare the Scope of Work and the Professional Services Agreement (contract) for review and approval by the City. 

 

THE SELECTION PROCESS

This Request for Proposals (RFP) is the second step in a three-part selection process.  From the RFPs, the City will select firms or teams to interview.  Based on the interviews and the proposals, the City will award a contract, or contracts, for the conduct of the work.  Interviews will take place in September 2006 with work under the contract to begin no later than November 1^st. 

 

The consultant interviews will be the third step in the selection process.  The City of Northfield has created a committee of six (6) individuals that will be responsible for interviewing consulting companies on the basis of the proposals submitted.  These individuals include the City Administrator, Community Development Director, City Planner, and Parks and Resource Planner.  One City Council member and one Planning Commission member will also be on the interview committee.  Upon completion of the interviews, a selection will be made and all remaining consultants will be notified of the decision. 

 

SELECTION CRITERIA

Consulting firms, or teams, that submit proposals will be evaluated for further consideration on the basis of the following criteria.

 

• Qualifications.   Consulting firms, or teams, will be evaluated on the basis of experience in performing similar projects.  Specific attention will be directed to similar projects in college communities of a similar size to Northfield.  References will be used to assist in this criteria. 

 

• Understanding of Project.  Consulting firms, or teams, will be evaluated on the basis of how well the consultant communicated an understanding of the planning and ordinance project outlined in this RFP.  The dynamics of the project relative to the importance of planning, as a guide to decision making, the importance of informing decision makers and the general citizenry, and effective citizen participation will be a key factor in the evaluation.

 

• Approach to Project.  Proposals will be evaluated on how the proposed project meets the objectives of the City.  Additionally, the coordination of the two tasks that make up the project will also be considered closely.  A review of the project approach will be evaluated from a standpoint of managing citizen participation opportunities, meetings with Staff and other City officials at critical times of the process, and the overall time frame to complete the project. 

 

• Quality of work.   Proposals will be judged on the apparent quality of work performed in similar situations.  References will be used to determine the consultant’s ability to communicate effectively, keep the project on schedule, and deliver the results expected.     

 

• Personnel.  Proposals will be evaluated on the personnel assigned to the project.  Specific attention will be placed on personnel who have similar project experience and qualifications to perform the tasks outlined in the RFP.

 

• Value. The selection committee will evaluate proposals on the basis of the level of work, and assistance provided to the City in relation to the proposed cost of the project as proposed by the consultant. 

 

The review of the proposals must provide sufficient detail to enable the review committee to evaluate the proposal on the basis of the criteria listed above. 

 

SUBMITTAL REQUIREMENTS

All consulting firms must submit their proposal to the City by 5:00 p.m. (Central Standard Time), Friday, September 1, 2006. 

 

Eight (8) copies of the proposal must be mailed, or delivered, to the City by the date stated above to the following address:

 

           Dan Olson, City Planner

City of Northfield

           Community Development Department

           801 Washington Street

           Northfield, MN 55057

 

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Additional general information may be obtained by contacting:

 

Dan Olson, City  Planner

(507) 645-3056

Dan.Olson @ci.northfield.mn.us