Rochester city council reaches settlement on parking ramp, also approves ward boundaries

(ABC 6 NEWS) – The Rochester City Council had a packed agenda Monday Night.

They discussed many things like ward maps, a proposed housing development project, and they even reached a settlement over the Parking Ramp six Lawsuit.

Let’s start with the Parking Ramp six lawsuit between the city of Rochester and the Minneapolis-based company — Collaborative Design Group.

The parking garage was supposed to be able to support 10 floors of housing on top of it, but the city said in the lawsuit that it’s not structurally sound enough to do so.

Now, the city and Collaborative Design Group have officially reached a settlement on that litigation.

The company will pay the city more than $2 million dollars.

Also on last night’s agenda, the city selected a developer for a potential housing project at the civic center north surface parking lots.

It was a unanimous decision. Sherman Associates — a real estate developer from the twin cities was chosen for that project

But some on the city council have some hesitations.

“It’s always preferable to get a plan that calls for distributing some of the affordable housing amongst the market-rate housing because then you get away from the idea that like that’s the affordable rate section and that’s the market rate section,” Rochester city councilman Nick Campion said.

The city council also unanimously adopted to establish ward boundaries in the city. City council members are going to stay where they are in their wards.

"This is one that we think hits enough of the different criteria in terms of the communities of interest, continuity of wards. Some of the wards were bigger than others, and the redistricting is trying to get it back to sync,” Rochester city councilman Patrick Keane said.

There will be a special meeting Thursday for final approval of the new ward maps.