COUNCIL CONSIDERS LEXINGTON DEVELOPMENTS ON WEDNESDAY

Less than a week after the latest segment on the east end of Lexington Avenue opened, Cape Girardeau City Council members will consider a proposed development on the other end of the arterial street.

The council Wednesday will consider a rezoning request by G. Keith Deimund, the developer for Lexington Place subdivision.

The Cape Girardeau Planning and Zoning Commission last month recommended approval of the request, but not until Deimund and neighbors of the proposed development agreed to a compromise.

Deimund had asked that the tract on the east side of Lexington, west of Belleridge subdivision, be given single-family, two-family and multiple-family zoning.

But by the end of the nearly three-hour commission meeting, Deimund agreed to a compromise plan that eliminated the multiple-family lots in the northern three acres of the tract and eliminated all but about 25 duplex lots.

All of the property that fronts Lexington will remain a single-family residential district, and the duplexes would abut a subdivision that already includes some two-family zoning. Initially, about half of the nearly 90 lots were proposed for duplexes.

Now the proposal is before the city council.

In the past, the council has balked at allowing driveway access onto Lexington as envisioned for the lots on the northern edge of Deimund's proposed subdivision.

In other business Wednesday, the council will consider changing the language of two measures that will be on the April 5 city election ballot.

Voters will decide whether to extend the city's quarter-cent capital improvements tax and whether to issue revenue bonds to separate combined storm and sanitary sewers in older sections of town and make other sewer improvements.

But City Attorney Warren Wells has recommended the council change the language in the two measures.

One issue asks whether voters will approve extension of the quarter-cent tax to fund capital improvements for flood control, drainage improvements, and storm water projects, and for "other capital improvement projects to be designated by the city."

In a letter to council members, Wells said that last phrase ought to be changed.

"After considerable thought, staff concluded that the phrase `other capital improvement' projects might suggest to the voters that the city has some intention of using these tax proceeds for purposes other than sewage and drainage concerns," Wells said.

"Therefore, we have rewritten the ballot questions to change the words `other capital improvement' projects to `other sanitary sewer' projects to make it clear to the voter what the intention is for these tax revenues."

The other ballot issue asked voters whether the city should issue $25 million in bonds to finance the sewer improvements. The bonds, according to the ballot language, would be payable from sewer revenues "and/or from capital improvements sales tax revenue appropriated for such purpose."

Wells said: "Bond counsel has suggested that this final clause be dropped from the ballot question as due to some recent court rulings, that language may be construed as an improper pledge of the city's capital improvement sales tax revenues."

Most of the money from the proposed bond issue will be earmarked to separate combined sanitary and storm sewers in the city's older sections.

The combined sewers often overflow into homes and drainage ditches during heavy rains. City officials have said the improvement would eliminate the problem and improve the efficiency of the city's wastewater treatment plant.

The council also will consider an ordinance that will allow for construction of bridges over Cape LaCroix Creek as part of the Missouri Highway and Transportation Department's Mississippi River bridge route project in Cape Girardeau.

City Engineer J. Kensey Russell said construction on the bridges is slated for this year.