Coon Rapids council orders 2025 neighborhood street reconstruction after heated public hearing on special assessments

COON RAPIDS, Minn. — The Coon Rapids City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to order its 2025 neighborhood street reconstruction program and to proceed with plans and advertisements for construction bids, following a public hearing that drew multiple residents and several written objections.

City engineering staff presented the three neighborhoods proposed for full reconstruction — an area between 130 First and 130 Third Avenues, the Thousand Oaks neighborhood (south of Main/County Road 14 and west of Olive Street) and the Thrush Park neighborhood — and explained the scope: full resurfacing with thicker asphalt, curb-and-gutter repair, driveway aprons, storm- and sanitary-sewer repairs, replacement or rehabilitation of “plugged” fire hydrants and a citywide upgrade of street lights to LED standards.

"The streets that we have proposed for reconstruction this year have been previously rated as deficient and in poor condition," public works staff member Mr. Hansen said during the presentation. He told council the city uses internal street condition ratings and input from public works crews to select projects and that resurfaced pavements will move from a 2-inch to a 3-inch asphalt mat to extend service life.

The meeting’s nut graf: several residents from the Thrush Park neighborhood and adjoining streets objected to special assessments tied to the project, saying some cul-de-sacs and short residential segments did not need reconstruction and that the lump-sum assessments were unaffordable for fixed-income households.

Residents said they had recently had maintenance or partial reconstruction and that a new assessment of $2,430 per single-family property (the rate presented by staff for 2025) felt sudden. "I've never received a letter from the city saying, we're going to charge you up and above what you normally pay for taxes," said Jeff Hale, a Thrush Park…