1992 08 10CHANHASSEN CZTY COUNCZL
REGULAR HEETZNG
AUGUST 10, 1992
Mayor Chmiel called the meeting to order at 7:35 p.m.. The meeting was opened
with the Pledge to the Flag.
COUNCIL NE~BERS PRESENT: Mayor Chmiel, Councilman Workman, Councilman Wing and
Councilwoman Dimler
COUNCTL HEHBERS ABSENT: Councilman Mason
STAFF pRESENT: Don Ashworth, Elliott Knetsch, Todd Gerhardt, Charles Folch,
Todd Hoffman, Paul Krauss and Kate Aanenson
APPROURL OF AGENDA: Councilwoman Dimler moved, Councilman Workman seconded to
approve the agenda with the following additions: Councilman Workman wanted to
discuss the County Sign Program; and Mayor Chmiel added under Administrative
Presentations, the City Manager polling the City Council. All voted in favor of
the agenda as amended and the motion carried.
PUBLZC ~NNO~CENENTS: DO~TZON OF ;U~T. G/RL SCOUT TR~P 784, K~T~LER/NE
KNIGHT · LE/d)ER.
Mayor Chmiel: We're going to have a distinct honor one more time. We did have
pictures taken last week during the day. Several of the Girl Scouts were here
on providing or having a donation of a quilt. And the Girl S6out Troop 784,
Katherine Knight is the leader. If you'd like to bring the girls up, we can go
through that process.
Katherine Knight: I'd like to make the presentation of giving this quilt on
behalf of our Girl Scout Troop 784. We enjoyed making it on our mother-daughter
campout in January. During the winter. And the girls had a good time doing it
so keep it in.
Mayor Chmiel: I'd like to show you the flag that they really put together. I
thought it was exceptionally neat. The girls did this themselves. For all your
hard extended efforts...the Council and myself, we'd like to thank you very much
for putting this together so that we can show this to other people. I might
add, we also have the girls, and maybe if you'd just read off each of the girls
names that put this together.
Katherine Knight: The quilt was made by Troop 784, 1992. The girls names are,
Katie Beedles, Kate Bilner, Morgan Johnson, Sarah Knight, Jennifer Triforest,
Amy McTroney, Chelsea Barke, Amy Podoff, Lindsey Borgerson, Laura Hart, 3olene
Hoisite, Sarah Turnick, Laura Knight and Ann Turnick.
Mayor Chmiel: Thank you very much. We appreciate it. Thank you girls for
coming in.
C(~(~ENT AGENDR: Councilman ~orkman moved, Councilman #ing seconded to approve
the following Consent Agenda items pursuant to the City Manager's
recommendations:
City Council Meeting - August 10, 1992
b. 1. Resolution ~2-86: Approve Plans and Specifications for West 86th
Street Watermain Improvements; Authorize Advertising for Bids, Project
90-10.
2. Resolution ~'~-87: Authorize Easement Acquisition and/or Condemnation
Processing for West 86th Street Watermain, Project 90-10.
c. Resolution ~2-88: Approve Plans and Specifications for Phase 1 of Upper
Bluff Creek Trunk Utilities; Authorize Advertising for Bids, Project 91-17.
d. Eckankar Condemnation, Authorize Stipulation Agreement.
e. Resolution _~2-89: Approve Change Order, Chanhassen Senior Center.
f. Street Sweeper, Reinstate Original Contract.
g. Approval of Bills.
h. City Council Minutes dated July 27, 1992 as amended by the City Manager
Planning Commission Minutes dated July 15, 1992
i. Reso!utio~92-~O:_ 1992 Park Acquisition and Development Capital
Improvement Program Budget Amendment, Athletic Field Irrigation, Lake Ann
Park.
j. Resolution tt~2-91: Approval of Election Judges
k. Re~olution ~t~-?2: Resolution Authorizing Execution of Year XVIII CDBG
Subrecipient Agreement.
1. Extension of Final Plat Approval, Ches Mar Trails.
m. Approve Purchase Agreement for Taco Shop Property, 195 West 78th Street.
All voted in favor and the motion carried.
VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: EROSION CONTROL .~TRUCTURE, OON HALLfl.
Don Halla: Thank you Mr. Mayor. City Manager. Ladies and gentlemen of the
Council for the opportunity to come here tonight. I do not know whether you
recelved in your folder a copy of my letter. Do you know if you dld or not?
You did?
Mayor Chmiel: Yes we did.
Don Halla: We have what I consider a serious problem with our erosion control
structure. It is a structure that we have maintained since approximately 1972
up untll 1990. ! dld do a videotape of it which I would 11ke to present just
so you can see what the problem is, if I may please. And the structure whtch
could fall and cause a lot of erosion and other problems whlch it ls controlling
at this point. Before I go anymore thoroughly lnto it, if it's okay, I'd 11kc
to show the tape.
City Council Heeting - August [0, [992
(Don Halla showed a video presentation of the erosion control structure on his
property at this point.)
Don Halla: What we have is an erosion control structure which I'm concerned
environmentally that it could break and crack at any time. Up until 1990 we
were allowed to maintain it as we had through those roughly 18 years and never
had a problem with the structure. You enacted an ordinance wh£ch in effect
prevented us from doing the maintenance on it and that being that you're
required to have permits to move soil of any volume over 50 yards within the
city, for almost any purpose. There is no economic gain to me or to Halls
Nursery to maintain this structure. The structure was done for the purpose of
erosion control and to prevent the continuing of this valley from moving up and
continuing all the way over to TH 101. All we had requested and wanted to do
was to maintain that structure by at times we have had excavators who have had
vast quantities of soil that could go into that structure to reinforce, it once
and for all. To solve the problem so that it wouldn't even possibly ever need
to be repaired again. A year ago [ was, I made a request to repair and at that
time I was asked to put up a $10,000.00 cash deposit along with building a road
and many other things that are called for in-your ordinance. 'For something that
has no economic gain to me and is really just a benefit to,'as I. call'it, the
earth or erosion control and so forth. I don't choose to spend or to tie up my
cash which I need to operate my company in such a manner. I guess I'm leaving
it to your concerns and your method as to what happens to that structure. If
it's not repaired, it will break. It will fail and the erosion.'will continue as
it did prior to the building of it. Since there's no economic gain for me, I
can't see spending $4,000.00 for an engineer's report, which has been asked this
last time, to do something that I know would solve'it because. I've maintained it
for 18 years. Nor am I willing to build a road in order to bring the trucks in,
which really would not cause any problem driving on our gravel roads. So I'm in
a dilemma between your ordinance, being a good citizen, being in the business
that I am, as to what to do. I guess from there I leave it to your discretion.
What I requested and would hope that it would be, is to kind of leave us.alone.
Let us be a good citizen. Let us take care of this problem on our own as we
have in the past. That's really what I'm asking for. Other than'that, the City
has funds that they're generating for water projects. Erosion control projects
and so on that we pay for each quarter in our taxes. If you don,t'want me to'do
it, please take it over and maintain it yourselves. Whatever way that it works.
If you don't want to do that, then ! guess we have.'to all agree to let it fail.
That's where I'm coming from. I'd be happy to answer any questions."Whatever
you'd like.
Mayor Chmiel: Yeah, I guess I have a couple questions Don. You'lndicated that
you had been able to get some people coming in with truckloads of whatever.
What type of soils or debrls was going to be put within that area?
Don Halla: Heavy clay soil, which is what it needs. It needs heavy clay. No
sand. Nothing 11ke that. That wouldn't do any good'
Mayor Chmiel: That was one of my concerns because sand's not going to do it.
It's just going to wash away just automatically.
Don Halls: It takes real heavy clay which of course we have construction
projects from every so often. They don't come up very often.' We had 7,000
City Council Meeting - August 10, 1992
yards this spring that they were willing to take in and fill behind there at no
cost to us. They were going to backfill it, compact it, haul it in, grade it,
everything. All ue had to do was to, they were even going to extend the culvert
down an extra ?0 feet or whatever culvert we wanted to buy just to make sure the
right slope could be on it. The City stopped us doing that. I'm at a dilemma.
Mayor Chmiel: Let me ask just another one. You wrote a control structure as
you said and you're concerned environmentally. What total capacity of water is
contained within what's existing that's been shown now? How deep is that, do
you know?
Don Halla: The structure runs, at least when it was originally installed. I
don't know, it doesn't show there but the City has plans. It's about a 50 foot
drop from the top of that structure down to the bottom. At one time that was
all 50 feet was there. I'm sure there's 20 foot of silt in it at this point. It
does pick up all the silt that comes off of the nursery and deposit it in there.
Whatever doesn't slow down ahead of time. I'm guessing it's about 30 feet deep
at this time and then it builds up and of course it goes down and then it
overflows in a heavy rain but most of the time, it stores that water within it's
structure and it doesn't overflow.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay. I noticed here in reading the information that was
provided to us in a letter that had been written as well to you, as you said the
Planning Commission recommended approval for doing what was to be done for the
erosion control. And it appears that you did withdraw your application prior to
it coming to the City Council. And because of your disagreements what you said
was one, the road. Two, the bonding.
Don Halla: No, it's not bonding. I have to put up cash.
Mayor Chmiel: $10,000.00 cash up front, rlght. And what was, you had three
different ones. A cash deposlt, the road. Was there one more?
Don Halla: Well today now, they're asking for a $4,000.00 engineering.
Mayor Chmiel: That was the other one.
Don Halla: Oh, fencing. Gates. I mean I've got 50 acres of farmland or 60
acres on that side and the closest road is 800 feet away and still I've got to
fence and gate the whole project.
Mayor Chmiel: Is accessibility to that any other way than going through your
property?
Don Halla: No.
Mayor Chmiel: Anyone else have any questions?
Councilwoman Oimler: I guess I'd 11ke to hear staff's side of tr.
Paul Krauss: Maybe if I could start and Charles can add hls two cents. We
started working with Mr. Halla on this 3 years ago. Three years ago
administratively Z authorized 1,000 yards of materlal be placed on the dam to
City Council Meeting - Rugust 10, 1992
stabilize it. Exact same situation. 1,000 yards is 100 truckloads. That was
done. The dam was stabilized.
Councilman Wing: I don't mean to interrupt but when you say stabilized, you're
dumping dirt on what?
Paul Krauss: We really don't know and there's never been an engineered plan for
this. We don't think there's ever been compacted fill. There's a lot of
questions that have always been raised in our minds as to, you know Mr. Halla
and I accept what he says in good faith, he's been saying that he's been
maintaining this thing for years. Well if by maintaining it means throwing dirt
on every year, and the next year it's not there, it's going someplace and where
it's going is probably the Minnesota River. This.is not a stable structure.
Stable structures don't need to be refilled every year.
Councilwoman Dimler: Was it clay that was dumped?
Paul Krauss: I don't recall. We had our inspector out at the site checking to
see but it was, you know it stabilized the situation at least for the time
being.
Councilman Wing: The surface?
Paul Krauss: Yes. A subsurface, we have no idea. We also contacted the Soil
Conservation Service and again, I mean I've only talked to one individual over
there and I haven't talked to him recently. Charles' staff has. Paul Newman
over there indicates that to the best of his knowledge there's been no contact
since 1972 and that they don't have a design. They gave some suggestions for
how this thing was supposed to be designed but they're not sure if it was. The
following year, Mr. Nalla came in and asked for ! think it was 80,000 yards of
fill in there. As I recall. Something on that nature. We recommended .approval
of a modified version of that plan. We didn't think it would'take.as much fill
as had been requested. That would substantially fill up a portion of the
ravine. We did ask for engineer plans'to make sure that the. problem was fixed
once and for all. The road that's being referred to is not a road.' It's a
construction entrance as we normally require on hauling projects, so that we
don't track mud out onto the county road. It's, depending on how you build it,
it's either asphalt or rock a short distance to make sure the stuff comes off
the wheels. We did ask for a letter of credit, to make sure that it was-done
correctly. That's kind of standard procedure for usI Mr. Halla, as I recall,
did receive approval from the Planning Commission but then decided, not to pursue
it and withdrew it. Last year I received a call from the Nalla's. They wanted
another 1,000 yards authorized to be put on the property. I said I could not do
that. That I had already authorized 1,O00 yards. I couldn't in good conscience
authorize more. And then we found, ~ was. on vacation but we'had a report of
trucks coming in and our staff-went down there and found out that there was a
fill operation going on. Certainly Mr.'Halla knows-how these, things are handled
by the city by this time. The reception that the inspection'and engineering
staff got when they appeared on the site was'not'particularly great. And again,
Mr. Halla has brought this to you on a visitor presentation. We have more
information here in terms of the files that we had at'the. Planning Commission-
but in terms of design details on the dam itself, that's information that' we've
never had. Charles, did I miss anything?
City Council Meeting - ~ugust 10, 1992
Charles Folch: I think that pretty well covers it. It's a real serious problem
there. I thlnk the video shows it. It does a real good job of showing the slze
of that ravine down there. The types of problems that are belng experienced.
It's not just your ordinary run of the mill grading permit that you'd be
approving here. Thls lsa very serlous problem. There's a lot of aspects
involved that staff feels requlres a trained professional in that particular
field to be able to deslgn and recommend and lnspect the solutlon that would
take care of the problem permanently. As the Halla's would 11ke to see also and
that's why we've recommended that a solls or geotechnlcal englneer prepare the
plans and inspect the project. We have also a letter of concurrence from
Paul Newman, a $oil Conservation Olstrict Offlcer who also recommend that a
registered professional prepare those plans. We don't disagree. This problem
should be taken care of but in good faith can be approve something that has not,
doesn't necessarily have any specific plans or guidelines for how it's going to
be constructed and maintained.
Mayor Chmiel: Let me just ask a question of Paul. My interpretation of what
the ordinance reads. On the 1,000 yards. Ooes the ordinance lndlcate 1,000
yards per year? Ooes it indicate 1,000 yards forever?
Paul Krauss: It says per year but I believe there's a modifier on it that says,
multiple applications are at the discretion or at least that's the way we've
interpretted lt. I'll find it exactly.
Mayor Chmiel: Just while Paul's looking that up, I just want to clarify. There
lsn't any actlon we can take on thls today because it ls under Vlsltor
Presentation. I just wanted to clarify that. I'd like to get just a little bit
more information.
Don Halla: Okay. What it needs to be built out at ls approximately an 18 foot
wide top ridge and then it needs to be sloped on a 3:1 slope. 1,000 yards
dldn't glve us anywhere the ablllty to do that whloh the Clty knows. It's a
drop in the bucket to solve the problem. And so you know, I'm going to make
thls presentation. Z'11 leave it to your discretion. I'm not going to do
anymore. I'm not going to ask for anymore. I just want to present it to you
folks and let you do what you want wlth lt. That's where I'm comtng from at
this point.
Mayor Chmiel: Good. I would like to probably see this brought up on our next
agenda. Next Council agenda so this can be clarified one way or the other.
Either yes or no. And I thlnk that's where I'd be comlng from. Dld you find
anything?
Paul Krauss: Yeah. The ordinance says that, between 50 and 1,000 yards in a 12
month period may be approved by the city staff. The city staff may impose such
conditions as necessary to protect the public interest. Any applicant aggrieved
by a decision may appeal to the determiniation of the City Council. I construed
that to believe that in good conscience we gave the 1,000 yards to stabilized
the structure. We still have a continuing ongoing problem. From the advice
that I had given him and my own professional judgment, I did not feel that I was
in a position to authorize continued filling without the information that had
been requested.
City Council Meeting - August [0, 1992
Mark HalLa: [ just had a Little bit more information. We did ask again.
Mayor Chmiel: could you just state your name for the record?
Mark HalLa: Yeah, it's Mark HalZa from HalLa Nursery. We did ask Paul for
admin£strattve approval for another 1,O00 yards this year. Ne did deny that.
He denied that in writing. [ went to the point of saying, [ believe you are
aZLoaed to do that. It's been a fuLL year since the Last time. [t's kind of
felt Like it's been a LittLe shoving match here between what we think is best
and their rules and regulations. ~nd we've just gotten to the point nos where
it doesn't make sense for us to spend any money on it. it's not something that
we're going to get any gain from. It's simply good steaardship to the Land and
if we're going to be forced to expend a Lot of money in order to do that, I
don't think anyone in their right mind. mouLd expect us to do that. There,s no
gain from it either way. If we Let it-wash out and erode our field, then it
wiLL get to a point eventuaLLy ahere se'iL come to you and say, gee our field is
being eroded. Federal Las aLLows us as an agricuLturaL entity to repair that
damage and we'LL end up fiLLing it without your permission anyaay under Federal
Law. Rt this point, we stopped the erosion of the field and am're simply trying
to keep the erosion down into the vaLLey from continuing. When this structure
goes out, you'LL have 30-35 acres of drainage coming right through the'fieZd; In
the 4 inch rains, that runs almost 3 foot deep. If that retention structure
isn't there, you're going to have that whole area'eroding. Then you wiLL'have a
serious erosion problem probably aLL the amy doan to the Minnesota River. Rt
this point you saw on the film, it did seed. We seeded it. We put the erosion
control matting down in one year's time..We had seed growth 3 to 4 foot taLL.
It ts something that even on a slope that we had there, ae sere able to maintain
it through the standard I guess environmental situations that you run up
against. When you get the extraordinary rains and that kind of thing, certainly
it's best to have the 3:1. ~e can't do that with Z,O00 yards. We probably
can't do that with ~0,000 yards. We've got so..auch room to aork. with'there that
if you can get the right kind of heavy soil .fiLL-and you can.get someone to fiLL
it at the proper slope, it wiLL never be a problem again other than the simple
maintenance that you must do ahich is any, you. know you see it.in, residentiaL
areas. Anytime you get a heavy rain Like that,.you're bound to have some
erosion. You fiLL in the rivulets. You seed again~ .It heals itseLf.'up, ina
couple weeks and if the root growth gets established seLL enough before the next
rain, it's solved. We've asked for the administrative approvaL..That'aas
denied us. I guess at the Least I guess am're requesting that you at Least
aLLow another [,000 yards. The soil is on site. We simple aren't aLLowed to
push it in at this point. That would, at Least while this ts under contention,
stabilize it to the point that ae don't have to worry about it washing out in
the next heavy rain. We've been, I guess the request has been. made to us to
provide an engineered drawing of how this is going to be taken care of to plan
on tamping this to the proper densities on the ~ay up. That Just reaLLy isn't
practical in. this situation. I don't have $4,000;00 that I ~ant. to spend to
have this drawn up. The City has requested that ue have a'geotechnicaL engineer
draw this up. I aish to point out there reaLLy isn't a geotechnica! engineer.
There is a private engineer or Licensed engineers and they have an. area'of study
in geotechnicaL types of things but it's an expertise atthin the engineering.
There is no geotechnica! engineer so to speak. So that's not even something
that ~e can meet the conditions. ~ normal standard engineer has as much grading
knowledge without taking the separate two courses'that are offered in the
City Council Meeting - August 10, 1992
geotechnical area. In addition, we've offered to have a landscape architect do
the drawlngs for them. Essentially what they've requested from us is that we
have someone draw it that's licensed and can put their seal on it so there's no
liability question. That the liability is on us or that person that did the
drawlng. We've offered to do that. We have an architect on staff. They sald
that they don't think they'll approve that even though the grading knowledge of
a landscape architect is the same types of courses and many of the same courses
as an engineer. So we've just really felt that throughout this, they've had
thelr ordinance and we've wanted to do what we felt was rlght. They agree that
it's right but they want us to follow the ordinance. We're asking for you to
elther amend the ordinance or just slmple allow it in this situation in order to
help better the environment. There's no question we're not going to spend the
money to put up a fence, bulld the road, get an engineer to draw a plan and
spend the money to tamp it and have the big equipment in there to do that. That
just isn't practical so it's really up to you and as my father said, we want you
to make the right decision. And if you believe that's to follow the ordinance
to the t, then that's the way it wlll have to be and we won't contlnue with
fllling it. If you believe that it's something that should be overlooked, after
all the ordinance is there to protect the environment. That's why it's there ls
so that people don't go in and do grading that hurts the environment. We're
trylng to follow that ordinance and I guess the context that it was meant to be
as opposed to the actual written word. And we're just hoplng that you'll
support us on that because we want to do what's rlght. These people believe
that it's right. I personally feel that they're trytng to meet thelr obligation
and get out of the 1lability question. They're supposed to follow thelr
ordinances, so they're trying to do that and it's really up to you 100~ to
declde whether or not you can allow thls or not.
Mayor Chmiel: Good, thanks Mark. Any other questions?
Councilman Wing: I'll just add a couple comments Paul. My limited knowledge of
dams, and I just happened to come from an emergency out in Montana where a large
government project was drained on an emergency basls. On a dirt dam and it
seems to me the failures don't come from the top, except through erosion. The
failures come at the bottom on an earthen dam normally. That would be my
concern. That's where the washout problem occurs. That's where the weakness of
the structure ls. We've got a concern for a $4,000.00 engineering cost here but
on the second or third page of your packet, it says that in 1990 they wanted a
permlt to place 100,000 cublc yards of dlrt in there.
Paul Krauss: Yeah, I didn't recall the exact amount.
Councilman Wing: It just says 100,000 cubic yards and interim use permit. How
many truckloads is that? 1,0007
Paul Krauss: A tandem truck holds 10. By way of perspective, the item that you
have on later tonight for Moon Valley is 250,000 yards.
Councilman Wing: It seems to spend $4,000.00, even if we have to do it to come
up with a paper that will clarify what's there. To flnd what's there, maybe
offer a solutlon and maybe offer a permanent flx ls almost a drop in the bucket.
100,000 yards of dirt to fill a ravine that may not solve any problems. Am I
off track or am I readlng thls urong?
City Council Meeting - Rugust 10, 1992
Paul Krauss: Well you're raising some of the concerns that we had. I mean if
in fact that, you know, if that was the engineered solution. Everybody agreed
that was the way to do it. The Soil Conservation Service agreed. You know we
checked with the ONR on these things and they agreed that that was going to fix
it, great. I mean fix it and have done with it. But the fact that this is a
continuing situation, that after 20 years is still failing, worries us. and we
are not experts in it and I rely on Charles for the engineering expertise that
we have but we acknowledge that we're not experts in building dirt dam
structures.
Councilman Wing: And you haven't answered too, I guess we've been putting in
l,O00 cubic yards a year and fixing this for 18 years and it's in a bad state
and that's dirt downhill someplace. So if we're talking about erosion and
environmental controls.
Mayor Chmiel: That was a question I asked with that soils they put there.
Clay, of course would remain. But any dirt would just automatically wash away
after a period of time. Thomas, do you have any questions?
Councilman Workman: I guess the one thing that struck me was, was the
combination of the Halla's saying they've been maintaining it for 20 years and
Paul saying, well where's all that going. Or where has it gone so it kind of
lends itself. We're talking about huge piles of this stuff.. Where's the Corps
of Engineers and where's everybody on this type-of a project? I don't want to
be too quick to suggest that the City's going to pay 4 grand for enforcing our
own ordinance.
Paul Krauss: Well I don't know. I mean we haven't checked with all the
agencies. SCS did have some involvement. We've tried to get the Soil
Conservation Service to work with us on a few other erosion problems around town
and it's had frankly some mixed success. They don't have a lot of funding to
spare.
Don Halla: Paul Newman suggested that it be made 12 foot wide at the top, 3:1
slope...50~ over what the Soil Conservation Service is recommending. There has
not been any substantial erosion...just prior to that 10 inch rain. That wasn't
happening even after where we had not had soil washing down the hill and weaken
the structure that was caused by that heavy overflow in that 10 inch rain and it
weakened the structure. But we haven't washed all that soil back down to the
river. It hasn't gone anyplace. It's been caught by the trees and the debris
that was dumped in there from the nursery and then held... So it isn't
something that's flowing out. Something that, we've got a structure with cracks
in it. It was weakened. Those cracks are allowing water to'go through. It's
eroding... All we have to have is another heavy 10 inch rain and it will go
down that time because of the cracks that were developed by that last'lO inch
rain. The 5 inch and the 2 inch that we had recently;'it held the structure but
those cracks are there...than they were before. Safety'is what my concern is.
But we aren't getting soil eroding down to the river. That's not happening.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay. Any other questions? If not, thanks .for coming in. We'll
put this onto our next agenda and hopefully have some answers by:that particular
time. If Council has any concerns, good idea to probably talk with staff as
well.
City Council Meeting - August 10, [992
Councilman Workman: I was unable to get out there today but are the Halla's
around? Are you guys around there mornings?
Mark Halla: Come in. Please call me.
Councilman Workman: Call first?
Mark Halla: You can stop by...
Councilman Workman: Big boots?
Mayor Chmiel: They have boots. Okay, we'll move right along.
PUBLIC HEARING: _ QN-SALE BEER AND. WIN~.LICENSE REQUEST. GUY, S RESTAURANT. HARKET
SQUARE BUILDING.
Mayor Chmiel: I'd like to open the public hearing at this particular time.
Don, do you?
Don Ashworth: The City Council modified the ordinance approximately a year ago
to ensure that all property owners within 300 feet, and I think we're using 500
feet of a particular development are notlfted that someone ls applylng for a
liquor license. In this case slmply it is an on-sale beer and wine license.
All of the requlred documents have been flled wlth the Clty Clerk. Approval ls
recommended.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay. As I mentioned, this is a public hearing. Anyone can step
forward who has any objections or for the proposal. Is there anyone at this
time? Is Guy here? Anyone representing Guy? Yes. Do you agree with the
proposal as to what has been stated? Thank you. If no other discussion is
deslred, can I have a motlon to close the publlc hearlng?
Councilwoman Dimler moved, Councilman Workman seconded to close the public
hearing. All voted in favor and the motion carried. The public hearing was
closed.
Mayor Chmiel: Any discussion? Is there a recommendation? Tom.
Councilman Workman: Well Mr. Mayor, we're going to, as we grow, again we just
visited this issue with the Public Safety Department about licenses, etc.. The
only questions I have is tacos and beer.
Mayor Chmiel: And you have that all the time right?
Councilman Workman: But I think the Peterson's are responsible people. I don't
have a problem with this proposal but we're going to have a lot more of these
coming in and do we ever, or do we have an idea about what that means, etc..
That's my only comment. I would make a motlon to.
Mayor Chmiel: A lot of that has been discussed by Public Safety in regards to
that wlth total numbers. That hasn't been determined but there wlll be at some
time.
10
City Council Meeting - August 10, 1992
Councilman Workman: Right, and so I'm saying here's another one and we'll have
more and more and more and by that time it will be too late if we want to do
anything. That's my only concern. I'd make a motion to approve the request.
Councilwoman Oimler: Second.
Mayor Chmiel: Staff recommendations with items 1, 2 and 3 of the
recommendations.
Councilwoman Dimler: Right.
Councilman Workman moved, Counc/luoman D~mler seconded to approve the
application for an on-sale beer and w/ne 1/cerise for Guy's Restaurant at 7874
Harket Boulevard contingent upon the follo~tng conditions:
1. Submittal of a $5,000.00 surety bond that expires on April 30, 1993.
2. Submittal of a Certificate of Insurance meeting minimum state requirements
which expires on April 30, 1992.
3. Submittal of the license fee in the amount of $270.00.
All voted tn favor and the mot/on carr/ed.
PUBLTC HEARING: FEASIBILITY STUDY F~R NEZ PERCE RORO EXTENSION;
OFFICIAL ALIGNH[NT, PROJECT 92-6.
Public Present:
Name a~klress
Bill Engelhardt
Arthur Owens
Jules Smith
Jim Stassen
Engelhardt and Associates, Inc.
6535 Peaceful Lane
Representing Frank Beddor
6400 Peaceful Lane
Charles Folch: Mr. Mayor, members of the Council. The project consultant
engineer, Mr. Bill Engelhardt is here tonight to provide a brief presentation on
this feasibility study. [ would like to again emphasize that the intent of this
public hearing is to afford an opportunity for local residents to acquire
information on this and to provide input in determining the most appropriate
alignment for the extension-of Nez PerCelOrtve. It-is not intended at this time
to construct the needed roadway improvements. However, it is of importance to
approve an alignment and officially map the COrFideF of this final road segment
for such time in the future that the abutting property owner currently, which is
Mr. Art Owens, should develop or if the Cttylshould deem it necessary in the
future to condemn the needed roadway right-of-way. With that I would turn it
over to Bill Engelhardt.
Mayor Chmiel: I think I mentioned this last time. At no time do I feel the
City should condemn the balance of that roadway on Mr. Owens' property forlthe
city to pay that portion when eventually that property may be expanded.' So in
my estimation, I want that struck from this. That condemnation will not take
11
City Council Meeting - August 10, 1992
place by the City because I don't think it's our cost that should be incurred
there. I just wanted to make that quick comment on that. Bill.
Bill Engelhardt: Your honor, members of the City Council. As Charles said, the
public hearing for looking at a couple of different options for Nez Perce
through the Art Owens property. The alingments that we've put together have two
distinct differences between them. This ls what we call Alternate A. ~nd
Alternate A, the curvallnear allngment connecting Pleasant Vlew Road to the
north with Nez Perce at the Troendle Addition. And then taking Peaceful Lane,
which rlght now comes through and goes out to Pleasant Vlew and bringlng that in
to the new alignment of Nez Perce. There's several advantages and disadvantages
for both alternatives. In thls particular case, one of the advantages ls that
the curvalinear road gives you a smooth, through from Pleasant View and Lake
Lucy Road. The disadvantage ls that it becomes easier for trafflc to make that
north/south connection so that would be a distinct advantage. As far as the
property owners go adjacent to lt, the areas that seem to be shaded on the map,
those areas are existing right-of-ways and should be turned back to the abutting
property owners and it would be basically the vacated right-of-way. The new
right-of-way would be shown through here. Again, two alternatives. The second
alternative ls more of a T section alignment where we're taklng Peaceful Lane as
a thru street and then bringing Nez Perce into Peaceful Lane. This particular
alternative has some disadvantages in that the dotted 11ne you see here ls
basically the construction limits...but the major problem with this one is up in
here where we have some steep slopes. We have some wooded areas. We'd be dolng
more tree damage. We'd have more grading work that would have to be done on
this particular plece of property for thls section of roadway through here.
We've also, as part of the feasibility study, looked at if the roadway was ever
improved, and these are klnd of secondary lssues because the alignment that we
have come up with cost, or estimated cost at how you put the utilities tn the
roadway. In the case of Alternate Ait would be a matter of extending the
exlsting sanitary sewer up to the point that we call...and then extending the
watermain to a deadend at thls polnt and that would servlce these properties
here. The sewer and water ls basically a secondary lssue. We're really not
looklng at how that would be best served by the sewer and water but it does glve
you an idea that if the road is improved, this is how it could be done. $o I'm
not golng to get 1nrc a lot of deta11 wlth sewer and water. We've also
developed estimated costs, and again the development costs for the sewer and
water. And the storm sewer for both plans, and again lt's kind of a minor
portlon of the proposal. In this particular case it would be a series of catch
baslns connecting 1nrc an exlsting storm sewer. And that, the ease of the storm
sewer is made possible by the existing storm sewer in place which is simply a
matter of connecting 1nrc lt. That would also be the case for Alternate B. And
again a very simple matter of connecting the T intersection of the catch basins
and discharging into the exlstlng storm sewer. Agaln, a very mlnor portlon of
the report. Just to brlefly go through some of the advantages and
disadvantages. Alternate A provldes a good access to the north and south and
has access to Powers Blvd. via Lake Lucy Road. This would provide access for
emergency vehicles and/or public safety vehicles, which have right now limited
access to this area. This is a deadend road. It minimizes or reduces the
construction limits. We still have a major construction areas to work with but
it's less on Alternate A than it is with Alternate 8. The curvalinear alignment
provides for what we feel is a safer roadway with Peaceful Lane becoming the
secondary roadway coming in and having to stop...Nez Perce. Whereas in
12
City Council Meeting - August
Alternate B, Peaceful Lane is the major road and Nez Perce comes through and
stopping and we feel that we would probably have more traffic coming through
this direction. That's real brief and Just an overview of the two-different
alignments. Again, as Charles indicated, the purpose tonight is to take
testimony and listen to the people and see if they have any questions or
comments and hopefully this thing could officially map...
Mayor Chmiel: Thank you Bill. If we officially designate this this evening,
even with the feasibility concept, would that put .the City in any position to
therefore go through for that condemnation which I objected to previously?
Elliott Knetsch: No. You would not be forced to compel it at a later date.
It's still an option at some later date but this does not bind you to that
action.
Mayor Chmiel: ...who'd like to address this issue. And if so, please come
forward and please state your name and your address.
Arthur Owens: Ny name is Arthur Owens, &535 Peaceful Lane and the owner of the
property concerned. I wasn't primarily concerned about the road itself. We
have a purchase option with Frank Beddor to purchase the property but I was
interested in Roger's response to this fact that if today you say this is what's
going to happen to that in the future. Sometime in the-future. It seems to me
that cuts off the possibility of building on that in a different plan. You have
essentially at that point condemned the property for a future use and I think
the law, the condemnation law of the State states that if you do that, then.you
have to pay for the property. You can't just let it sit there-and do that. Has
that been changed or am I right on that?
Elliott Knetsch: Well, I would say what we're doing here, the motive of making-
it part of the official mapping is so that we can protect it from development.
state law does allow the City to designate it on it's official map and thereby
make that property owner work with that designation in the future development
plan. And that is specifically allowed by State statute.
Arthur Owens: Okay, has that been changed in the last 20 years? I know when
the University of Minnesota did that a few years ago, they were forced to
complete the condemnation when the person wanted to build. Wanted to improve
the property.
Elliott Knetsch: Yeah, if a person is coming in with a development application
and the road is necessary for the development of the property as they're
proposing it, the city would probably require dedication of the road at-that
point and the city would not be condemning it at that point.
Arthur Owens-' But no other plan for the development of that property could be
made .is what you're saying at this particular juncture without that road going
through there under the plan that would be proposed tonight?
Paul Krauss: I believe one of the aspects of that law, if I recall from the TH
101 issue Mr. Owens ts, for example tf you wanted to build a home. If you had
two lots there and I think you do have several, if you wanted to build a home in
that right-of-way, we can prevent you from dotng that for a period of months,
~3
City Council Meeting - August 10, 1992
during which time I think it becomes our obligation to either buy it or drop the
designation. So basically it just gives us, it puts our foot in the door. We
know where the road's going to go and it gives us the opportunity to do
something. The expectation's always been that once we figured out where the
road goes, we just simply wait until your property is developed. Or subdivided,
at which time we would get the right-of-way.
Elliott Knetsch: Paul is correct about that. This doesn't give us unlimited
rights into the future. If you came with a development proposal that was
inconsistent with that road, and we still wanted the road in that location, then
we would.
Arthur Owens: You'd have to pursue the condemnation.
Elliott Knetsch: We'd have to pursue it or we could drop our plan. We could
drop that portion of the road from our offlclal map.
Arthur Owens: Okay. That's what I wasn't clear so thank you.
Mayor Chmlel: Good, thanks. Is there anyone else?
Jules Smith: My name is Jules Smith. I represent Frank Beddor who is still
trylng to buylng that property. I'm klnd of ina tough positlon because I'm
talking about the property I don't, you know that my client doesn't own,
although we've very close. You've heard the word very close for a long tlme but
we really are. Well Frank and our's is. We could have done thls a long time
ago. We have however agreed wlth the Trustee in Bankruptcy, the State of
Minnesota and Art as to hls half acre homestead. Part of which comes out of Lot
5 and part of uhlch comes out of Lot 6. And we, of course we're negotiating on
Lot 5 less that part which is the homestead. As I mentioned, the Trustee and
the State Attorney General's offlce have agreed and Art has agreed as to that
homestead and we have had it surveyed and we know where it's going to be so that
it leaves his house wlth the proper setbacks and all that buslness around lt.
So it meets the city's ordinances. As a matter of fact, we're prepared to go.
the Trustee in Bankruptcy and the State are negotiating ! guess. The Trustee
of Bankruptcy said, he would abandon this property except he wants...11ttle more
property and he's made that proposal to the State. Rlchard Markel, the
Assistant Attorney General has handed this up to his boss to see if it's
alrlght. The boss ls on vacation and Markel's on vacatlon unt11 Thursday. So
we're assuming the State approves that, we're ready to close this in another
week or so. As soon as everybody gets back from vacation. Now we do have some
concerns about the appropriate or the location of that street in terms of it's
broad sweep or lt's stralght cut lnto Peaceful Lane or some other appropriate
location. And so what we would 11ke to do, we've done this many times before. I
almost hate to brlng it up. But we'd 11ke to just see, as soon as ~e know that
we've got this property and are purchasing it, we'd 11ke to come in and talk to
the clty about that development and work on an appropriate locatlon and handle
that street program at that time. And therefore I would ask the City Council
to postpone this for about a month and we expect to be ready to go. Because we
do have some concerns about the curve that comes through and we'd like to sit
down wlth the staff and the consulting englneer and dlscuss it. Anyway, that's
where we are.
14
City Council Heeting - Rugust 10, 1~2
Hayor Chmiel: Okay, thank you. Is there anyone else at this particular ttme?
3im Stassen: Hy name is 3im Stassen. [ live at 6400 Peaceful Lane. On the
corner. Rnd i've been to qulte a few of these meetings now and we have a few
questions. [ don't know, we haven't really even, we've looked at .both of the
proposals and one is nice in one way and one [s nice in the other way and We're
wondering [f maybe there's a combination between the two that can be worked out.
Rnd [ guess if they're going to work out with staff what they want to do, i'd
kind of like to be involved in that too if it's possible so that our interests
are protected. This is the only place, if we work it out here, we get a say.
[f they go behind closed doors and work it all out and then come out and say,
this is it. We're stuck again back here going, well we don't like this and then
it's all, it gets to be another fighting match which we'll lose.
Mayor Chmiel: If We table tt thls evenlng, you'll have an opportunity whenever
it comes back to Council again to hear what the proposals are basically being
done. At that tlme you'd have that opportunity to either object or agree wlth
what's being proposed.
3im Stassen: Okay, so it will still be a proposal? It uill come back here and
everything will be worked out.
Mayor Chmiel: Yeah. Nothing's done behind closed doors in this City Hall.
Jim Stassen: Alrtght. I have a question about abandoning the right-of-way on
that. If that gets abandoned, does that automatically become part of our
property or does that become just a no man's land and just sits out there?
Bill Engelhardt: The portion of right-of-way thatlwe wouldn't be utilizing
would be vacated to the neighboring property. As you saw on the drawing, the
Peaceful Lane right-of-way does not...
Jim Stassen: If we don't want it, do we have to take it?
Bill Engelhardt: You don't have to take it. It'd be nice if you did.
Jim Stassen: Well we're just concerned. We've got, somewhere along the line
Pleasant ¥1ew Road is going to get redor~ and right now we've got maybe 20 or 40
feet access on Pleasant View Road and if we run it all the way out to the
corner, then we're just going to get assessed a lot more, assuming we're still
there.
Blll Engelhardt: I guess that's something we can talk to you about. Whether
you want it or not. Once it's your property, then it's easier to ask you to
maintaln it...so it's usually better to gtve it back to the neighbor.
Jim Stassen: Well we could work something. We could maintain it.
Bill Engelhardt: I just wanted to say too that your comment on meetlng, the
best way to handle that ts to...this gentleman to sit down, put it on the table
and see which is best from both of them.
15
City Council Meeting - August 10, 1992
3im Stassen: That's fine with me. oh, if indeed it does end up to be a rather
large sweeping corner, Pleasant Uiew Road has a speed limit of 25 mph. Would
that road also be tagged 25 mph or would that be open to whatever?
Mayor Chmiel: That determination would have to be done through staff and MnOot.
MnDot's the determining factor as to what speeds are found there. Charles.
Charles Folch: Typically this design will yield a current standard, residential
urban section which will be designed for 30 mph speed posting as the majority of
all our streets are within the city.
Mayer Chmiel: I know there's a complete study going on by MnDot to see whether
or not 30 mph speed limit should be retained within residential areas. They're
looking at 25 but no determination has been made as yet.
Jim Stassen: I guess that's it. Thank you.
Mayor Chmiel: Thank you. Is there anyone else? Can I have a motion to close
the public hearing?
Councilwoman Dimler moved, Councilman Workman seconded to close the public
hearing. All voted in favor and the motion carried. The public hearing wa8
closed.
Mayor Chmiel: Request by the absentee applicant has been to request that this
be tabled for a month. Paul?
Paul Krauss: Mr. Mayor, I've got one concern and I'm not sure I know the answer
to this. We went through a bankruptcy situation on Teton Lane and it resulted
in the resubdivlslon of some property by the bankruptcy rullng that the City
Council was prevented from taking any action on. It was done kind of
unilaterally by the bankruptcy flndlng. Now in that case it dldn't really cause
us any big difficulty. I refused to sign off on it but the County Recorder
recorded it anyway because they were under Court Order to do so. The concern
that I would have is we're also under a bankruptcy type of situation here. The
questlon is, if there's an officially mapped road present, ls that something
that the Bankruptcy Court has to take into account? If property is
transferred under the bankruptcy. We're looklng forward to gettlng the right-
of--way when subdivision occurs. Subdivision may occur under the bankruptcy
resolution wlthout our abllity to intervene. And the questlon ls, does the
official mapplng help us out at all in that?
Elliott Knetsch: Well, it may or it may not. I mean it boils down to whether
or not the Bankruptcy Court consutts the City and gets our input when they make
thelr determination. If they don't, if we're not a party to the proceeding, I
don't believe we'd be bound by it. It may very wet1 mean that we'd have to
start our own Court actlon to get a different Court to say, we're not bound by
this Bankruptcy Court proceeding because we weren't a party to it. But I don't
thlnk they can make a declslon and bind us to lt, especially wlthout telllng us
about it.
Mayor Chmiel: One other question. Do we close the public hearing as well? We
did make that motion. Oo we leave that?
16
City Council Meeting - August 10, 1992
Elliott Knetsch: I'd say you'd want to continue the public hearing until the
next time this comes back.
Mayor Chmlel: So we should remove basically the.
Councilwoman Otmler: And say it's tabled?
Mayor Chmiel: Right. We should remove that.
Councilwoman OImler: Okay, I'll remove that.
Councilman Workman: It was my second.
Counc[1woean OLeler removed her eot[on and Councilman Morkean ~econded [t, to
table the public hear[ma.
Paul Krauss: Just as a follow up then. Would it be appropriate to direct the
City Attorney to make sure the Bankruptcy Court £s aware of the City's interest
in the roadway? I mean I don't know what the etiquette of something like that
is.
Mayor Chmlel: Yeah, what would that do for us?
Paul Krauss: So they're aware of the fact that the City ts looking through
subdivision to get right-of-way for a road. That we do have offlclal plans for
that. That that should be taken into acount when lines are drawn on maps so
that it doesn't look 11ke the Hiddle East where they just kind of drew lines
irregardless of who lived where.
Mayor Chmlel: Okay. Yeah, I guess I wouldn't have any.
Elliott Knetsch: I think that's a good idea. It would give them notice of our
position in this area and ask them if they're planning on doing any subdivision
of the property, to contact staff.
Mayor Chmlel: Okay, let's move that. Can I have a motion to table this?
Councilwoman 0imler: So moved.
Councilman Workman: Second.
Counc/1woean D/mler moved, Councilman #orkean ~econded to table act[on on the
feas[b[lity study for Nez Perce Road and to cLtrect the C[ty Rttorney's office to
not[fy the Bankruptcy Court to contact City ~aff tf they plan on do[n~ any
subdivision of th[s property. ~1! voted in favor and the eot[on carried.
Mayor Chmlel: Until the...propertles, as Hr. Smith has said, withtn a two
weeks, a month, 6 weeks, whatever. Also to include 3im Stassen into those
discussions. Thank you.
NON-CONFOI~IING WE P~ZT FlOR i~ ~r.J~E:ATTO~qiM. BEi~CIfl. OT FO~ ~ ~L~
i~S~CT~TTON.
17
City Council Meeting - August 10, 1992
Kate Aanenson: This Association has a lengthy history as far as appearing
before the City. This beachlot is Lot 37 of Shore Acres. Not exactly
contingent to the Sunny Slope subdivision. It's 5,000 square feet in area and
has a frontage of 50 feet. Well under the required 200 feet of lakeshore
frontage and 30,000 square feet. I've outllned the history of, a brief summary
of this appearance before the City and the ftnal would be the 01strict Court
Flndlngs upholding the denlal of the conditional use. Staff dld survey this
beachlot in 1981 and noted that it was not developed. There was not a dock in
at that time, nor any boats or swlmming beach. The Association ls requesting
approval of one dock, 40 feet tn length and 3 boats. The recreational beachlot
ordinance does allow for a swimmlng beach and the Court Flndlngs also stated
that it would be acceptable for this Association to have a swimming beach.
Again, staff documented that there was no actlvlty wlth the beachlot in 1981 and
therefore has no grandfathering status. The Planning Commission recommended at
the July 15th meeting that they should be allowed to have a swlmmlng beach only
and not a dock. They felt that even though the Association may have intended to
put a dock and boats ln, there wasn't one there and therefore they weren't
allowed to have one in the future.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay. Thank you. Is there any questions of Kate at this
particular time?
Councilman Workman: I have one quick one. District Court Findings basically
stated that we could deny lt. Not that we had to. Is that correct? They
upheld that we had the rlght to deny.
Kate Aanenson: The Findings that we made, yes. That's my understanding.
Councilman Workman: They were making commentary on our ability to do so. Not
that we had to do so.
Elliott Knetsch: That's correct.
Councilman Workman: Perry Mason.
Mayor Chmlel: Thank you Perry. Any other questions of Kate? Okay, ls there
anyone here from the Sunny Slope Homeowners Association? Would you like to
present thls to Counc11. Please come forward and state your name and your
address and representing the Association.
Ken Wolter: Thank you Mayor. Thank you Council for the opportunity. My name
is Ken Wolter. I 1lye at 341 Deerfoot Trail, Chanhassen. I'm the current
President of the Association. As Kate sald, lt's been a very lengthy, ongolng
ordeal Z think for our request. I'd like to try and encapsulate as quickly as
posslble a 11ttle bit of history. As you may already have. You may not have in
all your files and a little bit of a summary information before any final
decisions are made. The Association was conceived and approved by the
Chanhassen in the State of Minnesota in 1977. At that time it was the lake lot
wlth it as well as a dock slttlng on the shoreline. The Association, Allen
Gray's the developer/owner at that time, did request a conditional use permit as
was requlred by ordinance at that tlme '78. The Planning Commission approved it
and when it got to City Council, it was denied based on neighborhood feellng
that it was golng to depreciate the values of property. Rowdiness and 12 boats
18
City Council Meeting - ~ugust lO, 1992
sitting down there on that lakeshore lot, which was no way the intention that
the developer or the Association had any intention of doing. The first home was
sold in 1981 to a gentleman by the name of Steve Burke. He did not have a boat
at the time but that was part of what he bought there for and many of the people
that followed, that bought into the association, also believed. They were
represented with sales brochures stating lake access. I think some of those
copies should be in your file. Sales brochures. Plans for the development. How
it was going to be done. I have to very readily admit there was no
documentation, thorough documentation in our By-laws at that time based on the
fact there was only one homeowner. So he never installed the dock and with a
bunch of kids, he obviously didn't have the time to do that but that was his
desire. Over the next 2 years, between '82, '83, '84, approximately 3 more
homeowners came in. Built homes based on the same premise of being able to have
lake access. [n the public Planning Commission, one question was asked. [s if
anybody ever called the City. One of the original homeowners, A1Btrks who
presided at 3310eerfoot Trail could not give me the name of who or the Planning
Commission, who the person was he talked to but back then he did call tn to the
city and asked if they would have dock rights and boating rights and access
through the lake. He was told yes.and that was part of the decision again why
he decided to buy into the area. In '84, the Association under the belief that
we have a dock rights, bought a brand new dock and installed it into the lake.
That's when the City came back and said no, you can't have that because yOU
don't have the right. We bought a new dock because the old one that was sitting
on the shoreline back in '81-'82, history of the grandfathering act, was sitting
off on the shoreline in the weeds. That dock at that time-was given to a non-
association member next door to our lakeshore lot, Paul Olson and he currently
used that dock until this year when he rebuilt it and put a new dock in. Over
several years in ~980's, the City has denied attempts of the Association to pass
for a conditional use permit. The Court trial decision definitely favored with
the City but before they actually went to trial, the Association had plans to
introduce more documentation and tn a case that was used, Spence vs. Bloomington
[ believe, it disallowed any further information or documentation that the
Association had so at that time the State allowed or'approved whatever the City
decided at that time. The information I'm presenting now and with the sales
brochures and the other information I hope I'm introducing now has some bearing
towards the final decision for 1992 and the grandfathertng hopes. Our current
use ts limited to recreational activities such as picnics and sunning and a
little bit of swimming or wading in the water type of thing and what we do do
for boat useage ts go over to Eden Prairie side and launch our boats there.
Come over to the beach during the daytime. Take our boats out at nighttime.
Our plans of the Association, this ts a 50 foot by 110 foot lot. ! believe it's
55,000 square foot. We want to make a, we had always intended and planned to
make an available beachlot to our neighborhood. We wanted one dock, 3 boats
with overnight storage rights for those boats. The intention is not to request
any significant or unreasonable use but just to have the basic, non-riparian
rights of lakeshore lots owned by an off-shore owner. We're not planning on
parking cars, parking boat trailers, launching boats across there because'we do
take pride tn the lake and the lot that we have and we feel that that would be
detrimental to our useage. There's similar associations with approval of
conditional use permits and non-conforming permits. A couple I noted. Frontier
Trail. It's a larger one. It's approximately 45,000 square foot. There was 35
homes In '8~. Obviously a more developed association when the grandfathering
act came into play. It showed no dock or boats. The Planning Commission and
City Council Meeting - August 10, 1992
City Council approved the dock and no boats based on intention. There was some
paperwork in their 8y-laws I believe that did state that. That they dld want to
have a dock there. And the dock was never there on a oonsls~ent basls but
sometimes it was, sometimes it wasn't. Trolls Glen in 1981 had 8 homes of 12
developed, therefore they were a developed association agaln where they had
people of the association that could represent the Association and make the
By-laws that were golng to conform to the City and to what the Association
wanted. Trolls Glen has approximately 53,000 square foot. Showed 1 dock and 2
boats. Flnal approval is 1 dock and 4 boats based on an lntent and the By-laws.
The By-laws did state that. Minnewashta Heights in 1981 had 74 homes, 50 foot
of shoreline, 7,500 square feet. The survey showed i dock and 6 boats. Final
approval was 1 dock and 10 boats based on the association documentation and
lntent. Agaln, I brlng out the lntent because yes, there was. Most of these
have By-laws because they were a developed association but there was a lot of
lntent through all the proceedings and intention of the growth of the
association. Pleasant Acres in '81 showed 53 homes. The only documentation I
saw in the records was basically a Qult Claim for lake access deedlng the
property to the association from a Mrs. Lee Anderson for current and future
development of any sale of property she would develop. And 11kw I sald, I
didn't find anything else in any of the files that I went through over the last
couple of weeks that showed any By-laws or anything of that sort. These
associations were obviously all more developed than the Sunny Slope Association
and had members who could vote on the association and make something that was
workable for the city as well as the association. The decision was made this
year for the non-conforming use based on documentation and intent. Why should
Sunny Slope have the grandfathering rights of 1 dock, 3 boats? The association
has always attempted to be good neighbors I feel. Once we become a developed
association, we worked very hard at that. We've always had annual neighborhood
parties. Inviting the lakeshore people over to our commons areas. Have
bar-be-ques. We never had any rebuff when the adjoining properties asked for
variances to build houses or put decks up. We felt thls was, we wanted those
people to build and have what they wanted also. Back in '77, when sewer went
1nfo the area, the lakeshore association asked Allen Grey, the Sunny Slope
Association if they would be willing to share In the sewer costs and to develop
Sunny Slope wlth sewer because that would allow them to spread the cost of the
sewer in the development. Sunny Slope did indeed do that. Contribute into the
sewer. Also at no charge to the clty contributed a 50 x 50 foot area for the
11ft station that services the entire Lake Riley Blvd. area out in our, from
Lyman south. We've assisted in the mi1foi1 patrols that the lake has over the
recent years. Asslsted in the pick up and trying to clean up the lake as much
as possible. We also look at the lnltial concern of the association lot back in
'78 when it was denied by the City Council as people in the association,
lakeshore association was concerned about 12 boats, abuslve, elld and noisy
parties. The valuation of property. We wanted 3 boats, not 12. We dldn't want
anythlng exorbinate for that slze lot. We never had and never wlll want that.
We currently launch our boats on the Eden Prairie side and come through and use
it as we would, as our beachlot in that manner. We feel that the local houslng
on either side of our lot cannot be devaluated by adding a dock or the 3 boats
which was a major concern back then, because we already utillze that lot. We
have it for the limited use we do have and I just see no way that we can
lncrease trafflc or decrease the valuation of the properties. We have proof of
the dock that there was a dock there in '81. That's from sales brochures, a
letter that ls enclosed also from Steve Burke statlng that when he bought there,
2O
City Council Meeting - August 10, 1992 .-
there was a dock there. And also testimony at the Planning Commission where 3Dy
Tanner, who lives on the opposite side of our association lakeshore lot from
Paul Olson, stated that she does acknowledge a dock there, ge are not abusing
the lot or the neighborhood. 3Dy Tanner again in the Planning Commission
meeting stated that we were, since we've developed as an association, we've
become good neighbors. We maintain our lot. We do not abuse it. We're not
boisterous, loud, abusive, of our rights that we do have down there. All we're
looking for is for the City Council to fairly grandfather our non-riparian
rights for the lakeshore beachlot such as.similar ones that were done in '81.
Yes, we did not have the dock in the water. I look at the fact that we were the
only association at that time that wanted to have the dock. Was being sold to
have the dock. Didn't have enough people to write the By-laws. We are more
than willing to write the final By-laws to be able to allow us to have a
rotational basis for the useage of the overnight storage of the boats. And if
there was to be something else the City would like to incorporate with us, we'd
be willing to talk about that and discuss it. We have no intention to want to
set any precedence for the future associations and we feel we wouldn't be doing
that because of the fact we are an association that owned lakeshore before 1981.
What we believe our association deserves these uses through the facts presented.
We have not abused the neighborhood or the lake in the past and wish to continue
to contribute to the community and the lake as we have. The impact of useage on
the neighborhood is negligible and allows Sunny Slope it's grandfathered'rights.
Thank you. Are there any questions?
Mayor Chmiel: Not at this time but there may be some. Is there anyone else who
would 11ke to discuss this at this time? Please come forward and indicate any
of your concerns. Does Council have any questions? Ursula.
Councilwoman Dimler: Mr. Wolter, you mentioned that there-was no association
meetings held because there weren't enough people. OD you know how many of the
12 homes were occupied In 19817
Ken Wolter: One. Mr. Steve Burke.
Councilwoman Dimler: Even in 19817
Ken Wolter: Yes.
Councilwoman Dimler: Even though the development was in 1976 I believe.
Ken Wolter: Yes. It started out as a, should I come up there again?
Mayor Chmiel: Yeah, why don't you do that so we can record this.
Ken Wolter: Sunny Slope started out as, the initial plan was to have it like a
retirement area. Retirement association. Obviously that did not go over very
well as a start. No one flooded out to the area to buy and build homes. And so
at that point they made it a family association and at that time, that's when
Steve Burke moved in. Bought the existing model home in 1981.
Councilwoman Dimler: Before that, in 1976 no one..
Ken Wolter: No one lived here.
21
City Council Heeting - August 10, 1992
Councilwoman Dimler: There were no homes except that one model home?
Ken Wolter: Except the one model.
Councilwoman Oimler: Okay. Also, do you pay taxes on your beachlot?
Ken Wolter: Yes we do. I was trylng to find out how much and all that stuff
but the person that handles the flnances for our, the treasurer was not
available to provide that to me at the tlme. But we do pay taxes beoause we
get, that's part of our association dues that we pay on a monthly basis.
Councilwoman Oimler: Okay, so then you pay 1/12 of the taxes.
Ken Wolter: Each homeowner pays 1/12.
Councilwoman Oimler: So then in 1981 Mr. Burke paid all of it?
Ken Wolter: I would have to assume between him and the developer, Allen Grey.
The ratio. He owned 1/12, Allen Grey owned 11/12.
Councilwoman Dimler: So you think the developer paid the rest?
Ken Wolter: Correct.
Councilwoman Dimler: Okay, thank you. That's all I've got.
Ken Wolter: I have significant documentation dating back into '81 when Steve
Burke and Allen Grey were talking about who pays how much of it and how much
they were paying back at that time.
Councilman Wing: Kate, isn't this lot operating under the new ordinance? This
isn't a grandfathered lot.
Kate Aanenson: Yes it is.
Councilman Wing: This is a grandfathered lot?
Kate Aanenson: Yes. What we're trying to establish is the level of use.
That's what the ordinance says. What was the level of use.
Councilman Wing: I was in on the '81 ordinance and the big fear and the reason
that prompted this ordinance in the first place was intent. That there was an
intent to buy 50 foot lots all over the place and tle 60 homes into lt. And
then in the hearing in early this year with Planning and Council, tt was a
unanimous vote of the Councll and Plannlng not to deal with lntent. To deal
wlth actual use so my question to you is, in 1981 when this ordinance went into
effect, what was the actual use of your beach? That's our only questlon
tonlght. What was the actual use?
Ken Wolter: The actual use, I would have to tell very truthfully. The dock was
sltting on the shoreline and there were no boats there.
22
City Council Meeting - August 10, 1992
Councilman Wing: $o the actual use in '81 was no boats and no dock.
Ken Wolter: At that point, yes.
Councilman Wing: Isn't that the ordinance? What are we arguing?
Kate Aanenson: He's making his plea is for the intent.
Councilman Wing: But is intent is the issue here? I mean all of these have
intent. They have a lot of boats and docks. Aren't we only trying to determine
what the actual use was? We've been consistent with actual useage. All... were
done with one exception. Trolls Glen you went with intent but I wasn't here
that night.
Councilman Workman: There were 6 boats on Minnewashta and we ended up with 10.
Councilman Wing: No, they had 16 and we went with 10 because they had 6 and 4.
They documented 10 boats. We went with actual use. Mtnnewashta Heights
documented 17 boats. We went with 14. Trolls Glen documented 3. You went with
4. That was based on intent but intent wasn't the picture that night. So what,
I don't understand what we're doing here all of a sudden.
Elliott Knetsch: I'd have to agree with you. We are looking at actual use in
1981. That established whatever non-conforming rights they had. And this is a
request to go beyond the established use as of 1981.
Councilman Wing: $o if we try to be consistent on actual useage, which was our
agreement to do, and we go along with a boat and dock here, then that '8! count
is out the window. Then we have no standard with which to work with on any of
these. Am I reading this right or wrong? Planning Commission and staff is
justified with useage in 1981 being beach rights only. I noticed that in the
selling brochure it talks about lake access but at no time discusses a dock and
boats. It doesn't say you have a slip and boat useage.
Ken Wolter: That was never written into the By-laws at the time because we
didn't have any owners at that time. That was a tool that was to be used. That
was before my time obviously but one part of it is we're looking at what was
happening back in 1981. The other part is, well was the decision even made back
in '78-'77 when this became an association. When we had the lakeshore lot. It
was more than intent. It was the plan at that time.
Councilman Wing: If you understand that this group, first of ail the hearings
that occurred earlier this year really established how this all occurred and
there was a real history here. I Just want to make sure Council understands the
history that a lot of give and take occurred back in '78-'79 and '80 and into
'8i and '82 when this ordinance was passed. Lake owners went from 5 boats to 3.
There was a reason. Because there was compromise. Any non-riparian lot that
existed that had boats or docks was protected. That was an agreement.
Minnewashta Heights had 50 feet and 17 boats. That's really a lot of boats for
50 feet. But as a compromise they were protected. So I went back from 5 to 3
boats. There were 20 boats allowed per acre on the lake and what we did during
those hearings was to split them between riparian and non-riparian. The lake
owners got half the boats. Non-lake owners got half the boats and that's what
23
Citx Council Meeting - August 10, 1992
all these numbers and this ordinance is based on. So if your actual use in 1981
was O, that was taken into account when this ordinance was passed. Had you had
a boat or a dock there, you would have been protected and there'd be no
argument. If you had 14 boats there now, you'd be at odds wlth us so, and I
don't want to be harsh about thls but we have argued a lot of these and I slmply
have to say, what was the actual use in 1981. Your stating it's nothing. I
think the questlon before us ls nothlng and I think our only declslon can be
nothing. I don't think intent is, I hate to keep. I wtsh you could clarify for
us legally how we can dlscuss lntent. Is intent an issue here?
Elliott Knetsch: I don't believe it is. He's suggesting that because the
association only had one member and they dldn't have thelr By-laws or covenants
together, that thelr intent didn't come to fruition but even if they did have
prlvate covenants, that would not be binding on the city.
Councilman Wing: The City Council and this Planning Commission in '81 knew that
the intent was to saturate the lake wlth these small lots and boats. That's
what prompted this in the first place so intent is the key issue to the
ordinance in the first place. I don't mean to be harsh. I was just lnvolved in
it.
Ken Wolter: No, I can respect your opinion on that. It's not our intent to
over indulge anything and that's why we're trying to go back to look at what
could have been grandfathered if we would have been even more developed than one
person. And Z see beyond that as, yeah. If we would have 3 people and 3 boats
at that time, it would have been a very easy declsion in that manner but I have
to, I can't make excuses for the association. It dtdn't develop but the plan
was there. The lntent was there. Some of our By-laws, they don't directly
spell out dockage. How we're going to use dockage but you know, all of our
commons areas are to be maintained and including the lakeshore lot. It was all
supposed to be maintained and no noisey times. No boisterous times. No
abusiveness of our properties.
Councilman Wing: I hear you and I think all of us know that a dock and boats
lsn't golng to k111 the lake or the city. I'm just concerned that this
ordinance be enforced. This one's got an interesting legal history. This one
has already been discussed and denled. Thls one more than any other one ls as
clear cut as they can get, isn't it?
Elliott Knetsch: Well you're referring to the pack of materials and I did
handle that case for the City. At that time we were dealing with the speclftc
application for a conditional use permlt. They wanted variances to allow the
beachlot to be used and to have a dock and have boats and canoe racks. So the
Court declslon dealt wlth that speclflc application and found that the City was
justified in it's position of turning down that permit and those variances. So
that Court decision really doesn't blnd us today. We're sort of on a clean
slate in that respect.
Mayor Chmiel: Any other questions Richard?
Councilman Wing: No, thank you.
Mayor Chmiel: Thomas.
24
City Council Meeting - August [0, 1992
Councilman Workman: Well Richard, I disagree. I guess I was elected to be as
flexible as possible without endangering people and not to flagrantly abuse laws
we've set up. I think this homeowners association tried to get through a window
of opportunity and they just about got through but their ankles got slammed in
the door. $o that's what sort of makes this homeowner association a little bit
different from the others. I think they're all different. I think Minnewashta
Heights getting 10 is outrageous. Because they had 17 there in 1981 doesn't
make any more sense than denying these guys because they're dock wasn't out yet.
And perhaps they couldn't have 3 boats out there because it was. Yet, this
property was marketed that they would have these rights. Is that our problem?
No. Is it the developer's problem? Probably yes. It is Mr. Wolter's problem?
Yes. And so now, here we are having to make the decision and that's where I
say, this is not a lot different from Minnewashta Heights or Trolls in that we
did open it up. If the airplane flew over and said they say 3 there, at Trolls,
and we gave them 4. That's 33~ more boats (hah they should have had. There was
an intent there. We didn't want to deny property owners something that is very
valuable to their property, and that's what these guys are fighting for. As far
as increased useage on this lot, this changes nothing. Putting up a dock and
putting 3 boats on the dock changes nothing because those 3 boats-are, or 22
boats are all going over to Eden Prairie and letting them in there. Parking
them there anyway and then they have to take them home~ Is that better than
leaving 3 boats there? I guess so, somehow but I don't think they're doing
anything to the lake that they're not already doing. So as far as over
burdening the lake, I don't think they're doing that. The lake.hasn't been
saturated with 50 foot lots. This is a lot onto itself and that,s how I'm
trying to think it. The court said yes, you have the right to deny them but we,
I'm assuming that, and that was on a very narrow area and I appreciate your
winning that because when we first came in, us other 3 here, when we first came
on the Council, we were delighted because we didn't have to deal with the darn
thing. And Elliott was able to take it and here it is now before us. I wish we
had taken care of it back then. I don't know that any homeowners association
has, did Minnewashta Heights have all their dockage documented? Did Trolls Glen
have everything documented about how many boats? What they could, did?
Mayor Chmiel: Yeah they did. Trolls Glen they did.
Councilman Workman: Well, this one fails.. But it was near to impossible for
them to have a boat. Or a dock at that site in 1981. That doesn't change the
fact that yes, they had an intent to do so. Otd our ordinance, ts our ordinance
now denying them something that every other beachlot tn the city has access to?
[ thlnk it does. ! just think that the window of opportunity for thts beachlot
was so close to when they started getting developed, it's easy for us to say,
you're out of luck. And that's not where I usually try to head because I don't
think this is going to hurt the neighbors. It's-not going to hurt the lake.
[t's going to however, help thts association and that's what I would prefer
doing.
Elliott Knetsch: Mayor, if I could just make one comment. As long as Trolls
Glen has come up. This is as a side light. There is a lawsuit filed against
the City this month and one of the property owners at Trolls Glen maintains that
in 1981 there was one dock with two boats. Not three. Not four. And the City
has now granted a permit for four boats and one dock and is being sued over that
decision because according to the property owner, there was only two and now
25
Citx Council Meeting - August lO, 1992
we've gone beyond their legal non-conforming rights. So I only bring that up to
mention that there is not complete agreement as to what exactly existed at
Trolls Glen in 1981.
Councilman Workman: Well how many did the aerlal photographs prove were at
Minnewashta?
Councilman Wing: 14.
Councilman Workman: So why lsn't Mlnnewashta sulng us for 4 more?
Councilman Wlng: We gave them 14.
Councilman Workman: I thought we left it at 107
Kate Aanenson: Pleasant Acres.
Councilwoman Dlmler: Yeah, you're thlnking of a different one. I guess on that
comment of the Trolls Glen, the reason I was able to support that was because it
was documented in the Minutes that that's what they had. And so this Court case
then actually w111 prove whether those Mlnutes hold.
Elliott Knetsch: Right. They had a photograph showlng 4 boats. Okay, but
there's also other evidence uhlch would suggest that there was only 2. There's
a dlspute about that.
Councilwoman Dimler: So we'll see how that goes.
E111ott Knetsch: Z agree that what you had Jn front of you, there was evidence
to support your decision of 4.
Mayor Chmiel: That was also a suit initiated by the property owner at that time
against that Association as well.
E111ott Knetsch: That's correct.
Mayor Chmiel: Same individual who is now in turn including the City into a suit
as opposed to the Association.
Elliott Knetsch: Yes.
Councilwoman Dlmler: Well unfortunately these people don't have any Minutes for
us to hang our hat on and that's what's making this so difficult as far as I'm
concerned. Also, if Z may Mr. Mayor, make a few comments. I dld look over that
brochure that was presented to us and I was trying to find in your favor where
it stated in there that you could have a dock wlth 3 boats but I dldn't see
anything in there except that it simply stated access to beautiful Lake Riley.
That could really be interpretted to mean the publlc access as far as I'm
concerned because it says nothing else. And like I said, unfortunately this
Association has no Mlnutes for us to hang our hats on. However, I could argue
the point that since the dock was noted on the property, even though it was not
out in the water in 1981 that there, obviously if you've got a dock there, you
intend to put it in the water. To me. That makes common sense. But I could
26
City Council Meeting - August 10, 1992
not follow through on the same basis to allow for 3 boats to be docked overnight
because I think there's other associations that have a dock that don't have
mooring and docking rights. So we would be expanding the useage just because
they have a dock. If we allowed a dock, that wouldn't necessarily follow that
they could keep them there overnight. It states in condition 11 on page 3 too,
that approving the application would generate additional boat traffic and
congestion on the lake. ! don't agree with that in the fact that they stated
that they are already using the public access and they are pulling their boats
onto the beachlot so you know, that's another argument why I think maybe we
should allow a dock. Because they're using the beachlot that way anyway and it
would be easier for them to use the dock. Also, since they have swimming
rights, it was suggested that they follow the U.S. Coast Guard standards and put
up market buoys which, and again could be interpretted as an expansion since
they didn't have them. But tn this case for safety, especially in light of the
tragedy that was reported yesterday, I would think that that would make sense as
well. $o £f we're going to allow that for safety, which I would go along with,
then I would also allow the dock but not the 3 boats mooring overnight.
Mayor Chmiel: Anything else? Okay, I guess I had Ken come in and see me on one
of my Saturday mornings to discuss this. In looking at their brochure, as it
does read in it, access to beautiful Lake Riley for boating, fishing and
swimming. But if they're saying access, I think the intent by the pictures it's
shown depicts location as well as the lot. And that in itself might be a
position. And then of course with the Courts going through the process, as I
told Ken, I thought it was sort of dead in the water as far as that was
concerned but I said I was going to leave an open mind to this as well.
Basically what's been said here back and forth, so if the intent was and
starting the association as they .did in '81, even though they did have that dock
on the ground. Not in the water, in location. Someone took the initiative of
getting it there, there wouldn't be the discussion.we're having right now. And
it's just a goof up and one member on that association or in the association at
that time with the other 11 lots not being sold. Which eventually were sold.
So I guess rather than go through the complete discussions of what has been
said, as I said, I don't disagree with what the Planning Commission has said as
well. Allowing that as a swimming beach. The dock could be there but there
again, if you put the dock in, it would just automatically be used and boats
would be there and somebody would have to police it. It would create more of a
problem for the city to make sure that it was being done.
Councilwoman Oimler: Well they can already have the boats apparently. Bring
them on the public landing and pull them up on the beach but there's no
overnighting.
Mayor Chmiel: Right. Yes.
Councilwoman Dimler: And so a dock doesn't necessarily mean that you can
overnight because in our association we don't overnight. We don't have that
privlledge but we can pull them up during the day though...on the beaoh.
Councilman Workman: And so, what is their leaving the boats there overnight
causing?
Mayor Chmiel: Well, it's in and against what the ordinance basically says.
City Council Meeting - August 10, 1992
Councilwoman Dimler: It would be precedent setting for other beachlot
associations that have a dock but don't have overnight rights.
Councilman Workman: Right, but my question is, what are those three boats, what
exactly is it that they're causing from 10:00 at night until 6:00 in the
mornlng?
Mayor Chmiel: It's not causing anythlng basically other than going against what
the ordinance basically is the intent of the ordinance.
Councilman Workman: It sounds like the ordinance has a problem then.
Councilman Wing: But that was the discussion earlier in the year. Either we
enforce the '81 ordinance or you change it but you don't do it here, at the
variance hearing. If you want to change the ordinance, let's get it before the
Council then and let's see if there's a problem with it, let's change lt. But
then we've got to have public hearings and start all over.
Councilwoman Dimler: You mean start ali over with...
Councilman Workman: I still have asked the question and there's really no
answer so that to me.
Councilwoman Dimler: We said it's precedent setting for other beachlots.
Councilman Workman: Right, but what I'm saying is, then there's a flaw. We've
gone thls far, but there's a flaw. We can elther keep motorlng on here wlth
flaws in an ordinance or we can change the ordinance.
Councilwoman Dimler: Our ordinance is perfect as far as I can see.
Councilman Wing: What's the flaw?
Councilman Workman: Well, I still don't have an answer as to from 10:00 at
night until 6:00 in the morning or so, what those 3 boats matter.
Councilman Wing: Well let's say you have 3 boats docked and we're hung up with
3 boats. Maybe they bring 8 boats in on a weekend. Maybe they bring no boats
in but we have 3 overnight and then we brlng in 3 more.
Councilman Workman: Well they are using the boats. I mean they are using the
lot that way. There are probably more than that. There could be 8 boats there
for sure.
Councilman Wing: Tom, you're.
Councilman Workman: I'm not trying to put anybody agalnst the wall. I'm lust
saying, the boats are already there and the association would like the
convenience of leavlng a few of them there overnight. I'm not sure I understand
what that is causing.
Councilman Wing: How many boats are already there?
28
City Council Heeting - ~ugust 10, 1992
Councilman Workman: It sounds like most everybody has a boat.
Ken Wolter: No. Currently there are only 5 people that have boats. Our plan,
the Association always planned on, as far as ! can trace back, to have like $
boats on a rotational basis goverened by the By-laws as we created it. It does
state dockage in another attached report. Sunny Slope Association, in a letter
that went to the Veteran's Adminstration and talks about dockage on our outlot.
But again, as stated, we wanted to have the 3 boats on a rotational basis so
there would not be more than 3 boats sitting there overnight. We were looking
at the equal rights that all the other lakeshore owners have or even less than
what they have.
Councilwoman Dimler: Yeah, [ still argue that that would be precedent setting
to all the other associations that don't have overnight rights but have docks.
[t would be giving you something that we didn't give the others.
Councilman Wing: Mr. Mayor, just to get this going, if you'll accept a motion.
! want to support the '81 ordinance and I want to support actual useage in '81.
~nd as I'm reading the staff report, there was no dock in the water. There were
no boats and that would be my motion and recommendation.
Mayor Chmiel: ~nd also with the Planning Commission's recommendation that the
swimming beach be approved?
Councilman Wing: The swimming beach be approved, yes.
Mayor Chmiel: Is there a second?
Councilman Workman: Well, for lack of a second, I'll make a motion to approve
the beachlot with the 3 boats and a dock.
Mayor Chmiel: Is there a second to that? It appears as though that also is
dead wlth no second.
Councilwoman Oimler: For lack of a second, I'll make a motion that we approve,
because the dock was on the property in 1981, even though it wasn't in the
water. That is enough for me to say that they intended to have it in. To
approve a dock wtth no overnight priviledges.
Councilman Wing: Ursula, even though they did state that the dock wo~Jnd up on
somebody's front porch in 1982 and was used to bolster some cabin, I'll second
that just to get thls done.
Councilman Workman: If I can add something. Sunny Slope. Privacy, proximity,
tennis, boating, fishing. ~11 on the property. It doesn't say anything about
10 minutes away in Eden Prairle.
Councilman Wing: Can I ask then, does that brochure have anything to do with
our discussion?
Councilwoman Oimler: No, not really.
29
City Council Meeting - August 10, 1992
Mayor Chmiel: Not really. Other than to show you that there was some intent
with it in showing that there was a lake lot associated with that.
Elliott Knetsch: That brochure and those materials were also submitted to the
Court.
Councilwoman Dimler: And they didn't need it. That was enough proof. Also,
I'm wondering if I should, the U.S. Coast Guard recommendations, they do have
the swimming beach already. If we incorporate the buoys there, the marker buoys
for safety.
Mayor Chmiel: Well, that's a requirement that has to be there.
Councilwoman Otmler: But do they have that presently?
Mayor Chmiel: I don't believe so.
Councilwoman Oimler: The buoys, the market buoys for the swimming beach, do you
have those presently?
Ken Wolter: No, we do not have that...our swimming was always been limited to
kids playing in about the first 6 or ? feet from the shoreline itself. It was
more just a useage for kids to wade in more than anything. It's protected
because the point, there's a point that protects the bay that our association
lot lies in. That polnt. We look back rlght here. Belng back so far, that's a
good 50-60, almost 120 feet from our lot out to the point and for someone to go
swimming, curving a boat in there and hall klds 6 feet from the shoreline when
lt's only 3 feet or less at 50 to 60 feet out from that shoreline.
Councilwoman Dimler: So there's no dramatic drop either when you get out there?
Ken Wolter: No. It's all very gentle all the way out there until you get out
about halfway and then it drops about 2-3 feet more.
Mayor Chmiel: Still, if we initiate putting in a swimming beach there, buoys
have to be located.
Ken Wolter: How large of an area?
Mayor Chmiel: Paul? Kate do you know?
Kate Aanenson: We can work with them on that. That's something we'd be
requesting on all the beachlots, especially when you have conflicting boat
traffic with swimmers and we're requesting that with all the beachlots that have
come in thls year.
Mayor Chmiel: My concern is basically the safety aspect. Just uarnlng a boater
that you're not to be in this close. Lord only knows sometimes who's driving
what at what time and what conditions they're ln.
Ken Wolter: Well, we have children in our association. Obviously we're not...
safety for everybody.
3O
City Council Meeting - August lO, 1992
Councilman Workman: Are there any beachlots that were created in 1981 in this
city?
Mayor Chmiel: Paul, do yo know?
Paul Krauss: I'm sorry, I wasn't listening.
Councilman Workman: Are there any other beachlots that are going to come before
us or have that were created in 1981 like this?
Paul Krauss: You mean right on that cusp? I don't know specifically if there
were any. I mean we haven't heard the arguments from everybody yet.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay, what we have on the floor presently is a motion to include
a dock and also as a swimming beach and that buoys be placed on that swimming
beach.
Councilwoman Dimler: With no overnight rights.
Councilman Wing: What's the length of the dock?
Mayor Chmiel: 40 feet.
Councilman Wing: Kate, I'd also like as an addendum to the permit, reference to
the dock setback so that's clarified.
Mayor Chmiel: Any other discussion? Bid you wish to say something before I
call a question?
Dick Nelson: Mr. Wing's always talking about our intent and...slightly more
than intent when the Planning Commission voted unanimously in '78 to give us a
dock, overnight storage of boats and a canoe rack. That was voted on by the
Planning Commission in 1978. And it was a unanimous vote.
Councilman Wing: Something went wrong in '81, '78 and this year.
Councilwoman Oimler: Yeah, I don't have that information.
Dick Nelson: We have copies of this Planning Commission meeting.
Councilman Wing: But here, the whole evening we've been talking intent and the
attorney has repeatedly said intent is not the tssue here. We have an ordinance
on the book and all this Council is directed to do tonight is determine actual
useage and you've stated, your actual useage was maybe a dock. That's the only
question tonight. It's not to discuss your'intent or what you would have liked
to have done. Kate, am I off? If I'm off balance on this, then you ought to
say something.
Kate Aanenson: No, that's right.
Dick Nelson: I think we should address more than legality and address fairness
too and we've been treated very unfairly. I don't think you can deny that. It
31
City Council Meeting - August 10, 1992
was voted unanimously by the same Planning Commission in '78 to give us the
dock.
Councilman Wing: I was involved in the '81 ordinance and I think you've been
treated very fairly.
Dick Nelson: How could we be treated fairly when we didn't get anything?
Councilman Wing: You're getting what everybody else is getting. You're being
treated exactly the way everybody else was being treated. No one else ls betng
given boats and docks. ~hatever their actual use was. I'm not going to argue
thls. I'll let the Mayor of the Clty.
Mayor Chmiel: I was just going to say that.
Councilman Wing: Oon't polnt at me.
Mayor Chmiel: Yeah, it's not an argument situation.
Dick Nelson: Well, if the ordinance gives some people rights that others don't
have, it doesn't seem fair to me. We were around in '78. We got the approval
of the Plannlng Commission and basically a mob developed and put a stop to us
and if you like mob rule, that's how we got stopped. Because the City Council
backed down in the face of some petition. The 50 homeowners on Lake Riley said
no, don't give them anything. So that's what happened. And it's just not fair.
Mayor Chmiel: Thank you. Could I have your name please.
Dick Nelson: It's Dick Nelson.
Mayor Chmiel: Just for the record. Thank you. 4ny other discussion?
Councilman Workman: Just one more commentary Mayor.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay, let's not.
Councilman Workman: Like any other lake, 15,000 or so lakes in the State of
Minnesota, and Hinnesotans know that when you have a dock and you lntend to put
a dock ln, that attached to those docks are boats. Not just fancy fishing piers
for people. Or not just something for the klds to jump off of. Someplace where
they tie up a boat. And that's what it was.
Councilwoman Dimler: During the day, yeah.
Councilman'Workman: No, when they live there.
Councilwoman Dimler: We don't have that.
Councilman Workman: I'm just saying, docks are generally tied up to boats.
Councilman Wlng: But they're not allowed overnight boats even if they had the
dock. Even on the beach, they wouldn't be allowed.
32
City Council Meeting - August 10, 1992
Councilman Workman: No, I'm just talking about docks in general. That's why
people have docks.
Mayor Chmiel: One more point. Is that there was also canoe racks mentioned in
there, if I remember reading this. Canoe rack.
Councilwoman Oimler: Yeah, no. I saw no evidence that that was present in
1981. Is that correct?
Ken Wotter: That was again something.
Councilwoman Oimler: Just tntent.
Ken Wolter: ...again got shot down in '78 based on...mob effect type of thing.
Now if we would have had those things, if the city would have been able to at
that time I guess work with all the heavy opposition of us having what other
associations at that time already had in '78, then we would have a canoe rack
and a dock and all the fun things like that without it being utilized.
Mayor Chmiel: To continue on with our long discussion, I think we've heard all
the pros and cons and yet I think they're looktng at a point of trying to
provide the additional amount of even dockage, maybe for fishing or whatever as
well. So with that, I would like to call a question on this.
Councilwoman Dimler moved, Councilman Wing seconded to approve the
Non-Conforming Use Permit for a Recreational Beachlot for Sunny Slope Hoaeo~ers
Association with one dock, 40 feet in length, no overnight boat storage, and a
swimming beach with marker buoys, if applicable. -All voted tn favor except
Councilman Workman who opposed and the motion carrled with a vote of 3 to 1.
CONCEPT REVIEW OF A PLANNED UNIT D~V~OPHE#T FOR APPROXllIATELY 1&8 RENTAL UN[TS,
72 OWNER-OCCUPIED UNITS, fiND A CEUB~~FICE; ~ REZONI~ (g= PROPERTY ZONED
R-12, HIGH DENSITy RESIDENTIAL TO PlJO; LO~TED NORTH OF EST 78TH STREET B~TWEEN
KERBER BOULEVARD PJqD POWERS 80UL[V~RD, OAK P~)NDS/O~K HILL. LOTUS REALTY/ON(S
COMRUNITY DEVELOPMENT.
Kate Aanenson: This proposal is 25 acres with'a gross density of 9.5 units an
acre and a net density, excluding the wetlands, the two storm water ponds and
the public street, the acreage is 23.27 with a net density of 10 units per acre.
There will be 168 rental units, ranging from one bedroom plus den up to 3
bedroom units. And there will be 72 for sale units. The developer has tried to
match each building with the topography of the site reducing the grading. These
units will be approximately 3 story in height. The rental units will be walk-
out with garages at grade level and the exterior will be maintenance free vinyl
lap siding. The owner-occupied units will be a split with 4 units at one grade
and 4 units at a different grade. Again, these will also have maintenance free,
shingled roofs, vinyl lap siding with brick accents. The owner-occupied units
will have two double, a two space garage. Oouble car garage for each unit.
Staff does have concerns about the insufficient parking and have asked them to
make modifications before they come back for preliminary design. The
insufficient parking would include handicap parking and visitor parking. This
project does meet the impervious surface structure and setback requirements.
Access to the site is off of Powers Boulevard, which you need a county permit
33
City Council Meeting - August 10, 199~
for the road cut. In addition it will be accessed onto Kerber Boulevard.
There's two options to get access. One would be through the Villa's Apartment
or we recommended the T intersection up here on Santa Vera. The developer has
made modifications to his site plan showing that T. One of the concerns with
the neighborhood is the exlsting locatlon of these buildings up here. By movlng
that street down, it allows these buildings to actually be pulled down off the
top of the hi11, which is one of the concerns of the neighbors. The proposed
plan showed a 50 foot street. Staff is recommending that it be a 60 foot
right-of-way with 36 foot face to face cross section. Also, that there be a 6
foot sidewalk along both sldes of the street. This proposal as submitted has
preserved a majority of the oak trees, which the staff has recommended. We do
have concerns about, since they are oaks, that they put some conifers. The oak
trees are spaced as such that during the wlnter months there will be a lot of
visibility from the rental units on the heights down into the neighboring
property. We recommend an additional landscaping, specifically conlfers be
placed in that area to help reduce visibility and increase the privacy for those
homeowners. We recently adopted a landscaping ordinance calls for streetscape
along the major collectors. Kerbers and Powers and t-hts plan needs to be
modlfied to reflect that. As far as grading, agaln we've noted that thls, we
feel this is a superior slte plan to the previous one submitted in the fact that
there's mlnlmal gradlng to the slte as opposed to the other project whlch
requlred a significant amount of grading. The majority of the grading for this
project will be in the locatlon of the road. The major problem wlth thls
proposal that needs to be resolved, and we feel it can be mitigated, ls the
storm water runoff. 40~ of it runs towards the existing ponds and the portion
runs towards this wetland up in this area. There is limited area for retention
ponds so it may need wetland mitigation to put in a sedimentation pond in thls
area right here. Again, we've had the city's consultant on Bonestroo, the storm
water management and hopefully they'll be able to resolve that issue. Sewer and
water is available to the site. The Parks and Recreation Commission has met on
thls project on July 28th. The developer will be requlred to dedicate a 20 foot
trail easement along Powers 8oulevard for the construction of an 8 foot wide
tra11. The orlginal proposal showed a tra11 along this portion of the property
which the neighbors were concerned about, again privacy in their back yards.
The developer and the Parks Commission recommended elimination of that trail.
The Commission is also recommending that the City Council accept full park
dedication fees of $440.00 per unit and the construction of the tra11 would
offset any of the trall fees. As far as rezoning it, I'd just like to summarize
that we feel that lt's consistent for rezonlng to the PUD for the improved
pre-treatment of storm water, increased landscaping, the protection of
vegetation, the oak trees. Improved architectural standards and again,
sensitivity to the topograhy with 11mlted grading. The Planning Commission
heard this item on July 15th and there was a number of concerns raised by the
neighbors, which we summarized. Tried to group them together and give you the
major summary polnts. I think the maln concern, as ! pointed out, was the
visibility of those rental units looking down into the homeowners. The
developer has made some modification to the bulldlng deslgn whlch I'm sure he'll
show you tonight. Again, he's pulled some of those off the top of the hill and
he was concerned that that originally was to be a park and there was concern
from neighbors on that. Some of the other issues, they did have a neighborhood
meetlng. Some of the other lssues that came up with the neighborhood meeting
was privacy. Maybe protection that the developer and the homeowners put no
trespassing slgns and again lncrease the concern about the viability of oaks and
City Council Meeting - Rugust 10, 1992
the proximity of the buildings to the oaks, and then again landscaping and
protection from views. The Planning Commission did recommend approval of the
Conceptual PUD with the concerns outlined by the neighbors. And staff would
recommend conceptual approval by the City Council with the concerns or the
conditions outlined in the staff report. There was, I'd just like to add one
other thing. There was a lot of issues raised by the neighbors comparing the
different projects, and we did put a comparison in here. We had to break it
down into the first submittal and second submittal. There was a different
criteria used so we tried to break it down so we're comparing apples and apples.
Not apples and oranges and I know it Looks confusing when you Look at the
numbers but one of the applications actually showed 27 acres and that was in the
staff report for the previous project and that site is only 25 acres so that 27
couldn't have been a correct number. So what we tried to do was actively go
through and look at taking out parks and wetlands and try to give you a good
comparison of the merits of each project. ~nd again, we do feel that this
project, as designed, is a better project than the two previous applications.
Mayor Chmiel: Good, thank you. Does the developer wish to say something?
Brad Johnson: Mr. Mayor, my name is Brad Johnson, 7425 Frontier Trail,
Chanhassen and members of the Council. Basically we've asked and agree with the
City that this should be a PUD. And as we've gone through and discussed this
wlth the neighborhood, there are a lot of sensitive lssues that relate to where
that ponding is and they're concerned about whether or not we'll be able to
change it later. ! think we can go back to the PUB ordinance and simply say we
can't change it because we'd have to come back through a public hearing and I
think that's important. We try to be concerned about the land itself. Not
trying to cut it all up. Number two, we've concerned ourselves about the trees.
Because I've been through this TH 5 corridor, we've tried to stick with whatever
was the plan for the TH 5 corridor for this site, which was to maintain the
trees and have a good view from the south on the project. And then one thlng
that we've been working with since our Planning Commission presentation was with
the neighborhood to the north, because they weren't here last time a project was
submitted and we're trying to work through those different issues with them. I
might say that we have not changed the plan as of yet because this of course is
just a conceptual presentation. So we've stuck with our plan and we're making
the changes on the next time through when we come through for the preliminary
approval. I have with me this evening Arvid Ellness or Arvid Ellness
Architects. He's done over 15,000 housing units in the metropolitan area and a
number of other projects just here in the Twin City area and he's pretty
sensitive to ! think most of the concerns that you may'have and then Kirk
Willette who is the project architect. So I'm going to have Arvid say a few
words and then Kirk will go through where we are in the project. Arvid.
Arvid Ellness: Just a couple conceptual highlights of the Planning Commission
discussion was that we have in the second submittal, or this submittal. We
weren't involved in the first submittal but we are in this one obviously, is
that on the, we put the for sale unlts on the south stde of the development
line. A road that goes through the center of the property and we put the rental
to the north. And the rationale behind that was that, we thought that the,
there was less flexibility with the for sale unit in terms of the topography.
It would be more suited on the south portion of the property where it's flatter
and less topography and the issue of the trees wouldn't surface. On the rental
35
City Council Heeting- August 10, 1992
side, we were much more flexible with our design. We can develop a special unit
wlth the rental housing in order to take advantage of the topography and save
the ravine. Save basically the topography of that slde of the property and get
some walk-out type units with a great deal of more flexibility. $o this seemed
to be the reasoning that we went to. And the second highlight of the conceptual
comments was that we went to much smaller units. Unit sized buildings. We've
even gone down from what we had presented initially to smaller scale buildings
and especially with the rental, we're able to break them up into small
components where necessary to save exlsting vegetation and topography. Kirk
Willette has been to the community meeting and he has been working wlth the site
and wlll address some of the changes that we actually have made to the plan
since the initial submission, as well as the issues of how we're golng to
continue to save as many and a11, if possible, the oak trees that exist on the
site. Kirk, u111 you.
Kirk Willette: This plan shows some of the changes that have already been made
after talking to the Planning Commission and with the neighborhood. One of the
flrst concerns of the neighborhood was, on the orlglnal plan we had two of the
largest buildings on this side of the site... We broke them down to smaller
units and have actually eliminated 4 of the unlts by going wlth smaller
buildings... The other thing that shows here.
Mayor Chmiel: From what slze to what slze?
Kirk Willette: Originally we had a 16 unit building here and another 16 unit
buildlng here. These are now 8 unlt buildings wlth a lower roof on the back
side so it appears like a two story building on the back side... The other
thing that this drawing shows is the realigned road comlng out to form a T wlth
Santa Vera. Is that right? Which helps because it brings these two buildings
are able to move farther south, again glving more dlstance here to the exlstlng
neighborhood on this side. The concept...stay with the topography. That's how
this whole project was set, because of the natural topography runs that way as
well as the tree line. So we followed that with these buildings. That also
helped because it kept all of the parking and the really more actlvlty to lnslde
of the site instead of the back side or the neighborhood side. One of the blg
concerns has always been saving the trees that are there. The way that we've
laid this out right now, there's only one tree that we're not able to save and
it sat rlght ~n thls area here. And that was because it happened to be a very
hlgh point in the property and it just, we weren't able to work around that.
The other trees, we're golng to work very hard to save. Some of the concerns
were how close we were building to the trees. We are working wlth a landscape
architect and we have found that some of these buildings will have to be moved a
11ttle beoause, in the past it was always the understanding of staying away from
the canopy of the trees and now that's, they've really modlfled that and now
they're staying you have to stay a little farther than that. And especially
important durlng construction as much as where you actually build ls keeping all
the construction traffic away from the trees. So that's something that we'll
watch very carefully because certainly the oaks are...thls project as well as
the existing neighborhood. And it's our idea, this line going behind the
buildings, everything that's north of that 11ne will stay as it ls. Other than
any work that has to be done for the drainage of the property. So we're not
looking at dolng anythlng in here other than just leaving it the natural...
36
City Council Meeting - August 10, 1992
Mayor Chmlel: On the west end of that property to the east end, as it
progresses through, what's the topography following your street 11ne as you're
golng past the different units? And up even close to those buildings.
Kirk Willette: In this area up here?
Mayor Chmiel: Yes.
Kirk Wlllette: Okay. Thls would be a hlgh potnt. Thts it starts to go down to
Kerber. This is approximately a 3 to 4 foot drop from here to where this
goes...
Mayor Chmiel: If you're going to follow the contours also in and adjacent to
all those other buildings that you're talking there, what are those?
Klrk Willette: Back agalnst the... The back of thls buildlng ts 84 and these
slowly step up. 87 and 89. Then they go down a little to 87, 85 to 87
along thls line. And that's following as close as possible to the natural
topography so that we don't cut tnto the roots of trees. These buildings
set up to the h111 and as the road goes up, these w111 step up and actually the
buildings are divided in half so the building itself steps up so tt repeats that
same, for visibility from down below...
Mayor Chmiel: Anyone have any questions?
Kirk Willette: This is the for sale units, which are along the south side. And
these are a vinyl siding and brick accents on the front. Each unit having a two
car garage.
Mayor Chmiel: Are those 8 units, that one?
Kirk Willette: Right. They're all 8 unit buildings then the rental units are
11ks this wlth a two story with a walkout on the back slde, And then the garage
is...
Mayor Chmlel: How are we going to eliminate parking on those streets?
Kirk Willette: Really the parking is, there's isn't room to do, to actually
have parallel parking on the street because it is all perpendicular parking
along the streets on the one side and the other stde...and there's not enough
space for people to park in front...
Mayor Chmiel: Just looking at emergency vehicles coming in and out of that
particular area, It said that it was 50 feet. Bid it go to 60?
Kate Aanenson: We're just talking about the street and that street. The other
streets would just be prlvate. That's not a public street.
Mayor Chmiel: Still, the accessibility has to be there for the emergency
vehlcles and that was one of my concerns.
Kirk Willette: That's why we wanted to put all the parking, in previous
projects we've done some of the parking where it was in front of a garage and we
37
City Council Meeting - August 10, 1992
found that just doesn't work. People start to park all over in the streets and
parallel park so that's why we did...
Mayor Chmiel: That's right. Okay, does anyone have any specific questions at
this time before we?
Councilwoman Oimler: Yeah, I was going to ask. You mentioned the, I llke the
way the buildlng looks, and lt's non, you don't have to keep, it's easy upkeep
in other words. Or no upkeep. When you have rental property and ownership tn
the same vicinity, are you going to have some covenants that the private owner
cannot change the exterior so that it all looks unlformally or how do you handle
that?
Kirk Willette: Yeah, I don't know if Brad wants to address that but yes.
Brad Johnson: We'll probably have a owners association with some kind of cross
covenant between the two. One on the for rent...
Councilwoman Oimler: But they are going to look similar aren't they? I mean
the whole plan.
Brad Johnson: ...similar and I guess next time when we come through we'll be
more specific. Right now we're trying to deal with concepts so.
Councilwoman Dimler: Yeah, I understand but my questlon ls, how would you keep
the private homeowner from, how do you stop them from changlng the exterior of
his home.
Brad Johnson: Oh, that's in the covenant.
Councilwoman Oimler: In the PUD covenant.
Kate Aanenson: Development contract.
Brad Johnson: The best project they've got now is the one over on Kerber where
the two families are. Look at that. Just two, what 5 two famllles off of
Kerber...commons area and look how nice...maintained and all common maintenance
of the exterlor even though each person owns a unlt.
Councilwoman Otmler: They do own them?
Brad Johnson: Yeah. So you can do it, but years ago they didn't do it that
way.
Mayor Chmiel: I guess there aren't any other questions at this time. Is there
anyone?
Councilman Workman: Can it be explained to me what swttohlng the rentals and
the rentals and the single family homeowner units does?
Brad Johnson: Well, the previous project had, let's pretend there's like a for
sale type of unit that we're selling in Chanhassen...and that type of style that
would work, works on thls area because it takes a flat site. If you go up on
38
City Council Heeting - August 10, 1~92
that hill, you're going to find out that it isn't flat. So what we did then is
took a non-standard design and I said, Arvid. Just design some units that will
fit in here and work with the contours. So these are sort of new rental types
of units that probably haven't been built... You know, there's no standard unit
that would fit the contours. And then we were able to go from 8 units...16 and
we were able to vary them. We can vary the height of them every 4 units and
move. They've got a lot of flexibility so that we can meet this. Well it just
tarns out, we can't do that on this side and-we can do that on this side. And
that's the way. We cannot design the for sale units for over here. We-don't
have a design that would sell at a reasonable price. That's the only reason for
it.
Councilman Workman: Well my point though is if you look to the south, you know
we were flirting with the idea of building a Target down below this. If we put
single family home ownership there up above the hill from the Charlie James'
property, they're going to be looking down on-potentially a huge retail.
Brad Johnson: ! think they'll be looking over it. If you go up there and look,
you can look for miles. It's not as if you look so much down. That's the
design and most of these for sale units are more internal rather than external.
They're not a townhouse kind of thing where everybody has a backyard and looks
out over the park.
Councilman Workman= But you know as well as ! do whatever comes first.
Brad Johnson: This will come first.
Councilman Workman: I know. So when you're then, see if you already have the
retail down below there and then you build them and then if you sell them then
you can kind of say, well you moved tn there and now you can smell plzza and
that's your own fault. But I mean we have single family from old town down here
up agalnst pizza and everything else and they're wondering when I'm going to
come over and have pizza with them. But you know, that's kind of the order of
thlngs. Logically is that he who's here first kind of dictates what's coming
next because I'm not going to be here when that's commercial developed you know.
Brad Johnson: I think you're going to end up with something here that isn't so
tuned into straight down because that's one of our concerns. We want to sell
them. It just works better that way. The rentals won't work over here. You'll
end up with the kind of building you wouldn't want to see.
Hayor Chmlel: Okay. Is there anyone wishlng to address thls? Has everyone had
an opportunity to see this, from what was presented previously? If not, maybe
you can turn it around and show to each slde so they can get a little better
idea than seetng it on the video. Yes sir.
Dave Callister: Dave Callister, 7540 Canyon Curve. I think all of us realtze
that there's going to be apartments there. It's zoned multi-family residential.
I thlnk we all reallze that but what we're trytng to do is to minimtze the
impact of this particular proposal to the neighboring properties which happen to
be single family homes. And I think if you look and you've started discussing
it but if you look at a good transition, you normally would go from like an R-12
to an R-4 to an R-1. But in thls case, for some reason or another in the past
39
City Council Meeting - August 10, 1992
it has been zoned multiple family or R-12 rlght up agalnst an R-1 or single
family residential area. And I don't think that provides a good transition so
think there needs to be a lot of different thlng~ done here to address the
impact of thts proposal. One would be the height of the buildings in the back.
Z thlnk that was brought up. They're golng to be 3 stories and they're going to
be 40 feet hlgh. And they're 40 feet high on top of a 30 foot hill so they're
golng to be stlcklng out of the trees. No doubt about that because they're walk
outs. They're going to be on top of the hi11. I think that needs to be
addressed. Not only for the neighborhood but everybody that travels in that
area as well. The other concern as you've addressed ls the sw£tching the rental
unlts with the for sale unlts. I thlnk, as you can see from the drawlng, from
the rentals to the for sale units, the for sale units are not as imposing in
helght. Also I think, what are they 8 unlts? 8 units is the maxlmum number
that are clustered together. And I think, I don't know if this can be explored
but Z hope it can. They've mentioned that you have to move back further from
the oak trees because there may be some danger of losing those trees but if you
could move those back far enough to get towards the top of the hi11, Z think you
could minimize the grading associated with that and possibly level that out to
an extent where you can put those for sale units on or near that hi11. Another
concern would be obviously traffic. I don't know whether there's gotng to be a
trafflc study done but there's 240 unlts and you figure at least 2 vehlcles per
unlt plus visitors. That's certainly going to impact the neighboring traffic
areas, Kerber and Powers. Screening. That wlll be addressed more fully at the
next stage of the preliminary review but there's going to have to be adequate
screening to assure the residents that everything ls covered including parking
lots and so on. And I guess if anyone would like, I didn't bring a picture.
had a plcture here last tlme to show the oak stand ls not a full oak stand as
portrayed on thls drawing. If anyone would like to come out to my deck in my
backyard, I'd be glad to show you exactly what ! look at and exaotly the gaps
between the trees. And I ~ould like to have that addressed at some point by the
developers during the review process here. And Z guess I'll leave the other
comments to the rest of the neighbors. Thank you.
Tlm Anderson: H1. My name ls Tlm Anderson over at 7550 Canyon Curve. I'd just
like to first of all reiterate what Dave had just sald about a transition
between a commercial area and a single famlly residential and it does seem to me
too that a more loglcal translt£on would be to place the rental units adjacent
to a commercial zoned area and an owner?occupied unlts adjacent to the slngle
family units. The second thing I want to talk about is the planned unit
development. According to the staff report, a planned unlt development should
encourage the preservation of desireable site characteristics and open space and
protection of sensitive environmental features including steep slopes, mature
trees, creeks, wetlands, lakes and scenic views. The plan that Brad 3ohnson and
the architects put together does go a long ways to protect what's out there. I
believe it could go a bit farther. One thing is that they're not preserving
steep slopes. The buildings, the farther north buildings, these unlts, the h111
is approximately $0 to ?0 feet high depending on where you are and those units,
the walkout levels are approximately 30 feet above the pond so essentially
they're built right on the hillslde and on a steep slope. I'm not sure of the
grade but lt's probably approximately 20~ grade. I'd also 11kw to see the
buildlng setback farther from the oak trees than what's shown here as was graded
before. Another thing I want to comment about ls the storm water drainage. I
know thls ls on a conceptual level. The staff report states that there could no
4O
City Council Heeting - August 10, 1992
ponding on the site. The storm water ponding would have to be below in the
existing wetlands or pond areas. I don't believe this is true. There is
natural depressions located on top the hill on an existing drainage which comes
down here and as the pond could be constructed on top the hill. And this would
not only, could serve to reduce the discharge of entering the lower ponds, but
would also help during the phases of-the construction for sediment control. If
planned properly, it would probably more reflect the name of the development
which is Oak Ponds by placing it up on top of the hill. One reason I'm saying
this is because the engineer's report stated that the existing storm water ponds
were designed, appeared to be designed only for the existing homes at
Saddlebrook. I live on one of the ponds and ! don't want to see these ponds,
first of all I don't think the level should be raised. The flood levels raised
from these ponds because that would effect my property. ! don't see a real way
of expanding these ponds, except for possibly this pond and it would involve
cutting into a fairly steep slope. As you know, when you cut into a steep
slope, you're going to increase slope even greater and that's going to.cause a
safety issue with children in both the apartment complex and Saddlebrook and
possibly anybody walking along the path on Kerber. And also it may be an
eyesore having a very steep slope. It might require fencing. I guess those are
the items I wanted to talk about tonight, thank you.
Hayor Chmlel: Good, thank you. Is there anyone else? If seeing none, let's
bring It back to Council and have some opinions one way or the other regarding
the conceptual slte plan approval. There's also rezonlng to be done with it as
well. I guess I have a few of the concerns that I've heard here, at least that
I've written down. One is the traffic flow coming out from there. What study
has been done or if anything has been done. 240 units times 2 plus potential
of, if I remember readlng staff reports from additional apartments that could be
contained within that area as well. Is that correct?
Kirk Willette: On this site?
Nayor Chmiel: Down below. Not on this particular site but farther down.
Paul Krauss: No, this would be the extent of it unless something ever happens
on the Eckankar piece. Who knows.
Mayor Chmiel: So we're looking at roughly 480 cars tn and out of that
particular site times 2 or 3 trips besides that. You're going to get a
multiplication factor of a considerable number in and adjacent to Kerber as well
as County Road 17. Even with the conceptual plan, the setback requirements are
going to be sufficient from the change in the road that we're going to have wlth
78th Street making it's turn. Will there be proper setbacks from one to the
other to allow for an additional cut into that County Road 17.
Paul Krauss: The County Engineer raised that concern too. This location is,
and we're going to restudy the issue but this location has been looked at
periodically over the years. It really is the only spot-to come out. Well the
County Road 17 is the one that he's concerned most with. It really is the only
location to come out. Any further north you wind up in the wetland. On the
Kerber side, we looked at several alternatives. There's three alternatives on
the table. The Santa Yera one seems to be the further from the homes. Brings
traffic away. It allows them some site plan flexibility. It aligns with city
41
City Council Meeting - August 10, 1992
streets. Zt avoids the problems of coming through that existing apartment
townhome development which, although was supposed to be designed to allow for a
public ~treet to come through, if you go back in there, it really doesn't work
terribly well. Some questions were raised by some people at the Planning
Commission meeting though about the Santa Vera connection and would that promote
a possibility of thru trips over to Chan Elementary over on the other side of
the park. We'll look at that a little further. Z suppose there ls that
potential but we're not sure to what extent it's a relationship.
Mayor Chmiel: Good. Thank you Paul. Rezoning of the property to the R-12 to
PUO. What's the city really gettlng for this other than the protection of the
oak trees and so on?
Kate Aanenson: I was golng to say, as part of the development contract, the
issue came up about guarantees of the maintenance and that sort of thlng. Those
are the klnds of lssues that you'd want to put in the development contract so
those kinds of controls in the PUD.
Mayor Chmiel: And Z see there's a considerable number contained in here.
Paul Krauss: To build on that a 11ttle bit. Staff has always been a real
strong proponent that one of the primary beneflts of PUD zonlng is it's
basically contract zoning by any other name. If the City Council approves the
project, you're buying that approval. That plan becomes the zoning on the
property. If for some reason they're unable to complete the development, that
plan is st111 the zoning on the property. Nobody can do anything else as of
right unless they come back before you for a rezoning action which gives the
Council the greatest amount of control. And that's just a functional thlng and
I think right now with the R-12 zoning, it's a little bit of a wild card.
Somebody can do what the former developer tried to do whlch ls say, Z have met
your ordinance. You have to approve me you know and thts would put us in a much
better position. Functionally though, we shouldn't get away from the polnt that
this project really does a very nice job of saving tree cover, which was a big
lssue the last time. It's become a blgger lssue glven the visibility of that
site. It of course protects the wetlands, but we would have done that anyway.
Zt gives us a very nice type of, nlcely designed architectural unit. It also
has a privately developed park. Not park but recreational amenities for the use
of their residents while at the same tlme kicklng a substantial dollar amount
into our park development fund. So there's a lot of pluses I think with
considering thls as a PUD.
Mayor Chmiel: Some of the things ! looked at too with thls Paul was the size of
the building. Basically in the heights and it is up there. They're 40 feet,
some are at 40. The others are at 35, if Z remember what's in here.
Kate Aanenson: Again, on this one we felt it was superior because the roof line
breaks on these. Even wlth the for sale and the multi-family and that's part of
the reason with the topography as opposed to the other ones which were just
massing and Z know durlng the Plannlng Commission meetlng, people were strlcken
at the impervious surface but again we felt that the roof 11ne breaks and some
of those kinds of thlngs lnstead of looking at a massive buildlng and I think
that's what they're trying to resolve now is how to even further reduce the look
of the single famlly area.
City Council Heeting - August 10, 1992
Mayor Chmiel: Okay. The only other thing that ! had too, having rental units
in and adjacent to a residential area, as opposed to the for sale ones that
would be there. I would think just the flip flop of that would not have been
too bad of an idea because there's a little more pr[de taken in their own
buildings in and adjacent to that area. And probably not as much. ! don't know
if there's that much rowdiness going on but you'd have [t within those places.
If you come to mine you'd get the same thing. But I'm thinking that [t would
sort of blend that being closer to each other would have been a little better
than having the rental units in that particular location. But that's just my
view at this particular time. We have lO units per acre. Is that exactly what
we're saying with density? Screening was the other concern. And that I think
will be addressed at some particular time. But other than that I guess I'll go
back to Counc11.
Councilwoman Oimler: Okay. I wanted to ask, do we have any concept idea yet of
what the lot sizes are likely to be?
Kate Aanenson: It's my understanding it's all common ownership.
Paul Krauss: Yeah, the lot size in this project.
Councilwoman Dimler: It's common ownership? Even for the single family?
Paul Krauss: Well, they'd essentially be condom[nium units. You buy the space.
Councilwoman Oimler: Okay. So there's no free standlng single family in the
concept? Okay. One of the other concerns I had was the parking. I don't know
where all thls parklng ls comlng from. Sometimes I drive on Kerber and I see in
excess of 30 cars parked on the west side of Kerber Blvd. and there's no
ballgame. And I'm wondering, is that coming because that development there
didn't have adequate parking within it? I would like to avotd that situation.
We've got to have adequate parking.
Mayor Chmiel: I think maybe you had seen the day that they were going to
restripe their lot and some modifications to the parking area. They were all
out in and along.
Councilwoman Oimler: That could be. But there were a few days when I just
went, what's going on.
Mayor Chmlel: That did take place but that was because of what they were doing.
Councilwoman Oimler: Okay, so that was only a special situation but I, you know
we've got to make sure that we have adequate parking for visttors as well to
avoid that kind of a situation. And my th[rd question was, there's a proposal
here to use HRA funds for the Infrastructure of the utlllt[es, roads and also
the land buydown. And I'm wondering if we do that, if the community recreation
center would have to be available to the publlc or is it still legal to allow
only the Oak Pond res[dents to use it.
Kate Aanenson: Todd's here and he can speak to that but it's my understanding
the Parks Commission addressed that issue and said they wouldn't g[ve them any
credit for that as far as park fee.
City Council Meeting - August 10, 1992
Paul Krauss: But you have the more fundamental questlon I think.
Councilwoman Oimler: Because it's HRA money, it's public money.
Paul Krauss: Yeah we, the HRA is not, to the best of my knowledge, seen this
yet and has not taken a posltion on it.
Don Ashworth: The guidelines for the redevelopment plan for the HRA permits the
use, designates that a developer may use increment to pay off special
assessments associated with that project. Road, sewer, water. I know of no
request for any land wrltedowns and I'm not anticipating that. I do not think
that it would be favorably received by the HRA.
Councilwoman Oimler: Okay. I thought I saw a land writedown in here. But
legally £11iott, could you address that? If that were to occur, would they then
be able to just have a recreation center for the residents in Oak Ponds if we
use public money or would that have to be open to the public at that point?
Elliott Knetsch: I believe they can have it for the residents only.
Councilwoman Dimler: Thank you.
Hayor Chmiel: Okay, Richard.
Councilman Wing: The main question I got out of the presentation was the
parking. 240 units and is there adequate parking? This seems to be a high
density situation. The only comment I would 11ke to make, if ! may Mr. Mayor,
it has to do wlth rules. This ls before us using our rules. Staff ts creating
thls using our rules and everyone coming before us ls maximum useage of
property. High density and we don't talk about future impacts of what we're
doing here. They're complying with the rules so I have no criticism but our are
rules right? Do we have conservative enough rules and I look at 240 units
comlng in and the other houslng areas that have come in with their high denslty
and people keep coming in here talking about traffic and densities of population
and cars and then I talk about city services. And frankly, I see people as
being very expensive. The higher density of people, the higher the impact on
clty services. It just slmply is more expensive. I mean there's more belng
taken out than is being putting in, it seems to me. So I would just take this
opportunity to brlng up the lssue of rules. If we have rules, even if we had
minimum lot slze of 25,000 square feet, to quote 8tll Morrish, if we had rules
and if those rules were consistent and applled to everyone, people would come.
Chanhassen would not be abandoned to the wolves. Our current rules seem to
allow for a very, very hlgh density style of neighborhood in housing and I'm
beginning to wonder if every single one of these coming in is going to be this
denslty. When we really want to look down the future 20 years, are we making
the right decisions here or should we start to question our rules. Other than
that, I think the unit that I saw is clean and a good project. I'm just worried
about our existing rules as they £mpact...proposal at all would be Ursula's
question on parking. Thank you.
Mayor Chmiel: Thomas.
City Council Heeting - August 10, 1992
Councilman Workman: I was looking for the boats and the dock and was ready to
give it all up for the lake. I'm a St. Cloud State graduate. I don't know if
there's any others in here. But the oaks in St. Cloud, if you guys did your
marketing properly, to a St. Cloud State, is very a majority. The oaks were
something I had a lot of fun at when I was in college but today would not want
to have my home near there. I don't know how we can demand covenants on a
place. We can't demand covenants. We can demand them but they can change
covenants. So if they want to change covenants, they can I'm assuming, correct?
E11iott Knetsch: I think we're talking here about conditions in a development
contract versus covenants. So if it's in the development contract, that cannot
be changed without our consent.
Councilman Workman: I'm concerned about the buffers and the transition and
that's what I have a very, very big, big problem with and thank you for tying
the HRA funding Into it. I know we always look at the Planning Commission,
they're always, the Planning Commission has a zilllon things going on. They
have ktnd of a list of things that are going on. One of them is blending and my
understanding of blending ls trylng to blend things along. And there's never
anything about blending. I know you guys are never talking about blending. It
just klnd of sits there. They've got too many things golng on but, this is not
blending. This is more like frelght training I think. Kind of shoving it in
there and then we get people at our meetings like this. If you guys know where
I live over on the other side of town. You have highway 5 and then, which I
1lye falrly near. It was there before ! moved tn. And then there's the
Meadows, or the Village Apartments now. You know where they are? Okay. And
then as a buffer to my nelghbor there's TH 101, which lsn't a real good buffer.
And then there's the town houses and we are here to approve those townhouses and
I thlnk those townhouses are much like the ones that they're trying to approve
here. In fact those people, and then comes my house. Granted it's a trailer
home but. Then there's my single family home~ okay. And I've got a berm and
everything else. It's very nice. I can see these people out my back window in
the morning but it's great. They own them. It's this condominium type stuff
and they're very nice people and I don't have any problems. The only problem I
have ls the people who are parking over in the apartment buildings because the
boat landing's full and they're walking through my yard and asking me why my dog
lsn't leashed. So Z have a problem with this and I know you guys are on this
topography thing but it just seems turned around. And just as we discussed the
bad rule in 1981, they had to do something. I feel like we're going to be the
Council of '92. Who could have put these houses up here on this prominent area
where there's going to be people selling and commerce is ugly and they'-re not
going to want to look at it and they're gotng to want to smell it or anything
else. You guys have the same of your units under control for yourself.
understand that. But it's going to be very difficult for an HRA and the City
Counc11 in the future to develop this thlng down below. $o I'd 11ke to see that
work. That is something I guess that, I think the neighborhood assumes that
thls is something of this nature is going to be bullt up here and they probably
assumed that when they moved in but it just seems it's turned around and I'd
11ke somehow to turn it around. I bet you they would even pursue the idea of
losing an oak tree if they could get that done. No? I have a question about
the, and this is maybe related to your's Olck. The for sale units. The ones
that are going to be owned. What are those going to be for sale for roughly?
City Council Meeting - August 10, 1992
Brad Johnson: Under $90,000.00.
Councilman Workman: Under? Okay. I think that's about like what is near my
home. How much are the rental unlts golng to be basically?
Brad Johnson: More expensive.
Councilman Workman: More than what?
Brad Johnson: It will cost more to live in the rental units than the for sale.
Average on a $90,000.00 home or $80,000.00 home...would be about $600.00. And
it will be about $?00.00 for the rentals. The rentals will cost more just
because of taxes.
Councilman Workman: There's no inside parking for those units?
Kate Aanenson: Yes. One covered and then one exterior.
Councilman Workman: For the for sale units?
Brad Johnson: Two.
Councilman Workman: Two car garages on those?
Brad Johnson: The for sale units are actually bigger than...
Councilman Workman: That's all I have. I really, I just turn it around to my
thinking.
Brad Johnson: If I could just one thing about this. The owner and the partners
of mine would prefer to do the for sale on the other side. We worked this
project a number of different ways and we couldn't do it and make it work and do
what we could do to preserve the slte. We needed a smaller, more flexible
bullding and that's what the rentals allowed us to do. I mean that's just, we
couldn't do it.
Councilman Workman: Is there an option, and I maybe direct this at Mr.
Ashworth. Is there an option where both with the PUD and increaed HRA fundfng
to some extent, that that can be alleviated? This 1~ a very prominent hill in
Chanhassen, as we've discussed earlier. And so there's going to be some
permanency obviously to lt.
Brad Johnson: The problem there is we have to have rental to get the HRA.
Councilman Workman: I'm just thinklng less of them.
Brad Johnson: But that's the problem. To get fundlng to do the project, you
have to have rental houses.
Councilman Workman: Okay, but you're telling me that the problem is you can't
put the singles on the other side.
Brad Johnson: That's true.
City Council Meeting - August 10, 1992
Councilman Workman: No amount of funding in the world could.
Brad Johnson: Not unless you don't want the oak trees there. If you look at
the last project, and we flatten it out. You can leave the ones on the far
north section... I think what you should do is wait, we're coming back through
with this and we'll try to give you a better feeling for the design. Lower the
roof lines. These are all common area, you know ownership of the land. It will
probably look like...as far as landscaping. Remember no in this whole
neighborhood...
Mayor Chmiel: Paul, when Cenvesco had that property, they didn't incorporate as
much acreage as what is being done now, is that correct?
Paul Krauss: Well the first time Mr. Mayor it came through without that
triangular piece of ground that they bought. The second time they came through,
they were ordered to come in with a park and they bought that other piece and
developed part of it and set some of it aside. So the site grew. In Kate's
researching the thing though, we found out that Cenvesco gave us some bum
information and picked up a couple of fictious acres in the process to lower
their density.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay, and I was trying to put that together and I couldn't.
Paul Krauss: That's why the numbers don't add up. We're convinced that the
acreage that we have now is the correct one and Cenvesco never had any more.
They just.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay, 25.9.
Paul Krauss: If I could touch on a couple things though that Councilman Workman
brought up. That buffering, I forgot what they were going to call it. Blending
ordinance, was something that the Planning Commission was talking about about 3
years ago and ultimately dismissed. You're only talking about it in single
family districts with the idea being that if you have an area with one acre lots
and somebody wants to plat 15,000 square foot lots, that they had some
obligation to come in with bigger lots because they were near to someb,>dy who
had a bigger lot. Fundamentally the problem is one of equity. That the
ordinance applies to everybody unless you have the misfortune to live next to
somebody who's got big lots, therefore your land is worth less because you can
only get x number of units. So they never pursued that concept. More
importantly for this, the idea of a hierarchy of uses, is kind of one that's
been around in zoning since it's inception in the 1920's. The idea was that
industry was evil and spewed smoke and disease and it kind of went down and that
you had to keep everything pure. The world's changed and hopefully we've gotten
a lot more sophisticated and what we've tried to do in Chanhassen is go with a
performance approach. In it's purest sense, it means you can virtually put
anything next to anything as long as it's done correctly and responds to the
needs to protect the single family homes in response to needs to protect the
environment. We're pretty convinced that this project is shaping up to meet
that need. It clearly has to be refined a little bit but given appropriate
design, we can achieve the goal of buffering, yet providing the density. One of
the reasons for that density being here is, on the other side, this is a block
47
City Council Meeting - August 10, 199~
away from our main street. This is downtown Chanhassen so it's a real critical
site and clearly it has to be treated with a great deal of sensitivity and care.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay, good. Any other discussion? If not, I would entertain a
motion for a conceptual approval. I think that Planning Commission also went
through that conceptual approval of Site Plan Revlew ~92-3 as shown on the plans
dated June 15th subject to the following conditions and they had l& conditions
contained withln. And with that, maybe you may want to add something of your
own.
Councilman Workman: Well I think everybody knows, you want me to put that in as
a condition?
Mayor Chmiel: I think there's some concern that you've had and whether it can
be met or not, that's another question. 8ut it is at least going to be
addressed so they can look at it again.
Councilman Workman: Well I figured I had two options. Yeah, one add it in
there. Tell them to fllp flop the whole thlng or vote agalnst the concept.
was hoping to force that Sunny Slope dock on them too. So I don't know that
they're going to, I guess it would be simpler for me to say I'm not happy with
the concept than to add that in there and then they're going to.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay. I would still entertain a motion then. Of either approval
or say you'd like to see something else as yet.
Councilman Workman: Well that's simple enough. I'll make a motion to approve
conceptual slte plan approval for the Oaks with the 16 conditions plus the
condition that we swltch slngle family, or the for sale for the for rent.
Brad Johnson: See that won't work.
Mayor Chmiel: Well, maybe what you can do is just come back with something and
show us why it won't work.
Kate Aanenson: Can we word it that way?
Paul Krauss: Yeah, I'm wondering if that can be to mean that the goal is set to
switch them but I think that if the net result is they demonstrate to your
satisfaction that the alternative is to flatten the site, you're not going to be
happy wlth that elther. So the goal would be to strive to relocate them or
alternatively respond to the concerns that are raised in other ways. 8ut your
primary goal ls to have them swapped.
Councilman Workman: Well that's why I felt it would be easier for me to just
say I don't like the plan. You guys are forcing me to make a motion so.
Mayor Chmiel: Oo you want to restate your motion other than the fact that.
Councilman Workman: I'll withdraw my motlon.
Councilman Wing: The Planning Commission went through this didn't they? There
were a lot of optlons presented there. Sketches ! mean earller in the
48
City council Meeting - August LO, 1992
process. I guess I found this one to be maybe the most flexible or the one that
worked the best. Fit in the best. The other drawings I saw, I didn't like at
a11. I can polnt blank say thls isn't for me at a11. This one I think wlth...
has kind of blended the land use in the buildings a little bit. I think it's
appeased the neighbors. Some of their concerns hasn't lt?
Paul Krauss: Well I think it's a process that"s ongoing. I think there's some
progress that's been made. Clearly there's more progress that has to be done
but they've shown I think a good, the developer's shown a good willingness to
work with us and work with the neighbors and ! think the architect is a
particular creative one and has come up with a number of ways of responding and
is continuing to do so.
Councilman Wing: Do we hurt anybody by approving this? The concept?
Mayor Chmiel: Not really. It has to go through the other stages. It still has
to go through HRA. So this is sort of getting the foot in the door but yet not
endorsing what's belng shown.
Councilman Wing: It's their option, tf lt's simply zoned, I mean right now it's
R-12. Their option is to simply come in and go by the rules and build it. And
have straight streets and I see the options as being a lot heavier than this.
With a11 due respect to you, because I agree with you.
Paul Krauss: Clearly there's a lot of worst things that can happen. ! guess
you don't like to plan on the basis of, if you don't do this, you get that. I
mean we already had.
Mayor Chmiel: We had that. We didn't like that.
Councilman Workman: So why dldn't we get that then?
Mayor Chmiel: Because they weren't up forward as these people are right now.
Councilman Workman: Well, I don't mean to make a big stink out of this or back
down. I'm just saying, it's just that little thing about, because I bet you the
back of these will look fine. I'll bet you they'll look classy enough but tt's
that little thing about pride tn ownership and the way that people who own
things act versus the people who rent things and are going to move in 6 months
or have a different roommate or you know the whole thing. And so that it's that
kind of thlng that welghs on people's mlnd, especially when they're looklng out
a deck at what is a serene pond, wtldlife area now. And then behind It as a
backdrop ls golng to be that. And it's not going to be so much, tt's going to
in part be the architecture. I mean it's going to be kind of ominous but you
can kind of get used to that. But you can't get used to new tenants every
spring or whatever and so It's not ownership thtng that I know these people are.
That's what they're aching about I think mostly. In that what do you, you have
less of an idea about what you're going to get from people. So it's a more
transient.
Brad Johnson: Two things. One is, I think if you measure your distant from TH
101...distance from their backyard into these units. 250 feet we'll have at the
shortest. And from thelr building, their lot line to these buildings, 200...
49
City Council Meeting - August 10, 1992
Councilman Workman: So they're going to be as close as TH 101 is?
Brad Johnson: Well, if you've got the whole apartment building tnbetueen you.
The dlstance from here to here okay. This lsa long distance. Thls is quite a
distance away from that, what did we figure. 200. That's almost a football
fleld length from there. Just thelr property line, not their house. Their
property line.
Resident: Put the hill in perspective though.
Brad Johnson: Let me just continue on. Then number two is, well I can't
remember what it was. Oh...there wlll be no actlvity back here. And we can
take you to different units that they've designed and built and you can go and
walk around. There's nothlng happening back here. We've deslgned everything to
happen up front of the building.
Councilman Workman: There won't be any decks off the back?
Brad 3ohnson: There's decks but you can go, we'll take you to some projects if
that's what you're concerned about. That have been bullt 11ke this. On hllls
like this and it just turns out that there is no activity. People...back. They
may sit on the deck but they don't walk around or use the back area at a11. It
won't be mowed. These are all deslgned to open up into here. And then we've
also created, put as much buffering in here as we can. Now part of this ls
design but your concern to me is the design. You know not who this is but the
deslgn. I've lived in apartments 11ke this in Washington D.C. and I'll tell
you, there's nobody around. It's just a wonderful place to live.
Councilman Workman: Personally, I have nothlng against the people who are going
to live there en masse. I can't tell you who's going to live there.
Brad Johnson: But what you have to do is go visit a number of sites and...
Mayor Chmiel: Okay, appreciate it. Thank you. I would still entertain a
motlon. Conceptual plan is st111 there. It's nothing cut in stone.
Councilman Wing: Don, I'll make that motion only because to the north it seems
relatively buffered. What we're forgetting here ls to the east is the West
Village Apartments. This is not exactly abutting up against a prominent
neighborhood if you will of large lots, large homes. And the other south end
does abut dlrectly upon downtown commercial. And this is somewhat of a
transient rental area so I guess it's sort of fitting into the gameplan here
plus it's zoned this way so I'll move approval of this conceptual slte plan.
guess that's a11.
Mayor Chmiel: With an additional review?
Councilwoman Oimler: Plus the PUD? You wanted the PUD?
Councilman Wing: Yes. With the PUD.
Mayor Chmiel: Is there a second?
5O
City Council Meeting - August
Councilwoman Oimler: I'll second it.
Councilman Ming moved, Councilwoman Dimler seconded to approve the Rezoning of
property Zoned R-12 to PUD, and conceptual approval of Site Plan RevIe~ ~92-3 as
shown on the plans dated 3une 15, 1992 and subject to the following conditions:
1. The applicant shall enter into a development contract with the City and
provide the City with the necessary financial securities to guarantee
proper installation of the public improvements and compliance with the
conditions of approval.
2. The applicant shall obtain and comply with the appropriate permitting
agencies, i.e. Matershed Bistrict, NPCA, Health Department, Carver County
Public Works.
3. The developer shall dedicate and construct the utilities and streets within
the public right-of-ways or easements to City standards and dedicate upon
completion and acceptance to the City for permanent ownership. The
remaining building utilities outside of the easements or right-of-~may shall
be privately owned and maintained.
4. Detailed construction plans and specifications including sizing for the
utilities improvements shall be submitted for approval by the City,
As-built mylar plans will also be required upon completion of the
construction.
5. Appropriate No Park restrictions shall be placed on the private servlce
drives accordingly.
G. The final plat shall dedicate 60 feet of right-of-way for the proposed
east/west connector street. A 36 foot wide urban street shall be
constructed in accordance with the latest edition of the City's standards.
It is recommended that concrete sidewalks be placed on both sides of the
proposed main east/west collector street. The sideaalks should be 6 feet
in wtdth.
8. A detalled erosion control plan shall be incorporated into the gradlng plan
and submitted for approval with the construction plans and specifications.
The applicant shall reimburse the Clty for all fees incurred with the
prevlous and current review and development of this project. A cash escrow
account of $7,000. should be provided by'the applioant to insure payment.
10. Apply for a wetland alteration permit for the location of the trails and
possible locatlon of sedimentation pond before preliminary plat approval.
Implement the Parks and Recreation Commission recommendation for parks and
trails.
12. Construction plans for the storm sewers wtll be required with the
construction plans and Specifications submittal prior to preliminary
approval.
51
City Council Meeting ~ August 10, l~92
13. Parking spaces must meet the parklng standards as required by the zonlng
ordinance.
14. The landscaping plan shall be modlfied to lnclude streetscape along Powers
and Kerber Boulevards. In addition, conifers shali be placed south of the
oak trees to provide additional buffering.
15. The 16 unit rental building, which is oriented to the most northerly
portion of the site, should be moved and an 8 unit building put in its
place, to minimize the impact to the single family homes to the north.
1G. Fencing shall be placed around the oak trees to minimize impact during
construction.
AII voted in favor except CounciIman Workman who opposed and the motion carried
with a vote of 3 to l.
INTERIH USE PERUZT FOR EARTH WORK/CLAY HINING OF A GRAVEL PIT, LOCATED SOUTH OF
PIONEER TRAIL ~ND NORTH OF THE GRAVEL PIT, TOH ZWIERS, BOON ~ALLEY AGGREGATE.
Paul Krauss: The applicants are requesting approval to remove approximately
250,000 cubic yards of clay. This site is a 45 acre piece of ground that's the
north...illustrated there. It goes up to, almost up to Pioneer Trail up the old
railway tracks. The applicant also owns and operates the Hoon Valley gravel pit
which is...to this part to the south. These are two contiguous but separate
requests. The requested mining of the clay is to be used for the capping off of
the Eden Prairie landfill which is being closed. Upon completion of the
excavation, black dirt which would be saved on this site, would be respread and
the area reseeded. The proposal calls for the construction of actually three
sedimentation basins. Two of them are iIlustrated on this diagram here, one
being located up in the north end of the property. A small portion of this
draining that way. A large central basin and there's a request as well in the
packet for a basin at the south end which is basically in this area down here.
It's got a separate design detail but for the time being, we'll just refer to
this one here. The grading activity itself, the mining activity would only
occur in an open field area. This is an area that was formerly farmed until
recently. Is all open field and would not result in the loss of any tree cover.
The treed area is illustrated in green. The mining activity takes place
entirely outside of that. Basically they're going to take that open field,
lower it approximately 10 feet, recover it and have done with it. Mining
activity is allowed as an interim use in this agricultural district. There's an
extensive history with the Hoon Valley operation and I think you're all up to
speed on that. There's been litigation. A series of requests being made.
Hopefully that's on the final route to being resolved. Again, while this is
contiguous to that operation, and is being proposed by the same applicant, it is
a completely separate request. It is subject to the new, well the 3 year old
now, grading and mining ordinance and is under the full control of the City
Council. As you probably recall, that cid gravel pit predated the ordinance and
had a lot of grandfathering rights and is under some court orders. So you do
have a lot of leverage and authority to get this done in a manner that's
consistent with City standards. Staff believes that the proposal to mine here
is fairly sensitive for this type of an operation. Again, we are not losing any
trees. The land mass, major land contouring will not change visibly from off
$~
City Council Meeting - August 10, 1992
site. Here are a series of significant erosion problems occurring on this site
that this grading is designed to address. Those retention basins will result,
we have a significant erosion problem going down in this ravine over here and
smaller one here. And the other one that occured was the water accelerates
down the track and takes off into the Hoon. Ualley gravel pit where it eventually
dumps into the National Wildlife Refuge and had some problems. This is designed
to accommodate those concerns. These basins are a little bit different than
what we're used to. They're infiltration basins. They don't have structured
outlets. They're designed to permeate through the sand level in that water will
back up in there and slowly return into the ground water. The request itself is
also short term. The applicants indicated that they would be in and out as
quickly as possible, hopefully finishing this year. Their contracts and
requirements would encourage them to do so. The Planning Commission reviewed
this and recommended it's approval with a series of conditions that I'il get
into in a moment. ! wanted to take a second to describe what's being requested
on the southern property here. This one's a little bit different though to get
a handle on. Basically you have the Moon Valley gravel pit adjacent to the
north parcel. They have a very wooded hillside back here. This face of the
bluff has already been significantly mined in the Moon Yalle¥ operation. It's a
sheer bluff. There's no trees on it. There's not much there. If you look
across the river from Shakopee side, you can see it. It's really kind of
unfortunate in a lot of ways. But what you have here is a peninsula of land
that juts out. Here's the mine face and this juts out to the west. What the
proposal is to do in here is to excavate out a pond area that would intercept
the water running down the tracks before it's infiltrated in or slowly
discharged down into the gravel pit. That would be a significant benefit. A
lot of this water comes across that exposed mine face and it's going to be
exposed until the mine's shut down and erodes onto 169/212 and then across into
Rice Lake. But what this does is~ it's kind of land reforming on a big scale.
Here you have that area that has no trees left and it's mined. What the
proposal would do is remove this peninsula, which is to the benefit of Mr.
Zwiers because he does get to mine the gravel out of that, but which would
expose this back slope, kind of a second bluff. The first bluff is essentially
gone and this would allow the secondary-bluff to be visible from the river. Now
we don't usually encourage manipulation of land on this kind of a scale but in
this case, it's to rectify the damage that's there already. It's something we
would look at favorably. We think it's got some merit. We're also looking at
this in that there are some trees in the back little area that would be taken
down to support this mining and what we're looking to do here is to leverage
that into getting reforestation on that bluff on the Hoon Valley parcel on the
south side which we otherwise could not accomplish. So we're trying to get a
bigger bang for the buck. Get a bigger benefit out of that, which is the
benefit of the Minnesota River valley and those who have an interest in that.
As I said, the Planning Commission heard this about a month ago and there was
considerable neighborhood input. They did recommend it's approval but they had
a series of questions to be resolved. Those included, they wanted the
establishment of a timeframe. A drop dead date if you will, where all the
activity on this parcel needs to stop. The applicant indicated that that was
their intent. To mine the clay and restore the site and get out. ! should also
point out before we go on too much further that the applicant's stated intent
for this property is residential development. Right now it could, well because
of the way the ordinances are structured now, the development that we see across
the valley could not occur here unless there's utilities provided, which there
City Council Meeting - ~ugust 10,
is a possibility that utilities could be provided in the future through Eden
Prairie. It's not an immediate situation but in leaving the tree cover in here,
you basically have the ability to put homes back from the bluff line but in an
attractive area, kind of overlooking it similar to what other developments have
done in the area. ~nyway, the Planning Commission wanted a date by which all
activity should cease and there's a condition that's been added that all
activity should cease by July 15th of next year in the off chance that they
can't complete it this year. They probably couldn't complete the restoration
this year. During the meeting, I stepped outside and ! talked to Mr. Zuiers and
Rick Sathre, his engineer, and they did raise a concern that didn't occur to
either of them or me when we came up with this condition. And that doesn't
apply at all to this mining up in here. Everybody's in agreement that the July
15th day makes sense. The question comes about in this lower area. .The lower
area is mined according to market demand and there would be, it's not an ability
to commlt to dolng this unt11 they get to that area from the mine. So this
lower area would be, at some point in the future. Now that needs to be
clarified. But when we came up ulth this condition we wanted to make sure that
the mining activity in this area, which is in the closest proximity to any
adjoining homes whlch are located across the ralluay tracks and up the ht11.
It's some very rough terrain in there. That that be minimized. That that be
the shortest posslble tlme. And that drop dead date does apply to that area.
We were asked to include standard procedures to include the tree preservation
areas are adequately marked and protected during the course of gradlng
operations. We were asked to do it. I agreed to do it and then I read the
conditions tonlght and reallzed that I neglected to do it. So we'd ask you to
modify condition number 12 to put in language to the effect that tree
preservation areas be marked with snow fence or other means prlor to the start
of work and we have language that goes on to say that any trees designated for
preservation that are lost inadvertently due to grading activities, be replaced
on a caliper inch basis. That usually makes it fairly punitive to lose any
trees. We also plan on belng out there wlth the inspection staff as often as
necessary to make sure the operation is going as lt's supposed to. The third
concern was that the applicant have potential lmpact on water supplles in the
area evaluated. Some of the residents raised a concern that by allowing these
infiltration baslns, that you had a potential for adversely impacting the water
supply. Mr. Sathre pointed out at the meeting a couple points that I agreed
with hlm on, that the ground water flow in thls area tends to be towards the
flyer which is away from those homes and that if, secondly If ground water
infiltration was a problem, lt'd be a lot more significant problem from thelr
drainflelds from their septlc tanks which are a whole lot closer to the homes
than this ls. But we asked that thls matter be further researched and there is
a letter in the packet from Larry Samstad who's the Watershed District engineer.
He does confirm that the ground water flow is away from that area and in his
opinion, allowing these infiltration basins is no different than atlouing the
rain to fall on the ground. Basically that's the only water that w111 come lnto
the site. It will be a grassy field at that point and you're only allowing rain
water to infiltrate. There was a questlon ralsed about the access point up on
Pioneer Trail. A gentleman was concerned about sight distances. It is actually
a Hennepln County road at that polnt. The truck trafflc u111 not be on any
roads in Chanhassen because it runs to the east over Hennepln County roads. I
dld contact Hennepln County Hlghuay Department. They had a recent flle on the
permit for the application for the driveway out to Ploneer. They felt it was a
very safe intersection. They were looking at it wlth an eye to thls being a
54
City Council Meeting - August lO, 1992
future street for this area as it develops. They did not have any concerns for
the sight distance. They did have some concerns that truck hauling signs be
posted and that there be a construction entrance and a couple of other points,
some of which we already had in our recommendations. We've added the rest. So
I think we're in full compliance with the Hennepin County engineers are
recommending. The fifth one was that the property owners relinquish in writing
all future rights to mine this site. There was a concern that, okay you get the
10 feet of clay now and you come back in a little while to get some more. The
applicant didn't appear to object to that we added a condition that basically
said that. That it be written into the chain of title. The last tree was,
staff was asked to reassess the requested letter of credit. There was, the
engineering department used a standard rule of thumb to come up with an original
letter of credit amount to insure site restoration and it was something on the
order of $40,000.00. What they did is they went back in and did a much more
detailed analysis plus added the cost for the letter of credit for the tree
reforestation that's going to be required on that south parcel, and came up with
a revised letter of credit amount for $121,900.00. And there's a report in here
from the engineering department that describes how they arrived at those
numbers. With those conditions as modified, we're continuing to recommend that
the City Council approve the interim use permit.
Mayor Chmiel: Thank you Paul. Does the applicant wish to say something?
Rick Sathre: Your honor. My name is Rick Sathre. I'm with the firm Sathre-
Berquist Incorporated in Wayzata and ! am an engineering consultant to Hr. Tom
Zwiers, the owner of Moon Valley aggregate and also of this parcel. Staff has
done a good job in reviewing and presenting the project. I'm going to first
talk a little about why I think the City should issue a permit and then talk a
11ttle about some concerns we have with the recommendations. First, why is it
that the community should, and the public should want to do this? First the
purpose of this mlning, thls temporary mining is to obtain the clay to cap the
landfill. And certainly the existence of the landfill has been something that
the Eden Pralrle residents have fought and wished to see end for some time. The
clay on this slte is very tight. Water doesn't run through it very fast and
lt's an excellent clay to cap the landfill and lt's been hard to find for the
contractor that's going to do the work. He hasn't found anything better than
this clay. The second reason why it would be ~od to allow thls ls because of
the erosion problems that are out there now. The erosion scars that lead into
Eden Pralrie and down to the railroad corridor w111 contlnue to increase in size
unless the water can be, that's running off of the ag fields can be diverted
away from those faces that are eroding. And this grading that we're presenting
here would do that. Would bring the water back internally into the site and we
would let the water seep 1nrc the ground instead of running over the edge of the
cliffs into those erosion scars. And the third reason that it would be good I
think for the Clty to allow thts ls that, as Mr. Krauss indicates, it's an
opportunity to accomplish some very positive things down in the north end of the
gravel plt where the mature wooded slope is still there would be fully exposed
to view and you'd also get, have a way to get some additional tree planting on
the graded slopes down there. $o what are the disadvantages and what's scares
the neighbors? I don't want to speak for them but I think that, as I see it,
the real disadvantages to them and to the city are the temporary noise
potential. Outing this grading operation there would be equipment running and
trucks running and that could be disruptive short term. Certainly there'd be
55
City Council Meeting - August 10, 1992
more traffic out on Hennepin County Road 1. And thirdly, there's the temporary
disruption of the land. Maybe the disruption to the land maybe isn't that
dissimilar to just the farmlng operation. But there's opportunity for the Clty
and for Mr. Zwiers. Certainly Mr. Zwiers' benefit is he gets a chance to sell
that clay and galn economically. The neighbors in the clty galn the lessening
of the erosion problem and less runoff water golng downstream. And in general,
again the 1andf111 gets closed. So I thlnk it can be a win/win.
a win/win. We just have to deal with the short term disruption of the area.
The staff and the Plannlng Commission have presented 16 conditions that are
attached to a potential approval and most of them we have, absolutely no problem
with. I'd 11ke to go through them and tell you what our thoughts are where
there is some concern. The first condition has to do with the applicant and the
gradlng contractor co-signing the application, the permlt and being responsible
together for the promises that would be asked of them. I think as it pertains
to thls north, the clay mining operation, they should be jolntly obligated to do
the thlngs that you'd want. As to that southerly pond that straddles the border
of the mine below and the north parcel, that's only Mr. Zulers' operation. So
as it pertains to the north work, yes. They should be jointly responsible but
not as to the south. So somehow that would have to be cleared up and the letter
of credit amount that would blnd or would guarantee to the city that the
northerly work would get completed, we'd 11ke to see that dollar amount
separated from what uill happen to the south so that only Mr. Zwiers is
obligated for that work and not the contractor that's dolng the 1andf111
capping. There's absolutely nothing wrong with number 2. We agree it was,
that's a Hennepin County initiated suggestion. In number 3, we proposed hours
of operation from ?:00 in the morning until 6:00 at nlght. Probably from every
day of the week except for Sundays and holidays. And the staff has indicated
that they may wish to shut down Saturday operations if there are complaints.
think if they're significant, substantial and substantiated complaints, that the
city should have the right to shut it down. The operation down but I'd hate to
see a petty complaint that was just lodged to, for not very good reason be the
cause of shutting the operation down. But I would hope that the, if the city
chooses to restrlct that or leave that to the engineer's discretion, that he be
directed to verify that the complaint is real. The next issue, or item that ue
questlon ls agaln down in number 6 where the letter of credlt amount
established. I thlnk the staff fairly figured out what a suitable letter of
credlt amount should be but we would ask agaln that the amount be separated
between what's dedicated to guaranteeing the north work from the south pond
work. I thlnk my qulck calculations would lndlcate that about half of the money
would guarantee, is allocated to guaranteeing the north work and half the south
work wlthin a few thousand dollars on each. In number 7, the staff has asked
for verification of where the sand layer occurs in the ground. We'll be
submitted soll borlngs that were done by GME consultants on behalf of the
grading contractor. They have been done but I have not seen them but ue uill
supply them. As Mr. Krauss indicated, the Watershed Dlstrlct has revleued and
approved of thls work. They met in July and approved of this. Again, in number
12, we need to separate the financial guarantees if thls ls to go forth. Or
we'd like to. And in 14, the July 15th date as Paul indicated would be very
adequate for the north clay operation but we really have no way to set a date
for the work down in the mine and gravel pit. So those are our thoughts. We'd
-be happy to answer questions and agaln, I thlnk thls lsa chance for a wln/uln
but I understand the fear of the neighbors. Change is always difficult. Thank
you~
56
City Council Meeting - August 10, 1992
Mayor Chmlel: I have just a qulck question that really don't pertain to this
but, Eden Prairie landfill uslng clay so tt's not permeable. Seeplng Into the
ground water per se. Have they taken lnto consideration or have they looked at
potentially putting a 11net on that and putting regular earth so it supports
vegetative growth rather than going wlth strictly clay because that's not golng
to really produce the kind of ground cover that you really want.
Rick Sathre: I think the clay, the contractor's here. I thlnk we should ask
him to tell you a 11ttle more about tt but as I understand it, they're capping.
They're putting a clay layer on flrst to keep water from infiltrating. Trying
to make it run off.
Mayor Chmiel: Like an umbrella basically.
Rick Sathre: Right. Right, which is the problem we've got here with those
eroslon scars. The ravlnes. Water's all runntng off but that's what they want
at the landfill. I imagine the contract calls for spreading topsoil over the
clay?
Contractor: It gets a foot and a half of cover material and 6 inches of topsoil
and then it gets seeded on top of it. The reason they go with the clay in this
particular case. Sometimes they use membranes...cost effectiveness of clay...
If they had a 50 mile haul, they would have gone with a membrane type system.
Rlck Sathre: Which is a plastlc or some other.
Contractor: This particular job was speced out for clay.
Rick Sathre: So it would end up with a grassy cover.
Mayor Chmiel: I know on many of the sites that I've put in things that we've
done, we have put a plastlc membrane over that with a 6 inch of dlrt to support
that. The clay will absorb, how many feel of clay are you planning to put on?
Contractor: There's 2 feet of clay that's got to meet a permeability...
Mayor Chmiel: Right.
Contractor: And one thing they do...grass on top and not trees is because the
trees, the root structures will break the clay cap. The main idea for putting
the cap on top is to keep the ground water from gotng lnto the exlstlng landfill
...methane gases are generated...something they patrol.
Mayor Chmiel: Well the methane they're not going to control but this will go
whatever way tt can get out.
Rick Sathre: I suppose our grandchildren will probably be back in there mining
those dumps out and recyling them I hope someday.
Mayor Chmiel: I don't think you'll ever see. lt. We've looked at lt. Paul,
another thing comes to mind as I looked at this. I didn't see anything that was
being done with an EAW. Environmental Assessment Worksheet. The County
requires an EAW for anything over 1~,000 tons. This is going to consist of a
57
City Council Meeting - August 10, 1992
lot more. Why did we not have an EAW?
Paul Krauss: Mr. Mayor, we're not aware of what the County does or why they
would do that. The mandatory threshhold for an EAW is, and I don't remember
exactly but I looked it up when I was doing this.
Mayor Chmiel: 25 signatures is ail it needs.
Paul Krauss: That's an elective EAW but a mandatory EAW that's requtred by the
Environmental Quallty Board ls excavating over something 11ke 40 acres of land
and thls is considerably smaller that than. Now, we've talked to some residents
that were looking at petitioning you to do an electlve EAW and I'm not sure lt's
not that hard to get the signatures. They'll probably do that tonight. But I
also looked at more meanlnfully to my way of looklng at it is what do we get out
of doing an EAW that I haven't already made them do in terms of supplying
information that would help to make a decision, and I'm not sure that there ls
anything that could be added to going through the EAW process. We've already
contacted all the agencles basically that would be contacted under an EAW.
We've gotten the input. I'm just not sure that it would add a lot to the
discussion or else I would have suggested that we do lt.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay. I guess I don't have any other questions. I may have
more. Ursula.
Councilwoman Dlmler: Yes. I'm a 11ttle blt confused and even as I was reading
the report and then when Mr. Sathre was speaking. It was my understanding that
the south slte ls grandfathered in and has a conditional use permlt uhlch we're
not at all considering right now. And we're only considering the north site
which ls not grandfathered in and yet in all of the talks, we're tylng the south
site into here somehow to confuse the issue I think.
Paul Krauss: You're hlttlng it rlght on the head.
Councilwoman Oimler: Thank you.
Paul Krauss: It's an extraordinarily complex legal situation. We've had some
court rulings on the south parcel that establishes grandfathered rights. That
according to Judge Canning 11mlt us to regulating only those aspects on the
south property that effect public health and safety. And as you're aware, the
Counc11 has taken recommendations on the south property and approved those with
an eye towards that. And this is the north parcel. It's a park property that
was acquired after the effective date of the ordinance so everything brlngs to
bear. You can apply every standard in the new ordinance and there's clearly an
interpretation that you have to make. Does it meet the standards that are
established for the ordinance? Does it meet the standards for a waiver of the
setback standards on the north property? Then ue come to thls area in the
corner and what that does is, it straddles the property line. You've basically
got that peninsula of land that I was describing, that juts out ls rlght here
and it straddles the property line. The only way to work that corner is to
lnvolve both properties. Now we worked long and hard with the Judge to make
sure that these parcels were treated as different parcels and the Judge agreed
with us. They are and grandfatherlng applies to one and not the other.
However, to be frank, what we're doing here is allowing something that we think
58
City Council Meeting - August 10, 1992
makes some environmental sense and then leveraging it on the south property so
that we're going to get some Improvements there that we couldn't otherw£se
demand with the reforestation. If this is approved, this slope, maybe it will
show up a little better here. This USGS map shows a lot of contours that are
no longer here and you basically have a bit pit here. This is a sheer face of a
mine. Now we could make them, and we have made them establish grass on there to
prevent erosion but we don't have the authority to requtre trees. What we're
doing is we're leveraging the ponding in thts area to require reforestation on
that south slope and kind of jumping over.
Councilwoman Oimler: Okay, now my question is, if you establish that linkage,
can they then come and claim hey the south parcel is grandfathered. There is a
linkage and therefore now the north parcel is grandfathered.
Paul Krauss: We discussed this at length with our legal staff because it was a
concern that we had as well. We're very confident that it doesn't and the
reason ls, it's because of grading activities that they're doing on the north.
[ mean there's some tree loss that they've got to compensate for. The only
place to compensate in this case is on the adjacent property that they happen to
own. That didn't provide them the window to jump through to say, these are al[
one parcel and should be treated as such and by the Court and that we have
grandfathering rights all over. That was pretty clear to us.
Councilwoman Oimler: Elliott, do you want to comment on this?
Elliott Knetsch: Yeah. I would agree with what Paul's telling you and I think
we're satisfied that this wouid not somehow tie the two together and give them
greater rights in the north site such as they have on the south site.
Councilwoman Dimler: Because if it did, I don't think the payback to us is
substantial in order to allow that to happen. Those were my two concerns.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay. Richard.
Councilman Wing: Well I'd just like to plggy back on Ursula's questlon on that
south piece because it's confusing to me also. What's the future of the south
piece? That's the Moon Valley I grew up with. With the blg pit and the gravel
mining. Is that just going to keep going on?
Paul Krauss: No. You know Mr. Zwiers has given us some ldea of the, we have a
plan. The ultimate removal of material with the final grades that he's got to
re-establish there. Now what you're left with lsa blg bow1 when a11's said and
done. You know arguably, what is thts big bow1 good for? The only thing from a
comprehensive plan standpoint theoretically that you can put in there right now
is agriculture or presumably some low density residential. We don't know how
many years lt's going to take to finlsh it and we don't know what kind of
opportunities are going to be there at that ttme.
Councilman Wlng: There's more gravel mining w111 occur on the south most
likely?
Paul Krauss: Oh yeah.
59
City Council Meeting - August 10, 1992
Hayor Chmlel: Anythlng more?
CounciZman Wing: Oh no.
Councilman Workman: I guess I don't have a whole lot. I guess I'm kind of
waitlng for maybe some of the neighbors to make comments.
Councilwoman Dlmler: I have one more questlon of Paul, if I may. You talked
about them allowing this to occur so that we could have a second bluff 11ne.
Rlght? Now what's the guarantee that that bluff 11he'S going to stay in place?
Paul Krauss: Well a couple things Councilwoman Dimler. First of all their
approved gradlng plan shows no gradlng in that area. Nor would we ever
authorize or I would never recommend that you authorize it because it is a
primary bluff line. It's protected by our bluff line dlstrlct and there's a lot
in there. Add to the fact that one of the conditions of approval is that the
property owners record agalnst the tttle that there be no further mlnlng on that
parcel period. I thlnk it pretty well protects it.
Councilwoman Dimler: Okay, you're confident that that will protect it? Okay.
Hayor Chmiel: Once they take 250,000 cubic yards of clay out, we can stop that
rlght there after that?
Paul Krauss: You mean once they.
Mayor Chmiel: Can they come back in and say, well we need another 50,000?
Paul Krauss: Theoretically they could make a request of you. You would be
empowered to deny it but under the conditions of approval, I don't know if
they're constrained E111ott but if the condition gets recorded against the
property that Council's certainly under no obligation to release them from that
condition.
Elliott Knetsch: Yeah that's right, plus we have the July 15th cutoff date.
I guess your question might be is if they get the 250,000 off this year and then
come back next year for addition. Well, they could certainly flle for a permit
11kw they're doing now and we'd put them through this review process and have
the opportunity to approve or deny, just as we do now.
Mayor Chmlel: Okay. Alrlght.
Councilman Workman: I guess that maybe leads lnto a questlon I have for
Elliott. Under what grounds do we have to deny this?
Elliott Knetsch: Well this is similar to, the interim use ordinance that you
have is similar to your conditional use permit process. You look at the overall
proposed use compared to whatever detrimental effects it may have and I think
there's some specific guidelines laid down in the ordinance for you to judge the
use by.
Paul Krauss: There's a serles of findlngs that you would have to make one way
or the other. And frankly there's also, the grading ordinance provides for a
60
City Council Meeting - August 10, 1992
300 foot setback of activity. It also provides for a waiver of that setback if
they meet some criteria. But still that's a determination that you have to make
whether or not it warrants that waiver.
Elliott Knetsch: That is a specific variance that you have to give that here.
Paul Krauss: Well, no. It's not. Roger and I went through that. It wasn't
written as a variance. It was written as a waiver so that there's findings that
you have, you make the finding. You don't have to give it a variance. You just
waive the requirement.
Mayor Chmiel: Is there anyone else wishing to address this issue or have
concerns? Come forward and please state your name and your address.
3on Lonstein: Mayor and Council members. I'm 3on Lonstein. ! live at 9861
Oeerbrook Drive. I actually have lived there for exactly 3 weeks and the reason
I'm becoming involved in these, I'm Lot 14 in Oeerbrook which is just over the
railway tracks from the meadow. A little bit of background is that I've been
working with the planning department obviously in building my house and was very
appreciative and went along with all their concerns with erosion and maintaining
the bluffs and putting in retaining walls so that we wouldn't destroy the bluffs
and that's what some of the concerns I'm raising tonight. Obviously only being
here for 3 weeks and missing the original meeting because I was out of the
country, I read through the report of the Planning meeting and the Minutes of
the meeting and Mr. Krauss' report and it seems to, there are three separate
things here. One is the mining of the clay. The quarter million cubic yards of
clay from the meadow. The second thing is the establishment of three
infiltration basins or seepage basins. And the third thing is the extension of
mining into the south end of this north parcel for the portion abutting onto the
original mining. With the clay meadow mining, my concerns are firstly,
obviously noise. They are going to mine a tremendous amount of clay in a short
period of time. There's going to be noise from 6:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.. We had
just in the vicinity this past weekend they replaced a leaking gas main and it
was just one single truck plus a single grader that was working and it was very
disturbing, all through Saturday. The second thing is, even though the access
is on Pioneer Trail and the County and the State say it's a safe access, the
access will be such that the volume of traffic to move this amount of clay in
the period of time is approximately 25 to 30 trucks per hour each way on Pioneer
Trail. Because otherwise it's not possible to move this volume of clay in that
11 hour span, 6 days a week. One of the infiltration basins. Nobody knows
infiltration basins. We're talking about infiltration or seepage basins when
we've got no reports of what the soil is down. Is there sand down there or is
it clay going through a deep dip? We don't know. Yes, it is like the rain but
what happens, we're trying to prevent erosion but we're going to be creating
something in clay. Clay doesn't hold water if there's no sand and therefore in
a large storm, you're just creating another source of erosion. What's the
effect of that water sitting there on our current water table and the aquafir?
We don't know. Yes it's like water Just falling but you're creating a place for
the water to stand. The other thing is, I know it's the Minnesota State bird
but what about the mosquitoes, obviously are going to love these basins. The
other concern is on the lower mining operation, Reading through Mr. Krauss'
report, it's very obvious and the Council knows the long hist. ory that goes back
with the mining on the south parcel but reading through the report, the
City Council Heeting - August 10, 1992
restoration on the south is such that it's not a year, two years, lt's as the
clay and as the soil and gravel is needed for Hr. Zuiers' business. Is the
permission you're glvlng hlm just extending the mlnlng operation lnto the north
parcel because there's no time limit? What about the amount to reforest? Are
we reforesting wlth 11ttle seedlings or reforesting ulth real trees? If you
reforest with trees, and I spoke to a couple of landscape people. If you forest
with trees, and say you're really conservative puttlng 2 to 3 foot trees, 400
trees to an acre, and a quarter of those trees being deciduous trees and the
other 3/4 belng something inexpensive like dogwood trees which are $25.00 each,
is going to cost you somewhere between $15,000.00 and $20,000.00 to reforest an
acre. Have we got guarantees that when this is (a) that it's golng to be done,
and (b) that the money ulll be available for that? The other question is, on
the north meadow, on the meadow that's going to be, clay ls golng to be taken
out. This is going to be residential development in the future. You cannot, it
has to be residential development where utilities are brought in because
obviously once the soil is disturbed, you cannot put in any sewer, any mound
systems. The other question is, we've no reason to walve the 300 foot
setback...readtng and inquiring, this 300 foot setback is such that you want to
protect the neighbors and protect the environment and protect the land from
going right up to the border with no setback, even though you're going to be
regrassing that area, creatlng problems in the future for future erosion.
Hayor Chmiel: Okay, anyone else?
Dennie Bartholow: In another 20 mlnutes I'd say good mornlng. I'm Dennis
Bartholow, 9841 Oeerbrook Drive. I'm on Lot 14, directly across from the
seepage pond. There's a few thlngs I'd like to brlng up. One of them in
regards to traffic. I realize that this is Hennepin County that the trucks will
be drlving but in my calculations on the amount of trafflc, I've got 35 trucks
per hour each direction on that highway. Pioneer Trail is a 55 mph highway and
just prlor to the exlt from the 1andf111 area lsa strong dip in the hlghuay, a
curve and you come up over a hill and immediately to your left Is the exlt. Now
this ls where the trucks are golng to be returning from the landfill. They'll
be comlng up over the h111 and stopping, waitlng to take a left hand turn. In
essence waltlng for traffic to clear and maklng their turn. If you have one
truck that stops there and you come up behind it at 55 mph, it's a very scarey
situation. But if you had two of them, lt's a very, very dangerous situation
and the likelihood of that happening I think is very strong. Rush hour at that
area, whlch ls around 5:00 to 5:30, backs up almost to the top of thls h111. It
can back up past the bridge into Hennepin County. Just give you an idea of what
klnd of traffic we're dealing with. Also, in the mornlng, the inbound traffic
coming from Carver, Jonathon, all of that area, it's difficult to get onto
Ploneer Tra11 and they're going to be operating at 7:00 in the mornlng. So
again we have a traffic problem. In that case, the trucks wtll be leaving the
plt, golng up over the hill and disappearing and then the traffic will come up
behind them doing 50 mph and they're just waking up at that time. So I have a
real strong concern about the safety lssue and legal ramifications as to if
something happens to my family, would I come back to Chanhassen and try to
collect on lt. We also have a problem rlght now that we're deallng with
Williams Pipeline goes across that property. And they discovered a leak just
recently and they're tearlng it all apart and replacing it. If we have all of
this tonage driving back and forth over Williams Pipeline, in essence I've got
25,000 truckloads is what lt's golng to take. A quarter of a mlllion cublc
City Council Meeting - August 10, 1992
yards, lO cubic yards to a truck, that's 25,000 truckloads that's going to be
driving over this pipe. If this pipe breaks, who's held responsible for it?
And ls there a possibility of contamination to my ground water because of it?
I'm concerned of that right now. This ts, as I recall, this pipe I think ts
refined fuel. I do not believe lt's crude so it would have a better chance to
leach. When we get to the ground water concern, if we look here we'I1 see that
they're golng to strip away the clay to an elevation of 800 feet. Agaln, I'm
directly across the railroad tracks on 14. And the elevation of my home is 910
feet. When we put in the well, we hit water at 160 feet deep. Okay, so that
puts it at 750 feet. Is this is at 800 feet, my ground water was at 750 feet,
that's 50 feet of filtration, which does not seem to me 11ks a whole lot. Also
mentioned at the Planning Commission was that if we had a super storm, we would
fill up these baslns but that they would recede at a rate of i inch per hour for
in 72 hours, I would have the entire super storm in my ground water and to say
that all of that flows towards the Minnesota River, I flnd that very difficult
to believe. My background is engineering and I don't think it's that cut and
dry. We don't know what the ground ls like underneath there. Agaln, if my
ground water is contaminated, who would I go after legally for it? Would it be
the contractor? Would it be Moon Yalley? Or if just slmply dlssolve hls
corporation and then I'm stuck out in the middle of nowhere? I don't know and
that's something I'm very concerned about. As far as future development in that
area, if they want to put in residential areas, again is that going to mean that
I'm going to have to handle the city comlng out wlth sewer when I've got
$10,000.00 into my mound operation right now? There was a comment made about
there shouldn't be a concern about the ground water because look at where your
septic system is relative to where this system is. Yes, my septic system has a
lot of clay between it and the sand does the filtration. They want to go
directly into the ground water with it and that's very scarey. As far as
eroslon concerns, I don't know if any of you have been down in that area but at
the turn of the century the railroad came through and dug a big-ditch right
between my property and the proposed mining operation. They have sheer c11ffs
there. It's been there for 80 years. Erosion's never been a problem. Sack of
my property ls probably 50 foot cliffs and nobody's ever made a mention out of
the erosion problem so I don't understand why that's a major concern now. It
just doesn't make any sense. And also when we bought the property, we were
under the assumption that the bluffs were protected and that we wouldn't end up
having bluffs torn down. On the southern operation over here, this ls where the
mining operation is now. Thls is a very large bluff peninsula right here that
blocks our vlew of the mining operation' If we tear thls out, we get the
opportunity to watch a mining operation and for how many years, nobody knows.
So yes, you're exposlng a second bluff but you're destroying the first one to do
it. Sure, half of the first bluff has been destroyed but the back stde of the
bluff ls in perfect position. Why tear it out? And then, now I'm stuck looking
at a mining operation both directly across the railroad tracks from my home and
also when ~ vlew Shakopee, I'll be looking at an ongoing mining operation. As
far as the Eden Prairie facility. The landfill. I believe it was mentioned
that they do have a second source for clay. That the landfill has a second
source for clay? No? I thought at the last Planning Commission that-had been
mentioned.
Rick Sathre: Well if this is denied, they'll have to find another source.
Dennis Bartholow: Okay, and I think that's about all I have.
City Council Meeting - August lO, 1992
Mayor Chmiel: Okay, thank you. Is there anyone else?
Linda Revere: My name is Linda Revere and I'm at 9881 Oeerbrook Drive and I
don't have a lot to add after my neighbors. I agree with what they've sald.
Just a couple of questions I'd like to raise. And this kind of goes back to
what Councilwoman Oimler had mentioned. You had a date of July 15th of next
year as the deadline for both projects and yet they're saylng that they can have
the top clay removal by the end of the year. I would suggest having two
deadlines. If they say they can have it done by the end of the year, have a
December 31st date for the clay removal and then the lower, the southern end,
July lSth or whatever but have them be separate dates I think would be
perferable. One concern that ue do have ls the nolse. 6rowlng up I lived
across probably Z miles from a quarry. Very, very noisey and if this is
approved, I would suggest that Saturday be eliminated from the days of
operation. One concern wlth that south end, if that little peninsula is removed
and then exposlng the secondary bluff line. What's golng to prevent that
secondary bluff line from eroding? I think there should be some study done or
some looklng lnto that. And that's all I had, thank you.
Mayor Chmlel: Thank you. Anyone else?
Richard Vogel: I'm Richard Vogel and I live at 105 Pioneer Trail. I guess
using the Environmental Assessment Worksheet, it had been mentioned in either
the Plannlng Commission or Paul's comment as to why Chanhassen dldn't ask for
one. Last Wednesday evening I was talklng with, I believe she's a planner for
Carver County and that's when she mentioned when they have over so many, I thlnk
it's 16,000 cubic yards, it's just done. And here we're moving an awful lot
more than that. I don't know really what ls all done in an environmental
assessment worksheet. Chanhassen dld not have one on flle that we could look
at. I guess if you had your druthers of what part of thls project could be
completed and what you maybe wouldn't like to see, I guess taking the clay out
is one thlng. I don't know digglng it as deep as they're going, how that's
going to look but I guess I could put up with that. I'd be very wary of
connecting the southern parcel wlth the northern parcel because I guess the way
that 11ne is there, the green tree line, that whole southwest corner of the
northern parcel ls golng to be mined and then a sedlment basin put in there. Is
that the plan? I was talking to Paul one day over the phone and I think from
the railroad right-of-way where if you're walklng on the old rallroad
right-of-way now. I think he said you'd be taking trees out approximately ?0 to
100 feet up from where the river right-of-way would go over to that hi11. I
don't know, I think that's an awful lot of trees that are going out of there.
If you get to some polnt there where all of a sudden Moon Valley feels,
determines well this isn't working. We have to do something else. What do you
do at that polnt? Do you, I mean what can you do then but let them go further?
As far as having the trade off of letting them mine that southwest corner to
gettlng the, I want to say the south slope of the southern parcel reforested.
think as Mr. Lonstein pointed out with trees, it's golng to be a very expensive
project and if you put little plnes in there, lt's not golng to hold. I also
don't know if from the, what permit was given to the southern parcel earller
this year. At one tlme I heard they were asklng to mlne right up to the 11ne of
the northern parcel. Because they owned both properties, they could do that.
don't thlnk they have done that yet but I don't understand lt. The way I
understand it, it's not entirely cleared up. I think they, I guess I'm just
City Council Meeting - August 10, 1992
thinking. They possibly could do that or choose to do that. If this other
things are granted when they do that, where do you go from there? In all my
observing of Moon Valley's operations, I have not seen anything reforested or
resodded or reseeded or anything. On'the mining that was done on the north
parcel in 1988, from about the first of September to the middle of November,
whatever is all gone up there was taken out in that time. I don't know how many
cubic yards that was but nothing has been done to restore it and how do we know
when 250,000 cubic yards are taken out? Is there a way that you can really
tell? Those are just some of my objections and I just think the people too that
bought lots at Oeerbrook, you know there was no mention any time of having a
mining operation across the lane from them and I think, I don't know how you
would ever have made someone aware of that. That it was possible that it could
be done. But again my big thing I hope the two parcels are not linked. That
there is no chance that that can ever come back to haunt Chanhassen. Thank you.
Mayor Chmiel: Thanks. Anyone else?
Richard Vogel: I guess one quick thing. We do have enough signatures for an
Environmental Assessment Worksheet and I'll give them to Paul or whoever.
Mayor Chmiel: Thank you. Is there anyone else?
Terry Beauchane: My name is Terry Beauchane. I live at 240 Flying Cloud Drive.
I'm one of the people that live across from the south site. The original Moon
Valley. I think everything that could be said has been said about the entire
Moon Valley operation up to this point. Most of you people were here several
years ago when this whole fiasco started so I'm not going to try to elaborate on
the concerns and all of the rest of it about the entire Moon Valley operation. I
think that's been presented pretty fairly. You people are going to have to come
to your own conclusions about whether or not this is really a necessary
endeavor. What it's going to do to the environment and all of the other real
concerns that everybody else has expressed tonight. I have a more direct
question though I guess to Paul, more than anybody else. Ever since this whole
thing with Moon Valley has started, what have we gotten? The City. The
Counc11. The taxpayers and everybody else. What have we gotten from Mr.
Zwiers? I'd like an honest answer. What have we gotten?
Paul Krauss: What have we gotten. We've been in litigation for the best part
of the last 3 years. You could flip the question over and say, what do we
expect to get.
Terry Beauchane: No. No, no. Let's not.flip the question over. Let's put the
question where it is because we've been through this for over 2 years. What
have we gotten from Mr. Zwiers?
Paul Krauss: Well Terry, are you asking for me a character reference?
Terry Beauchane: If that's what it takes because he's the one who's giving us
all of this, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna. My promise, my promise and my
promise. What have we gotten from his so far?
Paul Krauss: Well, I think what we've gotten on the south side we've gotten
through some Court rullngs that we regard as being favorable. I often deal wtth
65
City Council Meeting - August 10, 1992
a lot of folks who's credibility comes into question, which is why the City
requires development agreements and contracts and things to be filed against
property title and everything else.
Terry Beauchane: Let me put the question more direct, and I guess I'll put the
question to everybody including you. Is there anybody in here that trusts this
guy?
Mayor Chmlel: I don't know if we're here to judge his character or not.
Terry Beauchane: We are here because he is asking you people to do something
that you have to make an approval on and the only thlng that you've got to go by
is his word and so far, slnce this whole Moon Valley thing has started, all he's
done is cause everyone a lot of aggravation and time and money through this
whole process because he does not want to comply with anything that this city
sets forth. So what makes you people think he's going to comply now? Even if
you glve hlm the permlt and he puts up the money, and all the rest of it. You
people know how a corporate entity works in thls country. As soon as he's done,
he can snub his nose at you people and all the rest of us, again and walk away
from it and say, lt's all yours baby. Do what you want ulth it. And who's
going to get stuck with it? And he's done that so far. What's to say he's not
going to do it agaln?
Mayor Chmlel: Appreciate your comment but I think that's something that we're
going to have to declde on and come up with a conclusion ourselves.
Terry Beauchane: I hope you give it very serious consideration.
Mayor Chmiel: We will. What I'd like to make a suggestion this evening is that
there's been a lot of good polnts brought up Paul by the people and those would
be contained within the Minutes that we've had with the recording. I'd like us
probably at this particular tlme to revlew all the questions that have been
addressed and all those questions answered. I would like to table this until
our next meetlng and come up with those respective answers. Rlchard.
Councilman Wing: Don, if I may just quickly have one additional questlon of
Paul up to this point.
Terry Beauchane: I have no further questions.
Councilman Wing: I don't own the property. Mr. Zwiers owns the property and
understand there's a large history of litigation here. His rights and
grandfatherlng. He was there before the rules and then after the rules and lt's
kind of like this beachlot thing. Who can do what? I'd really 11ke a more
clear cut plcture from the attorney what hls rights are as a landowner and
use of that property. What can he and can't he do? I mean there may be some
areas here that's like Eckankar. You slmply can't say no to. You can't vote
against. So this is no whether he's a good guy or a bad guy. What his rights
are and as a landowner what he maybe can and can't do and how this litigation
and all the history fits into the package overall.
Paul Krauss: Well sure we can get the City Attorney's office to draft something
up along those lines. As far as responding to the questions that are raised to
city council Meeting - August 10, 1992
us, T'd be happy to. T mean I'm not sure what else we can provide. I mean if
there's something specific to do. I can certainly call Virginia Harrts up and
find up what kind of rationale the County uses. But if there's some area
specifically.
Councilwoman Dimler: Well I guess one of the questions that was brought up that
I thought was excellent was how are we going to police or tell when they've
taken out that 250,000 cubic yards and then that's it. How do we police that?
Paul Krauss: We monitor it. We have an end state grading plan and they also
owe us an end state survey demonstrating that the grades are what they were
supposed to be.
Mayor Chmiel: I have a motion on the floor to table.
Councilman Wing: I'll second.
Mayor Chmiel: I would like to have us respond to all those questions that were
brought up. There were a lot of good questions prior to, and I think that's the
only way we can really address this. Yes, you have your hand up.
Contractor: Can I make a comment? I'm with Carl...and Sons. We are the
contractor... My concern would be the north parcel...to complete my project.
It's been passed from Council meeting to...couple of weeks ago. I've got work
to do yet this fall. As far as the work being done on the north parcel, I'm
going to be doing it... If somebody in here has got a problem wtth Mr. Zwiers
and Moon Valley, that's not my problem and as far as I'm concerned, it should
not be tied to the north parcel.
Mayor Chmiel: Well my concerns are, as I want to have ail the information
available to me with the questions that are to be answered and that's my
suggestion for tabling. If it takes 2 more weeks, it's going to take 2 more
weeks. So with that I have an entertainment on the floor with a second.
Nayor Chmiel moved, Councilman Wing seconded to table the Interim Use Permit for
Earth Work/Clay Nining for Noon Valley Aggregate until the next City Council
meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried.
Mayor Chmiel: I'd like to have all that data and informaiton next time before
US.
Councilman Wing: I appreciate that comment on delays but this is such a large
impact on the city, I think it's really our responsibility to.
Mayor Chmlel: Right, and [ don't want to come up with a conclusion right yet.
So with that, thanks for coming. As you're well aware, you know what our
timeframe ls. Normally 11:00 we shut down the machine. I would like to also
make a suggestion that we table item number 7.
Councilman Workman: Second.
Mayor Chmiel: And hold off with Council presentations and Administrative
presentations untll next meeting.
67
City Council Meeting - August 10, 1992
Mayor Chmiel moved, Councilman Workman seconded to table Zoning Ordinance
Amendment to Amend Article VII of the City Code concerning Planned'Unit
Development regulations for residential districts until the next City Council
meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried.
Councilwoman Dimler moved, Councilman Wing seconded to adjourn the meeting. All
voted in favor and the motion carried. The meeting was adjourned at 12:07 a.m..
Submitted by Don Ashworth
city Manager
Prepared by Nann Opheim
~8