1992 07 27CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL
REGULAR MEETING
3ULY 27, 1992
Mayor Chmiel called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m.. The meeting was opened
with the Pledge to the Flag.
MEMBERS PRESENT: Mayor Chmiel, Councilwoman Dimler, Councilman Wing, Councilman
Workman, and Councilman Mason
STAFF PRESENT: Don Ashworth, Charles Foich, Kate Aanenson, Todd Hoffman and Tom
Scott, City Attorney
APPROVAL OF AGENDA: Councilman Mason moved, Councilwoman Dimler seconded to
approve the agenda with the following amendments: Mayor Chmiel deleted item 4,
pulled item l(d) on the Consent Agenda per staff for changes; Councilwoman
Dimler wanted to discuss Sunrise Hills Non-Conforming Recreational Beachlot; and
Richard Wing wanted to discuss the HRA meeting. All voted in favor of the
agenda as amended and the motion carried.
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Joe Scott: Mayor, Councilmembers. Joe Scott, 7091 Pimlico Lane, Chanhassen.
I'iI make this as brief as possibie. I wanted to give you aii an update of the
progress on the 1st Annuai Chanhassen Arts Festival. What you see in front of
you are, first exhibit which is the Arts Festivai map which was in the Iast
Viliager. Kind of give you an idea of the siting. Some of the Iogistics with
regard to parking, food and beverages and so forth. As of today we've got 43
exhibitors which is, ue expected 30 so we're obviousiy reai excited about the
progress there. The second exhibit shows the layout as far as public safety
coverage and voiunteer coverage and the festival itseIf opens at lO:O0 a.m. on
August 8th and it uiii ciose right around dusk. I commend Scott Hart and Todd
Hoffman and the other foIks at the City who have heIped us out with this because
their attitude was not why can't you do it but how do ue make this thing
successfui. So I reaiiy appreciated that personaiIy. So we're going to be
having i£ve entertainment from l:O0 untiI dusk and from iooking at the site, we
don't beIieve that because £t's primariiy commercial and the prevaiIing wind's
usuaily from the south and the west, that we don't expect any disturbances but
you know if ue do, obviousiy the pubIic safety foiks uiiI probabIy keep us
informed. Other than that, if you have any questions, I'II be more than happy
to answer them now. But the purpose was just to make you aware that things are
on scheduie and certainly interested in having you come out if you have the
time.
Mayor Chmiel: Good. We not only are going to be there but we've also
volunteered our time. Or at least I have and I'm sure other Councilmembers have
done that as well.
Joe Scott: Well thank you very much.
Mayor Chmiel: Appreciate all the efforts that you've put into this and it's
comlng closer and closer each week and before you know it, August 8th is going
to be here and then pandamonlum strikes.
City Council Meeting - July 27, 1992
Joe Scott: Well hopefully it will be somewhat under control but thank you very
much for the time.
Mayor Chmiel: Good, thanks Joe.
CONSENT AGENDA: Councilman Mason moved, Councilman Workman seconded to approve
the following Consent Agenda items pursuant to the City Manager's
recommendations:
b. Resolution $92-82:. Accept Utility Improvements in Troendle Addition,
Project No. 91-3.
c. Lake Susan Hills West 8th Addition, Project 91-16:
1) Final Plat Approval
2) Approve Development Contract and Plans and Specifications
d. Ithilien Addition, Project 92-13, as amended by the City Engineer:
1) Final Plat Approval
2) Approve Development Contract for Site Grading
f. Approve Temporary On-Sale Liquor License, August 15, 1992, Chanhassen Fire
Department.
g. Zonlng Ordinance Amendment to Amend Chapter 20 of the Clty Code Regarding
Allowed Uses in the DH, Hlghway and 8uslness District, Flnal Reading
i. Approval of Accounts
j. City Council Minutes dated July 13, 1992
Park and Recreation Commission Minutes dated June 23, 1992
Public Safety Commission Minutes dated July 9, 1992
k. Resolution $92-83: Authorize Condemnation Proceedings for Easements Needed
in Conjunction with the Upper Bluff Creek Trunk Utility, Project 91--17.
All voted in favor and the motion carried.
H. SET PUBLIC HEARING DATE, TRAFFIC SIGNALS WITHIN DOWNTOWN AREA, AUGUST 24.
Mayor Chmiel: I only wanted to pull 1rem (h) for the setting of publlc hearing
date for the traffic study within downtown area. I don't think that lt's
requlred to have a publlc hearlng. Z would 11ke to have an informational
hearings and I'd like to have two of those. On two different particular dates
so if people are not golng to be able to be able to come for one, they'll at
least be able to come for the second. And I'd also like to make sure that we
send out that information to the people wlthln the public, wlthin the clty or
withln the businesses I shouZd say, and also have some of that input. That was
the only reason that I pulled lt. Mlchael, did you have something more to that?
Councilman Mason: And we had discussed whether it would be a hearing or an
informational meetlng and that was.
City Council Meeting - July 27, 1992
D. ITHILIEN ADDITION, PRO3ECT 92-13.
Mayor Chmiel: Would you also 3ust like to make your comment on the changes that
you had there on item l(d).
Charles Folch: Sure. Thank you Mr. Mayor, members of the'Council. Two
corrections for item l(d). First as it relates to item l(d)(1). If you'll turn
to page 7 of that staff report. Under the recommendations, line ltem number
4(a) which basically states a drainage easement for the wetland pond
establishing an elevation of 1,004 contour. That is incorrect. Staff was
informed today that that is not a correct elevation for the 100 year flood.
That elevation ls currently belng recalculated and we should have a number for
that tomorrow but I think at this point if we basically change the wording where
we eliminate the 1,004 and substitute 100 year flood contour, that should take
care of the intended recommendation. Similar as it follows for recommendation
number 14 where lt's establishing a lowest floor elevation for Lots 12 thru 16
and 17. Again I think if we eliminate the last, the 1,006 feet of the sentence
and supplement 2 feet above the 100 year flood elevation, that again then
corrects to the intended requirement. And the only other correction as it
relates to ltem 1(d)(2) for the development contract. Inadvertently the
breakdown or the administration fees was inadvertently missed from your packets
so I've passed that out tonlght. These corrections that I've made on 1(d)(1)
would also carry over as the conditions, corrected conditions for the
development contract on 1(d)(2).
Mayor Chmiel: Good. Appreciate that. One other item that I just wanted to
mentlon to you too Charles is that on our approval of development contracts for
the construction of plans for Lake Susan Hills West 8th Addition. On their blue
11ne copy, sheet 6 of 13. It was not signed by a P£ so if you could have them
make sure they do that.
Charles Folch: You bet. Thank you.
Councilman Wing: Don before you go off of this item (h). Did you have a second
date picked or what was your intent on the second date?
Mayor Chmiel: No I don't have any specific dates. I think those will be
chosen.
Don Ashworth: Staff would like to do it prior to a Council meetlng night so
6:30 to 7:00. We do not have the notices ready for the first meeting in August
but probably second meeting in August and first meeting in September.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay. Does that sound alright? Richard.
Councilman Wing: I just was curious what your schedule was.
Mayor Chmiel: Yeah. We did not go through that date for that.
Councilman Mason: Do we need to move approval on that 1rem?
Mayor Chmiel: On item (h). We have a motion and a second.
City Council Heeting -~ July 27, 1992
Councilman Mason moved, Councilman Win9 seconded to approve setting a Public
Information Hearing date for Traffic Signals in Doantown Area for August 24,
1992. All voted in favor and the motion carried.
VISITOR PRESENTATIONS:
PRESENTATION BY THE UNITED WAY OF MINNEAPOLIS AREA, BYRON LAHER.
Byron Laher~ Hr. Mayor, members of tile Council, thank you. I guess I should
say thanks for the second invitation. I apologize for the scheduling problem
that I had last time. The specific request that I had was to address briefly
the problems that had occurred at the beginning of the year with United Way of
America. What the relationship of your local United Way is to that organization
and roughly what we're doing about it and what happens in this community, not
only as a result of that situation but as a result of the campaign and the
contributions that you and your citizens make annually to the United Way. Let
me briefly introduce myself to you. I am Byron Laher. I'm Director of Public
Affairs for the United Way and it's a position I've had for just about 16 years.
Before that I was a United Way volunteer. I worked for Anoka County and I ran
the campaign out there for 4 years. I liked it so much I decided I wanted to
join the organization and I've been there since. I have a tendency to get a
little bit long winded and I don't want to take up your Council time or your TV
time so I'll just kind of skip into this alld then if we can address specific
questions, I'd be more than happy to do so. The media has reported extensively
on the problems at the United Way of America in Alexandria, Uirgina. Let me
tell you briefly what happened there. What our relationship is with the
organization and what were the specific actions that our United Way took as a
result of it. And very briefly, there were questions raised about the Executive
Director's life style. Some questionable billing of expenses to United Way of
America and several corporations which were spun off from United Way of America
extensively to benefit charities across the country and people questioned
whether the financial transactions involving them were as appropriate as they
should be. As a result of that investigation, the Board of United Way of
America terminated the Executive Director and he was replaced by a volunteer
from IBM. A fellow by the name of Ken Dahm who has been serving without pay,
actually IBM agreed to continue his salary between the time he took over as
interim President of United Way of America and when he takes over as President
of University of, ~ should remember the name but I forgotten it, at the
beginning of September. At the time that this happened, our Board decided that
ue would have to suspend our payment to United Way of America for services,
which we did. And if I can, I'll bridge into what United Way of America is to
the rest of the movement. There are about 2,100 independent United Ways across
the country. There are about 55 here in Minnesota and as part of my job, I get
to work with them. It's kind of the fun part of my occupation. We purchase
services from United Way of America. It's kind of like a trade association. We
all benefit from the name and logo. All of us that use the name United Way
benefit from the NFL spols but there are a number o~ traini))g opportunities,
group purchasing, things like that that come from being a part of United Way
movement and ue pay for those services via what has traditionally been referred
to as dues. We suspended those dues payments as did a number of other United
Ways across the country when this situation was first brought to our attention
and then our Board decided ue needed to evaluate whether or not, and ue do this
every year so it wasn't a big thing, but whether or not a national organization
City Council Meeting - July 27, 1992
uith the kind of services that ue uere getting uere uhat ue uanted. And our
conclusion was, that in fact we needed a national organization to do a number of
things for us. NFL spots just being one example of it. Training opportunities.
We get about $50,000.00 a year worth of training opportunities that are tailored
to charities and the United Way movement as a result of activities sponsored by
United Way of America. Those are the kinds of things we wanted to continue.
While this was going on, the United Way of America Board as I said, was taking
the option it had taken and hired two outside, independent firms to investigate
the charges that had been made against the former President. They issued a 60
page report, which I've now read about 4 times'. It is a heavy report to read
but included in it was a series of 42 recommendations that they suggested be
taken. It's the kind of thing, the recommendations that they made were things
that ue were doing in our United Way. For example, there was a travel policy.
One of the accusations against the President was that he traveled expensively
rather than for example on coach fare and stuff like that. We have a policy in
Minneapolis that says you don't do that. Their policy simply wasn't applied to
the President and they made a number of recommendations, like I say that ue had
already been doing. They began what ~e felt was an appropriate clean up of the
situation and our Board decided that ue would make an investment of half of the
amount of money that we had normally paid in dues to the United Way of America
through roughly the first half of the year, which by the way is a little less
than 1~ of the campaign money that ue raise. And with that we said to them, ~e
wanted to be a player at what was clearly going to be a reorganization of that
National Association. The President of our Board sits on the, now sits on the
Governce Committee of the National which has, at it's last meeting adopted all
42 of those recommendations and the Executive Director of our local United Way
sits on the programs and services committee to address the kinds of programs and
services that will remain. We have not made a decision about any future
payments in terms of dues but ue are very, very satisfied at the response of
the National and the activities of the interim President. One of the things
that happened, and I'll just mention this quickly and then move on. United Way
of America held a series of meetings across the country to hear from these 2,100
United Ways, what they wanted in a national organization. What they felt should
be done as a result of the problems that had surfaced. The two closest meetings
to this area were Kansas City and Chicago and our President called up Ken Dahm
and said you know, we'll come to one of those meetings because obviously ue have
an interest but there are a lot of smaller United Ways. Bemidgi, Princeton,
Austin, Fairbault, St. Peter, places like that ~ho don't have the travel budget
to go to either Chicago or to Kansas City. We'd like you to come to Minneapolis
and we'd like to host a meeting for the five state area here. And basically he
said okay. And at the end of May he came here and ue had representatives from
30 different United Ways from all five states. Have an opportunity to talk to
him directly. There is a search going on, as I mentioned. This gentleman has a
new commitment beginning in September and he will be leaving the United Way of
America and ue will have a new President hopefully by the end of August. And
like I say, we have been participating rather heavily in ho~ that organization
is governed and what services are available to the field as a result of it. As
you might imagine, this kind of publicity has cast somewhat of a pall on all
United Ways. We benefit when we have nice NFL spots and other good will that's
created by the name and ~e all suffer a little bit when it gets tarnished. The
message that ue have for you folks as for anybody else in this community is that
our United Way is local. It is totally independent of the National. There are
no policies that are set at the national that are topped down. In fact it works
City Cou~,cil Hee[in§ - July 27, 1992
just the opposite. When we are aware of things that need national attention, we
go to them and ask them to make changes. For example, laws governing tax
deductibility or something like that as opposed to them saying gee, you've got
to write your Congressman. This is a terrible thing and you have to jump on the
bandwagon. It just doesn't work that way. The volunteers that work in our
community and there are over 1,000 of them who every year review programs, sit
on our committees and determine what happens with the money that you arid your
colleagues contribute to tile campaign each year, are the ones that govern what
happens in our United Way. I have brought two brochures which I'd like to leave
for the Council and I brought some extra copies if there are anybody who are
listening on the TU audience that would like to come in later to City Hall to
take a look at them. One is a 1991, it's last year's brochure on services in
Scott, Carver, Dakota alld Southern Hennepin. The new brochure is supposed to be
back f~'om the printers on Friday and I'll make sure that we get the current
copies and then I brought a rather thick document which is a list of all of the
programs funded by the 137 agencies here locally. Address, telephone number,
how much money the agency is getting. The programs that we are funding with the
United ~ay dollars and other information about how the local United Way
operates. Maybe I should just throw it open for questions. I'm kind of
watching your clock here and being mindful of running on.
Mayor Chmiel: Tom.
Councilman Workman: Chanhassen kind of falls ir, to a larger group of Minneapolis
United Way correct?
Byron Laher: Right.
Councilman Workman: Do you currently have efforts that are raising money here
and are you spending any money here? Specifically in Chanhassen or are you more
at the County level?
Byron Laher: It would be difficult for me to answer questions just about the
city of Chanhassen. I could for example go back to our campaigners and find out
which company's physically located in the city of Chanhassen we have campaigns
at. You run into a problem where you may have a Chanhassen resident who's
working in Minneapolis and being solicited at Honeywell for example or maybe
even in St. Paul at 3M. We have 79, let me back up. ~e've grouped for purposes
of our looking at service delivery. Our part of Dakota County which is just
Burnsville and then Scott County which is essentially Shakopee and Savage and
then Chaska, Chanhassen and Carver here and there are 79 agencies that are
either located in that area or are serving a significant number of individuals
who reside in those communities. That's the information in that brochure that
I've got. If that's responsive to your question. Okay. One of the things
we're looking at is service delivery and I mentioned that I used to work for
~noka County and it vas coincidental that we did this thing first in ~noka. I
had nothing to do with it but ue worked for about 2 years with the folks in
~noka because ue consider the whole of ~noka County part of our service area
versus just parts of Scott and Carver for example. ~nd we asked the community
what they needed in terms of service delivery. Part of it came from our
community concerns meeting which I know 6ouncilman Wing was at here. And the
message we got from ~noka is that they needed some kind of a facility that would
bring both public and private agencies together under one roof so that they
City Council Meeting - July 27, 1992
could work together and do a number of things like job trainlng and daycare and
famlly counseling. Those kinds of services. And that they really wanted a
buildlng constructed that would do that and last year we completed work on the
Anoka Servlce Center which is a partnership of the United Way, the County, the
Clty of Blaine and a host of both public and private agencles which the
community told us they needed. We are now looking at what we consider the
southwestern area of our community whlch includes you folks, to ask that same
question. We may not get that same answer but we are asking that same question.
What can we do to make sure that services are accessible to people who are not
both living and working in the inner city.
Mayor Chmiel: Any other questions? Ursula.
Councilwoman Oimler: I'm just curious. I see how you've divided up the pie. Is
that because it meets our local needs or are you taklng that from the national?
Byron Laher: We divide up the spending, both by agencies and by program
categories as a result of local volunteers telling us what ls needed in the
community and the professionals who are working at the agencies who tell us what
they see is the needs. Whlch problems are increasing. Whlch are decreasing.
We look at demographic data for example along with that. Nothing comes down to
us from the natlonal that tells us how to spend money. One of the things that
we do do, and this is part of the service that we get from United Way of America
ls we look at our spendlng patterns versus other communities of slmllar slze and
configuration. So we look at Seattle a lot, for example, to see how they're
spendlng thelr money. We look at agaln virtually any other major city and not
so that we will just do what they're doing but to see tf they're do£ng something
dlffernt from ours and then we call them up and flnd Out why so we can make
better decisions here locally. But all the decisions are local.
Councilwoman Dimler: Okay. So you are meeting the local needs, that's why !
was asking.
Byron Laher: And one of our local initiatives, Success by 6, as I'm sure most
of you have heard of because there's been a lot of press on it. We have
actually marketed to the rest of the country. There are about 26 cities around
the country that have Success by 6 programs working in early childhood
development as a result of what we've done and in fact one of the services that
we valued from the national organization is they have a staff person permanently
located in Minneapolis who provldes information about early childhood
development and putting together Success by 6 initiatives to anybody in the
country that calls in and it's all located here. It's been a great servlce for
us because when we started it, it kind of caught on and we got a lot of phone
calls and we were havlng a trouble getting our real work done because we were
answering phone calls from Atlanta and Houston and places like that and now
we've got a resource from the natlonal organization to do that for us. But
everything we do is because people in this community say they need it.
Councilwoman Dlmler: Thank you.
Mayor Chmiel: I have been a contributor for many years. I worked for Northern
States Power out of Minneapolis and it's a well worthwhile program to be
providing back to the community a lot of those dollars that do come in. But a
City Council Meeting - July 27, 1992
portion of those dollars that come in to the United Way also go right back out.
There's a very minimal amount of dollars that are spent for staff time because
of so many volunteers that are provided by a lot of the companies. And
therefore, really puts it on the map to do the best they can for those who are
in need and it's really what it boils down to.
Byron Laher: Thank you. You're right. We have about 30,000 volunteers every
year, counting everybody that helps us in the campaign and because of that ue
can keep our administration and fund raising costs under 10 cents and we also
think that with the volunteers actually add something back so it's not like
you're losing 10 cents on the dollar. I personally think ue gain more than is
taken out for administration because of the volunteer help.
Mayor Chmiel: Well we thank you for coming in and providing us the information.
And if you'll leave those brochures and the other information. We have your new
brochures, we'll look forward to getting some of those. Thank you.
Byron Laher: Thank you very much. Thank you all.
PUBLIC HEARING: VACATION OF A PORTION OF HOSESHOE CURVE AND BALDER AVENUE
RIGHT-OF-WAY LOCATED AT 6605 AND 6607 HORSESHOE CURVE, RON HARVIEUX AND JOHN
DANIELSON.
Mayor Chmiel called the public hearing to order.
Kate 4anenson: In 1990 the City Council gave a vacation of a portion of this
Baldue Avenue. At that time there was concern with the vacation of, if the lots
were to split could there be access to that through a private drive. Since that
time the City ordinance has been amended to allow for up to 4 private drives. 4
drives off a private street so that isn't an issue anymore. Therefore the
applicants are requesting that Parcel A go with this property and Parcel B go
with that property. There is a sewer easement that runs along the southern
portion that staff would like to maintain access to and we're recommending that
an easement be given allowing us to get down there if we need to maintain that
property. It's really pretty straight forward. The issue as far as the
right-of-way on Horseshoe would still remain 30 feet. It just deadends down to
the lake. There really isn't any need, except for an easement that we may have
to get down there. Tl~erefore the staff would recommend approval of the
vacation on that property with the 4 conditions outlined in the staff report.
Mayor Chmiel: ...is there with that sewer line in that particular location?
Kate Aanenson: How wide is the easement?
Mayor Chmiel: The easement, no. As far as depth.
Kate Aanenson: I'm not sure on that. Charles.
Mayor Chmiel: Charles, do you have any idea? 5, 8, 10.
Charles Folch: It's probably at least lO feet deep through there.
City Council Meeting - July 27, 1992
Mayor Chmiel: Okay. Thank you. As I mentioned before this is a public hearing
and anyone at this time that would like to address the Counc11, please come
forward and lndlcate your concerns. And if the applicants are here for that
vacation, if they're in agreement with staff's recommendation, I'd like to also
hear from them.
Councilman Workman: I'd move to close the publlc hearlng.
Mayor Chmiel: We might just have one person that might come up yet.
Applicants: We agree with it.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay, good.
Councilman Workman moved, Councilwoman Dimler seconded to close the public
hearing. All voted in favor and the motion carried. The public heartng was
closed.
Councilman Workman: I'd move vacatlon of a portion of Horseshoe Curve and
8alder Avenue right-of-way located at 6605 and 6607 Horseshoe Curve, Ron
Harvleux and John Danlelson.
Councilman Wing: I'll second that.
Resolution ~r92-84: Councilman Workman moved, Councilman Wing seconded to
approve Vacation Request ~92-5 to vacate a portion of Horseshoe Curve and Balder
Avenue as shown on the survey dated 3une 24, 1992, with the following
conditions:
1. A dralnage and utlllty easement shall be reserved over the vacated portlon
of Balder Avenue and Horseshoe Curve.
2. No clear cuttlng shall be permitted on Balder Avenue.
3. The applicants shall be responsible for any attorney and recording fees
associated wlth the vacation.
voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously.
AWARD OF BIDS: STREET SWEEPER= PUBLIC WORKS OEPARTHENT.
Charles Folch: Mr. Mayor, members of the Council. Back in April you will
recall that you awarded a street sweeper bid contract to Schuster Equipment for
the new street sweeper to be purchased this year. However, we've recently been
lnformed that Schuster, the distributor has filed for bankruptcy. In addition,
they have not met one of the contract stipulations which was a 60 day delivery
date on the sweeper ltself. Therefore, in talklng wlth Roger. Roger's followed
up with a letter to Schuster notifying them that the contract is being
terminated and staff has contacted the second low bldder which was MacQueen
Equipment and they are willing to honor their prevtous bid at $77,888.00 if the
City so desires to award the street sweeper contract to MacQueen Equipment.
Mayor Chmiel: Have you had discussions with them?
City Council Meoting -July 27, 1992
Charles Folch: Yes we have.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay. I would have liked to have brought the polnt up to them
that maybe they'd like to honor Schuster's equipment bid that was $500.00 less.
Charles Folch: They continue to, as they have at the time that we were going
through tile bidding process, to argue that their equipment is a step ahead of
t he...which we originally were golng to purchase.
Mayor Chmiel: The only reason I say that is we're paying taxes now on
everything that the legislature in thelr flne moment of decislon has done and I
thought maybe we should save a few dollars. That's the only reason.
Councilwoman Oimler: And I was wondering too. What the process to reopen bids
would, do you think prices are down?
Charles Folch: Well at this point I think we've taken out, with Schuster being
gone, you've eliminated a key low bidder in tile process. A key competitor.
Counciluonlan Dimler: Okay, and there aren't that many companies out there doing
this?
Mayor Chmiel: Right. That's part of the problem.
Councilman Workman: Hr. Hayor, wouldn't it be appropriate, somebody will tell
me not but this mlght be a storm water utllity fund item.
Mayor Chmiel: I don't think so even though they do sweep the streets to
eliminate the, sweep the streets. Say that fast 3 times. Even though they do
use that...more often than not for that particular purpose.
Councilman Workman: This would seem to be one of those hard tanglble costs that
people want out of that fund.
Don Ashworth: Well, your funding is in place under your motor vehicle
replacement fund for the purchase of this piece. By contrast, although you
could justlfy a portion of the cost back over to the storm water fund, lt's got
it's own funding problems. To put this as an additional burden when it's
difficult for it to meet lt's 5 year goals, I thlnk would klnd of just push it
over the edge. You'd lose a lot of worthwhile programs.
Councilman Wing: Could we dump it on the HRA?
Mayor Chmiel: Unfortunately not.
Councilman Workman: I'd move approval.
Councilman Wing: Second.
Mayor Chmiel: It's been moved and seconded. Is there any other discussion?
Councilman Wing: If I was to vote no just to irritate Harold, how would that go
over?
10
City Council Meeting - July 27, 1992
Mayor Chmiel: He'd probably puncture both your tires outside.
Councilman Workman moved, Councilman Wing seconded to approve the purchase of
the Elgin Sweeper from Hacgueen Equipment Inc. in the amount of $77,888.00. All
voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously.
Mayor Chmiel: Let me just make a quick comment. If there's anyone that's here
for the new business, for the Non-Conforming Use Permit for Recreational
Beachlot for Sunny Slope Homeowners Association, it's deleted and won't be, will
be back on the agenda in our August meeting.
VACATTON OF AN EASEHENT LOCATED AT 3~)3.1. COUNTRY OAK pR1'VE, HARK GRUBE.
Kate Aanenson: Thank you Mayor. This is a follow up item. At the last City
Council meeting the Council directed staff to write a letter informing the
Grube's that they had to put up erosion control. I put copies in those letters.
Erosion control is in place. Staff still supports the vacation of the easement
with the conditions in the staff report.
Mayor Chmiel: Very good. Is there any discussion? Is there anyone wishing to
address that issue? Yes ma'am. Would you just state your name and your address
please?
Ruth Boylan: I'm Ruth Boylan. I live at 6760 Minnewashta Parkway and the land
in question borders my east boundary and as you know, as we were here the iast
meeting, they have done a great deal of erosion and destroying of our property
because of their drainage and that's the result of the other damage they did
prior to that but the City can't do anything about that. I thank you for
getting a hold of them for putting up that erosion, whatever fencing or plastic
whatever it is. I do believe that 3im and I requested from the City the last
time that any correspondence you would send us a copy of which we have not
received. I believe we asked, we requested also that in talking to Frank Mastro
of Legend Homes that anything he says he will do, that you get it in writing and
that we also receive a copy. And then anything that the City says they're going
to be doing, if this drainage, if they allow Legend Homes to vacate that 5 feet
and we continue to have drainage problems, that the City will then take care and
wii1 be responsible for the problems to our property, which has been great.
Thank you.
Mayor Chmiel: Thank you. I guess I don't see any problems with providing that
kind of correspondence. It's public information so it should be provided
accordingly. Any other discussion? Anyone else?
Ruth Boylan: I would highly recommend that the City receive something in
writing from Legend Homes with what they say they're going to do. ! highly
recommend it. And by the way, there was something mentioned at the last meeting
that we have a dispute with our neighbors. We don't have a dispute with our
neighbors Kathryn. We have met with them socially. Our difficulty is not with
the neighbors. It's the difficulty in Legend Homes telling untruths to our
neighbors and to ourselves and to the City.
Mayor Chmiel: Charles, with the contractual agreement that we have with that
developer, much of that is covered in that agreement. Is it or is it not?
11
City Council Meeting - July 27, 1992
Charles Folch: I'd have to go back and actually check the special conditions
that were incorporated in that development contract. In the general provisions
of the development contract itself, I don't think there's anything specifically
that would cover this but we can certainly check the specials that were added to
it as a condition of the approval.
Kate Aanenson: Mayor. That was checked and as a matter of fact there was an
erosion control requirements put on that side but they traded a problem so we
asked them to put those measures up. So it was a part of the original. It did
create a problem by the way the lot was graded.
Mayor Chmiel: I just want [o make sure that we as a city are not going to pick
up any costs that are incurred by that developer. And I'd suggest that we
pursue and look at that [o make sure that we're going to be covered fully in
relationship to anything that could develop at a later date from that.
Councilman Wing: Are you opening it for Council discussion?
Mayor Chmiel: You bet.
Councilman Wing: We tabled this last time prior to giving this easement which
is probably tile proper thing to do but there's a couple questions Charles that
I'd have regarding the hlstory of thls. Flrst of all they came in and they
Filled a lot, put in a substantial amount of fill and as I'm walking over this
area now, there you are in the drainage. It's clearly going onto the Boylan
property, which I'm not aware it did before. I think that was pretty flat and
it was a natural drainage. Whatever the drainage was, lt's been changed. It
seems to me this particular lot is now slanted towards and affecting the Boylan
property and the west side of thelr property and I don't know why, and thls
isn't even in defense of Boylan's. It's 3ust the simple question of how these
thlngs work and why. So it was filled. It was graded. In the process of
grading lt, they clearly went on the Boylan's property and took down trees and
pushed the mud and dirt over on their property whlch irrespective of value, I
would not tolerate myself. So the builder chose to do that. He chose to fill
and put the drainage towards the Boylan property. And then he positions the
house wrong. So so far we've got 3 minuses here and then to fix thls we give
hlm an easement to flx lt. It seems to me he elther owes the Clty or the
Boylan's something here and owes them something pretty carefully. He went onto
thelr property. Created some damage. Has taken some of the natural amenities
away. Has created SOnle drainage problems. They're going to continue and why?
How dld we get away wlth thls? What went wrong?
Mayor Chmiel: I don't have tile slightest idea what went wrong other than the
fact of causlng a problem. But there agaln lt's a dlscussionary thlng between
the developer and the property owner. We're trying to do all that we can to
eliminate those conditions and the problems that are there. And Don, do you
have anything?
Kate Aanenson: There will be a retaining wall along that segment.
Mayor Chmiel: Yes.
Kate Aanenson: Okay. Just for clarification.
12
City Council Meeting - July 27, 1992
Mayor Chmiel: Right. Ursula.
Councilwoman Oimler: I was going to ask also, I see there's a $500.00 landscape
escrow here and this is apparently to go to the Grube's. Is that right?
Kate Aanenson: Well it's for the landscaping on the lot and that's part of the
letter that we wrote them says that they need to get that taken care of as soon
as possible so we're not creatlng additional problems.
Councilwoman Oimler: Okay. And I was wondering if there is, I think we should
maybe have some restoration in there to the Boylan property.
Kate Aanenson: We collect at the time the building permit is issued and our
leverage ls klnd of gone. We don't really have that rlght now. It's my
understanding that occupancy has been granted too so we really, and Roger's
aware of the situation and because there has been complaints between the bullder
of the home and the Boylan's so there's a little btt of history here.
Unfortunately Roger lsn't here but we have spoken to him about how we're trylng
to resolve this.
Councilwoman Oimler: So the City has no leverage in this?
Kate Aanenson: Well at this point I'm not sure.
Mayor Chmiel: Maybe, counselor.
Tom Scott: Not knowlng the history...building permit been issued and
certificate of occupancy, yeah. I'd tend to agree with Kate that we don't have
a whole lot of leverage.
Mayor Chmiel: Right. And that there's anything to be ensued, then it would be
the property owners against the individuals as mentioned previously. Yes.
Ruth Boylan: Ruth Boylan again for the record. I am also in the building trade
and have been for 19 years. You do have a leverage as a city because this
builder wants to contlnue to build in your clty. t, well I won't say what I was
just going to say. So you as a city and those who have given this builder a
permlt to bulld in our clty, you do have a leverage. That they do not
continually cause problems and we are not the first ones they have caused
problems to. You might touch base wlth some of the other new owners in that
development.
Mayor Chmiel: Thank you. You're right. We do have a certain amount of
things we can make sure the next time but unfortunately the damages have
occurred already and there's not too much more we can do right now.
Unfortunately.
Councilwoman Oimler: And denial of this vacation won't really solve anythlng
either.
Ruth Boylan: Does that mean then the City will own this? That 5 feet...?
Councilwoman Oimler: No. We're vacating it.
13
City Council MeetJ. ng- July 2?, 1992
Mayor Chmiel: That would be their property and the retention of the wall that's
being put up is being put through that particular easement portion, is that
correct Kate?
Kate Aanenson: Yes. It's a 10 foot easement. It looks like it was a set up but
normally we do a 5 foot. For some reason it got 10 foot on the plat. It's the
edge of the plat. There's no utilities in this and so it looks like we're
trying to correct their problem but normally we would have a 5 foot and we
wouldn't be here but for some reason there was a 10 on here and a structure
going into it doesn't need vacation except into our easement which does require
it. So it's a series of circumstances that led us to this.
Ruth 8oylan: But would you, would the city own the east side or the west side
of that 10 foot? ...that borders the west side of our property.
Mayor Chmiel: No.
Ruth Boylan: You're vacating, aren't you vacating?
Mayor Chmiel: The only thing we're going to do is retain and keep an easement
on that plece of property for the sewer portion.
Ruth Boylan: Right. And that 5 'fool easement that the Ci[y's going to
maintain, is that not...east side of dlrectly bordering my property? Isn't that
your .... ?
Kate Aanenson= Yes it is. It abuts our property.
Ruth Boylan: ,..for the City.
Kate Aanenson: I think we have a misunderstanding of terminology here. They
own the property, We just have a rlght for an easement there, If we had to go
on the property, They own the property. We just have a rlght of easement.
Mayor Chmi(.:l: The easement is just granting us the authority to go ahead and
put in what those baslc needs would be, They wlll own it but they wlll give us
an easement so we can do that. But they will own the property by fee,
Councilman Workman: So the Boylan's are not opposed to the vacation then?
Mayor Chmiel: I can't answer for them,
Ruth Boylan: We are opposed to it until we get something in writing from Legend
Homes and from the Clty.,, We cannot just accept their word that...
Councilman Workman: Isn't that leverage?
Councilwoman Oimler: That's what I was trying ~o say. Denial would be
leverage.
Tom Scott: As I understand they encroach upon the 10 foot easement they have
right now..,
14
City Council Meeting - July 27, 1992
Councilman Workman: It doesn't maybe make any difference.
Kate Aanenson: They'd be encroaching on our easement. Unless we take action
against them for encroaching, we're not going to do anything.
Tom Scott: Yeah, you'd have to take enforcement action because they're
encroaching on that easement.
Mayor Chmiel: I'd just as soon not have litigation from the City's standpoint,
to spend our dollars for a problem that exists from the builder with a private
owner.
Councilman Workman: Right, but we are involved. I mean so if we were to say,
then we'd like you to remove your home from our easement or maybe you could
rectlfy thlngs wlth your nelghbor there. I know it sounds rather primitive but
it sounds rather simple too.
Councilman Wing: If we were to hold this vacation and ask Mr. Legend to come in
and clarify his position and come to terms with the Boylan's, maybe we'd feel a
lot better about simply approving thls on a Consent Agenda and going it. I mean
if the issue's irrelevant, it's giving in to Legend Homes when maybe there's a
problem that st111 exlsts. If there is. I mean I'm not saying there ls.
Tom Scott: Are there some things we'd like Legend Homes to do...?
Kate Aanenson: Not from our perspective but from the neighbor's there's some
things.
Mayor Chmiel: Yeah, there's some as Mrs. Boylan indicated. There's been some
inconveniences that they've had and existing. Maybe you can say it better than
I can.
Councilman Mason: Not the least of which is some destruction of their property.
Ruth Boylan: Legend Homes has cleared out 1,450 square feet of our property.
They have removed four 12 inch trees. They have removed three 8 inch trees.
They removed two & inch trees and numerous 4 and 2 inch trees. They removed an
entlre batch, and thls may not be of significance to anybody else but my family
who has owned that property since the mid 1800's. They totally obliterated a
wlld blackcap bush area that we have cultivated slnce lg53. It ls gone. It was
as long as this is and as deep. It was mentioned at the meeting the last time
that this was an uninhabited area. I beg to differ. I am back there every day
and have been since 1953. It is a part of my property. It's part of my
ancestry. It lsa park to me. It's a refuge. It's the place I walk. It's the
place I meditate and as Olck kno~s, it's probably the place where I do a lot of
slnging and praylng. We called Legend Homes after the first damage ~as done.
The first damage was about gOO square feet and then we have.an electric fence
down there whlch they also bulldozed lnto and short circuited and destroyed. We
called. We were told that it was the new homeowner's fault. They pointed the
flnger at the homeowner. He told us what trees to tear do~n. They had it
surveyed. They went over thetr own survey line. Mr. Mastro hung up on my
husband but before he dld he told him you'd better have all your ducks in a row.
I have been through this before and you will not beat us in court. I went over
15
City Coul]cil Meeting --July 27, 1992
there and talked to hil, personally. Mr. Hastro. I said I would like to work
this out but you have destroyed quite a bit of our property and he apologized
and he said ~,y husband's unreasonable. Well my husband is definitely a strong
Irishman but he is not unreasonabJ, e. I asked Mr. Mastro to stay off of our
property. Much of our trees that were now down were laying there and I said,
just leave everything as it is. They then went in no less than 4 more times
unto our property and removed our trees and then proceeded to clear another 550
square feet of out' property. We have talked to them again. We put up a rope
defining the property line. They took it down and kept going back in. Because
of this they tore up our iron at that corner so ue had to hire a surveyor to
come in to replace our iron and from the one point, the one time on Hay 15, 1992
he had to relocate it from the feder~l iron or monument, as Jim mentioned to you
at the last meeting. He staked it out and then when he came back to replace the
irol~, they had been back on our property and suddenly our property was 3 feet
higher and they covered over. Removed his stake and covered over the iron
again. The one that they hL~d damaged and dug out. $o ue had to pay for a
resurvey to relocate our iron again. We have talked to our new neighbors. They
have told us some v~;ry interesting things that Legend Homes and Mastro has said
that we have said and what they have told us which are untruths. ~nd then we
found out they were telling us stuff about our new neighbors that were untruths
because the 4 of us sat and talked face to face and found much of this out.
~fter they obliterated our trees and because ue were concerned about the
location of that house and what was going to happen with drainage and such, we
immediately contacted the City. ~.mmediately. Because we did that Legend Homes
filed a complaint against us which the City proceeded to cite us for and that
was my father, back in '53 dumped some tires and batteries and now that they've
totally destroyed all the trees, they could see this unsightly scene so we got
cited. We had to go to court. We pleaded not, oh I know what we did. We
called on, we received this citation the 15th of February. We were given 30
days by the Ci[y to remove the junk theft was back there including the ~956
classic car. We called, I'm not sure if it was you Mr. ~shuorth or if it was
you Charles. I have all the letters and such. We called and asked for, if we
could please have an extension from the City because everything was 3 feet under
snow and frozen in and we were told we could not. We had to have it out in 30
days or ue faced a fine and jail. Well we couldn't do it. We tore up our
property all the way back to this dump site area, which is you know, it was a
bad deal. There's no question about that. ~nd we had intentions this spring of
clearing it out and then, well. ~nyway, ue hired a tractor. Tore up our
property to go back and were just barely able to get the '56 Chevy out. We
could not remove anything else so ue didn't. We couldn't do it. Physically
could not do it so we had to go to Court. ~e pleaded not guilty so we could get
an extension. So we did. ~e had a hearing. ~ pre--trial hearing by jury set
for June 8th so by that time things were dried out so we hired a 30 yard
dumpster. We hauled everything out. We went June 8th. My husband took off
another half a days work. Oh and by the way your attorney, not Mr. Knutson but
the service that you hired out of Eagan ~.o represent the City sent us a very
intimidating letter telling us that they could use photographs. They could use
tape recordings. They could use all sorts of things to prove their case against
us. I'm giving you the history. We went to Court on June 8th after taking off
of work and both of us are working by the hour. The Judge told us that nobody
showed so the charges were dropped. Of course this is a half a day work that's
gone. ~e don't get paid for. Our friend, attorney, called your attorneys in
Eagan and asked why we weren't informed. Why no one bothered to call us and let
16
City Council Meeting - 3uly 27, 1992
us know that the charges were going to be dropped. Oh, I'm sorry. We forgot.
Okay, after this occurred, then Legend Homes continued to go on our property and
when they once again tore up our 1ton after we had already pald for a survey, we
were besides ourselves because the City wasn't helping us. We felt and so my
husband belng very creatlve went out and bought the most God awful looklng
dayglo orange construction fence I've ever seen in my life and proceeded to
construct it on our property to try to keep Legend Homes off of it. And I think
he may have shown you a picture of this gorgeous monument to destruction.
Within 4 days we received a letter, not from the City this time but from the
City's Attorneys in Eagan again. Not even a letter from the City which was very
interesting to us. Te111ng us that if we dld not remove this fence, it was an
illegal fence and we had no permit for it. If we did not remove this fence
within 10 days we faced up to gO days in ia11 and a $700.00 flne. Thls was a
real rough thing. I thought, well what happened to the City. Why didn't we get
a note from the City or a call from the Clty saying. You know obviously we knew
that fence shouldn't be there but we also felt that Legend Homes shouldn't be
destroying our property continuously and we were trying to protect our property
which we felt we had a right to do. The City did not once call'and ask us what
ls happening. How can we help or why ls that fence up. No, you hired your
City's attorney. Not your City Attorney but this attorney in Eagan which of
course comes out of our taxpayer money where a phone call might have been nlce
to find out why it went up all of a sudden. We took it down on the lOth day and
because of the quadmlre that Legend Homes and this drainage and because they
bullt up our property which used to be like this. Of course it had trees. Used
to be 11ks thls adjoining the next property. It is now 11ks this. Because of
all the problems that caused and the erosion that caused, when Jim went back
there wlth our van to take down our illegal fence so he and I dldn't have to go
to jail the next day. He rolled it up, put it in the van and got stuck because
we couldn't get it out. We've really trled. We trled to be fair. We respect
other people's properties. I do believe the City has more say in this and I
don't mean litigation. You have strengths. You have the rlght to deny a'
building permit again until this Legend Homes clean up their act, and I don't
mean just with us. We are very frustrated. Very honestly, very honestly you
know what we feel this is? We feel that Legend Homes is a much, and we know
lt's the truth. That they are much larger taxbase than 3im and Ruth and Karen
and Tita 8oylan so Legend Homes has more worth than a family that's been out
there slnce 1953. And the other thing we think ls, that's pretty sad.
Mayor Chmiel: Thank you Ruth.
Councilman Workman: Mr. Mayor, I guess to address that. I brought up a point
about trying to help them. I guess I didn't expect that I was going to be
accused as being part of the problem. I don't accept that. I'm up here trylng
to help out the situation and I'm not going to be accused of trying to favor a
developer over a homeowner anyday. My origlnal question was as to whether or
not we should withhold that and if that were any, Mrs. Boylan points to all
these thlngs happening. It sounds to me 11ks she's got an open and shut case
for a legal battle against the deveioper which really has very little to do with
us I would suspect. My only interjection was whether or not our actlon tonlght
helped one party or the other and I don't see any reason to help Legend Homes if
in fact they're not helplng a famlly that's 11red there since the mld 1800's,
let alone 1953. If we can do that, then I'd like to do that. If we can't and
it doesn't make any difference, then I guess we need to move on but my intention
17
City Council Meeting --.]uly P7, 1992
was to help the property owners and Z think the Council has a record of helping
the property owners who are already there and have been there from damage from
what is coming in. T_ have a home being built right next door to me too. Zt's
not pleasan[. Zt's certainly not as unpleasant as is going on here, Z can tell
you that. But Z think the Council has always tried to he]p people within their
legal bounds with these situations and Z don't think this is any different. Can
we do it or can't we? Or' does it do anything or not? That's my only question.
Mayor' Chmiol: I guess from that standpoint, that's a legal question.
Tom Scott: My understanding is that there's certain steps that have been taken
to prevent any further erosion onto the adjoining property. Retaining wall...
staff's standpoint, we're satisfied with uhat Legend Homes has promised to do as
far as...
Kate Aanenson: I'm embarrassed because I didn't know the iengthy history of
of this between Z guess this uouid be pubIic safety but I think as faf' as our
deaiings with him. He's been up front. We've toid him we've got $500.00 and
wv'il hoid that until the problems corrected and he's aware of that and that uas
put in the ietter that you have in your packet.
Tom Scott: The things that are being addressed, and I think Counciiman Workman
hit it on the head, is reaiIy the makings of a civii iausuit betueen you and the
developer, z really can't see the City from a legal standpoint. As I
understand the vacation of the 5 foot and the lO foot easement. TypicaIIy ue
would take a .5 foot easement. We approve the iocation of the house and we're
now simpiy vacating 5 of the 10 foot easement and typicaiiy we don't have a 5
foot easement. I don't think ue can connect the denial of the vacation and the
subsequent enforcement, some sort of enforcement action that they're encroaching
on the easement and somehow connect that with somehow settling up with their
neighbors on potentiaI for a iausuit. I don't think we can hook those tuo
things together'.
Ruth Boylan: We're not asking that.
Tom Scott: The City certainly has tile general kind of leverage that this
developer, if he's going to continue to do business in Chanhassen, that they'll
be back before this Council.
Mayor Chmiel: Well that's something that I think I'd like to see done is a
letter from the Oily to Legend Homes indicating some of the concerns that have
taken place from Boylan's and indicating that we would hope that they would
continue in a different vein of operating than what they previously had done.
And rather than encroaching on other people's properties, which occurred and I
shouldn't say because I really don't know because I didn't see it, but I think
there are things that we could cite in that letter that would call that
attention to them.
Don ~shworth: Staff will do that. I would also like to comment. From a
personal standpoint, I will prepare a report ~o the City Council. There's been
various allegations in regards to certain actions that we've taken against the
Boylan's. I don't know the specific case. We've never talked on the telephone.
I have not had contacts with the City ~ttorney's office. There's been no
18
City Council Meeting - July 27, 1992
instructions let's say from my office that we should somehow prosecute. What
I find difficult is knowing, if we're accused of anything, it's that we haven't
been aggressive enough in cases that we've allowed certain conditions to go on
for too long a period of time. I think the Council has seen that as it deals
with, I think there's an individual out there in Minneuashta area that has quite
a large junk yard and that's been there for a long time. We've tried to get rid
of that but ue have not tried to be punitive in that process. $o I think the
Council and myself deserve to receive a report regarding the allegations that
were made here this evening because it just does not fit what we generally do.
Mayor Chmiel: Yeah. I fully concur. $o if we could, let us pursue that and
I'd like to call the question.
Councilman Mason: If I could just make a quick comment. There are some pretty
serious allegations here towards Legend Homes and I hope the City will look into
that and I also hope that, and I only say if they're true. Not that I don't
believe you but, that I think, I agree with what you said Hayor. They need to
know that that's just not an acceptable way of dealing and I made this comment
to your husband as he was showing the pictures at the last meeting. We also own
some land that has a bunch of trees on it and it's a ways from our house so
people think they can just dump leaves or whatever because it's not a lawn. And
I'm very sensitive to that issue and that's something I think people and
corporations don't take into account and maybe we can help enlighten Legend
Homes a little bit on that.
Mayor Chmiel: Very good. Any other discussion? If not I'll call a question
for that vacation of easement.
Councilman Wing: I'll so move.
Councilman Mason: Second.
·
Councilwoman Dimler: Are we considering here with getting that in writing as
well as she mentioned? The agreement from Legend Homes. Getting in writing
what they are going to do. Have we got that in writing?
Mayor Chmiel: No I don't, in relationship to what are you talking? Anything in
addition7
Councilwoman Oimler: It's like Mrs. Boylan said. Not that this has anything to
do with approval of the, but shall we add on to that ue get the, whatever they
were going to do in writing and not just.
Kate Aanenson: Retaining wall?
Councilwoman Dimler: Yeah. Has that been put in writing?
Kate Aanenson: We put it in a letter to them that we expect that. That we are
holdlng their escrow for that.
Councilwoman Oimler: And they have written back and said that they're going to
comply?
19
City Council Meeting .~ July 27, 1992
Kate Aanenson: They verbally told me that on the phone.
Mayor Chmiel: You can put it in as a condition if you want.
Councilman Wing: I would leave it simple as is assuming that the City Manager
is going to pursue this and report to the Council. And if it's necessary at
that point, then I would pursue that separately.
Mayor Chmiel: Prior to taking the voting on this though, you may want to put
that condition contained in there to make sure that it's covered.
Councilman Wing: Well Ursula, if you uish to add that as a condition.
Councilwoman Dimler: I do. I think it's a good idea.
Councilman Workman: That the easement will not be vacated unless?
Councilwoman Oimler: Unless the condition is met.
Councilman Workman: But again they'll say fine. We're in the easement. Big
deal.
Mayor Chmiel: From a legal aspect, I don't know if we can really do that. It
might be a good bluff, and I hope they're not watching. But I think that as ue
have discussed. I don't 11ks what's happened to Boylan's as well as anyone else
up here but I don't thlnk, if Mrs. Boylan indicated and as we've already said,
she has a case and it sounds 11ks, to me 11ks a tlght one. You can get
restitution for what's happened to your property from those people. But that
agaln would be a case between yourselves and Legend. I guess I don't want to
involve the City because it's golng to take money from our aspect and I don't
want to spend those dollars because of that. And secondly, lt's really not part
of what the City is doing. But Z don't condone anything that they've done is
where I'm comlng from.
Councilwoman Oimler: Okay. $o it's best not to make it conditional but have
that as a separate issue.
Mayor Chmtel: No. I think if we get the information back from Oon with all
that, then we can.
Councilwoman Oimler: Okay. Just so long as we get something in writing. I
think that's a good idea.
Councilman Wing: That'd be my preference. I'd like to stay with the origlnal
motion because lt's not punitive. It's a separate issue at this point so Z uill
move just the vacatlon and simply that as recommended by staff. Wlth their
conditions existing.
Mayor Chmiel: And will the second accept that with the correction as indicated?
Resolution #92-85: Councilman Wing moved, Councilman Xason seconded to approve
Easement Vacation ~92-4 of the westerly 5 feet of the easterly 10 foot side
easement for Lot 1, Block 2, Country Oaks with the following condition:
2O
City Council Meeting - July 27, 1992
1. The applicant shall pay for all recording and attorney fees uith the
vacation of the easement.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously.
Don Ashworth: Mr. Mayor?
Mayor Chmiel: Yes.
Don Ashworth: One additional comment and that would be to really suggest to the
Boylan's that they do pursue that lawsuit. It sounds to me as though, if anyone
comes onto your property and destroys that many trees and that much property,
puts you in a very strong position to sue them. But secondly, the point was
raised that we have a future potential enforcement against this firm which I
would agree with and I think we ran into that a few years, ago with a particular
builder who wasn't doing a very good job. But the only thing that we could hang
our hat on with that particular builder were cases where it was demonstrated
that he had done a bad job. Simply the inuendoes that he went onto another
piece of property. He did something, would not have been sufficient for us to
stop that builder from building on another property. Where we had specific
documentation where it was shown that he had in fact violated State building
laws, we were able to stop him from repeating those things in Chanhassen.
Again, I would encourage the Boylan's to go after this individual, which will
make our position much easier if he attempts to build in Chanhassen again. Once
a conviction has been registered With the Court, we've got something to point to
and say, no. We don't want you in our community because this is what you've
done to one of our residents from before.
Mayor Chmiel: Very good. Thanks Don.
CONSIDER PETITION FOR NO PARKING ZONE ON CHOCTAW CIRCLE.
Public Present:
Name Address
Jean Hyak
Katie Kaaz
Judy Randall
120 Choctaw Circle
President, Homeowners Association
125 Choctaw Circle
Charles Folch: Mr. Mayor, members of the Council. As the report explains,
staff has received a petition from the Lotus Lake Estates Homeowners Association
to establish a No Parklng slgnage on Choctaw Circle adjacent to the beachlot.
Staff has reviewed the site and concurs that poor sight lines alone probably
merlt the request. Staff has also been informed that vehicle parklng occurring
on this curve is also tending to accentuate the problem. Staff has been
contacted by only one resldent wlth some reservations to this proposed
restriction. That being the property located at 120 Choctaw. This property
owner expressed concerns wlth parklng at tlmes of entertaining during holidays,
special events, etc.. Staff believes that these occasional situations can be
handled through special parklng permit issuance. The Publlc Safety Department
has reviewed this issue and also concurs with the recommendations. Therefore it
ls recommended that the City Council establish a resolution establishing a no
21
City Council Meeting -- July 27, 1992
parking zone along both sides of the street on Choctaw in front of 120 and 130
Choctaw Circle.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay, thank you. Is there anyone wishing to address that this
evening? Would you please come forward and state your name and your address
please.
Jean Hyak: My name is Jean Hyak and that nas my husband who made the complaint.
I do reside at 120 Choctaw Circle. Before you vote on this I would like to ask
all of the City Council men and women members, if they've ever been on the
street of Choctaw Circle. So then you're aware there is a curve around the
corner. When we, when my husband first suggested that it was at the Lotus Lake
1992 annual meeting but he thought it would be the entire curve and not just a
portion of it. Basically if you looked at, I think you all have a copy. We
have a very large portion that is on the street side. Most of our block is our
front. It would be just about, it would be mostly on our house, the no parking
zone. The second letter did include that both sides of the street would be
included but it isn't very clear. Which houses? This is a copy of the letter.
You didn't really say which houses. You just said the opposite street. We have
the pie shaped lot and for us to turn, ue also have a very difficult driveway so
we don't have a lot of parking in our driveway. The most of the parking that we
have for guests would be on the street side and when the petition nas sent
around, it's very easy for people to sign their name on a petition when they
don't have to give up anything. We probably have to give up the most. We have
a very vested interest in this if it does go through. I have a couple questions
that I would like to ask. You did mention that ue could get permission for but
every time? I mean if somebody stops over at our house. Do ue have to get
permission every time ue have a guest?
Charles Folch: That'd be correct. Any time that you'd want parking to be
allowed ulthln the no parklng restricted zone, a permlt ls required.
Jean Hyak: But what is the permit? What's required for us to actually, come
down to Clty Hall, get a wrltten permission? It's very inconvenient.
Charles Folch: Actually it can be done verbally over the phone ulth the Public
Safety Department. They f111 out a form and the process is taken through both
Public Safety and Engineering for review and it's a pretty straight forward
process but it can be handled over the phone. Thls was a suggestion brought up
basically, Dave Hempel my assistant has been in contact with your husband on
thls matter and from thelr discussions, Dave had indicated that it seemed 11ko
there would only be occasional type guests, family members, relatives, whatever
comlng over for the holldays and thlngs 11ko that where you'd need to, or
additional parklng would be needed so from that lnstance or from that case,
certainly our recommendation was well, we can handle it administratively through
the permit process. Now if the parking is going to occur more frequently than
that, certainly we don't want to be issuing permits once a week to have someone
come over a~d park in front of your house. So I think then something else,
either then the issuance of a permit is not the recommended choice at that
point.
Jean Hyak: Well I have two teenagers and they have many guests. Not many but I
mean they do have guests and lt's not easy to park in our driveway. So would
22
City Council Meeting - July 27, 1992
the no parking be the entire year or maybe just the summer months when there's
more traffic and there's more people walking on the street? That's something
that was not considered either. And where would the signs be put? I mean do
you put them in our front lawn? I mean and how many and on both sides of the
street? How many?
Charles Folch: Typically the signs, depending on the distance, you have at
least one on each end of the restricted zone which would have arrows facing the
direction towards each other. Depending on length, we'd have to look at it also
from a sight line standpoint. If people are going to be able to acknowledge.
Can they see the initial sign. Can they see the terminating point. As far as
restricting on a seasonal type basis, if anything wintertime conditions in this
type of situation where you have a hill and a curve like that are probably at
their worst, particular from a snowplowing standpoint, so a seasonal type
restriction would probably not apply in this case. If a parking restriction is
approved, it should be on a year round basis.
Jean Hyak: I also am wondering about how this is going to effect the value of
our home if we ever try to sell it. That there's no parking in front of our
home. This isn't just something that we have to consider today. It's also
later on.
Mayor Chmiel: Maybe if I could just interject something. I have no parking
signs by my home and I have had for the past 13, maybe 14 years. And I'm not
sure how much depth you have for your parking or within your driveway in itself
to accommodate numbers of cars. I know that I can probably park at least 8 cars
in the driveway. Never be able to get out of mine but I don't know what your
situation is. But anytime that we do have numbers of people coming, I do the
same thing. I call Public Safety and say, I'm having guests and I'd like to
make sure that none of my guests get any tickets for that particular timeframe.
And it's always been accommodated. I don't know if there's, we face this issue
so many times over and over again on this no parking situation.
Jean Hyak: ! know it's a real dilemma because everyone wants to have a safe
neighborhood and we're not questioning that at all but I know, I think it was
about a year or so we did put a lower speed limit at the bottom of the hill but
it was never put on the top and I've seen most people in our neighborhood
probably drive a little bit faster than they should coming down the street at
one time or another and sometimes it's not just not having the cars there. It's
because they're driving too fast.
Mayor Chmiel: It should probably be up at the top of the hill as well as the
bottom. More so at the top because that's where you gain your speed.
Jean Hyak: But actually, I would like to see even a bigger portion of the
curve, if it's going to be no parking, a bigger portion because there is still
blind spots that would be excluded from the no parking area. If you're going to
put in no parking, put the whole curve in and not just a portion of it.
Mayor Chmiel: With that going into a cul-de-sac, you're not going to get a
whole lot of people driving it. Secondly, if all the residents within that
particular neighborhood would pay attention to those speed limits, then of
COUrSe you wouldn't have that problem but they, just like I become lackadaisical
23
City Council Meeting -- July 27, 1992
and they're just not thinking at that particular time. Of driving maybe 30 as
opposed to 25. Whatever it might be. But with that beachlot access portion, to
have a no parkif~9 in and adjacent to all those lots why, there must be some
other kind of signage that we could maybe even do. I'm thinking of putting no
parking from point to point within that one particular side where the beachlot
access is. Z think it's a safety portion right there seeing people coming and
going. Or the kids going from that beachlot. Can other signages be put within
that area or is this the best way in your opinion that it can be done?
Charles Folch: As far as other signage, again I guess it would be, I'm not sure
that there is other type of signage but certainly one of the thlngs that we'd
have to conslder wlth another alternative such as an advlsory type slgn, is
Wl'lether we're gOillg to get conformance or not. No parking is a regulatory type
slgn. It can be enforced by law. An advlsory type such as cautlon, access.
Thlngs 11ks that certainly, we could take a look at putting up but whether it
w111 actually have an impact on a motorist ls not known. Initially when we
received the petition, we assumed that the request, and maybe incorrectly we
assumed that the request was to establish the no parking only on the outslde or
west side of the curve. We found that not to be tile case as when we sent follow
up letters to the residents. Thelr speciflc concern was as it relates to the
lnside of the curve when a car is comlng down, your slght 11nes are more
restricted on the lnslde of the curve than they are on the outside. Of course
your point is very well taken that cars parking on the west slde with people,
adults, klds comlng from the beachlot and getting lnto cars certainly does
present a hazard in ltself. From a safety standpoint it does have merits. If
we were to establish a no parklng attachment to or Exhiblt A in your packet
shows the revlsed or current proposed no parking zone scheme whlch would cover
Lots 33, 34, 35, 21 and 22 and 9 and 8. The only other suggestion I would have
as it relates to needing to park is there's no restriction in front of Lot 20
whlch is adjacent to t. ot 21 or the property address 120 Choctaw. Parklng could
certainly occur down there and with a 11ttle bit of a walk, could access the
property. The feellng, the consensus from a ma3orlty of the people was that
they were concerTled about both sldes of the curve in that area.
Mayor Chmiel: Yes, I can see that. And of course you're looking at, there's
not too many lots that goes in the cul-de-sac. If it was a thoroughfare going
stralght through, then of course I could see it more so. But it looks 11ks lt's
a policing, especially for tile people who live there themselves to really pay
attention to what's happening and I'm sure that you do get people coming from
friends or whoever might come to vislt the other people but total numbers is
sort of, you slt back and you really wonder whether this ls the rlght way to go
and safety is an issue and I don't disagree with that. But ls there some other
way is I guess what I was saying.
Jean Hyak: I have a letter from a neighbor that I would like to read. Oh, well
then 1'11 let her read it herself.
Councilman Wing: Before you go.
Councilwoman Dimler: Yeah, I have a question too.
Councilman Wing: Ursula.
City Council Meeting - July 27, 1992
Councilwoman Dimler: You mentioned you have teenagers. If they're anything
like mine, they want their own vehicles and how many vehicles do you have?
Jean Hyak: We have 3 vehicles and a boat.
Councilwoman Dimler: You probably already have double parking in your driveway?
Jean Hyak: We have a two car garage and if anybody is on Choctaw Circle, please
look at 120 Choctaw Clrcle driveway. It ls terrible. We cannot get 8 oars.
Councilwoman Dimler: So are you able to park all of your own vehicles plus your
boat in there now?
Jean Hyak: Well, we get 2 in the garage and one in the driveway, yeah. Our own
vehicles but not very many more.
Councilwoman Dimler: If anyone else gets another vehicle then.
Jean Hyak: Probably one more in the driveway. It's not an easy driveway and
I know thls is not an easy $olutlon to the problem. I will be the first to
admit it.
Councilman Mason: I guess what I'm hearing you say Don is that if it was a thru
street, this no parking thing is a real legitimate concern. But it's not. And
I mean there are a number of names that are on thls petitlon but 11ke you said,
how many people on this petition are affected directly by the no parking? I
thlnk that's maybe a blgger lssue here. These folks on Brule Clrcle, I
understand how they might feel but let's face it, it's not an issue for them one
way or the other. Yeah, sure I don't care. I'll sign it. I'm sympathetic to
what you're saying.
Jean Hyak: I wish I did have a solution...
Councilman Mason: Sure.
Jean Hyak: It is a dead end street.
Councilman Mason: Right.
Mayor Chmiel: Right. Thank you. I had someone else raise their hand.
Katie Kaaz: My name is Katie Kaaz and I'm President of the Homeowners
Association on Choctaw. In regards to a couple of your comments. First off
regarding the Brule Circle people. They're very much affected because people
are up and down the street constantly. They carpool. They have chlldren play
in the street. They play with other people. They play with other children and
lt's not, they're not just lsolated to 8rule. It's a very friendly, two streets
that do a lot together belleve me. The petitlon went around. You were asking
about the addresses and where the signs, where we requested they put the signs.
That is on our origlnal petition. I don't know if you have a copy of that or
not but if you're wondering where we were requesting the signs, it's on the
original request. Okay. That's all I have.
25
City Council Meeting -- Ju].y 27, 1992
Judy Randall: Hi. I'm Judy Randall and I live at 125 Choctat~. A no parking
sign appear~ to be a simple solutlon to a dangerous situation, and it is a very
dangerous situation. But T feel the long range effects could brlng a lot more
aggravation to the neighborhood and not solve the problem of people from both
wlthln the neighborhood and outsiders drlving too fast around a dangerous curve.
Hy suggestion would be to construct speed bumps, about three of them around that
curve to force people to go 10 mph. You've got, as Katie sald, we've got too
Inany children on 'the street and the beach and people, they go fa~t around that
curve. I can't say who does 1l or what because I'm klnd of lsolated but I hear
the cars whizzing by and I just wouZd like to make that suggestion.
Mayor Chmlel: Could I just interject something wlth that? Speed bumps Z thlnk
do control the speed of the vehicles. We have problems with it from a city
standpoint of plowlng those particular streets durlng the ulnter. Secondly, by
putting speed bumps in by the City, we have been liable for any problems that
are lncurred from a vehlcle drlvlng too fast or whatever. So there's some
litigation that comes from that particular standpoint where we're liable for any
problems that may occur to a vehicle. So speed bumps are, I don't dlsagree ulth
you at all but it does glve us, puts us in a very precarious position.
Judy Randall: Just a suggestion.
Councilman Wing: Now are you an effected homeowner here?
Judy Randa11~ I believe I am. I have a level driveway so it's not quite the
problom but what I see is eventually people having to park farther up and down
the ~treet and aggravation.
Councilman Mlng: But what I need to know in relationship to the first lady who
spoke, where's your home?
Judy Randall: Diagonally across the street.
Councilman Wing: It intrigues me because there's a very large number of people
have slgned thls petition. Clearly the majority.
Judy Randal].: Oh yeah, I did too.
Councilman Wlng: You dld too?
Judy Randall: I did too. As I say, it appears to be a real simple solution.
Yeah, sure. That would be the thlng to do but as thinklng about it, I can see
where it could be a problem farther on down the road and when you're forcing
people, as they just sald, to sue. In the wintertime if people have to walk 2
or 3 I~ouses down to your ho~zse, we're on a h111 and it's slippery and even
though the City does take good care of our streets, it still ls very icy on that
street to come down the hi11.
Councilman Wing: Any signs we put up are then going to put the traffic either
to the east or the north. Z mean cars are still going to park someplace. If
not in someone else's...Z'm surprised they're not complaining about pushing the
parking to thelr house.
26
City Council Meeting - July P-7, 1992
Judy Randall: At this point they're not.
Councilman Wing: The people in Brule Circle are not effected. They are not
going to have parking signs in front of their house. They're going to have the
benefit of what's going to occur to these other people. It has nothing to do
with children playing in the street. It's a mechanical sign placed in front of
your house that doesn't allow you to park in front of your house. Brule is not
going to have that restriction so I would certainly sign this petition. But
Charles what about, I look at Minnewashta Parkway and Linden Circle with that 60
homes going to that beach on the curve. One of the worst spots we've got.
Probably worse than this one by far. And we've looked at a stop sign there.
What if this was simply stop signs with a crosswalk there so that traffic had to
stop at that beach? Do the neighbors want that? Could we just simply put up a
stop sign to slow traffic down and forget trying to cut the parking?
Charles Folch: The Minnewashta Parkway crossing, if I remember correctly,
there's a crossing that's proposed near Linden is a specific walkway crossing.
There's a trail on the west side of Minnewashta Parkway north of that area which
then would switch us over to the east side of the roadway. That has a specific
purpose. Designated crossing. At this location here, there would have to be,
if we follow uniform traffic control manual as we are supposed to by law, there
would have to be a certain number of pedestrians that would be using a crossing
at that location on a given 8 hour or daily interval basis to actually warrant
the installation of stop signs. We'd have to check. Off the cuff I really
doubt that there'd be that many pedestrians that would be crossing there to make
it legally warranted, the installation of a stop sign.
Councilman Wing: The other question, how do you feel about parking signs which
in fact is going to keep all this beach parking away from your house. It's
going to spread it into the neighborhood and you're not going to have to deal
with parking? I wanted to ask her about the parking. Is that an advantage to
you?
3wan Hyak: I think that it's good and bad.
Katie Kaaz: ...people that go to the beach, they walk. Nobody takes their car,
they walk.
Couuncilman Wing: I was just curious. I didn't mean to cut you off.
Mayor Chmiel: That's the physical fitness aspect of getting people to utilize
lt.
Katie Kaaz: ...beach access there, the beach access. We put that on there as
an identifying location. It's not there's so much trafftc, foot traffic in and
out. It's the location and where it ls on the street. That's the lssue.
Mayor Chmiel: If it's anything like our's, it's the same thing. Thank you.
Llttle problems become blg problems. I know that Public Safety has looked at
this and of course I sit on that as well but I wasn't at the last meeting they
had discussion of thls.
Councilman Workman: They have looked at this? I didn't see any report.
27
City Council Meeting - July 27, 1992
Mayor Chmiel: It's my understanding they did.
Charles Folch: Public Safety has reviewed this.
Councilman Workman: What did they think? I mean I would think that would be
valuable to us.
Councilwoman Dimler: Right. Where's the report?
Charles Folch: I was not at that meeting also and I don't have Scott here
tonlght to address that but it was, the verbage from Scott was that the Public
Safety Department supported this recommendation.
Councilman Wing: Hr. Mayor', I was at that meeting also and it's my opinion that
no one from the Commission was out and necessarily looked at thls. It was
discussed casually. Probably wlth less interest and less intensity than ue have
tonight so I'd dlscount that recommendation on this particular issue. If they
had been out there and revlewed this and studied it and looked at options and
could give us that information like Plannlng Commission might have.
Mayor Chmiel: That's our suggestion. Let's put it back to them. Come up with
a conclusion as to maybe another way of doing it or if this ls what they feel is
absolutely necessary, then we may have to do lt.
Councilman Wing: I think that's the Commission's job. I think to just sit
there and discuss thls for 5 mlnutes and recommend to the Councll means nothing
to me. Z think they deserve to go out and talk to the neighbors and see the
neighborhood and in fact glve us a reasonable recommendation wlth optlons.
That's their job. I think it should be dumped in their lap frankly, not ours.
Councilwoman Dimler; And have they done a speed check there? Like they did on
Frontier Trail.
Mayor Chmiel: No, but we can do that.
Councilwoman Dtmler: I think we need to do that.
Mayor Chmiel: We can do that. We can get our radar portlons out there ulth the
digital readout making the residents aware of the speeds that they are driving.
Councilman Mason: And I'd like to have our CSO's out there occasionally and
getting their input on what kind of problem there really
Katie Kaaz: One comment. One thing that I wanted just to clarify. I think
there is a speed commission or safety commission report because I think it was
malled to me. I have an envelope there that I dldn't get opened today because I
had company. But when we submitted our orig£nal petition for the no parklng on
elther side of the street, and then Z heard from Mr. Hempel via letter that they
were recommending that they put it only on the, I don't know the east side of
the street golng up the hi11. After going back over it agaln, the members of
the board and the neighbors talked it over and it really, and it was Mr. Hyak
that recommended, he said it really is not golng to work to do no parklng on one
side of the street because if you have a no parking on the east bound, on the
28
City Council Meeting - July 27, 1992
east side of the street, you're going up the hill. I think as you're coming
down, people that can't park on the east side are going to park on the other
side and you're going to have to go around those cars right at the curve. So if
people come out, I mean they need to really take a look at different things like
that. I mean the only thing that ue can see that's going to work and the only
reason that we're here is because ue have almost had some terrible accidents.
We're trying to, in a simple way, we're trying to avoid that. But that's why ue
think the no parking on either side of the road is really the only viable answer
because of the fact that you cannot see when you're coming around the curve.
Councilman Wing: Mr. Mayor. If I could just make a comment from my years on
Public Safety, and I'm sure you'd echo my sentiments. I think the Council
intends to move on this and do what's best but I think it really behooves
everyone that we move slowly. Not impulsively and make sure we have all the
facts. So I guess I can promise you that something will occur here. You'll
probably get your no parking signs. I'll just make that assumption but only in
point of time. But in the meanwhile, the interim period, I think that as
President of the Homeowners Association, it's your responsibility to alert them
to the fact that it's before the Council. You've identified a crisis situation.
A dangerous situation and police yourselves. You know so many times when we do
these studies on these roads and the police come out and tag-people, they come
back and say, if just the neighbors would slow down and just the neighbors would
police themselves, it would resolve the problem.
Katie Kaaz: The neighbors on Brule and Choctaw are extremely aware of the
problem and we do more policing than you want to know about. Believe me.
Councilman Wing: Because that will be the interim fix you know.
Councilman Workman: Mr. Mayor, this is kind of a rare situation and maybe
Rlchard's trylng to get at ita little blt. We usually have a problem with
speed through neighborhoods where somebody lives between a neighborhood and this
neighborhood over here and they're drlvlng through another neighborhood and so
this is a little bit different for a cul-de-sac situation to have this problem.
Jean Hyak: We have 43 houses with teenagers and their friends. That's what
you've got...because it's a cul-de-sac the kids come in and they make a spin all
the way around and you have 40 houses, most of which have teenagers. See so
they don't even have that thru access and they just pass on through the
neighborhood. They have to go around for a couple of tlmes.
Katie Kaaz: And we suggest that you come out and sit on the curves by yourself
auhlle and see what happens. The trees also grow out over the street in
various places.
Councilman Workman: But putting the no parking signs doesn't slow them down.
Katie Kaaz: No. No, we're saying when I come around a curve I'm not going to
run lnto a boat, a trailer, a car and I'm not singling any homeowner out by any
means. But when you come around that curve, if you're in your lane of traffic
and you take your eye off the road for one second, you could very well plow into
the back of a car because it's right there on the curve.
City CouncL]. Meeting -,July 27, 1992
Mayor Chmiel: When's the next Public Safety?
Bon Ashworth: I'm not sure, Scott is gone, Hhy don't I make sure that Scott
inforas the neighborhood of when it will be. Zt may not give notices out in the
packet. He may not be able to do it yet in July. 2t will probably be August.
Mayor Chmiel: Yeah, it would be in August. It would have to be in August.
It's the last Monday of the month. Yeah. He would probably try to, let's see
we have the flrst and third whlch is the 1?th of August and then Public Safety
meets after that. I think it's the 20th.
Councilman Wing: I think it's the 13th.
Mayor Chmiel: Is it the 13th or 20th?
Councilman Wing: I think it's the 13th.
Mayor Chmiel: I don't have my appointment book here. Okay, so it's the 13th we
could, that would be alrlght to get it back on the agenda for the 1?th of
August.
Don Ashworth: You wouldn't have thelr Minutes.
Councilman Wing' No, but they could certainly be here in person to make their
recommendation.
Don Ashworth: I would also be advertising it in advance of them. If, I always
worry about this like wlth the Plannll~g Commission. You do an advertisement in
advance of when somebody meets and then for some reason they end up tabllng
action to research something more .... neighborhood then comes to Clty Councll
expecting action. You really can't act because Publlc Safety hasn't acted.
Mayor Chmiel: Well those are sometimes tile pitfalls of it but I think what we
want to do ls make sure what we're golng to do is the right declslon for the
particular neighborhood.
Don Ashworth: That's what I'm saying. It may be best to have the Public Safety
meeting let's say the 13th or 20th of August with this ltem reappearing on the
first meetlng in September.
Mayor Chmiel: Prolonging the issue and lt's been there for a long tlme.
Don Ashworth: You could do it the second meeting but again, Public Safety would
have to flnlsh their recommendation and have to verbally present thelr report.
Mayor Chmiel: Are we going to have our September meeting on the 14th of
September because Labor Bay falls on the flrst Monday?
Oon Ashworth: I'm sure.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay, so it would be then on the 14th of September.
3O
City Council Meeting - July 27, 1992
Councilman Workman: While we're thinking, can I ask a question? Maybe I can
ask Mrs. Ka,~z. Does your neighborhood have enforceable covenants? Your
association. In other words, if you 1lye in this neighborhood you've got to
have all natural siding or you've got to have a certain kind of shingle. You
don't have any klnd of a covenant system there?
Katie Kaaz: We have covenants yes, but not that...
Councilman Workman: I mean is there any way that the same people who slgned the
petition might say, I lived in a neighborhood where absolutely nobody, it was a
townhome situation where nobody can park, leave their cars in the driveway. They
all have to be in the garage. No parking anywhere. It was really nice. Is
that something that?
Katie Kaaz: We have looked into changing a number of things possibly in our...
and we have been speaking with lawyers and we realize that...and we really can't
dictate to people after they've moved in what they can and cannot do. What ls
not covered in the original covenants. I mean if we want to hire a lawyer to
redo our whole thlng, we have to take people as they move ln. You can't redo it
after they've already moved in. At least that's our opinion. ~nd you keep
saylng most the people. Most, the only reason that everybody on Choctaw and
Brule and isn't on that petition is that I didn't get to them. I mean they.were
all golng to slgn it and.
Councilman Workman: No, I'm not questioning the petition.
Katie Kaaz: ...point I wanted to make .... covenants really aren't that
restrictive.
Councilman Workman: Where I lived they were.
Katie Kaaz: I know there are a lot of areas. We looked into a lot of
By-laws...
Councilman Workman: Yeah, no. You're polnt about dolng it after the fact
probably would not make, or grandfathering.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay, I'd like to make that motion that we refer thls back to
Public Safety with review and bring it back to Council on or before September
the 14th meetlng.
Katie Kaaz: Can I just make one more point? I'm pretty sure there is already a
safety report or a report by the Safety Commission. If you don't have it in
your hands but I thlnk lt's been done.
Mayor Chmiel: Yes. Richard has indicated but it didn't take very much decision
maklng to look at it. They dldn't go out and look. And that may be the
problem, and I'm not sure whether that was or wasn't.
Katie Kaaz: I was under the impression they had been out.
Mayor Chmiel: But with that, I think this is basically what we should do so we
have the rlght declslon there or if there's another way of eliminating the
City Council Meeting .. July Z?, 1992
problem that exists ]]obj. I'd like to go with that too, whatever it nl&ght be and
I don't have the foggiest idea.
Katie Kaaz: We invite you out.
Hayor Chmiel: Thank you. We'll probably be there. Okay, so with that, is
there a second?
Cou)~ciluoman Oimler': Second.
Mayor Chmiel moved, Councilwoman Oimler seconded to table the peri tion for a No
Parking Zone on Choctaw Circle until on or before the City Council meeting on
September 14, 1992 and refer Jt back to the Public Safety Commiss[on for further
review. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously.
NORTH HIGHWAY 5 FRONTAGE ROAD CONSTRUCTION, COUNTY ROAD 17 TO HIGHWAY 41, JOINT
POWERS AGREEMENT WITH STATE OF MINNESOTA.
Don Ashworth: This item, number one acknowledges the work that has been
colopleted by 8ill Norrish through the University and working back with Housing
and Redevelopment Authority, Clty Council and even wlth Plannlng Commission in
looking at how we are going to accommodate traffic and what is going to happen
to our community as a result of widenlng of Hlghway 5 from 17 to 41. That
segment of roadway will be built by MnDot. What the vlsion or plan calls for
are frontage roads on both the south slde of Hlghway 5 as well as the north
slde. The south slde of Hlghuay$ will be, the frontage roads wlll be some
dlstance back from the maln lane hJ. ghway. 500 to ~00 feet and it's reasonable
to assume that those will be bullt and can be built as requirements back on the
developers of those individual pleces, whether it be Ryan, Opus, or any pleces
from 17 to 41. Of concern has been how frontage road construction could occur
on the north slde of Hlghuay 5. How we could incorporate into that the
landscaped areas that had been called for in the Morrish plan. How agaln that
that could in fact be paid for. The community wlll have a real problem in terms
of trying to get access to a,d from Lake Ann Park. EspeclalJ. y the expansion of
Highway 5 and righted roadway. We've carrled out a lot of discussions wlth
MnDot. They are at the point that if the City would ask them to carry out the
construction of that north frontage road as a part of the maln 11ne
construction, they have looked at it from the standpoint of congestion relief as
a part of Hlghway 5 construction ltself. ~nsuring that Hlghuay 5 is not
overburdened by what I'll ca].l local trlps. In Eden Prairie it's very difficult
to get from one part of the community to the other unless you go out to Highway
5. The vision for either the frontage roads on the north or the south is to
lnsure that local residents 1lying in the 41 area do not have to take and take
Highway 5 to make a trip back in[o downtown but in fact would have a frontage
road brlnglng them dlrectly lnto the community. Again, under the new Federal
legislation, what's referred to as Ice Tea dollars could be made available for
the construction of that roadway and again HnDot would do it as a part of the
Hlghway 5 construction itself. What they have requested is that we place, send
a letter to them acknowledging our request to have them lnclude that north
frontage road as a part of the mainline construction. ~e literally would be
funding the inltla], deslgn portlon. They are very concerned that, the only
thing that they're apprehensive about, there's two areas that they're
apprehensive about. Number one ls construction of that frontage road through
32
City Council Meeting - July 27, 1992
Lake Ann Park. That was funded by Federal dollars and you get into separate
Federal agencies and if you attempted to have the State carry out the
constructin of that north frontage road through the park property, it would
assuredly delay the main lane construction by 2 to 3 years. They would propose
construction of the north frontage road from Audubon to 41 and ask that the City
of Chanhassen actually carry out the north frontage road construction from 17 to
Audubon. If we were to be in control of that segment, they would do it as a
joint powers agreement where their contractor would literally do the work but
they would not be interceding any Ice Tea dollars then as a part of that portlon
of the project. Those would come under local control. Number two. To date the
brldge construction and the Morrlsh and even our own comprehensive plan showed a
pedestrian crosslng under Highway 5 at the new location for a school. That
would be approximately in the area of CR 117... We had originally proposed that
they construct a brldge in that location. Bridges are very expensive. One to
two mllllon dollars each. They have come back and stated a lot of concern ulth
bridges because of their standards for maintenance of the decking as well as the
structure ltself holdlng up the bridge. They would propose lnstead, and I'm
unaware where they have done this anywhere else. Modification of their typical
design where they would lnstall two, and understand that ls going to be a
divided roadway so you have westbound trafflc, a space inbetween and you have
eastbound Hlghway 5. So you in fact would have two bridges or in thls case a
culvert but it will look just like a bridge. It will be 12 foot in height and
34 foot across. Instead of simply sloping away from the culvert like you mlght
have with just a culvert going underneath the roadway, they would actually build
an embankment. A concrete section that would go that entlre length so you would
look at that and it would look as though it's a bridge. No one would really
know that this ls not a brldge. Again, in a letter to them they would ask that
we request that type of construction and they have assured us they will agree to
that. The thlrd area that would be different from the discussions that have
occurred to date would be that they would like to see Park Place, Park Road.
The roadway currently golng into the buslness park and the proposed access, that
one of the access points or the only access right now for Lake Ann Park be a
rlght ln, rlght out. That would recognize that the new construction would
include then the frontage road and so ithat those people living within the
community, if they wanted to take Hlghway$ from the main portlon of town, they
would have a free right coming into Lake Ann but on their return, they would
take the frontage road back to the maln portlon. Those people livlng to the
west would, and there'd be signals at Audubon, would get onto the north frontage
road, go lnto Lake Ann that way. If they wanted to go home using the free right
out at Park Road, they would. This item was also presented to the HRA
recognizing that they'll be a major fundlng source associated with what would be
the local share for the north frontage road from CR 17 to Audubon and also for
deslgrl costs. They very much favored the deslre to see a north frontage road
constructed but also are concerned or were concerned that 'each of the neighbors
who may not have been lnvolved wlth the work that's been completed by the
Planning Commission, Council and HRA during the past two years, may not be fully
aware of what ls encompassed by thls, elther the norih or south frontage roads
or the entlre design concept that has been looked at during these last 2 years.
We have a separate committee, citlzens committee which ls similarly starting,
will be starting a series of meetings with those same residents to show them the
same set of plans. But the HRA's actlon was, even in advance of the other
citizens committee starting the meetings, that staff should notify each of those
owners of the proposed design, invlte them into a serles of meetlngs and that
City Council Meeting - July 27, 1992
the letter being referred to here not be sent until after that series of
meetings occurred. Z would recommend that the City Council take a similar
action to the HRA hopefully agreeing that you support the concept of MnBot being
the lead agency and actually constructing what is referred to as the north
frontage road. But secondly, not formalizing the concept that MnDot would
actual construct until after we've had an opportunity [o present this concept to
the specific landowners. The HRA was not as concerned with the Opus', the
Ryan's. They were concerned with the smaller- owner. The Mr. Kerber, Leander
Kerber, Mr. Pryzmus, Mr. 6eisch. I see in the audience tonight Mr. 6orra.
Those were the people they had identified.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay, thank you. Ursula.
Councilwoman Bimler: Mr. Mayor, I do have a few questions. I have not had the
advantage of going to the HRA meetings and being really involved in this and I
guess one of the concerns I have, you said at one point the north frontage road
was only going to go from Audubon west and all of a sudden you're talking about
a segment that's going from CR i? to the park. Did I misunderstand that?
Mayor Chmiel: CR 17 to Audubon. With the initial phases.
Councilwoman Oimler: oh, it goes from CR 17 so you will be crossing Eckankar
property as well. Plus you said something about having, the funding would have
to come from the City across the park because of the Federal funds.
Don Ashworth: Right.
Councilwoman Dimler: Okay, so you are planning it from CR 17 all the way out to
TH 417
Don Ashworth: And it would be the same contractor. That the State would agree
that the contract documents would be iet by them. The inspection wouId be
compieted by them. But because of, again what is referred to as the...Ruies,
they wouid want to see the funding for that segment, being from Audubon to.
Councilwoman Oimler: Yeah, I understand that. Also, it was my understanding
that the original proposal with MnDot did include a frontage road on the south
slde so that's all taken care of.
Don Ashuorth: No. MnDot has always shied away from the south side. Two
reasons. One, lt's incongruous nature, meanlng that it's not. A number of the
roads you're kind of circling back and forth. That would not meet their
standards for what we're fundlng for a frontage road. And they secondarily
understand and see the City's point that that serles of frontage roads can be
requlred as a part of developer agreements where ue would request an Opus or
Ryan to carry out that construction.
Councilwoman Dimler: Okay but now, on one of the points here it said that MnDot
was going to build, currently in the current plan was going to build a frontage
road. Can you tell me where that was then if it wasn't on the south slde? Was
it on the north?
34
City Council Meeting - July 27, 1992
Don Ashworth: You're referring to the letter from Barton-Aschman, and I think
back to myself. There was some smaller frontage road constructions that had
been proposed. If there is no frontage road at all, somehow you need to get
into the Leander Kerber property and I think there's like 2 or 3 parcels that
are there together. So they would actually build an access from Audubon back
westerly to pick up the driveways of Leander Kerber and what was the Natural
Green property and potentially Mr. Gorra's. I'm not sure about that.
Councilwoman Oimler: Okay, so that was in the original proposai?
Don Ashworth: That would be, if there would be no north frontage road, the
State would have to do that. Very similar to what they did.
Councilwoman Dimler: I guess one of the concerns I have that's holding this
whole project up for 3 to 5 years, if we go with this proposal, it's likely to
do that isn't it?
Don Ashworth: No. By our agreement that we would construct the, or provide the
funding for the frontage road through the park property, ue eiiminate the
necessity for the State to modify the existing environmental assessment
worksheets and eliminate the necessity for them to have to go back to LAWCON and
the parent, I sorry I don't recall but the other Federal agency. Anyway, ue
u£i1 not deiay the project. If we would teii them that they have to construct.
Counciluoman Dimler: Okay, so I understand. Now the proposals that you have
here, I read them to be about $2.4 million is it uithout HnDot assistance?
Don Ashworth: Correct.
Councilwoman Oimler: Does that include the cost of the purpose of land for
easements and businesses that we might have to purchase that are on the north
slde?
Don Ashworth: I don't see any construction, grading base, storm, city. I don't
see any cost in here. Note, all right-of-way costs. No, that'd be a city
expense.
Councilwoman Dimler: So we would be paying right-of-way costs that are not
included in that $2.4 million? So that's not really an accurate reflection of
the total cost?
Don Ashworth: The only area that we would look to city would be through that
first segment. But that's a good question. I should verify that. But my
discussions with them have them paying the full cost. The only exception would
be if we would decide that we wanted to see watermain included in the frontage
road construction. If we wanted to see street lighting. If we wanted thlngs
that would typically not be a part of like a MnOot frontage road construction.
Councilwoman Dimler: Which I would assume might be the case. Wouldn't it?
Don Ash~orth: I would anticipate that we would look to a higher level. I'm not
sure about the watermain. We would have additional costs as it would deal with
the street 11ghts. I would discount either water or 'sewer because one way or
35
City Council Meeting - July 27, 1992
another we're going to have to get water and sewer out there. Zf this made a
good location, it would just make it that much cheaper for us to get the water
and sewer out there.
Councilwoman Dimler: But also yol~'d have to be purchasing some easements?
Oon Ashworth: Yes.
Councilwoman Dimler: Okay, so that's not reflected in this?
Don Ashuorth: Zt does not appear as though it's reflected in here but the
discussions that Z had ulth MnDot were that they would pay the cost of land
acquisition, especially fromm Audubon to TH 41. We would have the land
acquisition costs and the construction costs from Audubon to CR 17.
Councilwoman Oimler: Now, could I ask just one more question and that is, why
wasn't thls in the origlnal proposal? Was thls an after thought?
Don Ashwortll: I think that's the best way to descrlbe it, yes. I mean the
lmpetus arose from Councilman Richard Wing I thlrlk had brought up the real
concern of what is going to happen to thls community with the construction of
Hlghway 5 and Z thlnk his statement was, I, as a Councllmember do not want to
take and see the west half of Highway 5 look like I see the easterly portion of
Hlghway 5. That was the lmpetus. It's going back to both the Plannlng
Commission and for a study committee process. It finally came back with the
report fronl Blll Horrish that dld a number of thlngs. One, it introduced the
frontage road concept as a means by which local trafflc could move to and from
our downtown ulthout havlng to go to a hlghway. It introduced a landscaping
area, a buffer area w£th 150 to 200 feet along the roadway to lnsure that the
highway wasn't just a naked black beast that was kind of golng through the
community. That would offer some amenities along with it.
Councilwoman Dimler: And a lot of those points I agree with but I'm just
wondering why we didn't have that proposal in there to begin with. Also now
you're saylng that the south slde wlll not have frontage road at all then, uhlch
I think it should.
Don 4shuorth: Well yes. The plan calls for that. It's just a questlon of
who's going to construct it and I think my recommendation [o you would be, you
can lnsure that the construction of that roadway can occur as a requirement back
on the developers of those properties as they develop. I think you're going to
have a very difficult tlme in using that same concept as it would deal wlth the
north side. And I see ~hat there's a representative of Eckankar here thls
evenlng but Z would guess that Eckankar does not wish to participate in the
funding for that north frontage ro~d and would see it as an intrusion of their
property. Z would anticipate that it would pretty much take Leander Kerber's
property in it's entirety. There's ilo way you can assess someone for totally
taklng his property.
Councilwoman Dlmler: No, T. understand that.
Don Ashuorth: So I thlnk in that entlre stretch trylng to assess people on the
north slde.
City Council Meeting - July 27, 1992
Councilwoman Dimler: And maybe those were the reasons too why it wasn't in the
original proposal. You know because it might be a difficult project to get
done.
Don Ashworth: I'm not sure.
Councilwoman Dimler: But I whole heartedly agree that we need to have some
right away have some hearings on this and let those people voice their concerns.
Mayor Chmiel: Yeah, I don't disagree with that at all and I think what we
should do, as Don has mentioned before. I received a call from one of the
adjacent property owners with a lot of concern saying I was just told about 30
seconds ago that someone's, the City or someone's going to be taking my
property. And as I explained to him that we're initially in the first phase of
this going from CR 17 to Audubon and their concerns are well founded. I think
what we have to do is still meet with these people. Let them know what we're
really thinking and then go from that point and start tying this down with the
Highway 5.
Councilwoman Dimler: Is it my understanding then that the HRA has already
accepted this?
Mayor Chmiel: Yes. This is a preliminary from basically we're talking at one
point of CR 17 to Audubon. Making sure that access goes into the park. That's
what the HRA is going.
Councilwoman Dimler: Oh okay. You didn't talk west of Audubon?
Mayor Chmiel: Well, there was some talk about that but potentially when that's
all...we still are not aware of it. I don't think MnDot has made any kinds of
commitements as to a timeframe.
Don Ashworth: The primary issue with this document is that their agreement that
the frontage road would then become a part of the main lane construction. $o
when the construction documents would be let, it would be let for the entire
package. The frontage road won't be left as just kind of a.
Councilwoman Dimler: And just one more question and it doesn't really have to
do with it but I don't remember in the original. Is there going to be a traffic
signal at CR 1177 I understand there's been several accidents and some of them
have been fatal. If that isn't in there, I would highly suggest that ue take a
look at lt.
Don Ashuorth: What MnOot will tell you is that they'll look at warrants and as
of this point in time they don't know if the construction uill include a signal
or won't.
Mayor Chmiel: I think what Don was saying beforehand, and correct me if I'm
wrong. You were saying that potentially if that access to either side of the
hlghway would be over at Audubon where a stop and go light would be, so anybody
that would be going across, that road would not cross the highway. CR 117.
You'd have to come down thls way or go up the other direction in order to get
across.
37
City Council Meeting - July 27, 1992
Don Ashworth: If the north frontage road were to become a reality, and would be
constructed, you would f0eet the warrants for a ~ignal at Audubon. I can almost
assure you of thai.
Councilwoman Dimler: I'm talking at 117. That's Galpin. Now there have been
just recently I think a fatal accident ther-e al~d I know of several others that
maybe didn't include any fatalities but [hey are serious. At least have it
checked into. Thank you Oon.
Mayor Chmiel: I just want to throw it open to the floor for anyone uho would
like to come foruard and indicate some of your concerns or at least your
thoughts. Please step forward and state your name and your address. If not,
always an opportunity.
Mike Gorra= My name is Mike Gorra. I live at 1680 Arboretum. Part of the
property you'¥e talking about ls adjacent to this frontage road. First of all
I'd 11ke to ask a question. Where would [hls north frontage road be? Hou close
to Highway 5 or would it have a setback?
Don Ashworth: It would move back and forth. ~enerally, it would be within 150
to 200 feet of Hlghway 5. It would move further away at major inter~ectlorls to
allow for stacklng dlstance away from that intersection so for example at CR 117
or even at Audubon, it would move to the north approximately 300 feet.
Mike Gorra: How about right west of the park? Do you have a plan of that or a
slide or something we can see what you've got planned?
Oon 4shuorth: I'll run upstairs and grab a copy.
Mayor Chmiel: Yeah, there has been some discussion on that for way before our
time that they proposed the road comlng off from ?Sth Street to go on Charlie
3ames' property. How fat- back I can't tell you. But you can probably see
pretty much the cut that's there. And that was going to extend from that polnt
across to Lake Ann Park. So the accessibility was there so people dldn't have
to go out on TH 5 to come back into the park.
Mike Gorra: And that would extend west of 417
Mayor Chmiel: Then it would eventually extend to 41 at some given time.
Mike Gorra~ I guess what I would like [o know is how faT' back, how much into my
property I've got.
Mayor Chmiel: Yeah, that we don't know.
Mike Gorra: Well, doesn't Don have a plan?
Mayor Chmiel: Right. I don't think we have anything that really shows from
Audubon beyond that particular polnt.
Councilmarl Mason: Yeah, this is just in the planning.
38
City Council Meetin9 - July 27, 1992
Mayor Chmiel: This is strictly planning. Nothing has been formalized or put in
place by HnDot or the City as yet.
Mike Gorra: Well that's good. That's why I'm here because I'd like to get my
say now before ue do formalize something.
Mayor Chmiel: And that's why, that's one of the things we're going to do as
weii is to have two informationai hearings on this. Or not onIy informationai
but pubiic hearings so everybody wouid be more than weII aware as to what's
going to take piace.
Mike Gorra: That's a good idea but I guess I would like the City to be aware
what I've got planned there. I've got 150 acres there and my neighbor, Lays has
50 acres and what we have tentatively planned is a golf course. In fact, I
can't think of anything that would look better for the City of Chanhassen than
to have a long stretch of golf course or green fairway on TH 5 other than what
else, whatever else could be built there. Homes, apartments, whatever. But
anyway, together we have close to 200 acres and we're going to need just about
all of that to do the proper job. There is other golf courses being built,
maybe not real close to thls Chanhassen area but in the general vicinity. To be
competitive you want to do a good and proper job and to do that you want as much
land as possible. We've got 200 acres which should be enough but lt's not golng
to be an over amount. And if this frontage road cuts into both our properties,
lt's going to make it a little blt tougher to do the job that we want to do
there. Not only that, it's quite a stretch from Lake Ann Park to CR 117 and if
there lsa golf course there, whlch looks like-there very well mlght be, there
really isn't going to be a need for a service road for that entire area except
for maybe one driveway, the golf course. So it's something to thlnk about now
while it's still in the planning stage.
Councilman Workman: Mr. Mayor, while they're discussing things. That's why,
and I got the same call you did tonight. I wasn't happy with the call and the
caller wasn't happy and I don't know, maybe that's just the way we both are.
But that's why I wonder if in fact we didn't get some sort of a cart before the
horse on all this by bringlng it up. We have no real plan and I know that
because of LAWCON we have to try and jump the gun because of all the time
constraints and everything else but there are some property owners who maybe own
a large tract, if they weren't building a golf course, that a frontage road
might help. But for a smaller landowner who happens to own a drivlng range, a
frontage road could ruin his business you know.
Mayor Chmiel: It wouldn't ruin it, it'd take it out completely.
Councilman Workman: That's what I mean. And so you know for that gentleman who
has an intention to stay in business, that's not happy news and we haven't had
happy times with Mr. Pryzmus before. So that's why, and you know for him yeah,
to flnd out and then for me to try and explain, well lt's really in a conceptual
stage and I'm excited to hear that we might have another golf course in town.
We have a long way to go and I guess we need to explain that to him and to
everybody else because I don't like some of the feedback that I've gotten that
it's the old ram rod theory of clty government. That we're trylng to throw.
39
City Council Meeting --July 27, 1992
Mayor Chmiel: Put it in, forget about it and don't tell anybody and I corrected
him.
Councilman Workman: Yeah. Absolutely, I did too and I think we've done a good
job. I don't want to give Mr. Gorra the impression that we're trying to pull
something on his property or other. I think we've done a good job. I just
wonder because of the State and the LAWCON and the park and everything, if we
haven't kind of gotten something ahead of us and I'd be interested to know when
these design meetings and studies are going to take place because it's going to
get hot out there.
Don Ashworth: I think you bring out some good points. Mike and I have talked
about the potential golf course in the area. I can understand the concern for
taking of any of that property. One of the thlngs that I would ask you to think
about Mike is, if you were to have a golf course like that, the current MnOot
plans, when we're talklng about this 11ttle frontage road. All they're talking
about is just an access road to get through the Kerber property and get through
the Natural Green property and on over to your own. I really questlon whether
or not you might be able to get customers to, you know people who wanted to play
golf, with that klnd of mlnlmal of a deslgn. I mean ifa person had gone by,
they'd have to go down to CR 117, turn around, come back the road the other way.
The frontage road can reasonably assure the individual that if they have gone by
it, they can turn at CR 117, come up to the frontage road and drive right back
to your front door. Or rlght 1nrc the facility. You can assure that you've got
reasonable stacking distances rather than just a little service road that's
golng to go in front of Leander Kerber's property and leave Leander's house
there, which I don't think would probably be in the best interest of the long
range plannlng for that property. Anyway, I agree with the Council and I agree
with Mr. Gorra. We really need to slt down with those people and talk about all
the pros and cons and then make a decision.
Mayor Chmiel: Yeah, I'd like to find out too what right-of-way needs are going
to be there for that as well. 60 feet or are we looklng at more. What the
~etbacks there has to be from the highway because I'm sure we're golng to have
the tra11 system going through there as well. And so there's a lot of thlng$.
How can we accommodate all those things together to make it as compact as we can
wlthout that much intrusion?
Mike Gorra: That was my main concern is, that was my first question is, where
is this going to be built? If it was right next to the Highway 5 right-of-way,
then it wouldn't lntrude too much on the property and it mlght very well be good
for the golf course or whatever we did put in [here. But if it's set back 200
feet or 300 feet, then I can see where it might be a problem. It mlght not, I
can't see any reason why it should be set back. ~ can't see any advantage to
dolng that but I can see where it might create a problem. But not knowing what
other design plan they might have as an alternative, maybe it'd be best not to
have a service road there ifa golf course ls golng to go half a mlle from
Audubon Road down to CR 1~?. Maybe they have another alternative that would
service the golf course and Kerbers and the range too. I mean I don't know
without seeing the plans. I don't know what's going on here.
Mayor Chmiel: Well none of us have really seen any plans yet.
4O
City Council Meeting - July 27, 1992
Mike Gorra: And I guess the only other questlon I had was, when is all of this
supposed to take place? Just a general timeframe. Ooes anybody know?
Don Ashworth: We're hoping that the main line construction will occur '967
Charles Folch: '96 is the schedule at this point.
Councilman Workman: So add 3 years.
Mayor Chmiel: Give some, take some. Anybody else?
Councilman Wing: What was the date of the task force meetlng? It was August
something. I can't remember.
Kate Aanenson: llth.
Councilman Workman: So are we looking for a motlon to say yeah, yeah?
Mayor Chmiel: Well I think with all the concerns that we've indicated, that
have to be there, all thls could just go rlght down the tubes as well. For
instance, if LAWCON says no way. You're not putting any road through the park
whatsoever, you don't do lt. They're very stringent with their requirements.
You have to comply with everything they have. They just won't allow that to
happen.
Councilman Workman: For any bureaucracy to tell us that we can't make getting
into that park, which they helped us pay for, safer.
Mayor Chmiel: We can do that.
Councilman Workman: Believe me. Belleve me, we'll do it.
Mayor Chmiel: We can do that part of it...might be the problem. But our major
concern is how do we get the people to and from the City without going out onto
TH 5 to keep them on that clrcle.
Councilman Workman: No, that I'm all for. It's our way of saying well, it's
golng to go through some businesses and they're going to have to go. That's
what I have a problem with in the memo and we don't really know where or Mr.
Gorra ralses that point. Where is it golng to be? How can I declde if I 11kw
it if I don't know where it is? And if it's going to take my buslness or go
around it.
Mayor Chmlel: I think there's still a lot of questions that still have to be
answered and I think we, I don't like to see us throw a hook into this but I
think we have to have other answers to questions that have not been given as yet
before we proceed to say go.
Councilman Workman: Correct. That was my point. I mean if I'm going to say
yes to this, what does that number one do.
Councilman Wing: You've already sald yes to
41
City Council Meeting - July 27, 1992
Councilman Workman: Right.
Councilman Wing: You voted for it at the HRA and all this is is an endorsement
of tile HRA's action to let staff continue to proceed on this but there's no
commitments. It's theoretical. It's strictly, what's the University Don? It's
a theoretical approach. Very conceptual plan to some options. All we've said
is we'd like to do something a little better than Fridley has but no more. But
there has to be some okay for staff to get moving and come up with things. Plus
we have an enormous task force of very talented people that's meeting the first
part of August to start on thls very issue.
Councilman Workman: Well I read this memo as something more than that. A
potential joint powers agreement with the State of Minnesota and it doesn't
sound like I'm telllng just Don Ashworth, thlnk more about lt.
Councilwoman Oimler: Right. Exactly. It's more involved.
Councilman Workman: That's my problem and maybe Don can help me to answer that.
Z mean we are talking about taking property.
Ma/or Chmiel: Yeah, my reasoning for sitting on the HRA to move this forward to
Councll was for this discussion that we have right now. And I didnt want to
hold it up at that particular tlme wlth HRA because I dld want it to be coming
right here. I thlnk that's something that we have to look at. If we indicate
rlght now to say proceed with the Hlghway Department with all natural plans of
whatever we're going to do, we don't have tile answers really yet [o make that
decision.
Councilman Workman: But they're not going to move ahead are they Don Ashworth
unless we say, yes to all of this? They're not going to really design a
frontage road for us.
Mayor Chmiel: We have to do that EAW portlon on it number one because that has
not been done by MnOot. So that's what that $10,000.00 basically is for. Is
for the EAW, Environmental Assessment Worksheet which lsa very slmple thlng.
Councilman Workman: Is that just for Audubon?
Doll Ashuorth: No. That will actually be for the entlre distance.
Mayor Chmiel: To 417
Don Ashworth: Yeah, for the EA. They cannot.
Mayor Chmiel: ...enough money.
Don Ashuorth: I was going to say, the numbers. As I read the HRA's action,
they're basically supporting what I'll call the funding component of this to get
us through all of the study phases that lnclude back wlth citizens and
everything else. Eventually you w111 end up with a jolnt powers agreement back
between the Clty and MnDot.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay, who's going to be the RGU in this? MnDot?
42
City Council Meeting - July 27, 1992
Don Ashworth: MnDot will sign off. We'll be.
Mayor Chmiel: Regulating Governmental Unit.
Don Ashworth: Right. But that's for that length that would be from, actually
from Audubon over to TH 41. Because this segment would now come under the City
of Chanhassen and you're going to need to do the EA when you're involved with
the Federal process. If we would be looking at modifiations we did through the
park back with the State LAWCON office and we would only be doing a EAW at that
point in time. So we'd have lesser standards associated with that whole
process. But as I read the HRA action, it was one of basically recognizing that
we would have these additional study costs. As long as the State would be the
regional, or the primary, I keep forgetting the words along with the acronyms
but.
Mayor Chmiel: Maybe our continuance from Audubon to TH 41, that would be
figured in and with that EAW wouid be, the assessment that MnDot wouid do. But
my interpretation was for the $10,000.00 would be from CR 17 to Audubon.
Don Ashworth: ProbabIy $10,000.00 is a reasonable figure for an EAW for that
stretch but what we were really looking at was, HRA had initially said don't
spend more than $10,000.00 unless ue can get the State to agree that they will
act as the RGU. Okay, which now the State basically has agreed to do. And then
they would therefore modify the, or do the EA from Audubon to TH 41 to insure
that if this does become a part of the project, that we have gone through all of
those steps to actually add it in.
Mayor Chmiel: Well that's logical because that's where it should go really.
Councilwoman Dimler: I just had a question. If we do the EA, does that assume
the project will be done? Normally.
Mayor Chmiel: No. It's just seeing what the assessment is.
Councilwoman Dimler: ...first phase of the project in that or can we still say
no after the EA?
Don Ashworth: You can still say no after the EA but you're going to be upwards
of a year to complete that process.
Councilwoman Dimler: So we're delaying the whole highway construction?
Don Ashuorth: No. No. Because the earliest we're looking at the construction
is again.
Counciluoman Oimler: '96.
Don Ashworth: '96.
Mayor Chmiel; '96. Four years doun the line. Or plus 3 as Tom has said.
Depending upon how much appropriations there are.
43
City Council Meeting -July 27, 1997.
Councilwoman Oimler: I don't in any way watl'[ to delay them because it took us
so long to get them out here to get it on their books to get it going and
anything that would delay that I uould absolutely be against.
Mayor Chmiel: See I'm hearing two different things of concerns. One, should we
proceed with what us're doing. And the other end is saying, ue shouldn't delay
anything. We should continue to proceed.
Councilman Workman: Can we afford to wait? No, we can't afford to wait?
Don Ashworth: One of the reasons that we moved ahead with the whole EA and
authorized the lnltlal deslgn for T~I 5, whlch is belng jolntly shared by the
TH 5 entitles. Three cities and the two counties, ls to insure that we malntain
that prlorlty positlon for TH 5 so by now for the inclusion of the frontage road
as a potential design element, it needs to kind of catch up wlth the work that
we've done on the maln portlon of the highway ltself. And at stake ls one of,
if a decision is made not to include that as a part of a later contract
approval, you may very well have lost the $100,000.00 that it would have cost to
do that work durlng that next i yea]- period of time.
Councilman Wing: More important than that to me is that the whole concept of
the corridor study, the frontage road, development, all these conceptual plans
go out the wlndow and we're back down to ba$1cs where MnDot puts thelr road in
and good luck and let the developers come in piecemeal and away we go. If
that's the approach we're golrlg to take, then let's shell thls corridor study
once and for a11.
Councilwoman Dimler: Well, I don't think so though Richard because we're still
going to proceed with tile cltlzens committee and they're st111 golng to do the
buffer zone and all that. The only thlng that we're taklng out rlght now is
whether we're going to consider this frontage road or not. Where that's not
part of that committee.
Councilman Wing: It really is. Major part of the committee. Frontage road is
one of the major issues of this whole conceptual plan.
Councilwoman Dimler: Although I thought he says in here that they don't have.
It's beyond the reach of the cltizen committee.
Councilman Wing: The conceptual plan is what they're working on.
Don Ashuorth: Can't we accomplish both tasks? Z mean if it takes one year
perlod of tlme to do thls work, whlch I thlnk klnd of the HRA was agreelng to.
Maybe we have to relook at those. And we're saying we're going to spend a one
year period of time to meet wlth our citlzens and declde if thls is a good ldea.
I mean it sounds like we've got tile better of two worlds with the one potential.
loss and that is, the nloney that we may have spent durlng the year to lnsure
[hat we stay on line. Right now that is an eligible cost for the HRA. Z don't
thlnk any of us want to waste money but like Nick polnts out, if we ualt a year
to take and start that process, maybe it's going to be too late.
Councilwoman Dimler: Well I'm saying that we should start right now meetlng
with the neighbors but without approving an EA. Can we do that? Get their
44
City Council Meeting - July 27, 1992
input first and then go ahead? If they are agreeable to it, then we go ahead
with an EA and then start the process but that would maybe, ue can have the
meetlngs schedule them for September and October you know.
Mayor Chmiel: That's now what the EAW that we're going to put in. That is
only, I still think, from CR 17 to Audubon which is not an issue, I don't think.
Because it has to get done.
Councilwoman Dimler: Yeah, Mr. Gorra's property would be there and Kerber's
property and you know, some of the others down the line.
Don Ashworth: ...at least in Don's description, he was saying from Audubon to
CR 17.
Councilwoman Oimler: Oh, okay. You're only ta~king to Audubon?
Mayor Chmiel: Yes.
Councilwoman Dimler: But I think we need to talk to those people too. If you
start with one segment of it, obviously you're going to try to go along.
Mayor Chmlel: But the EAW does take a period of time. The quickest you can get
one through would be 6 months, depending upon what backlog they have. I just
completed one not too long ago. And it took me 6 months. At the place that I
worked, wherever it was.
Councilwoman Dimler: Because nobody is saying that we would go ahead just to
Audubon and then drop it from there on. I mean that would be klnd of stupid.
Councilman Workman: Well we have to look at the whole picture.
Mayor Chmiel: Well yeah we have to. And that's why the committee is going to
come up ulth some of those speclflc suggestions as to what should be. Nothlng
is cut and dry in this whole thing.
Councilwoman Dimler: Right. But I'm saying that that's why we should include
the people west of Audubon immediately in this.
Mayor Chmlel: Oh yeah. Oh certainly. You bet. All the way to TH 41 as far as
I'm concerned.
Councilman Wing: I think that's what HRA stated.
Mayor Chmiel: Yeah. That was part of the point.
Councilman Mason: Also the point that Don made was ue have a year to get thls
done essentially and in that time we'll be holdlng those meetings and do that up
front stuff.
Councilman Wing: A minor concern is as we discuss the private sector, is what
are we going to tell them? Clearly you have nothing to tell them. Here's
Hlghway 5 belng built and here's the conceptual plan. Thls ls the ideal. The
round robin frontage road and here we're going to put the businesses'here with
45
City Council M~;eting - July 27, 1992
the parking here and it's going to give us access here. It's conceptual. It's
so conceptual, there's almost ve~-y little to tell. I mean you have to come up
with something before you can have a public meeting to share your thoughts and
we're almost short of that point right now.
Councilwoman Dimler: You can get their emotional feedback on it.
Councilman Mason: I thil~k you've got to let them know what's in the hopper.
Mayor Chmiel: I think some of that was done when we did the comprehensive plan.
We talked about that.
Councilwoman Dimler: Before we knew the details.
Hayor Chmiel: How it was going to go all the way to TH 41.
Councilman Workman: The problem with concepts and especially when you're
dealing wlth a bureaucracy is that we're standlng here with a concept about the
size of a snowball and we're golng to throw it now. And it gets blgger and
rolls and bigger and kills people and then makes a diversion and everything
else.
Mayor Chmiel: So with that, I think we're just.
Councilman Workman: Well my point is, I want to find out what everybody thinks
and we can't find out what everybody thlngs if we don't have a plan so I would
move approval of this.
Councilman Wing: Well I'm going to second that.
Mayor Chmiel: Any additional discussion?
Councilwoman Dimler: Are you saying approval of the joint powers agreement with
the State? Is that what you're approving?
Councilman Wing: Endorsement to make those commitments and direct staff to
place those into a letter to MnDot.
Mayor Chmiel: Once that commitment is done with the State, you can't pull back
away from that.
Councilwoman Oimler: No. I wouldn't want to.
Councilman Workman: But they're not going to do an £~ and they're not going to
do everything.
Councilwoman Dimler: No, but I would just at this point, my preference is to
just get the feedback from those people lnvolved on the north side before we
ever go to forming the snowball so to speak.
Councilman Workman: So if we make the commitment tonight, yeah if we throw the
snowball tonlght, then we're done? I mean that's lt?
City Council Meeting - July 27, 1992
Councilwoman Dimler: Yeah.
Councilman Workman: We've got a frontage road?
Councilwoman Dimler: Sounds like it to me.
Mayor Chmiel: We'd be giving authorization.
Councilman Workman: I'd like to wait.
Councilwoman Oimler: I would too.
Councilman Mason: Well we've got to have a frontage road one way or the other.
Don Ashworth: I think it'd be more difficult to hold back. I think there may
an alternative. Thls ls what I was hearlng from the HRA and that ls, ls go
ahead and hold the hearings and kind of report back to us at that next meeting.
But I also got the impression that the HRA was willlng to spend the monies
associated with the EA if the State would be the RGU for that application which
then buys the tlme so you don't have to enter lnto the jolnt powers agreement.
Simply get their agreement that they will conduct the EA. That they will act as
the RGU for the project and once that has been complete, a one year period of
time, then you enter into the contract that basically says, yes. The State of
Minnesota, build Hlghway 5 including the frontage road as lt's been studled
through the EA.
Hayor Chmiel: Okay, with that as indicated, I guess I wouldn't have that much
concern because there are some protective measures in there.
Councilman Wing: We're still in control and it gives us a little more to go to
the public wlth. Here's what's kind of proposed rather than just this, I don't
know if we talked about lt. There's a motlon and a second.
Mayor Chmiel: There's a motion on the floor with a second but I would like them
also to accept the addltlon as which was explained by Mr. Ashworth in regards to
this proposal. Would you accept that as a friendly amendment to the motion? Is
that acceptable?
Councilman Workman: Can I hear you repeat the amendment.
Mayor Chmiel: As to what Don had said in covering the issues that we were
concerned about.
Councilman Workman: So we're not committing ourselves?'
Mayor Chmiel: Well we are to a point, yes. But there are some conditions
contained in there that does glve us that opportunity to back away from it if we
so choose. Prior to the final commltement wlth MnOot as they indicated.
Councilman Workman: As long as we have that assurance, then I don't have a
problem.
47
City Council Meeting - July 27~ 1992
Councilman Workman moved, Councilman Wing seconded approving entering into an
agreement with Barton-Aschman and HnBot conditioned upon the following:
1. MnDot agreeing that they will act as the Responsible Government Unit (RGU)
for' tile Environmental Assessment (EA);
2. HRA/McGlynn TIO and an anticipated new TID lying between CR 117 and TH 41
will pay engineering and costs of EA for the expanded project;
3. That no final commitment be given to the North Highway 5 Frontage Road
~roject until after the Highway 5 Corridor Task Force has held hearings
(meetings) with the effected property owners lying north of Highway 5
between CR 17 and TH 41;
4. That staff write MnDot, on behalf of the City, stating it's desire to pursue
the points presented in the Bartor,-Aschmar, letter of July 14, 1992 as a part
of the EA process-such still not being binding as to the local acceptance of
the project itself.
All voted in favor except Counciluoman Dimler uho opposed and the motion carried
uith a vote of 4 to 1.
Councilwoman Dimler~ 0o you want me to explain?
Mayor Chmiel: I think you did.
Councilwoman Dimler: Okay. I see it as a hooker.
COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS:
Councilwoman Oimler: I would have, I know that we talked about this last time
and the time before on the Sunrise Hills beachlot where we talked about 12 cars
and obviously Kate and I went down there and there's room for many more. I
don't know wha~ ~he numbers should be but ue both agreed that on holidays and
family reunions and other special occasions, it could be more than 12. I trust
everyone up here but I'm not going to be on the Council and the Council will be
changing and I really would like to get that ir, the record.
Kate Aanenson: It's written in on the permit. The non-conforming permit.
That's the way it's written. That language.
Councilwoman Oimler: It is already written in there?
Kate Aanenson: That was my understanding.
Councilwoman Dimler: Oh okay. Did we do that properly? 00 we have to
reconsider?
Kate Aanenson: I wasn't at that meeting unfortunately. Paul covered that item.
Councilwoman Oimler: Somebody has to move it to reconsider and then make it
offlcial or ls this the offlcial record then?
48
City Council Meeting - July 27, 1992
Mayor Chmiel: Whoever voted in the positive could have that opportunity to
entertain to make that change.
Councilwoman Dimler: Exactly. Is what we've done legal though ls what I'm
asking or do we have to reconsider it and vote on it?
Mayor Chmlel: I thlnk uhat ue did before was legal.
Don Ashworth: And the permit has now been written in the fashion.
Kate Aanenson: It's my understanding the motion sald that if it could be
accommodated to hold more cars, we'd write it in that way. Then we went out and
inspected it and felt it was that way and that's why it's written in.
Councilwoman Oimler: Okay, so did you stipulate a number in the way it's
erltten?
Kate Aanenson: I put more than 12 cars could be handled on special occasions.
Not to exceed more than, what'd we talk about? Ltke 5-6 times a year or
something llke that.
Councilwoman Oimler: Okay. So it's all taken care of? Thanks.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay, Richard. HRA.
Councilman Wing: I just, having sat through the meetlngs really enjoyed the one
the other night because a lot of things happened with monuments stepping in. I
think the frustration of the tlme wlth the HRA showed and primarily their
decision to tackle the downtown. I really felt, what's the word I'm trying to
find. A nlce political word. I was impressed wlth thelr actlons at the last
meeting and I'm really pleased that they have, I just wanted to get it on the
CouAcil Mlnutes that the HRA has made some big moves for the City. Be it
Highway 5 or downtown development or whatever. I think they're very posltive
moves for the Clty. Much needed and they're showing some very progressive
attitudes and I really am thankful that the HRA is mov£ng, particularly on the
downtown area and the Dinner Theatre complex. That's really got some potential.
Mayor Chmiel: For those of you who were not at the HRA meeting from Council,
Jeff Farmakes came up wlth some ideas and concepts as to monuments and different
ideas for the library as well. As I mentioned at the HRA, he called me up and
sald he'd like to sit down and talk about this a little bit and it was Sunday
afternoon that he wanted to talk. I said come on over and we looked at it.
What he had there I liked so I wanted to brlng him back to the HRA and put that
on the agenda. And he's donating his time and his services and there's no cost
involved and I think he's done a commendable job with coming up with some of the
ideas that he had. And so consequently if you've not seen them, and Z don't
know who has those, Don?
Don Ashworth: I have those.
Mayor Chmiel: You can stop and see Don and take a look see. It's really got
some innovative thinking into what he's done. He really has.
City Council Heeling -.July 27, 1992
Councilman Wing: Just to piggy back on Jeff Farmakes. You'll see the Fire
Bepartment Dance posters all over the city. Yellow and black and I think
they're extremely artistic and clever and Jeff did those for us.
Mayor Chmiel: So with that, I would ask for a motion to adjourn.
Councilwoman Dimler moved, Councilman Workman seconded to adjourn. All voted in
favor and the motion carried. The meeting was adjourned at 10:20 p.m..
Submitted by Don Ashuorth
CZty Hanager
Prepared by Nann Opheim
5O