1991 11 18CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL
REGULAR HEETING
NOVEHBER 18, 1991
Mayor Chmiel called the meetlng to order at 7:45 p.m.. The meeting was opened
wlth the Pledge to the Flag with the help of the Brownie Girl Scouts.
COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT: Mayor Chmiel, Councilman Mason, Councilman Workman,
Councilman Wing and Councilwoman Oimler
STAFF PRESENT: Don Ashuorth, Elliott Knetsch, Todd Gerhardt, Charles Folch,
Paul Krauss, Scott Hart, Todd Hoffman, Jean Meuwissen, and Tom Chaffee
APPROVAL OF AGENDA: Councilman Wlng moved, Councilman Workman seconded to
approve the agenda amended as follows: Councilwoman Dimler wanted to discuss
1rem 10 along with 1rem 3, Councilman Wing wanted to move item 6(a)&(b) to after
the Consent Agenda. All voted in favor of the amended agenda and the motion
carrled.
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEHENTS:
A. RECOGNITION OF GIRL SCOUTS FOR GLEANING UP MEADOW GREEN PARK.
Mayor Chmiel: This evening is really sort of a fun thing for at least the
Council to do. Is to see the Girl Scouts here thls evening. We would like to
give personal recognition to them for their efforts that they have done in the
Clty. Is there one of you who can tell me basically what you did? Who can
raise thelr hand and tell me what you did? Okay, we'll take one right in the
center there.
Girl Scout: We cleaned some of city and we worked on badges and tried to do our
best...
Mayor Chmiel: Very good. I like that. We should give her a little hand. Verl
well done. What I think I'd like to do is probably come down here and have all
the Scouts come over here. I'd like to read something .... recognize these Glrl
Scouts, and all of them are not here. It's my understanding there were
approximately 45 of them that had gone out and cleaned the park. I'm going to
ad 1ib from an article that I saved from the paper indicating what did happen.
As it reads here, last Saturday morning while most people were sleeping or
brewing coffee, the local Girl Scouts and their parents began cleaning up
Meadow Green Park in Chanhassen. That was the October 19-26 was Girl Scouts
Week. The Scouts of Chanhassen teamed up with the City to rld a popular
neighborhood park of lt's 11tter. And there was a lot of litter. These girls
ranged from 1st to 4th grades and 20 of their parents worked for 2 1/2 hours so
we have to glve the parents some recognition too. They fllled 6 barrels
overflowing with cans, paper, wood, barbed wire, cement and even some odd pieces
11ke a ~ foot water plpe and part of a gas tank. Z think for all thelr strong
extended efforts that you've done, I'd like to applaud you as well as the
Councll and say thank you very much.
City Council Meeting - November 18, 1991
UPDATE ON TH 212 FUNDING.
Mayor Chmiel; As we move along, item l(b). Z'd like to read you a letter that
I received from Congressman Jim Ramstad. It said Dear Don: Knowing your
interest in new U.S. Highway 212 I wanted to give you an update on the status of
legislation affecting tile vltal transportation product. I'm very pleased to
inform you that the House of Representatives i~as passed a Transportation Bi11,
which I strongly supported. That includes $8.7 milllon in federal funding for
tl~e new U.S. Hlghway 212. Highway 212 lsa high priorlty 1tern for the residents
of Eden Prairie and Carver County and Chanhassen and I was pleased to see the
House pass thls legislation. The Blll wlll now be sent to the House Senate
Conference Committee to resolve differences between the House and Senate Bills.
You can rest assured my continued support 'for thls vital transportation project
and Z will continue to keep you updated on its status. Sincerely, Jim Ramstad,
Member of Congress. Thls I thlnk ls some real good, strong extended effort by
Representative Ramstad and lt's going to assist us in at least getting that
corridor through as we've had much discussion about for many, many years and
i~'s really becoming a reality. So wlth that I'd 11ke to just moving as we go
along with our Consent Agenda.
CONSENT AGENDA: Councilman Wing moved, Councilman Mason seconded to approve the
following Consent Agenda items pursuant to the City Hanager's recommendations:
b. Approval of Accounts.
City Council Minutes dated October 28, 1991
City Council Minutes dated November 4, 1991
Park and Recreation Commission Minutes dated September 24, 1991
Park and Recreation Commission Minutes dated October 22, 1991
All voted in favor and tile motion carried.
A. AMENDMENT TO CHAPTER 10, ARTICLE II, LIQUOR ORDINANCE, FINAL. READING~
Mayor Chmiel: The only question that I had Paul regarding amendment to 2(a),
and thls was the amendment that you put ln. The questlon I have, when will we
address that square footage problem?
Paul Krauss: Mr. Mayor, that's seen again as a separate item. In fact earlier
tl~is evenlng I spoke with Scott about we need to coordinate Public Safety's
input lnto liquor licenses...
Mayor Chmiel: Okay, so that will come back at another time? To make sure that
we have that, okay. Very good. l'11 move that we move item 2(a).
Councilwoman Oimler: Second.
Mayor Chmiel moved, Councilwoman Dimler seconded to approve the final reading of
the Amendment to Chapter 10, Article II, Liquor Ordinance. All voted in favor
and the motion carried unanimously.
VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: None.
City Council Meeting - November 18, 1991
A. ZONING ORDINANCE AHENDHENT REGARDING ACCESSORY DWELLINGS, ALLOWING TWO
PRINCIPAL STRUCTURES ON A SINGLE LOT, FIRST READING.
B. APPEAL DECISION OF THE BOARD OF ADJUSTHENTS AND APPEALS, REOUEST TO ALLOW
TWO PRINCIPAL STRUCTURES ON A SINGLE LOT AND 2B FOOT FRONT YARD SETBACK
UARIANCE, C.W. FREEMAN, 7431 DOGWOOD.
Sharmin A1-Jaff: The applicant is requesting that a variance to allow two
principal structures on a single famlly lot. These structures consist of a
single famlly residence and an existing summer cabin. The summer cabln has a 2
foot front yard setback. On August 26, 1991 the Board of'Adjustments and
Appeals reviewed this variance application. Staff recommended denial of the
varlance a11owlng two principal structures on a slngle lot would set a precedent
and would depart from standards set in the neighborhood. Furthermore, the
hardship ls self created. At the tlme when the applicant applied for the
buildlng permit to build a house he knew the summer cabin would not be used for
habitation because the ordinance does not allow two principal structures on one
lot. On the 26th the Board tabled action on this application and directed staff
to work wlth the Clty to investigate developing an ordinance that would allow
two structures on a single lot. The Planning Commission reviewed the Zoning
Ordinance that would allow the two structures on a slngle lot as a conditional
use permit. They recommended denlal of the Zoning Ordinance. The ordinance
seemed to have the potential for causing problems elsewhere. The Plannlng
Commission also objected to havlng a city wlde ordinance for a specific lot. We
malntain our position. We are recommending denial of the Zoning Ordinance
Amendment as well as the variance. If the City Council should approve the
variance, the capacity of the septic system that is on site rlght now would have
to be expanded. This is something that the Council can not give a variance for
malnly because it lsa safety ordinance. Thank you.
Mayor Chmiel: Would you like to clarify that just a little bit more. Paul.
Paul Krauss: Mr. Mayor this is, we're doing this for the Building Inspector.
What he's basing it on is the State Uniform Building Code requires a certain
amount of capaclty for each dwelling. For the two dwellings, if they were
allowed to remain, the requirement exceeds the capacity of the available system.
It...a State Buildlng Code requirement. It's not something that we can vary on
a local level. I believe there's an appeal procedure but it involves some
outside agencies and I'm really not sure how that works. But lt's not
specifically our ordinance. The only part that affects our ordinance is the
setbacks and the two dwellings on a lot. The dralnfield lsa State ordinance
and we'd have to go to another source to get a variance for that, if that's
posslble but I'm not sure that it ls.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay, thank you. Mr. Freeman.
Craig Freeman: I'm Craig Freeman and it's our property that we've been talklng
about for several weeks now, or months I guess and just to clear up exactly what
we're trylng to do. The diagram shows it very well. We own 3 and 2/3 lots.
Each lot being 100 feet wide and nearly 300 feet deep. The blue outllne is the
house that we just bullt. We tore down 2 summer cablns to bulld that house. As
you can see, the lot line runs through a portion of the garage. The red outline
ls the guest house that we're trylng to keep to use for about 2 or 3 or 4 weeks
City Counci]. Moeiing - November 18, 1991
in the summerllfne for our kids to stay there and our grandchildren to stay
there. Thls summer ho~se is just a shell residence. It's a nice residence. It
was built 44 years ago for my wife and I to use when we were, at that stage of
the game, before we bought this property in 1962 why my wife's pare~ts ow~ed it
and they owned it for about 20 years so the property has been in the famlly for
nearly 50 years. The septic tank system is one that the City of Chanhassen put
ln. It was put ln, I was told at the tlme thls was a 702 or 202 federal grant
that Chanhassen obtailled to do this and this was done 5 years ago. It's a very
sophisticated systenl and lt's bullt to cover 2 houses year round. The perc
tests on it show it's good for 720 gallons a day. The requirement for these two
houses ls 11sted at 260 gallons a day so we're 40 gallons different and I
malntaln that septic system slzing is not that exact in the flrst place. In the
second place, my wife and I live ina house that ls outllned in blue. It has
basically two bedrooms. It ~ctuzlly is a 4 bedroom house but 2 bedrooms are
ttsed. We have water ls metered. We know exactly that we use about 250 gallons
a day. The system wlll handle 720 gallons a day. We're usl,g the red house in
the summertime for about 4 weeks for our chlldren to stay there. Thelr useage
would be minlmal. I think that certzinly some accommodation can be worked out.
T have some plctures if any of you want to see what you're really looklng at.
Mayor Chmiel: Why don't you just bring them up here and we'll just pass them
through.
Councilman Wing: Is this winterized Craig?
Craig Freeman: Pardon?
Councilman Wing: Is this cabin winterized?
Craig Freeman-'. No. One of the possible .solutions to this problem was to change
the ordinance so it was perhaps a 11ttle blt specific. I thlnk that...talklng
about the proposed ordinance...accessory dwelling must be constructed at 10
years prlor to the construction of the principal dwelllng and if you just add
that it'~ useage shall ~ot be ali-ered. That pretty well 11mlts it so you can't
take a chlcken coop and use it for anything but a chlcken coop. If that's the
way we solve the problem, that would be a good additlon to lt.
Mayor Chmiel: Good, thank you. Discussion. Hike.
bJillard Johnson: Just as a Board member and as a citizen, I've discussed with
the Clty Attorney the possibility he updates this bullding and we upgrade the
road someplace in the future and we take it. Thls house could be mighty costly
to the Clty. I'm saying, Z'm just puttlng a wlld flgure of someday 5 years down
the line you say let me modify it. I've got $100,000.00 or $150,000.00. I
thlnk the taxpayers of the Clty of Chanhasserl don't wish to buy a house on a
take over on the road. Thank you.
Mayor Chmlel: Willard, would you ~ust indicate your name for the record.
Willard Johnson'- Willard Johnson~
Mayor Chmiel: Thank yOU. AS I say, discussion. This is a very hard indeed
position to come up ui~h a solution. But as I have been looking at thls, and
City Council Meeting - November 18, 1991
maybe a condition to that could be something whereby if the City were to have to
at some given time widened that road, we would probably be able to, we'd have to
take it one way or the other. I'm not sure and I'm trylng to remember what's
exactly to the other side or the house sits right up to the road. Maybe you can
clarlfy that.
Craig Freeman: Behind the road is an easement for power 11nes. There have been
several proposals here to change the roads in there and using that easement was
one of the proposals. Certainly if the City has owned that road for 60 years
and up to now they haven't really done much to it, so if they ever do decide to
do something to it, we'll all be very glad and if they want to use my, move my
house they certainly can or Z'11 tear it down.
Councilwoman Dimler: At no cost?
Craig Freeman: At no cost to the City.
Mayor Chmiel: Very good.
Councilman Wing: Just to follow up on that. I find that having looked at that
today that that building is definitely in the way of progress so that does
concern me. At some polnt, whether it's 20 years from now, the road's golng to
go through and that building is just simply going to be in the way so I have a
concern slmllar to Wlllards. If we someday lmproved Dogwood, and you've put
money and effort and time into that summer cabin, that there's really liability
here to someone. Z'm not sure where it 1les.
Craig Freeman: ...3 to 4 weeks a summer to use...we find no change.
Councilman Wing: And you're cognizant of the fact that it could be in the way
of progress?
Craig Freeman: Sure. Sure.
Mayor Chmiel: And as Mr. Freeman indicated, he'd be wllling to remove that
house without any cost to the City so I don't see where those costs would be
born by us in any way. Michael?
Councilman Mason: After reading through, Planning Commission voted to deny
thls. I've read through thelr notes more than once and I think they had some
pretty compelling reasons. Paul, what happens in the rest of the City if we
approve thls one? And if we approve thls one, we then essentially go ahead and
approve the amendment to the ordinance coming up.
Mayor Chmiel: I think each individual case is going to have to be reviewed.
This being more unusual than most others I think would be setting up by itself.
Councilman Mason: Okay. Okay. But what are the ramifications for the rest of
the city if we approve this?
Paul Krauss: Councilman Mason, we're really not sure. Mr. Freeman makes some
very compelling arguments but they're based on their occupancy of that dwelling
and we'd 11ke to thlnk that he's golng to be there as long as he wants to be
City Cowl,cji. Nostril',9 ..- November 18, 1991
[t~er~.. Sooner or' later people move of' whatever and we're not sure that these
things can be gu,~f',~nl, eed i~ the future. As ~.o whether or not these things will
crop up e.].sewhere in the City, they probably will. The ordinance, our City
~t~.ornoy tried to t,~ilor an ordinance tha~ would included as much as possible
so I can't tell you there are no other properties in the city that this would
occur. Or if this ordinance exists and people will start to ask fei- variances
to the ordinance because the ordinances.. You know if you have an ordinance
that a.l. lows accessory dwellings in some way, shape or form. It says they have
to be 10 years old. Well somebody can ask for a variance to have one brand new.
Anything is possible. There may be way to work out what Mr. Freeman is
representing is a permanent way that would be binding on the property...if that
were the case. 8ut I h~ve just seen too many problems cropping up from
situations where homes which were vacation homes or gate houses or whatever turn
out to be apartments or rental, propef'ty or even separate ownership. They come
back to us...v'ariances again.
Mayo'r Chmiel= Would that be something like on Ttt 419
Pa~l Krauss' I'm riel sure which one on TH 41.
Mayor Chmiel; Ches Mar Farms.
Paul Krauss~ Oh! That's possible. That's the kind of situation that I think
you wznt to cover yourself so it doesn't happen. Z guess if we were being
purists, we would have required that thls buildlng be torn down before a
bui].dlng permit was ever lssued. That's what most communities would do. Now
because we had example of another property on TH 41 that just came up once
before, we tried to work with the property owner. We sald look. Zf you wanted
the house for bls klds to play in or for storage in that case, and we said look.
We'll let you keep that up there if you slgn something saylng that you'll make
1~ uninhabitable by disconnecting the utilities. So we went that route wlth Mr.
Freeman. Agairl I can't tell you that what you do tonight isn't going to have
repercussions down the road. Z've just seen these things come back to haunt
cities...
Councilman Mason: I'm also concerned about, like I said, going through
the Pi. ann.lng Commission notes which I was here for' that Board of ~djustment
meeting as well as going through the notes. Some concern was expressed about
spot ordinances for particular individuals and I concur with that too. This is
~ real tough issue and if we're zeroing in here, I see us all of a sudden having
t() make spot ordinances over here and over there and that's a real tough one. I
want [o hear some more discussion on this before I decide one way or the other.
Craig Freeman: Can I add one word?
Mayor Chmiel: Yes sir.
Craig Freeman; I think most ordinances are, most laws are spot laws you might
say. They're usually put together to solve a particular problem. When this
ordinance is certainly deslgned and I thlnk it's well wrltten to help us out and
I appreciate that. In fact there may be other situations slmilar to that and I
think if they're slmllar, if they're exactly allke I think they should probably
City Council Heeting - November 18, 1991
get the same treatment and I'm hoplng that you people w111 look favorably upon
that.
Mayor Chmiel: Thank you. Thomas.
Councilman Workman: What is the repercussions if ue decide to not pass this?
For thls house. For the extra.
Paul Krauss: To not approve this...?
Councilman Workman: Yeah.
Paul Krauss: The fallback position would be the original one that we made Mr.
Freeman sign off on which would allow the house to remain but the utilities
would have to be disconnected. We would never grant a bulldlng permlt to
make... It can be used for storage. I suppose people could sleep in there in
the summer...but it would not be a habitable structure.
Councilman Workman: It just seems we're klnd of on these edges of being able to
allow it or not belng able to allow it and everything is sort of fuzzy out there
as to what kind of can of worms we'd be openlng. If I owned a large lot in
Tlmberwood, 4 acres. Are you saylng that if thls were allowed, that I would
then be able to add some sort of accessory structure? I'd be able to allow
somebody else to 1lye there?
Paul Krauss: Thls ordinance, the way lt's drafted right now I'd say no because
the accessory dwelling has to predate by at least 10 years old and a couple
other thlngs. My concern ls once the ordinance exlsts though, you as a resldent
of Timberuood or wherever could come to a very compelling reason. My father-in-
law just passed away and my mother-in-law needs a place to 1lye. She's
independent and she wants a house...so I can build a second 'house. It just gets
tougher and tougher. These things get stacked on top of each other and it gets
hard to deny it at that point.
Councilman Workman: Who would allow the Freeman's to split this lot? Or sell
the smaller structure to somebody else, an independent party? While the
Freemans still own the larger one, lt's all one lot. How are you saylng we'd
get in trouble for that?
Paul Krauss: The County should intercept. Any klnd of lot spllt ls supposed to
be checked by the County... There's different ways of transferring property...
I thlnk the more 11kely scenario ls it would become a rental property of some
sort. I know that I could show you in other communities where that has
happened. And at that polnt you have somebody saylng well this has been a
rental property for 10 years and been a revenue stream. The City owes it to me
to be able to sell thls house wlth the rental house as part of the value of the
land. It gets pretty confusing.
Councilman Workman: Well so then are we not confusing the issue by going ahead
and maklng this a full blown ordinance? Spot ordinance if you wi11. Wouldn't
it be better to leave it at just the Board of Adjustments level?
City Council, Mee~in9 - November 18, 1991
Paul Krauss; We].]..T. th.i. nk float's something that I:d have to defer to the City
Attorney b~zt when u¢ ].ooked at how do you handle ~.his? The City ordirl~nce
speciflca]..ly,,. That ~as not something that you could vary.,.something that
you'd h~tve to change ti'lo ordinance, You're i~ot supposed to use variances to
create...
Mayor Chmiel: Richard.
Councilman Wing: I found that in my visit today Dogwood is aptly named and I'm
glad I took 4 wheel drive. I think tl~at it's right rlow a clty street but it's
not a city street. It's isolated. It's difficult to access. It's very 11mlted
to that neighborhood. It's not anythlng that's golng to get any other traffic.
It's a very, if there's an isolated neighborhood in Chanhassen, thls ls probably
it. I see ti'mat that particular road has a ].et of city history. A lot of old
famllies that have been there for a long time. A lot of tradition. Klnd of the
original Lake Hinnewashta aside from Red Cedar Polnt if you would so I guess my
lnitlal reactlon to thls was to klnd of 11ve and let 1lye. We've got klnd of an
established estate and family and home there and they've made some improvements.
I did notlce that on that particular structure as I drove by, it's one of the
few places in Chanhassen that when you drlve by you'd better have your arm
lnside the arm because the 2 foot setback, lt's a large bulldlng that's on the
road. But it's not winterized. The septlc system is close to a norm. It's an
established famlly. I thlnk they're just klnd of maintaining an estate for nou.
Z see the problems we're somewhat discussing here for the future are going to be
resolved any tlme the HUS~ 11ne sultches whlch I'm assumlng is golng to be in
the near future here. Zt could be 5 years, tO years, 15 years but T. see the
owners staying intact at that polnt. Z thlnk HUSA when it comes through ls
golng to cause the upgrade of that road. The upgrade of that road is going to
take care of that bulldlng and we won't have to uorry about rental and so on and
so forth. Z. do like the ldea Paul and Hr. Hayer of a binding agreement just to
take the 1lability off the Clty. That should thls be approved that...transfer
of Oul~ersl'lip and so Orl don't occur, that this structure has to be removed. So
under 6(a), the amendment Z guess T would agree ulth staff. Z would vote to
deny that. But on part (b), ~ guess my tendency at this polnt is Z don't see a
lot of harm here. The neighborhood seems comfortable ulth thls variance. Z
thZnk it's a one time lsolated situation and Z guess my feelings there at this
point to support the variance.
Mayor Chmiel: Thank you. Ursula.
Councilman Wing: Am I missing something?
Paul Krauss: No. Very briefZy. Zf you were to go on to approve thls, I'd much
prefer we found a way to do it by ~ustifylng a variance 'than creating a new
ordinance...repercussions. Z guess Z'd prefer to see...a11 future property
owners so that future Clty Counclls aren't burdened by...
Hayer Chmiel: Well what I did Paul was pose the question to Elliott and when it
comes to my turn we'll discuss that portlon of it.
Councilman Wil~g: Did i miss a point here? Is the variance independent of the
amendment?
City Council Meeting - November 18, 1991
Mayor Chmiel: It can be. It can be just as a straight variance without that.
Councilwoman Oimler: Okay, which leads me to my discussion. I was going to
discuss 6(a) first independently. I don't, even if we wanted to grant this
variance I don't believe that this is the ordinance amendment to do it and the
reason I said that is I was reading through this and I thought to myself, it
doesn't really specify lot size here and I'm assuming minimum lot size is
allowed. Does that mean then that my house is 16 years old on that property.
Does that meal] I could make that an accessory structure and then build a home
twice the size on my lot?
Mayor' Chmiel: Providing you had probably the sufficient land.
Councilwoman Dimler: Does that mean that?
Don Ashworth: In your instance you would not be able to do that.
Councilwoman Dimler: Because?
Don Ashworth: You do not have sufficient land area.
Councilwoman Dimlerr That's what I'm saying. It doesn't say what the land area
has to be.
Paul Krauss: I think Councilwoman Dimler poses an interesting question. If you
r'ead the strict readlng of the ordinance it says the accessory dwelling must
have been constructed 10 years prlor. In your case you're making the prlmary
house the accessory duelling.
Councilwoman Dinller: Yeah. I'm going to build it two times larger and that
wlll become my accessory structure. It doesn't say you have to have 3 acres.
See that's why I can't go with thls.
Elliott Knetsch: The new structure would have to meet the setbacks of the
ordinance though.
Mayor Chmiel: But if her properties were accordingly and they met all those
requirements, you could still do it.
Councilman Mason: So it's conceiveable that it could happen.
Mayor Chmiel: And that gives me a little concern as well.
Councilwoman Dimler: Yes. This ordinance is, if we're going to go with any
sort of an amendment, we really have to rethink how it's going to be worded.
Also I guess I feel, I just don't see we should have an amendment for one
situation and I don't want to open up a Pandora's Box and I do think, to me this
meant that the new precedent was that now accessory structures can be inhabited
by humans. I don't particularly like that. Also I thlnk lt's stated in there
that the other accessory structures along that same road, that we're setting a
new precedent for this neighborhood even because the others where garages and
storage sheds but not inhabited by humans. Also belng that staff and the City
has already bent the r-ules once in order to get the building permit. Not all
City Counci.]. Meeting - November LB, iggi
three structures had to I')e i"emoved but just two. We left the one there and
~.hose were the conditions that the building permit was issued and all of a
sudden we're changing the rules in the middle of the game. That's my
undeFst~ndi~g. .l:s tha~ what happened?
Paul KraLtss: No. Do you want to explain it?
.~l'~,'~rmirl A1..,Jaff's microphone wasn't working when she gave her answer.
Councilwoman Dlmler: Okay, just a mlnute now. You're saylng the bulldlng
permit was issued but ~he.
Sharnlln A1-Jaff: With the condition.
Councilwoman Oimler; The condition wasn't that that third structure had to,
that the thlrd structure could stay as a shed?
ShaFmin Al-Jaff: Typically it says it shall be recorded in the chain of title
that the existing structure located on the east portlon of Lot 8 ~hall not be
used for h~bitation. Water and plumbing shall be disconnected prior to issuance
of a certificate of occupancy. The applicant slgned off. Well, the agent for
tl~e applicant signed off on thi.s.
~arbara Freeman: Who was the agent?
Craig Freeman: Can I come into that?
Mayor Chmlel: Sure.
Craig Freeman: We applied for a building permit. Forgot the exact date but I
know that at the end of the month we still didn't have our bullding permlt. We
had already .'sold our house in town and we were really pressed to get started
building. So when this was brought up that we had to sign off on this, whlch
would never have been brought up before, z had no intention of dolng it and if
ti)is had been brought up inltialZy, I might not have even built the house. But
we would have slgned almost anythlng at the tlme to bulld the house and we dld.
Councilwoman DimleF.' So you did sign it?
Paul Krauss: Yeah, Z don't understand what signlng off on something initially
or being, ~ mean this is the first interaction ue had with Mr. Freeman when he
requested the bulldlng permlt and we trled to be up front wlth the condition as
soon ~s we found out about
Barbara Freeman; I'm Barbara Freeman. The property actually is in my name and
so I am tho ow~er and I was never requested to sign on any release and I did not
sign any fei. ease.
MayoF Chmiel: Thank you.
Councilwoman Dimler~ Okay, also I have arlother. If this then is for human
habitation, does it get ,~ssessed oF does it get a valuation? Does it get
assessed for tax purposes? You know we're going to have to provide servlces as
10
City Council Heeting - November 18, 1991
the extra utilities and extra public safety. It will be extra increases in our
budget and yet will that property be paying taxes to the City?
Don Ashworth: I'm sure the Assessor will place an additional value on it. I do
not know what that would be. I'm sure it would have some additional value.
Councilwoman Dimler: Okay. Also my other question or comment was that I can
see if we do pass this amendment in general that it will set a precedent for and
I can see it being used frequently by lakeshore property. Sometimes I see the
city doing things that counteract one another. On the one hand we've got this
water, surface water management utllity where we're trying to clean up our lakes
and then on the other hand we're setting a precedent that it's going to allow
more structures on lakeshore property whlch increases the impervious whlch
increases runoff which decreases water quality. It's just 11ke we're fighting
ourselves. So I don't 11ke the precedent that ls belng set by thls amendment.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay. I guess the question that I posed was, Mr. Freeman
indicated at the time that he would tear down the house at no cost to the Clty
if and when that road were to go in. I see that we would not be really setting
any precedent. In fact if that precedent dld come back wlth the same instance,
that person would also have to sign off. So with that particular building where
lt's located, I see that being used just strlctly as a summer useage from what
has been indicated. I thlnk I would like to see that done as well. Something
indicated wlthln whatever we would draft or draw up. But if Mr. Freeman, as I
said would be willlng to do that without any cost to the City, I see the same
total flow of gallonage regarding the septlc system of 250 gallons per day that
you're using presently and if you exceed or lower or higher and by having your
chlldren come in to use that cabln during the summer, I don't thlnk those flows
and unless your children have 10 children besides their own, that might cause a
problem. I'm sure that that's not golng to be the situation. I hate to try to
establish a variance. I don't 11ke variances but in the situation as this, what
do you rule by? What's on the books or what's in your head or heart? I too, if
I were in their particular position, I try to put myself in those positions to
see whether or not I could support what they're talklng about or how it would
affect me as an individual. I would like to see it done for myself and I'm sure
if you own the property yourself you'd like to see that. So if we could at
some, in some way develop the language through our Attorney to have that so we
could be perfectly clear that in the event the road expansion does happen and
I'm not sure that that could also extend to the power line easement because
power comparlles wlll offer utlllty easements if they're in and adjacent to
rights-of-ways for roads.
Councilman Wing= You know how they work.
Mayor Chmiel: Yeah. Especially with that one. But anyway.
Councilman Wing: Mr. Mayor, could I just to clarify this. Could I just try and
move 6(a) to deny zoning ordinance amendment regarding accessory dwellings?
Councilman Workman: Second.
Mayor Chmiel: Moved and seconded to deny 6(a).
11
City Coullcil Meeting .-November 3.8, 1993.
Councilman Wing moved, Councilman Workman seconded to deny Zoning Ordinance
Amendment regarding Accessory Dwellings, allowing two principal structures on a
single lot. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously.
Colml',cilmal~ Wing'. Mr. N;~yor, at tile same time I'd like Lo move approval of the
va'rlar,¢'.e for M:'. Freeman and I'm r, ot sure how the wordlng would be.
Mayor Chmiel: .T. would say it should be acceptable to Mr. Freeman and our
Attorney ~o make this valld and come up wlth that conclusion.
(~'ouncilman Wirlgr Bail me out of this Mr. Ashuorth. I'm trying to make a motion
here approving the variance. With the stipulation that the owner ls responsible
for d'emolition of thai building should the road improvement occur in the future.
Don Ashuorth: I think should the road improvement occur, should he determine to
sol1 the property.
Mayor Chmiel: That's another factor.
Son A.~hworth:. And Z think you had a third one.
Councilman Wing= Rental.
Oon Ashuorth: They could not use it as rental property.
Councilwolnan Dimler: I just have one question and that is, how do you feel Mr.
Mayor thaL this isn't settlng a precedent for other variances?
Hayor Chmiel: Because it's not going to cost anybody anything. Not even the
City. Zf everybody else were to go through and want the same variance, they'd
have to go wlth the same conditions we have here.
Councilman Hason: My difficult, and I don'L know if it's a difficulty or not
but what ~ see as a problem i~ere. This lsa very unlque situation. There's no
question ,'~bout that. I think most people who ask for variances think lt's a
unique situation.
Councilwoman Dimler: That's why they're in front of us.
Councilman Mason: Yeal]. I worry, if I knew that this was the only time this
would come before us, I would have no problem at all saylng it's so unlque, they
should have it. I agree, and ~ would want it if I was there too. However, well
11ke I sald. Everyone t hlnks thelr varlance ls unlque and at what polnt then do
~.hese ti'lings keep coming back to the Council, whoever they may or may not be and
we have Lo continually go.
Councilmai~ Wing: Kve~'y lime someone puts a deck on.
Mayor Chmie].: We have a moLion on the floor with those three respective
conditions. We can come back to that wlth further discussion.
Councilman Workman: Z'11 second it.
12
City Council Meeting - November 18, 1991
Mayor Chmiel: Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Discussion.
Councilwoman Oimler: Okay, I just have one more question. You indicated Mr.
Mayor that you would like to see this in the summer but in no way be winterized
and used all year round. How are we as a City going to make sure of that? Do
we have some procedure for checking? Is Public Safety responsible for that?
Mayor Chmiel: I think that that could be a portion but I'm sure that Mr.
Freeman does not intend to do that and I would go on his credibility.
Councilwoman Oimler: Yeah, I'm not doubting his credibility but I'm just
saying.
Councilman Wing: Why would he winterize it if it's most likely going to be lost
on an improvement?
Councilwoman Dimler: Yeah that's true. I'm just saying that that doesn't mean
somebody can't.
Mayor Chmiel: As he said, he wouldn't put any additional dollars into it.
Paul Krauss: I think so too, correct me if I'm wrong Elliott. If this were
filed against the chain of title, which I think this should be, if anybody in
the future sought a mortgage to improve that house, the first thing they do
get a tltle search and they'd see that stipulation there.
Mayor Chmiel: I think as we've done before in having our attorney draft it,
pull it together and if you're interested in seeing it, you can see what the
language is.
Councilwoman Dimler: So are we tabling it then until we have the rewording?
Mayor Chmiel: No.
Councilman Workman: Mr. Mayor, were I a Planning Commission member I would have
said no to the ordinance. But to the variance, which I sat on the 8oard wlth
Wlllard, with the circumstances and the uniqueness to parcel speciflc here, I
feel a lot more comfortable.
Mayor Chmiel: Any other discussion? If no other discussion I'll call the
question.
Councilman Wing moved, Councilman Workman seconded to approve a Variance to
allow two principal structures on a single building lot and a 28 foot front yard
setback at 7431 Doguood Road with the conditions that should Dogwood Road be
improved or the property sold, the summer cabin uill be demolished at no cost to
the City, and the summer cabin cannot be used as rental property. All voted in
favor except Councilman Nason who opposed and the motion carried uith a vote of
4 to 1.
Mayor Chmiel: And I think you've indicated your concerns. Motion carried.
Thanks for coming in.
13
City Council Heeting -- November 18, 1991
PUBLIC HEARING: PROPOSED 1992 BUDGET AND
FIRE DEPARTMENT RELIEF ASSOCIATION,_BYLAW AMENDMENTS.
Public Present:
Name Address
Walter Whitehill
David Halla
Robert Orury
Dan Beckman
Dick Herrboldt
Hel Kurvers
Helvin Herrma.n
Conrad Johnsrud
Brian & Jean Steckling
Julia Kennedy
Hike & Joanne Cochrane
Bill & Judy Ashenbach
Hichael H. Krause
Jeff & Holly Peters
John Broder
Craig J. Johnson
Harge Johnson
Connie & George St. Hartin
Herb & Ella Kask
Dale Gregory
Ben Gowen
Ed & blarion Ziegler
Dale & Peggy Guckern
Roman RODS
Bob Rezac
Tom & Rose Ann Ruhland
Norbert P. Licktrig
Albert Dorueiler
Iodd Novaczyk
Kelly J. $heehen
Gary Hiltbrand
Steve Osmera
Carl F. HcNutt
Earl H. Hertz
Ear1Bergstrom
George P. Shorba
7250 Hazeltine Blvd.
100095 Great Plains Blvd.
575 Flying Cloud Drive
6895 Chaparral Lane
6464 Hurry Hill Road
7240 Kurvers Point Road
795 Carver Beach Road
7061 Shawnee Lane
8040 Hidden Court
981 Saddlebrook Trail
1751 Sunridge Court
2041-West 65th Street
2380 Timberwood Drive
8120 Hidden Court
520 Laredo Lane
331 Hidden Lane
1031 Pontiac Lane
9231 Audubon Road
115 Pleasant View Road
7091 Redman Lane
6440 Hazeltine Blvd.
920 Butte Court
845 Creekwood
10341Heidi Lane
6970 Shawnee Lane
6211 Greenbriar Lane
9111 Lake Riley Blvd.
2951 Washta Bay Road
6523 Gray Fox Curve
6460 Bretton Way
185 Pleasant View Road
7503 Laredo Drive
7493 Saratoga Circle
306 Chan View
Mayo;- Chmiel; We'll move down to the next item which is our public hearing.
This is item number 3. This is our proposed 1992 budget. In addition to that
we're moving item number 10 to be followed by item number 3. So with that I
would 11ke to turn that over to Mr. Ashworth.
Don Ashworth: As I have some overheads, I'd like to make the presentation from
here if I may. This meeting is the public hearing to discuss tax levels that
14
City Council Meeting - November 18, 19gl
wlll be needed to operate thl$ Clty in lg92. I have recelved a number of
inquiries from property owners wishlng to have the Council relook at the value
associated with thelr individual parcel. Unfortunately I have to tell anyone
who ls here, if that is the reason that they're here, that they're either
months early or 6 months late. The process under which we look at each value
associated with each parcel occurs in the Spring. That has to be down to the
County for thelr hearlngs in July and to the State for thelr hearlng process in
August and September. Again the purpose of tonight's hearlng is to determine
the tax levels that wlll be set to operate this Clty in lgg2. Before I start
I'd like to read from a letter that I recently received. It's from Warren and
Harllyn Hanson. The flrst portlon of the letter brlngs out hls concerns wlth
property taxes but then he notes that he is quite happy that although the notice
he had recleved from a year ago had shown somewhere in the area of a
increase for the City, that his taxes in fact did go down. And his taxes, I'm
talklng about the city portlon. Hls overall tax bill thls was about the same as
in lggO but the City portion had gone down nearly 10~. I think'that same thing
holds for most properties withln the Clty. Hls real concern, I'll read
Assuming that this is again the case for lggl, why in the name of all that's
honest and fair do you scare the daylights out of the electorate wlth this
communication without immediate follow-up with more accurate dah, dah, dah, dah?
His comments I think are rlght on target. I mean it is a travesty the way the
State has forced cities, counties to send to electorate misinformation. We were
requlred in August to, well in August they certified to thls Clty what our
maximum levy limit would be for lgg2. This city has never levied to lt's
maxlmum authority. Yet it was that dollar amount that was used in the
calculation that was made by the County and sent to every property owner within
thls clty. What that says is that the City ls proposing to lncrease property
taxes by 11~. We have no intention of increasing property taxes by 11~. We
decreased property taxes last year and thls Council was very adamant in stating
to me that you wanted to see no property tax increase occur in 1992. What is
inaccurate on the notlce that was required to be sent was number one, you could
not deviate from that format whatsoever. You could not put in there what
increases in valuation you were anticipating in lgg2. When we received that
notice in August we had no idea as to the tax base associated for this city.
Physlcal disparity contributions. Physical disparity distributions. PACA whlch
is homestead credit. 80~ of your revenues were unknown and yet that became the
notlce that was sent to each of the people in this room. It's ridiculous. The
second problem with that notice is it did not allow us to be able to tell these
people of the continuous meetlngs this Clty Council has had in trylng to make
sure that we did not create a property tax increase in 199~. If I may, I'd like
to use the overhead.
Mayor Chmiel: Don, if I could just interject something and everything you've
said is exactly right. Where we have given the tax reductions for the past
years but last year if the County reassessed your home, that reassessment made a
difference. Consequently then that 5~ or 10~ you did not receive so there may
have been that increase. But that is not because of the city. The clty portion
of their taxes is much lower than what the county or school dlstrict or the
other portions actually go into
Don Ashworth: That's correct. The first column shows, can people hear me? Is
thls mic working? This represents the lggl adopted budget. The amount that was
actually levied by the City from one year ago. So in November of lggO the City
15
City Council Meeting -- November 18, 1991
levi. ed $2,536,000.00 as a part of it's operational levy. That means the number
of dollars necessary to operate all functions within the city. Pollce, fire,
rlght on down the line. The amount of money requlred for debt last year, the
amount that everyone ls paying taxes on this year, was $565,000.00 for a total
levy of $3,102,000.00. When we had flrst recelved thls certification from the
State, that maximum and agaln ue have never gone to that maximum, was the
maxlmum operatlorlal levy for thls clty for 1992 was $2,553,000.00. Thls ls the
amount that the State had notified us of. At that polnt ue knew what the debt
levy was, whlch was $832,600.00. That ls taken from each of the debt schedules
that the City has previously passed. Totals those for bonds of '82, '83, '85,
'86, etc. comlng to the $832,000.00 amount. Mlnus alds which were known at that
point of $1.1 million brlnging net revenue to $2.2 mlllion or it should say net
levy ulth total revenue of $2.8 m1111on. The budget request from the operating
departments on 9/16 and again as well as on October 14th and October 28th and on
November 4th, the Clty Council 11stened to the request from each of the
departments. They spent one night meeting with the engineer talking about our
publlc works department. The amount of money necessary for ploulng streets,
sweeping, otc.. The next meeting we met with the Planning Director, Finance and
Public Safety. Each trylng to get a handle on the amount of money necessary to
operate that particular department and again through thls serles of meetings, we
had an inbalance situation meaning the proposed expenditures, $3.5 mllllon were
about $600,000.00, almost 7, in excess of our revenue. At our last meeting
uhlch was on November 4th.
Mayor Chmiel: Don, maybe if you'd just move to the slde of that. The camera's
picking up the back of your head and it's blocklng the screen.
Don Ashworth: Alright. On November 4th, the City Council was very deliberate
in saying they wa~lted two things. They wanted to insure that the bottom line in
balance, $661,000.00 dld not exlst and secondly, they wanted to do it in a
fashion that would create a no property tax increase. The budget as we have
presented it to the Clty Council ls looklng at or ls now balanced wlth revenue
being $3.2 million and proposed expenditures of $3.2 million. Zn fact actually
there's a posltive balance of about $5,000.00. Z would 11ke to note one
important item on this listing and that is that the amount of money, taxes
necessary to operate thls clty in 1991. So what was certified a year ago was
$2,536,000.00. That's the amount that was certified over i year ago. If this
budget ls approved, the amount of money that we will be operating in 1992 on ls
$2,533,000.00. We will be operating in 1992 on about $3,000.00 less than we
operated in 1991. That means that the ?~ additional mlles of street, the ?~
additional miles of sewer, water, our patrol costs is on a per caplta basis. As
that goes up ?~, we pay the County that amount more money. We had to do that
because of the amou~t of the debt increase. Because the debt has increased
approximately, dld Z show it on thls particular sheet. Well the debt levy in
going from $565,000.00 in 1991 to $735,000.00 is about a 30~ increase. So if a
O~ ls achleved for operations, we can hold the overall increase to 5.5%. Here's
one of the additional fallacies with the County form. Thls is not the County's
problem because they were told to send the form out in the form that they dld,
or the method they dld. But they could not include in there the value of new
properties. Those new properties will have produced, because it's a known
amount. It's not a guesstimate, a 7.1~ increase in overall values. That means
· that new houses and new businesses etc. will be paylng new taxes whlch can help
reduce the taxe:~ for you, myself and people in the audience. As the budget
16
City Council Meeting - November 18, 1991
currently stands, we should see about a 2%, 1.5~ decrease in the city portion of
property taxes. Two last but quick points. Or important points. I hope I
didn't give away my overheads. We will make it through this year's tax, does
anybody have any originals?
Mayor Chmiel: Does anybody have any overheads?
Don Ashuorth: This is one way to keep your presentation down. Take away the
visuals. They're a transparency that I can put on top of the machine here.
Well, let me just state what those two showed. City Council has seen these
before. Again ue will make it through this process this year and ue can
effectively create a tax decrease for our residents. What I am extremely
concerned about is debt has eaten into our ability to create additional
operational funds for 1992. We were forced into freezing our operational level
to last year's level. You can't continue to do that in the future. As ue move
into re-examining some of our policies as it deals with bonded debt, we have to
insure that that debt line does not grow. It has to become stable. I think ue
have that within our ability to do but so people here recognize our ability to
meet next year's budget process is going to be heavily dependent on whether or
not we can solve that issue with debt as ue move.into 1993 and 1994. The second
issue people here, I guess it's three issues I want to bring up. The second
issue people here should be aware of is the fact that the State took away
homestead credit approximately 2 years ago. You no longer see that on the
bottom of your property tax statement. The State did that for a very important
reason. That's still an amount of money that's being paid back over to County,
School and cities but it's no longer shown on your tax statement. The reason is
during this next year, the State's going to re-examine whether or not city,
county, schools need those dollars. For our city it's $775,000.00. If the
State makes a determination to eliminate homestead credit that used to show up
on your tax statement and they just say we're not going to pass that along to
cities, and each year for the last 2 years they've been cutting it. We have
seen cuts of 5~ to 10~ of our aid amount each year. One of the things I'll be
recommending to this Council is ue can attempt to trim this budget down even
further but if you do that, you can almost be assured that you're going to place
yourself in a very dangerous position come 3anuary and February when the
legislature meets. Determines that they have another deficit and they determine
to pass that along to the city. When they do that, they're no longer going to
be changing your bottom line on the homestead credit because they're already
taken that off of there. Right now that's just a promise from them to pay that
amount to the city. But if they don't do, they've eliminated you out of the
process. If they would have said we're not going to pay the homestead credit on
your individual property tax statement, you'd be up in arms but they figured out
a way not to do that. Simply have it as a promissory note over to cities and
the county and school. We ail need to watch what it is that the legislature
does this next session and if they do permanently eliminate that or put that
into State coffers, whatever, when we meet a year from today the meeting is not
going to be as amicable as I'm hoping tonight's will be. The third point that I
wanted everyone to recognize is the property tax dollar and who gets it. We
showed the $2.5 million proposed for the City. The City is Zl cents of your tax
bill. Of your tax dollar. It's important for you to be here tonight. It's
important for you to take and say you don't want your property taxes increased
and hopefully you'll be effective, in which the Council has already. It's not
going to take much work on your part because the Council's already said they're
17
City Council M~eiii~'lg --November 10, ].991
not going to increase property taxes. But recognize that we represent 21 cents.
If the county goes up 15% and the School goes up 18% or 20%, the O~ increase for
the city is not going to take and affect your overall tax bill that much. You're
still going to see a high increase because the School and the County get 75
cents out of every dollar. If they can go up 15~, you can almost be assured
that your- tax bill would go up 15~ even if the City's goes down to O. I stand
ready for any questions.
Mayor Chmiel: Thank you. Are there any questions? Why don't you just come up
to the podium and ask your question. Please state your name and your address.
Waiter Whiteh111: I am Walter Whiteh111. I live on Hazeltine Blvd. just south
of that f~mous Ches Mar Farm. The flrst question I have is the debt levy. Where
does that debt come from? How ls that created? Do you spend beyond the budget
and that's wh~t creates tile debt or what?
Don Ashworth: Zn most instances the public themselves have helped create the
d;:bt in terms of tile latest issues include expanding Lake Ann Park and improving
it. Purchasing a park in southern Chanhassen and Lhe remodeling of the flre
stdtJon including the purchase of an aerlal fire truck. Those were three
referendum 1terns. Zn other words they were put onto the, they were a part of
tile votes that occurred in November from 198g and tile real effect of those is
being seen today. There is some portlon of that debt that's associated ulth
public Jmprovement projects. Where tile City determines that oversizing of a
street should not be born solely by the property owners on that street or
there's potentially a signal that's put in ol oversizing of water and sewer'. If
the Council makes a determination that 20~ of that project benefits all of us,
then that 20~ will go on as debt.
Waiter Whitehill: Thank you. My next questlon is, since the City was forced to
have this kind of announcement come out and you say it's all in error. What
about the County and the School District? ~re their figures in error also? Have
they been forced into sometl~ing?
Don Ashuorth: That's the reason for that ending splel. I dldn't want you to
walk away from here thZnklng that everything is flne and glorlous because if in
fact the County and the $chool go up by those 15~, we're all golng to be paying
a lot more irl taxes in 1g~2. I think the Mayor', dld you mention to me that you
had had discussions ulth the County where they had stated that they're
estimating 4% to 5% at this point in time?
Mayor Chmiel: Right
Don Ashuorth: Do ue feel confident that we can pass that information along or
do we advise people that they should be attending tile County Board meeting?
Mayor Chmiel: My suggestion is yes. Attend your County Board meetings. Let
your' feelings be known. It's the only way they're going to s~art looking at it
responsibly. Of course the county is growing all over and of course the eastern
portion of the county right here is the biggest growth between here and Chaska.
But in order to really try and keep it as ue have been doing in the last 4 years
by having reductions, or last 3 years with reduction in taxes, it would do you
well and everybody else sitting here, when the County Board does have their
18
City Council Meeting -- November 18, 1991
meetings, it's the only way you're going to get your points across. People sit
home. They don't participate. They won't go there and that's where the problem
exlsts. It's sort of gratifying tonight to see as many people here tonight.
Oftentimes we're talking to empty chairs and we're basing decisions on for the
people. Participation basically is needed uithln the city, ulthln the county
and also within the school district. These are the things that we have to
address.
Walter Whiteh111: Thanks for that explanation and I also ask that everybody
show up at the school and the county meetings so we can make our feelings known.
I've talked to a lot of people in this area and every one of them probably came
here tonight with that probably the idea that you had in your head. That we're
golng to rattle somebody's cage and false hell for raislng taxes because that's
what it looks like. We're just not in the position to continue to accept
continued tax increases. Everybody knows the economy is not all that great.
would like to rather than rattle your cage, commend you and thank you for
holdlng the 11ne on taxes. I hope that whatever influence you can have up the
legislative 11ne, that you tell them we're madder than hell. We've had enough.
Let's start holdlng the 11ne. We don't have to spend more money all the tlme.
So a speclal accommodation to all of you for holding the line and thank you.
Mayor Chmiel: Thanks. One other factor too is write to your legislators. Call
them. Talk to them. Explaln how you feel because it always seems like there's
an open end to the pockets in the State. Unfortunately it all comes from there
and they're talking right now as I had heard on the radio, they're expecting a
much more larger deflcit than what is even anticipated. So consequently no
spending is what they have to do. I think what they should do is review the
exlsting laws to see where those dollars are golng and start maklng some of
those cuts just like we have done within City Hall. Just like industry ls doing
wlthin thelr businesses. The State ls golng to have to follow on that same
llne. Yes sir.
David Halla: I'm David Halla. I live at 100095 Great Plains Blvd.. I've been
a resident here of Chanhassen for over 30 some years. I've seen a lot of
changes. When we came out here it was a township. Of course they dldn't have
all the bureaucracy and all the committees and all the study groups and all the
assistants. Now this little thing we got in the mail from the State or the
County, that's quite a shocker. Two years ago, 1989 when they took away the
homestead taxes, credits, my taxes went up 38~. I called Don Ashworth
because I've known him for a long time and I said Don, I'd like to know what I'm
gettlng for my taxes. He sald you ain't getting nothing. You don't get any
city services. And I said well, why should I pay it? Well he said, that's for
the prlvlledge of 11vlng in Chanhassen. I came right back and told him, I says
it ain't no priviledge. Some of us are getting, to put it bluntly, damn tired
of thls taxatlon wlthout representation. Now I appreciate you Council people
trying to hold the taxes down. That's really your job as a representative of us
the taxpayers. However, I thlnk there's some thlngs that could be lmproved upon
even more. I think some of the situation, and I might try to put this
delicately so I don't offend anybody. But I know that some of the people that
are on the, let's call it the staff or the administrators of the city of
Chanhassen have got themselves pretty well entrenched. That's the political
term we hear about the congressmen in Washington D.C.. That they're entrenched.
The good o1' boy network and some of them don't care whether they spend the
City Coun¢i], Hr~.eti~g - November 18, 1991
taxpayers moT~c:y or not because if they don't have enough money, they just ask
fo)t- more [.~xes. Zf you're in private business, you have a budget to work for.
Zf you don't have any more money than that, you can't go out to the people and
spzy hey, we ~eed ~rlOr'e money but ~.hat's what they do in the titles and the
municipalities. They raise your taxes and say hey, we've got to have more money
to cover our ¢.xpenditures. Well Z k~low one thing that's kind of an irritant,
several things that are lrrltant to me. A couple years ago they bought this
brand new fire rel]gine. Half a million dollars or somewhere ill that
neighborhood. Big aerial ladder. They haven't got a building in Chanhassen
that's ouer 3 stories. Now what do you need a 100 foot aerial ladder for? You
know. Z mean down the road, sure. 20 years down the road all this garbage, but
why do you have to spend the money now. I mean I think that's damn foolishness
to go out and spend that kind of money when that could go to alleviate some of
the tax burden on the people. Another thing that's a dam~ irritant to me is
this 11ttle ¢50,000.00 paper here that was put out by your engineers and this
supposed to be for the waste water runoff. When Z got this tiling flrst Z said
what is thls so Z. called Ltp and Z talked to the engineers. They sald well
that's fei- the waste water runoff you kno~. ~nd Z said hey. Z sald Z 1Lye out
on 100 some acres out here and Z says we've been managing that property to
colltrol erosion and tl~ings like that. Built a dam. Put crown vetch on the
slope so it wouldn't ru~ off. Z sald what are you people going to do for
th,'.~t? Well we're going to make a study. Z said well what are you going to do
wlth thls study? Well we're going f.o determine what we're going to do. Well
this is ti~e fa, suit of this study. The water use habits. $50,000.00. As far as
Z'm concerned, Z'm going to call a spade a spade. This is graphlc corruption
and t. hey tell me that this w,'ts shoved down tlleir throats by the Metropolitan
Council and that you had to do thls. Okay. You people don't have to 11ck the
boots of the HetropolLt,'~n Counci].. You can stand up to them. They don't have
to ride rough shot over the clty of Chanhassen. You don't have to do everything
th,'.,t they do to do their bidding. And to take in $50,000.00 for a study for
this waste water useage, that's a waste of taxpayers money. Z mean who's
get. ting that $50,000.007 Is that to pay the salaries of some of these people
the staff that are so entrenched that they all have to have assistants and thelr
ass/stants have assist,',n[s. The former Senator down here, Bob Short told me one
time. He says you know, if they'd get rid of about half of those staff up there
Ln Chanhassen they'd have more than enough [o run the city. Well what about
so,~e of these blg companies that are laying off thousands of employees.
HcOonald Bouglas. People like that. Tens of of thousands of employees because
the economy ls bad. They're trying to cut back and work wlth what they can do.
Cities don't seem to do that. When they run out of money, they raise the taxes.
Now Z understand you people are trying to hold down. Z appreciate and commend
you for that but Z think you can do more. Z dol~'t think we need to have
$50,000.00 for waste water runoff. I mean that's stupid. That's my opinion of
it is it's stupid and I don't r. hink that money's being put to good use. And
that $500,000.00 fire engine. I mean I'd sure like an explanation why some of
these expenditures have to go out when we're in tough economic times, you know.
That's not good management from the city of Chanhassen and if those people can't
I, ai~age them, even tl~ough they're entrenched, I dare say if you fired them and
you paid their unemployment, it'd cost you less than their salaries. $o I think
it's ,.~ two fold thing here. You have to hold t~xes down but you also have to
watch the spending. If you people a're in charge of the spending and you have
city man¢~gers a~d staff and all of float tl~t come to Fou with their budgets and
say hey, this is what ue need. Sure, you have [o look at that and say is this
2O
City Council Meeting -- November 18, 1991
legitimate or isn't it? But on the other hand, some of those things that
they're askin9 for ue don't need. We can do without some of these services and
if the people complain about them, you just say hey. We're trying to cut back
on the expenditures. You're going to have to do with less services but this is
what it's going to take. I think they can all do a better job.
Mayor Chmiel: I may partially agree with you on some of those things but on
both of those two particular items, the fire engine was not $500,000.00. It was
$250,000.00. Number one. Number two, we do have to provide for the public
health and safety of trying to reach these existing buildings that are here now.
That ladder extends up with the projection. It's there for fighting a fire in
order to dose water down onto that building. And if you don't have that you
can't fight fires successfully. I sat down with the fire department. We've
gone over these issues. Even though that issue was prior to anyone sitting on
this Council. 8ut I still would have supported that particular part because we
do have to provide the public health and safety within this community. That's
what we have to look at.
David Halla: But they did need something that big?
Mayor Chmiel: Yes. No question in my mind.
David Halla: Of course where I live out there, by the time the fire department
got there it'd be all burned up anyway so it wouldn't matter.
Mayor Chmiel: Hopefully not. With the Fire Chief sitting here, he'd make sure
that it was put out.
David Halla: Put out the embers anyway.
Don Ashworth: I think it's important to note that the aerial fire truck was
presented by the Fire Department back to the electorate. Back to the voters. It
was positively voted on. In other words, it received more than 75~ of everyone
who voted in that general election voted in favor of purchasing that piece of
equipment. You had a right to come in and vote against it. Your vote was
counted but 75% of the people said yes. In terms of the value question, Mr.
Halla, his value did go up and I remember the conversation. What I tried to
note to him was that the State had made a change in calculating the values
associated with what they referred to as hobby farms and he hit into that
category and he saw a valuation increase because of the change in State law.
Now he asked I believe what additional services he was getting for this change
and quite frankly I probably did say he's not receiving any additional benefits
over the previous years but again the City did not make that change in that
legislation. With regards to entrenched staff, I think all three positions you
have out there in front of you had different people in those chairs 3 years ago.
Mayor Chmiel: I think too on the staffing portion. We have not really grown
proportionately with staff as to what we have to residents within this
community. The existing staff that we have right now in City Hall believe me
are overworked and I'm not going to say much more because they're going to want
more money and we're not doing that. But they really are. People put in more
time here than you'd realize. They're here at 8:00 in the morning and just like
21
City Co~nci]. Meeting _ November 18, 1991
nou they're here this evening. If there's a meeting or not, their particular
commission meetings, they'r.,..; here. Tipsy're represented at those meetings.
David Hal]a: But do you need all the people and the assistants having to have
assistants because I remember...
Mayor Chmiel,' Why don't you come in, We really don't have that many people as
to what you're saying.
David Halla: Yeah, but I remember back when we had the old Town Board and we
used to meet over in tl~e old school house over there.
Councilman Mason: How many people lived in town then?
Mayor Chmiel: At that time you probably have maybe 3,000 to 6,000 people.
We're at 12,500 and we're st111 growing and so that really constltutee more
staffing, But we watch that very closely,
David Halla: Well I know that when you try to get through up here and call the
city you know to get any information, boy you've got to go through the chain of
command just 11ks belng in tho army you know. Going through the sergeant and
tl~¢: lieutenant and tile captain and the colonel and all the way on you know.
Mayor Chmiel: Here's 'the general.
~avid Halla: You're supposed to be the general and he's supposed to be your
assistant.
Don Ashwor(h= A lot of times the sergeant knows a lot more too.
David Halla: Well the only thing that I'm saying is, you know I appreciate you
people looklng at it and looklng at it hard but I thlnk there's tlmes when the
economic times get hard, 11ks we're in right now. Number one, everybody's going
to get fighting mad when you false the taxes and I [hlnk that's people across
tile whole country have gotten into that position and the President realizes it.
Congress reallzes lt. I 'think everybody has got to start realizing that if
we're going to turn the economy around, we can't keep taxing the people because
pretty soon they're golng to have a revolution on thelr hands you know.
Mayor Chmiel: Right and I agree with that. Once come the revolution then those
thlngs are golng to be looked at. But if people don't participate and start
talking to their representatives, to the County, to the school board, then
nothing's going to be done.
David Halla: But sometimes you wonder uhether they're even got an ear open to
11sten or whether they're too arrogant and too entrenched in their positions
that they don't even want to glve you the tlme of the day and they maybe listen
to you and wave it off. You know the one thing that's just an irritant to me is
this waste water runoff. That just galls me and when I talk to the engineers
about it, they can't give me a legltilnate answer. And they themselves are the
ones that told me that they get $50,000.00 a year on what everybody ls paylng
into this and what's it going for? Is it supporting one of their salaries? Did
they create this to justlfy thelr jobs? They damn sure ain't dolng anythlng
22
City Council Meeting - November 18, 1991
with it, I'll tell you that. I asked them point blank. I says are you going to
come down to that creek behind my house there and clean out the brush and stuff
that falls in there and bring it up out of the canyon on pack mules? Well that
ain't going to happen.
Councilman Mason: Mr. Mayor? I was not on Council when that was approved. I'd
just been voted in and I strongly supported it. I guess I think in this forum
words other than stupid perhaps could be used. I think it's a good idea. I
live about half a mile from Lotus Lake and since I've lived here I've seen the
water quality of Lotus Lake go downhill. Now I'm assuming, and if I'm wrong,
hopefully some changes will be made. I'm assuming that some of the money from
this study will go to figuring out ways to clean up Lotus Lake. To keep Lake
Ann clean and figure out ways we can stop polluting the water, the wetlands,
what have you around here. Now you've touched a nerve for me. I'll admlt it.
David Halla: I heaT' you but are you going to do it anyplace else? For example.
I'll glue you an example that we have and this ls talk about bureaucracy
sticking their nose in where they don't know what the hell they're doing. We
bullt a dam on our property, I thlnk it was bullt probably back in the early
70's. The reason we built it was that part of the fields were erroding down
into the canyon and the gully was creeplng back up in the fleld farther and
farther. So we went to the soil conservation service and they looked at it and
sald sure. It wlll work. It wlll stop the eroslon but we won't cost share wlth
it because it's not a big enough watershed. So we went ahead and built it at
our own expense. Okay. Didn't ask anybody for any money. Built it at our own
expense. I built it myself with a D6 Cat. The thlng has got about 50 foot deep
and on the one side lt's got about 20-30 feet and the other slde's a 11ttle
deeper. Well when my brother, I've been after him for years since I retired for
physical disability from the company and he kept lettlng the thlng klnd of go.
It started to deteriorate and I said hey, you've got to fix that dam before it's
golng to go bad or you're going to spend a lot of money flxlng it. Well then he
didn't 11sten. Finally it got to the point where he had to flx it. The
Plannlng Commission stuck thelr nose ln. Told hlm hou to do it and everything
else and he had to get all kinds of permits and jump through hoops and
everything else. And you know in plaln language, what the hell do they know
about building a dam? And yet they told hlm what to do and how to put the soil
in and everything else and they dldn't have anything to do wlth it but that sort
of bureaucracy sticks their nose in. And I sometimes sit here occasionally and
11sten to all of thls garbage that everybody has to jump through the hoops and
do all these certain thi,gs like that. I think you people could cut some of
that bureaucracy out a 11ttle common sense goes a long way sometimes.
Walter Whitehill: Did the dam hold?
David Halla: What?
Walter Whitehlll: Did the dam hold? Did the dam hold that they stuck thelr
nose lnto and designed for you. Did it hold?
David Halla: No, that was already built before and all he wanted to do was flll
in where it had washed out in certain areas. But they didn't do any of the
designing. That was already done. We dld it but we had to do it the way they
23
-'.,Jr.,hied it and yo,t know 'Lake out all ~l~e~e p.s, rmit:~ to do something that had
,.t.l.re. ad? b,~.,.~.~ r-:xL:.:tin:;~ ~ me,'.~n tl~at's creating bureaucracy.
Walter- Whitehill; If you did it their way, did it work?
David IqaJ. la; It would work the uay that we h~zd built it oYiginalJ, y for yeat-s
and yeaFs. ~,11 we did was fill in an area that was starting to ~ash out to make
it bert. er you know ~n(¢ .iii order [o do that, we had to go and get all of these
2ef'~mJ'ts and stuff. I thought that was just ridiculous to go and do stuff 11ke
[l~at. There's where some of f. hls money could be used in purposes like that
instead of saylng that all they're going to do ls do studles.
Nayor Chlniei: Thank yot.t. Appreciate it. Anyone else? Would anyone else like
to address a question? Yes sir.
Robert [)fury: I'm about the same position as this young man here is. My name
.i.s Robert Btu'fy of 575 FlyZng Cloud Brive. My problem is all these years Z've
l)~;c;n, 14 years I've been in the city of Chanhassen. For all the taxes I've paid
the cii:y of Chanhassen I get nothing for it. Come and vote. Bo everything I'm
supposed to do. Here I am, they're floating money all around the city doing
· t~mings and doJ. ng nothing Yet inc. I think it's time you pay attention to the
southern part of the clty fey a while, Start floating some of that money out
that way to do something.
Player Chmiel: Hopefully we do provide police and fire protection for you.
Robert. Orury: Yes you do. I'm proud of ti'mat.
Councilman Wing= Could you be specific on services yomt'd request? I mean
th,~l.'s :~ort of adJ. stant, isolated corner of the city. What could we do for you
down 'there that you're not getting now?
Rote'ri Df-ut'y: I dol~'t know, do yOU have anything do with the drainage ditch or
anything, or' does that all belong to tile State down there?
Councilman Workmate: Is that 2127
Robert Drury: Yes. 212. 212/169.
Hayer Chmiel; Some of those, areas the city is looki~g at. And erosion in and
adjacent to glven properties that are bullt and yes, we've done that. We
brought out the State. We brought out some of the additional commissions that
are around 11ke watershed districts and so on to revlew some of those speclflc
.'-.~'r~a,s, Z don't think we've gotte, to ali. of them as yet,
Robert Drury: I don't understand why the city of Chanhassen is so interested in
gett.[ng us ou~ of there. Everytime I turn around they raise taxes. They don't
do nothing as Z say. Z just don't understand why they're so interested in
ge. tting a p~t'SOrl out of their property.
Hayo'r' Chmlel: As we inen[ioned here for the past number of years, the city has
9iven reductions in taxes. We have rio control over the County and their raislng
thelrs ~nd t. he others thmt are part of that. And so consequently we are dolng
2.4
City Council Meeting - November 18, 1991
our jobs here, or at least we think so as opposed to some of the others and
that's wher~, as I mentioned before, we're going to have to get out there and
talk to those other respective entlties that we've got to have discussions with.
Robert Srury: One more question. I just noticed a 17.2~ increase in taxes.
None of thls belongs to the clty, ls that rlght?
Mayor Chmiel: Right now on that particular one, I ~ould say those are sort of
flctlous numbers. Part of that shows that and that's true but that's what we
have to do with the State as Don had mentioned previously.
Robert Drury; One other question. I don't know ho~ they come up wlth the 17.2.
I look across here and Lt adds up to about 47.5~.
Don Ashworth: Those are each individual ones,
Robert Drury: You look at the County and you look at the City and you look at
the School 01strict.
Don Ashworth: The School is proposing lg% I believe. The County ~as 17~ and
what was printed for the City was iiX. What they've done is they've looked at
the overall lmpact of all of those and sald the average increase then would be
17%. Do you follow that?
Robert Drury: Yeah, I follow that.
Don Ashworth: And as I had mentioned, the ci.ty is not going to.
Robert Drury: I guess you've pretty much answered by question. I think that
you could spread the taxes around a little bit better than what you're doing.
Take for lnstance I own a $150,000.00 unit. Assessed valuation. For that Z pay
about $4,500.00 in taxes which is not really very fair seeing that you have
$200,000.00-$300,000.00 homes up here paylng a lot less than what I'm paylng.
Mayor Chmiel: I think the point that you're bringing up is very true but this
rlght now ls not the tlme. When it comes next year, next May is the time to come
back.
Robert Drury: I was here last May.
Hayor Chmiel: Did they do anything with your taxes?
Robert Drury: They were supposed to lower them for this year and here I come
with a raise.
Mayor Chmiel: Well that's because of what you're seeing there. You're right.
Robert Orury: That's one of the reasons I'm here. I don't want the raise. I
don't thlnk I deserve the false.
Mayor Chmiel: I think you're saying the same things and I can compare that to
myself. Mine went up another $30,000.00 from what it was previously and I sat
here and listened to everybody else's and I never did enter my own to complain
25
City Council Meeting --November 18, 1991
about those either but next year we can all be here and start indicating those
concernr; back lo the country. But then it doesn't end here, 6o back to the
County and let them know as uell when they have their respective hearing as
well.
Robert Drury: I don't have as much land as this gentleman here. I have about 2
acres. I don't know, ~ guess not qu1Le as much as he has to worry about. He
probably pays more.
David Halla: I got a $1,200.00 increase just because that homestead credit was
taken away. $1,200.00 bucks .tn one year, They didn't raise the valuation in my
propert y. Not one penny.
Hayor Chmiel: Talk to the State about that too. That's where it comes.
David Hallat They gave me the good o1' index finger and I didn't even walk away
with a smile you know.
Mayor Chmiel: Thank you. Anyone else?
Don Ashworth: May I add to his comment?
Mayor Chmiel: Sure.
Don Ashworth: The editor of the newspaper had a good article this past week in
terms of desire to see additional services. The last gentleman wants to see the
clty reduce cost, or taxes but also would 11ks to see a better share of the tax
dollar. Too many times people don't often even realizing what's occuring in
thelr own neighborhood or thelr own area where the c~ty has purchased the
Bandimere Park property to insure that we'll have a neighborhood park down in
that area and that was like $300,000.00 to $400,000.00. We cleaned up that
creek area as you're going down TH 101 not too far from your' home and that was
about 2 years ago and that was $165,000.00. We're in the process of trying to
carry out the realignment of TH 101 and hopefully make it easier for thls
gentleman to get back into town. The State has kind of walked away from TH 101
a~M turned it back to the Clty and now we're kind of responsible for that.
think we've done a number of thlngs in your area but Z don't know that you've
necessarily seen them. So I think we heard what you said. Thank you.
~ayor Chmiel: Thanks Don.
Dan Beckman: Iii. My name's Dan Beckman. I live at 6895 Chaparral Lane. A
couple times I had heard our taxes are not at the maximum that they could be.
What percentage tax are we at?
Don Ashworth= The maximum I showed there is we could go to $2,553,000.00. I'm
sorry, $3,385,000.00 ~nd we're at $3,268,000.00 so $120,000.00 below.
Dan Beckman: Almost maximum though.
0o1~ Ashworth: True.
Dan Beckman: Right now you're showing that the taxes really are going to come
down basically or stay tl~e same. A lot of that ks contributed to the fact that
26
City Council Meeting - November 18, 1991
we have a large growth.
Don Ashworth: ?.1~. Correct.
Dan Beckman: That's only going to go on a certain amount of years. What I'm
concerned, I'm not concerned about this year. I'm concerned with the future.
And I think the present administration has done a good job on holding taxes but
ue need to look down the road. Our' percentage of tax, how does that compare
with our neighboring cities?
Don Ashuorth: The League of Cities carries on analysis of taxes paid by each of
the cities. Chanhassen I believe, out of approximately 90 cities'was 69th thls
past year so we're in the bottom thlrd of clties in terms of dollars we tax.
Dan Beckman: Percentages I'm talking.
Mayor Chmiel: About 5 years ago we were number 7.
Dan Beckman: Like I said, we've seen a good change but down the road this
growth is not going to take care of that anymore. And we haven't raised taxes,
I understand that but you need to get down lower perhaps in percentages.
Mayor Chmiel: From a city standpoint we haven't raised taxes. We're not saying
that the County and the School District and the other are not.
Dan Beckman: I understand that.
Mayor Chmiel: We can only control what ue have in our own destiny here.
Dan Beckman: All I ask is that we keep the future in mind so we don't have a
problem when the growth stops. Thank you.
Mayor Chmiel: Good. Thanks Dan.
David Halla: I heard a comment the other day.
Mayor Chmiel: If I could, maybe we'll come to the end but I'd like to have
other- people speak first if that's alright. Is there anyone else?
Jeff Peters: Good evening. My name is Jeff Peters. I live at 8120 Hidden
Court and as so many other people have sald, I commend you on holding the line
on taxes and Z know that the clty's only responsible for roughly a small portlon
of our' overall tax dollar. I guess what I'm concerned about is I'm looking at
the budget and thls is something that's klnd of been on our minds, my wife and
mine's mind for- a few years as we've had a rather, I would say a substantial
increase in crime in our immediate neighborhood. And we're seelng a budget for
police here of about a half a million dollars. $471,000.00. My question
basically ls, the clty has grown roughly double since we came here in 1987 and
is there any plans to have a police department in this city? You know roughly
according to governments, city governments and state governments, you need about
1 offlcer per 1,000 residents plus your back-ups plus your vehicles and that
sort of thlng and based on that type of calculations, I'm seeing we probably
need a for'ce of about 20 people. We've recently put a security system in our
27
home because of some of tl,e break-ins that tlaVe occur'r~d in our neighborhood. Zn
on~. cas~; ~t took the county ,'.tbout 20 minute~ to get out to ou~' area and we've
basJ. ca].ly across TH 5 here fronm the City. You know for the kind of tax dollars
we're p;.~yil'19 it's a little concerl~im,g and I just wonder if you folks have ever
looked at whether or not we're golng to address that situation.
Mayor Chmiel: Well we've looked at it. In fact I did a study on it here just
rec~:ntly. To put a pollce department in operation would increase our budget by
about a $1,500,000.00. We Fee]. that what we I~ave with the Sheriff's Oepartment
ls working very well. Hopefully they'll apprehend those particular people but
it's a little late once they get into your home and ~ understand that but we are
and have a 28 I~our protection wlthin the communi'ty. That means 2 cars on at the
la~e hours of the evening and the morning on a constant basis. We also have a
floater tkmat's available withln a matter of minutes and there's also two other
car~ that ca~ rerspond ~J. thin a vel'y short period of tlme. So we can have
between 5 and 6 police cars withln thls pa'rtlcular area. Zn addltion to that,
we also have the State Highway Patrol housed here in City Hall which gives us
some moro additional protection that we see. Irm fact they were first responders
on om]e particular situation not too loii9 a9o. And so we are having a fairly
decent p'rotectSon a~ far as we see and in comparison to then increase those
;~dditiol~al ,'~moulltS ()~ ,~lnmo~t a million ~nd a hal. f, the escaJ, ation on your taxes
would start, shooting up again and your cost of operating that is going to run
roughly about $0 million a year pl~}s. So what we see right rmow is the most
efficient wax we can operate this city witfm the Sheriff'~ department.
,Tell Peters: It sounds like you've got it Ltnder control but for future years
I'm sure we're 9oing to have start thinking along those lines.
Hayer Chmiel: .Z~.'s .something we call look at as we progres~ and we are keeping
open mlnd to it, you're rlght.
COl.~ncilman Wing~ That's done on maybe almost a yearly basis but I want to point
out ~,].so the crime rate.~; in Chanhassen are lower than our neighbors wlth pollce
departments and our solve rate is higher than neighbors with police departments
and I think these a're significant issues.
Hayo:- Chmiel: Right. Thank you. Anyone else? Not seeing anyone else,
t.la]la I'll give you an opportunity.
David Halla: I just was, kind of an interesting comment a couple days that we
were trying to sell my dad's house in Edina. HF dad's 95 and his taxes have
risen over $10,000.00 on a house he built 30 years ago. He can't afford to live
there anymore because all he lives on is Social Security income. Boy I tell
you, th;zt gets me quite rmmad and I went down to the Assessor in Edina and really
gave ~hem a piece of my mlnd. I told them I thought it was a damn shame to
chase ~ei'm.~or citizens out of their home~. They a11 give yOU tll~8 bull about the
legislature ~ets the rates and they do that but they set the valuation. Now
th~s~ two ladie~ told me that it's ,'xZmo~t impossible to sell a home in Eden
Prairie because of the tax situation and I thlnk that's something you people
~hould be cognizant of. Once tile:se taxe~ get out of hand, hey if Z want to sell
my how:se and get the hell out of here, Z can't do it because it's taxed so damn
high that nobody w111 want to buy
28
City Council Meeting --November 18, 1991
Mayor Chmiel: We do understand that portion of it.
David Halla: Well it's a well known fact you know. You've got to be real aware
of that. We've got our taxes hlked up way now out of sight.
Councilman Wing: Mr. Mayor, what are you going to do about it?
Mayor Chmiel: We're doing it.
Councilman Wing: I just wanted to make a point. There's nothing you can do
because it's at the State and you've done everything you can do at the city
level.
David Halla: Does it do any good for you people to holler at the State?
Councilman Wing: We do. We've all written letters. We've all called our
Congressmen.
Mayor Chmiel: Mr. Herman, go ahead.
Melvin Herrmann: I live at ?g5 Carver Beach Road. I would like to have this,
I don't know if Mr. Ashworth could...I would like to have it put down the amount
per caplta. Is that possible?
Don Ashuorth: The amount per capita.
Melvin Herrmann: I was kind of disturbed with the...can you see that?
Mayor Chmiel: I maybe passed by it. I'm not sure.
Melvin Herrmann: The spending in 110 largest cities in Minnesota except
Minneapolis and St. Paul...It says the average per capita falls between $350.00
and $400.00 per person. Some stand far outside...such as Chanhassen is $700.00.
That's a hell of a... It seems pretty hlgh.
Mayor Chmiel: Yeah, some of that too ls probably all newer homes uithln the
city. I don't know how they're looking at it. Maybe Don can explain that.
Don Ashuorth: First of all to answer the question on per capita for each of the
different entities. You need to divide, in the case of Chanhassen, the total
amount proposed for lgg2 for operations ls $2,500,000.00 by the number of people
within the community which is 12,000 people. Which means then that you're
talking about $210.00-$220.00 per person for operational levy. So I'm not sure
where that.
Melvln Herrmann: Are you...
Don Ashuorth: Well again, the total levy that we're looking to is that
$2,251,000.00. Tom correct me, did I miscalculate that or dld you? Anyway, you
divide the $2,251,000.00 by the 12,000 people and it should be about $220.00.
Mayor Chmiel: In other words, don't believe everything you see in the
newspaper.
Councilman Mason= Except the Villager.
Melvin Herrmarlrl= ...taxpayer's association. There a~-en't a lot.
Todd Gerhardt= That's one lady's oplnlon.
Mayor Chmiel: We may have to respond.
Don Ashuorth: I have not seen that one. If I would have.
Melvin Herrmann: ...I would think that the Clty Councll or Mr. Ashuorth would
urlte them a letter and have them put in the correction.
Don Ashuorth: I will surely do that. Or at least try and find out.
Melvin Herrmann: If somebody says we're paying $705.00 per capita and you're
saying lt's $200.00 and some, you'd be way below average then and that doesn't
really sound posslble either.
Mayor Chmiel: We're efficient though.
Don Ashworth: Understand I need to flnd out what they're dolng because what
I've just done here ls I've taken the total dollar amount that we're proposing
to levy and dlvlded that by the number of people. Now if on the other slde, if
you're talking about expenditures per capita then we should be taking this
$3,200,000.00 and dlvlding that by our 12,000 people whlch would then be what,
$260.00.
Tom Chaffee: $261.48 per' capita based on...12,~O0 people as we speak.
Oon ~shworth: Z stand corrected.
Charles Folch: What they may be dolng is addlng in the School and County
portion also.
Don Ashworth: That could be.
Melvin Herrmann: No.
Mayor Chmiel: Just per caplta? Okay.
Melvin Herrmann: Put out by the Minnesota Taxpayers Association.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay, we'll flnd out and maybe we can respond.
Melvin Herrmann: Z suppose you don't know the population of the County and the
School District?
Don Ashworth: No, but you'd have to do the same thing. We're roughly 1/4.
Melvin Herrmann; What Z'm trying to get at, it looked like the City is paying
less. We're actually per person paying less...
3O
City Council Meeting - November I8, 1991
Mayor Chmiel: What we'll do is find the answer and respond back to you. Can
I have your address again?
Melvin Herrmann: 795 Carver Beach Road.
Mayor Chmiel: Good.
Melvin Herrmann: One other minor thing. It doesn't amount to a whole lot of
money, I've heard and I've seen a city vehicle being used for personal use.
Orlvlng home 3-4 times a day... I noticed they've got an investigation...
Don Ashworth: You're more than welcome to have you or anyone carry out an
investigation.
Melvin Herrmann: I know the person but I'm not going to do that down here.
Don Ashuorth: Well I'm pretty sure that, very close to his gentleman.
Melvin Herrmann: I believe we have some city vehicles...I've seen an Escort
down in the Library parking lot. I don't think that's been moved. I might be
wrong but I don't think that's been moved for 2 weeks.
Mayor Chmiel; One of the clty vehicles? Yeah, the city vehicles are supposed
to be at the far edge of lower lot here.
Melvin Herrmann; ...we have excess vehicles.
Mayor Chmiel: Well no.
Don Ashworth: That Escort vehicle is used solely by our custodian. That is not
a safe vehicle.
Mayor Chmiel: It's on it's last legs.
Don Ashuorth: For any type of inspector or any position.
Melvin Herrmann: Let me bring up another thing. I believe there's old utility
trucks and stuff that are probably not used. We should get rld of them, not pay
11cense taxes and stuff.
Mayor Chmiel: We get tax exempt on licenses too.
Don Ashworth: We just got through selllng an older vehicle. We put it at an
auction. It was advertised. Anyone could take and bid on that vehicle. The
question as to the take home vehicle, Z'm almost assured that it probably the
question relates to our utility superentendent Jerry Boucher who lives very
close to you. He ls responsible to answering calls in the evening.
Melvin Herrmann: That's not the person I was thinking of.
Don Ashuorth: That is not the one? Okay, the only vehlcles that are take home
vehicles are associated with people who have to take and do some type of a call
out. Again Jerry Boucher and when it's Art's turn, well we have about 4 members
31
City Cou~cil Meeting - November' 18, 1991
within the utility depaftlnen~.. They are asslgned, different personnel are
assigned fei' differer, t llight:s. They have the abilJ.(y to take that vehlcle home.
If you feel (hat any vehicle is being taken home and ls not following the
guideline, f. hat it would be used associated with a call out, please lei me know
because (hat is our po!lcy. You are not to take home a vehlcle just to go
shopping. We do not allow that.
Mayor Chmlel~ Alrlght, thank you. Yes slr.
Dick Herrboldt: Yes, my name is Dick Herrboldt and I live at 6464 Hurl'ay Hill
Road in the far north western part of the clty. i've been in front of this body
on several occasions about taxes and al.so about a problem we were having with a
proposed path through our back yard. I've also gone to the County. I've gone
to al.l [heir meetlngs. I've gone and protested my proper(y taxes. So I
guess I'm just up here saylng that Z',i real frustrated. I mean I really am
frustr,ated. I want to tel]. you people you're doing a good job. I appreciate
you holdlng down the budget. I have no complaints about the clty services in
Chanhassen. I enjoy living here and Z t hi,k you're all dolng a good job. But I
am frustrated and I thlnk Don last tlme I was here a year ago you lald out some
real good ideas about what possibiJ, lty we could go as taxpayers in the city.
How we can get some tax teller and I was wondering if you could just comment on
that ,a little bit. If you could tell us, I know we always hear, talk to the
County COnlmissloners. So we go talk to the County Commissioners. They say well
really i( isn't our fault, it's the State. Tile Stai-e is making us put up a new
jail and lt's golng to cost us umpteen m1111ons of dollars and there's nothlng
we can do about lt. So then you (alk [o tl~e Sf.a~e Representative, well. We'd
love to help you out Dick but we've got a blg budget deflcit thls year. It
seems to me that we cal~ never get a handle on ~.axation in [hls State.
Oon Ashworth= What I would suggest is watch your property tax statement and see
wh~t happens. You're puttillg Council members into a position but we're saying
~h&t the taxes w111 90 down.
Dick Herrboldt= I understand that and I appreciate your taxing unit and what
you're doing~
¢on hshworth: If we live up to [hat, then I would hope you support the Council
8nd the City. Zf ~.he County doesn't, then maybe you should think about changlng
your vote there. Zf ~he State doesn't, maybe you should thlnk about changlng
your vote there.
Dlck Herrboldt; Well Z think ue all probably feel that way and maybe there is
going to be a [)i9 change in who represents us come the next election. Z guess
more than anythlng Z would like to say, does '[he Clty Councll have any influence
on the County? Can you as a body go to the County? Z know you must go to lunch
wi. th these people once ina whlle and talk to them.
Councilwoman Dimler: I've been there.
Dick Herrboldt; Okay. This is real frustrating. I'm sure you're frustrated as
taxpayer.s J.n this State nlso. ~ mean I've heard people at meetings get angry.
I've heard people shout. I've heard people swear. I've heard people threaten
to move. I've heard ~1]. kinds of things and nothing ever changes.
32
City Council Meeting - November 18, 1991
Mayor Chmiel: And you're right about the jail because I chaired that particular
committee for the County. There ueKe 5 citizens appointed to it and yes, they
are mandated by the State Correction Board to make changes within the existing
jail and if they don't, they're going to have to harbor all their inmates in
other locations and those costs become absolutely prohibited for the County.
And yes, they're going to have to expand that.
Dick Herrboldt. When it's going to be built next year I believe.
Mayor Chmiel: Right.
Dick Herrboldt: But they're trying to fund for it now but in any event.
Mayor Chmiel: The County has funded $700,000.00 for the past 2 years right now.
Dick Herrboldt: Okay, so there's a million and a half approximately?
Mayor Chmiel: Right.
Dick Herrboldt: So anyway I just was registering my frustration. I'm sure a lot
of the other taxpayers here feel the same way. I don't know if that does any
good but I would ask you as a body, when you get an opportunity to talk to these
people, tell them if we have a large city increase next year and another large
county increase and I know we're going to have a large State increase, then I
really truly belleve that we're going to have some very, very serious problems
wlth the citizenry of this clty and this county and thls state. I guess I'm
asking you to let them know that because you're our first area of representation
and it's got to be frustrating for you.
Mayor Chmiel: We will bring it back up to the County.
Dick Herrboldt: Okay, thank you.
Mayor Chmiel: Thanks much. Anyone else?
Mel Kurvers: I want to know about the growth.
Mayor Chmielr Would you just state your name. I know it but.
Mel Kurvers: Mel Kurvers, 7240 Kurvers Point Road. My question is on the
growth, the 7~ that you showed. How does that get back to the rest of it? Like
in my project down there, the taxes on that were probably around $3,000.00 when
it was a farm and now with the new lots in there we're well up in the hundreds
of thousands of dollars of taxes. How does that get? Does that go into a total
fund and then you work it back? I guess my question is, how does the growth
affect us as taxpayers? How do we, you would think if you're going to.
Mayor Chmiel: He's not going over there to punch your nose. He's just going to.
Don Ashworth: I know Mel will punch back. What occurs each year will take the
city, we turn over to the county auditor that to run this city we need $2.2
m1111on. What they do is they dlvide the total value wlthin the community,
City C. oul~c:i] Hecl.'i.l'~(.} -. Nov;~.mber 18, 1991
which is like ';;10 millio;~ ir, to ;.hat amount of money and theft comes up with tho
t,~>: ~,':t[.'_' ct~ssoc, ial. od for ti'me ~:ity. Now when you pL(t i,1 your additional homes and
.i.L's the following year and tho city ls lookin9 to $2.3 m.illiorm dollars, if this
J.$ ~'aZsed to $].i miJ.lion, there can ~ctu~tlly I)e a tax, even though the doJ_lar
¢-~mOLtn'k may have .increased, you can ac:(ua~J, ly see a (ax altec'tease and that's what
we're see~.l~g f'1gi~t Ilow bocaur~e the v,1itte h¢~s J. nc:reas~.~d at a greater rate (hah
tho level of ~ax~:~tiorm. That's what you'd want to continue to achieve 1nfo the
future. Someone fm~d brought up ;~ comment, watch wha~ we're doing in the future.
ThaL's t~haf, you wdot ;.0 watch_ You want to make sure that any typo of increases
.i~ the doZZ¢tr amoul~t be~img raised by the city, com.tnty or state are less than the
v,~].Ltation incrouses.. As .~Ollg GS that happc;~s> you>us got a tax decrease. If
s;tay:~ tile same, now ,~ of ,~ sudden you've got a t,1x incre,1so to fund that
~(ldltional taxes at whichever Zero1..
N~yo~' Chmiel; [)oes til4.~t, a~swer your quest, ion?
hle]. Kttruers: T. jliSt [lave one comment on that. I would think then that it would
hrs. ¢,dviseable or make it e~,siel' 'For people ~.o develop then illste~td of nlaking
thr;m .~uF, ip through the hoops. Thank you..
Mayor CIimniol: .T. '..:aW someoile else's lland J.n the back tilers.
Conrad John~rud: Hi. My name is Conr,',d Johnsrt~d and I live on Shawnee Lane and
Iny question is :T.F we 9o 'm.o the County, are they goi~g to refund. I have to send
mx klds to private school a~md the reason I do ls because I have trouble wlth the
mcl'mool up ho~'e witi~ discipl.i, ns ~c', ~, lot of othem' ti~ings and I get no money b~tck
from the Cotinty. I pay my 'f. axe~. iffy k.;.dt: do~'t ~ven go ~o school horc~ al~tl the
ro,'¢son ls the sci~ooi ail~'t adt¢qu~tte. 'l'i~e ~ther thlng, Z've got 4 kids right now
and if you r~ise tony ~.axes Lip anymore, ,,f,y ki. ds suffer and that don't make me very
t~;.tp~y_ And 3:'].1 '(~-;LJ. you, .L¢ time County doesn't do some(l~ing ~bout improvirmg
the schools, Z ,~J. ll be ~'mloFe than upse(. And ~f you people don't go and push J.t,
hl~yo'r' Chmiel: Yeah, t;',a'L's where.
C. orlrad Johnsi'ud': And tl]at's where tile., pt'oblem is becau:.~e I can't send my kids
ttp to school he're bocau.'.::e 'r don't 11ke the way they do things. Z have to move
them lo my own schoo!_ My wages dorl"t go up when I see taxes goil~g up, my w~ges
don't go up to the taxes.
Mayor Chmie!' I know. I've 2].ways sent my kids to perrochia! schoo].s as well
Conrad Johnsrud~ And then they bui].t the school in JOrlati~an whlch was in nly
ol, i. nion ridiculous. I'm ~lOt sending my kinderga'r'ter (o Jonathan when there's
school up here.
Mayer Chmie.".: I'F you have some real deel~ co~cerns, my suggestion would be to go
t,'~.lk [.o the scl,eel .:~nd t,'.~.lk si. thor t:o tlme School Board member or to the
St~pe'rintondel~'i. of Sc:hoolt~.
Conrad .]ohnsrud: Yaah, ,~e called them and got 1.i. ko other people, we got a real
brLt:St'l off so we .jmts~ don't send out kids to that school.
34
City Council Meeting - November 18, 1991
Mayor Chmiel: I think real eyeball to eyeball contact with them rather than
just telephoning. Try to set up an appointment. Maybe some of those things can
be resolved for you. Maybe not. I don't know.
Conrad Johnsrud: Because if you're talking about, I don't know the future, it's
not necessarily everybody here but your kids are going to pay the taxes through
the nose unless the County, somebody in the County is wasting a lot of money I
thlnk. Thanks.
Councilman Mason: You know the County doesn't have anything to do per se with
the school budget. That's an issue with the School Board. Can I just, I think
your comment was really well taken and I hope that all the people that come to
us and talk, talk as vocipherously and as strongly particularly to the State but
also to the School Districts, and I'm a teacher but it's a polnt well taken.
But also the County and the School Oistricts but I think particular the State.
The more I've been involved in clty government, havlng to send this notlce out
is a prime example. If we a11, and I include Council in this, let the people in
the State know how, you know lt's easy to come here. It's a lot harder to go to
the State for a bunch of reasons but I think we all need to do that.
Resident: How do you know when the meetings are? I never...
Mayor Chmiel: It's normaZly published in the paper isn't it Oon?
Resident: What paper?
Mayor Chmiel: In the Chanhassen Villager.
Don Ashworth: It's on that notice. Are you talking about county and school7
Councilman Mason: We're talking about State meetings here. When they decide
what goes on up at the Capltol.
Mayor Chmiel: Oh, I'm sorry. I wasn't listening.
Councilman Workman: Even if you show uP at a meetlng it might have been
cancelled or changed.
Councilman Mason: It's frustrating.
Mayor Chmiel: Yeah, it really is. What I'd like to do, we have a full yet
agenda to go on and lt's gettlng close to 10:00. I'd like to really sort of
table this particular thing right now and at least know where our position is
comlng from for a no tax increase. In fact if anythlng I'd 11ke to see us try
to even maybe have a little more reduction of what Oon had said of 1.5.
Depending upon as long as we know what State's going to do, to see if we can't
even get it as much as maybe a 3~ reduction. So with that I'd like to, and
I know he's gettlng palpitations of the heart but I'd like to entertain that to
table. Can I have a motion?
Councilwoman Dimler: Before we do that though, we-have the budget amendment to
cover this before.
35
City Coul~c.i.1. i'i.';r.:i..tllL! -- November lO, ].99!
Hayo'r' Chmie],: We']..l flare cliscus~iol~. We'll get i:o that noxt.
Workman; So moved.
Mayor Chmiel: We're .iust on [he port:ion of the publlc hearlng. The other' is
Councilman Mason; Move what?
CoLtnci. luoman Oim].or: To table the budge[.
Mayor ChnliOl; 'fo table the budget. Motion has been made, ls there a second?
CoU~lcilmall Mason.: ::;e¢;ond.
Hayer Cl~miel: Any other discussion?
Councilman Workman moved, Councilman Mason seconded to table the 1992 budget.
All voted Jn favor and the motion carried.
(Tho Council took a short f'ecess at tllis point in the meeting.)
Mayor Chmiel; Let's got going with this. We have a few other items to go on~
One of the 'kl;~_ngs that I think we have ~o look at is the public hearing that we
had on the proposed budget ls that we're havlng a tlme 11ne difficulty from what
I understand. What l"d like to see us do is direct Don to proceed as I had
mentioned previously in looking at what we are going to do ulth the no tax
increase witll i 1/2~. I'm ~sking i~im ~.o also review potentially to see if they
can find another $30,000.00 to come up with the total of a 3~. By tabling thls
we've got to come up with a conclusion. Now we can do it one of two ways. We
could, and I don't like doing it this way because we sald to everybody we were
goil~g to I~ave at the next council meetlng. And I have on nly agenda, down for
November 35th which would take just '[hat. Whlch would be next Monday. The
problem being that you can't tie it in on tl~e same night ~:ither the School
D.i. strict or tfl~ County are havlng meef. ings on the same day. So I guess I'm
really irl a s(ymie right now.
Counc:ilwoma!~ bimler' Thlat'~ why I wanted to question the tabling.
Mayor Chmiel.' Right. As to how we should bring this back up. Maybe you can
offer some sugge.stlon.
Don Ashworti~: I think Tom, we did certify November 25th and tllat is, Tom
Chef fee, We dld certify the 25th and that is a valid date that we could hold ~
contirlued hearing on?
Tom Chaffee.' That is a valid date. That's the date that we certify to Carver,
Hennepin and both School [)istl'i. cts... It was the only date that was available
to us...
Don Ashworth: So again, I don't know if the Counc11 wants to, I know we're
going to t~ke the other 1terns first but otherwise we could come back to the
burlge'[ yet tonlght or you could !ook [o a speclal meeting for this next Monday.
36
City Council Meeting - November 18, 1991
IT you wanted to do that, we could set it early like at 5:30.
MayoT' Chmiel: In lieu of what we said here tonight, I would like to carry it
over because it seems 11ke we'd be just pushing it around so I'd much prefer
having it on the 25th. A re-opening of it and I don't know if we'll even have
anybody here. Z'd just as soon do that. What's any the balance of Council?
Councilwoman Dimler: Oh absolutely. Otherwise it looks like we're pulling
something funny.
Mayor Chmlel: Okay, can we set that up for say, 5:30 might be too early for
most people. How about next week at 6:20?
Councilman Workman: I don't have my calendar.
Councilman Mason: I can make that.
Mayor Chmiel: At least we can have 4 or 5.
Don Ashworth: Would you like a pizza thing? I'm assuming many people are going
to be just home.
Mayor Chmiel: No. No.
Councilwoman Dimler: No, because it's open to the public right?
Mayor Chmiel: Yeah. For that short period, it shouldn't be very long. That
wlll be the only 1rem on the agenda.
Tom Chaffee: In talking about the continuation hearing. Although we've already
certified to take to the County and the School Dlstrict and the new legislation,
the new truth in taxation law does not require that we go through the same
quarter page ad and blah, blah, blah. Z feel with the attendance we had tonlght
you really should hustle to get something, if we're going to do the continuation
hearing next Monday night.
Don Ashworth: Tom you can't do that. I mean I agree that the only way is going
to be is Tom would agree to try to put some'thing in.
Tom Chaffee: I was just trying to pull a con job.
Don Ashworth: I think you're asking something that he can't do.
Mayor Chmiel: Yeah.
Tom Chaffee: That's all I was asking was that we recognize that and...
Mayor Chmiel: Can we put a small notice in the paper?
Don Ashworth: That's the thlng. The cut-off ls Friday. Z mean and sometimes
Tom gives me until 10:00 Monday morning but I'm really worried that you can get
something in there.
City Council Me. etirm?, --Novemb~;r i~, 3.993.
Cou~,c:ilman ?la::-:on; Then I have some trouble havir, g the meeting then.
H:.tyor Chmiel: Tl'l~.n what we might have to do i~.~ .just b'r'ing it up at the end of
the meeting. Let's contlnue with what we're golng and we can all think about
what we're doing I~e~-e_
REPLAT OF LOT 3, BLOCK 1, CHANHASSEN LAKES BUSINESS PARK 5TH ADDITION INTO TWO
PARCELS AND SITE PLAN REVIEW FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF A ~Sj. O00 SaUARE FOOT
OFFICE/WAREHOUSE BUILDING, NORTHEAST CORNER OF PARK PLACE AND PARK ROAD
INTERSECTION, ~AIL S~URCE, INC., R.J. RYAN CONSTRUCTION.
P,iul Kraust;; Mr. Hayer,, this is basically a 'fairly straight forward request.
As yo,z ~otlc,'.o, a 15,000 square foot bull. ding which ls for Mail Source Company
located in Chanhassen right now and needs to expand. You saw this site
approximately a y~;~.~' to ,~ y:eat' and a I~alf ago. Roman Ross came in and had a
plan fo~- an office bLtildJng on this site. That was never built.. This ls
basically, well quite :simJ. lar in a lot of respects to that. l'i~e current plan i~
well developed with p~'imary access to Park Place cul-de-sac. Truck loading is
conceal, ed at the rear of ti'me buildi~g where it faces onto a wetland... Drainage
and utility issues fmave been addressed. It's basically a slam dunk. Tfmis thing
has been laid out and it was l~id out with the origin~,]. Opus...and looked at
again with Roman's original request so...quite well. When the Planning
Commission s~u tl~i~; the b,lildimmg was a little bit further to the east. ~ don't
kl'mow if yOLt cal~ see the difference here... 'ffmo bm~ilding was closer to the
corne~'. The oi~.~.,, plan is basically the same bu~ what happened was that
additional soil work ups...corner contairmed some very poor soils so what they
did :La they shifted the buildi~g further to the uest...so from a landscaping
~tandpo.tnt it sort of goos .Like Lhat. There's ~omo additional landscaping...
but everything has shifted over further. They re,'~lly didn't change anything
from the Pl~,nnirmg Commission context. It's the plan they approved it's just a
little bit fk~rth~r over. And they took virtually a.tl the concerns that were
r~is~d by the Plannlng Commission and they were fairly minor after ue dealt with
them. Tl~ere was only one ! guess conceFn that. remains outstanding and I can't
classify it as a major one...subjective design type o'f issue. The building is
fairly plain but it's reasonably attractive. It fits .tnf. o other buildings in
the park. One of the things we dld ask ls that you have t hls east faclng ~all
heF~-~ that's a blarmk wall. We originally suggested tidal that be broken up
somehow ulth additional ulndows or wi'ma[ever., Additional windows dldn't flt into
tho plan so they're.; coming in with ].andscaping [o break it up, which is fine.
The only otttstandJn9, I hesitate 'to label it as an issue but a concern is the
¢icccnt stripe in the block that goes around the top of the building. It's being
proposed to be painted. We've been trying to get away from painted buildings
and painted I'mighlights...some other commonly bormded improvement to that. We
note ti~at the corners of the building do have some ceramic tile...and we're
looking for something like that. We're opel~ [o suggestions as to what that
uou]d be. t~e just want something permanent up tl~ere. Our experie~ce with
painted...is that. they don't last very well. In fact Cou,c.ilwoman Oimler raised
that concern with Roberts Automatlo,..so again that's really the only
outst,~nding issue. It's mentioned in the staff report. It's not in the
conditions. We ask you to consider that but...they're basically pretty minor.
We tried to work with the applicants to get tlmis in the ground as quickly as
po:~s.i, hie. ObvioLtsly they're fighting the clock. ~e would like to work with
thor, so u~e can get the soil corrections done anyway before everything freezes up
38
City Council Meeting - November 18, 199i
so they can get going on it early this spring. With that we are recommending
approval.
Mayor Chmiel: Paul, I have just a couple of questions. With the proposed
location and sliding it over because of the poor soil conditions, does it still
leave then additional room for expansion and being yet in conformance with the
setback requirements for what they may have at a later time? Second question
that I have is if the soil conditions are good there, is there any
considerations of those foundations that are being put in? Would they even
consider putting a second story on?
Paul Krauss: The site plan does leave some room for expansion. They have 85
feet from here to here. I'd have to look it up to be sure but I thlnk they have
a 30 foot setback from the building so there is room for expansion. Whether or
not they wanted a 2 story format, we can certainly do that. I don't know if
that meets with the applicants needs. My guess is it mlght not.
Mayor Chmiel: I'm just looking at it from the standpoint of saying expansion is
going to be needed at some time and would that facility, what I had said.
Paul Krauss: Yeah. There is room to expand the building to the east. It's not
as much room as there was originally but there is still room. I'm sorry, to the
west.
Mayor Chmiel: Yeah. Alright. Does anybody else have any specific questions?
Councilwoman Oimler: I guess on staff recommendation on page 6, the number 3. I
just wanted to know about the Rome offlce building. That we resclnd approval of
that if that's okay with those people.
Paul Krauss: We're rescinding the original?
Councilwoman Oimler: Yeah. The people that are involved.
Paul Krauss: We had...this was the site, or part of the site that was proposed
originally for the Emission Control testing st'ation and we had the same
condition on it then.
Councilwoman Oimler: Oh, okay. They agreed to that, okay.
Mayor Chmiel: Any other questions?
Councilman Workman: I'd move approval.
Mayor Chmiel: With the addition that Paul had mentioned?
Councilman Workman: With the addition that Paul had mentioned regarding the
strlpe and the outstanding conditions.
Councilwoman Dimler: Second.
Mayor Chmiel: With that we'll have a vote for a second and would you like to
come up?
39
November
Tom R>'an: Y(~ai~, l'cl ].ike to come Lip,
To,~ Ryan: Hy name is Tom Ryan and I .just, I talked to Charles at the break
.,. N,~;: hav~~. ~:~ couple mi~oi- ~l~gil~ee~'.~l~g issmes that rather than blanket agree
[o them as staled, I'd like the opportunity to talk to Charles with it. l
tho[~91~'[ we had tl~is worked out. One rega~'d:s an addi';,..onaJ catch basin and we'd
like to redesign the :;[o,'m >sewe~ system rather than add an additional catch
basi~, l'l~e :~eco~]d rega~'ds the bii:~minou~s and base thickl~ess in the parking lot
only. Not the drive areas. That I don't believe there's a specific ordinance
that staff j.c recomme~ding that we put J.n G inches of gravel and 3 inches of
bituminous. W[~ are going to work with the geotechnical firm. Provide a letter
to Charles but we only want to p~[l. in 4 inclleo of gravel, 2 ~nchee of bituminous
and ~ [ab,-ic mat undarnc~ath it which we feel will work better in the soil
condition~., that we have. I don't think the extra thickness is going to etop the
b~'eak up as much as the mat would.
Hayor Chmie.l.: I would say theft would be something that you should have
di::cus$.[on witl~ sLaff and a conclusion i:~ 'reached and thelr approval, flne. If
not, what. tl~:y have in theii' FepoFL would then be carried through.
Tom Ryan: I think we agree wittl that. I don't k'.qow that we have a problem. I
think the owner would like to address the .stFj. pe orl the building. We aren't
happy with the recommendation that we pul a glazed block band on the bulldlng
and tlll:~ .is Toln Zwickl~, the owrle',,' of Hail Source.
Tom Zwick].e: I'm Tom Zwick]e. I own Hail Source. I['s a business in
CIi,inhasmen. I I',op~.: Lo .,~m[:].oy ,i lot more people th,it are moving to Cl~anhassen.
Zt'::; a simple thing. It's not a technical thing lJke you've been discussing.
Not a mechanic,-~], i[.~:sL~e. It'e just going to be my li[tZe building with my
little th~ngs going on and my little stripe. I've got good architects. Good
contF;~ctors. Good consultants. O~e s~mnple little thing I'd like Mail SOUFCe to
have a painted stripe. When the ,'est o'f the building needs paint, so will the
:~tripf]. lO year:: from now, around the year' 2000 maybe our color will be
outdated, itany brown buildings t he~e days are being palnted gray. You put ina
ceramic t11~, you can't p,~int it. Tile re~ of the bu.i. ldlilg needs paint, we
might forego it for a couple of years. I ~hlnk lt's more of a personal 'thlng.
Hope to do a lot 'for tl~e City of Chanhassen. I gun, ss this is one little non-.
mechanical, aesthetic thim~g tha~ I would 11ke to have our blessing on.
Hayor Chnliel.'. Th,.it we can op.'.-~'n fo~' d:Lscu:ssion,
Councilman Workman: I g~ess exuept For the reasons di[~cussed, the paint's going
to peel and I guess J.t can be .~-epaim~ted but they start to look ,i ].ittle peeled.
Tom Ryan: VOLt understand tile entire building is a painted building. It's a
pa~l~ted, decor,'~tive, block building. The s~t'ipe is no different than any other
block building.
Hayo'r Chmiel' Now that block going in, is that going to have a paint cast into
tile Ce,lent in it.'-~-;l'[ or is it goll]g to be painted? Spray painted or what are
you saying?
dO
City Council Meeting - November 18, 1991
Tom Ryan: We're proposing to paint. What we envisioned was more of a gray on
gray. We don't envision a gray building with a green ceramic stripe on it. In
fact that isn't the building that we want to build. It's more of a tone on tone
and to say the stripe is going to fade or peel any differently than the rest of
the building or need more maintenance, I can't see that.
Mayor Chmiel: Well that's the question I was asking. Whether the entirety of
the block is going to be a color or you're going to spraypaint a gray block into
a pink color that you're going to put.
Councilman Workman: Is that typical?
Tom Ryan: Very typical. I would say, Roman's saying 99%. Clearly 80~ of the
buildings in this park have some sort of decorative accent.
Tom Zwickle: With the new rule we're supposed to have something other than
palnt, the only buildings in Chanhassen that are not palnted are out of
Chanhassen Lakes Park One and Two. That's where we are. We're proposing what
I conslder the last bulldlng in this particular park. We're golng to conform to
the standard that's been set over the last 15 years.
Mayor Chmiel: Paul that stripe, is that part of the ordinance portlon?
Paul Krauss: Mr. Mayor, the site plan ordinance says that there should be no
unadorned block and that palntlng doesn't count as an adornment .... exact
langauge but I'm paraphrasing it. The applicant raises a good point that the
bullding ltself ls belng painted. You know I also thlnk that...so that's
something we should address because I've had bad experience. I mean paint is
not forever. It's subject to the wlnd...
Mayor Chmiel: What about the rest of the buildings within the park. How many
of those buildings are?
Paul Krauss: Well we have buildings like PMT which I don't believe is painted.
Was that painted? I thought it was...block.
Don Ashworth: That City's is painted. The public works. That was that split
off block that was painted.
Tom Zwickle: Paisley Park is painted.
Mayor Chmiel: What I'm hearing is I'm hearing a lot of buildings are painted.
Councilwoman Dimler: It's consistent with the park.
Mayor Chmiel: Yeah, very much so. Within that particular area so I see that
not really as a given problem wlth this particular building. I thlnk if a
company is proud of what they're doing, the maintenance and upkeep is there. So
I guess, were you going to say something Mike?
Councilman Mason: I was just going to say in lieu of what Paul said about it's
not an lssue, only a minor concern. Well he didn't say mlnor. 3ust a concern
and with what else is going on around there, I guess at some point we have to go
41
Cil. x Cu~t~c~.l. Hsetin,.? -- Novemt)~l' 18, 1991
on tile applJ, car. t'~; good faith that if it needs ~ p~int tou¢:t~ '.mi), they'i1 do it.
And .if no'l, m,-',?bo wi-'.., ¢~rl go :some otller way. I'm fi. ne wilh a f.~;~int stripe there,
Councilman Workman: I ju.'_'-:[ bring up one examp].e. I live in the Meadows
Ap,'~t-tment:: 'r'i9111: now.
Cou~,~:ilman Wing: Those a'r':~: .~'Ltraclive. Those are nice.
COUJlCJlm~.~l-i Workl,~l~: l'enlpo',,-~t'ily l'nl living in the Headows. There's going to be
a b.i.g p,~i-'iy th~:,.r:.; New's Year Eve.
Todd G~.:rhardf.: We're tearing those (]uwl~ next
Co~ncilman Workman; And i. hey't'e wi~ite buildings with brick and they painted the
b'~'i¢:k and it look.s like c'r~p. I drive by 'LJ~ere every day. Now it's 6 years or
8 >'~ars: cJowll the i-oacJ bLJt it looks like crap. The owners aren't painting them
~tnd ti~ey'm'o ~(~t (Jo].ng anyti'min9 els~. This ~s ; discu~sLO~l th,'~t maybe doesn't
· involve th¢:~..~;e guys because.
Mayor Chmiel: That's sometlling tl~¢.~t shouldll't be painted.
Counoilnla~l Workman: Yeah, yOLI don't paint it. You know it just looks stupid
obviously this is a little different. Obviously but something 'to think
because i~. looks stupid.
Roman Roes: What's your point Tom?
Councilman Workman-' That we've got ~o get some sLandards that if we're going to
come itl ,:~d p~Zl~ Lh~tr entire bLtildings alld they"re block and everything else,
it's not going-i:o Las'[ Forever and it's going to look stupld and then.
Paul KraLtsS: I thlnk 'rom bri~g:s up ,'~ good point. Wher, we're looking at new
industrial, p,~rkc, i:hls one has been built out since the mid ?O's but we're
.looklng al. star~ing ail over again with t~o or three new industrial parks. Is
th.is sometl~tng th~L t~e should look at for those?
Mayor Chmiel: I think new ones coming in, maybe we should look at that but if
you're going to be corlsistent to what's going to be existlng in an existing
buildings painted ulthln the area, I can't see puttlng in another bullding that
can't be painted.
Councilman Wing' But T. thought we had some architectural standards cranking up.
How did we gel ~t block building painted?
Paul Krattss: The ordinance was changed to say that we can't have plain,
unadorned ci~de'r' block, which this isl~'t. This is... They're keeping with the
letter of the. l~w. What the ordinance strictly prohibits is if this was a plain
bJ.~ck buil('l.T~'~u: just coming and p¢:t].lml, il~g ~ oo~lple of stFip.';s ol] a plain block
building does not make it qualify. That's as far as the ordinance goes.
42
City Council Heeting - November 18, 1991
Councilman Wing: Well I think that the Planning Commission, as I was at the
meeting and in reading the Minutes, tried to add some quality here and assure
some long term quality. The general facing of this building was going to be
enhanced by this glazed block. I think it was a good recommendation and I think
you recommended that and I'll support your position.
Councilman Workman: Well I guess that's discussion that's probably for the long
term. I don't know that we're going to be able to do that here so I guess I
would withdraw my stipulation that this building have a ceramic stripe.
Councilwoman Dimler: I had the second on that. Yeah, I'll take that as a
friendly amendment.
Mayor Chmiel: Can I now have an approval?
Councilman Workman: I moved it.
Councilwoman Dimler: First and second.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay, any further discussion?
Councilman Workman moved, Councilwoman Dimler seconded to approve the
Subdivision Replat ~91-14 of Lot 3, Block 1, Chanhassen Lakes Business Park into
two parcels and Site Plan Review )91-6 as shown on the revised site plan dated
November 6, 1991, subject to the following conditions:
1. The applicant must provide detailed drawings of material to be used for
screening rooftop equipment. This material must be compatible to the
bullding material. The applicant must also submlt a detalled drawing for
the locatlon of the trash enclosure, screened with materials compatible
wlth the building. Alternatively, the applicant may submlt plans for
internal trash storage to staff for approval, in such event no exterior
trash storage shall be allowed.
2. The applicant shall submit a detailed drawing of the proposed sign. A
separate sign permit ls required.
3. Rescind approval of Site Plan ~89-9 Rome Office Building.
4. The applicant shall obtain and comply with all conditions of the Watershed
District permit.
5. A revised grading and utility plan showing the following:
a. Size, type and elevation of storm sewer lines and catch basins.
b. Add catch basin in driveway access to catch parking runoff before
draining into Park Place.
c. Incorporate City's typical industrial/commercial driveway detail
(attached).
d. Fill existing ditch along Park Place with storm sewer extension.
43
C.'Ltx Council Meetil~g .- November 18, 1~1
Install hay hal. es ahd/..')'r' silt 'fence aroused catch basins until the
b.itumJ_no[l.s j.~ .i. nst,~.lled.
Seed or sod all disturbed area (the City's boulevard must be sodded).
7. It is suggested that the p,'-~'king lot pavement be designed to a minimum of 6
inches of Class II gravel ~lt[i 3 lnches of blt~mlnous.
,.q_ Connection to city $'i. of-m .'~,'-.~ue.i' systems shall be built to city standards.
City staff shall ins~pect and approve the storm sewer connection prlor to
oxtensio~: i~o the :site. The applicant ~hall escrow $500.00 to guarantee
proper insta].laLion and payment of army inspection fees incurred by the
city.
Install a fl'r'e ilydrant north of the driveway on Park Place.
10. The -~rea in thc southwest corne~' of the site that will be landscaped shall
lnclude at ].east .5 trees. These trees chall be located in the sodded/
s~:ecl~;(I area illust'rate, d on the landscaping pi. an.
All voted in favor except Councilman Wing who opposed and the motion carried
with a vote of 4 to 1.
i-i~yor Chmiel: Oh, one o'LheY ~.lUeS'tion that I did have on that. I noticed there
u~n't a PE :slgnt:(l ol~ Ll~at particular dYawil~g. The signature is not contained
in that and I'd like to see that done before that gets a permit. Okay.
AHENDHENT TO CHAPTER 13 OF CITY CODE ADDING NOISE REGULATIONS, FINAL READING.
H;.~yo'r Cl'lmiel: T' think we've discussed this last time. Any other discussions on
,anything f'com allyOll~;? ! want you to know that I did get so~e additional.
information and it did co:-_-:t me 23 cents more because postage was due.
CounciLman Wing: if Hr. Havr can assure me that this is a good deal and
enforceable and it':; going to t]e]p him in his efforts to improve our city,
would move approval of amendment to Chapter 13, City Code adding noise
regu].at
Councilman Workman: Seceded.
Cou~cilman Mason: And I was just going to say.
HayoY Chmiel: tie was just noddiilg his head :~o we'll take that as a yes. Any
other discussion?
Councilwoman gimlet: I gues.-.". I'd like to go on the record as tlaving mentioned.
I dld Forget to mention it and I dld caJ. 1 Scott on it. I wanted ~.o make sure
that 'the Farmers are exempt from thls ordinance ~nd they are by State Statute so
i.l~ey"re takel~ care of but they do harve.st sometimes all night.
Scott Hart: From normal farming activiLles I might add.
City Council Meeting - November 18, 1991
Mayor Chmiel: Especially if they're pumpkins.
Councilwoman Oimler: Right. I just wanted the farmers of the town to know
they're exempt.
Councilman Wing moved, Councilman Workman seconded to approve Amendment to
Chapter 10, City Code by adding Noise Regulations. All voted in favor and the
mot/on carried unanimously.
Councilman Workman: I move to adjourn.
Mayor Chmiel: No, one more. Hold on.
Councilwoman Dimler: Item 10.
Councilman Wing: We removed item 10.
Mayor Chmiel: 10 is part of the budget so that will be discussed. Now before
we adjourn, we w111 set t hls up then for November 25th at 6:30 in the Councll
Chambers for item number 10 as well as item number 3.
Councilwoman Dimler: Is it legal to have that without announcement in the
paper?
Mayor Chmiel: Well, we did have it as a public hearing and we tabled it to
then. I think it is.
Don Ashworth: As it falls in, we'll notlfy. Tom dld tell me, the other Tom. If
we get a photo to you you'll try getting it
Tom (Villager Newspaper): I'll call first thing in the morning... I should
know fairly early yes or no...
Mayor Chmiel: That's legal basically.
Elliott Knetsch: You had the 25th as a back up date.
Don Ashworth: It was in our prevlous notice.
Councilwoman Oimler: Okay, I just want to make sure it's legal.
Mayor Chmiel: Me too. I don't want it to look llke we're sllpplng by somebody.
Okay, any other business?
Councilman Wing: For the Fire Department Relief Association amendment, is that
tied to the budget?
Mayor Chmiel: That's part of the budget, total dollars that are belng
approporiated. I think sitting down as I've done with Schlenk and reviewing
what we're doing, we're st111 gettlng excellent fire protection just a 11ttle
more coverages but yet it's not far beyond any other city around. In fact it
st111 is.
45
t';~.t_X C:ol.tnc'L'~ M,~.:-:Lj. iiO -. Nou,'..,mb.,-:r LB, L99L
Councilman Workman moved, CouncJlu~man DJmler secol~ded to adjourn the meet/ng.
All voted in favor and the motion c~rried. The meeting u~s adjourned at 10:35
Su[~m.[tted by flon :':sl~o,'-'tl'l
CiLx Pl,~nager
~.~ y (1 p h ' II~
46