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1989 03 13CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MARCH 13, 1989 Mayor Chmiel called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m.. The meeting was opened with the Pledge to the Flag. COUNCILMEMBERS PRESENT: Mayor Chmiel, Councilman Boyt, Councilman Workman and Councilman Johnson COUNCILMEMBERS ABSENT: Councilwoman Diml'er STAFF PRESENT: Don Ashworth, Stephen Hanson, Jo Ann Olson, Gary Warren, Todd Gerhardt, Lori Sietsema and Roger Knutson APPROVAL OF AGENDA: Councilman Boyt moved, Councilman Johnson seconded to approve the agenda with the amendment of moving item 7 after Visitor's Presentation. All voted in favor and the motion carried. CONSENT AGENDA: Councilman Johnson moved, Councilman Workman seconded to approve the following Consent Agenda items pursuant to the City Manager's reconxnendations: b. Resolution #89-30: Resolution in Support of State-Aid Road Funds. c. Resolution #89-31: Approve Contract Amendment No. 2 for the Downtown Redevelopment Phase I Improvement Project No. 86-11A. h. Acceptance of Gift of $10,200.00 to Park and Recreation Department from Chaska Lion's Club and Authorize Letter of Thank You. k. Approval of Con~nunication Equipment for City Hall and Fire Station. n. Approval of Fee Increase for Assessment Searches. o. Accounts Payable. p. City Council Minutes dated February 27, 1989 Park and Recreation Con~nission Minutes dated February 28, 1989 All voted in favor and the motion carried. A. APPROVE PLANS AND SP[I]IFICATIONS FOR LAREDO DRIVE/CARVER BEACH ROAD TRAILS AND AUTHORIZE ADVERTISING FOR BIDS. Councilman Workman: I guess I removed this because I know the Mayor has some con~nents too and probably more than I do. I have just some basic notes as I went through and I understand that, according to Don Ashworth, in reading through the packet, there really isn't a whole lot of negative feedback in regards to that. The problem I have with a lot of it is on the fourth page of the packet and the memo from Lori. I guess I'm just a little disappointed because it was originally estimated that this would cost us $25,0~0.00 and it is Ci.ty Counc~ 1 Meeting - March 13, 1989 now going to cost us $83,ggg.gg. I guess I'm not qu.ite how the $25,~g.00, what it was based on. There's a note that it was based on trail construction in undeveloped areas and d~d not take into consideration the cost of restoration, etc.. It really missed the mark and in that sense, we're having to pull an awful lot of funds from another area wh].ch I'm not thrilled about either. I guess those are my only real con~nents. It sounds like it's a trail system that's needed. They are two hot areas for safety. Lor]., maybe you can answer. How did we ever get that $25,~gg.~? Lor~. Sietsema's answer was not audible on 'the tape. Councilman Workman: But other than that, we've got all costs covered and as far as where they're all comJ. ng and that, nobody's going to be assessed. Lori Sietsema: Nobody's going to be assessed... CounciLman Workman: Can you maybe give me a quick sure, nary of what, in an overall view, the public reaction has been. People directly involved. I know I've read through an awful lot of it. It appears as though it's positive. Lori Sietsema: The two trails, the combination of road and trail...requested by the residents .... traffic coming down the street, down that hill and the sight lines aren't that great... On Laredo it was also...a busier street: and no longer a safe street for chJ ldren to be walking on... Joe Felt: I do live along that trail and ! did not go to these meetings due to the fact that ]_n actuality, they changed the proposal from their original plans. Mayor Ckmiel: Could you please come up to the podium and just give your and your address please? Jeff Felt: My name Js Jeff Felt. I live at 895 Carver Beach Road and I did get a mailing stating the plan that originally was going to run the sidewalk up Carver Beach Road and I didn't attend the meeting be_cause the plan that I had read called for a crosswalk at the west end of the park. At the meeting, that was changed without notice to us. Today I took off work, and I live there on Carver Beach Road at the corner of Nez Perce and Carver Beach and '[ have two children myself and I walked around the park personally. I'm not a surveyor or anything but I looked at it and from the point of safety, I do believe that they should not have a crosswalk at the west end of the park. But also, being a resident that lives there on a day to day basis, there used to be a two way stop sign and you only stoped on Nez Perce and the people that came back from down by the lake, they come up over the hill at Carver Beach Road and they're going excessively fast and there was several accidents there. Finally someone ran into a police officer which prompted them to put up a four way stop sign. live there day to day and there's still accidents that happen there. I went up and down the road and I have estimates of the yardage and everything and personally I think that there should be a crosswalk approximately in the middle of the park which gives a viewpoint of approximately 8g yards up to the stop sign and also gives 15g yards to the top of Penamint Lane where there's a hill which most of the residents were concerned about so I think that would be the widest safety spectrum for all people to use for a crossing. This ].s not proposed in the plan. This is just something that I came up with and I realize it's coming up at a late matter. The other half of this story is that this City Council MeetS.rig - March 13~ 1989 would not ~nterfere with my yard and fill up Gossard's yard which was the two affected yards that the plans were altered with notification. I just felt that after I looked at it and really thought about where the kids are going to cross a~d everything, that if you came to the end of the woods, I don't know if you're familiar with this part of the road. If you came to the end of the woods where the Phillip Gossard land starts, that's about the midway point of the park and if there was a crosswalk there, I feel that there would be a very minimal chance of people crossing and having danger of going across. Like I said before, there's people on a day to day basis that come through there and run that stop sign or they come up, slow down to 15 mph and go through. I personally feel that it's a fairly dangerous intersection myself. Lori Sietsema: Staff did notify everybody that lived along Carver Beach Road prior to each of the Park and Recreation Con~nission meetings that were held on this item. The other thing is that the residents in the area, in trying to accon~nodate their needs...a crosswalk and a stop sign... Councilman Johnson: Lori, at what point in the plans did the sidewalk get extended all the way to Nez Perce? At the very last meeting? Lori Sietsema: We talked about it at the second to the last meeting and it was finalized at the last meeting. Councilman Johnson: Was there anything noticed, on the last notice to go out that told people, was there any indication that the sidewalk was going all the way to Nez Perce or did the blueprints or did any drawings that go with it not show that? Lori Sietsema: I'm not sure...staff report went out. I'd have to look that up as to what exactly went out... Councilman Boyt: Just looking at the ~nutes, it w~uld appear that that decision was made in December and you then adjusted your cost figures for the February 14th public discussion of the matter. So you didn't make that decision at your last meeting. Lori Sietsema: It was finalized at the last meeting... Councilman Boyt: But you don't know if we sent any notice to this gentleman that it was now going to go in his front yard? Lori Sietsema: Again, I'd have to review the files and find out what exactly was sent out... Councilman Boyt: It would seem to me in looking through this that the critical issue was the controlled intersection. The public conxnented that they had tried for quite some time to get a stop sign at I believe it was Redwing. True to form, it didn't meet the engineering criteria for a stop sign so they didn't pursue it further. That might be one possibility. Maybe they should pursue that further and maybe that makes more sense. What I'd like to see the Council do is give approval to the basic funding of this project and let's take the time to go back and do it right in terms of checking out the issue about where the crossing best fits. C~ry wants to conxnent on that. City Council Meeting - March 13, 1989 Gary Warren: I guess just so Council .~.s aware. We did take the effort to have speed checks done and to have traffic counts done and to look at the warrant criteria for that intersection. It was our impressJ, on, first of all the warrants clearly did not meet that cr~.ter~a and secondly it was pretty evident from the discuss~.ons from the neighborhood that the concern was to control speed and as we've gone over time and time again, stop signs are not to control speed and it can be a disservice ~.n that regard. I guess if you would want to go back and further look at that, I don't know that there's any other engineering aspects that we could address. Councilman Boyt: Gary, I agree with you and the Public Safety Commission is looking at controlling speed in that area as well as other parts of the City. I don't disagree with you about that. Mayor Chmiel: I'd just like to put a couple things J.n here. From what I undestand and I talked to one of the residents, they indicated too that they originally started out this whole process by indf.catJ.ng they wanted a stop sign and that's when they looked at the sidewalk system from my understanding. Is that right Lori? Lori Sietsema's answer was not audible on the tape. Mayor Chmiel: Prior to the November and December meetings. Has anyone really looked at ~nat Jeff has indicated? You're saying a control]_ed .~.ntersection as opposed to being something in the center. That 8g yards whereby it'd be located within the middle of the park. Does that have any merit Gary? Gary Warren: We had initially looked at that so we could save trail expense in not havin9 to take the trail all the way to the intersection so that was our inJ. tial thrust was to consider it at that point. Then through the discussions and neighborhood ~nput, the ~.ntersection appeared to have a lot more value because of the fact that is the arrival place that a driver expects to see people crossing if they're going to cross. A m~d-block intersection, I'm sure we could dra9 up records that would show that the accident incident of having a crossin9 where drivers typically do not anticipate a crossing is less safe than at a controlled intersection. Mayor Chmiel: The other question that I had too Lori, as I looked at the original estimate from $25,g0g.g0, the $82,95g.gg, which is a 3:1 ratio and of course the concrete over the bituminous is probably that difference ~.n cost. Have we had any other discussions with anyone else regarding this to see if that's really ballpark figures or how assured are we th.~.s is the dollars for the building dollar expenditure that we have? Lori Sietsema: I think Gary can answer that better. Gary Warren: The unit cost that the engineers applied, $2.~ per square foot for the concrete, I guess I looked at those when they were submitted. I can't take exception with his units and providing he did his take offs properly on the quantities which they don't seem unreasonable either, that I thJ.nk his costs are pretty accurate. The engineering testing and inspection, he's got 23% overhead in the project. The project should be pretty straight forward. I would think that that's probably a conservatively high estimate there. The bidding process really will be the test of the putting here when we see the actual bids that City Council Meet~ng - March 13~ 1989 come in, the competitive bidding. We've had very favorable bids thJ. s construction season already. As you'll see later on with Lake Lucy Road watermain and Audubon Road, we were $170,000.00 lower than the engineer's estimate on a $600,000.00 project. ~aings are very competitive right now so I would expect that these estimates are conservatively high. Mayor Chmiel: Of course we have that ability to reject any and all bids Jif they're too... Gary Warren: That's correct. Councilman Boyt: I'd like to see us, thinking of bids, reconsider this advertising 3 times in the Villager and twice in the Construction Bulletin. I would think we know who's probably going to bid on th~s project and we can run it once as we're required to in the Villager and send a bid sheet out to the people who typically bid on our street and trail construction. Gary Warren: Yes, normally we do. I didn't catch the bid notice until after they had gone out but normally we do only run it once. If it's over $100,000.00, then it has to be run twice. Councilman Boyt: So we could do that in this case? Gary Warren: Yes. Resolution ~89-32: Councilman Boyt moved, Councilman Johnson seconded to approve Plans and Specifications for Laredo Drive/Carver Beach Road road trails and authorize advertising of bids. All voted in favor and the motion carried. F. FINAL PLAT APPROVAL FOR MINNEWASHTA HIGHLANDS, SCHWABA-WINCHELL. Councilman Workman: I f~.nally went out there today and met with Mr. Jim Borchart who's in the audience and hopefully he'll add some corm~ents to this and his now soon to be neighbor Mr. Geissen who I met out there. Just stakJ, ng it up out there. It's a real quagmire out there to say the least. This project only begins to seem to lend itself to the problem of where water is supposed to be. Where the drainage ponds, there are some holding ponds that are supposed to be. Maybe Jim can give you some more and I can fill in as I see. Jim Borchart: My name is Jim Borchart. I live at 7331 Minnewashta Parkway. Our biggest problem out there is the Maple Ridge development. I've-written to the Village about it and my attorney has written to the Village. Then when I received this information that they were going to try and drain this Winchell development, the Minnewashta Highland into the Maple Ridge, it just doesn't seem conceiveable. My house is one of the lower houses along with Jim Jason who is my neighbor. He just finished his. Unfortunately, it seems that all the water is going to run downhill and collect right in our backyards. What I'd like to see done if possible would be a sufficient holding pond put on Minnewashta Highlands. On Maple Ridge, the holding pond has been destroyed and that I would like to see rebuilt and the water drain directly into the lake instead of through Jason's property and my property. Then I feel we could handle the water. We're dumping approximately 4 or '5 12 to 14 inch culverts to one 12 inch City Council MeetJ.ng -March 13, 1989 culvert. Although there is an area in Jason's property that it is a wetland, or he said he was going to leave it that way. He's out of town and the neighbor to the south of me is out of town. Neither one of them were able to attend this meeting. If we could drain and relieve some of the pressure on that culvert running underneath my property and we get two decent holding ponds, we_ would probably be able to accorrmodate the water running through our property. Councilman Boyt: Is your property that middle lot? Jim Borchart: Yes. Councilman Workman: In lookJ.ng at the holding pond out there today, now I brought it up probably a month ago on that, apparently on the east side of this new development there's supposed to be a berm there right? Which probably would -take care of some of the runoff that would go directly down straight east but there's supposed to be runoff on the northeast side right? Into the road? Not Minnewashta Parkway but the private drive there? Councilman Boyt: I don't remember there being a berm. We talked about putting a berm up and decided that wasn't feasible. Councilman Johnson: It's not a continuous benn. Steve Hanson: It's ongelating but the berm that we're talking about is simply a ridge for the drainage. To keep the drainage from going east. Councilman Workman: So then the water is going to have to go somewhere here. Now the ideal place is into the cul-de-sac and into the road or down ~%e hole there right? But there's going to be drainage, or expected drainage down the private drive towards the lake. Gary Warren: The ].ntent ].s not to allow the drainage, the site splits it's drainage now and it will with the proposed grading plan. The drainage that goes to the west ].s proposed to be conveyed through the gravel drive or the pos]ti, ye drainage to the north through the gravel drive up into the catch basins on Maple Ridge. Councilman Workman: Okay, now when I was out there today, the way it looks now, that is an impossibility and there's no way that the water from this development is going to get into this holding pond just south of th].s house. It's an impossibility. There's a 5 foot berm there. So what's happening is i't's all going down the new Jason driveway which is full of silt and water. Apparently what's happened up there in Maple Ridge, as each home was built, everybody kind of dumped J.n on that holding pond so we've got a problem right there. This house that's just adjacent to it and to the north is extremely close to that holding pond. If they dig that out, I guess that's not the issue. Gary Warren: That pond needs to be cleared out and I guess that's part of the problem. Councilman Workman: If that pond is cleared out, would a slight wedge be cut into this north side of this road that would allow the water coming down that hill to go over? It just doesn't look possible. City Counc~.l Meeting - March 13~ 1989 Gary Warren: Bill Engelhardt did the detail work for the developer on it. Bill Engelhardt: My name is Bill Engelhardt. We worked on the drainage plan and tried to accommodate the ~ssues that the Planning Commission had previously address in regards to the drainage and the landscaping. As I said J.n my letter to the Council, the major issue is the drainage. ~nere's no question about that and we had tried to work with the City to accommodate some of the concerns that we have with the Maple Ridge subdivision together with this subdivision. In other words, make the two of them work together. The Maple Ridge subdivision had a problem where the pond had been filled in and was not constructed properly. We went out and reviewed that and we reviewed the drainage calculations that were used to size the pond and we found that the pond is in fact, the way it was shown on their plan, correctly sized. There was some additional capacity but it needs to be cleaned out. It needs to be graded to the contours that were shown on the original plan. Then we looked at the ponding. The ponding would be needed for the Minnewashta Heights subdivision to see if that pond could in fact accommodate their ponding because the Minnewashta Heights subdivision, when you look at a before and after, pre-develo~ent and after development, you're talking about a very small ~mount of ponding needed for the type of runoff that you have that will be generated off of that subdivision. It seined to us that if we could get as much of the drainage through that Maple Ridge pond as possible, that we would solve two problems. One the problem that the Minnewashta Heights subdivision has one that the Maple Ridge has. Your comment about trying to get it past that driveway to the north, I fully agree with you that it's going to be somewhat difficult but I don't think it's something that can't be done and we don't have the real specific details on that particular driveway. When we were out there doing some of the survey work, we just couldn't get at it and get the right shots but I feel very comfortable that we can work that driveway in and get that water up into the Maple Heights subdivision. Be it cutting aberm or cutting through the berm and doing other work that has to be done in that ponding area by cleaning that pond out. Jim Borchart: What are you going to do with the water when you dump it in? My property can' t hold it... Bill Engelhardt: Yes, I understand that. Jim Borchart: We have to do something. We just can't be dumping water and dumping water. It doesn't make ~ny sense. Bill Engelhardt: No. We agree with that. That certainly is a concern. If you look at the way the Maple Ridge subdivision was designed, how the pond was designed, it has a 12 inch outflow pipe and it has a baffled structured on it and that's to control the outflow through there. Now I don't know, maybe in combination with the City and with your property we have to do something to increase your pipe through your property or whatever, that may have to be done. Jim Borchart: Don't even think about putting a culvert across my road. That's going to take a Court order. This man here has a problem with...building a house and Maple Ridge where the drainfield comes... Bill Engelhardt: We intended to come around and come into the catch basins in the front. We think there's enough grade through there. There's also, I guess City Council Meeting -March 13, 1989 there's two ways of doing it. One is to go around or one is go through the backyards. There are drainage easements and utility easements across the back yards of those property. Jim Borchart: Utility easements... Bill Engelhardt: Normally they're written as drainage and utility easements. If it isn't a drainage easement, then we can't do it. We're going to have to go around. Jim Borchart: Why can't you go from the Maple Ridge holding pond... I had the DNR out there and they said I am not legally obligated to drain that area. You want to tear up my driveway. You want to tear up my lawn. You've got straight shots down to the lake but nobody ever grades it off. Bill Engelhardt: If that's the easiest way to accommodate the drainage, we have no problem with that either. Our intent was to try and get it into those ponds to reduce the flow through there. The other coernent that we previously heard was that the void is taking as much drainage to the east as possible. Jim Borchart: There is a culvert there and if you have sufficient ponding, there's a culvert running underneath both of those driveways. Bill Engelhardt: Well we can try that. If that would serve the neighborhood better, try and pond it but again, the ponding that you're talking about, if you're going to go by the calculations to determine ~fna't the ponding size, you're going to find that's very, very small. It isn't even going to do anything. What's going to happen is that it's all just going to go directly into the lakes. So if we can get it around the corner and get it into that ,_Maple Ridge pond, I think we're better off. Jim Borchart: Why wouldn't you be better off...culvert there. See, I'm not an engineering but I do know water. Bill Engelhardt: You probably know more about it than I do because you live out there. Jim Borchart: When you've got water in your basement, you know water flows downhill. You've got a culvert running both driveways, a 12 inch culvert, going from the Highlands to the east. If you utilize that, get some way from the Maple Ridge ponding area to the lake, you would be looking at a 20 inch culvert underneath there to take that water. Originally there was no water. Bill Engelhardt: Well we can certainly try to work with Mr. Borchart. Jim Borchard: Why tear up everything just for the sake of tearing it up? Our major concern is, I'm talking for the three neighbors..., we would much rather have erosion control than one ponding area. Bill Engethardt: If that's what the neighborhood would like, we're certainly agreeable to that. To work something out with them. I know there are some problems down there and they need to be addressed. I think with this subdivision we can get these addressed. City Council Meeting - March 13~ 1989 Jim Borchart: Mr. Jason can not get into his house. Right now his driveway and yard is the holding pond for Maple Ridge. Bill Engelhardt: There is a problem with Maple Ridge. Mayor Chmiel: My suggestion probably would be, Mr. Borchart, that if we have our staff with Mr. Bill Engelhardt, pull together the information, acceptance to the particular area, then I would say that that should be resolved. Hopefully. Councilman Boyt: But you're not proposing to run anything directly into the lake? If you come up with that conclusion, you best come back to us. Bill Engelhardt: No. I guess that was our original ~ntent was not to and I guess if they're saying we should, and I hope this is right, drain across... Jim Borchart: Run into a ponding area, come out of a baffle and then relieve the pressure that's going through my property and...down to the lake. Bill Engelhardt: We have to go into a ponding area then because like I say, we're not going to be running anything directly into the lake because then we're asking for... Gary Warren: The intent of getting this drainage, as Bill had laid out, up to the City's pond, was to provide the sediment removal for the lake and I guess we try to do that wherever we can. No matter what is done with the Minnewashta subdivision, the City intends to and will restore our drainage capacity and retention capacity in the Maple Ridge pond. That needs to be done as a minimal and we also need to look at the downstream culverts, the 12 inch culverts that go to the lake because I think that they have silted in over the years, it wouldn't surprise me in the least and those needs to be restored to their hydraulic capacities and s~etimes those make some big improvements in some of these upstream ponding problems. I think a combination of Bill and the City's interest here and getting with the neighbors, I think that this ought to be looked at again and possibly a combination of the direct piping and s~me additional ponding would be the solution. Councilman Workman: Mr. Borchart understands the labyrinth of culverts and everything under there. I had a half an hour with him today and it was a lot of now, wait a minute. Explain this a little so it's a little complicated but I guess I'd just like to make a motion. I thought I guess the last time that we kind of sent this back or we didn't approve it, that we were going to get some of this discussion going. We haven't done that yet but to make the motion, I guess not to approve this at this point but get the parties together tomorrow morning if they have to so we can get this thing all worked out so everybody knows. We can get the conditions and recommendations to us next time, in two weeks, so we can then stamp approval on everybody because I think everybody knows what direction we should head into and if we can get that on paper so we can approve it. Bill Engelhardt: I guess we'd ask to be tabled for 2 weeks. We have no problem with that and we'll work with the homeowners up there because they want to be good neighbors. ~City Council Meeting - March 13, 1989 Councilman Boyt: I would propose that we not table it but instead we pass it with that as a condition. I mean no one anticipates a problem from what you've said so ~ny should it come back to us if everyone agrees to the resolution, staff and their engineer, and let's give them permission to proceed. CounciLman Workman: Well I said the last time I had this tabled it didn't work out and I would just as soon see it tabled at this point. That's a shorter version of my motion but I think this is fooling around with too much stuff with too many neighbors and too much drainage to just shove it out the door and say okay take care of it and then we don't have much to do with it. Bill Englehardt: You have the say on the final plat. In other words, if we don't get this resolved, the Mayor can't sign, the City isn't going to sign the final plat. You have the last say. It sounds like Mr. Borchart, between he and t we can work out a solution I'm sure of that and the developer, the owner of the property is willing to acconmodate those concerns. It doesn't do them any good to have neighbors so if it would be possible to proceed with it, I can assure you that we would work with the neighbor and you would have the final control that they couldn't sign the final plat until we were ready to go with it. Councilman Johnson: Tom, when we place a condition on a plat approval, we are saying that the Mayor, when he signs that plat, he's signing off that those conditions have been met so basically we're tossing this on Don and Don and Gary and Bill and everybody else actually to meet those approvals but then the final John Henry that goes on there is DOn Ch~iel. That's the last thing and Don can withhold that if he is not satisfied that the conditions were met, he can bring it back to us at that point. I'm willing either way. Mayor Chmiel: I think it could be worked either way but of course I'm not going to approve that until I get your word and your neighbors indicating that it has been reached and a conclusion is there and that everything is to the satisfaction. I think Bill is willing to do that working with you to come up with it. So if we can proceed with this and if it's in agreement with Mr. Borchart, we'll go that particular direction. I'd like to involve you. Then you will get back to me personally and let me know prior to my signing? Jim Borchart: Yes. Bill Engelhardt: I can guarantee you that we'll work with him because they're going to need that signature. Councilman Johnson: So do we need to add a condition (i)? Mayor Cb_miel: Yes. A condition (i) should be put in. Councilman Johnson: I don't know how to word it. Councilman Workman: Can I include the cleaning of the holding pond in this? Mayor ~mnmiel: Sure. Councilman Workman: Okay, I'd like to add (i) that one of the conditions being that the City will pursue the cleaning of the holding pond on Maple Ridge. City Council Meeting - March 13, 1989 Mr. Geissen made a statement that could be heard on the tape- Gary Warren: But you're south of the Maple Ridge subdivision? Lot 13 right on the corner? Okay. Have you suhnitted a grading plan yet to the City? That would be the process basically is to submit a grading plan to the City and then we'll look at that as a part of the drainage concepts and everything else out there. Councilman Johnson: Have you submitted a building permit application? Gary Warren: Part of that package would be a site grading plan. It sounds like it would be wise for everybody. Typically it's not critical on all applications. Councilman Workman: Okay, so condition (i), the City of Chanhassen will look to clear the holding pond on Maple Ridge and then (j), the affected parties, including Mr. Geissen I guess, come to a working solution on the drainage isSue. Councilman Johnson: Do you want to put in anything about pursuing the outlet towards the lake or whatever? Councilman Workman: I think that's included. Bill Engelhardt: That's something that we'll have to work out. Mayor Chmiel: And Gary will look at that from the City. Councilman Johnson: Are you making that as a motion then? I'll second it. Councilman Workman moved, Councilman Johnson seconded to approve the Final Plat for Minnewashta Highlands for Schwaba-Winchell subject to the following conditions: 1. Execution of a development contract to include the following specific conditions: a. Provide necessary financial sureties. b. Applicant apply and obtain permits from Watershed District, DNR and other appropriate agencies prior to construction. c. Construction on Lake Minnewashta Parkway shall be prohibited. d. A grading, drainage and erosion control plan for each lot will be required as part of the building permit application process. e. Ail private access shall be served by ~]e internal cul-de-sac. f. The accessory building on Lot 3 shall be removed. g. Landscaping along the rear of Lots 1-3 shall be installed ~mmediately after the over lot grading is completed. 11 C~,ty Council Meet~.ng - March 13, 1989 h. Approval based on plans stamped "Received February 3, 1989". i. The City of Chanhassen will look to clear the holding pond on Maple Ridge. j. The affected parties, including Mr. Geissen and Mr. Borchart, come to a worki_ng solution on the drainage issue. All voted in favor and the motion carried. G. ORDINANCE k~ENDMING CITY CODE CONCERNING ACCEPTANCE OF GIFTS, FIRST READING. CounciLman Johnson: This is one that we're requesting that all gifts in excess of $5g.g0 or greater can only be accepted with the approval of the City Council. When I start looking at the 4th of July celebrations and the businesses that donate into that and everything else, $5g.00 is far too low of a number. What I've got a suggestion is that we move t_hat up to $590.00 and strike the word greater and also say $5gg.gg or which has an annual operating and maintenance cost of over $25g.gg. We talk about operating and maintenance costs. I th~.nk if somebody's giving us that's going to start draining our operating and ~naintenance cost, we need to look at that also. But I think $5g.g0 is a very routine type of a gift. In fact I think once you get up to the $500.00 level, it's starting becoming something that a Board, if this was a business, a Board of Directors or something might want to look at but $5g.00 is just peanuts. Staff should be trusted enough to accept a $5g.g0, in fact I think they should be trusted enough to accept a $500.00. At Honeywell we don't need to get upper level approvals for purchases up to $1,000.00. Most everybody has to sign off at that point. I debated going to $1,g~0.00 on this but compromised at $5~0.g0 because it's easier to draw a zero in. Councilman Workman: Jay, I' 11 meet you halfway at $25g. 00. Mayor Chmiel: Let me as]< a question. Roger, in preparing this you ca~ae up with that $5g.00 fee or monetary value of $50.0g. Give me your explanation? Roger Knutson: It reflected the notes I took at your meeting. That was the n~er that was used there. Councilman Boyt: I'd like to con~nent. I don't know if David's still out there but I thought your letter, your editorial a few weeks ago didn't reflect the facts at all when you said we needed this policy. I think this is an ordinance the City doesn't need. I think if you go back over the history of the city and you look at Chanhassen's record for accepting gifts and how we've done that, that until we got into the controversy about whether or not we have a police department, thins never would have been an issue and I still don't think the issue is accepting gifts. I think this is just one more hurdel, if you will. I can't imagine a non-profit group going to the effort of raising money for the City and having the City turn it down. I can't imagine that but what if you did that? What if you were in a group, Chanhassen Women of Today, and you wanted to donate $250.00 to the public safety effort in Chanhassen so they could go out and educate kids. Can you conce].ve of the City Council turning that down? I think that this is inappropriate. I think what we're really saying is, the City Administrator should use good judgment about what gifts are accepted by the City 12 City Council Meeting - March 13j 1989 and if there's a question, it should certainly come to the Council and I think if you look back through the Minutes over the past years, these decisions have always come to the Council with a courtesy. But to put it in as a requirement is simply overkill and $250.00 is a ridiculously small amount in today's world. If it's even reason today, 2 or 3 years from now it will be way out of line and why put this hurdle in place when all we' re really saying is, the City Manager should use good judgment in how gifts are accepted. So I'm opposed to it. Councilman Workman: If it's something that can be accepted and is going to be accepted for the education of children or something, this is not a hurdle at all. But perhaps you're right that it's not an issue of monetary value but sometimes, as we've seen in two instances this winter already, gift giving can be construed as politics. By giving members of the Council who are elected by the people to make a decision as to whether or not it's prudent or not, I think is only fair. $50.00 may be too small but something in there I think as a stop gap would be nice. I don't think it reflects on the City Manager at all. I'm not questioning whether or not he'd accept it or not. When it comes up to a breathalyzer, I think Jim Chaffee had more to do with it maybe than Don. I don't think Don cared. So there's a lot of things going on with different departments in the City and so we can get a handle on what is coming into the City by whom, I think this is a fine ordinance. Councilman Boyt: If you take that one instance, or if you want to call it two instances, out and you look at the last 10 years of the City Council and it's interaction with gifts, there's no need for this and I don't want to make the police department the issue that we're building this particular ordinance around. We're talking about something that I don't think we need. Anl~ay, you know how I stand on it. Mayor Chniel: Are we going to have a motion? Councilman Workman: Roger, at this point, changing the monetary figure, is that going to, do we just scratch parts out and add and go as we want? Roger Knutson: I' 11 give it back to my word processor tomorrow. Whatever. Councilman Workman: I'll make the motion that we approve the ordinance amending Chapter 2 of the Chanhassen City code concerning the acceptance of gifts but also amending it to read, the gifts to the City with a monetary value of $250.00 or greater may only be accepted with the approval of City Council et al I guess. Mayor Chmiel: Also change that next to the last line with the $50.00 there to be $250.00 may be accepted on behalf of the City? Councilman Workman: Do I have a second? Mayor Chmiel: I ' 11 second it. Councilman Johnson: I'm just going to repeat that I even think $250.00, I was compromising when I went down to $500.00 because I agree with Bill. I don't think it's needed. I'm doing this to say $500.00 on here, I'm saying okay, I feel that the new members of the Council are uneasy with staff and that's part of the reasoning. They haven't really built the repoire yet. I don't really think it's totally needed but minimum I'd say is $500.00. I'm not going to back 13 City Council Meeting - March 13, 1989 off of that. $25g.gg is nothing nowadays. Councilman Workman: Well can I amend my motion? Councilman Johnson: Yes. CounciLman Workman: I' 11 amend it. I will come up. Mayor Chmiel: To the $Sgg.g0? Councilman Wor~ean: Right. Mayor ChmJ.el: There's an amendment to the proposal making that $Sgg.gg or greater. I will amend my second to incorporate that $5gg.gg. CounciLman Workman mov._~], Mayor Chmiel seconded to appove the f].rst reading of an ordinance amending Section 2 of the Chanhassen City Code concerning the acceptance of gifts as amended to include the monetary value of $5~0.gg rather than $250.g0. Ail voted in favor except Councilman Boyt who opposed and the motion carried with a vote of 3 to 1. Io APPROVAL OF [~F~STER PARK PLAN FOR CPLANHASSEN POND PARK. Councilman Boyt: A quick point on (i). There was quite a bit of discussion in Park and Rec on the nature of the surface of the trail around ~nan Pond Park. What we're approving tonight is not the building of the trail but the plan itself and I'd like to see the Council recon~nend that they use an asphalt surface for the trail because I think the rationale that they used in going to a hard ~ock surface was that it would keep dirt bikes and bicycles off the trail and it won't do that. So we should build that trail so people can use it easily. An asphalt trail, people can get out there and push their strollers along that and I'd like to see it accessible to those sorts of folks and they're going to have a devil of a time doing that with rock. So, we clearly have to deal with inappropriate uses of tlne trail but we should make it as easy as possible to use and I ~uld like to see the Council modify their master park plan for Chanhassen Pond Park to change the trail surface to asphalt. Mayor Ct~niel: That's fine. I have one question on that too. The memorandum that was written from Mark Koegler to the Park and Recreation Con~nission and staff. The first paragraph, the last sentence, it says the Con~nission referred the item to the City Engineer for co~ent. What was that cognent? Lori Sietsema: It was engineering's opinion that there should not be parking... and the sight lines would be better... Mayor C[~niel: Is that a total of, how many parking spaces? Lori Sietsama: 7 parking spaces. Councilman Johnson: Has anybody looked into the pond issue that I brought up at the Park and Rec Commission as to ~{nether we need to increase that one pond? 14 City Council Meet~.ng - March 13, 1989 Lori Sietsema's answer was not audible on the tape~ Councilman Johnson: I'm also caught between asphalt and rock. I know that with rock, what the kids do is ride on the edge and create their own dirt trail right next to the rock. Here they would ride on the asphalt, even though we'll have signs up saying no bicycles or whatever. It's really not meant to be a bicycle, and I know the kids in that neighborhood because yours and mine are in that neighborhood. I know the skateboarders over there and they will be trying to skateboard and ride. I don't know how we're going to control it but I don't think the rock is going to slow them down and the asphalt might speed them up. I think we ought to have Park and Rec reconsider the asphalt, not mandate it. I'd like rather than us mandate the exact design without, I'd like to see it further reviewed. I agree with you, I'm not sure if rock is the right thing. This is definitely going to be a nature type park. This doesn't even include the plantings yet. That's the next step is what kind of plantings to get in there. Lori Sietsema: If I could just make a suggestion that if the Council wanted to approve the plans and at the time of construction, in the construction plans... Basically the master plan gives you an idea of what's going to go in there... It's a concept plan. Gary Warren: Plus the construction plans would come back for review. Councilman Johnson: Has there been any comment from the two people in Chan Vista where the trail comes down from the circle, Chippewa? Mayor Chmiel: Yes, have those people been notified? Lori Sietsema: They have been notified and the co_~nents that were made... Councilman Johnson: I know the one on the east side is aware of the trail being there because I spoke with him. His father in law is the superintendent of schools at Eden Prairie and I've been over at his house and discussed this with him so he knows it's there. I have never discussed it with the person on the other side and they have sodded right there. I don't want it to be too much of a shock when we start pouring asphalt on top of their sod they planted last year. Lori Sietsema: We will invite them back in when we...plans and start talking about construction. As that neighborhood fills, we will give them an opportunity... Councilman Boyt: I would move approval of this item with the recommendation from Council that they consider an asphalt surface. Counc i lman Johnson: Second. Councilman Boyt moved, Councilman Johnson seconded to approve the Master Park Plan for Chanhassen Pond park with the recon]nendation that the Park and Recreation Comnission consider an asphalt surface for the trail. All voted in favor and the motion carried. 15 City Council Meeting - March 13, 1989 J. APPROVAL OF YEAR END TRANSFERS AND CLOSINGS. CounciLman Boyt: Quite quickly, this is where we're giving $20,g00.00, we're adjusting our budget to move $20,000.00 into developing the lower level of the new addition so the library can expand in that. All I'd like to add to this is that the City be directed to send a letter to the County Board endorsing the expansion of hours of operation. I know the Board has just, I believe this evening agreed to provide additional books and supplies for the new area but I think the current hours of Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, evening hours or times when an adult can access that, a work adult can access that library 3 days out of 6, that's simply not enough. So I'd like to see the City endorse, send just a letter of endorsement that we would support the Library Board and the County Board expanding the hours. Mayor Ckmiel: Is that a motion? Councilman Boyt: That's a motion. Councilman Johnson: And I'll second it. Don Ashworth: The total expenditures proposed at $40,000.00, we have $20,000.0g within the existing account and we're supplementing that by $2~,000.00 is the actual action that's being taken. Just a clarification. Councilman Boyt: It's a significant one. Thanks Don. Councilman Johnson: I think we can note that in our letter to them. We're expending $40,000.00 or whatever for expansion of this and we'd like to see the hours expanded if it makes any difference. Mary Hygeous: Good evening. My n~t~e is Mary Hygeous. I'm director of the Carver County Library system. I have two members, or one m~nber of the County Library Board here, Nina Contrell. She's our current Board member and Lois Fiskness is our former Board member who helped us shepherd the space into this building in 1981. This afternoon we met with the County Con~nissioners to ask them for funds in 1989's calendar year. This was an unbudgeted expense for us because we didn't know we were going to get the space this year. We had planned, when we had heard of the space becoming available to putting it into our 1990 capital improvement budget and so monies for this year would have to come out of the County's contingency funds. The County Con~nissioners are relunctant to do this. To pull monies out of contingency funds unless it's an emergency. However, this afternoon we did get a favorable reply from the County Con~nissioners, spearheaded by A1 Klingelhutz by the '~ay. A staunch library supporter. So we think the money will be there. We ~uld be putting in $17,500.g0 and some dollars. That would be for shelving, moving the shelving around and for new furniture. New charge desk and changing the data circuit computer lines. At this time we have no additional monies for increasing the hours. We did increase the staff hours for 1989. The thought of increasing them for 1990 with this expenditure for shelving ard furniture, I don't think is going to fly. But, this is ~nat I thought perhaps we should do since we haven't done it since we moved in here is to take a poll of our users to see if the 6 days that we're open each week are the correct hours for the cor~nunity. We now have 27,000 people who are coming into that library every year. That's 2,200 16 City Council Meet~.ng - March 13, 1989 people a month. Children. Adults. All ages. Perhaps our hours are not the right hours for people. Our 40 hours a week and perhaps we should take some of our morning hours and put them more into t_he evening. Not increasing the hours this year and I would guess not next year either, but changing the hours to make them more accommodating to people and that's what we usually do in our branches. We every so often take a survey of our users and find out what we're doing right. What we're doing wrong. Particularly with hours. With materials. With everything. Maybe that would tide us over until we can grow even more and perhaps eventually even get a larger building that would be more what the State guidelines call for for this con~nunity. This conxnunity is growing so fast, our space is just not keeping up with it. Mayor Chmiel: I think that would be an excellent suggestion. Poll the people that are utilizing that library to see what are the best hours. I think we would like to be privy of that information as well. Mary Hygeous: Yes, absolutely. We' re very happy by the way to get the increased space. It was sort of a bonus last year when we found out that the space was going to be built and we ran over here right away and talked with Mr. Ashworth saying, can we have some. Fortunately we worked with the architect on the first of March and I think we've got everything lined up. The final key was this afternoon, it getting the money to move into the space and that seems to be happening contingent on your action this evening of course so I think we're all moving towards a better library for this community. Councilman Boyt: Didn't the hours go down? Mary Hygeous: No they did not. Councilman Boyt: Not this year. Mary Hygeous: No they have not gone down since we moved in in 1981. We thought we had to go down I think it was 3 years ago and we mustered a large support from all the communities in the County and went en masse, the con~nunity did, into the County Con~nissioner's Chambers. Wrote letters. Had the Friends of the Library in all the communities. The room was packed and we got the budget put back. Councilman Boyt: So this library hasn't lost hours or staff since it's been in? Mary Hygeous: No. In fact this year we've increased staff hours. We couldn't increase public service hours. What we increased were staff hours because the staff that we had in there couldn't keep up with the business, with a 93% increase we had. Councilman Boyt: Is there a library in the County that's busier than this one? Mary Hygeous: Oh yes, Chaska. Councilman Boyt: Okay, so these are the two busiest ones? Mary Hygeous: They are the two busiest. 17 C].ty Council Meeting - March 13, 1989 Councilman Boyt: Does it strike you as ironic that the City's putting $40,~0.~0 into this and the County, ufnich is a County library, is putting in half that ~ount? Mary Hygeous: Yes. For the ].ncreased space. The City of Chaska, as an ex&~ple, put J.n several hundred thousand dollars and we put in $42,0~.gg. That's the contract that we have with the ci't].es and the County. You provide the space and utilities. We staff and stock. Councilman Boyt: It's good to have that education. Councilman Johnson: I'd like to make one quick conment. On the survey we need to look at winter versus strainer. School hours versus su~ner hours. I think you do adjust your hours ~fnen summer comes? Mary Hygeous: Yes, ~ do in the sutr~mert].me. Councilman Johnson: Because right now the kids are in school during the day. There's not as much use of it. But it is a valuable resource in the summer. Some of the progra~ns we have at that library are very good for the kids in the summer. It needs a little more advertising. I think we could really get you a lot more cro~ flow through there with a little better advertising on it. Mary Hygeous: We have 2~ children plus in this room as it is. Have you ever been with 2gg children in a 90 degree day in this room? Councilman Boyt: I would move approval. I guess we've already done that haven't we? Mayor Chmiel: Yes, a motion' s been made and seconded. Resolution ~89-33: Councilman Boyt moved, Councilman Johnson seconded to approve the Year End Transfers and Closing as presented. Ail voted in favor and the motion carried. M. APPROVE RESOLUTION PROCLAIMING GIRL .SCOUT WEEK. Mayor Chniel: One more final item. Approve a resolution proclaiming Girl Scout Week and I'd just like to read that. The proclamation is, Whereas, Girl Scouts of the USA recognizes that the today's girls will be tomorrow's leaders; and Whereas, Girl Scouts of USA is the largest volunteer organization for girls in the world and draws a large resource of positive adult role models; and Whereas, the Girl Scout movement continues to emphasJ, ze leadership and personal and career development for girls; and Whereas, our co-~rmunity and world would be the direct beneficiaries of the skilled young women who are Girl Scouts, Now Therefore I, Donald J. Chniel, by virtue of the authority vested J.n my as Mayor, do urge the citizens of Chanhassen to support the Girl Scouts in their endeavors. I know proclaim this week, March 12-18, 1989 Girl Scout Week in Chanhassen. 18 City Council Meeting - March 13, 1989 Resolution #89-34: Councilman Johnson moved, Councilman Workman seconded to approve a resolution proclaiming the week of March 12-18, 1989 as Girl Scout Week in Chanhassen. All voted in favor and the motion carried. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: There were no visitor presentations. VARIANCE TO THE FRONT, SIDE AND REAR YARD SETBACKS FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF A NEW SINGLE FAMILY RESIDENCE, 9247 LAKE RILEY BOULEVARD, JAMES JESSUP. Mayor Chmeil: We have moved up item number 7 which we held at the Board of Appeals and Adjustments just prior to the Council meeting. The Board of Appeals and Adjustments had reviewed the proposal and because of the many conditions and many things that have happened within the area of the setback requirements that were done previously for other homes, had approved this particular item. Now of course it comes to Council for discussion. I'm not sure whether Mr. Jessup would like to make a presentation. If so, please proceed. Councilman Johnson: Was this passed unanimously? Councilman Boyt: It was. Councilman Johnson: Does any member of the Council have a problem with it? Councilman Boyt: Yes. James Jessup: I am James Jessup. My wife, Mary Ellen is here with me this evening. The tw~ kids are at home and the goal of our request is to establish a long term residence with the proposed property changes... The action that we're requesting is for you to approve Site Plan dated 3-6-89. I apologize if you looked at the staff report at the number of site plans that have been modified and changed along the way. The fact is we tried to accon~nodate input from neighbors and staff and do other things to the project. What I've got is an existing structure and this is covered in your handout on page 4. This same drawing... The orange highlighting shows portions of the existing structure or outside of the project. The proposed structure sets inside the existing structure on 3 of the 4 sides. On the east side of the property the existing setback is 4 1/2 feet. I'm proposing a 10 foot setback. On the street side of the property or the front, there's an existing 16 foot setback. I'm proposing 17. On the west side of the property, the garage actually encroaches onto the neighbor's property which is not a good situation but I'd like to change that. I would propose a 5 foot setback on that side of the property, the west side. So it's...8 1/2 feet. On the back of the property, I propose a 10 foot setback that would have a whole new deck in that setback. Behind that sketch is a rough house plan that I put together that shows the main level of this 2 story home with 3 bedrooms. We have a 2 car garage, kitchen, dining room area and den are all...pretty standard home .... 3 bedroom home, 2 bathroom. Similar to what you probably. We're trying to build a home here that's similar to what's already existing... I think the colored pictures there that you've got, the front page has that red home there, that's the existing structure and garage. It's not the greatest. That's what's existing there today. If this is approved, that would be gone. It's a tough site and the reason for the setback requirements are the fact that the lot... The minimum frontage across the street side is less than 19 Council Meeting - March 13, 1989 minimal standards. It's a tough situation. It's an existing situation that I'd like to improve. I'd like to get rid...I'd like to improve the setback...and the Board of Adjustments agrees. As an alternate, not as an alternate but to further talk about the hardship... That's the setback as proposed by the guidelines. Within that area you can see that there's very little space on a main floor to build, after you include your 2 car garage, a stairway to get to t3~e upper level, a deck and a small room for... Councilman Johnson: You're putting a bigger deck on that example than on the house you're planning. James Jessup: t think they're the same size. What I've got here is a situation that's difficult by design of the lot. It was a pre-existing condition. The previous owner experienced similar frustrations in that property is too close to the street and too close to the east side. The garage encroaches on the west side and the deck sits in the lake area. The situation is, I appreciate your consideration. The precedent for this situation as the staff has reported in the report to you, variance 89-2, a home 25g feet down Lake Riley Blvd.. Here are some pictures on 13, page 13 of your handout, excuse me the fourth page. The bottom home. The home that's tall. That home was granted a 5 foot variance from the property line. It was granted a 33 foot variance on the lake side and the front yard setback also so there's precedence very close by... Just in s~mary, I'd just like to restress the hardship criterias. I think this meets pretty well and this plan shows what's there, what's proposed. There's just not room to... I think I've got a pretty reasonable strcuture that's 2,ggg square feet on two levels...so I would ask for your approval. Mayor Ckmiel: I know we have a neighbor here who would also like to address this. Don Sitter: First of all we would definitely like to see this property improve. The house next to us right now is an eyesore. I have no concerns about that at all. We_ want to make sure that the plans are consistent with the neighborhood and fit on the lot that it's being put on. The City ordinances call for an establishment of a hardship of some sort. I don't believe any hardship has been established. If you look at the site plan, they have approximately 1,47~ square feet within setbacks which they can build this plan. I think that's plenty of room to build a fine home. If they want to go two levels, they've got nearly the 3,~ square foot. Specifically we're concerned about a few things. One is the overall size of the house. What Jim calls a 2 story house, I call a 3 story house. His plans show for a full basement which is a walkout basement and being on the lake, that's nearly road level or whatever so it is literally a very large home. The 3 bedrooms upstairs, if you include the den and playroom ~und a piece of the rec room that could be finished off, we could be looking at a 6 .bedroom home on a lot of 7,ggg square feet and lakeshore of 25 feet. I think the Jessup's are fine people. What if they sell to a family of 6 teenage kids? Where's all that activity going to fit on a lot of that size? As for the precedence being set, the house down the road I think was 40 feet back from the lake ~ich is a 35 foot variance or whatever. The house is approximately 3~ feet deep. That means the back of their house is 75 feet from the lake and they're already too close to the road. They literally had no room to build on their lot. As far as the 50 foot wide lot...so as far as the side setbacks, I think there's a considerable difference in that condition and in this condition. We also have a concern with the drainage on the property. Right now you can see 2~ City Council Meeting -March 13, 1989 their existing garage, the existing home, all the water runs out... It was brought up at the Board of Adjustment meeting before us that some of the water is coming from our house, running down the driveway and through their property. That's a small problem. The big problem is the entire area north...and I think you can ask them. I know of at least 3 or 4 times in the last few years that they've ended up with 6 inches of water in their house and they had plenty of water damage to show that. He had to do a lot of repairs on his home to fix that. That's no small problem and I see no drainage plans at all whatsoever for this. We're also a little worried about the overall height. The two homes to the east are single story homes. His is up close to 35 feet in the air. I'm not sure that really fits with the rest of the neighborhood. You might ask why I'm opposed to this and it seems kind of strange. They're looking at building a very, very nice home which would help improve our property values and I think that's a good point and like I said, we want to see it improved. We think it's too much improvement. We think the house is just too big for the lot. I'm also very concerned about the encroachment on the lakeside. Because there has been no hardship established here and you're allowing them a 10 foot variance there, you're basically saying the City Ordinance is not good at 75 feet and you're basically changing it to 65 feet. I'm not too sure that's what you really want to do here. I guess if I saw sc~e hardship or s~me reason why these variances should be granted I'd say fine but I think they can do very well within the setbacks and I'm pretty sure we're maybe establishing precedence on this one. Not a precedence on the ones that were done down the road. I don't think they apply to this case. I think it's different. Thank you for your time. Councilman Boyt: I think that the important point here is that there are criteria that are set up by the State to use when we're considering variances. Variances are not meant to write ordinances. Variances are meant to handle hardship situations that the ordinance could not be written to adjust to because it was in fact a unique hardship. If we're unhappy with our ordinances, we should rewrite them but if we're going to give a variance, we really ought to follow the guidelines the State has set down for us. Now we as a Council are acting on this kind of variance for the first time. Previous Councils have acted on it and they have made decisions. We might be able to make a pretty strong argument that that does not bind us to making similar variances but once we make it, we've then created a precedence for this particular body and anyone who wants to come in and say I want to extend my house within 65 feet of the lake and we say to that person you do not have a hardship, they can say to us, and neither did this situation. So I think frc~ that standpoint, Mr. Jessup's presentation is a good one. He makes a lot of very good points. The one about the existing footprint of the home I think is an excellent point and should allow us to make some reasonable adjustments. So I can understand the need to allow some variances but I think we have to be very careful that we don't allow any that haven't already been approved for this particular location. I would prefer to see us have a building, house, that does not come closer than the 68 feet the current residence comes. I think anytime we can ~prove and as Mr. Jessup's second plan, his modifications from 2 weeks ago is certainly an improvement over the first plan and in some regards we might be able to make an argument that it's an improvement over the existing variances on the current house. But where it's not an improvement I think that we can't afford to pass that. Not when he can not show a hardship and he can't because he can develop this property without variances so I think we should consider this very carefully. This is not simply a matter of looking at this particular instance but it's establishing our willingness to grant anyone the opportunity to build 21 City Council Mee%ing - March 13, 1989 within 65 feet of the lake. Mayor b~miel: I guess there's been several thoughts on that portion. Steve, will you read the specific conditions that the Board of Adjustments and Appeals have indicated? Steve Hanson: Yes, the Board of Adjustments in their recommendation for approval had...as follows. First was that the drainage in the area be reviewed by the City Engineer to come up with a viable means for handling that between the neighbors specifically. The second condition was that the deck remain a deck and no porch or any type of enclosure be allowed either up on that top level or on the walkout level below. The third condition was that the plans for the building be reviewed by staff as part of the building permit process to insure that what they're asking for in the building permit complies with what the Board of Adjustment approves. Then the fourth condition was to specifically make a plan that's contained in your packet and dated March 6th as the official plan...Board of _Adjustments specifying what those setbacks were. That was 'the extent of the conditions placed on there. Mayor Cl~miel: As we looked further into this, and in a particular case on a variance that was granted previously just in an adjacent, in addition to the one that Mr. Jessup has indicated, in this particular case the applicant was granted a 5 foot sideyard setback variance and a 42 foot shoreland setback variance as well. That was at 9239 Lake Riley Blvd.. At 9235 Lake Riley Blvd. there was also a single family residence be 5~ feet from the southerly ordinary high water mark and 35 feet from the westerly ordinary high water mark. Unfortunately, as I see it, there has been an awful lot of variances within that specific area granted on all those homes. True it was granted by the previous Council. I don't think in my good conscience and probably from the...aspect, can we deny those variances with all the other variances that have already been granted. Councilman Boyt: Mr. Mayor, if I might respond to that particular part of it. What you were granting a variance can not be limited to one lake in town. When you grant this variance, you in effect grant a variance for anybody that can come in and make the argument that they have a similar situation and you have taken hardship out of our criteria. Don Sitter: I'd also like to make a point on those two instances. Both of those lots were reviewed by-the Board of Adjustments and Appeals and they determined that they w~re literally unbuildable if there weren't variances granted because they had no room left to build. So if that's the sa~e conditions that this is, I don't see that as being a precedence for this issue. I think that they were considered very carefully and if you don't allow some variances in those_, you were deeming t_hat property unbuildable and therefore taking away the value of the land altogether and I think that's totally different and I don't picture this... Councilman Johnson: I'm going to agree with Bill a little bit here. When you look at a variance that was granted in 1982 which is a long time, 7 years ago, and you look at another one is 1986 which was 2 Councils ago and the variances that were granted with the last Council have had primarily totally unbuildable lots. There ~s down on Lake Riley that I don't think is on this list that we granted where I think he got down to several hundred square feet of buildable property by the time all the variances. He was on a peninsula and the 75 feet 22 City Council Meeting - March 13, 1989 came in from 3 sides on the guy and it was an improvement. I do not think that there is in any variance, every variance has to stand totally on it's own. I've been staunch on variances for years, or for 2 years. That there has to be a hardship shown. I don't want to put, I agree with Bill, 68 feet was the existing setback there. I would say if w~ can go to 68 feet there. I think he's trying to put more house into here than there has to be. I think that it can fit with the neighborhood. I'd like to know if he tried to get the neighboring property where his fence is that appears to be his yard, whether he tried to obtain that from his neighbor and whether his neighbor is willing to negotiate s~me of that which would change that setback because there is no house right next door on the one side. I think the neighbor is actually here. James Jessup: What was the question? Councilman Johnson: Have you negotiated for the purchase of part of your land where his fence is on your land up to his existing fence so his fence that designates his yard is actually your yard. James Jessup: We talked about that. If you'll also notice from the plans, my driveway cuts across the corner of his property so we were talking about swapping back and forth there or some eas~nents or whatever. But in the area where the fence is, we're only talking about a foot or 2 on my property so it's no... Councilman Johnson: Well it does change the variance a little bit but I think that needs to continue to be worked on. I'm against expanding a bad situation and going any closer to a lake. While I don't buy the argument that if we do this somebody else someplace else, each variance has to stand completely on it's own. If we do this, tomorrow his next door neighbor could come in and ask the same variance and we could turn it down. It'd be tough. It doesn's seem reasonable that way but we would have to justify this variance and for some particular reason on this lot does he need that variance to put that deck on there? In my opinion is no. There is no hardship. If you can justify in your mind that there's a hardship that he has to have that deck. That he has to have 2,000 square feet of home plus a full basement underneath it and a double car garage, the double car garage is required, I think that there's just overbuilding for this lot. That's the long and the short of it. I'm going to vote against it. Mayor Chmiel: Willard, would you like to come up to the mic? Willard Johnson: I'd like to defend the first two issues of the variances up the street. I was on the Board in both cases. We could have deemed th~m both unbuildable if w~ would have wished to and then does the City w-ant to purchase the property? That comes into effect and I feel this one here is the s~me situation. If you want to maybe you can negotiate with the gentleman to chop off the 10 foot deck. I'm always for negotiating if that's the proper procedure and maybe he's willing to take the deck off because I don't see nothing wrong with this piece of property either. I felt the same on the two in the past. The gentleman says we could, they were unbuildable, you've got either two choices. Either make them unbuildable and the City buy th~m or that's all I have to say. 23 City Council Meeting - March 13, 1989 Councilman Boyt: I have a question. Willard you said that the previous two were unbuildable. This is not any way unbuildable. Willard Johnson: No, I didn't say. The gentleman here says the Board says they were unbuildable. Councilman Boyt: You're saying the previous two were not unbuildable? Willard Johnson: He says tlme previous two were unbuildable. I guess what I'm getting at, he's trying to say that the Board says the previous two are unbuildable. We could ~have just told them no, we won't grant no variance and if the City didn't want to grant a variance, he couldn't build. Councilman Boyt: That makes them unbuidable doesn't it? Willard Johnson: Yes. Councilman Boyt: Okay, so they were unbuildable? Willard Johnson: Well you could put something on it. Councilman Boyt: 20g square feet or something? Willard Johnson: Let me word it this way. There isn't a lot in this whole city you can't design to fit a house, even if it's 90 feet tall and 10 foot wide. That's what I'm getting at. Councilman Boyt: Alright, but -.what we were saying earlier was those two lots, as you recall, would have required an extremely small house? Willard Johnson: Yes. Councilman Boyt: So we gave a variance to make them more buildable. %his allows a house of t,30g square feet. Are you saying that makes it unbuildable? Willard Johnson: I guess I compare it to some of the planned developments we've got in this city and it's up in my neighborhood too. You've got, let's use x number of dollars, $25g,000.g0 homes in there from lot line to lot line so I guess how do you c~mpare apples to organes? I guess he wants to put a decent sized home on there and i feel that maybe you can chop off the deck if that's what the Council would wish to bring it within the 75 foot of the lake. The rest I have no problems with. The 5 foot on the west side. The 10 foot on the east side and the street. I don't have no problem with that. If you wish to chop 1~ feet off the deck, I have no problem with that either. I'm not sticking up for the applicant but I'm just saying, it's a hard thing to do. We've got three areas in the City, Carver Beach is one, Red Cedar Point is one and Lake Riley is another one. We've just got lots that you've got to work out individually. Councilman Boyt: I agree with you where a lot is unbuildable and the City has to look at purchasing the lot or granting the variance but that's not the case here. 24 City Council Meeting - March 13~ 1989 Willard Johnson: No, I realize that but what kind of home can you put on it? I'm looking from the standpoint, a building standpoint too. Councilman Boyt: A 1,200 square foot home. Willard Johnson: That sounds dumb. You might as well put up a good one in order to put it up. Not that I'm sticking up for the applicant. Make a decent home instead of a house that, he's going to put a garage in the bottom part so you're losing quite a bit of home space. We require a 2 car garage. I don't know if it's a good arguing point. I hope I made my point clear. Councilman Workman: I'm not going to argue with the expertise of Willard. To me it all looks like a little bit of a hardship case with these lots. Going all the way back to when they were designed. To me it looks as though this is kind of, this is cleaning up this lot a little bit and improving it. A bad situation into maybe not as bad a situation. I'm going to take the advice of the Board of Appeals and approve this. Councilman Boyt: Show me the hardship. Not that you have to but show me the hardship. Councilman Workman: You're right, I don't have to. But we've got a situation if you just look at this map right here alone and we've got problems with the oranges. I don't see where, we can keep it the way it is and we've got all sorts of problems along both sides. I don't see where taking this and bringing it in, maybe up, bringing it closer to the lake. I'm looking at before and after situations here. It's like the southern area of Chanhassen. It's not going to turn into a wheat field down there no matter how hard we wish. This situation, all along this lakeshore isn't going to improve because we wish it to. So to me, this is a situation, they're coming in and spending an awful lot of money to improve a situation. Councilman Boyt: Well, why don't we just have them build it up to the lake then? Mayor Chmiel: Well that's silly. Let me ask Mr. Jessup, would you be willing to remove your deck from that particular building? James Jessup: I would ask if you would be willing to buy a lake house without a deck? Mayor Chmiel: I might. James Jessup: The neighbors on one side of me have...and the neighbors on the other side have a three season porch and they have a door in... Decks and a lake home go together. Look at the pictures that I provided you. You'll see many decks on Lake Riley. Mayor Chmiel: Let me ask another question. Bill's concern is the setback 68 feet to be in conformance with the other homes. Would you be willing to cut 3 feet off that deck? James Jessup: It makes it very difficult to put a table on top of that deck. We have a round table. 25 City Council Meeting - March 13, 1989 Mayor Chmiel: Wqqat's the total length of that deck? Is the total lg feet? James Jessup: It's 10 foot width but...would be less than 7. By the time you get a railing you have a 6 1/2 foot wide deck to put a nice round table...how do you get around it? Mayor Ch_roi.el: I've got one. My deck is exactly that and we have a round table on it. Don Ashworth: If I may ask the question. The 3 feet wouldn't necessarily have to come off the deck. It would be maybe adjusting deck and house. The important point is that it's back 68 feet. It would appear as though your plan might be able to be adjusted to allow the back portion to be increased one dimension slightly more to lose the 3 feet the other way. Councilman Johnson: To follow on that Don, how big is your garage? I don't see any dimensions on here? J~es Jessup: It's 23 1/2 by... CounciLman Johnson: Saying that the existing pump house is the existinq setback where I think they went to the wall of the house rather than the pump h~use before but that's 16 foot. Sliding the house forward to meet the existing 16 foot setback, 9oing to a 22 x 22 foot 9arage versus the 23 1/2, losing a foot and a half there. Sliding the entire house to the right to give you a little more because if you lost a little bit there. Then we're to a 9 1/2 foot deck. See what I'd say is go to a 22 x 22 foot garage versus a 23 1/2 x 23 1/2. I realize that that's getting small but that's what I've 9or actually is a 22 x 22 and my wife's bi9 Chevy fits in there with my little Horizon. I think that would also give you a little bit more on your west side if you went a little narrower on the garage. If there's anythin9 you can cheat on and not mess up your living space, it's your garage. You just have to walk a little tigher when you ban9 your doors into each other's cars. Councilman Workman: How much are we going to gain by doing this? Councilman Johnson: We'll gain 2 1/2 feet if we cut a foot and a half off the garage arrd slide it towards the street a foot to get to the 16 foot mark. That gives us 2 1/2 feet so take a half foot off his deck, he's added a 68 foot. He's got a 9 1/2 foot deck. So he has not exceeded the previous deck footprint of the previous variance that was on 'there. I think it's workable. It's not that big of a deal. Councilman Boyt: That would certainly be acceptable from my standpoint because we're not exceeding any variances... Councilman Johnson: In the existing condition. Councilman Boyt: In the existing condition. Mary Ellen Jessup: How does that affect then what we discussed during the Board of Adjustments? One of the addendums or whatever where you mentioned that we had to use that exact footprint as the exhibit for approval? For this permit 26 City Council Meeting - March 13~ 1989 to construct? How does that affect it? Councilman Johnson: We're modifying it. Mayor Chmiel: It's being modified right now. The Council has the final consent for proceed~ng with what you have. As it looks right now, you're looking at a 2 to 2 vote where it's not going to go anywhere so I think discuss this with your husband real quickly to see whether or not you can go in that particular way. Mary Ellen Jessup: What I needed to know is, are we going to have to come back for an appeal? · Mayor Chmiel: No. It could be resolved right now and see it proceed. Councilman Johnson: While it seems like we're really measuring the straws to an inch degree when we talk about a half foot there, but it does seem to crawl on you. A half foot this time. A foot, just to give them some time to get some patter going here. James Jessup: If we ~uld establish the guidelines as being a 16 foot setback from the road and 68 from the lake and let us maneuver around inside the house and let us make the tradeoff for whether shrink the garage 2 feet or whether we shrink something else a little bit, is that agreeable? Councilman Johnson: Fine. Mayor Chmiel: And that's a part of what the conditions basically are. James Jessup: Very good. Thank you. Councilman Boyt: I would move approval as just mentioned that we retain the 68 foot setback from the lake. The 16 foot setback from the Lake Riley Blvd.. feet from the property to the east. And is it 7 feet? Councilman Johnson: It's 5 unless he gets the property next door. Then it goes to 7. Councilman Boyt: Are you going to work out the property next door? Don Sitter: We'll certainly work together. I guess I would like to ask one more consideration of the Council here. Your suggestion of him shrinking the garage and pulling in another couple feet off of my property will help my attitude a lot. Could we make that instead of the 5 foot setback from his property line, 7 or 8 foot setback and have that... Councilman Boyt: I don't think his garage isn't over on that side of the house. Don Sitter: No. What I'm saying is shrink the garage so he can pull it farther off of my property. Councilman Boyt: No, I don't think that was how that was going to work Don. Councilman Johnson: I was doing that too Bill. That was in my suggestion too is make the garage narrower and then they could move further away from the 5 27 City Council Meeting - March 13, 1989 foot setback. The existing condition is that he's 2 1/2 feet into your property. This would be an improvement over being 2 1/2 feet into your property by 7 1/2 feet but this fence ra~ains into your property quite a bit when it gets down to the lake. Don Sitter: But as I mentioned in the Board of Adjustments and Appeals, right now that garage is on our property but it acts as a buffer between their activities and ours. It's like a little wall or fence. By removing that, garage, all the activities are coming around our side of the property. That's why I'm standing on that setback a little bit. ' CounciLman Boyt: I would make the motion that it's either 5 feet or 7 feet. I'm open. To follow my logic, we're staying in the existing footprint and to me that's critical. So the situation with the garage I think is maybe something you can work out in your property swap, if you're going to swap property but from my standpoint of protecting our ordinances, I think we don't want to exceed the existing building footprint and 68 feet from the lake is part of that. Councilman Johnson: Previously, the closest sideyard setbacks was 6.8 feet. On the previous house. If you don't count the garage. Now his closest sideyard setback is going to be 5 feet. CounciLman Boyt: Well I hate to get into a situation where we've got a negotiations that's open ended. Councilman Johnson: So what do you want the west side property setback in your motion? That's what we're down to. Mayor C1~miel: That presently is 5 feet right? Councilman Boyt: Presently it says it's 5 feet. We all agree 5 feet? Mayor Chmiel: Yes, 5 feet. Councilman Boyt: 5 1/27 I would make my motion that it's lg feet on the west side and 5.5 feet on the east side. 68 feet from the lake and 16 feet from Lake Riley Blvd.. If you can work out something be_fret between you, mar. velous but I think fr~m the City's standpoint we've got to require that. Mayor Chmiel: Is there a second? Councilman Johnson: I'll second that. James Jessup: I'd rather you keep it lg feet from the east side. Councilman Johnson: We did. James Jessup: You said west. Councilman Boyt: Which side do you want what on Willard? Willard Johnson: 1~ foot from the east side. Councilman Boyt: Okay, and what do we do on the west side? 28 City Council Meeting - March 13, 1989 Willard Johnson: 5.5. The reasons I co~e up... Councilman Boyt moved, Councilman Johnson seconded to approve the variances to the front, side and rear yard setbacks for the construction of a new single family residence at 9247 Lake Riley Boulevard with the following setbacks: 68 feet from the lake, 16 feet from Lake Riley Boulevard, 10 feet from the east side of the property and 5.5 feet from the west side of the property. All voted in favor and the motion carried. PUBLIC HEARING: A. DOWNTOWN PUBLIC IMPROVEMENT PROJ~CT NO. 87-17 FOR THE NORTH SIDE PARKING LOT. B. AUTHORIZE PREPARATION OF PLANS AND SPECIFICATIONS FOR NORTH SIDE PARKING LOT. Mayor Chmiel called the public hearing to order. Gary Warren: I don't know that it needs much of an introduction. I didn't see, our facsimile machine at the last minute today a letter came in from Mericor the owners of the Town Square retail center. They're in support of the project. Just had a concern about the assessment issue as far as the 23 parking units that were added to the building which I guess from an assessment standpoint, this is not an assessment hearing but the discussion and the request in the letter is appropriate that City staff meet with thsm to explain the rationale and that. Basically I'll speak for Fred Hoisington but in general terms, they were added to the assessment roll for tw~ purposes. One, they have drainage that flows to this new parking lot area for which we will be accommodating their flow. Secondly, because they have a more intense use than what was originally planned and that ~ntense use ends up using more parking stalls and has ia]pacts on the Riveria...they were assessed the parking and 23 units so we have gone through and applied the logic basically from that standpoint. But we certainly will follow up as requested in the letter and talk with Mr. Winkle from Mericor and review that with him. There will be the option at the assessment for getting further into that when the project is complete. Mayor Chmiel: Is there anyone wishing to address this public hearing? Brad Johnson: Mr. Mayor and members of the Council. I'm Brad Johnson. 7425 Frontier Trail representing the Heritage Park Apartments and the professional building. We've gone on record in your, I believe the staff also outlines the fact that we do not feel nor do our experts, whoever they are, they're not here tonight, that there's additional need for the water line that's furnishing the water to the hydrant. That's an additional cost to the project of $50,000.00. We've been requested by the City to upgrade our building from originally, especially the apartment building, from the original unsprinkled building to a totally sprinkled building with additional costs to us of $100,000.00 thus far. In checking with all those that know and we're willing to listen but we have not heard anybody feel that the additional fire hydrants on the south side of the apartment building is anything but overkill in the case of fire protection. In 29 City Council Meeting - March 13, 1989 addition, we have brought the apartment building completely through the whole planning process that is now approved to be built and nobody ever raised t~he question about additional fire hydrants on the south side of the building. So therefore we suggest that this be looked at. I'm going on record as to our feelings. We're meeting with the_ folks frc~n the Fire Department tomorrow to further question t3~at but it's a $5g,0gg.g0 expense and we're just not sure it's needed. There may be a need for a fire hydrant somewhere there but this is maybe not the right way to do it, in our opinion. Thank you. Councilman Johnson moved, CounciLman Boyt seconded to close the public hearing. Ail voted in favor and the motion carried. The public hearing was closed. Councilman Johnson: I think we ought to look into those two points. The 23 parking stalls and the staff further review the necessity of that fire hydrant. I think we looked, when we looked at the apartments, we looked pretty thoroughly, the Fire Department looked over the plans. But if the Fire Marshall now says he goofed, missed and it is necessary for fire fighting, then it's necessary we put it in as far as I'm concerned. I think we need to look and see if it is overkill. $5~,000.00 is $50,000.00. Another straw on this camel ' s back. Mayor Chmiel: I agree. Don Ashwor'th: I should make the Council aware of the fact that I did receive a call from Mr. Krueger a little more than a week ago, must have been shortly after his notice. At that point in time he was disturbed with the design and the ~ount of the assessments. We did set up t~o different meetings with Mr. Krueger to try to adjust the plan to insure maximum spaces and we got into a number of other issues dealing really with the Retail West project~ not necessarily dealing with the project before us. I think that is resolved. I would just like to make the council aware of the fact that again, Mr. Kruger was quite concerned and I think the final plans that we bring back to you will address the issues of concern to him. Do you wish to say anything more in that area Brad, Gary or... Fred Hoisington: I would just briefly. We met with the Kruegers this morning and had a very good meeting with them. We have adjusted the plan which means we do have to bring it back to the Planning Con~nission and the Council for an adjustment in the site plan but they were very pleased with the outcome and the modifications that have been made so I think we have that very well resolved. I think Tom would have probably been here tonight if we hadn't. Gary Warren: On the watermain issue, since we will be asking for authorization to go ahead on the plans and specifications on our next item, Fire Chief and the Inspector have looked at that based on earlier boncerns mentioned from Mr. Johnson and as you see their memo in the packet they are still saying that it is a necessary item for fire fighting even in light of the sprinklers. Primiarly because of the congestion in trying to get fire support in there with the parking. Invariably there's going to be parked cars and the closest hydrants are going to be out on West 78th Street. That's at least the way they've explained it to me and I know Chief Gregory is here in the back hall waiting for one of the next items. That's their position on it at this point. Mayor Chmiel: What's the distance from the 78th Street complex? City Council Meeting - March 13~ 1989 Gary Warren: It's over 300 feet~ Don Ashworth: You're referring to the apartment complex? Mayor Chmiel: Right. Any other discussion? Councilman Boyt: A quick point. In Fred's letter to us he said, if we had a choice, we would prefer to have no curb cut to West 78th Street at the location of the clock tower. It's my intent to vote against that as long as the curb cut's in there. Mayor Chmiel: The existing curb cut is what you're saying? Councilman Boyt: That we're changing what's there and putting a new one in and I recognize that the new one is going to be an improvement over what we have now but I do not think we should do anything to complicate that corner and this will complicate it and it's not our consultant's first choice. It's what they felt they had to negotiate to get. My experience in talking to people about that corner is that the general public will not understand that we negotiated to inconvenience them. So it's my plan to vote against it. I don't think this is the point when we need to vote against it but eventually we're going to get down to that vote and if that's still there, that's how I'll vote. Councilman Workman: I also have reservations about that curb cut. Are we looking for a motion for A and B? Mayor Chmiel: Yes, if you have no further discussion, I'll entertain a motion for items 2(A) and 2(B). Councilman Johnson: So moved. I'll make the motion and modify it a little here to try and get things moving I guess since there's no second coming quickly. That we look into the items that were discussed tonight, if that's part of the problem of the second. The fire hydrant, whether there's any alternatives. If we can cut some costs there. Maybe split the differnce and put the hydrants halfway between or wherever. Looking at the issue of the 23 parking spots for Mericor as to whether their business warrants an additional 23 parking spots to be assessed against them. I'm not sure what we can do about that curb cut but it would be better for the overall traffic flow on West 78~ not to have the curb cut there. It would be worse for the property owners that are paying, that are being assessed for these parking lots if the curb cut were eliminated so I'm kind of stuck on that one. I'd say further review of the curb cut situation and discussions with the owners of the property to include getting feedback from the owners of the property whether that curb cut is required for them. Councilman Boyt: I'll second it because it's going to the Planning Commission and will be back in front of us again anyway. I'm just sending the signal. Resolution #89-35: Councilman Johnson moved, Councilman Boyt seconded to approve Downtown Public Improvement Project No. 87-17 and to authorize preparation of plans and specifications for the north side parking lot. Further directing staff to looking into the fire hydrant requirements, the assessment of 23 parking spots to Mericor and to further review the curb cut situation onto West 78th Street. All voted in favor and the motion carried. 31 City Council Meeting - March 13, 1989 .PUBLIC ~_AR1NG: LAKE LUCY ROAD TRUNK WATER~XIN IMPRO~MENT PROJECT NO. 88-25. Public Present: Name Address Eric Rivkin Pat Johnson Terry O'Brien Warren Phillips A1 Harvey 6095 Stellar Court 173g Lake Lucy Lane 142g Lake Lucy Road 1571 Lake Lucy Road 143g Lake Lucy Road Gary Warren: This is a public hearing on the feasibility study that was done for the Lake Lucy Road trunk watermain. As Council will recall, we had the feasibility study and then subsequently it was amended to also include the connection policy that was reviewed and then subsequently also approved by the Council. In talking with counsel, legal counsel, we thought it best 'to protect the City's right in the event that if we ever would need to assess the project, Chapter 429 requirements dictate that we notify anybody that we think we're going 'to assess at this time so really the public hearing is a formality in that regard. It is not meant to address the trail issue as that J.s on the Park and Rec Co~[nission tomorrow night and is scheduled to be back here on the 27tho However, I know there are several people here from the public and there was some handouts distributed at City Hall today. Has the Council received them? Mayor Chmiel: I just had one copy and I requested that these be provided to ~he Council. Gary Warren: I've got copies that I can distribute here. I haven't had a lot of time to get into this handout but I did have a follow-up meeting. If it's your pleasure to talk about the trail at all this meeting, I could give you the benefit of some of the work that we have done since our last Council meeting with the State and also with our consultant to try to come up with another version here that actually parallels some of what's on this handout but it's your discretion. Mayor ~nmiel: I think just touch on it rather briefly as to ~nere you're at and what you've come up with so far. I know we have a couple of the residents here that have had some concern. Gnry Warren: Basically a lot of the discussion from our previous meetings has centered arour~] trying to strike the compromise to deal with ttSe_ trail issue and keeping the trail active in this area and also to address the need and desire of the local residents for a parking area. It also, because the State is involved, we spent 75% of their funds on this project...criteria. The current section of Lake Lucy Road again is 36 feet in width and that's where we're starting from. But we subsequently felt an option and I present the section here...because that's the most extr~ne. It would provide on street parking on one side of the roadway and an 8 foot off street trail. Two 12 foot travel lanes and basically a shoulder. The sect]on that is generated is a 33 foot wide section and as you recall we have a 36 foot section right now so the actual curbing right now is to be moved in 3 feet from the south to accomplish that. State Aid criteria says 32 C~.ty Council Meeting - March 13~ 1989 that in order to have one parking lane and two travel lanes, you need for a low density collecter to have 34 feet in width. We have 33 feet. I believe in talking with Chuck Weiselbaum from the State Aid that we probably could achieve. They sometimes try to apply a 36 foot criteria to look at all State Aid roads on a high density collecter but I believe...to negotiate on that. That would provide us then with the ability to take the trail and put it off~ Street. The Glaccum property would be basically paved surface from the curb right up to the wall but it would be an 8 foot trail or multi-purpose lane, whatever you want to call it. You get on either side of the retaining wall area, we have the ability to get again away fr~m the curb area to put in a green space. Probably a 2 foot is minimum of green boulevard area between the curb and the trail to get good separation there so somebody doesn't happen to just glide off of the travel lane. Again, this is the area where we have the most constraint because of the retaining wall and avoiding moving the wall which would be an expensive alternative. Nothing is without a cost. We've done some crude estimate on this kind of an option and a high guesst~n~ate, if we would do the sealcoating of the roadway which needs to be done out there next year... Instead of having to sandblast all the pavement markings off which we've found out can be quite expensive out here, if we're going to sealcoat the road anyway, we can do it at this time as a part of our regular maintenance projects or even State Aid dollars for that matter and then go back to the center line stripe and probably a parking stripe... So we're basically talking I would say $60,000.00 to $70,000.00 additional costs. Councilman Johnson: Gary, why 8 foot? What I'm looking for is something for people that are there walking. I'm not looking for a bicycle trail for people to ride their bikes on as much as the guys with their tricycles or as I was out there this weekend, there was a group of 5 people walking one time I was there. The other time I went in there, there w-as a father and 2 kids and pulling one in a wagon and they're going down the street this way. I think a 5 foot wide asphalt trail along there would be plenty sufficient. 8 feet you can get 2 bicycles going both ways. I don't think we need that much there. Gary Warren: Part of the trail plan and some of our construction...we looked at trails that would be in more rural areas, be that wide as a practicality that relates to maintenance of the roadway. We come back in and sealcoat these trail like we should be in 5 to 8 year cycles, with your truck boxes, for getting equipment in there, 8 feet is really the practical length. Snow r~moval, if you get anything less than 6 feet, we've got a lot of problems downtown right now where w~'re removing snow with our Bobcat loader but... 8 feet, the extra 2 feet, the equipment...almost more for a maintenance standpoint... Councilman Johnson: I drive Valley View and I watch Eden Prairie plow those and they get on there with their pick-up truck and plow the 8 foot wide trail they have. That does make sense to me. Overall, that 8 foot would be, on a long term basis, most cost effective. Councilman Boyt: Can we refer this to Park and Rec and let them hash this out? It's 10:00 now. Mayor Chmiel: Yes. I think it would be a good idea. Being that we're just strictly discussing the Lake Lucy Road trunk watermain improvement project, hopefully I know that we have some people here from the area and I don't think this is going to jeopardize us proceeding without looking~ at some of the things 33 City Council Meeting - March 13, 1989 that Eric Rivkin has pulled together as well. Gary Warren: The only thing Mr. ,_Mayor that you might want me to address at this time is two other options that I think are the options that they are giving strong consideration to. Alter the movement of the watermain 8 feet south from it's designed alignment. Mayor Chmiel: Coming into the existing tar now? Gary Warren: Yes. Basically what it would do is put it right underneath the existing curb. The original goal of the design was to avoid dmnage to Lake Lucy Road from two aspects. One I guess is politically, that it wasn't desirable but also from the standpoint that removal, if we encroach on Lake Lucy Road in any significant fashion here, in order to retain the sub-base and we've got geotextiles and we've got road drains and we've got a lot of just construction section as I would call it out there, we would be forced into probably a sheeting type of construction that would be very expensive. Otherwise we'd be losing the rest of the road while the construction is going on. So we don't gain anything by moving it south from a utility standpoint. We've got a lot of utilities 'to deal with no matter where it is within this range. It just would add a lot of dollar also, probably another $12,ggg.~g in pavement removal. Mayor Chmiel: I think you understand what we're saying basically back there? Eric? If you'd like to come up here and it is a public hearing. Eric Rivkin: Eric Rivkin, 6~95 Stellar Court. As long as you've got your handouts there, I wanted a replacement for the last page. This reflects a little more accurately what resulted from our neighborhood meeting. My question is I guess to Gary. Have you considered, I wasn't aware of how much more cost it might be to move the watermain to the south. I th~ought if we were going to do restoration anyway along the north side of Lake Lucy Road, that instead of having to deal with telephone poles, underground utilities, more culverts and restoration and dealing with the terrain itself, inconsistent depth. Having to do something with all the dirt. That if you went down the road you'd have a consistent depth. Does that have any affect on the cost at all? Gary Warren: We're putting in a watermain so as far as, I don't know if I follow your inconsistent depth. The watermain will follow the lay of the land so we don't increase or decrease the section with the topography. Basically we follow the topography. Eric Rivkin: There's a considerable amount of, in some places, the land changes in contour and you're dealing with a swath that's 6 to 8 feet wide for this drag box. It's going to take out contours. You've got to do something with that dirt. You're going to take out a lot of trees and shrubs that may have to be_ restored. Gary Warren: We've calculated some restoration in there. A lot of the, some of the trees and shrubs that we're actually looking at have almost been thanked for some of them that are going to go because they're just kind of scrub type of material. Any restoration work, we aren't expecting any outrageous type of challenges in that regard. I guess we've looked at the right-of-way. Whether you move it 8 feet south or keep it where it is, probably the impact is going to be very similar. 34 City Council Meeting - March 13~ 1989 Eric Rivkin: My other question I guess is for general here. If the Park and Rec meeting tomorrow night affects the design, the recommendation is that, is it too late to incorporate any changes after tonight if you approve the plan as it is? Gary Warren: As it relates to the trail issue, unless you would want us to move the watermain which in all honestly I think would be quite an extreme recommendation and expensive, no. Any of the trail issues we've anticipated and that's why the Park and Rec schedule and the Council meeting on the 27th was to allow us time to deal with that. We can do a change order on the contract and negotiate that with the contracter or whatever we bid it and accommodate it I think. Our intent is, as the restoration work is done on the watermain construction itself, we're going to be smart about it. We're not going to be planting sod out there if we know we're going to be coming back in with a trail so the construction economies that would be achieved by doing them together, we still should be able to protect very well. Eric Rivkin: Okay, that answers my questions. Pat Johnson: My name is Pat Johnson, 1730 Lake Lucy Lane and I'm also affected by the project. I note that the next item on the agenda is the award of bids. Aren't those contracters, whoever's going to do the work, don't they have some sort of responsibility for replacing the land back as it is or is that going to be the City's responsibility? Gary Warren: The contract provides for restoration as a part of the contract. Pat Johnson: Therefore, possibly we may have a separate bike trail. You'd sure hate to have to do restoration and then put a bike trail on top of that or vice versa. It would seem to me that it would be a consideration in those bids for the watermain project that they take into consideration the bike trail itself. Gary Warren: The restoration is the last thing that is done on the project and we're talking about a project that, I don't know Dick, when we get to restoration we're probably talking about July or even after the line is in service when we would be restoring it so... Pat Johnson: But are those part of the bids now? Gary Warren: But it's a unit price bid. It's not a lump sum. Pat Johnson: Okay there is no lump sum? Gary Warren: Well, there's a lump sum for the booster station but that doesn't impact these. So it's a unit price contract, pay as you go so to speak. Pat Johnson: That would be my concern with it. I agree there, I think Eric's done a great job of putting together these things and it's probably more appropriate for tomorrow that we discuss it at the Park and Rec but my concern is, a lot of work being done on this road and we don't want to see duplication on these efforts. Mayor Chmiel: Right, and I think we' re watching that. 35 ~ty Council Meeting - March 13, 1989 Terry O'Brien: My n~ne is Terry 0'Brien and I live at 1420 Lake Lucy Road. I'm just curious on when the watermain's coming through. Gary Warren: Our goal is to have the project awarded hopefully this evening and a contracter will have lg days to get his documents in order and be able to start any time after that. Our intent is to have it completed by the beginning of July. Terry O'Brien: Just real quick on this proposal we got. Are you going to go past the easement, the 33 foot with this 8 foot trail? Gary Warren: No. We %©uld be strictly within the City's easement. Right-o f-way. Warren Phillips: I'm Warren Phillips, 1571 Lake Lucy Road. I have a question just to clarify something in my own mind. When the watermain goes through, are you going to put T's in there for every property or only if you ask for them? Gary Warren: We have got, if you're on the south side of the road which I know Mr. Phillips is, we have 7, I think it's 7 stubs that are being jacked underneath the roadway and those stubs are avaialable for adjoining property owners J.n general terms to be able to connect. I believe we have one right on your property. Warren Phillips: I asked for one but I've since heard that they'll probably put them in for every property owner. Gary Warren: No, that' s incorrect. Warren Phillips: You' re only going to put in for those that ask for them now is that correct? Gary Warren: That's correct. The policy adopted by the Council says only those who ask. A resident asked a question from the audience. Gary Warren: It's not does but how much. Yes it does cost. There is an adopted policy, connection fee policy that has been established for each connection. Pat Johnson: Okay, you're talking about the south side or the north side of the road? My understanding, it really follows the north side of the road, the watermain itself. Gary Warren: The trunk watermain follows the north side except when we get by the retaining wall and we bump to the south side for that small area but stubs are put across so people can equally access the watermain from the north and the south side. A1 Harvey: A1 Harvey, Lake Lucy Road. 143~. I'm wondering if we can get a light down on the west end of Lake Lucy Road, if it's within this contract? We had one on our original and since the road has already been completed, we don't 36 City Council Meeting - March 13~ 1989 have one now and maybe that could be included~ Gary Warren: At Galpin you mean? A1 Harvey: On Galpin. Gary Warren: There is one on the schedule right now with NSP to be installed as soon as the frost comes out of the ground. Councilman Boyt moved, Councilman Johnson seconded to close the public hearing. All voted in favor and the motion carried. The public hearing was closed. Councilman Boyt moved, Councilman Workman seconded to approve Lake Lucy Road Trunk Watermain Improvement Project No. 88-25. All voted in favor and the motion carried. AWARD OF BIDS: AWARD OF BIDS FOR LAKE LUCY ROAD TRUNK WATERMAIN IMPROVEMENT PROJECT NO. 88-25. Gary Warren: We opened bids Friday after the packets went out so we've got h~m here. We had 11 bidders. Very good competitive bids. The engineer's estimate for the project was $387,935.00 and our low bidder is S.M. Hentges and Sons at $375,805.00. The grouping's very competitive. S.~. Hentges has done work in the City here. There's a little bio information that Westwood included here for you and we're very comfortable with it. I'm sure they will come in here and do the job that we need. I therefore would recon~nend to the Council award of Lake Lucy Road trunk watermain project to S.M. Hentges and Sons in the amount of $375,805.00. Resolution #89-36: Councilman Boyt moved, Councilman Johnson seconded to award the Lake Lucy Road Trunk Watermain Project No. 88-25 to S.M. Hentges and Sons in the amount of $375,805.00. All voted in favor and the motion carried. AWARD OF BIDS FOR AERIAL LADDER FOR FIRE STATION. Mark Littfin: We'd like to recommend that we award the bids tonight for manufacture of S~mon LTI. We had started the process approximately a year ago as determining which apparatus we would like to go to purchase. We had visited different manufacturers and talked to different fire departments. S~mon LTI did come in at low bid which we were pleased with. We feel they have one of the closest and more equipped repair facilities located up in North Branch if it does need repair work or maintenance on it that is above the City's capability. The clarifications that they had listed, we felt, the Corm~ittee felt were complete and to the committee's satisfaction. That's why we're recon~nending that company. Mayor Chmiel: I think one of the other factors too, which I sat in on a particular meeting and you indicated that the ladder was going to be all steel as opposed to aluminum which I feel is a very important factor. Being in 37 Council Meeting - March 13, 1989 fighting fires with intense heat, they seem to stay just a little better put together. Mark Littfin: Right. Mayor Chmiel: Are there any questions by Council? Councilman Work, nan: Don, I don't understand why we're going with the 90% payment. I don't understand what we're saving there. It seems like we're sticking our neck out but then we don't want to stick it out for a few thousand more. I don' t understand. Don Ashworth: We have 3 levels of protection that we're basically looking at to insure that we do not get stuck. A performance bond, basically a letter of credit and finally holding back cash of about, the final payment of 10% or $46,000.00. I feel that those 3 levels of protection are well worth the $38 , 000. 00. They can be achieved in a bid reduction by the company. Councilman Boyt is looking at me with question. Did I misquote the amount of the savings at $38, Councilman Boyt: But that's not the real savings. Why don't we deal with the real savings. Don Ashworth: Bill's referring to, I prepared a lJ_sting that basically showed two optJ. onal plans. One in which we, right now we have bonded for $225,000.00. That means we will have a deficit financing that will occur from the period of April through when our secondary bonding would be put in place this fall, an additional $225,000.00. I compared what would happen if we withheld, just went in with the traditional payment plan. In that case we ended with approximately $9,000.00 or $10,000.00 J.n the hole. In other words, we can not purchase all of the equJ. pment that we had wanted to purchase. Going with the recon~mendatJ, on as laid out, taking into account interest received and also savings frc~n the company, etc., we would end up with about $2,000.00 to the good under that projection. I did in total about 6 projections that looked at all different ways that this may occur so my numbers may be a little bit different. My recollection as to which of 'these alternative plan produces the greatest savings but in every instance we were able 'to accomplish the full acquisition of the truck and all of the equisraent goJ. ng along with it within the $450,000.00 authorized to us by the voters. If we went to the traditional plan, we would either have to cut equipment or sell more bonds. Councilman Johnson: Are you saying at the 90% pay level that the end of the whole financing, when we paid off the bonds and paid off all of our interest on our money and everything else, we'll be $2,000.00 to the good? Don Ashworth: I'm sorry, it would be $9,000.00 to the good. Councilman Johnson: It v~uld be $9,000.00 to the good. If we don't do that and we go back and do the partial payments and the whole thing will be $9,000.~0 to the bad? Councilman Boyt: More than that. 38 City Council Meeting - March 13~ 1989 Councilman Workman: I'm trying to compare this to the 100% versus ~he 90%. That's what I'm comparing it to. Councilman Johnson: The way I think of 100% versus 90% is when I bought my house I didn't give the builder the full 100%. My lawyers held it back in the Purchase Agreement until I was totally satisfied. You don't get that last $40,000.00 until we're satisfied with that truck. Don Ashworth: We would have two additional forms of security. A letter of credit and a performance bond which would insure that for whatever the company just goes bankrupt, we get our $450,000.00 back. Councilman Workman: So potentially we could save a little more with the 100% but safety reasons, the 90% is much better? That's all I really wanted to know. Don Ashworth: Right. I misunderstood the question. Councilman Workman: Then my only other comment is, we met with Mark Littfin and the con~nittee last week a little bit to talk a little bit about it and maybe to save some time here tonight. I find it to be a very, or at least the con~ittee seemed real anxious and they seemed like they did a really good job and they're happy with it and I guess I just want to cor~mend them on behalf of the City, the citizens of the City for doing such a good job. It tooks such a long process to do it and it looks like you guys stuck, the packet that we got originally on all the detail with it, which I went through, is just incredible. It's an incredible machine. It's the kind of thing that kind of builds a little bit of pride with the department and everything that you guys are looking for and I just wanted to say that. Mayor Chmiel: If I remember correctly, there was over 1,000 hours put into this. Mark Littfin: 1,000 man hours into the project. Mayor Chmiel: Without cost. I like that. Councilman Workman: We all noted that we'd be honored to have that in front of our house if our house was ablaze. But again, thanks for all the t~ne that you guys spent. I know it's something you guys have spent a lot of time and you did a good job. Resolution #89-37: Councilman Boyt moved, Mayor Chmiel seconded to accept the bid from S~mon LTI in the amount of $457,370.00 for the Fire Department's Aerial Platform Truck with a 90% payment plan. All voted in favor and the motion carried. AWARD CONTRACT FOR CURBSIDE RECYCLING. Jo Ann Olsen: We received two bids for the recycling and one of them was Waste Management which is a larger corporation. They were the more expensive one at 87 cents per household per month and that would be for 8 months for the remainder of this year. The other one was Gnade and he is, it's a family run 39 City Council Meeting - March 13, 1989 business in Chaska and that's $4.00 per household per year. My calculations in the memo, I used 3,75g households. Actually it would be 3,400. We used the Met Council's number so it would be, Waste Management would be $23,g~0. gg approximately and Gnade would be $9,ggg.gg. Bohh of them met the specs. Neither could do J.t J.n one day. Gnade would do it over 3 days and Waste Mangement proposed to split the city into four sections and to take it two days for each section. Other than that, they both met the specs so we would recommend going with the lowest bid. Councilman Boyt: Two days for each section so once every 8 days? And the other one was? Jo Ann 01sen: Three days. Councilman Boyt: Once every 3 days. The one every 3 days, was that the 87 cents per household? Jo Ann Olsen: No, it's the $4.00 per household. Gnade is going to essentially split the city into 3 sections and do it in 3 days. Whereas Waste Mangement would split the city into 4 sections and do i section in 2 days. Councilman Boyt: So for less money we're going to get picked up more often? Jo knn Olsen: No. Councilman Workman: Can we go over those number quickly again. I missed them too. Jo Ann Olsen: Gnade is charging $4.ffg per household per year and he would be picking up the whole city in 3 days and he'd be dof. ng it twice a month. Waste Mangement would be picking up every other week so you actually get two extra weeks throughout the year but they would be sectioning the city into 4 sections. So it would be 2 days for each section, it gets confusing. So Waste Mangement would take 2 days to pick up each of the quarter of the city and they would pick up every other week so it wouldn't necessarily just be like the first and third. Councilman Boyt: Twice a month is probably easier to follow. Jo Ann Olsen: It might be easier to do it every other week too. Whatever. Councilman Workman: If I could make some quick comments. We just had 2 bids come J.n? Jo Ann Olsen: That's all. Mayor C~niel: Super Cycle didn't bid on this? Jo Ann Olsen: Or B & R. Councilman Boyt: There's a lot of demand. Councilman Workman: There seems like there wasn't much action on this and that we're kind of getting a short end of the stick on this as far as bidding. How much was Waste Mangement? 4~ City Counc-il ~eeting - March 13, 1989 Jo Ann Olsen: That would come out to about $23~000~00~ Councilman Workman: I mean per household? Jo Ann Olsen: 87 cents per household per month. Councilman Workman: And Gnade was $4.00 per household per month? Councilman Johnson: Per year. Apples and oranges. You should take it at the same dollar amount. What's the cost per year? Councilman Workman: So what' s the low bid? Jo Ann Olsen: The low bid is Gnade. Councilman Workman: So we're suggesting that Gnade get it. Jo Ann Olsen: He's got a drop off service there and then he also does curbside recycling for victoria and... Councilman Workman: St. Boni I think. So we're kind of giving it to the little guy. I was worried that because we didn't have much action that we were putting too many restrictions and that we weren't getting enough good bids and that a big guy was going to get it naturally. Councilman Boyt: It turns out that there's actually so much business out there that they can pick and choose where they want to bid. Councilman Workman: And this is all based on a one year trial basis? Did that restrict us? Jo Ann Olsen: That made the bid not as financially favorable to us. Councilman Workman: So in a year are we going to redo this? We're going to do it every year? 3 year? 4 year? Mayor Chmiel: Just try it for that first year. Councilman Johnson: We're trying to establish a con~nittee that will, we're going to do this this first year, establish a co.~mittee to look at it, to look at other cities and advise the Council on what type of recycling the city of Chanhassen should have. At this point we haven't really received the citizens input that we really need on this but we're kind of behind the 8 ball too. We really need to get our recycling program going so this is to get it started. And I volunteered to be part of that co_~mittee. Councilman Workman moved, Councilman Johnson seconded to accept the low bid, Gnade Recycling to do curbside recycling at $4.00 per household per year for the City of Chanhassen. All voted in favor and the motion carried. 41 City Council Meeting - March 13, 1989 REVIE~W MEDIAN CUT PROPOSAL FOR KLINGELHUTZ PROPERTY, 7811 GREAT PLAINS BLVD.. Mayor Chmiel: A1 was here this evening. He was ill with the flu. I didn't want him to ]_nfest this whole Council chamber so he asked if we could table it and I would make that motion that we table this to the next Council meeting. Councilman Boyt: Second. Mayor Cnmiel moved, CounciLman Boyt seconded to table the review of the median cut proposal for Klingelhutz Property at 7811 Great Plains Blvd. until the next Council meeting. Ail voted in favor and the motion carried. WOODCREST NEIGHBORHOOD DISCUSSION OF COVENANTS AND RESTRICTIONS. Councilman Johnson: I think before ~ get started on th]s, as a starting, I think this is a good learning point. This was I think a mistake we made and we should all learn from it. The lack of power of a covenant and how we thought we were protecting s(>mething and it didn't work out. It's good hindsight. Mayor Chmiel: Steve, should we clarify that anymore? Steve Hanson: I won't elaborate on it a whole lot. It was presented to the Planning Con~nission in January and Larry Brown had been handling it and taking it through. When he left, it kind of got dropped a little bit. Bill Eggert is here who's an adjacent property owner which really brought it to light and made a presentation to the Planning Con~nission. I know he'd like to take a few minutes of your time just to bring you up to s.oeed on it. Bill Eggert: Thank you. I'm Bill Eggert and I reside at 8gg Preakness Lane in the Triple Cro~zn Estates development. Steve, everyone has this packet I was provided with. Is that correct? Okay. If you've had an opportunity to review this, it is pretty much a situation where everythJ.ng that could have gone wrong, more or less went wrong. If I could take you back just for a few moments and review. I'll go back to the City Council Minutes back in May of last year. What I'd like to address are a couple of different issues here. One is the encroachment on the covenants. The set aside for the protection of certain, a setback of 140 feet. The other issue is the issue of the protection of the trees in the area. Back in May, and I'm just going to take some excerpts out of the Minutes. Councilman Boyt expressed concern on the trees and he quote says, I think that it should be added in reference to trees being proposed for cutting should be reviewed by the Forest Service and the City Engineer. He then goes on to state that I'd like to see fill minimized to save trees as much as possible. He makes some con~nents about the road situation at that point. Mayor Hamilton at that time con~ents on the discussion on trees that this ].s a beautiful piece of property and there are many trees out there and I think a lot of them will be saved because the building pads will be on the north sides of the lots. He goes on to state that he likes to see a nice trees area and some of these trees are being taken by development but it's a valuable asset to the property J.n that people will be looking for property with trees on them. I'd like to then talk about the correspondence that went out from the City to Ron Krueger and Roxanne Lund who are the principle players in R & R Land Ventures. It was stated that there should be no clear cutting of the lots at any time and that the applicant 42 CJ~ty Council Meeting - March 13~ 1989 should file a proposed deed restrictions upon satisfactory review by the City staff. The City Engineer and the DNR Forester shall review the site regarding tree removal, grading and fill and fill should be minimized to prevent unnecessary removal of trees. It was then brought before the City Council again in July. Again, the same concerns were brought up regarding the tree removal and Councilman Boyt again voiced his concerns and he said, I know we had discussion as of notes and staff con~nents that this will go through DNR and the City Engineer approval. I want to be reassured that they're not just going to come in and just wipe the trees off of the northern half of the lot. Councilman Johnson also expressed concern at that point too and then continents were made about restraints before trees were cut on the property. Then Councilman Horn corm]ented that a tree removal plan will be reviewed by the DNR forester. In your packet is the statement from the Department of Natural Resources. I'd like to take some quotes, some excerpts out of that. It's stated that the existing tree cover consists mostly of sugar maple, basswood and oak trees that are 6 to 8 inches in diameter. Trees which will require either soil added to or removed from their root zone will need to have wells built around the trees in order to preserve the health and vigor of the tree. Apparently paths used by heavy equipment operaters need to be kept to an absolute minimum and with a little care exercised by the construction company will go a long way in maintaining the good health of the trees in this area currently enjoy. The DNR recommendation was attached to the final plat approval correspondence sent up from Barb Dacy to Don Ashworth on August 8th. In the analysis portion of that correspondence, it states that the development contract and the plans and specifications review address the 13 conditions of the preliminary plat approval except for condition 1 regarding tree removal on the property. The DNR f.orester reviewed the site with staff and has submitted his con~nents. The recommendations of the forester are incorporated now into the condition of approval for the plat. Then finally on August 8, 1988 it was brought before the City Council for final consent and it was approved. What I'd like to pass around the Council are some pictures of the properties. There are two sections to that little brochure and the first is in regards to the 140 foot setback that was encroached on. Then as you proceed through it, you'll see the results of the clearing of the property in the area. As the DNR forester noted, there were a number of trees 6 to 8 inches in diamater, beautiful mature trees and there's very little evidence of that left on 3 Of the 5 lots. Additionally, I wanted to bring to the Council's attention what I believe is, it's at least a concern on my part, on the intent of the developers on this particular project. When the initial meetings were held with the residents and the community, it was proposed that a covenant be established to maintain the beauty and the integrity of the property behind our development. It was initially proposed with 120 foot covenant and subsequent meetings with the concerns of the residents in the con~nunity, the developer moved to 140 foot covenant. Subsequently it was embraced by the residents in the conm~unity and then approved with concern but assurances by the developer by the Planning Con~nission. Unfortunately, shortly after that approval, and I believe it came out of Planning Corm~ission, well it was finally approved here in August. The first home was surveyed for building in September. That initial survey and that was presented to the Planning C~x~ission, it's also a part of your packet, encroaches on the 140 foot covenant. The survey was drawn by Ron Krueger. Ron Krueger was one of the two people in R & R development that put this whole program together. I would tend to believe that if anyone should have known that that property was going to be encoraching on the covenant, Mr. Kruger would have known that. Just a matter of days prior to bringing this to the public attention in the Planning Con%mission meeting, the 3 people who are involved in 43 City Council Meeting - March 13, 1989 the cor~nittee on the Covenants and Restrictions for Woodcrest met and the Covenants and Restrictions was altered from 14g feet to 100 feet. That occurred just prior to the Planning Coranission meeting. When Larry Brown inquired into that, he was told that Roxanne Lurid was a principle participant in making that change. Obviously there's nothing that can be done with regard to what's already taken place there in our development. My concern was to bring it to the attention of the City Council and perhaps through the experience that we've just gone through, s~meone else will benefit in the future. After presenting this to the Planning Co~mission, I guess I voiced the same sentiments of Mr. Conrad who said, obviously we've got to be concerned about a developer that breaks his word in this con~nunity. That's ~nere I'm with it today. I just want to thank you for the opportunity to bring it to your attention. Mayor Ch~iel: Thank you very much. CounciLman Johnson: Let me make another co~_~nent on this Mr. Mayor. At the time we had a lot of discussion on having a woodlands protection ordinance similiar to our wetlands alteration ordinance to where we would have the right to establish a setback of 14~ foot. In reality we did not have that right and we still do not have that right. That process was going to go on. Of course with Jo Ann going out and Barb going out, that is one of the many projects that Planning has that has floundered a bit so as of yet we don't have a woodlands protection ordinance. With such an ordinance, we could have put something in there that when the building permit came in, it would be a line on the plat that actually showed that they could not build within there. It would become an unbuildable area and we would not have had the problem we had here. So I'm still pushing for a woodlands protection ordinance that we have some r~.~aining stands of the original great forest that used to be around here before Paul Bunyan c~e in and chopped it all up and put in farm fields. I think we need to protect some of those with at the same time looking at the rights of the people who want to develop that land. It's some of the prime development land for housing and we have to create a woodlands protection ordinance that doesn't allow the clear cutting of the lots but allows homes to be enviror~mentally set into the trees. There's a lot of ideas on those to increase the minimum lot size within a woodlands protection area to make it a larger lot so we, if you look at 15,00g square foot lot, if it's deep, you end up with homes right at the 10 foot setback. You get a big tree inbetween there, the trees have to be_ taken out because their drip line goes into the foundation line and they won't survive anyway. So increase sideyard setbacks. Things like this that hopefully we'll look into and get sometime during 1989. Get a woodlands protect].on ordinance. Councilman Boyt: I'd like to co~nent if I might. As we' 11 be discussing a little bit later this evening, the plans for the Planning Comnission, note that tree cover mapping is being done by the DNR this year. Hopefully they're staying on schedule with that. I would like to see the City direct a letter to this developer, Mr. Krueger and his partner and tell them that we feel they acted in bad faith and that they have lost the trust of the City. Granted, we couldn't require what they offered but they did offer it and we did accept it and it was actually part of our approval. To know that they turned around and quickly changed that is, I think truly bad faith. I think we should note and record that. Mr. Eggert, Triple Crown actually is one of the worse offenders in the city and so you might be_ interested to know that your property was wooded in this same way. 44 City Council Meeting - March 13~ 1989 Councilman Johnson: The entire Triple Crown~ Councilman Boyt: But that it was difficult to develop so they clear cut the whole thing in a matter of a week or so. But at least they never claimed they wouldn't do it. Since this is on our agenda, if we could take action and I would move that we send a letter to this developer and tell them that we feel they acted in bad faith. I think that's all we can do but we should do that. Councilman Johnson: I'll second that if there is a motion. Mayor Chmiel: Roger, is a motion needed? Roger Knutson: If you want to. Otherwise, you can just by consensus do it. Councilman Boyt moved, Councilman Johnson seconded to direct staff to write a letter to R & R Land Venture stating that the City Council feels they acted in bad faith. All voted in favor and the motion carried. ACCEPT RESIGNATION OF CAROL WATSON FR(I~4 THE PARK AND RECREATION COMMISSION. Councilman Johnson: I'd like to move we don't accept her resignation. Mayor Chmiel: She's already turned it in. Councilman Johnson: It doesn't mean we have to accept it. I've talked to her and she was pressured to resign. I don't think that there is any need for her. The reasoning was to stay on the Board of Adjustments and Appeals which is a very minimal assignment in comparison and I think we need her years of experience on both boards. I think at this t~me in our city's and she's willing to stay on but there was sc~e behind the scenes pressures applied to request her to not stay on. As far as from what I understand, there's some kind of unwritten policy of only being on one board. I don't see that there is such a policy and she was resigning, from what I understand, because she wanted to be on the Board of Adjustments and Appeals. I think that she would do an adequate, a very good job on both boards. That she's had years of experience on Planning Co~nission and Board of Adjustments and Appeals and understands the planning aspects plus her years on the Council makes her a good candidate on the Park and Rec Board too. She's active there. That's why I say... Mayor Chmiel: Let me address that issue right now Jay. I'm the one that did have discussion with Carol. My position is that we have an individual serve on a respective corrmission. She was not pressured to romove herself from the Park and Rec. I gave her a choice and asked her which one she would like to be on. I felt that she should not be on two respective co~nissions so I want that clarified right now. Don't jump to conclusions. Councilman Johnson: That's basically what I said and she chose the Board of Adjustments and Appeals. Mayor Chmiel: It's the way you said it. I'd like clarification on it. 45 City Council Meeting - March 13, 1989 Councihaan Johnson: I'm sorry if I did not say that right. You're saying that you've created a policy for this City by yourself... Mayor Chmiel: I'm not indicating that I created a policy for the City. It was my opinion that we do not have one person serve on two respective commissions. That we_ should have other people serving on those con~nissions. Councilman Johnson: Okay. Councilman Worbnan: I'll make a motion that we accept the resignation of Carol Watson fr~ the Park and Recreation Commission. Mayor C]~miel: And I will second that. Councilman Worbnan moved, Mayor Chmiel seconded to accept the resignation of Carol Watson from the Park and Recreation Commission. Ail voted in favor except CounciLman Johnson who oppose~ and the motion carried with a vote of 3 to 1. Councilman Johnson: I think we ought to take up your, if we're going to make such statements to members, we ought to make that a Council policy and let all 5 of us vote on it versus one m~nber of the Council having such a power. Mayor Cheiel: Very good. REVIE~W WEST 78TH STREET/LAREDO DRIVE STOP SIGN REQUEST. Gary Warren: If i could Mr. Mayor, I'd like to call on Howard Preston from BRW to maybe give an overview of the findings of the study that he conducted for us. Howard Preston: Good evening. Given the time, I will just give you in fact a very brief overview and then if you have questions, I will do my best to try to answer those. Basically what we did J.s that we looked at the operation of that intersection and measured it, 3 objective kinds of performance criteria. We looked at traffic volLtmes on both the 'West 78th Street, which is the major street, and Laredo Drive, what I'll call the minor street approach. We also looked at the average vehicle delay for vehicles on the minor street which is a measure of how good is the traffic control at the intersectJ.on working. How efficient is it and we also looked at traffic accJ. dents which is another, really a measure of how well that intersection is working. So the traffic volumes were counted and measured against criteria that's established that's an indicator of the need for additional intersection control. The idea is if the volL~mes are very high at the intersection and high above a threshold number. The number is 50g vehicles an hour total through the intersection with 20g vehicles an hour on Laredo Drive, the minor street. So we counted the traffic volL~mes and measured it against those objective criteria, the threshold numbers that are in the manual on uniform traffic control devices which is a manual that's been adopted by the Con~nission of Transportation for the use on all traffic studies in the State of Minnesota. The answer is, the volumes through that intersection did not exceed those theshold numbers so that's the first indicator that the additional intersection control or going from the through stop condition to something greater, first indicator that that's not necessary. The second 46 City Council Meeting - March 13~ 1989 indicator w-as average vehicle delay. The average delay for vehicles on Laredo Drive approaching West 78th Street during the peak hour in the afternoon, so that's the maximum amount of time you would expect that vehicles would be delayed. It's an average of 13 seconds per vehicle. Admittedly, that's an average which means that 50% of the vehicles were greater and 50% were less than that but nonetheless that's the measure that's used. The threshold number that's in the manual on uniform traffic control devices is 30 seconds so if the average vehicle delay is 30 seconds or greater, that's also an indicator that addit~onal intersection control is needed. We measured 13 seconds of delay. Considerably less than what that threshold number is. The final measure was accidents. The number in the manual on uniform traffic control devices is 5 correctable accidents of a type that would be susceptible to correction by the installation of an all way stop sign or all way stop condition during a 12 month period. And the kinds of accidents for example that would be considered susceptible to correction, right angle accidents where a vehicle on Laredo would have pulled out in front of a thru vehicle on West 78th Street or any right or left turning accidents. Those were the type that would be counted. Again, the threshold number is 5 in a 12 month period. We checked accidents I believe from January of 1984 through July of 1988, which was the most recent date available and the intersection averaged less than 2 accidents per year. I believe there was 8 accidents total in that 3 plus year period and only 2 of those were correctable in a 3 plus year period. So when we looked at those measures of how the intersection is working, they all indicated that the traffic control that's there is working adequately. It's working efficiently. The volumes are not excessively high for that kind of traffic control. The delay is not excessively high and the number of accidents is well below the threshold values that would indicate a problem. So there would be one final test that we would make that it would be a combination of things that if you looked in the field at the intersection and if the sight distance was restricted or if there were other kinds of compounding factors where volumes were almost high enough to meet the criteria, that the delays were almost high enough to meet the criteria, and that there were a fairly high number of accidents in conjunction with limited sight distance, that also might meet the criteria for the installation of an all way stop. That condition wasn't present either. So the recon~nendation was, the series of recorm~endations I made in my report that the intersection control that's there now is operating efficiently and it would be recon~nended that that be retained for the present time. Going through the accident numbers, it did show that 1988 was considerably higher as far as the number of accidents than any of the previous years although not high enough to meet the criteria of 5 correctable in a 12 month period. The combination of a slightly increased numnber of accidents recently combined with the possibility of volumes on West 78th Street going up as your downtown redevelopment continues to happen, I've indicated or recon~nended that city staff monitor the intersection annually and really look at this intersection on an annual kind of a basis to recount the traffic volumes and look at the accident data to see what's happening so that when the intersection is approaching or just over the threshold criteria for either volumes delay or accidents, that you're able to react to that in a timely fashion. The third it~ is that Gary had asked me to consider the possibility of traffic signals instead of the all way stop signs. Reason being that when you're downtown, when West 78th Street was reconstructed, the conduits for the wires to wire the signals were in fact installed and that forethought, he was wondering if it would pay off. The fact of the matter is, the intersection also doesn't meet the warrants for the installation of a traffic signal meaning that there really isn't any problem that you'd be solving by installing a traffic 47 ~y Council Meeting - March 13, 1989 signal and the cost of a traffic signal is somewhere in the range of $6g,gg0.00 to $80,g0g.g~ so it would be a very expensive solution for a problem that you don't have at this presen time so that also is not recon~nended at this time. So that's the series of recommendations that I've listed that's in your staff report. Councilman Johnson: I think you blew it. I hate to say that but if you go back and look at some of the directions on the study, I didn't see much on Market Blvd. and the effect that we expect on Market Blvd. opening up. What's the effect is going to be backlashed onto this looking at the near term develo~ent. If you look at it, we had two of the type of preventable accidents, the stop signs would prevent in the first 7 months of 1988. That's prior to the vegetation being planted that restricts the vision to the west. I'd like to find out how many we've had in the last 5 months of 1988. Howard Preston: I thJ. nk the point is, I don't think the situation J.s such that you have to react with the installation of a stop sign now and the point was that as conditions change, to just keep those kinds of things in mind. If you're talking about vegetation on the north side of West 78th Street, I drove through that, or are you talking about the south side? Councilman Johnson: No, in the center of West 78th looking to the west. You have vegetation that has been planted in the stm~ner of '88, after this, that now restricts the vision a little more than it was before. A low car going through there with some of the bushes that were planted are almost totally obscured at times. Looking the other way, there's a tree now in the way and that's probably the cause of those two accidents because that tree was planted earlier. Some things that we're looking at. The effect of Market Blvd., whether we need to signalize Market Blvd. as it gets opened up. That's a big question. That's something that I thought was going to be part of this study was looking at the overall downtown. Not just that intersection. If you look back to the Council notes that directed this study originally, I believe we discussed looking at the entire downtown and what the whole effect would be. Maybe not. But looking at what happened in 1984 and looki, ng at all the changes happened to that intersection ~n 1988, it really doesn't matter what happened in the 5 years previous. Howard Preston: If I may comment on that Councilman Johnson. The idea is that, accidents really are rare occurances and they can go up and down at a particular intersection and vary a lot in a very short period Of time. It's a rule of thumb that I use and it's recommended by most traffic engineering texts, that 21 year's worth of accident data doesn't really give you a reliable picture of what the situation is and it would not be the responsible thing to do to make a judgment or recommendations based on only a single year's worth of data. So admittedly the conditions have changed. There's no question of that and that's partly what led to the recommendation that City staff continue to monitor the intersection. It will be shortly when the last 4 or 5 months of data for 1988 is available. Your staff went through the State ~nd I also checked with the State and that's all the data that was in their Public Safety's computer so it will be very shortly that the last 4 or 5 months of data will be available. agree that if things change based on what happened the last 4 or 5 months, it would be appropriate it take a look again at this situation. 48 C~.ty Council Meeting - March 13, 1989 Councilman Johnson: I think that one of the big points I tried to make a few months ago I guess when we were talking about this before was that when Market Blvd. opens, this whole intersection changes again because that becomes a new route. A new traffic. When the shopping center opens up on the other side of Market Blvd, when the hotel comes in, this whole thing changes. I think we really have to look at Market Blvd. intersection with West 78th and whether that needs to be signalized right up front. I don't want to wait until we've had 5 accidents or maybe 2 people killed until we start putting in some traffic control here. Mayor Chmiel: I think what's Howard saying basically is that we have to keep running checks on those intersections to see what total counts there are that may dictate that. I take to his last point that he makes on item 4, he says the City would be held liable for accidents that occur at an unwarranted stop sign. Councilman Johnson: I don't think that warrants a stop sign personally. Okay? Mayor Chmiel: That maybe. I've also driven that particular street and I've tried on both of them, on Kerber as well as Laredo, mine is normally between 6:00-7:00 in the morning and one morning I had 11 seconds of just sitting there counting them. Councilman Johnson: I drive that every day and his numbers are accurate. I don't think we warrant a stop sign there right now but it's more important to me as Market Blvd. not really this. Councilman Workman: But then we've got Kerber, Market, Laredo. We've got 3 in a row and you can't put 3 stop signs in. Councilman Johnson: No. I think we're going to end up, gut feeling is a traffic light at Market. With a delay that will be caused at the light at Market will give you the chance to get across at Laredo because it's such a short intersection. When that light's red, you no longer have that stream of traffic coming frc~ the west. So you have your chance to get across. The delay may still be there because you may have to wait a minute for the light to turn red but right now, I don't think in the last year I've been up to 30 seconds yet on that intersection. I drive it every day. I drive it twice a day, every day. Councilman Boyt: If I might add a coherent here. I didn't think the engineering study was needed a year ago. It hasn't surprised me a bit in what you've come up with. My understanding of what the Council wanted though was a study of West 78th Street and traffic patterns on that and where, I guess I'm agreeing with Jay, and where do we put a stop sign if we put one. So maybe we're a little bit short and a year from not we come back and do that. The other comments, I think for the new Council members to make a judgment about this, they needed to have, and I think the City received a letter from at least one citizen in regards to this intersection, they needed to have the recommendation from the Public Safety Commission which was made to put a stop sign here. They needed to have the Council Minutes from our initial discussion which they didn't have which went into depth on this. Then I agree with you. Statistically, everything you've said makes a lot of good sense but I also remember that a year ago the kids from the elementary school wrote us letters and said we need some way to get across West 78th Street. We can't do it. They still can't do it. That granted this past year could have been a blip for any number of reasons for 49 Council Mee~..ng March 13 1989 when you look at 5 years and 62% of the accidents are in one year, you've got to at least say, isn't that interesting. I don't consider a stop sign, I know there could be some disagreement about this but I don't consider it a life long event when we put a stop sign in. And putting one in would certainly have ripple effects that I'm not sure I could live with but not having one has ripple effents on kids. It has ripple effects on the 5 people who had accidents, who may or may not have had th~-n with the stop sign. I can't predict that. I have no idea but we have a road going through the center of our downtown and there is one stop sign on t/ne road and I think because of that, that road is being chosen as a short cut and it has more traffic on it than it would have if it had some sort of restriction on traffic flow. People might argue that it's a beck of a restriction to try to get through the I~H l~l/78th Street maze. I don't disagree with that but I just think we're a long way from having thJ. s road ready and I'm not prepared to sit and wait a year to get it ready. So I would make a motion that we p~:t a stop sign in. I can't justify it with anything other than you can't come up with anything better and we've got a problem. Councilman Johnson: I think the one criteria that you mentioned that's very important and I didn't see mentioned in here which is another part of it, is the pc=destrian side of it. The trail crossing. I thought that the warrants for traffic were decreased by pedestrian traffic. As I r~member reading the manual when we were working, another J~ssue last year is your 5gg trips per day or whatever it was, is decreased if you also have, you can also include how many pedestrians are walking by. In January there are not as many. But there are kids that do need to get across there and that's the one that gets me the most in this intersection and West 78th as a ~nole is how do pedestrians cross that place? It gets a little tough. It used to be a lot easier to cross to get over there and as we develop, we're going to need more pedestrian crossings as we put more retail on the other side. Mayor ~nmiel: Bill, can I make a reco-~nendation? Councilman Boyt: Oh sure. Mayor Chmiel: Because of all the additional information, I'm sure that Public Safety has not had an opportunity to review this. CounciLman Boyt: They reco~Tmended it. They haven't reviewed the engineering report. Mayor Chmiel: That's right and that's what I think they should have an opportunity to do before we move ahead with that. Councilman Boyt: So I would move that we refer this to the Public Safety Con~nission for further study. CounciLman Workman: I'll second that. Councilman Boyt moved, Councilman Workman seconded to refer the engineering study on West 78th Street/Laredo Drive Stop Sign Request to the Public Safety Comnission. All voted in favor and the motion carried. 5~ City Council Meeting - March 13, 1989 ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS: 1989 PLANNING COMMISSION GOALS, PLANNING DIRECTOR. Steve Hanson: The Planning Con~nission at it's last meeting, essentially what we did is we put together a to do list of items that staff had identified and Planning Con~nission had identified. Some of these also were items that City Council members had identified at least in the time that I've been here. What we intended to do at Planning Con~nission is try to set some priorities on these. We didn't really spend a whole lot of time on the list in all honesty other than adding a few things to it and at that meeting we didn't set any priorities. What the Planning Commission had asked is that I bring the list of items to the Council ar~ ask Council if they have any insights on what things we ought to put at the top of the list to try to accomplish in the coming year. I would venture to say if we were to try all of these, we'd probably take a good... I think part of that speaks to what kind of detail you'd like on some of these. I think some of these have been established as a priority by virtue of being on going at the present time. Those specific items would conclude the Comprehensive Plan update and that update is being done does not include the areas outside the MUSA line. It doesn't include looking down the road farther at that. Personally I think that's something the City ought to be doing regardless of whether we serve it in the immediate future or not. We need to have a handle on what those areas need to be. So the update on the Comp Plan is in progress and the...obvious priority. We're getting the schedule together to complete that this year. Tentatively we're looking at a completion date to be able to bring it to hearing before the Planning Con~ission in May. That's assuming that we can get appropriate meetings set up with the Planning Con~nission during that period of time. From the standpoint of getting the work complete, we feel that that's a doable situation. The second group of items fall under what I classified as zoning code amendments. Again, here we have a couple that are in process. I at least have been viewing those as a priority and the first of those being contractor's yards. At the Wednesday Planning Con~nission meeting I'm going to ask th~ to authorize to go ahead with public hearing and the recommendation at this point in time is to eliminate contractor's yards in the A-2 district. The updated zoning map, I don't think we really talked about. It's not a big item but there have been several rezonings that have been approved since that was updated and we need to get a zoning map. The next item that I have on here is really what I would consider a priority is the convenience store moratorium. Basically I'm under a deadline on that moratorium which is 6 months. We have some preliminary information for the Planning Commission this Wednesday and following that up in the next month or so with some additional input. Then as far as items that are on going, the other ones under the zoning code I feel are ones that have been talked about but I think some work has been done arour~ th~ and I'm just not up to speed on all of those so consequently I put those on my priority list. Then I have a catch all category of other. The wetlands mapping and tree cover mapping. We're trying to get those accomplished this year. Obviously there's not a lot of staff time involved but it's also...being done. It takes a little coaching on our part to get that accomplished and we'd like to do that this year if we can. What I would see as a priority and my understanding hasn't been on your list per se is one that I've added and that's the first one under other, the updating for development procedures. What I'd like to do there is get that into a format where we've got a developer's packet that we can hand out that's got some little tighter guidelines on what has to be done when and where...process where we can make it as complete as you can to 51 C~[ty Council Meeting - March 13, 1989 really allow the Planning Commission to do t/heir thing if you will and their recomnendations that come to Council...more of putting it on the Consent Agenda if you wanted to for the most part where there wouldn't be really any conditions as far as having to revise their application. Obviously the applications are... That's kind of a rundown from ,ny perspective. ~yor Chmiel: Does anybody have a con~nent? CounciLman Johnson: I have a couple. Gary left so one I was going to kind of go after, we updating the zoning map, I think there was some effort at getting some CAD, computer aided drafting and getting some mapping. I think there's also a group out at DNR that wants to work with us on a mapping procedure in which there's basically a mainframe or mini-compute_r that would have an overall map of the city of Chanhassen on it and we'd have a work station here. Ail the wetlands would be put on there. All the forested areas. We could add all the pipes. All the streets and all this other stuff in there and be a program to just pull it up. I'm not sure where we are. I know DNR was working with staff someplace on that. That would make, once that information is in, this would make updating and a lot of the staff's work a lot easier. It was kind of interesting to see some of the systems that are out there commercially available at the League of Cities conferences the last two years. It was really interesting to watch them between the two years and how much they improved on the mapping capabilities, computerized mapping. I was just wondering, but Gary's left. He's the only one probably that knows anything about that. Steve Hanson: I'm not familiar with that. I am familiar with some of-the CAD mapping that he can do and really other than having the equipment to do it, the time to get it up and running is the biggest item. Getting all the data entered. Once you've got the system up and going. CounciLman Johnson: That's where, in any computerization, modernization, the up front. I'm doing the s~me thing in my department right now. The up front of training the people and getting the equipment and everything seems terrible but I think it's something we need to look into. Mayor Chmiel: I'd like to know what the costs are. Councilman Johnson: Yes. Would the DNR system that the people at DNR were talking to me about, the costs are not that high because the computer's already there. Sign ordinance, we've been talking about the sign ordinance for quite a while. Variances. This is one %fnere, Bill, how many variances did we have last year, requests for signs? Probably one a month it seemed. It was just amazing. Maybe not that much. Probably every other month somebody was coming in for a sign variance. ~nen you have that many variances on one regulation, you know there's a problem. I think we need to get a group together, a con~nittee again, whatever. Businesses. Citizens. And sign industry. We have people living in this city who own sJ. gn companies that have expressed a desire to participate with us on what is the industry. We get the businesses telling us all the time, hey this is the industry standard you know. There I think we need to get a con~nittee working to take s~ne of the burden of staff, a citizens committee to work on reviewing our sign ordinance. I know Pat Swenson may be interested in that because_ she was behind the original sign ordinance I believe. Councilman Boyt: It's not very old. 52 City Council Meeting - March 13~ 1989 59 Councilman Johnson: No, it's not. As a matter of fact, it came in just before Bill and I came on Council. In relation to wetland violation, I think we had also talked about, I don't think we ever got to a point of what about the people who come in for an application after the fact and I was really referring to this, not only wetlands but building permits. Anything that requires an application. The folks who go ahead and do it and then come in when they get caught and ask for the application and how do we handle those people. I think that's one of the tasks that isn't on here. Steve and I have talked about updating development procedures and I think that is another thing that takes away. To get it developed is going to take away from staff time now but it's going to save them so much more staff time and Council time and Planning Con~nission time in the future to have a completeness check list. I have to use the terminology they use with hazardous waste permits because that's what I'm most familiar with but when you send in your thing, the first thing staff does, and it may take an ordinance amendment to allow it and maybe even State law may not even allow what I'm proposing on this, is that when an application comes in, we've got so many days to act on the application. The first action I see is staff look at it. Is your application complete? If it's not complete, it's shipped back to you and that's the action. The action's been taken. The application goes back and we don't get these incomplete applications that I've been seeing for the last 2 years. If that's enough action for the State to be satisfied with the state laws, I think that's the first action our ordinance should say. That it doesn't even start getting considered until the application is complete. Without a complete application, I don't see how a time clock can even start. Oh you do have computerized land use files. Now that you're back, we had a long discussion about you. Have you talked with DNR about a mapping program that they're working on developing for a mainframe or mini-computer that would have the capabilities of mapping down to like the 1 foot contour level of the entire town? Have all the wetlands? It's related to the wetlands thing and then you could also put in your streets and sewers and power lines and everything on that? Gary Warren: On a database that they're putting it on? Councilman Johnson: Yes, on a database. Have you ever heard of that one. Gary Warren: We're going to flying the City, it will be on the next agenda for accepting a proposal for the aerial photography and one of our intents is to have the aerial photography done on a database so when we do get up to that phase that we haven't lost that information. I don't know about the DNR. Councilman Johnson: It's a good idea. That's about all I've got on that one. Councilman Boyt: Your priorities are fine with me. I would suggest that you also add 3 in your first list to that. I agree with Jay that 9 is important. I would suggestion 10, the tree ordinance review fits in with some of the other things we've talked about. 12 in your list has already been fully done by the Public Safety Commission and I don't think the Planning Commission needs to delve into that unless they really want to. Maybe afterwards I can make some con~nents about 13 and 14. I thJ_nk those are important. I agree with you whole heartedly on number 1. On your other list. 5, I agree with that. It should be coordinated with Park and Rec but certainly it's a Planning Contmission issue. Jo Ann has done all the work on 7 and we've got several months of history of 53 City Council Meeting - March 13, 1989 trying to work this out. I'd like to see that come back to tlne Council very soon. Ne~ber 8, Eurasian Water Milfoil, we have no choice but -to have something ready before the ice goes out and so I don't know that, the Planning Co%~nission has a unique opportunity there. I think that's kind of a whole coordinated city effort to get on top of that one. So what I would suggest, since basically I think all these are goo~ things and you think they're all good things, is I would propose that the Planning Co~nission only spend half of it's meeting reviewing proposals and they spend the other half of their meeting working on this and the way they do that is they flat out refuse to review something that hasn't been fully approved by staff. If you deny it, then the person can certainly bring it through but if they don't have the criteria in terms of paperwork accomplished, I don't think it should go to Planning Co0anission and it sure as heck should not come to us. If we would get out of the business of helping design their develo~rnents, we'd cut our time in half. That's all I've got. Councilman Workman: I have no further co~nents on the goals. I'll probably just review them with Steve when I get a chance. You can buy me lunch. Mayor C~miel: Now that you know what the first priorities are and what the low priorities are, just pursue them. I don't think we need a motion. COUNCIL/STAFF WORK SESSION, CITY MANAGER. Don Ashworth: Don and I have met a number of items. Unfortunately, this is not one of them. We are going to have a special meeting, hopefully this next week, to pick back up on the Park Con~nission/City Council meeting that we were unable to have this evening. Would this next Monday work for everyone for that special meeting? CounciLman Boyt: I don't feel a big need to be there but I won't be out of towr~. Don Ashworth: Park Co~mission and City Council? We had originally set that meeting for 6:3g this evening to meet with the Park Commission. I'm hoping that we could reschedule that this next Monday. I think most of the Park Co~nission m~nbers will be there. Councilman Wor~nan: I'm going to have a problem on Monday. CounciLman Johnson: And we_ don't know about Ursula. Mayor Chmiel: I think she' 11 be back. Councilman Johnson: And we can't speak for her next Monday. Don Ashworth: Would Tuesday or Wednesday or be better or should I be looking to some future date? Councilman Boyt: I'm out until Friday. CounciLman Johnson: Wednesday is bad. 54 City Council Meeting - March 13, 1989 Mayor Chmiel: Friday is Good Friday so that's out~ Don Ashworth: I was kind of hoping, if we did the thing like this next Monday, then I was going to have this 12(b) put onto that agenda as well. Mayor Chmiel: I think we could still do that if you could come up with a date. Don Ashworth: I'm hearing people say that Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of next week are all bad. Councilman Workman: Tuesday's good for me but Wednesday and Thursday are out. Councilman Johnson: I really don't know. I'm trying to arrange a meeting in Illinois sometime next week. I just don't know what day. Councilman Boyt: Why don't we hold it at 6:30 on the 27th and then let's try not to get any variances in the interim. Don Ashworth: Keep variances out? Then 12(b) is also proposed to be discussed either at that work session or as a part of the regular agenda. Councilman Boyt: Can't we do 12(b) now? Councilman Johnson: Yes, what's the big thing about doing 12(b)? Don Ashworth: I've gone through and had more details associated with the proposed session kind of worked out so that I've got sc~ething more in front of you and I guess that's why I wanted to work with the Mayor before picking out dates. But if you would like to pick out dates, that's fine as well. Councilman Boyt: I don't know that I can pick out a date but I would like to comment on this if I might Mr. Mayor. I think it would be a good idea to order the tapes. They're all there. They're like $50.00 or something like that. Let's get th~m. We can probably determine 90% of what this person is going to say by what's already on the tapes. The other thing I would suggest is when we consider this, having gone through two of these work sessions in the past, they've been fairly successful but what I'd like to see us do is consider holding the next one at the El~nentary School. Arrange to have all the Con~nissions, maybe all the staff. If we're going to have a speaker like this come in, let's get as many people there as we can get there. Let's hold it right in our community. It's cheaper. It takes less time to get there and then if we want to get together and do some team building activities, we can arrange those. I think a speaker like this, let's get as much return as we can on it. Don Ashworth: So we can move ahead then on the ordering of the tapes. DISCUSSION OF CDBG YEAR XV ALLOCATION, PLANNING DIRECTOR. Steve Hanson: We are up for again an allocation of the Block Grant funds. The deadline we're operating under is we have to have the list to Hennepin County by the end of March. Consequently we're scheduling a public hearing on this on the 27th. Just to make you aware, we're eligible for $33,488.00 in this co~ing year. The minimun budgeted amount for any activity is $7,500.00. What I was 55 City Council ,_Meeting - March 13, 1989 hoping tonight was to get some input from Council on items that you may wish us to look at and see if we can get them qualified under the program first of all and then have those brought back to the public hearing portion at your next meeting. Councilman Johnson: This is probably a question you weren't expecting, I probably should have called you with it earlier today. Where are we at on last year's that we spent? In particular, the Senior C].tizen's study to see what our needs of our senior citizens are? Is there any activity going on there? Is there more money required or whatever? Steve Hanson: No. I haven't started it... I need to be yet put together a proposal to send out to get the senior study done. Councilman Johnson: There's been a lot of misinterpretation as to what that was. The South Shore people think that we' re trying to develop a center here but since you weren't here for that, I'll briefly describe w~nat I think it was all about and basically it was to poll ar~J study our senior citizens here in Chanhassen and find out what their needs are and how to best respond to those needs. It is not a survey to see if we need a senior center to compete with the South Shore. That is not the objective of it. The objective of it is to find out what the beck their needs are out there. CounciLman Boyt: What about the possibility of the library expansion? Can we get funds involved in that? It's something to look at. You don't have to answer these things. I think traditionally we've put some money into rehab. I'd like to see us continue to do that. We have lots of opportunity in some parts of our town. I'd like to see us investigate the possibility of having a park in a neighborhood progr&m. I think that if we could get someone, like Todd or someone else come in and organize park programs and go out. We're kind of a unique co~munity in that we have a whole series of neighborhoods. Why not reach out to those folks and like on a Monday the park person will be in your neighborhood and have a bunch of things going on for kids. I think it'd be great. Then the other thing I think we should look at is, do we ~have any handicap accessibility problems in the City and how can we address those? The senior center of course is going to be in and ask for a good portion of the money and I'm sure we'lt give them some. .Mayor Chmiel: Well deserved too. Councilman Johnson: Yes. They serve a lot of Chanhassen residents. Councilman Boyt moved, Councilman Johnson seconded to approve scheduling the public hearing for the CDBG Year XV Allocation for March 27, 1989. All voted in favor and the motion carried. 199g CENSUS, PLANNING DIRECTOR. Steve Hanson: I've included an info packet from the Depar~nent of Co~nerce on the 199~ census that will be beginning, they're actually starting up their promotional packets and so forth and I wanted to bring this back before Council. I don't know how involved you want to get in the multiple aspects of the census 56 City Council Meeting - March 13, 1989 that we're proposing. I think a lot of this is geared to some of the larger cities as far as having full blown committees and so on but I think the intent is get the word out to the public so they do respond to the census packet. It's in the City's best interest to get the best count that you can. A lot of the funding and so forth comes back to this as well. M~t Council's going to be using the numbers. We're going to be using the numbers so it's important. It's easy for people to dismiss it. I think it's especially important with the growth that Chanhassen has been going through, that we get the best information we can. That's what this handbook is trying to set forth the-means for doing that. Councilman Workman: Would this be a time perhaps for the City to evaluate whether or not we'd want to go to a precinct or ward districts for our own city elections? Steve Hanson: After you get the data back probably. Councilman Workman: Once we get results of the census you mean? That's like a 5 year...Isn't that a long time after 19907 Steve Hanson: It filters back. Some of the details we won't get until probably 1993 but we'll get some of the preliminary numbers and that back prior to that. The response on some of that will start filtering back as fast as 1991 but being able to access the names and all the rest of that takes several years. Then you get into some of the economic information. Councilman Johnson: One of the main importance I see of the census is our continual fight with Met Council over population predictions. They made certain population predictions on which they've based how much sewer we're going to get. What our priority for roads are and all kinds of things. We keep saying we're way ahead of their predictions and they keep saying we're not. They count less people in town than we do. This is really going to be important that we get a good, accurate count and get everybody counted. It's really important that we get everybody counted and get those numbers back. The bigger the numbers they get back to Met Council, the better off we are to show them the folly of their previous predictions if it is folly. The numbers that staff give us, I figure what the difference is right now, I think we think we're around 9,000 in their predictions, we're above 9,000 now. What's their prediction that we're supposed to be at right now? Something in the 8,500 or 8,600? Councilman Boyt: I would move that we appoint a Complete Count Committee. Councilman Johnson: Second. Mayor Chmiel: And suggest that the committee be organized at this point in time. That the co~ittee should be active through 1989 and through June of 1990. Councilman Boyt: I would suggest that we have at least one member of the City Council on that con~nittee. That we advertise at some point this spring for people interested. Mayor Chmiel: Yes, I think we should advertise it. Requesting people to serve on it. You know what might not be a bad idea for this would be involving the 57 Council Meeting - March 13, 1989 senior community. They have the time. Give them a project to grab onto and run with. ~V~ybe they'd just like to do it. CounciLman Boyt: Maybe get the Rotary, the Lions. Ge_t them all a part of it. CounciLman Boyt moved, Councilman Johnson seconded to appoint a Complete Count Committee that would be active through 1989 and through June of 199g. Ail voted in favor and the motion carried. 1989 LEGISLATIVE ACTION CONFERENCE, CITY MANAGER. Don Ashworth: The City previously has attended the Legislative Conference. We've had differences as to our ability to attend the daytime sessions. I guess I was trying to use this evening to poll Council members as to whether or not you would be able, if you'd like me to register you for the daytime activities or not. Secondarily, I think one of the best things that we have done is to be able to en masse attend the reception. It's an opportunity to meet council mambers from the entire metro area. ALmost all the legislators are there. Following that we have typically met with our legislators in combination with the cities within their districts. In other words, council representatives from Shakopee, Savage, Prior Lake previously joined us following that reception. I think that again, the largest nt~ber of people going over have typically been that late afternoon so I think we've usually left here around 5:g0 and it usually is relatively late by the time we get back. May I just poll council m~nbers at this point in time or should I just send out a questionaire and have each one fill it in? Mayor Chmiel: I think that would probably be adviseable. Don Ashworth: Sending out a questionaire and having cards and something to each one of you. Councilman Boyt: I can tell you that I'm out of town so you don't need to send one to me. Don Ashworth: I have talked with Bob Schmitz and he would be, he's looking forward to meeting with the Council if we can put something together. _.Mayor Chmiel: Just recently I was invited down to Prior Lake, their association of other cities met with Becky Kelso and Senator Schmitz. It was sort of just a hash session. Some of the concerns that people have. I wished that I would have known that the discussion was going to take place and there were concerns, I could have voiced those concerns from our city. But on the other hand, we have been meeting quite regularly with Representative Kelso and Senator Sckmitz with some of the other things that we've been deal].ng with. So I think they basically would know what our wants are. Don Ashworth: It does give them an opportunity to meet other council members. I'll send something out to City Council. One last item, it's not really a part of this but since we're not going to have a meeting a week from today, if I may, the only reason for bringing this up is I need direction because the agenda item is coming up very quickly. We had, staff was previously authorized to get an 58 City Council Meeting - March 13~ 1989 appraisal for the Eckankar property. This would be the option for purchasing part of that property for a con~unity center, school and even the final option was one for the purchasing of the total site. We received a copy of the appraisal, at least for the total site. I did receive a letter from Mr. Andrus and he has proposed a contract of $2,400.00 to $2,800.00 and this would be appraisal fees to determine whether or not there would be any detrimental effects to residential property as a part of the Eckankar proposal. That point was raised at the Planning Con~nission level and it was presented by a number of citizens. I'm not saying that we are endorsing any position but I guess my question to the Council is whether or not we should proceed with that appraisal. Let's put it this way, if I do not contact Mr. Andrus within I would say the next week, I am sure that I would not have information available for the Council for consideration on April 10th. I did have extra copies of his letter. I'm sorry it's short... Councilman Johnson: Four of us were at the Planning Commission meeting and that was one of the biggest buttons that the citizens were pushing. Mayor Chmiel: And I think by that request, I feel we and I'm not one for spending the buck but the residents within the community itself were really leaning towards this issue and requesting us to pursue this. I think in the best interest of those residents as well as the City, I think we should pursue this proposal to have him come up with a consideration of any evidence to support that respective conclusion. Councilman Boyt: I'd like to react. I was there at the Planning Co~mission meeting with some of the rest of you and I agree with what Jay has said. I think the reality though is that there is enough court case history to indicate that, assume that Mr. Andrus came back and in his professional opinion said, this will have a dramatic impact on property values. It wouldn't make a difference. The Court would tell you that that would not make a difference and I don't see spending $2,800.00 of the City's money when we know the answer. I guess I'd refer you to Roger. I suspect he'll back that up. That Andrus can come in with this professional judgment, not he might co~e back and say it's not going to have any impact, which is what their appraisal has said but I'm saying that Andrus could come up with a completely different answer and unfortunately I don't think legally it would make a difference. If we have a leg to stand on, I'd support spending the $2,800.00 but if we don't, I don't think it's an appropriate use of our money. Mayor Chmiel: Roger, do you want to corm~ent? Roger Knutson: Your ordinance does provide...conditional use depreciate surrounding property values. That is a basis for turning down a conditional use .... under the circumstances of this case, that would be legitimate reason, I guess I would have to examine what your appraiser would say and the basis of how he got there. If the conclusion was reached because people, I better not say anything more. Councilman Boyt: Well Roger, has there been any case history of where anybody has claimed that the church has damaged their property value? Roger Knutson: Sure. 59 City Council Meeting - March 13, 1989 Councilman Boyt: Have they ever won? Roger Knutson: Ever is a big time. None that I'm aware of. Councilman Johnson: One of the examples that were in the other consultants report was a church group down by Lake Harriet that was a group that believed in coinnunal living. You give all your money to the church and the whole bit and they moved in next door and there was a few years back, there was a big uproar about it and they studied the housing values there, and they're just skyrocketing. The people that moved in, they got the right to move in and has not had an effect. Of course, that's Lake Harriet. CounciLman Wor~rmn: I lived there at the time and a slaughtered sheep. I tell you what, it wasn't funny. They found a slaughtered sheep with all the blood out of it down in the Rose Garden. Not that that has anything to do with an appraisal but this issue is one that I would like 'to not leave any stone unturned in t/ne likelihood that perhaps we could turn something up. If I'm within 400 feet of another slaughtered sheep in this town, I'm not going to be happy. Councilman Boyt: But you wouldn't be within 4gg feet in this particular situation. Certainly we want to rest the concerns and fears of the people that live in Cnanhassen about thJ. s organization but I think we have to get all 'the cards out on the table and just face facts. If in fact, I would rather give Roger $100.gg to spend an hour researching the case history on this to say there's a glimmer of hope that if we found it we could go with it. Maybe that would be a good prior investment before we spend the $2,Sgg.g0 on something that I just don't have a lot of hope that it would give us something we could use. Mayor Ckmiel: I guess our citizens are the people who are really asking us to help th~n. I guess I'm in the position of not denying them that help is the way that I feel. Yet, we're still... Councilman Boyt: But you have to be careful. Mayor Chmiel: Yes, but we still have to explore things that we feel is best for the City. I'm not saying it's either bar or good but we want to explore all the possible things that we can. Make sure the right determination is going to be made on this. Councilman Boyt: Well Don, what if we do this investigation and Mr. Andrus comes back and says that he feels there is going to be a big difference? We could be simply adding gasoline to a fire that if we in fact find out that there's substantial history in the courts that say this argument will not win, we've just dug ourselves deeper into a hole. I don't know the right answer here but I'd sure like to know from more than just a cursorary review if this has any legal hope of carrying ].t through. CounciLman Johnson: What do you think that would cost to review Roger? Roger Knutson: I'm pretty familiar with the case right now. It ~uld take me a day. CounciLman Boyt: 6~ City Council Meeting - March 13, 1989 Roger Knutson: I would suppose it would take me less than a day. Things usually take longer than you anticipate. That's why I say a day. Don Ashworth: And that would include asking Mr. Andrus what techniques he would be using to insure that you felt comfortable that what he brought back had some va 1 id i ty? Roger Knutson: Yes. Councilman Johnson: If Roger comes back and says that case history tells us that no matter what he says, it doesn't really matter, the one thing I don't see as exactly what he's going to do, he's going to interview people. I think how he's going to do it, I would have liked to have seen a better plan put together. I think we need something. I suggested this to Don to look at this. I was a little surprised at the amount, the cost but the more I've studied on Eckankar and the organization, the more I feel that he's going to come back and there's no way he's going to say anything but say there's not going to be any change. I have faith in that. I can't see that it will be a problsm here. I'm for doing it but I want Roger to take a look first too as to case history. Councilman Workman: Can we approve this after we've talked to Roger sometime during the week? DOn Ashworth: I'm assuming that, what I'm hearing you say is, it's approved subject to Roger looking at it so that's really the guidance that I hear you making. Councilman Boyt: What does that mean? Roger looking at it. Councilman Johnson: If Roger comes back and Roger says there's not a chance in the world, it doesn't matter what Don Andrus says, okay what is the action at that point? Don Ashworth: Then we won't hire DOn Andrus. Or if he comes back saying, I've looked at the proposed techniques that are proposed to be followed, those simply would be thrown out by a court of law and you've wasted your $2,800.00, then we similarly wouldn't do it. Councilman Boyt: I can live with that. Mayor Chmiel: That sounds good to me. Councilman Boyt moved, Councilman Johnson seconded to direct the City Attorney to research the proposed techniques to be used by the appraiser and the case history of the conditional use permit as it relates to Eckankar. If the City Attorney says there's legal ground to stand on, the City Manager is authorized to spend up to $2,800.00 for an appraisal to be conducted by Don Andrus on the Eckankar site. All voted in favor and the motion carried. Councilman Boyt moved, Councilman Johnson seconded to adjourn the meeting. Ail voted in favor ad the motion carried. The meeting was adjourned at 11:45 p.m. Submitted by Don Ashworth, City Manager Prepared by Nann Opheim 61