1988 08 08287
CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL
REGULAR MEETING
AUGUST 8, 1988
Mayor Hamilton called the meeting to order. The meeting was opened with the
Pledge to the Flag.
COUNCILMEMBERS PRESENT: Councilman Boyt, Councilman Horn, Councilman Geving and
Councilman Johnson
STAFF PRESENT: Don Ashworth, Roger Knutson, Gary Warren, Larry Brown, Barbara
Dacy, Jo Ann Olsen, Jim Chaffee and Todd Gerhardt
APPROVAL OF AGENDA: Councilman Johnson moved, Mayor Hamilton seconded to
approve the agenda as amended with the following additions: Councilman Geving
wanted to discuss ccawnunications under Council Presentations and to move item 7
to the first item after visitor Presentation; Councilman Horn wanted to discuss
streets; Councilman Boyt wanted to discuss the carousel building and building
construction hours; and Mayor Hamilton wanted to discuss the Brooks Superette
parking area. All voted in favor and the motion carried.
CONSENT AGENDA: Councilman Horn moved, Councilman Geving seconded to approve
the following Consent Agenda items pursuant to the City Manager's
reconanendations:
b. Approval of Liquor Licenses:
1. Brooks Superette, 594 West 78th Street, Off-Sale Non-intoxicating
License.
2. Chanhassen Rotary Club, On Sale Temporary Beer License.
c. McGlynn Bakeries, Southwest Corner of Highway 5 and Audubon Road:
1. Subdivision Request to Subdivide 70 Acres into One Industrial Lot and
Two Outlots.
2. Site Plan Review for a 161,700 Sq. Ft. Building for Office and Food
Processing.
d. Approval of Conditional Use Permit to Construct an 80 sq. ft. Pylon Sign,
SuperAmerica Station, 615 Flying Cloud Drive.
g. Zoning Ordinance Amendment to Provide Minimum Building and Parking Setbacks
for Business, Cor~nercial and Industrial Lots Adjacent to Railroads and
Residential Zoning Districts.
j. Final Plat Approval, George Way.
1. Approval of Accounts.
m. City Council Minutes dated July 25, 1988
Park and Recreation Comission Minutes dated July 26, 1988
Ail voted in favor and the motion carried.
City Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
CONSENT AGENDA: (E) FINAL PLAT APPROVAL, WOODCREST ADDITION, R & R LAND
VENTURES.
CounciLman Boyt: I think that this is the one where we want to be sure that
we' re very clear because I think there's too many lots in this development.
This is the one with the unstable soil potential and the one where we were
removing quite a few trees. I think we should indicate that it's our intent
that these lots should not require any variances in order to have a house built
on it. I don't want somebody coming back 6 months from now saying it's a lot of
record and therefore you have to grant a variance to build 20 feet from the
street because my backyard doesn' t have soil that can withstand a pad. Since
we don't have those tests in front of us, I think it's important that we
indicate our intent is not to grant variances here. So I would amend the final
plat approval to include a condition that the intent is that these lots should
be buildable without variances.
Mayor Hamilton: Is there a second to the motion?
Councilman Johnson: I'll second that.
Mayor Hamilton: I'd like to ask Roger, it seems to me one of the rights of a
property owner is the right to come before a city and ask for a variance. Can
we take that away from them?
Roger Knutson: You can't take their right away to apply, that's correct.
Mayor Hamilton: So regardless of what we do, we can not at this point say we
will not allow a variance because they have the right to come before this body
and ask for a variance. Is that correct?
Roger Knutson: That's correct. You can not bind future Councils on that issue
forever. You can make a statement of intent if you want and granted it's non-
binding but you can make a statement of intent.
Councilman Horn: I would think that this would be implied in all of our
approvals that they would not be subject to allowing variances. That should be
something that we apply to everything we do. I don't know why we need to make
an issue of it in this case.
Mayor Hamilton: Right, especially v/hen it's not binding.
CounciLman Boyt: I understand that it's not binding but I think for us to
approve this final plat when we don't have all the soils information is
basically to tie our hands in regards to future variances because if someone
comes in here and says I can't build unless I build lg feet from the road
because the back yard doesn't have stabilized soil, we're obligated to either
buy that lot or let them build on it.
Mayor Hamilton: Their ramedy is to go back to whoever they bought the lot from
for not giving the proper information.
CounciLman Johnson: I believe that your intent is good in here. It doesn't
hurt us at all to have it in there. It helps future Councils in case a variance
City Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
comes in and we wish to deny the variance that that intent is put here. I
believe this is a little more special than the subdivision that's built out in a
cornfield that doesn't have a high potential for this to happen. I think your
condition 4, as long as the condition is not misconstrued for them to believe
that they don't need a variance and they can do anything they want without a
variance. The wording you said, since I don't have it written down, to me at
one time I thought I could mince through that to say, I don't need a variance, I
can do anything I want on the lot because the Council says I don't need
variances but I know that's not what you're trying to mean. I think we have to
make sure that the wording as such says that we do not...
Councilman Boyt: That's alright. It's not that these are building lots without
a variance and as Clark says, that should be our intent everytime. In this
particular case there is a question about soil stability. Maybe what we ought
to do is deny it until they can prove that the soils are stable enough to build
on and then we can approve it and we won't have this problem.
Councilman Johnson: The part of your thing that I was having a little problem
with is saying that they are buildable lots without variances. By declaring
them buildable in that sentence, I'm playing sematics and English teacher with
you right now.
Councilman Horn: Let's ask the Attorney once. Bypassing this, are we implying
any consent on variances?
Roger Knutson: No.
Councilman Geving: I think the process has gone very far in this particular
effort. We're at the final plat approval stage and to suggest that we might
disapprove of this and let the developer come in and prove that the lots are
buildable, I think it's a little late in the game. I think that could have been
discussed and addressed veryquickly at the Planning Commission level or either
at the first meeting of this whole process. We're at the final plat approval
tonight. These people are ready to go. I'm not about to pull back and deny the
possibility of building just because we're not sure of the buildability. I'm
not willing to admit that Bill. I think your intent is very good. I agree with
Clark. We make that intention on every development. It's our intent not to
grant variances but I think if you want to put it in there I have no problem
with it. I think it would convey to the developer that that's what we want to
do. I would add it. I don't have any problem with it.
Councilman Boyt moved, Councilman Johnson seconded to approve the Final Plat for
Woodcrest Addition, R & R Land Ventures as amended to include a condition that
the intent is that these lots should be buildable without variances. All voted
in favor except Mayor Hamilton who opposed and the motion carried.
Councilman Horn: Maybe we need to make that standard for all of our approvals.
We hear it so often that people come in and the developer didn't tell them what
was said at the Council meeting and then we find out later there's a problem. I
would suggest we include that in all of them.
' C~ty Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
Councilman Johnson: I see another potential on this particular site is that big
sign out front says wooded lots. By the time they finish the grading, the front
half of these lots aren't wooded lots anymore.
Mayor Hamilton: You don't know that until you see the grading.
CONSENT AGENDA: (H) APPROVE DEVELOPMENT CONTRACT FOR CURRY FARMS 2ND ADDITION.
Mayor Hamilton: There was a question on this one by the Kerbers. They had not
had an opportunity to review the development contract nor the 2nd Addition of
this development so I would like to add a condition that this would not be
approved untJ_l the Kerbers have given their written approval of the project of
this addition. They were to have met with the developers. The developers have
not met with them, talked with them or told them anything about the 2nd
Addition. That has been a part of this whole development process that they meet
with the Kerbers and they have not done that on this 2nd Addition. Ail I'm
saying is that the Kerbers should be informed as to what is taking place in
their neighborhood and that they have the right to sign off on the 2nd Addition
agreement contract.
Councilman Johnson: Was that part of our final plat when we final platted this?
Councilman Geving: They were supposed to have been notified.
Mayor Hamilton: That was agreed by Centex right along that they would meet with
the Kerbers and keep th~n informed as to what was happening in the develo~nent
and they haven't done that.
Councilman Geving: Is that a motion Tom?
Mayor Hamilton: Yes.
Councilman Geving: I' 11 second that motion.
Councilman Horn: I have a question. Are you saying that they have a right to
sign off on it or to be informed?
Mayor Hamilton: I say that they can sign off on it. Centex has said that's
fine with them.
Councilman Boyt: They're comfortable with that?
Mayor Hamilton: That's my understanding, yes.
Councilman Johnson: Is Centex here?
Mayor Hamil ton: Yes.
John Speiss: The City is giving them, the Planning Department~ the opportunity
to review the plans with the Kerbers. They reviewed the plans as far as I know.
Mayor Hamilton: My understanding was that they have not and that you have not
talked to them about the 2nd Addition so until that occurs and they are
City Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
satisfied with what's happening, I think they have a right to sign off on it.
John Speiss: Does that mean that we don't have the go ahead to do this because
the Kerbers won't sign off?
Mayor Hamilton: Yes, that was my understanding that you had approved that
already. You said it was fine with you if the Kerbers could review the plan and
have an opportunity to sign off on it.
John Speiss: I don't remember that at all. Not only that but I don't know
whether it's possible by their signing off if there's another approval that
we've never known about.
Mayor Hamilton: Maybe you could clarify this for me Don.
Don Ashworth: Kerbers do not feel as though anyone has contacted them. The
plans supposedly were submitted on July 14th and yet again, Kerbers have not
looked at it. In terms of signing off, part of the approval is to grade on the
Kerber's property. If you can not get agreement with them, how can you go onto
that property? I would make the assumption that if the two property owners can
not resolve any potential differences, and I don't know that there will be any
because they haven't seen them so how do they know if they have a differnce or
not but I would assume that it would be back in front of you in two weeks if
they can't come to resolution.
Larry Kerber: There's a few complications with this. It's not, I really didn't
see it. I haven't seen the final plan that shows the grading. What I saw was a
sketch proposal by Centex. Talking to John Speiss, as John said, we will not
put any of this fill or do any of this unless you sign off with us saying no
matter what we do, how we leave you after this, you have no recourse against us.
Okay, but I never saw a final plat that was formalized and approved by anybody
here. Now Friday I got a letter from Gary Warren that says, in effect says, I
don't know if you people got this.
Councilman Geving: We have.
Larry Kerber: It says we will not require Centex to put fill in your property
unless you give us a 50 foot wide easement over the creek which emcompasses
about a half acre of my property donated to the City. A 50 foot easement and
then we'll fill your property. Am I correct in that? Is that what that letter
says? That's the way I read it.
Gary Warren: Conditions of approval from the plans and spec review and the
grading and drainage review were that in order to provide the City the control
to deal with the ponding issue that happened in the spring of this year that we
felt that we needed to have access to that drainageway to keep the culvert
basically open and flowing. As a result a condition of approval was that no
improvements or work would be authorized of the developer on the Kerber's
property until we had received that easement from Kerbers.
Dacy: I did hand deliver the plans for the 2nd Phase.
Larry Kerber: Okay, did it show the grading on our property?
couldn't find it on here.
I looked and I
Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
Dacy: I thought that the grading plan was approved by the Planning Staff...
Gary Warren: There was a grading plan in there and the sketch that you were
sent in a June 2gth letter from Centex showing grading, the City then as a
condition of final approval had to incorporate into that grading plan that Barb
says she delivered to you.
Larry Kerber: If it's on that plan I can't find it because I looked at it 2 or
3 times and I can't find it on there. But I guess back to this letter, that's
what this is all about. I'm to give the City almost a half of my land, they
will not take care of the drainage problem, is that correct?
CounciLman Johnson: We're not trying to take a half acre of your land.
Larry Kerber: N~nat this says, any trees, shrubs, buildings that are in the way
will be taken down. I'm just not going to do it. Why should I give up this
easement to correct a problem that is not my fault? The drainage problem I feel
should be corrected: If the City needs an easement, we can work something out
and that's what I said all along but now the last I heard, the only thing
I heard other than to talk, I said yes, I will work on an easement because if
you need, is this letter frc~ Gary saying we want 5g feet which is almost a half
acre of land or you don't get the fill and I don't think that's the way this was
supposed to be handled. If it is the way, then I've got a real problem with it.
If that's the way you people feel it should be handled.
Councilman Boyt: It se~s to me that this is saying that by the 26th of August,
you have to have something worked out. Isn't that what it's saying? Why does
that mean we now have to stop the process? The 26th of August is several weeks
from now.
Larry Kerber: What happens the 26th of August is Gary Warren or you people say,
give us an easement or we won't fill. There's no way I'm going to allow that.
If hhere's water on my property, take the water off and I'm perfectly willing to
let them come in if they'll take it off. It shouldn't be tied to something that
had nothing to do with it.
Councilman Boyt: I think the question is that the City Engineer is saying, in
order to assure that the water will drain, we have to have the ability to get to
the drain and that's ~nat they're asking for. Are you saying you won't give the
City the ability to get to the drain?
Larry Kerber: Not presented like this. I can't give us a half acre of my land
for this easement. If something can be worked out. I look at this and this is
what I see. Give us a half acre of land or we won't take care of your problem.
That's what the letter says to me.
Gary Warren: We're saying that part of the problem is on your land ~nich is the
culvert and the freezing of the drainageway and in order to properly keep that
maintained in a free state, we have to get on your land to solve the problem.
That's all we're saying.
CounciLman Geving: Larry, I think you're looking at this totally wrong. This
J.s really a letter in which we are asking for the maintenance easement agreement
City Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
so we can go onto your land legally and resolve this problem. This is not going
to take land from you. It's the only way in which we can legally go onto your
land and perform the necessary work that needs to be done to take care of the
probl~n. If we were to violate your property by not getting your agreement,
then you have a right to come back to us for damages. We need to have this
agreement. Don't feel that it's a way of getting or losing 50 feet of land or a
half acre or how many acres you mentioned. It's not that at all. This is
strictly a process that we have to have signed by you so we can complete the
work. Don't feel that we're trying in any way to take land from you Larry.
This is to protect your interest. That's how I look at it and I think our
Attorney would verify that that we are only following the process here to keep
us all out of trouble from a city standpoint. You have rights and we're trying
to protect your rights.
Kathy Kerber: Earlier this spring when this first came up on the 2nd phase,
Larry and I came here and explained... At that time the Council did say that
this problem...and just before that time I called you Dale and talked to you on
the phone about it and you said also, for this to get approved, these problems
had to be resolved. Now taking down the barn and taking down the shed...and
nothing has been done and as far as this letter from Gary, I spoke to Don
earlier this afternoon, we have not seem such a plan. They're coming in here,
they're going to fill our property and at no point have we seen the plan.
There's no consideration for us.
Councilman Geving: Maybe our approach wasn't the best here by sending a letter
to you and asking for your signature. I suspect we could have hand carried the
letter and talked to you and showed you the plan.
Larry Kerber: I guess that's what I'm getting at.
Councilman Geving: Is that what your problem is?
Larry Kerber: I didn't have a probl~n. That creek has been there for drainage
for I don't know how many years, it was never a problem. Now, because it's
developed, the flow has changed. It now runs in winter, there's a problem. Now
to solve the problem you want an easement to maintain it. I can see why you
need one. I do not think that that should be tied to the other probl~ of
keeping the water off my property. This was a problem created also by putting
this berm up in the back and making my land approximately 8 feet lower than
theirs.
Mayor Hamilton: It seems like we've had nothing but problems with this
development and with Kerbers not being satisfied with what Centex is doing and I
don't know why this continues to be a problem. If they can't get it resolved
before they cc~e here, then they shouldn't come here. Let Centex and you Gary
and the Kerbers work it out. If they can't, I don't want to sit here and haggle
over this thing because we can't resolve it.
Larry Kerber: Exactly the way I feel. I haven't seen anybody. I just get this
letter saying sign this or we don't fill and I don't think that's the way it
should be handled.
John Speiss: We've met with Kerbers on more than one occasion and it started
out with filling a small area and we've been before the Council at least two
2~[ty Council Meeting -August 8, 1988
times on this issue and the issue is, the Kerbers have decided that they want us
to fill the property so their water runs into our pond, which is fine with the
Watershed and fine with the City and fine with every engineer around. Kerbers
thought that this would be the final solution and now, they have no idea what
we' re talking about and I don't know what else to do. We've done everything.
We've offered everything and still it is not enough. They will not release us
from any liability J.f we fill their property so that their property does run
into the pond. They have always drained into that drainageway. If in fact
their property didn't drain onto our property before this. Now, it drains into
our pond which in turn drains back through the drainageway under CR 17. That
drainageway has been there before any of us, probably for centuries, u/no knows?
That has always been there. The drainageway has always been there and part of
the reason it flooded out this year was because there was no maintenance on it
and the pipe froze solid. There are weeds growing and it just hasn't been
maintained. We've have offered to, three different occasions, three different
ways to solve the problem and here is what we call the last thing that will
satisfy the Kerbers as long as 2 1/2 months ago, if we were to fill that up so
that their property would drain into that pond, they would be satisfied. Now
they can't recall that and that's what our letters have stated. The first time.
The second time and now that they're going to fill that so it can drain into our
pond, that held us up for a month with the Watershed District. They didn't know
what we were planning because Kerbers hadn't been able to decide. Now they've
decided and we got the permit to go ahead and grade. If we just fill up to
Kerber's, that's fine with the Watershed. That water can come into the pond.
Mayor Hamilton: The fact is that the Kerber's didn't have any problem until
your development came along and now there's seems to be problems existing and
that's not right. They had no problem before. You altered the land
considerably in that area and now they've got a problem with drainage.
John Speiss: We didn't alter their property at all.
Mayor Hamilton: But you altered the property around them which altered the
drainage onto their property. You should be able to figure that out. ~fnat I'd
like to do is see this resolved prior to it's coming to us so I think that's
going to make it tabled.
CounciLman Johnson: Yes, I would go rather to table it rather than to set a
precedence of allowing a neighbor actual sign off on the City development
contract. I think this would be a dangerous precedence to set to require their
signature on the development contract. I would far rather table this until the
22nd.
Mayor Hamilton: Is that a motion?
Councilman Boyt: I have a question. It seems to me that the issue is between
the Kerbers and the City. Is that where the issue is now? On the 5~ foot
eas~nent?
Larry Kerber: No, I've still got a problem with Centex. All the while they
talked of filling this up. Getting right down to it in the end and it says they
will not fill or do anything for you. Fix the drainage problem on the south
where they break up that run. I talked to Tom Boyce and he said we will not do
anything to help you unless you sign a waiver saying that we're done. That's
City Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
295
what you're going to be satisfied with and you sign that before we start. I
said, I will sign it after you're done and I can see everything is working. I'll
have no problem with it and I don't think that's unreasonable.
Councilman Boyt: So there's two issues. One of them is with the City on the 50
foot easement and the other one is with when do you have to sign off on the
grading?
Larry Kerber: Exactly.
Councilman Horn: I think there's another issue and that is, is the City going
to be the arbitrater in this case to determine what is going to work or are the
Kerbers going to be the arbitraters in deciding what is going to work? The way
I see this, it should be our City Engineering Department who decides, gets an
agreement from Centex as to what they have to do to make it work. That's the
way I see this.
Mayor Hamilton: That's right. It hasn't been resolved yet so I wish we didn't
have it here.
Councilman Horn: Do you agree with what Centex has proposed to make this work
with the easement?
Gary Warren: The condition of approval said that they had to prepare a plan
satisfactory to the City Engineer and that is what they reviewed and presented
to me and that's what I approved.
Councilman Horn: And you believe it will work?
Gary Warren: I believe with the filling on the property and the maintenance
easements and the new culverts that are proposed, it will work.
Councilman Horn: Now the Kerbers apparently don't believe that or they'd be
willing to sign that off.
Gary Warren: What he's saying, if I'm interpretting him right, that he wants to
wait and see.
Councilman Horn: See if it works? So we've got a chicken and egg situation
that won't work.
Councilman Boyt: I think we can resolve this because if the City is requiring
it and if you're approving it, then why do they need to sign off on it at all?
Gary Warren: The City has no condition that the Kerbers sign any waivers of any
sorts except to give the contractor access maybe to the property. We are not
making it a condition that the Kerbers waive their rights as far as any
recourse.
Councilman Horn: Except for easement.
Gary Warren: We're saying we need an easement to be able to solve the problem
or maintain the drainageway to prevent any easement so we have control over the
drainageway but that's all we're asking.
City Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
Councilman Boyt: I'd like to see us resolve this.
CounciLman Horn: So would I.
Larry Kerber: So would I but Gary, when did you come out and talk to me about
this eas~nent? About this 5g foot easement?
Gary Warren: I haven't talked to you about the 5g foot easement. We talked
about the need for the easement out there.
Larry Kerber: Exactly. You said you'd like an easement. I said fine. We can
work something out. That was what, 2 months ago? 3 months ago?
Gary Warren: What size easement would you be willing to give?
Larry Kerber: Let's talk about this.
Councilman Geving: Let's not negotiate here tonight.
Hayor Hamilton moved, Councilman Geving seconded to table the development
centract for Curry Farms 2nd Additien. Ail voted in favor except Councilman
Boyt who opposed and the motion carried.
CONSENT AGENDA: ([<) APPROVAL OF OBJECTIVES FOR SITE SELECTION OF PARK IN
SOUTHERN CHANHASSEN.
Councilman Geving: I just wanted to say I commend the Park and Rec Co_~mission
for moving ahead on this southern park selection criteria. I think they've done
a lot of homework here with their musts and wants. I would like to discuss
however item 11. I'd really like to change that want to a must and at least
talk about it. The reason I say that, when we picked up the additional 2g acres
at Lake Ann, I thought it would be relatively easy to construct and redevelop
· that area so we could put some ball diamonds and tennis courts there. The first
estimate that we got for reconstruction was several hundred thousand dollars.
It was considerable so I would like to recom-nend in l(k) that that w be changed
from a want to a must. That it's very desirable that the land that's selected
acce~odate ball diamonds, tennis courts, whatever else is planned. Soccer
fields and that we consider the cost of alteration in that area. So my only
suggestion here is to change that w to an m and consider the cost and the
possibility for some topography that will be conducive to that. Otherwise,
I like ~nat they' re doing and I commend them and want them to move ahead. Any
comments on that?
CounciLman Johnson: If you're going to move that to an m, I'd like to remove
the numbers of 4 ball diamonds and 2 soccer fields and just say, it's getting
too concrete there.
CounciLman Geving: We don't know what we're going to put there.
Councilman Johnson: Exactly so there's no reason to say, it's a must that we
have to have 4 baseball or softball fields or whatever. Being a soccer fanatic,
City Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
I'd go for 4 soccer fields~
Mayor Hamilton: Under item 1, I'd like to see us say 80 acres rather than 50.
On number 2, land costs under $300,000.00, I'd prefer to see us look at a per
acre cost not to exceed $3,500.00 or something rather than just saying we're
going to go out and spend $300,000.00. If you look at it on a per acre basis,
it gives you a little better guideline when you're looking at property.
Councilman Geving: The other thing too Tom is that if you give someone a target
and this is public information, they know we've got $300,000.00 to spend and the
bid is going to be $300,000.00.
Councilman Johnson: Since we approved a referendum for $300,000.00, it's pretty
general knowledge that we have $300,000.00.
Councilman Geving: I know. That's why I like Tom's suggestion.
Mayor Hamilton: But that doesn't mean that you have to blast it all. You don't
just walk up to a farmer and say I'll give you $300,000.00 for your land when
it's only worth $200,000.00. Item 8, I didn't qdite understand what the buffer
to TH 212 was supposed to be. Was that the future one that might be here in the
year 3000 or so? Is that what they meant?
Councilman Horn: I suggest that we think about planning for transportation just
like TH 101.
Mayor Hamilton: Well, a buffer to TH 212. Explain to me what that means.
Bill, you've probably had first hand information on that.
Councilman Boyt: I think a buffer meant that the park might serve as a barrier
between a residential area and the road. That se~aned way down on my list by the
way.
Mayor Hamilton: Yes, it's a want so we don't know if the road will ever be
there.
Councilman Geving: So would you get rid of 12 then Tom if you changed number 1
to 80? Just eliminate 127
Mayor Hamilton: I think rather than put a number to it again, I'd like to see
at least 80 acres and if you could get 150 acres and get a good buy on it and
stay within the budget, that's fine. I don't see why you have to put a number
on it. Get the maximum number of acres for the dollars available.
Councilman Johnson: So you want to change number 2 to under $3,500.00 an acre?
Mayor Hamilton: Not to exceed $3,500.00 an acre.
Councilman Boyt: I think there's a good reason for leaving it like it is. I
think $3,500.00 an acre, the way this kind of matrix works, you could put that
in as a want. Weight it as a very important want. I think a must is there to
drop things out. It's really not there to tell you which is the best answer.
It's there to tell you what you don't want to look at and we don't want to look
at anything that costs more than $300,000.00 because we don't have it so that's
11
City Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
why that ends up as a must. It's just a screen.
Mayor Hamilton: Then it's worded wrong. It should say land costs not to exceed
$30~,000.00. It doesn't have to be under $300,000.00.
Councilman Boyt: So $3,500.00 an acre might be an excellent guideline and you
could just say, put that in as a want. I don't want it to be more than
$3,500.00 or you could put I want it to be as inexpensive as possible.
Counci]~an Horn: I think we're getting too picky over general objectives.
Obviously if something comes along that fits into the overall objectives,
they're going to go for it. I think we have to agree with the concept in order
to get the details.
Councilman Boyt: I think w~nat they're looking for Clark though, is this
something that we're going to support so it is important to talk about.
Councilman Geving: I think we made some major modifications just by dropping
out specifics.
Councilman Boyt: I would like to say that we have as a want, if 80 is the
minimum size, that anything in excess of 80 acres ought to get credit for being
over that. This is an opportunity, it might be worth having a want that says,
offers unique recreational opportunities. Something we don't have in our other
parks. I'd like to see ~hat added.
Councilman Geving: 137
Councilman Boyt: 13.
Councilman Geving: I would move approval of the objectives for the southern
park selection with the amended items and the addition of one other item, 13.
Councilman Horn: Second.
Councilman Johnson: Can I ask how item 2 ended up?
Councilman Geving: Number 2, land costs not to exceed $300,000.00 as a must and
a guideline of $3,500.00 per acre as a want.
Councilman Johnson: Okay, so that'd be like a 147
Councilman Geving moved, Councilman Horn seconded to approve the objectives for
the southern park selection with the amended items and the addition of items 13
and 14. All voted in favor and the motion carried.
VISITOR PRESENTAIONS:
Henry Sosin, 7400 Chanhassen Road: I'm sure that to several of you people the
sound of my voice is not only repulsive but onerous. I hope it is because_
that's exactly what I'm here to talk about is the sound ~at to me is repulsive.
It keeps _me awake at night. It wakes me up in the morning and it destroys the
12
City Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
299
peaceful setting in which I hope to be living. I was so irritated by it a few
nights ago that my wife and I got in the car and drove around the City to find
it. We did locate it. We went through proper channels. We spoke with Mr.
Chaffee who told us that there was nothing he could do because there was no
ordinance and there was no regulations. I'm here for two purposes. One, I
think the city needs such an ordinance if there's a problem and two, before you
go to that stage, I think if City Council would have a representative speak to
people who have particular problem, they may not even be aware of it, to be more
than happy to fix it. This is the Victory Envelope Company. There is a very
steady loud sound which to me is driving us crazy. I hope you can handle it.
Councilman Geving: Did you locate that?
Henry Sosin: Yes.
Councilman Geving: Are you sure that it's Victory Envelope?
Henry Sosin: As sure as I can be. I drove in my car to find it. It came from
that building. I don't know what the source is. I would assume it's their
ventilation system.
Councilman Geving: The reason I ask that Henry, I too followed up on a noise
that I heard the other evening as I was down at Lake Susan looking at the
channel and I heard this loud buzzing sound and I couldn't figure out where it
was coming fram. I went over on the other side of the lake, the south side of
the lake and stood on Mr. Klingelhutz' property and I detected that it comes
from our wellhouse and it's the pump that's making that waring sound and that's
what I detected as the sound that's very irritating to me.
Henry Sosin: We may have two sources but I'm sure that the sound was coming
from this building.
Councilman Geving: What time of the evening was this?
Henry Sosin: 10:00-11:00, but we hear it all day long.
Mayor Hamilton: I hear the same noise. I heard it last night very clear, loud.
Councilman Geving: If you did what I suggest, go over there on the side of the
hill, on the south side of Lake Susan, you'll hear this sounds and I tell you,
they're irritating. Anybody who lives over there, you know what I'm talking
about.
Larry Brown: If I might clarify. We received several calls on what people had
thought was the pump house and in fact what's going on is the contracter for
Lake Susan Hills is watering some of the trenches that they've dug. Right now
you can't see their pumps because they're deep down into the pits. I too have
heard the sound from Victory Envelope as we have two separate sources there. I
tried to contact the contracter to remedy the pumping situation and we will keep
in touch with them but that is not our wellhouse.
Mayor Hamilton: Well, Daryl Fortier is here this evening. Maybe you could
carry that message back to victory Envelope. Maybe you could check it out
because it is certainly a source of irritation to a lot of people.
13
3OO
City Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
Councilman Johnson: I have been in comnunication with Victory Envelope on this
issue. I will supposedly be meeting with their president tomorrow on this. We
weren't able to get together today. I also traced this down. Enviro~-~ental
acoustics is one of the fields I practice and they've got a big gas generater by
Lake Susan. That's what you're hearing down there but I have traced this back
myself because I heard it one night inside my home and traced it back. Victory
Envelope has not received any complaints of this as of yet. I was the first
person to talk to them about it and the first reaction is, we want to be a good
neighbor. We're going to investigate this right away and as soon as the
president gets back, he will be in contact with you so we will be working on
this.
Mayor Hamilton: Daryl represents them with most of their construction. I think
that the City Staff should follow up also.
Councilman Horn: That' s exactly my point. I'm uncomfortable with the answer
that said we need an ordinance before we can deal with it. I don't like that
reaction. I don't think that's what we need. I think we have nuisance
ordinances. I think we can check those things out and we as a City need to try
and mitigate those situations. I'd ask Jim if that was a correct response?
Jim Chaffee: No, it wasn't. That was a little more blunt and pointed. I
haven't even gone to look at it yet. I still have the note in my office. I
talked to Jay on the phone today. We coordinated it in...to see who could
handle it first. It wasn't no, we can't do anything about it. I just haven't
gone to look at it yet.
Councilman Horn: I think too we ought to be responsive to those issues when
they come up. If we set them in the basket someplace and don't take action on
them, it's the same thing as not reacting.
Councilman Johnson: The issue came up Friday and this is Monday and we're
reacting to it.
Mayor Hamilton: It's been there for a long time.
Councilman Horn: This reminds me of the Lyman Lumber thing. The time the
people in the company ever heard anything about it was when an issue came to us.
I don't know why people can't call directly also. Maybe you feel uncomfortable
about doing that but if somebody bothers me, I call them directly and I don't
think you need to feel uncomfortable about doing that to any of the businesses
we have in town.
Henry Sosin: If it's my neighbor, I'll do that but a comnercial establishment
that's 2 miles away from me, I think it's perfectly appropriate for the City to
handle that. That's what the City offices are for.
Councilman Horn: All I'm saying is, don't be intimidated and I'm sure with the
company... I guess my concern is, I think a lot of these things could be
handled without them coming to us.
Mayor Hamilton: Well, that's what we're here for is to handle problems.
14
City Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
FRONT YARD SETBACK VARIANCE REQUEST, 7200 PONTIAC CIRCLE, KATHRYN HEDLUND.
Councilman Geving: I'd like to start this and suggest that we got the staff
report from Jo Ann in a sun, nation of our Board of Adjustments and Appeals.
Jo Ann Olsen: What happened is the applicant is applying for a deck on one of
the Chaparral quad units. When we reviewed the site plan we found it was in the
front yard setback and required to go through the variance procedure. We found
that almost all of the other quads in that area do have existing decks within
the frontyard setback. We couldn't find anything in the development contract
for a reduced setback for a deck. A lot of them did not have building permits
or else had been built as part of the quad when that was constructed.
Therefore, we were uncomfortable of recorrmending denial of this deck since
almost every other quad had it. Staff did make a recommendation to amend the
development contract to allow a reduced setback for the decks because there are
existing retaining walls and the decks are just going out as far as those, not
retaining walls but dividing walls. We felt that that would resolve any future
requests for the decks. It would appear that in the past that they had been
approved without receiving variances and we just wanted to somehow clarify the
matter for when future deck permits came in rather than requiring them to go
through the variance procedure since obviously nobody else has. The Board of
Adjustments recommended approval of the variance but did not feel that an
amendment to the development contract should be approved or that any other
additional deck should have to go through the variance procedure also. They
also discussed reimbursement for the building permit fee.
Councilman Geving: I think that's not correct. I rec~rmended approval and
I made a motion to approve this particular item and it was denied. The vote was
2 to 1 to deny this variance request and to pass it onto the Council for
consideration.
Councilman Horn: What was the recommendation on the development contract? I
mean from the Board. Is that what the negative motion meant or the negative
motion suggested...
Jo Ann Olsen: No, they made two motions. It was 2 in favor and 1 against the
variance so the Council would approve it and then they did recommend denial of
any amendment to the development contract.
Councilman Horn: Unanimously?
Councilman Geving: Yes. And the reasoning there, if I can interject, we felt
that since the possibility of 15 quad units that could come in for a variance,
we didn't want to automatically, with a carte blanche amendment to the PUD give
everybody a chance to build a deck. For one reason, this particular deck is 10
x 20. There could be any number of decks and any number of different sizes.
The Board felt that as a variance committee, the Board of Adjustments and
Appeals should look at every variance process and let each one of them come to
us and vote on it as a case by case basis. I believe that really would have
been the best way to go and still recommending that. That was the reason we
voted down the staff's recommendation.
Councilman Horn: Why wouldn't the others require a variance?
15
~City Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
CounciLman Ceving: Good question. They never cane before the Board of
Adjustments and Appeals. Our inspectors never caught them and then too, I think
there's some confusion in the quad units themselves. Their own Board has more
or less over the years recognized that some of these were built by the developer
a~Yt I think there was some assumption that it was okay to have decks so they
continued to build decks and the inspectors never caught them. So this is
really the first case that's come before the Board of Adjustments and Appeals
requesting a variance.
Councilman Horn: I renember ~fnen this issue came before the Council and
I remember that Ceuncilweman Watson voted against it fer this very reason. She
says ! don't want to appreve a develepeent that's going to lend itself to all
kinds of variance requests. That's exactly what we've got here. I totally
agree with not going along with the development contract.
Mayor Hamilton: I don't think we, Councilperson Watson was on the Council at
the time that this development was approved. She had nothing to do with it.
CounciLman Horn: She might have made the statement on the Planning Cosmission.
Mayor Hamilton: She might have talked about it further on down the road when
they were doing some twin homes over there but she had nothing to do with the
quads. Net a thing. They were all done. That was a long time before you and I
were on here. Not a long time but a year before. This has been 9 years ago.
It seems like it's probably some miscommunication between the developer and the
City since most of those quads were built with the sliding glass doors and some
of them were built with decks on them as they built them. There were very few
of th~n that were built with a window in the particular spot where the glass
door would go to go out to the deck. Actually, those units look, the appearance
of th~n is much better with the !g x 2g deck than it is without. Some of those
units have put on like a half a deck, lg x 10 or something. Not that makes it
look awful. That doesn't look good. It detracts from the property but when you
put a deck on, the way it appears those buildings were built to have a deck put
on them, it looks very nice. The half decks, as I call them, I don't think
they're, in my opinion, they're not nice appearing. They don't add to the
proserty at all but the full decks do.
CounciLman Horn: Do they need a variance? So they all need variances
regardless of .whether it's !g x lg or lg x 2g?
Jo Ann Olsen: Right.
Mayor HamJ_iton: But see when they built those, there was kind of a dividing
wall that they built with each building where it was obvious if you put a deck
out, you didn't J. nterfere wi. th your neighbors site. You weren't looking into
theirs a_r~d they weren't looking into yours so it seemed rather obvious what they
were attempt].ng to do at the time they built them. It just wasn't caught.
Councihnan Johnson: I'd like to ask staff, is that dividing wall that the Mayor
just mentioned, is that on all the quads that are out there? Does that extend
lg foot into the existing setbacks so we have every one of those homes existing
non-conforming witln the develo[~nent contract?
16
City Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
Jo Ann Olsen: Some of them don't have the dividing walls[
Councilman Johnson: What about this particular one?
Mayor Hamilton: The only ones that I've seen that don't have it are those that
are on the back side. Any of them that face the street have it.
Councilman Johnson: Ail of them facing the street have that extending into the
frontyard setback.
Contractor for Applicant: That particular wall, if I'm not mistaken, extends 12
feet from the permanent structure, not 10. Basically the design for those is to
set an angular divider wall from the top of the existing divider wall as privacy
to the other side. On that particular building we're building on the back side
and the request by the Homeowners Association to make an alternate...was a
consideration...
Councilman Johnson: So what we've got is a structure that is currently non-
conforming because it extends 12 feet into, or whatever feet into the setback
and what's being requested is a deck not extending as far into it as what is
existing extending into it. To me, I kind of agree with Tom on this one, is
that we let the horse out a long time ago and now we're trying to close the
gate. I think that's an old saying of some sort. I don't know what it means
but, in this case I think I'd like a little more review but I kind of favor a
carte blanche with certain restrictions that a deck can not extend more than 10
foot out and it has to have this dividing wall and that it meet certain design
criteria. The developer, I don't know what recourse we have against the
developer. Whoever built those houses in the first place, built a whole bunch
of non-conforming.
Councilman Horn: What you're saying is we should encourage future developers to
violate their development contracts so we come along afterwards and say it's
okay?
Councilman Johnson: It's no longer the developer there. Now we're going after
the homeowner and that's not fair. Can we go back after the developer for a
violation of his development contract at this point? Is the developer still in
business?
Mayor Hamilton: Maybe it wasn't the developer. Maybe it was our inspector who
didn't do the job. What are you going to do then?
Councilman Geving: I think it was our inspector.
Councilman Horn: He didn't catch them.
Mayor Hamilton: Maybe it was the Council who didn't catch it when they were
looking at the development contract.
Councilman Johnson: How about this licensed surveyor that did a survey that
doesn't show that wall either? I mean here we've got a house. I wonder what
the Board of Surveyors or whatever they're called would think of a surveyor that
doesn't catch a 12 foot long wall.
17
C~.ty Council Meeting - August 8~ 1988
Councilman Boyt: How many quad homes are out there?
Darlene Loving: 156 units,
Councilman Boyt: 40 then about,
Darlene Loving: 4g quards, correct. And that does not include the twin homes
that are down the block in Chaparral.
Councilman Boyt: How many have decks?
Darlene Loving: Ail except 15 and most of those were, I am a board member and a
relatively new board member of the association. Since I've been on the board,
prior to Kathryn Hedlund's wanting approval for a deck, one other homeowner last
year at lg16 Pontiac received a permit and was not required to get a variance.
Now prior to my being on the board, I would say over three-fourth's of those
decks that are on there were built by New Horizon at the ti:ne of this
develo[~nent.
Councilman Boyt: I would ask the Attorney, does the City have any opportunity
to take action against New Horizon?
Roger Knutson: I'd really have to look into that. I don't know what the
development contract states. I would have to examine it in my office.
Councilman Boyt: If one of these decks was approved, given a building permit
last year, as is indicated, I'd like to know if that City Inspector is still
with us and if that inspector is with us, I'd like that person to get a letter
in their file indicating that they have not carried out their duties. I think
another thing that comes through here very clearly is the inspector may have had
a very gocd reason for not carrying out his duties and that's t~he fact that we
are working them way too hard. They don't have time to take the serious look
that these things deserve. I would like to see this deck approved. With 141
decks approved, it's too late to stop it, as Jay indicated and I would like to
see_ the Attorney directed to investigate the potential for the City to take
action against New Horizon because I think if we don't, we are basically saying
to developers, do anything you want. My third point would be that a letter go
in the file of the inspector, if he's still with us, indicating t~hat we expect
more d i ligence.
Mayor Hamilton: I would second your motion without the last it~ on there. I
don't know if we ca~n determine that the inspector is here and I don't know that
it's appropriate because one was missed to chastise him and 13(~ others have been
built. I think there needs to be a lot of investigation before and I'm not sure
that it's worth it. Worth the staff time to go through all the files and figure
out ~no screwed up ~nat and when and why and w~ere.
Counci]~an Johnson: We should chastise the City Manager and let him chastise
his employees.
Mayor Hamilton: I think the City Manager has the message and they'll discuss it
with the staff so these types of things don't happen in the future.
18
City Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
Councilman Boyt: I am alright with withdrawing that as long as everybody
understands that we are accountable and that means that staff has to do their
job.
Councilman Geving: I would like to replace that one with a memorandum from our
staff to the Homeowners Association advising them specifically of our rules and
regulations regarding the addition of decks. When you need a variance. When
you don't because I'm quite certain after talking with Darlene earlier that
there is a lot of confusion over the last 8 or 9 years that this thing has
carried on fro~ one board member to another and there's been some assumptions
made. This way the staff can give them exactly what our ordinance requirements
are so they can pass that on to their homeowners and more specifically to these
15 that are still out there and are potential variance cases. I'd like to
replace your item 3 with that suggestion.
Mayor Hamilton: Probably within your letter, encourage them to put the full
sized deck on. If anybody else puts a deck on, make it the full size rather
than the half decks that do not do anything for the property.
Councilman Johnson: I'd like to suggest a fourth. That we waive the fee on
this particular permit as far as the variance, $75.00 variance fee that she paid
because like you said, 141 have gone before without paying the $75.00 for the
deck. It doesn't seem entirely fair to me to have her pay her $75.00 fee here.
She's already gone through with her title searches and the other things to find
all of her neighbors within 500 feet and notify them of this. In the quad
homes, all the neighbors is a lot of neighbors within 500 feet. I think she's
gone to a lot more than expense than that is. It's the least we could do.
Councilman Boyt: You make a good point except that that's what a variance fee
is about is the staff time to investigate. I grant you that here are
apparently about 140 people out there that didn't pay the $75.00 but staff did
put the time in to investigate and it w~as... We've kind of drawn our line in
the sand and said we're now aware of it and people who go forward, are you going
to relax this fee for the next 15 people who come in and apply?
Councilman Johnson: I'd like us to review whether we have to, for those next
15, whether we should give those 15 certain specifications of carte blanche
variance to say okay, if you build such and such a deck under such and such a
standards, this can become almost an administrative variance. It comes before
the Board and here's the standards for this variance. If you meet these. All
staff has to do is compare against those standards.
Councilman Boyt: We can't do that.
Councilman Geving: No, I don't agree with that at all. I think that's why we
have the Board of Adjustments and Appeals.
Councilman Johnson: These could be guidelines to the Board of Adjustments and
Appeals on what we want to see for the next 15 decks so there won't be any staff
time for those. So we'd be able for the next 15 also...
Councilman Geving: But they do have to come before the Board.
Councilman Johnson: We've wasted more than $75.00 over arguing over it.
19
City Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
Contractor for Applicant: The $75.00 went for the application for a variance.
She also had to incur $250.00 and that's just getting a list of the homeowners
right in that particular area. That's between the $75.00, plus the $250.00
added to the time I've spent waiting and she's been waiting just to try and get
some kind of straight answers as to whether or not she's going to be able to get
a permit okay. That's where we' re kind of asking that maybe this permit be
okayed free of cost to the homeowner.
Mayor Hamilton: I don't know where you went to s~end $250.00 that you could
have done a lot less expensive I would thing.
Contractor For Applicant: We were not told of any other way other than to go
down, I believe it's Carver County Abstract Company and they charge through the
no se.
Barbara Dacy: Maybe what we could do is I'll bring back, I understand your
motion is to approve the variance but maybe at the next meeting bring back, or
at a future meeting, bring back an option for the Council to consider to
standardize looking at this request. I can appreciate your concerns to keep a
handle on these but to maybe address the homeowner's concerns, maybe we can call
it a site plan review and not necessarily a variance that requires a public
hearing because it is an unenclosed deck. We can standardize the setback and so
on. It might make your job easier and easier on the homeowner.
Councilman Horn: Have we set a precedent ~nat 10 years from now the last one
comes in and everybody's forgotten about this and you have to go through and
rehash the .whole thing again.
Mayor Hamilton: Did you want to add that condition to your motion that the
$75.00 forgiveness? You did not.
Councilman Boyt: Sorry. I think on the one hand, I'll add it if we right now
say we're going to forego it for the next 15 ~eople who come in here and not
charge them any fee. I can see it as one decision but I have real problems if
staff is going to put some time in, that we need to be reimbursed as a City. We
don't need to have everybody subsidizing someone's request for a variance.
Councilman Johnson: We made the s~ne recommendation earlier this evening, in
fact you made it, for the people before and staff put time in on that one. Well
over the $75.00. We published. We went to the newspaper and paid for
publishing in the newspaper. We made the same recommendation to that person. It
was slightly different circumstances.
Councilman Boyt: Quite a bit different circumstances.
Councilman Johnson: I don't see, these people paid $325.00 so far, more or
less. Can you see if 15 more times?
Mayor Hamilton: I will then, would like to add a condition to your motion that
any of the other quads in that development not be charged $75.00 variance fee.
Councilman Boyt: I'll accept that.
20
City Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
Councilman Geving: I feel very, very uncomfortable. I agree with what you just
said in adding that condition but I think it's very unfair to Kathryn Hedlund
who spent all the time and effort in this test case, not to waive the $75.00
permit fee.
Councilman Johnson: It's for her too.
Councilman Boyt: That's what we're doing. For everybody.
Councilman Geving: Okay, but I just heard a big objection.
Councilman Boyt: Only if we do it for everyone.
Councilman Geving: Okay, if it's for everybody, then we're in favor of it.
That's fine.
Councilman Boyt moved, Mayor Hamilton seconded to approve the front yard setback
variance request for Kathryn Hedlund at 7200 Pontiac Circle with the following
conditions:
1. Direct the City Attorney to investigate the potential of the City to take
action against the developer, New Horizons.
2. Staff write a memo to the Cimarron Homeowners Association informing them of
the City's rules and regulations regarding the addition of decks.
3. That the $75.00 variance request permit fee be waived in this case and in
the 15 possible future variance requests as well.
Ail voted in favor and the motion carried.
PUBLIC HEARING:
REALIGNMENT OF NEAR MOUNTAIN BLVD./PLEASANT VIEW ROAD INTERSECTION.
Public Present
Name Address
Greg Cray
John NJ. kolai
Herb Kask
Jim Wehrle
Jim Meyer
Ken Wengle
Mike Pflaum
320 Pleasant view Road
608 Pleasant View Road
115 Pleasant View Road
President, Near Mountain Homeowners Assn.
6225 Ridge Road
Near Mountain Blvd.
Lundgren Bros.
Larry Brown: On 2/27/88 the City Council directed staff to prepare a
feasibility regarding the possibility of realigning Near Mountain Blvd. with
Pleasant View Road. At that time the City Attorney was asked whether this
intersection constitutes a liability or not and the question was posed back, can
a design vehicle make it around this corner safely. Staff has analyzed this
21
~ity Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
intersection and fou~], the sketch that was included in your packet indicates
that a passenger car, and I'll qualify that, a passenger car only can make this
turn and just touch this center line in the island part. I should say, just
remain off that. A failure was defined as when a car goes beyond the center
line into the oncoming traffic lane or has to jump the curb to negotiate that
turn.
Councilman Horn: Could t ask a question? This came up as a result of some...,
what do you use as a standard car?
Larry Brown: What's known as ASHTOL.
Councilman Horn: I mean is this a Volkswagon or Continental?
Larry Brown: The design standards are given by ASHTOL are a relatively large
car. They are going to facilitate your Lincoln Continental so there ].s room for
that. Staff received to analyze several options. The first option was to
construct what we call a shark's tooth island and a 4 foot median and to remove
the existing island. This option would facilitate a vehicle similar to a school
bus. That being a single unit bus. It should be known that the cost of this
option is approximately $19,0gg.gg. Staff then looked at, in light of the cost
of that option, looke<] at bringing these costs down to this sort of design which
again, involved widening out this curb. Widening out this lane to make a right
hand turn lane creating a shark's tooth island again and removing the existing
center island. That cost was approximately $16,ggg.gg. That design should be
able to accomodate the single unit truck or small bus, maximum length of maybe
3g feet. The last option was for a total realignment of Near Mountain Blvd. or
Pleasant View such that traffic would be directed into Pleasant View
perpendicular or as near as we can get at this point. ?his option again, very
similiar to the one you saw last time with the exception of bringing this curb
around to eliminate a lot of the open area out here which might be confusing to
the driver. Again, this option is approximately $15,ggg.gg. It should be noted
that the options, these last two options seem to gain the City only the
addJ. tional access of a sJ. ngle unit truck or small bus at a great cost. It's
staff's feeling that the Council has really two options at this point. Numnber
one, they could sign the existing intersection for these movements keeping in
mind that that is valid only for passenger vehicles. That they would prohibit
large trucks or buses from making that turn. Excuse me, buses or trucks from
making the turn or the other, at least in staff's eyes, it's recorrmendatJ.on
would be, due to the cost, would be to go to the full intersection of
approximately, at the engineer's estimate of $2g,ggg.gg for the full
intersection which would accomplish what we're looking for and that's getting
school bus access as well. The $1g,ggg.0g figure as bt-ought about in your
report, which was thrown about at the last meeting, was based on using the City
crews to do some of this work. This estimate on the other hand is based on
contractors being used.
Mayor Hamilton: Larry, I know that school buses obviously pick up children in
the Near Mountain area there, what do they do currently? Where do they pick up?
Larry Brown: Jim, have you reviewed that at all? I'm not sure what Near
Mountain does.
22
City Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
Mayor Hamilton: Well, it seems like somebody ought to know if we're talking
about letting school buses in or out, it would be nice to know if they even go
in or out there. If they're picking up on Pleasant View now, maybe they don't
need to go in there.
Gary Warren: It's my understanding, and some of the neighbors are here and
maybe they can con~ent, the school buses have been finding their own way in off
of TH 101 I believe. I talked with the school district, it's over a year ago
now about it then and they were planning their own access.
Mayor Hamilton: Vine Hill, I know they can get in there off of Vine Hill Road
and go through the development but I don't know if they use full size buses or
not. It can't be any more difficult for a school bus to get in there than it is
for them to continue west on Pleasant View and make the two sharp turns.
They're going to fail that test too. Do they go down Pleasant view and pick up
kids all the way down Pleasant View? Well, if you're saying they fail the test
here, they certainly fail the test down there. There's no way in the world that
a full size bus can make that sharp S turn and not fail whatever test you're
talking about. They've got to cover the whole road to make that turn. I know
we have a lot of people here who want to make con~nents about this so perhaps,
I'll call on you one by one. You can come up to the microphone. If you give us
your name and address and make your corm~ents, I'd appreciate it.
Greg Cray, 320 Pleasant View Road: That S curve you're referring to is much
easier to negotiate than this corner that is presently at Near Mountain Blvd..
I guess my biggest question was, why was it changed from it's original design?
Originally it had a much wider curve there than is presently there.
Approximately a year after it was built it was changed and made much sharper.
Mayor Hamilton: I don't know. I can't answer your question.
John Nikolai: Part of the answer to that is when one of the original
stipulations in this development when it was proposed was that there be no
access onto westbound Pleasant View Road. It was started that way and later
argued successfully to open that access up. That's exactly why it's the way it
is now.
Greg Cray: I guess the other point I want to make is, it seems rather dangerous
to me the way it is constructed right now because as you come from the north to
come to Pleasant View, it's very difficult to see traffic coming from the west.
Mayor Hamilton: That's true. It's not a good intersection. There's no
question about that. It's a bad intersection.
Herb Kask, 115 Pleasant View Road: When this intersection was originally
planned, it was the Village engineering department that requested it be built
like this with a no right turn coming from the north going west on Pleasant View
Road because they did not want the additional traffic on Pleasant View Road
because they didn't think Pleasant view Road could handle it.
John Nikolai, 608 Pleasant View Road: There's a couple of things about this
intersection that need to be noted. First of all the stop sign, if you're going
to have an intersection there, it's about one car length too far back from where
it ought to be. What happens is that people stop and they move forward and you
23
~ ~ity Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
can't see to the right, to the west, and it's just about at the crest and they
really can't see too well to the east so they just start to pull out. They
don't stop again and there's a lot of near misses there. The other concern I
have is that the volume of traffic has increased substantially and obviously
when the proposal came through, the concern was there for that. It would
probably behoove the City before decisions were made about how this thing is
going to be constructed, to take a look at the volume of traffic en~ninating to
and fr~m. It would h~ a little bit of money well spent. You'd be able to
determine just exactly what kind of traffic flow and volume to handle the
intersection.
Jim Wehrle, President, Near Mountain Homeowners Assn: Back again. Hopefully we
can resolve this tonight. I guess just taking this from the top. First of all
I just wanted to note that we weren't interested in packing the place with lgg
people tonight. We know you're well aware of this issue and how strong an issue
it is with the homeowners in Near Mountain but speaking on behalf of the
majority of the people there, just going back over the history a little bit.
This angle was put in there several years ago as a compromise to concerns about
Pleasant View not being sufficient large and having a lot of turns and what have
you to handle a lot of traffic. Going back over the records with Jim Chaffee,
I've yet to be able to find anything specifying that the Council or anyone in
authority authorized or voted that there would be no turn restrictions put
there. For the first four years that Near Mountain has been there, the angle
has served as a deterrent and that was it. If the homeowners in Near Mountain,
I'm bringing 165 up on the Chanhassen side, all bought their homes on that
premise. If that was the directive four years ago, the City is more than
extremely remiss in not having done it over the first four years, that we should
get this rude awakening in April. The second point I want to make, that you're
all aware of, for the record, late in the winter this Council approved the new
addition to Near Mountain which now is going to give access out of Trapper's
Pass onto Pleasant View with no turning restrictions whatsoever. That's an
accomplished fact. The hearings were held on that and that development is going
ahead and it really logically makes no sense whatsoever for there to be a
restriction on this one which is a quarter mile further away and not be one on
the other exit fr~m Near Mountain onto Pleasant View. In effect you're telling
all the people at the one end of Near Mountain that you don't want them to have
access to the new park you just built for them but the people on the other end
of Near Mountain, it's okay which logically just holds no water. The third
point is, April 19th the no turn signs went up. I came here and spoke with you
about it that night and you agreed to take them down immediately. It was sent
to Public Safety Co~mission for review. Early in the month of May Near
~ountain's own internal public safety con~nittee reco~n~nended that this
intersection be straighten Out and on May the 19th Chanhassen Public Safety's
commission recommended straightening the intersection. If I could quote from
their Minutes, the Public Safety Commission after review of the problems
associated with the intersection of Near Mountain Blvd. and Pleasant View Road
feels that a design problem exists and was overlooked during construction. The
Con~nission thereby supports the local residents and staff in their contention
that this intersection be realigned to allow right turns. So that's coming out
of your internal public safety committee which is recommended at that time and
before that committee by staff as well. June 27th you directed that the staff
research these options and call for this p~blic hearing with the signs to go
back up in the meant]me for fear of the liability. Personally, I can only speak
personally on this, I have no firm feeling on ~nether that's really a dangerous
24
City Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
intersection or not. I know this afternoon Gary Warren made that turn in his
Blazer and found that he could do it. I tried to make the turn in my Celebrity
and could quite do it without cutting over what I thought was the middle line
but since there's no painted lines, it's hard to tell. It is a difficult
intersection at best. Another subject close to some of your hearts. The issue
here today really I guess puts forth four options. One is to leave it alone as
it is now with no turn signs which is just grossly unfair to 300 or 400 people
in Near Mountain, denying them access to go that way after all these years. Of
the other three options that Larry put forth here, obviously the best one would
be to allow full access of fire trucks, school buses and everything else. I
want to emphasize the fact that the costs are cut in half if your internal crews
do this construction as opposed to the bid side of things but as Larry mentioned
to me this afternoon, in respect to putting these signs up and keeping them up,
such a rule under MnDot guidelines calls for a traffic sign to be reasonable on
the one hand and enforceable on the other. Here you've got a situation where I
think you know that if you watch the residents come down Near Mountain and want
to go to that park or want to go to Excelsior, they're going to run that no turn
sign. I mean, it's human nature. You're going to find a significant number of
people who will do it, or else they will go a couple driveways up, turn around
in the County Sheriff's driveway and then go back down that way anyway. I just
want you to keep in mind that I think that a vast bulk of the traffic that's
going down Pleasant view going into Excelsior, I feel for the people living down
there because the nature of the drive has certainly changed but that's not just
Near Mountain's fault. You've got Fox Chase development back in there. You've
got Fox Hollow with access out through the park now and you've got thousands of
people right across TH 101 in Eden Prairie who aren't Chanhassen taxpayers like
we are, who have free and open access to Pleasant View that you want to deny to
us. There just doesn't seem to be a lot of logic there. There is a side issue
of speeding through Near Mountain that's a great concern to some people and the
lack of slow signs, children signs or stop signs and it might have something to
do with that and some of these homeowners might want to address that but that's
being pursued through Mr. Chaffee at this point. Just in closing, I understand
the people on Pleasant View's concerns. I don't think Near Mountain is
accountable for all their traffic and I don't know the fact that they are a
relatively small windy street makes them any different than us. We're a
relatively small windy streets, totally residential with hundreds of kids
running around on them and yet we can't stop them from coming through Near
Mountain to cut through to go up to Town Line and on up to TH 7, which they do
on a regular basis. It's a two way street. I guess the public roads are the
public roads and before you go putting restrictions on intersections, I think
the staff would agree that MnDot is overwhelmingly in favor of not restricting
unless there's a heck of a good reason to restrict. That's kind of all I've got
to say on this issue.
Councilman Johnson: How many homeowners are in the Association there? How many
homes are we talking presently?
Jim ~ehrle: As you are aware probably, Near Mountain has a Shorewood side and a
Chanhassen side.
Councilman Johnson: The Chanhassen side.
Jim Wehrle: The Chanhassen side, 165 residences. That's 165 households.
Better than 300 adults plus all the kids.
25
City Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
John Nikolai: Do your roads go up to the Trapper's Pass Addition internally?
Councilman Johnson: Does that include Trapper's Pass?
Jim Wehrle: That includes Trapper's Pass. It's all part of Near Mountain.
It's all built internally. It's all contiguous and the people at one end of
Near Mountain eventually will be able to exit out through the other exit that
you approved several months ago. If they were forced to, to that windy route
back through all those children unnecessarily when they could right near by go
straight out onto Pleasant View. It's not logical.
Councilman johnson: I just did a quick calculation, at $2g,ggg.gO that's
$121.0g per homeowner.
Jim Wehrle: I guess our concern, a lot of people's feelings on that Jay is that
the City made a mistake in doing this and it's created a dangerous situation on
one hand and perhaps an unreasonable situation on the other and perhaps the City
should correct it once and for all now.
Jim Meyer: I live on Pleasant View and Ridge Road. I've lived there for 15
years and I renember when Peter Pflaum and Lundgren Bros. came and initially
presented the Near Mountain Estates and all the rest of it. Of course the
concern at that point was the density of the traffic along Pleasant View because
of the nature of the road, as he mentioned. The thing about it was that at the
very beginning I re-nenber working with Peter Pflaum on this and his brother Mike
is here tonight, is that that road was designed that way so that the road
traffic, MnDot would not give you an access on TH lgl so then he did the deal
and he c~e out this way so no right turn. In essence then the people coming on
Pleasant View can take a left turn going into his division, just like the signs
now show. My problem Mayor and Councilmembers is that with Fox Chase and with
Fox Hollow and with Chaparral and with all the rest of the developments, that
all the traffic, anyway we can to keep it down on Pleasant View and promote,
it's just a safety factor. The increase in traffic is definitely there. The
new intersection proposed down the road of course wasn't even talked about when
the initial development was planned and now that came when they bought the
Raweena property and that changed the whole thing. I'm sure there are plenty of
people on Pleasant View that would like to see that have a no right turn sign
too and I certainly respect the people's right to go wherever they want to go.
The point is, in terms of going to services, they drop onto TH lgl and go south
or north to the various services, to Chanhassen or to the other centers. I
guess the main thing is that initially we were promised that there would be no
right turn on it. That's the way all of us went along with in the approval and
now it seems that we're jockying for all these little changes, t respect the
one thing that he mentioned about going to the park which is right down the road
and that presents a problem. They can internally around to the new intersection
which seems kind of strange too. I guess the main point I'm trying to make
however is that the density on the road be_cause all the other developments you
have approved present a significant traffic problem. I think you're all aware
of that.
John Nikolai: Just a quick point. The speed issue is the single biggest issue
on that road. It has been since I moved in there almost a decade ago. The
other night I exited my driveway and was going to turn right going towards
26
City Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
Excelsior and I'm almost mid-distance between TH 101 and CR 17. A blue pick-up
went by me extraordinarily fast so I thought, alright, I'm going to see where
this guy goes because he was dressed, it was quarter to six and he was coming
home from work. It was apparent. I followed him over to the development just
off of CR 17 where all the quad houses are, that you were talking about. I
parked in front of his driveway and as he got out of his truck I said, do you
have kids? He said yes. I said the speed limit on Pleasant View Road is 25
mph. I said I don't think you'd want me trekking down this road at 40 mph
because I was doing 40 behind you and you were pulling away from me. It's
really the single biggest issue. I don't deny the access either way. I go
through Near Mountain going... I'm not here to say that they shouldn't have
access on Pleasant view Road but I do say the respect has got to be there. I've
laid on the City to enforce the traffic laws, the speed limit. Let's get the
cars to slow down before somebody gets killed because in front of my house in
one of the most dangerous spots in the road because it's compounded...and do
want you want to do on this thing but the speed is going to kill somebody sooner
or later. There's no question in my mind. I don't want it to be me.
Ken Waggel, 6370 Near Mountain Blvd.: I guess my main concern on this
intersection is the safety. Whether you're turning right or left, you have to
come out into the intersection to see cars coming from the west. During the
winter when snow is piled up, you have to go almost halfway into the road to
see. My house backs up to Pleasant view. I agree, the speed limit is unreal
over there. It's the intersection itself. I used to go that way because our
babysitter was over in Greenwood Shores. I don't have to anymore but it is a
bad intersection for safety. That's more of a concern to me. It'd be nice to
turn right but the safety issue, I can get hit if I'm making a left turn going
towards TH 101. It's a bad intersection.
Councilman Geving: Can I ask you a question Ken? Do you agree with Mr.
Nikolai's statement that the stop sign is too far back from the road and that
you have to get too far back?
Ken Waggel: The stop sign is back because this intersection, in order to be
able to see, your tip of your car has to come into the traffic pattern. You're
almost guaranteed an accident. I can be with no passengers and I still have to
lean way forward to see eastbound traffic. It's just a bad intersections.
Billy Clyde, Pleasant View Road: I agree that the whole thing was designed
badly in the first place. It's right at the crown of a hill. Today the Bachman
flower girl, which is really the only thing they put in there when they put that
block to go right, had her car parked there with 6 feet out into the road-all
day and right at the top of the hill. I would say that getting rid of that
flower bed for one thing. If there's going to be that traffic, I don't think
there's anyway you can really stop them from turning right. It's going to have
to be widened way out to the left there and even get those center islands out of
there. I don't see what good they're doing. Decorative yes but not practical.
I also wish they would do something about the speed along there. They~go right
past the County Sheriff's house and don't even notice him. ~
Mayor Hamilton: Mike Pflaum, did you have any con~nents you wanted to make on
the design of this intersection or anything or what your understanding was when
that whole thing was built?
27
City Council Meeting - August 8~ 1988
Mike Pflaum: No. I'm Mike Pflaum and I've heard both sides over a period of
time, lg years, as most people on the Council have too. I'm here as an observer
right now. If somebody has a question of our understandings, they can ask me
about it a~d I'll try to reveal what they are but this was a touchy subject from
the very outset. I think everybody is aware of that. I sympathize with all the
people.
Councilman Geving moved, Councilman Horn seconded to close the public hearing.
All voted in favor and the motion carried. The public hearing was closed.
Counci]~nan Boyt: Is the speed limit really 25 mph?
Jim Chaffee: It's 30 from TH lgl to a point just west of Pleasant View.
Gary Warren: 800 feet west of Pleasant View Lane it changes to 25 from there
over to Powers Blvd..
Councilman Boyt: So where we start getting into the heavy turns...
Gary Warren: This intersection is 30.
Councilman Boyt: I hope that when budget time comes gentlemen, we all remember
this discussion because I think that everyone will agree that we can't enforce
speed laws.
Mayor Hamilton: I don' t agree with that.
CounciLman Boyt: Well, maybe you don't agree with it. I happen to believe that
we can not enforce our speed limits. I think that the issue about the clear
line of sight se~ms to be a pretty important one and I'd like to know how we can
go about getting that. Another issue of importance to me is the cost of this
whole thing. I see aside fram the lines of sight and the danger of having to
pull into the intersection, the biggest problem is apparently that the
intersection J.s dangerous no matter what we do with it. But given that, I have
no difficulty with signing it if it says the only thing that can't go through
there is something that's more than 20 feet long, that means that 9~% of the
traffic can go through there. Now the problem is whether it can go through
safely, I think that is the bigger issue. I'd like to hear a little bit more on
that from someone. I'd be happy to see us enforce 30 mph but I just don't think
we can do it. We might do it one day one week but that isn't going to stop the
speeding problem. I thJ. nk that having access to the park is something we'd sure
like to see and we don't want to encourage traffic through that development at
all so it seems really unfortunate that we're encouraging people to drive
through Trapper's Pass in order to get to the park. I'm sure those people
aren't going to be very happy about it. The comment that was made about the
latest addition of Trapper's Pass being approved with a regular intersection.
As I recall that discussion, I think the regular intersection came out of these
very concerns is that we didn't want to create another situation like we have
here. I'd like to see us clear up the lines of sight and I don't think the City
is in a position to spend $20,0g~.0~ to correct this problem and I think making
it a $10,000.0~ correction is taking City Staff away from another problem that
they're trying to work on. It's not that we've got people standing around with
28
City Council Meeting - August 8~ 1988
nothing to do. I would like to see us, if we can work this out in the shortrun
by putting a sign that keeps non-passenger cars from turning. I think in the
long run we've got to do something to make this intersection safe.
Councilman Horn: I've been with this issue for many years and it seems to me
that the best we're going to come out of this thing is a compromise. It was a
situation that was inevitable. I recall years ago there was a plan to upgrade
Pleasant View Road to alleviate some of these problems and that plan was, I
would say, at a minimum not met with great success because people didn't want
traffic increase. That was well and good but if you do that you have to stop
development. There's no way that we can stop development. It's inevitable that
this traffic is going to be increased unless we tell some property owner you
can't develop your property. I don't think Mr. Pflaum would like to hear that.
I don't think any other developer would or any other property owner at this
state whether he's a developer or not so to some degree we've created the
problem ourselves by not improving our transportation corridors in this city.
We've had help with that process. It hasn't been the City alone that's done
that. If .you look back at the Minutes of these things, that intersection was
designed through recommendations of MnDot. Look at t~he total transportation
corridor problem that we have in this area. This is not a unique situation
totally for Chanhassen. We're a transportation deficient area. This just
points up one of the sub-areas where we have this problem. I'm a great fan of
improving of our transportation corridors because it's the only way we're going
to get out of this problem. Development is not going to stop. The only way it
will stop is if they stop running sewer lines out here which is the other thing
that we hear from Met Council but it's just not going to happen. I think the
best thing we can do at this point is to have some type of thing to take the
City away from the liability of if we've created a dangerous intersection, which
some people term as a City mistake. I term it as a City compromise to try to
alleviate an inadequate transportation system and I think what we need to do is
what Bill is recommending, is to make sure that vehicles that can not reasonably
make that turn, and I would suggest that a Celebrity could make that turn. I
think any normal vehicle could make that turn, and minimize those but I can't
see spending a lot of money at this point and changing that intersection. I
think we should go through and compromise in this case and do what Bill is
recommending on the sign.
Councilman Geving: I think-this whole area has changed dramatically since that
intersection was put in there. I know a lot of the history on why that road and
why that particular shark's tooth was put in there. The corner was created. A
lot of things have changed. There's a lot more density. There's houses there
that didn't exist in Chaparral that are coming through and going east. There's
people driving west to get home as Mr. Nikolai mentioned tonight. We've got
hundreds of more people today than we had in 1978 and 1979. I really believe
that now that we've recognized, legally and professionally we've recognized that
a dangerous situation exists. Our Public Safety Director in his May 27, 1987
memorandum acknowledges that we've got a very difficult situation and in fact
says that it's a dangerous configuration. The Fire Department has made a
complaint to him. He's had complaints from school bus drivers and now that this
has been acknowledged and it's a written fact, it's a piece of paper that's
public information, if for any reason we didn't follow up and there's an
accident that happens and we haven't done anything to take care of this problem,
I think we're in a very serious liable situation. We must correct the situation
29
City Council ~%eting - August 8, 1988
and i think we must correct it as soon as possible. I'm very much willing to
spend the money if it means that we can make that a safe intersection. If it
costs $2g,0gg.gg, so be it. I would like to ask though, there's a discrepancy
in my mind between the options and the alternatives. In our staff memorand~n
you refer to options and yet on the Board you put alternatives. So Option 1 is
Alternative 3, is that correct? Is that how you made that distinction? Just so
we're all clear, Option 1 is Alternative 3 that you've shown on the board for
Larry Brown: Correct.
CounciLman Geving: I would like to ask our City Manager, since this is an issue
that may be coming up a~ may be in front of us tonight, since we have two
recome~endations, to either do nothing at this time and wait until we can budget
for it in 1989 or should'we do the project now and make a project amendment or
budget amendment for 19887 Can we do that in 19887
Don Ashworth: My concern is, at $2g,ggg.gg I do not know where you could
potentially make a budget adjustment to accomplish the work yet in 1988. To do
a $tg,ggg.gg option would mean that we would have city crews do it. The problem
is that we're getting late in the year. This is the timeframe that we normally
start hauling in sand and salt etc. and I really question our ability to do the
'work ourselves unless we have a nice fall where we literally would be able to do
that work. Assuming that ~ could do the work, I think that staff could come
back to -the Council with potential options for how we could modify the 1988
budget. I would much prefer having it go to 1989.
Councilman Geving: If what you're saying, I kind of agree with you in not using
city crews, even if it can save $1g,ggg.gg. This is the busy part of our year.
I know we're getting ready for the winter months and there's a lot of things
that happen. If we were to carry this over to 1989 and we budgeted for it, even
$20,0gg.gg, we still have the problem of ~nat we're going to do between now and
the time that we can make the street construction because if we' re talking about
1989, the earliest we could probably do the work would be next spring. This
leaves us wide open between now, we're talking the middle of August, to let's
say April or May before we could have a resolution to this probl~n. I don't
know if we could stand to hold on that long so we need to come back with some
other alternatives from a safety standpoint and maybe Bill's answer is the only
way we can go. If we can't do the construction this fall and we are going to be
stuck with 6 to 8 months, than we've got to find other alternatives.
Don Ashworth: We may be too late in the year to even consider contracting it
because even as a small job, the engineering department still needs to prepare
plans and specs. They still need to officially get bids at the $2g,ggg.gg level
and you're talking about 6 to 8 weeks for each of those two...
Councilman Geving: I was going to say probably at least 2 months of time that
we have no control over even if we went the official contract route and we'd be
right into the winter season, November-December.
Councilman Horn: Plus the approval route. Keep in mind MnDot is the one that
reco~Tmended the intersection the way it is. If we have to go totally through
i¢mDot approval on this thing, that makes...
3g
City Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
Councilman Geving: I don't think so. I just want to make a statement, I think
the public has a right to use the streets and roads of our con~nunity and I think
that if people want to come out of Near Mountain and turn right onto Pleasant
View, that have the right to do that and I want to facilitate that and make it a
safe turn. That's all I have to say.
Councilman Johnson: I think putting up signs to tell people that anything
bigger than a passenger vehicle to turn right is just as good as putting up a
speed l~mit sign on Pleasant view. They'll have the same response to .it as what
we are right now. The same enforc~nent problems. However, since it is going to
be extremely difficult to do anything about this intersection this year, the
signs are really our only alternative at this time. I think we should, even
though we put up speed limit signs, but I think we should sign this at this time
with putting it in the 1989 budget to improve this intersection. I don't have
all the history on it as far as I wasn't on the Council when it was approved.
I know a lot of the Pleasant View people were opposed to it. They don't want
the traffic. I think they've got the traffic anyway no matter what goes on.
They're going to have those cars going down there because the people take that
right turn. I see a lot of the cars when I drive up there are passing through.
They come from TH 101, they go all the way. I think it's probably a minority of
the cars that actually come out of Near Mountain that turn in there but there
are cars that come out of Near Mountain and turn in there and there are cars
that come up Pleasant view and make that left turn. The same thing goes for
Pleasant view turning to the north on that intersection. If you can't come out
of the intersection and make the turn to the right, you can't come into that
intersection and turn to the left. It's the same problem. However, I see that
as a safer alternative than going out to TH 101 and going up and trying to make
that left turn. I would much rather try and take a left turn into Near Mountain
and go through Near Mountain than go to TH 101 and try to get back to Vine Hill.
As a matter of fact, if I'm going to Vine Hill I turn on Pleasant View and cut
through Near Mountain. I don't go TH 101. It's almost as dangerous as TH 7
over by TH 41 which is one of my least favorite places to try and turn left.
I'm not sure on how this should be totally paid for. Here's where the Near
Mountain people are going to boo me. I think that the benefitting homeowners
should be partially assessed on this and I think also the whole city benefits
but to the biggest extent Near Mountain benefits. While the City, a lot of
people use that so I think a portion of it should come out of general revenues
from the entire City to pay for this. It was a mistake many years ago between a
whole lot of people and I think that the biggest benefit is going to be to the
Near Mountain residents so I do believe that just as Lake Lucy Road is a benefit
to the people living along it. They say they weren't but we assessed them and
I think there should be. Like I say, even if we dumped the $20,000.00 option
and fully assessed the entire thing, we're only talking $121.00. I don't think
the entire thing should be assessed but what I would like to see is the
$19,000.00 option which is Attachment #3 or Option 1, whichever the case may be,
done in 1989 and that the signs are put up indicating passenger vehicle turning
only at that intersection in the interim. As far as the assessing part of it,
I need that to be looked at by the City staff. That's where I come from.
Mayor Hamilton: I think there's no question that Pleasant View Road is a bad
road completely from TH 101 over to CR 17. It's narrow. It's poorly surfaced.
A lot of blind drives. It's hilly. A lot of sharp curves on it and if the
speed is 25, it should probably be 20. I certainly think that we ought to and I
believe that we can enforce the speed limit on there if we really want to. If
31
~G~.ty Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
we do enough speed trap checks we can slow the traffic down. No different than
you can do in any other town on any other street. That along with the
intersection itself which is dangerous to make a right hand turn or any turn
actually at this point, I think we can address that this year yet. I can't
believe that it's going to cost $2g,ggg.0g to improve that intersection to the
point where it can be a safe intersection. I feel that if one person's life is
in jeopardy of being lost, either through making a turn or through speed on that
street, then we ought to do something about it right now. Wlny should we wait
until someone's a statistic before we start doing anything about it so I think
we can be creative. I don't know what the limit is on having to bid out these
bids jobs. Was it $15,00~.~?
Roger Knutson: That's correct unless you're going to assess, then it's down to
$5,~g~.0~.
Mayor Hamilton: I'm not in favor of assessing it. It's a benefit to the entire
area and the community and everybody on the street. I have to believe that we
can make some corrections to that intersection that would be less than
$15,ggg.gg where we wouldn't have to go through a lengthy bidding process and
get the job done. DOn is very creative in his financing. I'm sure he can find
the time. Take it out of your salary if nothing else. So I'm in favor of
improvin9 the intersection so that right turns can be made safely. I do think
that there was an error made in making the intersection the way it is. I
honestly don't remember why that was done or the total discussion of that
intersection but since everybody, I just don't r~nember it is all. I think
there should be a right turn there but I want it to be a safe right turn. My
recomnendation would be to make some improvements to the intersection. Make it
a safe turning intersection. Do it this year. Do it immediately. Do it for
less than $15,gg0.0g so we don't have to go through a lengthy bidding process
and work with Public Safety Director, Jim Chaffee and his department and slow
the people down on that street. Set up a schedule so that can be accomplished.
Larry Brown: Did staff receive direction from Council as to ~nich option they
preferred?
CounciLman Boyt: You're going to get a motion here in a second.
John Nikolai: I have just one quick con~nent. It occurred to me before you
spend any money, the least expensive thing you could do would be to pull that
stop sign out of the ground and move it forward. That's the best thing and
before you s£mnd any money, I would encourage you each to go look at ~nere that
realignment and proposed turn lane is and then literally sit at the approximate
height, you will not be able to see to the left. I'm not an engineer but I turn
there enough to know that the optimum point at the crest of the hill to look
left safely and make a right hand turn, even where it is now. If you go any
further 'to the right, you're going downhill, down a slope and it's going to get
worse. Look for yourselves. Let your city people tell you .want to do. Move
the sign first and save a lot of money. If you don't like it then, then spend
your money.
Councilman Boyt: I'd like to follow up on that with a motion. I would move
basically what's on the next to the last paragraph on page 2 of the note from
staff which says that we install a sign at the intersection. I would add along
with John that ~ move the stop sign to a more appropriate location. The sign
32
City Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
that we would install would prohibit right hand turning movements from Near
Mountain Blvd. onto Pleasant View Road and similarly left hand turning movements
from Pleasant View Road in the Near Mountain Blvd. by large trucks and buses.
If there's a second I've got a con~nent.
Councilman Horn: I'll second it.
Councilman Boyt: The situation is certainly a troubling one. I would argue
that the $20,000.00 that Don could miraclously find in the budget is $20,000.00
that wasn't there to get the necessary CSO officers. It wasn't there to hire
the Sheriff's people that would have been able to monitor traffic and with one
police car in 22 square miles, there is no way that the City can respond to the
requests for speed control because if you put the car on 78th, you sure don't
have it at this corner. If you put it on Frontier Trail or wherever citizens
have requested this, it can't be done and to take this $20,000.00 and basically
throw it at this problem, is pulling it away from something else. I think we
have a means to deal with this problem better than it's been dealt with in the 4
years up until now. It doesn't remove the big safety hazard that's there but
I just don't think we have the $20,000.00 to spend.
Mayor Hamilton: Anytime you take funds away from one project to accomplish
another, obviously you're taking funds away from something that you had planned
on doing to accomplish something else. I don't know where the $20,000.00 comes
from but I have to believe that this project could be done for a whole lot less
than $20,000.00. The County has been very willing to help us with radar in the
past and I see no reason why they shouldn't be willing to do that in the future.
That is an additional car that they put into our area to help us give those type
of services to our con~nunity. There's no question that we need additional
police service through the CSO program or whatever other way we can accomplish
that project but I think we can still accomplish patrolling that street as well
as we can any other street which we have done on 78th Street. There's no reason
we can't do it on Pleasant View. We have a motion and a second, are there any
other further con~ents?
Councilman Geving: I think we ought to consider the con~nent from Mr. Nikolai
about moving that stop sign.
Councilman Horn: That's in the motion.
Councilman Johnson: So you're not doing any design changes in your motion in
the long run? Only sign changes?
Councilman Boyt: That's right. Right now all I'm proposing is that we do the
best fix we can on this. If we want to bring it back to discuss possiblities,
we certainly need to do a traffic study and we need to do some other things to
get a good answer.
Councilman Johnson: Okay, but your motion didn't ask for the best fix, it asked
for minimum signs and move the stop sign. That's the minimum fix in my opinion.
The best fix is to redesign the intersection and I agree that there seems to be
some missing on the feasibility study as far as what's the sight distance when
you start going downhill with the turn lane. I think that needs to be redone.
I'd like to see, short term I like your motion. Long term, I believe that we
need to do something with this intersection. I don't think the answer is quite
33
[d{~ity Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
here yet. I think our feasibility study didn't quite reach the answer.
Mayor Hamilton: I think we've all talked about the budgeting process. It's
u~oming in the next few weeks and it needs to be addressed as a part of that.
Remember hearing that?
Councilman Johnson: Right, but I'm wondering, t don't want to leave this in his
motion. I want to make sure that somehow it does get addressed. Are you
looking to doing some other modifications in 1989 in your motion or just leave
it at signs? That's the way I read your motion is that we do nothing further
than putting up signs on this intersection. If that's what your motion is, I'm
going to vote against it. If it's signs only and moving the stop sign.
Councilman Boyt: How about if we include a traffic study?
Mayor Hamilton: What's that going to accomplish? You're throwing money down a
rathole.
Councilman Boyt: Okay, then let's let the motion stand as it is. The motion
corrects the probl~ a~d it doesn't cost money we don't have.
Councilman Boyt moved, Councilman Horn seconded to install signage to prohibit
right-hand turning movements from Near Mountain Boulevard onto Pleasant View
Road and similarly, left-hand turning movements from Pleasant View Road onto
Near Mountain Boulevard by large trucks and buses and to move the stop sign to a
more appropriate location. All voted in favor except Councilman Johnson ~no
opposed and the motion carried.
PUBLIC HEARING: TRUNK SANITARY SEWER CR 16/CR 17 ASSESSMENT ROLL, IMPROVEMENT
PROJECT 86-13.
Mayor Hamilton called the public hearing to order.
Councilman Horn moved, Councilman Geving seconded to close the public hearing.
All voted in favor and the motion carried. The public hearing was closed.
Councih-nan Geving: I need to ]<now whether the Eckankar property which consists
of 15g acres is totally zoned Rural Single Family. It has a lot to do with it
because I always was under the impression that we rezoned that property to
single family and that there was nothing there for R-4 or R-12. I thought the
whole property was RSF.
Councilman Johnson: RSF is north of that.
Councilman Geving: I'm not so sure. Is that true?
Gary Warren: Page 9 of the Assessment Roll Dale was based on the zoning map.
16 1/2 acres of RSF, 4g acres of R-4 and 5g acres of R-12.
Councilman Geving: That is the current zoning of the Eckankar property?
Barbara Dacy: That's correct.
34
City Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
Resolution #88-80: Mayor Hamilton moved, Councilman Horn seconded to approve
Improvement Project File #86-13 Assessment Roll for trunk sanitary sewer for CR
16 and CR 17. All voted in favor and the motion carried.
AWARD OF BIDS: 1988 STREET SEALCOATING PROJECT.
Councilman Geving moved, Councilman Horn seconded to award the contract for the
1988 Street Sealcoating project to Allied Blacktop Company of Maple Grove,
Minnesota in the amount of $50,096.00. All voted in favor and the motion
carried.
FRONT AND SIDE YARD VARIANCE REQUESTS, 7725 FRONTIER TRAIL, STEVE NELSON.
Councilman Geving: Steve Nelson is a new property owner over on Frontier Trail
and this was approved by the Board of Adjustments and Appeals for a 3 foot
variance to the 10 foot sideyard setback and no variance to the required 30 foot
frontyard setback. Also, we waived the application fee of $75.00 because this
was previously approved in 1985 and it's just a reapplication.
LOT AREA VARIANCE REQUEST, CORNER OF LONE EAGLE DRIVE AND NEZ PERCE, LOTUS
REALTY.
Mayor Hamilton: This wasn't one that you had on your Board of Adjustments?
Councilman Geving: We did address this. We voted for denial based upon all
the situations. That was a illegal lot split and that it was a self-created
hardship and that the City is not approving the creation of a non-confomring lot
so those were the reasons.
Mayor Hamilton: So you denied it?
Councilman Geving: So we denied 10.
Mayor Hamilton: It didn't indicate that it was going to be there. I just had a
question. Would having a home on that particular lot improve the neighobrhood?
Councilman Geving: That's a tough issue. There's almost 10,000 square feet
there. I don't know what else will happen on that lot but the fact that they
illegally created it created the problem. I guess I'd have to say yes Tom to
your question.
Mayor Hamilton: I would think so too.
REQUEST TO SUBDIVIDE 7 ACRES INTO 2 LOTS AND 10UTLOT AND TO CREATE A NEW WEST
64TH STREET CUL-DE-SAC, SOUTHWEST CORNER OF WEST 64TH STREET AND HIGHWAY 41,
GARY REED AND HSZ DEVELOPMENT.
Councilman Boyt: I guess my concern is that the cul-de-sac's layout hinges upon
future development, doesn't it Gary? Where you want that cul-de-sac depends on
35
City Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
what happens to the rest of the property[
Gary Reed: ...placing that cul-de-sac, you get additional use of that lot and
whatever is left over will be developed hopefully in a commercial situation.
Councilman Boyt: What I'm concerned about and I don't know if it's appropriate
for it to be the City's concern or not. I'm concerned that the way the cul-de-
sac is laid out, it creates a piece of property that is not going to be accessed
by the cul-de-sac. So we either are saying that somehow we're miraclously going
to come up with another entrance off of TH 41.
Gary Reed: We have it.
Councilman Boyt: So you have access to that. You don't have to develop at all
in this cul-de-sac, is that what you're telling me? That even if the frontage
isn't grante~~1 cot-~nercial, which would be rezoning. If it's not rezoned
commercial, you can still develop?
Gary Reed: We have an entrance onto TH 41 where the old drive-in was.
Councilman Boyt: That was my only concern. I didn't want to see us create a
future problem.
Gary Reed: We've checked now with MnDot and make sure that we'd be able to use
that access onto TH 41. Before we did that we checked with MnDot. They haven't
given it to me in ~iting.
Barbara Dacy: The access that you're referring to is approximately J.n this
location where the existing entrance to the old drive-Jrt is but because 64th
Street is being vacated and because a full intersection is here, MnDot indicated
that this separation would be acceptable.
Councilman Boyt: But Mr. Gowen down there is not rushing to develop.
Barbara Dacy: That's correct.
Councilman Boyt: And is this access onto TH 41 going to impact him?
Barbara Dacy: MnDot indicated that Mr. Gowen can continue to use his existing
driveway.
Councilman Johnson: Does the, I guess it would be the west side of the cul-de-
sac, you say the first part you're looking to put con~nercial in. On TH 41 and
then you're looking for residential around this cul-de-sac?
Gary Reed: That's correct.
Councilman Johnson: Is there enough room between your existing, those two lots
you're putting in there, the proposed house and the house, and the cul-de-sac?
Gary Reed: %'{e have a preliminary plat with 7 lots...which all are...
Councilman Johnson: Will they all meet the 3g foot setbacks? ! don't know if
you were here earlier for our discussion on setbacks.
36
City Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
_ -
Gary Reed: I, in fact staked out some of the lots and...
Barbara Dacy: The point you're making though is valid. I think that before
final plat, I know the Reed's have done a lot of sketch drawings and what we
need to meet with them to make sure that they have the appropriate lot width and
lot depth and so on.
Councilman Johnson: Prior to final plat? So that would be recommendation 10.
I'm not exactly sure how to state that. Prior to final plat that a sketch plan
showing adequate building setbacks, etc. is reviewed by staff.
Councilman Geving: The only concern I have is on the, I guess page 5, having to
do with the drainage into our Herman Field area down the proposed pipe. I'm
really curious about how much drainage that's going to be and what's going to
happen once it gets to the turn in the pipe, where does it go? Does it sop up
into the ground by Herman Field? Are you going to create another pond or what's
happening? Larry, can you explain it to me?
Larry Brown: Yes, in dealing with the Watershed District, the Watershed
District felt that it was best to keep the pipe as far back from the lake as
possible. Eventually the ultimate point of this is to reach Lake Minnewashta
flowing through the grasslands and through the park area. This pipe, we tried
to coordinate it with the proposed drainageway that was proposed to Herman Field
and the parkland. It's been suggested to let Mark Koegler, the planner who
originated the Herman Field plan, to draft up his conm~ents as well.
Councilman Geving: My concern is that we're not creating another problem by
pulling the water off of this cul-de-sac and dumping it onto this low area and
then channeling it down to the, they're still a long ways from the lake. That's
a long ways from the lake and I'm concerned that you might be creating an area
that eventually will turn into a small cattail marsh if there's a lot of this
run-off.
Gary Reed: There is one down there now.
Councilman Geving: So there is something there existing now? We're not
creating it? Okay. You know it better than anybody Gary.
Gary Reed: The cul-de-sac, hopefully we're going to get... I have one concern
that...grade on the...it would be coming out of the ground right at the distance
...and creating a dam in effect to that swale.
Councilman Geving: Where your existing home is you mean?
Gary Reed: Yes. On the west line of that property, towards West 64th Street
where there's a swale area...and then follow the swale all the way into the
marsh.
Councilman Geving: Will that pipe be above the ground there? The one that's
shown there? That will be underground?
Gary Warren: Correct.
37
City Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
Councilman Geving: Okay, I have no other questions.
CounciLman Horn: I only have one comment. Hopefully in the future ~{nen a
majority of that develops, we'll be able to minimize the entrances onto TH 41.
I realize that with individual owners it's hard to get the develoi~nent all
coordinated at once but I hope we can minimize that as much as we could so we
don't do what Eden Prairie did with TH lgl.
Mayor Hamilton: Hopefully the Reeds are satisfied with the way this is coming
out. You're pleased that development J.s going to take place and that you're
going to be able to develop your property the way you want to. That was my only
concern. I know it may have pushed you into a little sooner than you wanted to
but. I would move approval of case nm~ber 88-17, the preliminary plat request
to create one outlot and two single family lots.
Councilman Horn: Second.
Councilman Johnson: With the 9 conditions and the l~th?
~ayor Hamilton: Yes. With the conditions, 1 through 9 and lg.
Mayor Hamilton moved, Councilman Horn seconded to approve Subdivision ~88-17 to
create one outlot and two single family lots J.n the West 64th Street cul-de-sac
as presented on the plat st~nped "Received July 13, 1988" and subject to the
following conditions:
1. Reservation of a 25 foot trail easement over the proposed 8 foot bituminous
trail in the vacated 64th Street right-of-way.
2. The appliant shall enter into a development contract with the City and
provide the City with the necessary financial sureties to guarantee the
proper installation of this improvement.
3. The applicant shall obtain and comply with all conditions of the Watershed
District permit.
4. Utility easements located over the proposed sanitary sewer and watermain
between the existing West 64th Street right-of-way and the proposed
cul-de-sac right-of-way shall be shown on the final plat. These easements
shall be 2~ feet in width minimum.
5. The applicant shall provide the City with a temporary easement agreement
which will allow entry onto the Reed property for construction of the
cul-de-sac and ponding site.
6. The proposed ponding site located at the southeast quadrant of the proposed
intersection of West 64th Street and the proposed cul-de-sac shall be
located such that a 5 foot buffer exists between the existing utilities in
West 64th Street and the l~ff year high water elevation for the ponding site.
7. A temporary construction easement will be required from the Minnesota
Department of Trasnportation such that grading may take place within the
right-of-way owned by the Minnesota Department of Transportation located
adjacent to the northeast corner of the parcel.
38
City Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
8. Ail erosion controls shall- be in place prior ot the commencement of any
construction, and shall remain in place throughout the duration of
construction. The developer shall periodically inspect the erosion control
and make any necessary repairs promptly.
9. The plat shall maintain the 64th Street street name.
10. ?riot to final plat a plan showing adequate building setbacks is reviewed by
City Staff.
Ail voted in favor and the motion carried.
COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS:
Councilman Geving: What I really want to talk about is, from a professional
standpoint and how I think we as a Council are the leaders in the corrmunity and
we direct our staff and we direct the various con~nissions and commitees who work
for the con~nissions. It bothers me a lot when I see letters that are written
directly to Councilmen as a result of our decisions. You've got to understand
that not all con~nittee recommendations, not all commission recommendations are
ever fully understood and bought 100% by the Council. There are always going to
be recon~nendations from con~nissions that are going to be considered. We're
going to buy them sometimes. Sometimes we're going to thank them for the
recommendations and make another move. What I'm bringing to the table tonight
is a couple of letters that appeared in my in box from Park and Recreation
Con~nission. I think that they were totally out of line and that any commission
is out of line in responding to decisions that are made by the Council. They
have to always remember that they are a recommending body and their
reconxnendations are not always bought off by the Council. We take it as just
additional input and so it bothers me a lot when I see people not working as a
team and not being unified as a team. We have to work together in order for the
common good of the con~unity. I won't say any more than that except that it
does bother me when I see commission m~bers writing officially to councilmen
who are trying to do their very best job in the best interest of the cormnunity
and be criticized for it. That's all I have to say.
Mayor Hamilton: I would certianly concur with what you have to say only I'd put
it even more strongly than that. I was very miffed by the letter, one of the
two letters that went out referring to, it wasn't even clear who it came from
and I'm a little surprised that our staff would even type such a letter and send
it out when there was obviously no one signing it. No one saying that they were
the ones writing it. They're doing exactly, it was obviously from the Park and
Rec Commission, somebody on that conxnission who thinks they're in a power play I
guess. It's one of the questions I've always asked when people volunteer to be
on various commissions is would it bother them if the Council did not, in some
cases, accept their recommendations? I think in all the cases that I can
remember, everybody has said oh no. That's fine. We understand the
relationship. That we're a recommending body and the Council makes the
decision. Well, there are some people who don't seem to be able to take that
and if that's the problem, they ought to get off the Commission, and I mean
that. If they can't follow the rules, if they can't play the game the way it's
supposed to be played, then they ought to go do something else. Their little
39
City Council Meeting - August_ 8, 1988
games don't go very far wi. th me and I think it's real, real bad taste[
Councilman Johnson: I'd like to say a word then. I don't think the letter was
in, I wouldn't have written the letter but I do feel that we slighted the Park
and Recreation Commission in that we directed them to do ~nat they did. They
took a lot of abuse. A lot of abuse to bring those recon~nendations to us and
the vote ended up really, they standing up for what we directed them to do.
They took a lot of abuse and we took a 18g degree turn around and walked away
from it to a point. I haven't seen those no parking signs come down yet. I
haven't driven by this week but I would have felt pretty bad. There has been
times ~nen everyone of us voted against the Planning Commission and Park and
Rec, Safety, every one of th~. It is the nature of the beast but in this case,
I felt sorry for them because of the ~ount of abuse they took from the
neighborhood during the various meetings they were at. I was at some of them.
In fact, I made the mistake of seeing some friends outside and saying what are
you doing here tonight and an hour later I was able to leave. They then went in
and went before the Con~nission this way. While I don't believe that the letter
was a good idea, I can see where the people are coming from. I know that a lot
of people think we didn't take the turn around. I think that when engineering
does get around to reviewing, I don't know when they're going to, to reviewing
the no parking situation there, that Greenwood Shores will lose. When those no
parking signs start coming down, there will be more available parking there
because the only signs that the engineering staff is going to leave up are those
required for safety purposes, as I remember the motion. I think we're going to
have much more parking available within a very short distance of that park than
the 3 parking spots and 1 handicap that Park and Rec Commission so I'm still
stating my no vote on that anyway.
Councilman Geving: Jay, I think you missed the whole point.
Councilman Johnson: I still don't think the letter was a good idea.
Councilman Horn: First of all, I totally disagree that it was directly our
charge to them. I think it may have been interpretted by them as our charge and
I read the Minutes of some of their meetings where I was quoted as what my
opinion would be and it certainly didn't represent my opinion. They may have
been misdirected as to what our charge was but I don't think it came out of our
joint meetings. I know that if they interpretted my charge correctly, it wasn't
what they interpretted the Council's charge to be so I think things got out of
hand and their interpretation of what they were to do was taken away from what
our original intent was but I don't think that this group turned around 180
degrees. I didn't interpretted it that way at all. I'd be happy to discuss
with you ~nat my intent was and I don't think I turned around at all.
Councilman Boyt: As you recall that evening was fairly charged with emotion.
I remember the co~ent being made that evening that one person on the Council
didn't even know v~ny we were considering the issue and accused the people who
brought it in front of us of trying to beat the neighborhood over the head with
it. I think when you respond that way that it's reasonable to expect the other
person to respond to you. I happen to tell the Park and Rec Con~nission, some of
the members, that I didn't think they should send the letter but I can
understand when people devote their time as volunteers to an effort, when they
believe in it, and when it's not supported, they're going to have a reaction. I
think they did communicate. Now we can disagree as to whether your
40
City Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
conxnunication was justified or not but I think it would have been much worse had
they sit back and not done anything when they were very disappointed. They let
you know they were disappointed. I think as adults I would expect them to go
ahead and take on the next charge full force with all the effort we have ceme to
expect of them. If they're disappointed in any of us, I would expect them to
say that.
Mayor Hamilton: Then why don't they come here face to face and say it instead
of writing out some ridiculous letter which they did and not signing the
letters, l~nat ' s absolutely stupid.
Councilman Horn: And implying it was an unanimous decision, I talked with at
least two of the members who were not in favor of sending the letter.
Mayor Hamilton: Jay mentioned abuse, and I think the job of the commissions is
to listen to what the people in that community have to say and not to be abusive
to them. I received many complaints about that commission, about those hearings
and in particular about the Chairman and the way he handled the people at those
meetings and it was not very good. Their job is to listen, to con~nunicate with
the residents of the con~nunity and to pass on a recommendation. I don't think
they listened very well. They were abusive to the citizens and I don't think
they listened and really took to heart and made a good logical decision based on~
what the community was saying.
Councilman Horn: In contrast to that, another touchy issue, the Planning
Con~nission dealt with this TH 101 issue which is highly more volatile than this
issue and we got letters complimenting them on their method of handling it.
They didn't always agree with the recommendations but they felt that they were
listened to.
Councilman Johnson: Let me tell you the dedication of our Park and Recreation
Commission. They knew that TH 101 was going to be a sensitive issue and they
came here and they sat through the TH 101 issue even though, members of the Park
and Recreation Commission, to see how they handled that and their only purpose
here at the meeting was to watch how Ladd handled that meeting and they learned.
Mr. Mady was here doing that. I talked to him afterwards and he said, wow. I
really learned something from Ladd Conrad and Ladd is excellent at handling
people this way.
Mayor Hamilton: Clark, you wanted to talk about center lines.
Councilman Horn: Yes. As many times as I've driven all the streets in the
City, it first came to my attention this weekend that we have some streets that
don't have center lines on them and it came very close with this Near Mountain
issue is the people crossing the imaginary center line in the road to make a
left hand turn or right hand turn. It just seems to me that it's pretty logical
if you don't have a target there for somebody to aim at, you're going to cross
tha center line. I'm wondering why we don't have center striping on our
streets. Especially the major ones.
Gary Warren: We do each year have a striping program that we're taking back to
the County and I believe they have on the late sun, her, in fact Park Drive in the
business park will be striped this year. Kerber Blvd. I believe we have on the
41
City Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
list. We do a few miles each year on the busier and more traveled roads just
from a policy standpoint. Most cities do not stripe residential roads.
CounciLman Horn: Let me put another criteria in there. Some of our narrow,
dangerous roads might be better candidates like Pleasant View. That's all I
have.
Councilman Johnson: Can I add something to his, as long as we're talking about
striping roads? It would just take a second. How about children's crosswalks
before the school year starts since we didn't get them striped last year while
school was in? Are we going to get them striped before school starts?
Gary Warren: Those are public works. Jerry Schlenk has that on his list.
Mayor Hamilton: In the past we have done sane of that striping ourselves and I
think it's totally inadequate. They're about this wide and they don't paint
them heavy enough. Let's get someone out there who does a professional job and
makes a nice wide crosswalk that everybody can see that will last through the
winter.
Councilman Johnson: I've seen crosswalks where the stripes are a foot wide and
5 feet long.
Mayor Hamilton: Especially where you're going across to the church. The old
St. Hubert's Church where kids are crossing there when they start their bible
study classes again on P~=dnesdays or whatever it is. There should be a well
defined wide crosswalk there. If we don't get that far this fall, I want to do
it anyway. Bill, you wanted to comment on the carousel building.
Councilman Boyt: To follow up on your point for a second. Getting there has a
lot to do with how much we ask the city staff to do. How many projects we throw
at them. The carousel building. It looks like, as much as I would like to see
Chanhassen have that building, the costs are out of hand.
Councilman Geving: Yes, we might as well forget it. It's a dead issue.
Unfortunately. We all wanted it real bad.
Mayor Hamilton: Don was out of town and I tried my very best to get someone to
move that building at a cost that was reasonable. It could not be done so I
called the developer and I said, it's yours. Knock it down. Burn it down.
Whatever you want to do but we can't do it. I could not justify spending the
kind of money they were talking about and without coming to the Council, I just
decided it wasn't worth it. It was probably worth it if we had the money but...
Don Ashworth: You couldn't find anyone anyway.
Mayor Hamilton: Stubb said they would move it but it would be 3 weeks and they
couldn't wait 3 more weeks.
Councilman Geving: I drove out there and looked at it too Tom and I just wish
we could take some pictures of that building because it's going to be gone
forever and if we ever had any thoughts about reconstructing something like
that. Is it gone now?
42
City Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
Mayor Hamilton: It probably is. That was a shame.
Councilman Boyt: This was a good incentive to get out there and identify the
good barns in town.
Councilman Geving: Yes, there's only three left.
Mayor Hamilton: I think on the developer's behalf, I would like to say that
Fred Blocker was very upset. He did not want to see that building go. He
wanted to see someone move it but he didn't have any choice. He couldn't afford
to move it for us. It was just in the way.
Councilman Geving: Ma~y, have you got any pictures of that from a historical
standpoint?
Mary Durben: I think the Herald might.
Councilman Boyt: I suspect Excelsior would have sc~e.
Councilman Horn: It seemed from what I got out of this that time was a bigger
issue than money.
Mayor Hamilton: Even money got to be. I think Stubb's, he'd do it if no one
else wanted to move it so his final bid to me was $26,000.00 to move it and then
we find the crew, the carpentry crew to take it down, they would move it and
then we'd have a crew put it back up. He figured if we were fool enough to pay
that, he'd take the money. I just wanted to c~ent on the Brooks facility over
here. The parking lot. It appears as though, Don and I talked about this and
it appears as though the developers have made a mess of the parking lot. They
put the curbs in wrong. There's a peak right in the middle of it. All the
curbs come up to a peak and I noticed that we had an approval for a liquor
license, non-intoxicating for Brooks and they're apparently planning on being in
there fairly soon. I'm not going to be satisfied with that parking lot staying
the way it is with the peak in it and with the curb about 2 feet higher than
where it's supposed to be in front of the Riveria so I don't think there should
be any occupancy allowed in there until that parking lot is made right and those
curbs are changed. I don't really care what it costs them. They've done it
wrong and they should do it right.
Councilman Geving: Can we stop them Gary?
Gary Warren: They're already stopped. I just got a letter submittal Friday
from the builders out there and what happened is, to save the 80 feet of storm
sewer, they moved a catch basin to the west end of the parking lot so instead of
draining like we planned, they kinked the parking lot to run it into the catch
basin. They have already agreed to remove the curb along the Riveria and
establish that 6 inches lower as the approved plan and they're asking to remove,
what would be allowed within four sections of that peak and round that off to
get 5 and increase their plant density to 4 foot centers...
Mayor Hamilton: I think it should be done the way the plan indicated it was
going to be done and not to get by. They do it right or...
43
City Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
Gary Warren: That was my response to them was that we had an approved plan and
we're going to work without any compromises but I would be willing to look at
some suggestions and that's what they gave me. Based on ~dnat you're saying, I
agree that it should...
Councilman Horn: Did BRW authorize that?
Gary Warren: No. BRW shot the grades to confirm what we had thought was the
problem out there and that's we used to get the developer on the spot.
Councilman Horn: What about the curbs out here that appear to be sinking on
main street?
Gary Warren: Those are the settlements in the sub-base ~hat are going on.
Those will all be done before ~ do the work.
Councilman Johnson: Are you talking curbs or asphalt?
CounciLman Horn: I thought originally it was asphalt and I looked closer the
day they lay the curb...
Gary Warren: They did some jacking, mud jacking...
Councilman Johnson: When are they going to put the top coat?
Gary Warren: We' re within a week.
Councilman Boyt: I also missed a point and I don't want to put it on this
agenda but it seems to me we have a kennel license request that we have to, is
that going to be on the 22nd?
Don Ashworth: A kennel license request?
CounciLman Johnson: Yes, there's been an objection to Wind Walker Kennels.
Don Ashworth: The process is we advertise and if there is an objection, it goes
onto a next agenda. I'm not aware that we have a protest.
Counci]~nan Boyt: Okay. My point was building construction hours. I would like
to see the City with every building permit issue the hours and constraints on
that building. I have had enough of individual builders saying nobody told me.
I don't think we should have to fight that battle everytime a builder starts
putting a house up and they forget that they can't run through the night.
Don Ashworth: So you're suggesting as a part of the permit process that the
notice be_ included in there?
Councilman Boyt: I think it only makes sense that ~nen somebody comes in for a
building permit, they're given the relevant development contract and ordinances
surrounding it because then by ~]e time we have them educated, they've disrupted
folks and they didn't need to do that in the first place.
_~ayor Hamilton: That' s a good idea.
44
City Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
Councilman Johnson: It's almost standard hours aren't they? We could just
about have it added to our building permit form.
Mayor Hamilton: That's what Bill is saying. Just put it on the building
permit. Those are your hours and it should be clear to them. If they can't
read that then...
TH 101 REALIGNMENT, UPDATE - CITY PLANNER.
Barbara Dacy: The reason why we put this on the agenda is to update you on the
Planning Con~ission's action last Wednesday and to warn you, so to speak, that
this item will be on the August 22ndmeeting also.
Mayor Hamilton: Is that going to be the only item on that agenda?
Barbara Dacy: Some of you have already contacted me with specific questions or
alternative alignments I guess I'll call them and issues that you would like to
see discussed at that meeting. What the Planning Commission did was to
basically recommend to the Council to amend our Comprehensive Plan to eliminate
the current language in the Plan which refers to that old TH 101 study that was
done in 1981. Some of you may remember that where 5 alternatives were drawn to
look at the Dakota Avenue intersection and to improve it's function but as you
recall through the Broadened Study Area Report that Benshoof and Associates and
Fred coordinated that, that this proposed alignment was a recommendation of that
study to improve the continuity of TH 101 traffic. What the Cc~nission did was
to recommend that the Comp Plan language be altered so that the City identifies
two options. One, the proposed alignment that was contained in the traffic
study across TH 5. Secondly, to look at what has been termed the north leg
option which is to take TH 101 across the Apple Valley site on TH 5 to the
existing Great Plains intersection and then south at the existing TH 101. The
Planning Commission's comment also was that they would prefer the north leg
option but they understood that that option had to be reviewed by MnDot. The
vote was 4 to 2 with one member absent. So 2 of the members felt that the north
leg option should not be pursued.
Mayor Hamilton: Should not be pursued?
Barbara Dacy: Correct. They preferred the south leg, if you want to use that
term.
Councilman Boyt: What they were really saying was that they thought that the
north leg was sending a signal to the community that wasn't realistic. They
were going to be straight foward with the con~nunity. Say if you're talking
about delaying TH 5 for 2 years or more, that's not realistic and they didn't
want to, although we received a lot of good letters in support of what the
Planning Commission did, I think the thing that they did was they steered the
conxnunity to an option that isn't an option in my opinion because it blocks TH 5
so people walked out of there with hopes. I think people walked out of there
with the signal that putting the traffic on TH 5 and blocking it's development
for 2 years or more was a realistic option and I think the Planning Commission,
at least 4 of the members on the Planning Co~mission responded with something
that they hoped was true rather than with something that I think is going to
45
City Council ~eeting - August 8~ 1988
work out in the long run to be impossible for us[
Barbara Dacy: Another point too was that the Conxnission felt that although they
weren't presented that there were other options out there, they asked staff to
follow through as much as they could with those other options and do what was
necessary to confer with MnDot to determine whether or not those were options.
Councilman Horn: This is the north option here?
Barbara Dacy: I guess what we're calling the whole thing is the north and south
leg. This being from TH 5 south, the south leg. The north leg option comes
from going along TH 5 and then hitting the existing TH 101.
Councilman Horn: Whatever happened with Benshoof's option?
Barbara Dacy: This is the Benshoof option right here.
Councilman Horn: No it isn't.
Barbara Dacy: This is a refined engineered version of the Benshoof option but
in concept what the Benshoof option was to cross TH 5 and connect up to
Lake Drive East. What we've done is, BRW has refined the geometrics in
conjunction with MnDot's standards.
Councilman Horn: The impression I got, this Benshoof option has been around for
quite a while. The impression I got was that the people at the public hearing
saw this as a last minute attempt that really wasn't very good. The comments I
got and I didn't hear them personally were that the presenters said, well yes
that has a lot of problems with it. Well, there's no way that you're going to
sell a concept if that's the way you present it. When I originally heard about
the variation of Benshoof's concept, it was purported to be a significant
improvement to that and from what I had seen, the Benshoof option was far
superior to anything that we had in the other 5 options so I was pretty excited
about it. Then to come back and get this kind of reaction, well it really isn't
all the good and it really isn't workable, no wonder we didn't get a good
response to it.
Barbara Dacy: You heard c~mments that at the meeting there were con~nents to the
fact that this is not a good alternative?
Councilman Horn: Right. That there really were a lot of problems with it.
Some of them haven't been addressed.
Barbara Dacy: I think maybe what the homeowners were frustrated with is that a
lot of the concerns were about pedestrian access and crossings and noise, the
detail design issues that we could not provide them at those informational
hearings. Only through the feasibility study are we able to look at the various
options. We recognize that it's the best alternative out there for north/south
continuity but we couldn't come back to them and give them definitive answers at
this informational hearings to all of their concerns. We couldn't provide them
with a sound yes or no on the north leg option and maybe they took that to mean
that there's just so many problems with this option, why are we even proposing
it.
46
City Council Meeting - August 8~ 1988
Councilman Horn: I think they got the impression that it was a last minute
option that came out of the woodwork because TH 5 got accelerated. Even that to
me is a misnomer. TH 5 didn't get accelerated. TH 5 got put back to some
reasonable semblance of what it was in the first place.
Barbara Dacy: I would agree with that and also too, we do have an application
on the commercial lot right where the south leg is proposed so another it~ on
your 22nd agenda is to either approve or deny a site plan for a 40,000 square
foot shopping center.
Councilman Horn: I think this Pleasant view situation was a good preview for us
to address this issue because this one has got 10 times the potential of
disaster than that one. We're going to have to come up with a workable solution
and put in all the resources we need to make it work. I've had people who have
come to me and said they would volunteer to be part of any kind of special study
or whatever it takes to get this going. As I see it, we can't hold up TH 5. We
can't leave TH 101 the way it is. We have to have something that works.
Councilman Geving: But at the same time you have to be realistic with the
developer who wants to come in and put a 40,000 square foot shopping center in
and then wants to move ahead, what are you going to say? Are you going to let
that proceed?
Mayor Hamilton: He's going to have to wait.
Councilman Geving: Are you going to let it proceed or are you going to have to
wait for 2 years to see if this highway thing goes through?
Mayor Hamilton: It won't take 2 years.
Councilman Horn: It won't take 2 years. If he has to wait he has to wait.
It's a lot better than screwing up our whole transportation pattern.
Mayor Hamilton: That's right. TH 5 has got to get done.
Councilman Geving: I'd like to see the part leading into this whole
intersection. What's going to happen to the south where we cross over and move
back towards A1 Klingelhutz' farm and move this way to the north? I'd like to
see the whole picture.
Councilman Horn: There is a picture there but this is the most critical part.
If this doesn't work, the rest of it doesn't.
Barbara Dacy: We will be receiving the official map for TH 212 the end of
August ar~ as a part of that review, we will be looking at the other realignment
of TH 101 with the interchange of TH 212 and how that intersects with the
properties to the north.
Councilman Geving: That's what I'm referring to. I want to see that.
Barbara Dacy: We've got concurrent studies going on.
Councilman Boyt: I think what the Planning Commission did a good job of was
getting out people's objectives and where they were most concerned. Although I
47
City Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
agree with Clark that this needs to be decided quickly, as quickly as we can, I
think we need to move to do it with as s~atl impact as we can on the residential
area we've allowed to develop.
Mayor Hamilton: It seems like tlnere's a lot of questions that haven't been
answered or addressed. We're looking at four railroad crossings within a very
short distance. Is that going to be able to be accomplished? Closing off of
Dakota, I guess that's been addressed but not satisfactorily to me I guess, t
still want to know what's going to happen at that intersection. What's going to
happen with the current intersection of TH 5 and TH lgl? What's going to happen
with Market Blvd. intersection? I think we need to see some information on
those projected. At least somebody's thoughts on those. Are they going to
become full intersections? Not intersections? I think they're all issues that
need to be dealt with.
Councihnan Horn: The whole thing has changed too because Market Blvd. wasn't
even an issue when the first study was done.
Councilman Johnson: I think that with Fred sitting there I want to tell him
that I think that absolutely for sure saying that the north option will stop
TH 5 did not convince me. I don't know the arguments you used seemed awful weak
to me. To me it seemed like this is my opinion and damn well that's the only
opinion. Unfortunately I don't think that's normally not the way you work and
I respect a lot of your work. We need to find out how we can do the north leg
and not stop TH 5. Do we have to pay for, can we pay their engineer to design
the five Great Plains Blvd.? Pay any cost differences or what? How do we keep
that on schedule to do the north leg and the south leg too? To remove a problem
from the north side of TH 5 and to make a similar problem on the south side
doesn't make a lot of sense to me. One of the problems on the north side we' re
trying to solve is TH lgl going through a relatively residential neighborhood
and this is residential on both sides. On the south side we've got residential
on one side and neighborhood type co~nercial on the other side. It doesn't make
sense to run it through there. Can we run it behind the commercial which then
puts us two intersections within lg feet of each other, which doesn't make sense
either? To me at this point, the north leg is a reasonable option but how do we
do it? My thoughts are how do we do it. Not we can't do it but how do we do
it. That's all I've got to say.
CounciLman Geving: What's the status of the cement plant? Where's that going
to be a year from now or two years from now? They're not due out of there until
1991. Can that be condemned?
Barbara Dacy: That will be an option available to the Council. We have met
with the Apple Valley people and taked preliminarily about the project. Getting
more information from them as to whether or not we should adjust the road
traversing the west part of the property or would it necessitate...
CounciLman Geving: We always showed that cul-de-sac coming in there from the
north side of the road. North side of 76th Street. There was always a cul-de-
sac that came down and serviced Guy's and whatever else might be left down in
that area. I don't see that on the existing plan.
Barbara Dacy: 79th Street now cul-de-sacs in the Hanus property. It was my
understanding that at one point it was to go all the way down to Taco but I
48
City Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
guess at one point that~~-
Mayor Hamilton: I think Hanus built his building in the way.
Councilman Horn: Just what do we need to do to get this done?
Mayor Hamilton: Maybe to add to that question, what are discussing next week on
the 22nd?
Barbara Dacy: There will be an application to amend the Comprehensive Plan to
identify these conceptual routes. The second item will be to adopt an official
map establishing the center line of the north leg and the south leg. By doing
so you're officially amending your thoroughfare plan and giving official map
status to those alignments. That's also a decision and a message to MnDot...
Councilman Horn: I think we should have sc~e good data in place for that. In
my mind it's not going to be feasible to run TH 101 currently with TH 5.
I don't know the numbers but I've enough numbers on other studies about what's
going to happen to TH 5 that we don't want to do...
Councilman Boyt: If I could second that. I think what's going to be very
critical on the 22nd is that the issues that we've all raised have the best
answer we can give for th~ so the business about what will MnDot say about
delays? Jay raises a point, how do we make it happen if we can or we can't?
It's a very political process but as much as we can we need to know and have
documented some way if we can. This is about the railroad crossings. I think
maybe some of you have talked to Barbara about alternatives. I know I've talked
to her. We have reactions to those. If we don't have that information, we're
going to end up making a decision we're unhappy with.
Councilman Geving: I think to answer your question, I think we're going to need
an awful lot of staff input. You're going to have to carry the whole ball in
terms of alternatives. You've got to provide us with one heck of a lot of good
data.
Councilman Boyt: I would suggest that this might be the sort of issue in which
we want to direct staff to make it a priority and if that means that we postpone
other things on the 22nd agenda, that we do that.
Councilman Geving: It might be the only thing we can have on the agenda. This
is going to be a heated place. I think we're going to have 100 people here.
Councilman Boyt: We can't prolong this decision much longer and not delay TH 5.
Mayor Hamilton: Just so long as we have all the information needed to make a
decision. I guess that's the most important thing to me. We need a lot of
information.
Councilman Geving: Can you make sure our schedule is really light Don?
Don Ashworth: We'll talk about it tomorrow morning. One of the probl~s you've
got is that a lot of your advertisements are out 6 to 8 weeks in advance. I
need to talk to both Barb and Gary tomorrow to see what we can pull off but some
items may have been schedule up to 4 weeks ago.
49
Council Meeting - August 8, 1988
Councilman Geving: I guess what I'm saying, we're all saying the same thing.
We don't want to be rushed into a decision on the 22nd just because we have an
agenda item that has to be solved.
Mayor Hamilton: Next week, just so you remember, we have a meeting next Monday.
It's going to be the assessment for the downtown project. There have been a lot
of very unhappy people when they got their notice of their assessments. I think
again we need information that asks for it, Gary I want to see the letters that
went out. I want to see the rolls. I want some previous history and any
information that has gone out to these people previously because I know there's
a lot of angry people and we're going to have a room full of folks again that
are just going to be raising hell. That's fine but I want to have, if the staff
has the time to meet with these people between now and next week and resolve
their questions, that's great but as a part of next week, if we have time also,
you may be thinking about anything in the coming years budget that you may want
to have in there so keep those ideas in mind of what you might want to include.
Councilman Geving moved, Councilman Horn seconded to adjourn the meeting. All
voted in favor and the motion carried. The meeting was adjourned at lg:35 p.m..
Submitted by Don Ashworth
City Manager
Prepared by Nann Opheim
50