1988 07 25CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL
REGULAR MEETING
JULY 25, 1988
Mayor Hamilton called the meetJ, ng 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: Roger Knutson, Gary Warren, Barbara Dacy, Jo Ann Olsen, Todd
Gerhardt, Lori Sietsema, Larry Brown and Jim Chaffee
APPROVAL OF AGENDA: Councilman Johnson moved, CounciLman Geving seconded to
approve the agenda as amended with the following additions and changes:
Councilman Boyt wanted to change item 11 to the first item under New Business
and add an item under Council Presentations, the Minnetonka Weed. Councilman
Horn wanted to add under Council Presentations discussion on referendums and
Mayor Hamilton wanted to move item 9 onto the Consent Agenda as item (w). Ail
voted J.n favor of the agenda as amended 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
recon~nendations:
a. Resolution #88-77: Set Public Hearing Date, Industrial Development Revenue
Bond Application, Lyman Lumber.
b. Curry Farms 2nd Addition:
2. Approve RLS for Tracts A, B and C
c. Approval of Development Contract for Buresh Addition.
d. Approval of Development Contract for Ersbo Addition.
e. Approval of Development Contract for Audubon West.
f. HSZ Development:
1. Approval of Development Contract
2. Approval of Final Plat
3. Review Final Site Plan
g. Ordinance Amendment to Allow State Licensed Day Care Centers as an Accessory
Use in the IOP District, Final Reading.
h. Replat of Lot 6, Sun Ridge Addition into 2 Lots, Rod Grams.
j. Mary Schumacher, 2841 North Manor Road:
1. Preliminary Plat Approval
2. Final Plat Approval
222
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
m. Approval of Contract for Recycling Center between R & W Rolloff and City of
Chanhassen.
n. Bond Redemption Program, Authorization to call various existing bonds.
o. Resolution %88-78: Approval of Plans and Specifications and Authorize the
Advertising for Bids, City Hall and Fire Station Expansion.
u. Approval of Accounts.
v. City Council Minutes dated July 11, 1988
Planning Con~nission Minutes dated July 6, 1988 and July 13, 1988
Park and Recreation Commission Minutes dated July 12, 1988
Public Safety Con~nission Minutes dated June 23, 1988
All voted in favor and the motion carried.
1(I) SUBDIVISION OF 1.66 ACRES INTO 2 SINGLE FAMILY LOTS, 3695 RED CEDAR POINT
ROAD, GEORGE WAY, JR.
Councilman Johnson: I wanted to know if the applicant, Mr. George Way, Jr., is
familiar with the changes that have occurred since, in our packet it sounds like
there's been some changes. I just want to make sure since it's on the Consent
Agenda that it's not going to be discussed. That he's familiar and doesn't have
a problem. Give him a chance to speak if he does. I see somebody shaking his
head back there.
Councilman Johnson moved, Mayor Hamilton seconded to approve Subdivision
%88-11 per the recomnendation of the Ciqv Manager. Ail voted in favor and the
motion carried.
i(K) ORDINANCE AUTHORIZING NON-LICENSED PERSONNEL TO ISSUE CITATIONS, FIRST AND
FINAL READING.
Councilman Horn: I take this out as another item that I would like to see a
public hearing on it. I think that what we're talking about here, unless I've
misunderstood what's happening. What our unmarked type of cars are really
authorized to do and I'd l].ke to have some clarification of that and a public
hearing on that so that our citizens are aware of what our City patrol cars are
allowed.
Mayor H~nilton: I think that's a good idea. Jim, do you have any problem with
that?
Jim Chaffee: No.
Councilman Horn moved, Councilman Johnson seconded to table action on the
Ordinance Authorizing Non-Licensed Personnel to Issue Citations until a Public
Hearing has been held. All voted in favor and the motion carried.
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
223
l(P) ASSUMPTION SEMINARY PROPERTY, FLYING CLOUD DRIVE~
Mayor Hamilton: I think that having been fairly active in trying to get this
Assumption Seminary cleaned up, I would like to see us, the letter from Scott
Harr, #1, I would like to see a date put in there so the property owners are
aware of the fact of when we want to have this done. To leave it not dated I
think just gives them an open end and it can drift on and on forever so we
should set type of a date in there that's reasonable and one that they can meet.
Also, the seminary itself, the brick building, I think it might be wise to have
them board up all the windows and doors so that whole thing is closed. Then it
would be so dark in there that it would virtually eliminate anybody wanting to
go in there because it's a scary place to begin with and if it's totally dark, I
can't imagine anybody that's going to want to be in there.
Councilman Geving: What's not boarded up now Tom?
Mayor Hamilton: They just boarded up the first level and there is still a door
open at the back of the building so you can access to the interior of the
building. Then, there were a lot of tires out there. They seemed to be kind of
all over the place. A lot of them down by the barn. A lot of them in a couple
of garages just scattered around the property and I would like to see them
dispose of the tires. Get them off the property. That should be included I
think and there's a shed behind the barn also where there are not only a lot of
tires but also a lot of junk. Standing water. Just things that are a hazard.
Also, the barn, I would like to see to get some type of a commitment from the
property owners on the barn. So you say that you' re going to arrange for the
barn to be burned. That could be a long time. I have to feel with what's
inside the barn, it is a health hazard and it should be taken care of as quickly
as possible if there's some way that we can get that cleaned up. Those were
some of the additions I'd like to see.
Councilman Geving: When you're talking about a timeframe Tom, what are you
thinking? In terms of this year yet?
Mayor Hamilton: Absolutely. Give them two weeks or 30 days or something. Leave
that to Jim's discretion but put a date on it.
Councilman Johnson: What happens a lot of times in circ~nstances like this with
the environmental agencies is that they request the owner to provide them a
schedule of activities where they say, okay we're going to have the barrels
tested by such and such a date. You have to get a contract with somebody to
come out and test them. There's a few days there and they provide a complete
schedule as to what they would do. What steps are going to be taken. When
those steps will be taken and then we'll have, rather than just say everything
will be done by such and such a date. Where we can monitor that there is
continuous progress going on throughout the activity.
Mayor Hamilton: I guess I would leave that up to Jim if he feels that type of a
mechanism would help or is necessary, then arrange a schedule of dates for them
to meet so we know how it goes. Anything else you would like to add?
Councilman Boyt: I would just like to say that I think we'd better be very
careful about rushing them to a burn. If we can't have 4th of July fireworks,
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
we sure can't burn the barn down.
Mayor Hamilton: I'm not saying anything about burning. I didn't mention
burning at all.
Councilman Boyt: I think they did. I think there's a plan for this to be a
controlled burn.
Mayor Hamilton: Obviously we' re not going to allow them to burn as long as it's
this dry. That's why I would like to take care of some of these things because
it may be a year before they can burn if we continue with drought conditions.
Councilman Boyt: I would be all for a timetable as long as we take into account
that we're not forcing them to spend $2gg,gg0.g0, if that's what it costs to
haul it all off, when we could very well burn it if the conditions were right.
Councilman Geving: The only thing I would want to add Tom is we'd like to see
this back to us then in early August so we know what's happening.
Mayor Hamilton moved, Councilman Horn seconded approval of the Assumption
Seminary Property pursuant to the City Manager's recommendations with the noted
additions. Ail voted in favor and the motion carried.
1 (Q) APPOIhFi~MENT OF COk%~UNITY CENTER TASK FORCE MEMBERS.
Councilman Geving: I pulled this off because I think it's something that I was
kind of hoping would happen. I'm happy to see that there are applicants who are
willing to take this and _run with it to bring back to us the possibility of a
co~munity center. One of the reasons that I pulled it off was that there seemed
to be some new information that has risen and if there is a Park and Rec, and I
see several people here, that could comment on this as to what that new
information is as to ~ny this has come back to us as a recommendation to appoint
these people, I'd like to see that before the Council at this time.
Jim Mady: Dale asked me to kind of update you guys as to what the idea is with
the Community Center proposal. As you' re aware, staff recommended, I believe it
was in May, to not have a Con~unity Center Task Force because at that time we
didn't have an idea of how to go for a community center. We didn't feel we had
sufficient monies to really do much of anything. Since that time I've been
playing around with the thought, the idea of maybe there exists in the City a
piece of property that the City already has access to because knowing that, two
of the spots that ca~e up during referendum issues were the Lake Ann spot, the
Eckankar property and the Charlie James property. Looking at both of those
pieces of property, it would cost the City approximately $Tgg,~g0.0g to
$8gg,ggg.gg to acquire the land and then put the needed services to it. That's
sewer, water and roadway to it. If you eat up $8gg,ggg.gg of city bonding
ability, we'd have very little money left to build a building and it's just not
enough to even start a building so that pretty well threw us out of the park to
building anything. At that time I started looking at the City Center Park and
the school property and it looks like it may be feasible to build something
there. It probably would have to be phased but we think right now it is
possible. %~e met with Bob Aussing of the Chaska School system to get his input
C~_ty Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
225
because we would be sharing the facility somewhat and using a little bit of
school property and the school would have to be a partner in this. Maybe not
financially but at least they would be impacted by the project so they would
have to be brought up to what's going on and get their approval. We think it's
possible, we're to the point working with staff that we need to get a survey
done of the area and make sure that the land, the buildings are on the land
where we think they are. There's enough land space there to do what is shown on
that concept. At this point it's just simply a concept. It's not a hard and
fast norm but we think it's possible.
Councilman Geving: Okay. I guess that's all I was looking for. From my
standpoint I would encourage the Con~nunity Center Task Force to begin
immediately. I appreciate Bill volunteering to serve on this and I hope Bill,
that you would be the representative for the City to report back to us from time
to time and give us an idea of where this thing is going. I'm very encouraged
by this Tom. That's all I have to say.
Mayor Hamilton: Jay, any con~nents on this?
Councilman Johnson: It's a great idea. I'll have some more input for you
later.
Councilman Horn: I very much like the planned ideas and I'm curious about any
kind of concept you can come up with.
Councilman Boyt: I think that the energy level shown by the people that have
volunteered here, just demonstrates that nothing's impossible.
Mayor Hamilton: I just have one comment and that is, noting that there are two
people from the same family wanting to be on this corrmunity. I'm not pointing
at them because of this one but I think it's something that we ought to look at.
Whether they're in favor or opposed, it could be construed as trying to load a
committee with whatever side they happen to be on and I think we need to be
aware of that.
Councilman Johnson: They could be on opposite sides.
Mayor Hamilton: Not very likely. They live under the same roof but I think
that's something we need to be aware of. I would like to see us have a policy
dealing with that in the future.
Councilman Boyt: I think one of the lines in this says that we're open to other
people being on the con~nittee. I think we want to stay open. We want this to
be something that the public is very aware of before we bring it to the vote
again.
Councilman Johnson: Have all the meetings publicized and public notice and
everything.
Councilman Geving moved, Councilman Horn seconded to appoint the applicants who
are listed on our July 19, 1988 memorandum from the Park and Rec Coordinator to
serve on the Con~nunity Center Task Force. All voted in favor and the motion
carried.
City Council MeetJ. ng- July 25, 1988
i(R) ZONING ORDINANCE AMENDMENT TO AMEND SECTIONS 2g-295, 2g-715, 2g-774,
2g-795 AND 2g-815 TO PROVIDE FOR MINIMUM BUILDING AND PARKING SETBACKS FOR LOTS
ADJACENT TO RAILROADS AND RESIDENTIAL ZONING DISTRICTS, CITY OF CHANHASSEN.
Councilman Boyt: I just want to correct the Consent Agenda so it reads the same
way as the proposal reads on the ordinance ~nich should include to amend Section
2~-755 which was left out of our Consent Agenda item and I wanted to be sure
that that didn't cause concern in the future. That's all I have so I would move
approval.
Councilman Horn: Second.
Mayor H~milton: It seems to me that thJ. s is obviously done for corner lots and
I think that front and sideyard of 25 feet is too restrictive. I don't like the
idea of 25 feet on the sideyard on a corner lot. I don't think it's necessary.
I think there can be very good sight lines and we're certainly penalizing the
person who owns a corner lot. They've giving up a beck of a big chunk of their
property and I disagree with this ordinance completely.
Councilman Johnson: Isn't it reducing it from 3g?
Mayor Hamilton: If it is, it's still too much. I'm saying I disagree with 25
feet because it's too restrictive on the sideyard. The frontyard is fine but
the sideyard is too much. Any other cor~nents?
Councilman Boyt moved, Councilman Horn seconded to approve the Zoning Ordinance
Amendment to Amend Sections 2g-295, 2g-715, 2g-755, 2g-774, 2g-795 AND 2g-815 to
provide for minimum building and parking setbacks for lots adjacent to railroad
and residential zoning districts as presented. Ail voted in favor except Mayor
H~umJ. lton who opposed and the motion carried with a vote of 4 to 1.
i(S) CONSIDER AMENDMENT TO CITY CODE REGARDING SOLICITING.
Councilman Johnson: I have a slight problem looking at the wording in here. On
(b) under definition of soliciter, as this defines a soliciter, I don't know if
our Carpet King or Carpet Kingdom, whatever down here, actually has stock in it
or whether it just has the samples and then orders stock out of the warehouse
but this would, in the definition of a soliciter it's any person who for
themself or any other person occupies any other building and a few other thing,
for the purpose of exhibiting examples. Somehow we can't restrict established
businesses whose job is to have samples there.
Roger Knutson: I don't know anything about the business you're talking about
but this does not restrict th~. Ail this says is you have to walk in and get a
simple permit.
Councilman Johnson: Do we make any other business in town get a solicter's
permit?
Roger Knutson: Bzeryone who falls within this definition would get one. It is
not a complicated thing so we can keep track of them and it's not meant for...
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
227
Councilman Johnson: Why do we have to keep track of a retail business in town?
Roger Knutson: A regular retail business, I don't think that is. You're
interested in someone who comes into town from time to time. You see these
notices that says come into the Holiday and pick out what I'm doing.
Councilman Johnson: Right, but this says somebody who has been here 10 years
and is going to be here another 10 years, still has to come in and get a
solicter's permit if he doesn't carry stock in his building. If he only carries
samples in the building. I was just wondering if there was any different way to
say that. Where under exemptions somehow we can exempt that.
Mayor Hamilton: Or clarify it to say that it does not include retail
businesses. Jay's example is good that when you have a carpet retailer, their
primary stock is samples and that's what they sell from.
Councilman Johnson: They don't necessarily have to have stock.
Roger Knutson: The difficult thing is distinquishing them from someone who
comes into town for a couple days and moves on. What you're concerned about, to
a certain extent is these folks never get your goods and the so called
businessman gets the check and is gone.
Councilman Johnson: How about temporarily occupies or...
Roger Knutson: We could add something like that.
Councilman Johnson: You're worried about a flim flamman coming in and setting
up a store basically which has no product, just samples, and he may be selling
carpeting. Maybe he goes out and he sells a whole lot of people a lot of
carpeting and never delivers any of it complete.
Roger Knutson: Aluminum siding man. All it does is give someone a second
thought and a flim flamman...
Councilman Johnson: They wouldn't know they have to get the permit anyway.
Roger Knutson: The con artist do.
Mayor Hamilton: Maybe you could just think about that Roger and see how you can
word it to take care of Jay's concerns.
Councilman Johnson: The other one, under exemptions you exempt the rules farm
garden produce and things like this. Milk, whatever, bakery goods. What about
firewood? You're always having people riding around with their pick-up truck
door to door trying to sell firewood.
Mayor Hamilton: That's probably a soliciter.
Councilman Horn: They need a permit.
Councilman Boyt: That's all they need is a permit.
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
Councilman Horn: So an Avon lady needs a permit? Shakley man needs a pe~nit?
Roger Knutson: That's correct.
Mayor Hamilton: If you're going door to door. You just call them.
Councilman Johnson: But if you go door to door selling vegetables, you don't
need a pe_rmit. Of course, I've never had anybody coming door to door selling
vegetables yet.
Councilman Horn: How about ice cream?
Councilman Johnson: Ice cream and they had the little bell too which this
prohibits.
Roger Knutson: Ail this is designed, the primary thJ.ng it's designed so your
Public Safety Department can keep track of people coming in and out of your
cor~nunity and if they screw up a few things, then you can pull their permit and
say you can't do it in our community anymore. This does not guarantee you, this
is not the ultimate consumer protection ordinance that says you won't have any
people being conned. It gives us a little bit of control over the situation and
it's not onerous. It's not like you're going to charge them $1,g00.gg and
they've got to come in every 3g days. It's once a year and you just come in and
basically it's simpler than getting any kind of permit in City Hall.
Councilman Johnson: ! tell you, the people who are out selling firewood, I
don't think they're going to come in and have their police records checked and
everything else. They may not apply for the permit.
Roger Knutson: If you want to make them ex~mpt, that's fine.
Mayor Hamilton: They're a fly by night outfit. I think I would then like to
see this, if you can make some changes to clarify it a little bit for us.
Roger Knutson: Maybe you ought to table this one then so I can bring it back.
Councilman Geving: I thJ. nk you ought to wait for more of the comments.
Councilman Horn: Are you talking about lawn care services that come back later
and deliver? You're going to have a million people coming in here for permits
under this thing.
Roger Knutson: hbt services though because this all covers, this you're taking
sales and billable merchandise. Lawn care services is a service.
Councilman Horn: Is...a merchandise?
Councilman Johnson: It also says service in here. Yes, under soliciter, the
last thing is, or for services to be performed in the future.
Councilman Boyt: I think the issue is, do you want to license people who are
selling in the con~nunity or don't you? If we do, that means we're going to
license a lot of legitimate business people and if we don't, that means that we
have one less means of eliminating the people who aren't. You have to decide
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
what you want to do.
Councilman Horn: Then it comes back at budget time we need more staff because
we're getting inundated with this and this program and that program.
Councilman Boyt: So you don't want to do it?
Councilman Horn: I'm just saying, I think we ought to think about it. It's not
quite as simple as it looks.
Jim Chaffee: Mr. Mayor, this ordinance is no different than the one that was on
the books all the way up until last year. With the new codification process
it's pared down to little more than a paragraph. We're just trying to have what
we used to have up until that point. Really we had it... What brought this to
our attention was the bell ringing and audible sounding devices. We started
looking in our new code when an applicant came in with an audible sounding
device and we found that we did not prohibit it under our new code. In fact,
research found that sc~e of the old Code was eliminated in the process of
codification.
Councilman Geving moved, Councilman Horn seconded to table amendment to the City
Code regarding Soliciation with the comments by the councilmembers be addressed
by the City Attorney and brought back to the Council at a future date. All
voted in favor and the motion carried.
i(T) CONSIDER AMENDMENT TO CITY CODE REGARDING MOORING BOATS AND LOCATION OF
SWIMMING BEACHES.
Mayor Hamilton moved, Councilman Horn seconded to table the amendment to the
City Code regarding mooring boats and location of swimming beaches. All voted
in favor and the motion carried.
i(W) SITE PLAN REVIEW FOR A 25,000 SQUARE FOOT OFFICE/WAREHOUSE FACILITY, LOT
3, BLOCK 1, PARK ONE 3RD ADDITION, WAYTEK, INC..
Councilman Boyt: Under Site Plan Review, item 5, I would like to see us strike,
it says "the applicant and contractor shall" and I think we should strike "take
utmost care in" so it would read, the applicant and contractor shall ensure the
City that the newly constructed Quattro Drive shall remain intact.
Councilman Geving: How about the last 3 or 4 words?
Councilman Boyt: Yes, include those. I think we have the means of monitoring
that and we should insist. Then the other item was, about the only thing that's
going to cause noise at this location, and if you remember the item just prior
to this one, noise was quite a concern by the Eden Prairie neighbors, would be
semi-trailers. I think we should put in our conditions of approval that semi-
trailer operation would be limited from 7:~0 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. which is actually
outside of their indicated operating hours. What I want to stay away from is a
semi pulling up at a parking lot at midnight and the motor runs all night long.
That would distract those neighbors.
City Council [veering - July 25, 1988
Mayor Hamilton: Could we accomplish that? I suspect the semi is there to make
a delivery of some sort so you may be able to accomplish that by saying
deliveries would be made during normal working hours.
Councilman Boyt: They have a pick-up business where they're shipping out a good
bit and my experience is that semi-drivers will ca~e in after a long haul, pull
up in their loading area and sleep until the place opens up. Reasonable enough
unless it's outside your back door where the semi noise is going to come in.
I'd be happy to just pass it with the condition that staff would work with the
warehouse to come up with reasonable hours for the semis to be there.
Mayor Hamilton: Or that they can't leave their engines running all night?
Councilman Boyt: Yes, sure. If they want to park there and have the engines
off. But I wanted to note the problem and I think that now is a good time to
handle
Barbara Dacy: To clarify, your intent is not to have running semis through the
night?
Councilman Boyt: That' s right.
Councilman Horn: But they could on the street as long as they're not in no
parking. They can park on the street in front of those people's houses.
There's no law against that.
Councilman Johnson: Noise ordinance.
Councilman Geving: But there aren't any houses in this area.
Councilman Horn: There's no noise ordinance. They have to meet that to be on
the street. I thJ. nk we're being too restrictive here. I think a semi idlJ. ng on
a business parking lot is not unreasonable.
Mayor Hamilton: Especially if it's a...that needs to be kept cold all night.
Counci]~an Boyt: They're not dealing with that. They're dealing with wire so
we're not talking about the need to keep s~nething cold and we are talking about
the opportunity to reduce noise in the neighborhood.
Councilman Horn: In the winter it's the opportunity to keep something running.
If you shut those things off and they're able to sit all night, they won't start
in the morning.
Councilman Boyt: Well Clark, I think there are better places to store them.
Mayor Hamilton: If it's in a business park, which this will be, why would you
oppose that? There aren't any homes within a long ways.
Councilman Boyt: This is right next to Lyman Lu~nber. We had the people who
were talking at the Planning Commission about noise. They're right next door.
Lyman Lumber has a legitimate concern for operating in the hours they're
operating. This is simply a matter of saying to a person, 7:gg to 6:gg p.m. is
City Council Meeting - July 25~ 1988
outside their normal operating hours. My opinion is that we should do what we
can to keep the neighborhood as quiet as possible.
Wayne Larson: I'm the President of Waytek. The only thoughts I have is, any of
these trucks are independent operators and we have no way to know who the truck
driver is going to be that is going to be hauling something in .... anyway but
they may arrive from wherever they're coming at 5:00 in the morning and in the
middle of the winter they can't shut the thing down because if they shut it
down, they'll freeze to death so I don't know how you can protect them also.
But we have no control over it. That's the problem. We have absolutely no
control. We don't know who the driver's going to be. We don't know who the rig
is. All we've done is contract our material to be brought to us from the
manufacturer. The manufacturer brings us the material. We don't contract how
they provide that. We have control over it. They're paying the freight to
bring it to our door. They're dropping off at our door. That's how we Contract
it. We have no way of imposing a time limit on it.
Barbara Dacy: The other concern, staff can work with the applicant more on this
issue but as opposed to the Lyman Lumber application, that's a conditional use
permit and via that process, hours of operation are one of the standards or
items that we look at. This application is a Site Plan Review for a permitted
use so...restrict hours of operation or I can ask Roger to correct. It's much
more difficult but we can work with the applicant to see if we can get together
some type of ideas to reducing the noise but hours of operation it would be very
difficult for us to place a restriction.
Councilman Boyt: I think we're talking about public safety and welfare and we
can do that anytime. So under that particular position, I think anytime you're
working with a supplier you can tell them to deliver it during your operating
hours and they'll do it.
Wayne Larson: The problem is, the supplier doesn't deliver it. The supplier
contracts a trucking outfit to deliver it and it never happens. You tell them
and you write it on the purchase order and everything else and these truck
drivers, there's only...and if the guy's coming here and getting it that day, we
have no way of controlling his schedule and the people who put it on the truck
have no way of controlling his schedule. I don't know how you can really
control that but that's the problem.
Councilman Boyt: I understand your problem.
Wayne Larson: I guess I can say it's never happened we've been in business but
I can't guarantee it wouldn't. Yes, Mr. Struthers, the Vice Presidents of the
company suggests that if it's permissible we could put a sign at the entrance,
no trucks allowed between these hours and what have you.
Councilman Boyt: I'd be happy to settle for that.
Councilman Johnson: If that's all you're asking for.
Councilman Boyt: It's a good faith effort and that would be a good faith
effort.
11
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
Wayne Larson: I guess the other thing, if it was an absolute restriction, we
couldn't control it. That's the problem. If we put something in front that
they' re not supposed to be there and they stay there, I don't know what we do
about that. If there are kids having a big keg party in the field right next to
you, you can't control it.
Councilman Geving: I think we're trying to create a solution to a problem that
really doesn't exist. We really encouraged the development of this industrial
park since 198g. We now have the very first building being built in this
industrial park. We should do everything we can to encourage it and I don't see
that the questions that have been raised here tonight are really germane. The
problem doesn't exist. If there are truckers that need to make deliveries to
that facility, they may drive all night. We don't know what time they're going
to arrive there. As long as they're not doing anything that would hinder our
noise ordinances or any other problems, I'm all in favor of this application. I
don't see any reason to amend it with the some of the questions and comments
that were brought up here as potential problems. That's all I have.
Councilman Johnson: I've got two comments in response to Dale's is we're trying
to prevent problems. We're not trying to solve a problem that isn't going to
occur, we don't want it to occur. The other thing is I'd like to see all
diseased and dead trees removed from the site. There are several standing dead
trees in the area now and as far as the development of the area, I'd like to see
those removed. If I visited the right area. I'm pretty sure I did but right at
the north edge of that lot there's 1 or 2 big tall trees there that don't have
any leaves on this year so I'd like to make sure they get removed which is part
of our subdivision ordinance that says those have to be removed.
Mayor Hamilton: Do you want that as condition 117
Councilman Johnson: Yes.
Mayor Hamilton: I have no additional comments except to support that I think
we're trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist and you just can't schedule
when truckers are going to arrive. A motion would be in order to approve item
l(t) .
Councilman Boyt: I would so move with the noted changes.
Councilman Gev lng: We have 8 cond i t ions.
Councilman Horn: As I understand it, it's the 8 conditions that staff
recommended plus removing dead trees?
Councilman Boyt: Yes with the strike in 5.
CounciLman Boyt moved, Councilman Horn seconded to approve Site Plan Review
#88-8 as shown on the site plan st~ped "Received June 13, 1988" subject o the
following conditions:
1. City Council approval of the ordinance amendment regarding parking and
building setbacks adjacent to railroad tracks.
12
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
2. Additional landscaping be provided along the southwest side of the proposed
docking and parking area. The additional landscaping shall include
evergreens for year round screening.
3. The applicant shall obtain and comply with all conditions of the Watershed
District permit.
4. A standard concrete cross gutter shall be installed at the intersection of
Quattro Drive and the proposed 24 foot driveway. This cross gutter shall be
installed as per the detail enclosed with this report (refer to Attachment
#2).
5. The applicant and contracter shall ensure the City that the newly
constructed Quattro Drive shall remain intact throughout the construction
process.
6. The storm sewer plan shall be revised to show the connection to the existing
storm sewer stub along the westerly right-of-way boundary for Quattro Drive.
7. An erosion control plan shall be submitted to the City Engineer for approval
prior to final site plan review.
8. Meet the requirements of the Public Safety Director.
9. Remove all dead or diseased trees from the property.
Ail voted in favor and the motion carried.
VISITORS PRESENTATION: There were no visitors Presentations.
PUBLIC HEARING: ORDINANCE REGARDING SPRINKLING RESTRICTIONS.
Mayor Hamilton called the public hearing to order.
Councilman Geving moved, Councilman Johnson seconded to close the public
hearing. All voted in favor and the motion carried. The public hearing was
closed.
Councilman Johnson moved, Mayor Hamilton seconded to approve amendment to
Section 19-28, Water Use Restricted as presented by staff. All voted in favor
and the motion carried.
Councilman Horn: Can you give us a brief update of where we are?
Mayor Hamilton: Yes, Gary can you tell us how the water situation is holding
up?
Gary Warren: With the current sprinkling ban that we have in place, even and
odd from 5:00 in the morning to 11:00 basically, our pumps are able to regain
13
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
whatever was loss we see a significant drawdown on our new reservoir. By
basically late afternoon, typically in the week, we are almost to a fill
condition and the pumps are able to rest and relax over the evening hours until
we get the morning rush so I'd say right now we're where we want to be as far as
the pumps are getting time to rest. The reservoir is able to handle the demand
when we do all the sprinkling and everybody seems to be cooperating very well
with the sprinkling.
Councilman Geving: Any intent of removing the ban? Any possibility of relaxing
what we' re established?
Gary Warren: I would say only if, we're still running a deficit of about 12 to
13 inches of percipt this year and if we can get Mother Nature to knock out some
of that deficit, I think that's what we need to see first.
ACCEPT SUPPLF~MENTAL REPORT NO. 1 FOR WEST 78TH STREET FEASIBILITY STUDY AND SET
DATE FOR PUBLIC HEARING.
Mayor Hamilton: I guess the date for the Public Hearing is August 22nd, a
regularly scheduled Council meeting. Councilmembers need any additional
information on this item?
Councilman Geving: Are all the assessment information made available? Has that
information been made available to the developers in terms of the financing
packages that you're proposing here?
Gary Warren: The methodology was consistent with the original feasibility as
far as the assessment roll itself.
Councilman Geving: The reason I ask that question, I don't want any surprises
from the developer when this comes up and we do proceed with this.
Gary Warren: We do not have the preliminary roll revised as a part of this
report but we will have it in time for the public hearing so that information
will be distributed prior to that date.
Councilman Geving: I'll move to approve this item and call for public hearing
for August 22nd.
Mayor Hamilton: Second.
Councilman Johnson: I just realized when you said there wasn't a preliminary
roll, page 10 it says revised preliminary assessment roll has been completed and
is included in the appendix for reference. I would like to strike that out of
here since it's not included and not contained in the appendix.
Councihnan Geving: You're right, this should be amended. It does include it in
this particular feasibility study.
Gary Warren: It will be inserted with the proper corrections will be inserted
as a part of the public hearing copies.
14
City Council Mmeting - July 25, 1988
Resolution #88-79: Councilman Geving moved, Mayor Hamilton seconded to accept
Supplemental Report No. 1 for West 78th Street Feasibility Study and to set the
public hearing date of August 22, 1988. All voted in favor and the motion
carried.
B.C. Burdick: I came here to say something about this matter tonight. If you
want me to wait to the public hearing, I suppose I can but I came prepared
tonight.
Mayor Hamilton: It would be best if you'd wait to the Public Hearing Jim.
That's when we' 11 take all the public record con~nents pertaining to this item.
There will be a little more complete information included in the brochure at
that time also.
Councilman Geving: Jim, did you get a copy of this report?
B.C. Burdick: No.
Councilman Geving: Would you like my copy?
B.C. Burdick: Yes.
Councilman Geving: You'll be getting some of this information.
Mayor Hamilton: The Public Hearing is on the 22nd then there will be additional
information put in there. Gary will be sure that you get a copy of that.
B.C. Burdick: I would like to address... At noon today, July 25th, Brian can
give you the information, I received notification of Council Meeting schedule
for Monday evening, July 25th to consider a matter which is of the utmost
importance to me and I feel it's very unfair that I get a notice on Monday noon
for something which is of vital importance to us.
Mayor Hamilton: There's no decisions being made this evening. All we're doing
is setting a public hearing date at which time you'll have ample time to comment
on anything that you wish to comment on so you're not being denied 'anything.
B.C. Burdick: Yes, I'll be denied advanced notices given tonight except for a
few hours and this has happened many times. We do get the Village Voice but for
some reason our office is 3 miles away and we live 4 miles away and it doesn't
get to us until Tuesday. I'd just like to go on record that we don't receive
proper notification...
CONSIDER THE INTERIM SEWER AND KTATER SERVICE, CRAIG MORTON PROPERTY (FRANK
BEDDOR JR.), WEST 184TH STREET AND TH 5.
Mayor Hamilton: This item we discussed at our last Council meeting and we have
additional information.
Gary Warren: Yes, Council directed that we deal further with the petitioner to
obtain a more specific request and as such we received a letter from Daryl
Fortier addressing the July 18th letter. Basically, as he had explained at the
15
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
meeting and at our last Council meeting we had discussed there, he had
sun~narized in his paragraph which is, the City of Chanhassen will look favorably
upon providing t~nporary utility service to the Eden Prairie property adjacent
to Park One to the extent that excess utility capacity within Park One permits.
Jules Smith is here representing Beddor this evening if Council has any
questions of the petitioner. If you'd care for any futher elaboration, I'd be
happy to do that.
Mayor Hamilton: Jules, do you have any con~nents you'd like to make?
Jules Smith: I think Daryl has covered most of it. ~e aren't asking to use up
any capacity that you need. Just if there's excess capacity in Park One...
I might mention that those feasibility studies all assume that we would have
65g,ggg square feet of building in there and based on what's happening today,
we're not going to get anywhere near that. We don't have a specific request for
a specific service requirement now, by the time that happens, since we now have
another business moving into Park One, Third Addition and a third one. We
haven't signed the third one but we signed the second one. I think we have a
pretty good fix on what requirements will be there. Obviously we have no
interest in using up capacity to Park One either but I just think if it's there
and we have a substant property. That piece of property in Eden Prairie...so in
order to use it we'd have to probably have services from Chanhassen for a while.
But I think as Daryl pointed out, .we have no interest in using up capacity that
isn't there...
Mayor Hamilton: Councilmembers have any questions that you'd like to direct at
Mr. Smith or Gary?
Councilman Johnson: i think we're going to have to get together and do a
feasibility study and see what. It's really hard to predict. You don't know
%/nat kind of water user you're going to get in. Three out of I think there's
about 6 or 7 lots available there and if you've got 3 people, we can figure some
prediction of what water use you're going to have. It's going to be a tough
feasibility study and I kind of agree with everything said in Gary's memo there.
Jules Smith: May I just comment? I would agree that we know what it is and
we'd like to connect and what else is around, yes a feasibility study at that
time should be made. At the present time, any feasibility study we did now a
year from now wouldn't mean anything so we might as well wait until there's an
absolute request. Ail we're looking for is an indication from the Council that
we can pursue that...
CounciLman Geving: I'm not so sure that I agree with all of the comments that
Daryl Fortier made in his resume of the meeting of our last Council meeting.
The reason I say that, I don't think that we indicated to him in any way that we
were very much in favor of this. We wanted to study it further and now tonight
when I hear our City Engineer tell us that we're still having a sprinkling ban
and there's potential for this continuing for quite some time, I don't think
that I would like to make a commit~ment to Mr. Beddor in a sense that he could
then go out and market this land with the understanding that water service would
be provided to this property. I think that we would take a lot of heat from
some of our residents if we were to provide you with water service in a
commi~nent form and then still have the sprinkling ban on our citizens every
other day. ! think that'd be hard to sell.
16
City Counc].l Meeting - July 25, 1988
Jules Smith: I don't think we're asking for a corrmitment[
Councilman Geving: I think you are.
Jules Smith: I think we're asking for you to consider at the time if something
develops.
Councilman Geving: I get the impression from this letter from our City Engineer
that according to his discussions with your representatives, that a letter of
understandJ.ng for interim service, utility service for this property would be
worked out with our City Attorney and I'm not so sure I'm willing to do that.
Mayor Hamilton: I think we would have to term that so it's a letter of
understanding based on the facility that's coming in and the excess capacity
that's available. Not just a blanket letter saying go ahead and do it. I think
as Jules is saying, they don't use up their capacity of the Park and they would
just as soon that if they got a bonafide proposal for a building, that then we
review that. I think that's what he's saying.
Councilman Geving: I think it's alright to study it but we're talking about
acreage that's in Eden Prairie for one thing and we might be diminishing the
extent of our own water capacity right here in Chanhassen. Not just in your
park area but the rest of the citizens. I think that has to be reviewed first.
Jules Smith: I think at that time you should review that. Absolutely. I don't
think we're asking you to do anything other than that.
Councilman Geving: If you're not asking for a commitment, I'm in favor of it.
Councilman Horn: I guess the only comments I have is, it seems like there will
be a lot of staff time involved in this too. NOw they said that the study would
be taken off on the expense of the developer. I'm wondering if that includes
staff time also or just any outside costs.
Gary Warren: It wasn't specific but my thought at that time would be that it
would be any outside in support that the City would contract for would be at the
developer's expense.
Councilman Horn: ...because this looks like a very difficult thing to try and
get a handle on.
Gary Warren: It's hard to say the amount of time. I would agree with you that
it's a difficult thing. It's...clear cut as far as waste water is concerned
than it is for water for the reasons that I've mentioned here. I think just in
bringing that back to Council is going to take some time for all of us to
scratch our heads so there could be, I don't know the dollar amounts. Maybe
$5,g~.gg worth of staff time. Deal with getting a consultant on board to
review his conclusions, bring it to the Council.
Councilman Horn: One of the others...it appears to me after going through here
that there were some of these things. An initial inclination is given to the
devloper that we would look into this by the Council and staff at that time.
17
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
Gary Warren: There's a real i. ty in the fact that those stubs are there. There's
no question about that.
Councilman Horn: I'm not sure, if we were the other city looking for a water
supply since last year or so, it'd...
Councilman Boyt: I think we should certainly continue to look at this. It's a
good opportunity for the area if not our immediately community and we shouldn't
close the door at that time.
Mayor Ham~.lton: I feel the same way. I certainly agree with Jules. If you
have a proposal, bring it to us and let us take a look at it and see if it's
possible to work it out but as far as saying right now that we're going to go
along with anything that goes in there is not what they're asking and not what
I'm willing to do. If there is a specific proposal, I think we should take a
look at it. Maybe it should be at the developer's expense. I would then move
that we direct the staff to work with the devloper based on any specific
proposals that come in 'to deal with any excess capacity that might be available
and to do a feasibility study at that time.
Councilman Boyt: I'd like to follow up on Clark's point, if an actual study if
undertaken then we should work out some way in advance to bill for staff time.
We would bill any number of other developers a certain percentage for staff time
and we should be covering your expense.
Mayor Hamilton: I'll put that in the motion.
Gary Warren: A .ooint of clarification if I could, is the CouncJ. 1 interested
the staff preparing a letter of understanding, so to speak, which is what the
Beddor people are looking for.
Mayor Hsmilton: Why don't you put it on the consent and bring it back to us.
Gary Warren: To incorporate the discussion tonight and add staff
recommend a t i ohs.
Ymyor Hamilton mowed, CounciLman Boyt seconded to direct the staff to work with
the devloper based on any specific proposals that come in to deal with any
excess capacity that might be available and to do a feasibility study at that
time and the developer will be billed for any staff time spent on this item.
Ail voted in favor and the motion carried.
NOISE ORDINANCE, COUNCI[mMAN BOYTo
Mayor Hamilton: Jim, did you have anyth~.ng you want~ to present on this noise
ordinance?
Jim Chaffee: Yes, just briefly. For about a year now we've been looking at
noise problems associated with the growth that's occuring along with just the
normal noise problems occurring in any municipality. During our research we
found that there's very general and vague language in the present nuisance
ordinance that says any loud or unnecessary noises are potentially illegal.
18
City CouncJ. 1 Meeting - July 25, 1988
That pretty much leaves it open to the discretion of the officers when they're
checking some complaints out. The other code that we found that could possibly
help the deputies out would be, under the Zoning Ordinance where it just follows
a PCA guidelines. That would in effect make the deputies have to carry a
decimal meter around with them to determine what the decimal reading is of the
complaint that they're handling. Through a lot of research on both Scott Harr's
and myself and the City Attorney's effort, we came up with an ordinance that
would se~n to fit our needs in the City at this time. It's interesting to note
that under (b), Prohibited Noises, item 4, that would pretty much take care of
either the problem of a semi running that would be a disturbance of the
neighbors. What we would do, if the Council agrees to the ordinance amendment,
we would handle these things only on an on-call or on complaint basis. The
deputies aren't going to be going around listening with their windows open for
anything that might fit the bill. It just gives them a better handle on some of
'the complaints that we receive regarding the noises. That's pretty much it.
Councilman Boyt: I think this is a good piece of work by Scott and Jim and
Roger. The one thing I'd like to see us add is in regard to lifting a section
from our standard development contract in regard to developers. In our standard
development contract we limit their hours of operation from 7:0g in the morning
to 6:~0 p.m. Monday through Saturday with no operations on Sundays and Holidays
and I think that should be a part of this ordinance so CSO's and deputies could
enforce it.
Councilman Horn: I have a couple of concerns. First of all, I don't think it's
consistent with other ordinances we have in the City unless I missed one. For
instance under, the last page, item D(2) it says the operation of motor vehicles
and I didn't see a definition of motor vehicles. Public streets and highways
with compliance with state and local laws is exempted from this. If I read our
snow~nobile ordinance correctly, it states that after 10:0~ p.m. you may operate
on the street as long as you're going directly to your residence. It appears to
me that C(3) and D(2) are in conflict unless I've misinterpretted the definition
of motor vehicles. If I have, then I disagree with the ordinance.
Roger Knutson: D(2) is mandated by State Law. You can't regulate further noise
that comes out of cars or other motor vehicles. The PCA has set regulations
which we all have to live with. We can't change them so this says, just
acknowledges that fact.
Councilman Horn: You can't further restrict?
Roger Knutson: You can't restrict.
Councilman Horn: The PCA also sets noise limits on snowmobile mufflers and
outboard mufflers. Are those considered motor vehicles?
Roger Knutson: I don't have the definitions sitting here, I'm not sure. The
term is defined by State Statute. I think they are motor vehicles.
Councilman Horn: Okay, if that's true, then D(3) is not relevant because we are
being more restrictive. You're saying that they can not operate on the street
after 10:00 p.m. even though our ordinance allows it.
Roger Knutson: D(3) ?
19
Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
Councilman Horn: C(3). C(3) says that you can not use a snowmobile after
p.m. on the street.
Roger Knutson: That's different than a noise restriction.
CounciLman Horn: I thought this was a noise restriction.
Roger Knutson: Th~s prohibits their use period. Rather than saying, if you're
using them, they can't this kind of noise or that kind of noise. This would not
be inconsistent with State law.
CounciLman Horn: But it also would appear that exceptions are operation of
motor vehicles on public streets in compliance with State and Local laws. If
I read that properly, it says that you can't...that use period.
Roger Knutson: For clarification you could say, it's exempt other than C(3).
Councilman Horn: I don't want to be more restrictive than our current ordinance
so I have an objection to C(3). I think as long as you're meeting the noise
limitations and the current ordinance, that we don't have...which is what this
ordinance does. My other point on this, like other ordinances, it should have a
public hearing. I disagree with passing things through like this that restrict
people's rights without having a public hearing on it.
CounciLman Geving: I think this is a very restrictive ordinance amendment and I
agree with Clark's last statement. I had written in my notes, there should be a
public hearing on this. There's an awful lot of people who would be affected by
these requirements. If pursued and really followed up other than on a complaint
basis, I would have a very, very difficult time accepting what has been written
here. I don't have any problems if there's a legitimate complaint, loud noises,
parties, umuffled cars, whatever that's causing a complaint to be made and the
officer calls up on it and takes care of the problem but I think this needs a
fair amount of water before I'm really willing to take a look at for example
C(3). C(3) to me shuts down at lg:gg a lot of activity. We do a lot of
snowmobiling yet in this area and if I'm reading this correct, that between 7:gg
a.m. and lg:gg p.m. there would be none of that activity taking place.
Councilman Boyt: The other w~y around. 1~:~ p.m. to 7:ff~ a.m..
Councilman Geving: Well, from lg:gg p.m. at night to 7:gg on the morning,
I know that there are a lot of people out there now on snowmobiles that are
enjoying themselves and recreating and J.t's a legitimate activity in our
community and I would say that this is very restrictive. I too agree that it
should have a fair hearing of our citizens and let them see what is being
proposed here. I think it needs lots of water and I think it needs lot of
review by people that are going to be affected. That's all.
Councilman Johnson: I would not want to restrict our officers if they're
driving down the street and a loud party is going on, from quieting down that
party even though the dispatcher hasn't called them and told them there's a
complaint because we have that happening near our house quite a bit and we have
some folks that call the dispatcher and it rings and rings and rings. At 2:gg
in the morning the phone just rings at the dispatcher's sometimes. If the
2~
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
officer is there and he hears it, he should have the ability to go in and close
down that party if it's too loud in his opinion. I don't think it has to be
only on a complaint. They have to show some judgment. I don't think they have
to go out looking for it but frc~ that respect I agree there. I'm not too wild
about having sno~nobiles going at 2:00 in the morning dogan the street. They're
quite a bit noisier than cars.
Councilman Horn: No.
Councilman Johnson: The ones on my street are.
Councilman Horn: Then they don't meet the law.
Councilman Johnson: They probably don't. Somehow we do need to have it general
enough where if sc~nebody is running a loud sno~nobile at same period, that the
officers will have a chance to do something with them too. There are a lot of
old snowmobiles that people have rebuilt umpteen times out there that need
mufflers and stuff but that again I guess will be covered elsewhere. I do agree
with Clark and Dale on the public hearing side of this. I think this does need
it. MPCA also has some rules on noise and what type of noise is allowed at
night and at various times and there are certain businesses within our cor~nunity
that I believe are coming very close to violating those under certain
atmospheric conditions. Those are covered by this ordinance and if we have a
loud fan running on a building, is that covered anywhere here?
Councilman Boyt: Sure it is.
Councilman Johnson: I missed it. I'd like to know where that is covered.
Mayor Hamilton: You can read through it and find it. Did you have anything
else?
Counc i lman Johnson: No.
Mayor Hamilton: I just feel that it's an ordinance that's not enforceable and
since the Public Safety Director assures me that it will only be used in
instances when there are complaints, something like this might work but I have a
problem with defining what noise is and what level of noise is not acceptable to
one is acceptable to another. What if elderly people who are hard of hearing
have their phonograph or television turned up to a level where they can hear it
and it happens to disturb their neighbors. Is that excessive noise? I'm not
sure you can prove that if they are merely listening at the level they can hear.
I also feel we ought to have a public hearing. There are a lot of things in
here that I think need same refinement. It sounds like we're trying to roll up
the streets at 10:00 and not allow anything to happen in this town after 10:00.
I don't know. We're getting awfully restrictive on everybody and everything. I
don't see any sense in it and I don't see any sense in creating an ordinance
that you can't enforce either.
Councilman Boyt: I would suggest that we don't have an ordinance right now and
it is a major problem. As I mentioned before, quiet is very important. This is
an opportunity to say to people that between lg:0g p.m. and 7:00 a.m. you have a
shot at quiet. Everybody has to be reasonable but right now we don't have the
ability to be reasonable so we need this. I'm all for a public hearing but I'd
21
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
sure like to see it scheduled on the next agenda because now is the time when
people are most susceptible to noise.
Mayor Hamilton: I wasn't aware that it was a major problem. I'm not sure what
major means in your opinion but I have never heard the Public Safety Director
con~nent to me that noise violations are a major problem in this town and that we
receive a lot of calls or complaints about them. Jay feels that nobody answers
the dispatch phone. I disagree with that. If it does happen, then they better
call 911 which Jim has put out a memo. I hope everybody has read that. If you
have a problem, call 911. That's what it's there for. That could be what's
happening. If they're not answering the regular phone, they may be on 911
because if 911 rings, that takes priority over everything else. Maybe that's
s~mething that may be incorporated if we do this thing. Conments about how to
report the violation or presmmed violation.
Mayor H~milton moved, Councilman Johnson seconed to table action on the Noise
Ordinance until a Public Hearing can be held and some of the comnents mentioned
by the Council be further defined and outline by the City Staff. Ail voted in
favor and the motion carried.
LOT AREA VARIANCE, 69gl YUMA DRIVE, R & R LAND DEVELOPMENT.
Mayor Hamilton: Dale, this was on the Board of Appeals this evening. How did
you handle this?
Councih~an Geving: The Board of Adjustments and Appeals granted this variance
unanimously by the three board members and added two additional comments and
conditions. Condition 2 that there would be no additional variances granted
for this piece of property. Granting of the lot area variance meant that the
applicant will meet all sideyard and frontyard setbacks to place the structure
on that lot. They were agreeable to that. Also, that any drainage which sloped
to the street would have no impact on any other lot. This was granted
unanimously.
LOT AREA VARIANCE, NORTHEAST CORNER OF LONE EAGLE DRIVE AND NEZ PERCE, LOTUS
REALTY.
Mayor Hamilton: This is another item that was on the Board of Adjustments.
Councilman Geving: I'm going to report to the Council at the request of staff,
this item be tabled. They are determining, although not conclusively, that this
may not be a lot of record and therefore it was tabled for tonight for further
research by staff.
22
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
LYMAN LUMBER COMPANY, 18800 WEST 78TH STREET:
A. CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT FOR PROPOSED SCREENED OUTDOOR STORAGE.
B. SITE PLAN REVI~ FOR A 30,000 SQUARE FOOT ADDITION TO AUTOMATED BUILDING
COMPONENTS BUILDING.
Jo Ann Olsen: The Planning Con~nission approved both the Site Plan and the
Conditional Use Permit for the screened outdoor storage. The major issues were
noise and the impervious surface issue and then the curbing of the parking area.
The applicant is going to provide curbing for the parking area. They are
maintaining the same amount of impervious surface that was approved as part of
the plan in 1979. As far as the noise, they have submitted a letter stating
what they're going to be doing to try to reduce the amount of noise that has
been affecting the neighborhood in Eden Prairie to the north. Also, they will
be redirect~_ng the lights so they no longer impact the neighborhood to the
north. They've got plans that show the most recent plan where they are
providing, there will be a fence to provide additional screening and
landscaping. They are proposing a 6 foot fence. What they're going to do now
is not replace the existing fence but just cover it with a wood fence so they
still have the protection that a chain fence does provide. They are going with
curbing. They are moving a mature grove of trees for the addition and the
outside storage but they are providing additional landscaping over and above
what is required. Planning Commission recommended approval with staff's
conditions for both the conditional use permit and site plan.
Councilman Johnson: I hate to see that grove of trees lost. It doesn't look to
be too accurate on your blueprints as to where they are. They seem to be a heck
of a lot bigger than shown here. They seem to be a lot closer to the street.
I'm wondering if with a minor modification to that yard and with some more
accurate surveying, whether some of those trees might be able to be saved.
Taking 40-50 foot or 30 foot, whatever those big mature oak trees are and
replacing them with some shrubs and some small Black Spruces is not real great.
It provides, as you drive into Chanhassen, it's the only chunk of tree in our
industrial park as you come in. Right now the entrance to Chanhassen is
industry, industry, industry and a little trees before McDonalds and a little
trees there. I'd like to try and maintain some of those if we could. I'd like
you to take a second look. Do you have to have that much gravel in the storage
area as the staging area? Can you leave some of the trees on the southern side
of that lot or a couple of the ones that are farthest to the east? Whether
those can be maintained. I'd like you to look at that. I'd also like to know
why we got another proposed gravel surface. Is the existing loading dock area
going to continue to be used or is that going to, why are we putting gravel in
there? That's a question I could get answered tonight.
John Waldron: As far as your question on the loading dock and graveled area, we
really have two companies working there. One Automated Building Components
which is a millwork operation and the other one, Lyman Lumber, which is our
distribution yard for the Twin Cities to contractors. The loading docks are
being used by Automated Building Components and the staging area is something
that will be used by Lyman Lumber. Actually, there are two sets of companies
using it.
Councilman Johnson: I'm talking about the existing loading dock and you're
adding another loading dock. Proposed loading dock. Are both continue to be
23
City Council ~eet],ng - July 25, 1988
used? One seems to have some curbing stuck in front of it. They must come in
off of the street here. So your loading docks aren't going to have asphalt up
to them, they're going to have rock to them.
John Waldron: One of the options we're getting from contractors i,s to have that
whole area asphalt. W%en we first started the process, it was indicated to us
that there would be a possibility that the graveled areas would not be counted
as impervious surface and we were concerned with meeting the lot coverage. Then
they ruled that the gravel areas are counted as impervious surface which means
we might end up paving the whole place. We wouldn't be out variance at that
point.
Councilman Johnson: I guess my question is, are you going to have a gravel
driveway under your loading docks?
John Waldron: We could but we're getting an option. It would be better for us
if we paved it but the original plan was drawn up as gravel because we were
trying to keep under a certain lot coverage.
Councilman Johnson: That is part, as far as I'm concerned, that has to be paved
by our ordinance. You don't have a choice for a loading dock and for a place
where you are driving vehicles and unloading vehicles. That should always be
paved. Not only that for also for your hazardous material purposes when you're
bringing your paints and stuff inside there, you'd much rather spill your paint
onto asphalt than you would onto gravel surface and then have to dig up all the
dirt underneath it later on, from hazardous materials handling point.
John Waldron: As far as whether you allow gravel up to the loading dock, I
don't know. That was what was originally approved and what is existing there
right now which was approved a long time ago.
Councilman Johnson: Yes. Under our current ordinance, if you have a street, a
driveway, you have to asphalt it. I'm hearing that and I would consider a
loading dock as a vehicle area, street, whatever.
Jo Ann Olsen: ...they are doing that with the proposed parking area.
Councilman Johnson: But not with the loading docks.
John Waldron: That's an issue, we've already got prices on doing it. It runs
about $5,gg~.0~ and we're going to go ahead and do it so if you want to make
that a condition that we pave right to the loading docks, we don't have a
problem.
Councilman Johnson: Yes, because I don't like to see gravel loading docks. If
there's something that restricts us because of original approvals of the PUD
that the original approval of the PUD says we have to allow gravel, then we're
stuck but otherwise, this really needs to be asphalt. Are you saying that you
may actually want to put asphalt in over the entire graveled area that is the
staging now instead of, as long as it's counted as impervious, you want to make
it impervious?
John Waldron: If the City and Planning Commission has ruled that gravel is
impervious surface, than I don't know if there's a difference between gravel and
24
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
paving. What would we be violating if we did one or the other I guess is my
question?
Jo Ann Olsen: What we're proposing as gravel is counted towards your...
John Waldron: Right. I'm saying if at sometime in the future we want to pave
it, are we violating anything? So I don't know if that's an issue.
Councilman Johnson: If you pave it now you don't have to put your concrete curb
and stuff in. You're going to have concrete curb in the middle of this paving
area.
John Waldron: We have to do that regardless.
Councilman Johnson: You just move the concrete curb to the edge of the staging
area versus being in the middle of this area, if you asphalted the whole thing
now.
John Waldron: So even though you're not using your staging area for parking,
then you wouldn't have to put curb and gutter in your parking area?
Councilman Johnson: No, but it would have to be at the extent of the paved
area.
John Waldron: Well, at this point we're not looking at paving the whole area.
Councilman Johnson: I see this as being kind of inconsistent. Allowing this to
be gravel and then on a later item requiring paving for somebody who's got a
better need for it to be paved versus gravel.
Jo Ann Olsen: The outside storage, that doesn't have to be paved. Just the
parking area.
Councilman Johnson: That's not only an outside storage but that's a vehicle
area where they're going to be pulling vehicles into that area, parking semis in
there and loading semis in that area. That's the way I read it. Am I correct
in that? That that's an area where you're going to stage your stuff, drive your
semi into that area, unload the semi at that point and then drive on out?
John Waldron: We don't have any semis...
Councilman Johnson: Well, your trucks.
John Waldron: We have Maxwell dump trucks.
Councilman Johnson: So would trucks be parked in that area overnight or are you
going to keep your trucks over by Eden Prairie and start them up over there and
drive them over?
John Waldron: ...is where the electrical is.
Councilman Johnson: Because I'd rather see this area paved and put some
electrical over here to warm your trucks up with instead of having them up
against the residential area when you start them up and rev them up. In fact,
25
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
about 4 years ago I stopped in there one morning to report a fire in your lumber
yard and it was because you had about 6 deisel engines warming up. Ail the
smoke coming up looked like a fire. I pulled off TH 5 and came back to say hey
guys, you've got a fire and it turned out to be just you warming up trucks but
this would be a better place to wamn up the trucks as far as the noise side of
the thing goes. Understanding that this is a vehicular area where vehicles will
be moving in and out routinely everyday, I think it should be asphalt.
John Waldron: The vehicles most likely will be pulling up along side that
staging area. The forklifts will be opearting in the staging area to go and
pick the load up and set it on the truck right where it's pulled in and right on
that driveway that goes right from the east side of our property, that driver
goes over to our dispatch office where they take it and pull right out. So the
way that we would operate that staging area to add less confusion in there
amongst the forklifts is that the truck would not go into the area. · The trucks
would be out on the paving and the forklifts would just be operating on the
gravel.
Councilman Johnson: I'm not sure whether a fork truck is a vehicle or not. The
ponding area appears to be within the gravel area. Are we going to have a
gravel pond?
Dwight Larson: Yes, the surface in the pond is gravel. The pond is such that
it...dry ponds. It will have water for a couple of hours after a storm but it
will not be a permanent pond.
Councilman Johnson: How deep will this be?
Dwight Larson: It gets to a maximum of 2 feet at the inlet and then it slopes
upwards from that point.
Councilman Johnson: If you use that area to store piles of lumber in and now
water goes, you have to retain so many acre feet of water or whatever within
that area, have you calculated the storage of material in that area into your
calculations? If that's going to be a used area, I don't know how it's also
going to be a pond. If you're going to actually have piles of lumber in that
area.
Dwight Larson: The owner is aware that it is going to be used also as a ponding
site and particular anything stored during a storm where the pond J.s at it's
deepest, he'll have to think twice about putting things there that will be
damaged by the water or...
Mayor Hamilton: It has nothing to do with what we're trying to decide here and
if he wants to store lumber in the middle of that, that's up to him. It's his
lumber.
Councilman Johnson: If he fills it up with lumber, he's not storing water, he's
storing lumber and he doesn't meet the engineering requirements for a settling
pond so I haven't seen that taken into consideration.
Mayor Hamilton: ...I can't believe he's going to store lumber in the middle of
a place where he's going to have water. That doesn't even seem to make logical
sense to even consider that. He's a business person.
26
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
Councilman Johnson: If he's dry and he needs the room, he's going to set the
load of lumber down there. If he wasn't going to, then there's no reason for
him to put the rock down there. As you say, let's not put any rock in there. If
you're not planning on using that for storage, obviously they plan to use it for
storage Tom.
Mayor Hamilton: They'll probably be driving across it.
Councilman Johnson: It's in the far corner, there's no reason to drive across
it. I think we need to look at that in your calculations on the depth, the
calculations of the settling pond.
Dwight Larson: I would be happy to work that out with the City Engineer to the
City Engineer's satisfaction if you'd like.
Councilman Johnson: You are moving the chainlink fence and are pushing your
storage back in the existing area?
John Waldron: Yes, correct.
Councilman Johnson: You're going to put a regular 6 foot tall wood fence in
front of your 6 foot tall chainlink fence that you're moving?
John Waldron: Correct. A little bit of history on that if you might not know
it. In 1979 we went to considerable expense, at the City's request, to put up a
berm and a retaining wall in that whole area. When the City went through and
put that street through there, they came in took down our fence, took down our
retaining wall, took down the berm and used the dirt from the berm to build the
road. Put the fence back up right next to the road which we are now going to
the expense to move that fence back where it originally was so we meet the
variance request.
Councilman Johnson: Nobody ever said City government was always logical. I can
see how that would happen real quickly. I don't know to restate it but my
concerns on this are again, just to summarize three for you I guess. Asphalt on
the loading dock area for hazardous material handling within that area. The
settling pond issues and any tree issue. If you could leave a couple of those
big trees inside a planter or something so it looks like the town has some big
trees as you come into it, it would be kind of nice. You really are our gateway
into our town but that your engineer is going to have to look at to see if it's
feasible. The other idea I had is probably too expensive to consider which was
to match the building, the rock wall of the building with the fence to where it
looked more like the building versus a wood fence that deteriorates and can get
looking ratty through the years but that kind of cost factor, I don't think...
Councilman Geving: I certainly would encourage the developer to save as many of
those oaks. I don't know if there are any maples in that area. I pick
mushrooms up in that area as well. I know there are a lot of dead elms in there
and I don't care too much about those but save those oaks if you can. Has
anyone done a study of the traffic that's going to be generated from this
addition and how 78th Street's going to be impacted? How many trucks a day are
you going to be moving into this enlarged facility? What is your estimate?
27
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
John Waldron: Right now the only thing that during this petJ. tion is, is what's
happening is our warehouse space is at maximum and right at the pre-finishing
area ~nJ. ch now we're having it done by an outside contractor so we' re having one
truck running all day long to this outside contractor. When that space is done,
we'll end up doing it in-house so it's not delivery out anymore. We're just
switching fr~-n having it done at a vendor...so the trucks actually in that
respect will cut down... The intent of doing it obviously is capacity and at
this tJsae...
Councilman Geving: How many new employees are you going to have in that
facility for those parking spots that you've identified?
John Waldron: Right now the only thing we're adding extra is the pre-finishing
which would take, about a year fram now we might have 5 new employees for the
pre-finishing part of the operation. The rest of it, where we're handling
windows, we've got an existing window show which we're just moving that square
footage to square footage from the front part of our warehouse that's existing
back into the new part and then having additional storage area throughout the
warehouse. Right now we have trouble keeping up with some of the orders because
we don't have roc~ to store them.
Councilman Geving: Has anyone figured what that percentage of that slope is
onto West 78th Street? Is that going to be a fairly steep slope Gary?
Larry Brown: It's a 3 to 1 slope.
Councilman Geving: 3 to 1 so it's well within our range. You don't have any
problem with that?
Dwight Larson: I can show you a section of what would be the sight line from
both the TH 5 frontage and from 178th Avenue. Both of these runs have the same
scale vertically and horizontally so it is indeed a true picture of what the
slope would be. In both cases we have a 3 to 1 slope going up to a berm which
then drops down into the storage and staging areas. As you can see the fence on
top from the 3 1/2 foot eye height on the street would completely block any...
Councilman Boyt: Take that up to 6 feet. What happens to it when it's 6 feet?
Dwight Larson: This would be about right there. This distance being much
greater than this distance, increasing this at the large distance would not make
a great deal of difference.
Councilman Boyt: Is that the far side of the road or the near side of the road
we're looking at there?
Dwight Larson: ThJ. s is the center line of the road so it's very close to the
center line.
Councilman Boyt: So what you're telling me is if I walk down that street and
look towards your building, I'm not going to see the 8 foot stack on the other
side of the fence?
Dwight Larson: That's correct.
28
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
Councilman Geving: I do have a question though in terms of the recommendation
to the Planning Conmission and also to the Council on item 14. The applicant
shall submit a proposal on how they will limit noise on the site between the
hours of 5:00 a.m. and 7:00 a.m.. Did the Planning Commission spend a lot of
time on that particular item? Was that a hot issue with them? And the
neighbors are Eden Prairie residents? Is that a concern?
Jo Ann Olsen: There are some residents here tonight.
Councilman Geving: I'm asking, is it a concern of the City of Chanhassen
Council?
Councilman Boyt: It's my concern.
Councilman Geving: What were some of the conments from the people from
Eden Prairie?
Jo Ann Olsen: Their comments were that there was truck traffic pretty much real
early in the morning, late at night. Most of the activity towards the north
side.
Councilman Geving: But don't they realize that this is an industrial park and
early in the morning at 5:00 a.m. they are loading trucks, getting ready for the
day's activities? I see the trucks every morning leaving that site about 6:15,
6:30. All the way to 7:00 and probably all day long. They have a lot of
activity there because they're moving construction materials off to the building
sites. I don't see anything wrong with that activity. This is an industrial
area. It's the kind of business that generates some bit of noise. They have
equipment. They've got Bobcats and tractors and whatever so I'm not so sure
that this isn't an activity that we would expect in an industrial park. That's
why it's there.
Jo Ann Olsen: The Planning Commission felt that way also. They just wanted to
see if the applicant could address the noise. Is it possible to maybe lessen
some of that noise.
Councilman Geving: And I get the impression, based on what I'm reading here,
that the applicant is more than willing to mitigate that. To do whatever is
necessary to focus the lights away from the housing area and potentially handle
some of the traffic noises, whatever it is that's bothering the people. If the
applicant's willing to do that, I think that shows good faith. That's all I've
got.
Councilman Horn: I had two issues that I jotted down on this and that was the
noise issue and the tree issue. In going through here I was totally satisfied
that the noise issus was being addressed. First of all it was interesting to me
to see that the business was there long before there were any residences built
next to it. I guess I look at it very similar to the complaints I hear about
the airplane noise down at the airport. That thing existed long before those
residences did and the planes have gotten quieter. People still complain about
that and choose to live right next to it. They know what they're getting into
when they move there.
Councilman Boyt: You're talking about Flying Cloud not...
29
~J~y Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
Councilman Horn: I'm talking about the International Airport. I think somewhat
the same situation existed here. This business was here before any houses were
built next to it and I think they are taking measures to reduce those noise
issues. Precautions that I saw spelled, employee training and things to me are
I think they are addressed even though I as a Councilman would have trouble
enforcing them to do that. I think as good business people they've taken it
upon themselves to do that. I think that addresses that issue. However, I'm
not quite as satisfied with the tree issue. I don't think there was any attempt
made at all to try and save any of those trees. If there were, there certainly
isn't anything in our notes that would indicate that. Ail the information we
have is that there's a mature grove of trees. We have no idea of size trees
they are. The varieties. What attempts were made to save them. Why they can't
be saved. Just come in and blast them down and make a storage area. I would
like to see why that can't be done. Before I would agree to approve this at
all, I need to know why we can't save those trees or at least a portion of them
through some kind of design or building around them. I still have a real
problem with that issue.
Councilman Boyt: The Planning Commission Minutes talk about noise at 4:00 and
5:0~ and I think you gave a good explanation of why that had to be. I had an
issue about the fence and you cleared that up for me. I have a question about,
doesn't OSHA require you to put some sort of sound signal on your forklifts? Is
there an alternative to that?
John Waldron: As far as backing up?
Councilman Boyt: Yes.
John Waldron: I don't know how much that is done out there.
Councilman Boyt: So it could be even worse is what you're telling me.
John Waldron: Is we complied completely with OSHA.
Councilman Boyt: I really appreciated your letter of response to the noise. I
thought that was nicely handled. I think on the trees, several of us have
brought that issue up. I have a possible alternative that sort of makes it more
of an economic issue maybe. I think you should, since these are mature trees,
that anything over 8 to 10 inches, somewhere in that neighborhood, that we
should have an inventory of that and that comparable caliper should be planted
replacing it. So if you were to take out an 8 inch tree, you could plant two 4
inch trees. To stop them from sort of being a 1 inch, lg-1 inch trees, which
would be a considerable change, I would suggest that we set some kind of minimum
and I would propose 4 inches. So the addition to the conditions that I would be
looking for, which I think addresses the issue several have brought up, is that
trees over 8 inches be inventoried and that an equivalent caliper inch be
replaced somewhere in your green space.
Mayor Hamilton: The trees I guess, it seems like maybe we should have our tree
man go out there and look at the trees and see if there are some that can be
saved within the plan. I really have a problem with trying to limit the builder
or contractor from taking down some trees when they're trying to build a
business in town. If a farmer comes along and wants to build a field so he can
30
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
251
plant crops there, are we going to tell him he can't take them down because we
don't him knocking trees down. I think we need to be consistent in that type of
application. They own the property. The trees are theirs and if they can
salvage some, if our environmentalist says that some of the trees won't die when
they're constructing the building, then perhaps those trees could be left there
but I think to cause economic hardship for...4 inch trees are pretty expensive.
I guess I can't go along with that. That's asking quite a lot. The noise.
I think as long as the equipment is kept in good repair that's being used in the
yard so there aren't noisy mufflers or excessive noise coming from the
equipment, that's something that we can moniter from time to time to make sure
that those types of things aren't occurring. That may help to solve the noise
issue. A gentleman over here had his hand up a minute ago. Did you have a
con~nent you wanted to make?
Steve Sucha: Mr. Mayor, I'm a new Eden Prairie resident. I just moved into the
area and I'm sitting here listening and it seems like you're more worried about
the trees than us. We have a right to live there. We all live in the State of
Minnesota and it is a noise problem. It's a definite noise problem. I have a 9
year old daughter who is having trouble sleeping since the day we got here. I
came in late and I don't know what they have proposed but I would like to see
all of that could be stopped at 10:00 at night in the yard. That's where the
noise is coming from. From 10:00 to 5:00 in the morning. In the morning when
I go work, it's no problem. When we're sleeping at night, it's a problem.
Forklifts do make a noise when they back up... The vulgarity, if you keep your
windows open, from the workers, is hard to take too. I can lay there at night
and I can hear every word they're saying in the yard so I take exception to
worrying more about the trees than the Eden Prairie residents.
John Waldron: As far as the trees go, in looking at the site and in laying out
the development, we did look at the trees because as indicated early on that it
was a concern by some of the councilmembers about the trees in that area and we
tried to work with staff and the Planning Con~nission for what we had come up
with to make something that we thought was acceptable and that was to cluster
the trees and evergreens and maple trees and that sort of thing. So when we
looked at the whole complete site, trying to save a few trees scattered here and
there... You run into a lot of problems, especially when you're cutting down
the grade and you have an impact...where the roots are now and all that sort of
thing, if we try to save them but a year from now they could end up being dead.
There is, I think the survey of that area is very accurate and if you look at
where that grove of trees is, there might be 1 or 2 trees on that eastern edge
that are real close to it but they're pretty well inside of that. As staff
pointed out...back in 1979...for future development on that whole corner. Now
we're just getting around to doing it. As far as the trees go and the
landscaping and that sort of thing, all we're trying to do is come up with
something that would be a very landscaping plan. Sure, it doesn't have those
trees but it's awful hard to replace a tree the size of those trees.
Mayor Hamilton: The only comment on trees is if there are some that can be
saved, our forester I would think would be able to determine that if they could
be saved. Not just for one season but for a lifetime. I think we ought to at
least take a look at them.
Dwight Larson: If I might add a con~nent. I just want to say that the current
landscaping plan does show twice as many trees as the ordinance requires around
31
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
the perimeter.
Councilman Boyt: I think that the tree issue and the people issue are closely
related. I think that the trees could help your problem. They won't eliminate
it but they might help it a bit. If 4 inches is too big, I think we should look
at some means of saying if you're going to cut down a mature stand of trees, you
have a responsibility to plant trees and replace it. That doesn't need to be
prohibitively expensive but they need to be something above finger diameter too.
Mayor Hamilton: If there's some way you can use trees to berm, to help reduce
the noise, then you should use trees such as large arborvitaes or fir trees that
are going to be not dropping their leaves and just have sticks there in the
winter so that there will be some mechanism there to buffer the noise. I guess
we should investigate that.
John Waldron: The area we're talking about, the landscaping and the trees won't
buffer noise from TH 5. It's not between us and Eden Prairie.
Mayor Hamilton: If you could look at how you may be able to buffer some of the
noise between you and Eden Prairie, I'd appreciate that also.
Heft Dresser: Your Honor Mayor Hamilton and all the councilmen, my name is
Dresser and my wife Mary Lou is with me. We live at 18743 Twilight Trail
Eden Prairie. I say that because I want to cempliment you and put staff in
that we have received no less than 5 or 6 notices of this particular issue on
the agenda tonight. Admittedly we're net in Chanhassen but we appreciate very
much the consideration at least of giving us the notices. I'd like it know that
there are two specific things that we're concerned about and that's the noise
and the lights. I happen to have served on Planning Comnissions for a number of
years in Golden Valley. 14 years on the School Board in Golden Valley prior to
it's consolidation. I know what pu're faced with in problems like this. I
want it known that under no circumstance do we oppose the business venture of
Lyman L~m~ber. They were there, as the councilmen indicated, before we were.
They deserve to have this approval that they're asking for fer additional
buildings. However, I'd like you to know as councilmen, that a year ago last
October we came out and spent many hours on that lot that we beught prior to
purchasing it. Now admittedly we missed some things. It was in October and
Lyman Lumber is extremely busy in the summertime as far as noise is cencerned,
and I missed that. I should have been wiser. In addition, we missed to some
extent, the brightness of the lights. And what ~e hope that you'll do is give
consideration to those two points. Now let me state with respect to the noise.
The councilman talked about the trucks being loaded and ready for delivery
during the morning. I happen to have a son that's a contractor, I know
percisely what he says amd I don't think we object to 5:~ or 6:gg in the
morning but I'd like you to know that three times, three days in the month of
June, obviously Lyman's heavy season, there was loading of lumber, shifting of
piles at ll:3g at night. Tonight prior to coming over here at dinner time,
there were two loads of lumber, stacks of lumber, that were being shif~c~
dropped and that is extremely noisy and disturbing to have that happen at ll:3g
at night. I think it's uncalled for. With respect to the lights, again, they
were there before we were and have all the right in the world but I think there
should be some consideration and the lights could be replaced facing to the
south rather than to the north and be just as effective. I hope you consider
those items. Now in doing so, it seems to me that you can't just take the good
32
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
will of any business and for that reason I strongly suggest, as I suggested
incidentally in my detailed letter to the Planning Conmission on these very
items because unfortunately I was unable to be at that meeting. I wrote a
detailed letter which you may have a copy. I wish that you would consider in
this approval, that you do in writing indicate the conditions on which you
handle both noise and lights. Thank you very much for your time.
Councilman Johnson: I meant to make this comnent a little earlier. I believe
that the issues of the noise and lights are concern of the City of Chanhassen
but I'm not sure if they're the concern of this expansion because this expansion
is a totally different part of this building. Why it's the same person, I think
it's two separate issues and should be brought up under a separate agenda item
and I do think we should consider it. Also, the State of Minnesota has some
very strict regulations on noise in this State. In fact, back when I was a
private consultant I was involved in several lawsuits involved in this. If
they're in violation of the Minnesota laws, that should be looked into with the
MPCA. As you probably heard if you were here earlier, we were talking about a
proposed noise ordinance. We don't have much a noise ordinance at this point to
protect, that would help you there but I do encourage you to use all legal means
because you do have a right. I don't know if that was zoned residential when
Lyman Lumber moved in but now that it's zoned residential now, they can not ~nit
noise onto your property over certain State set limits. The State of Minnesota
folks would help you there.
Mert Dresser: ...to phrase the problem to that extent at a later date. I think
it could be easily handled as a result of approval of this particular committee.
Councilman Johnson: I don't think it can be easily handled.
Mert Dresser: As a condition of the approval?
Mayor Hamilton: No, because it doesn't have anything to do with this. We're
dealing with an addition to the current facility. Not the existing facility.
That doesn't mean we can't go back and see if the applicant won't work with us
to change some of the things that are currently there but as approval of this
addition and expansion of the business, we can't require them to make changes to
the existing business.
Councilman Johnson: Just to go the other thing, according to your drawing, the
closest tree to the road is about 100 feet. I'd say 40 or 50 might be a heck of
a lot closer. I see you even signed it as being, certifying it that you
prepared this. I definitely would like, we require much more detail than this a
lot of times on these where the trees are and stuff. We've had developers come
in here that we've had th~m plot every tree on here. I'm with Clark on tabling
this at this time until we get some further information on the tree issue.
Councilman Horn: I would like more information. Just to clarify...for the
record I wrote them down as noise abatement first and trees second. My point
was that I saw things being done to address the noise abatement issue. I didn't
see things being done to deal with the tree issue. That's why I felt it was a
bigger issue. Not that it was more important but I didn't see anything being
done on the tree issue. There were steps being taken and comments given as to
what happened. I'm still not comfortable that we have an answer on the tree
33
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
issue and I'd like to see something from our forester before we go ahead with
this.
Dwight Larson: %Fnat I would like to offer that John and I would certainly be
willing to walk the site with your forester or your arborist wherever you would
like and we could work something out to his satisfaction that we're saving
whatever trees would be possible to save given their location and given the
grade of the site. We may very well be able to put some kind of a well or
something around the trees to save some of the larger ones. We'd certainly be
willing to, if you'd like to make this a condition to walk the site with your
arborist and work with him in saving whatever trees we would save.
Councilman Horn: Yes, I would like that.
John Waldron: If you end up incorporating something like that so you will act
on this matter tonight where if you table it, that's starting to move it into
something that we have to end up doing next year just because of the timing of
the construction schedule and being able to move inventories and our millwork
warehouse at the time when we're at low season otherwise the construction...
trying to gear up. The tree issue is the other thing, we'd be happy to go
around with your forester and designate whatever trees. We thought that we were
addressing the tree issue. When we talked to staff and talked to the Planning
Co~mission and they said this would be an acceptable layout. That's what we did
and that's ~fny we, I think there's probably more than double in there. We
doubled the nu~nber of maples and I think we added a few spruce trees in there.
Also along that east side up there. This doesn't have anything to do with what
is required right here and that's the area where they see. We can put the fence
where it is right now and since you've got that road in there, you can see
that...storage area but we said we'll be willing to take and move that fence
back, put a wooden fence up there and take and put landscaping in there too so
we thought we were addressing that issue.
Councih-nan Horn: I believe the recommendation I'm making is a condition of
approval which is not tabling.
Mayor Hamilton: What I'd like to do is, to get this rolling, I would like to
recon~nend approval of the Site Plan Review Planning Case #88-9 with the 14
conditions as outlined by the Planning Commission. Then I'd like to add a 15th
one that the site be reviewed and the plans be reviewed by the City Forester and
to work with BRW to determine if any of the mature trees that are there can be
saved for the future. Not just on an interim basis. Also, I'd like to add that
a condition of approval is such that you review all the lights in the entire
yard to see if there isn't something that can be done to mitigate the light
glare going to the neighborhood to the north.
Councilman Boyt: Aren't they doing that? They already did that.
John Waldron: We already agreed to move the lights.
Councilman Geving: It's still part of your agreement.
Mayor Hamilton: What I'm saying, to look at other things. If you can lower the
standards or whatever might be applicable to try and reduce the light to the
north.
34
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
Olsen: I think that may already be a condition[
Mayor Hamilton: Also I'd like to have staff review the noise in the entire yard
to see if there isn't some way that that can be reduced. Either through berming
or improvement of operating equipment or almost anything to try and reduce the
noise levels that are occurring. Again, through working with the applicant, if
they're dropping lumber off from 10 feet to the ground, maybe they should lower
it more slowly so it doesn't make quite as loud a noise. I would like to see
the applicant work with us on those issues. That is my motion.
Councilman Geving: I'll second it.
Mayor Hamilton: Are there any other conditions that people would like to have
added?
Councilman Johnson: Asphalting of the loading dock area which is something I
think they want to do anyway.
Mayor Hamilton: I think it's an option to them whether they want to do that or
not.
Councilman Johnson: I don't think the loading dock area. I think the outdoor
storage area is an option but I think loading dock area was supposed to be
asphalt.
Mayor Hamilton: Plus the loading dock. Okay.
Councilman Johnson: On the plans they show the loading dock as gravel.
Councilman Boyt: I would suggest that we can maybe deal with the issue on noise
with changing 14 to read, the applicant will act to limit noise on the site
between the hours of 5:00 a.m. and 7:00 a.m.. They've submitted a proposal.
This is merely saying you will follow-up on their proposal and act in the future
in a manner as you've described.
Councilman Horn: My concern with that one too Bill is this is only 2 hours in
the morning. There's nothing here about late at night.
Councilman Boyt: I was reading it I guess the reverse direction. If we change
this to go from 10:00 to 7:00 to take the times out of the noise ordinance.
Mayor Hamilton: Then if we also change site, I'd like to be more specific and
just say the entire yard not just the site could be construed to be this
particular site.
John Waldron: Does that mean that there can't be any activity?
Councilman Geving: No. It does not mean that at all.
Councilman Boyt: We're recognizing that this is an industrial site. We're just
saying that you're going to continue to act to reduce noise during that
timeframe from 10:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m..
John Waldron: Ail the items I listed in my letter were items...
35
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
CounciLman Boyt: That's the sort of thing we're asking so we're not
incompatible. The other one that I'd like to encouarge us to include is I'd
like to see us on the oaks, maples and substantial hardwoods over 8 inches, I'd
like to see us ask that those be replaced by some sort of planting. They're
welcome to count what they've already planted but I think we're having a lot
more cut down than we would normally see cut down and it's legitimate to ask to
have more replaced.
Mayor Hamilton: Could I suggest that when the forester reviews the plan and the
site, that he make a recommendation as to what replac~nent should be? Would
that be fair?
Councilman Boyt: As long as we can tell him that we're looking for a comparable
replacement. I'm not saying...
Mayor Hamilton: ...I'm just saying if he goes in there knowing what we're
looking for and then makes a recon~nendation based on what he also feels would be
fair and right for the site so ~ can see that coming back. We can see his
recommendations because I think it's possible to put too much in there also.
You want to be able-to have things grow.
Councilman Boyt: I agree with that as long as he understands that we're asking
for potential replacement.
Mayor Hamilton: So could we make a part of 15 then? The forester reviews and
also recon~nends on plantings. Is that clear enough?
Councilman Boyt: Sure.
Mayor Hamilton: Those are the conditions for Site Plan approval. There was a
second.
Councilman Geving: I want to make sure though. How many conditions have we
got? You mentioned 14. I see 16.
Mayor Hamilton: We have the 14. We have 15, the forester. 16, the lighting.
17 got scratched because that goes up to 14. So there's 16.
Barbara Dacy: Is the loading area...?
Mayor Hamilton: Jo Ann said that was already a part of the plan.
Councilman Johnson: No, it' s not.
Councilman Geving: He said number 4 was part of the plan.
Jo Ann Olsen: They're paving the parking area...the new dock area would be also
paved.
John Waldron: The new docking area...
Councilman Johnson: But the road leading into it is gravel in your proposal.
36
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
Jo Ann Olsen: But you want the existing~
John Waldron: The road leading to it is paved. Right up in that area is
gravel.
Councilman Johnson: What's in brown is in gravel.
John Waldron: We're going to want to pave this anyway so if you want to make it
a condition.
Councilman Geving: I would like to see that too.
Mayor Hamilton: Alright, so that's condition 17 is paving of the loading dock.
Councilman Johnson: Especially since you're adding more hazardous material to
the building with your new operation.
Mayor Hamilton moved, Councilman Geving seconded to approve Site Plan Review
#88-9 as shown on the plan stamped "Received July 18, 1988" and subject to the
following conditions:
1. The applicant shall provide an amended landscaping plan which provides
evergreens interspersed with the proposed maples and additional landscaping
on the east and south side of the proposed expansion.
2. The applicant shall provide a plan which moves the chain link fence, located
on the east side of the existing outside storage area, approximately 30' to
40' into the site and shall sod/seed and landscape the increased setback
area to maintain 74% lot coverage.
3. The applicant shall cover the chain link fence with a wood fence to screen
the existing outdoor storage.
4. The applicant shall redirect or relocate the lights on the site away from
the residential district to the north.
5. The applicant shall obtain and comply with all conditions of the Watershed
District Permit.
6. The applicant shall provide the City with calculations which verify adequate
capacity for the existing water and sanitary sewer services. As an
alternative, the applicant shall provide the City with details for the
installation of new services for the proposed building addition.
7. The applicant shall provide the City Engineer for approval calculations
which verify that the existing storm sewer system along West 78th Street
will adequately handle the additional capacity due to this application.
These calculations shall give detailed flow values for the proposed site and
the capacity for the existing site to the end of the outfall.
8. Erosion control shall be in place prior to the con~nencement of any grading,
and once in place shall remain in place throughout the duration of
construction. The developer shall be responsible for making periodic checks
37
City Council Heeting - July 25, 1988
and repairing any damaged erosion control promptly.
9. Details regarding the pavement section for the parking area and the proposed
staging area shall be submitted to the City Engineer as part of the final
review process.
lg. The applicant shall submit to the City Engineer for approval a typical
section for the proposed curb cuts and bituminous.
11. The applicant shall submit details to the City Engineer for the proposed
control structure shown on the southeast corner of the proposed staging
area.
12. Revised plans which include curb and gutter along all sides of the
bituminous parking area shall be suhnitted to the City Engineer prior to
final site plan approval.
13. The applicant shall comply with conditions of the Building and Fire
Inspector and all applicable laws.
14. The applicant will act to limit noise in the entire yard between the hours
of 10:gg p.m. and 7:0g a.m..
15. The site shall be reviewed by the City Forester and a recommendation made
back to the City Council.
16. The applicant shall review the lighting in the entire yard.
17. The applicant shall pave the loading dock area.
All voted in favor and the motion carried.
Councilman Johnson moved, Mayor Hamilton seconded to approve Conditional Use
Permit Request %88-8 as shown on the site plan dated "Received July 21, 1988"
with the following conditions:
1. The applicant shall screen the proposed outside storage with lgg% opaque
wood fence and with the proposed landscaping.
2. The applicant shall cover the existing chain link fence on the east side of
the existing storage area with lgg% opaque wood fence and provide
landscaping along hhe fence.
3. Grant a conditional use permit as long as applicant complies with conditions
of the site plan.
All voted in favor and the motion carried.
John Waldron: Just a comment. Being one of the first businesses to come into
the area there...but now we're in here and all we're doing is continuing to the
last phase of what was approved by the Council in 1979 and we end up getting
faced with additional conditions...and it is awful hard for us to continue
38
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
business that we've been doing all along. We're trying to be good neighbors.
We have no problam redirecting the lights. We're going to do the things as far
as noise goes that the letter had in there. We will, in the future, probably
add additional covered storage .... along that back fence so that blocks it more.
The first time that we heard anything about noise from anybody was when we came
to the Planning Con~aission. First time we ever heard a word. First time we
ever heard a word about the lights. If anybody has a problem with it, just c~me
and talk to us. It's the first time I've anything about anybody using vulgarity
out in the yard. Now I certainly believe that some of them do but I can't
address that unless somebody says s~mething to me to try and do something. We
are a good company. We've got a lot of jobs. A lot of tax base for this
con~nunity. We were one of the first ones in here...and I think we've gone a
long way like TH 5, you can't even tell there's a l~nber around that place right
there and we're exactly behind there but I also know that if we don't get
materials to the contractor's when they have to have it, there's a lot of lumber
centers around town that will get it to them and you'll put us out of business
if in any shape or form you try to heavily restrict the hours of our operation.
That's only typical operation for a lumber yard. I'm sorry if it does cause
some extra noise on the Eden Prairie side but it seems to me that if Eden
Prairie was going to approve a residential area and we're on the other side of
railroad tracks, where the other side is an industrial park and especially a
lumber yard, that they should have directed the residential contractor to put up
a sound barrier and I think those people ought to be talking to Eden Prairie
about doing something about it or to the contractor instead of coming in here.
October is one of the busiest months of the year. Last year if you would have
been there in October at 5:00 in the morning, it would have been the same thing.
We are good neighbors. We're not trying to pull over anything on anybody.
We're trying to do what you guys want us to do but all we're doing is trying to
compete in a business the way we have to have it. We're not trying to do
anything special or get away with anything. The tree issue, we honestly felt
that we were doing what was going to be expected of us and required of us.
We're not trying to clear cut the whole stand of trees but by the same token,
you've got a lot of dead trees and you've got a lot of brush and it doesn't look
very good at all.
Mayor Hamilton: We're certainly pleased that you're in town and we like having
you as a neighbor. I suspect if you went back to 1979 and 1980 when your
facility was first built you probably found 17 or so conditions on the
construction of that facility. I don't think we're being terribly restrictive
with the conditions that were put on here. I know that you want to be a good
neighbor and you always have been and we are happy to have you in town. We're
just merely trying to work with Eden Prairie, with the communities around us and
with you and I don't think we're being too restrictive. We're not trying to
restrict your hours of operation. We said nothing about that. If you want to
work 24 hours a day, that's fine. As long as we can work with you to try and
reduce the noise, to reduce the lights so it doesn't offend people anymore than
is absolutely necessary.
John Waldron: I appreciate that also. We're a lumber yard ...these hours,
you'd put us out of business.
39
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT REQUEST FOR RELOCATION OF OFFICE WAREHOUSE AND
CONTRACTOR'S YARD ACTIVITIES TO PROPERTY AT 83~1 AUDUBON ROAD, MERIT HEATING AND
COOLING, INC.
Jo Ann Olsen: The applicant is requesting a conditional use permit to relocate
their business from the Industrial Office Park to a site just off of Audubon
Road south of the railroad tracks. The current locations is a horse farm. The
site is in the IOP district and also within the urban service area. It does not
have sewer and water service available yet to the site. It would have to be
extended. The applicant is proposing to use the existing buildings on the site.
The barn and the tack...it is called for their business and use the existing
house as the office. They are proposing to expand and possible subdivide the
property in the future and they do not want to make improvements to the site
that are typically required as far as site plan approval for an industrial use
at this time. Staff recommended that they provide us more detailed information
on the future proposal and we did receive this plan from the applicant. This is
the location of Audubon Road showing that actually the site would be totally
changed and doing any improvements to it now would be a waste of money. The
Planning Commission recommended denial of the conditional use permit. They felt
that the Site Plan does not meet the conditions of the ordinance. They felt
uncomfortable with approving a temporary use of the existing site.
Mayor Hamilton: Steve, did you have anything you wanted to add to the staff
report?
Steve Berquist: I'm Steve Berquist, one of the owners of Merit. Since the
Planning Commission meeting, I think it was a day previous to the Planning
Co~7~nission meeting we also submitted a tentative plat and a lot layout of the
subdivision property. Was that included in the packet?
Jo Ann Olsen: No. I never received a copy. The only copy I saw was the one
Bob brought to the Planning Commission.
Steve Berquist: According to-that thing, I look at that thing on the overhead
and I drew that thing over a weekend after Jo Ann had called and said well you
better have some kind of plan for future development or, to paraphrase, you
don't stand a chance. So I look at that thing on the overhead and it's a pretty
rough plan. What we had done in the meantime and what we did prior to the
Planning Commission meeting was we worked on some tentative subdivision ideas
with the intent being to try and provide some minimum commercial spaces for sale
within the industrial park. Meaning a 1 acre lot ordinance and in essence
providing land available for businesses such as ourselves that weren't really
eager to become landlords but we wanted to get into our own space. We didn't
want to be tenants any longer. So we worked on that and we came up with this
and I thought that Jo Ann had a copy of it and I was hoping that it might have
been distributed. It certainly can be at some point in time. This layout meets
all the criteria that the City of Chanhassen wants for a lot size minimum,
frontage setback and so on and so forth. This would be our tentative plan at
this point. Originally the outline that I tried to follow when I put my
application together asked me for what our plan was over a time table and in
that I eluded to 1991 not really knowing whether or not 1991 was going to be too
far down the road, too soon down the road or right on the money. As I said at
the Planning Commission meeting, I can not tell you what is going to happen
economically to Chanhassen. I can't tell you what's going to happen
4~
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
economically when the new administration comes in and saying yes, we're going to
bring in sewer and water in 1991 through the.., property and develop it, if
that's what you want to hear, I have a real problem with saying things that
I know are not necessarily going to be the truth. I use 1991 as a rather
arbitrary date with the intent being to do it sooner. As I told the Planning
Con~nission, putting our company into the existing facility is like putting a
size 12 foot in a size 9 shoe. It won't work for long. I'm really a little bit
worried about it working for much more than a year so depending upon what
happens today, we fully intend to renovate the house, put our office in it. Do
a minimum amount of work to the barn. Put our warehouse in it and then proceed
along the line outlined by the Planning Staff and see just how feasible bringing
sewer and water is in this particular project. There are some things that have
taken place and there are some things that are about to take place from a
planning standpoint which will dictate whether or not we are going to be able to
bring sewer and water in at any time in the foreseeable future. ~ne foreseeable
future being about 1 year. If that is the case, then we fully intend to develop
land within that year and what I would like to do is get the thing developed,
split up and build outselves our building and be occupying it by January of 1990
with lot sales could carry...
Mayor Hamilton: Steve, I'd like to ask you to, maybe you could give us the plat
so we could take copies of it. I'd just like to have the Council look at it so
they have some idea what you're eluding to. See what he's done is divided the
7. whatever acres into 6 lots which are all an acre or better.
Steve Berquist: Here's the railroad right here. Here's all the road. Here's
the existing farmhouse approximately right here. The existing barn would fall
upon this lot line. This is Opus. This is land owned by Opus. This is land
owned by Opus. You can see that we put a road through here with the possibility
of carrying it through the rest of the IOP area. If you look at the square
footages of the lot, they are right at slightly more than an acre so they
provide good space for small businesses to buy land and put a building up. I
think it's a good idea the more I look at it.
Mayor Hamilton: It's a nice plan. If you could leave that with Barb so they
could copy it.
Steve Berquist: So anyway, that's where we're coming from. We wanted to get in
for a, get in and occupy for a minimum amount of dollars we're spending
considering the fact that whatever money we spend now is going to be, when we
d~molish this, is going to be wasted. Our intent was to go in and bring the
house up to code as far as commercial buildings code. Bring the barn up to
whatever code the City wanted it to meet and work.
Councilman Boyt: I think this is a good example of somebody trying to make
something work and it reminds me of the Merle Volk property down south of us.
This is a challenge in that you're the kind of business that I think the City
would probably like to nurture along and you're in a location in which the
HRA really can't reach you to nurture you. It would seem to me that although it
doesn't help the current property owner, you might want to be talking to the HRA
about how they could help you locate in the business park. What kind of special
assessment reduction agreaments they might be willing to agree to and this kind
of thing. To the particular issue at hand, I'm interest to see how this works
out tonight. I think that putting a sewer in might run about $50,000.00 is the
41
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
estimate that I got. It seems that the Planning Commission was awfully clear in
saying that this set a very difficult precedent for development in this kind of
area for the future. I think that's what made them relunctant to do it and it
makes me somewhat relunctant to say on the one hand to someone who would develop
in our business park or other developers in this area that we hope come in, no
you have to asphalt things and curb them and sewer them and on and on. I will
admit to being in a quandry. We do need to have a place in town that can
nurture businesses. The HRA may be able to do that. I'm not sure that this is
the place to be the first one in ~fnich we do nurture a business. I'm looking
for some guideance and insight from some of the others.
Councilman Horn: My interpretation of why we created the contractor's yard I
think is slightly different than I heard here tonight. The reasoning that I
recall we put it in for was for small businesses that needed a lot of space and
space in the industrial park was much too much at a premium for them to
economically stay in business. It wasn't, as I understood it, a means to allow
somebody the chance to move out of the industrial park into another area that
might be the next tier of the industrial ring. That's what zoning is all about
in my mind so I'm having trouble unless I'm missing something in this report,
finding out the justification for this of why it makes sense from a planning
aspect to move an existing business out of the park and put them into an area
where it really doesn't fit without special permits. Conditional use permits
and things so it seems to me that this wasn't the original intent of a
contractor's yard unless my memory of that is wrong. That's all the comments
I have.
Councilman Geving: I could certainly see why you'd want to not be a tenant any
longer and move into something of your own that you could build upon and
develop. I'm sure that this City Council could put all kinds of obstacles in
front of you to prevent you from developing this in terms of ordinances, hook-up
to city sewer and water, forcing you to put in concrete curbs and gutter and
pave the area and I'm not so sure that's really necessary. I think there is a
need for a small business like yours in the community that wants to make a
transition into an area that's now used as a horse farm and a single family
residence. I think that will get developed eventually and maybe you'll be the
people that will do that. I see nothing really wrong with your proposal. My
problem is how much are we willing to give in terms of not making the hurdles
for you like the paving issue, the curb and gutter, the hook-ups for 'the sewer
and water. I think that will be very, very expensive and probably prohibit you
in fact from developing these properties if those were some of the conditions
that we placed on approval for this tonight. I see this particular piece of
land in a transition stage. It's going to get developed. Whether you do it or
someone else down the road. It's the next tier as far as I'm concerned to add
to our industrial park. It's a nice piece of property. It is accessible to
sewer and water. It's within our MUSA line and I don't see this really very
much different than what we did with Charlie Kerber's old house on TH 5. There
was an existing barn there. There was an old farmhome and we decided that it
was good, on a temporary basis, to move a small office type operation in there.
I think they have maybe 12 employees total and they're utilizing that very
nicely. There's no big concern of the City. It's a very small business and I
would say that I'm in favor of this project. I'm in favor to the point where if
we could work out some of the details that I mentioned and not have Steve going
through all the hoops but that we do have a plan from you Steve, a time table
and a plan like we saw you give to Barbara here, maybe you do have a time table
42
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
until 1990 or 1991 in what you would like to do. Obviously you're showing us a
plan tonight that's different than the plan that the Planning Commission saw and
it would be only fair for them to see your plan again if you do in fact have a
new idea. I think what they're looking for, what we're all looking for is a
time table, in writing, a time table that shows what you'd like to do as you
progress now in the next couple of years. I'm in favor of this proposal but it
needs to be refined and it needs to be honed to the point where I'm satisfied
that the sewer and water and all those issues are pretty well spelled out. I
like what I see and I think that there is a need for keeping Merit Heating and
anybody else in the con~nunity and if we need to do something to help him along
to make that happen, I'm in favor of it.
Councilman Johnson: I think it's interesting you bring up Kerber's out there,
the little place because there's a contractor's yard being operated out of there
without a permit called Admiral Waste. They're now headquartered in there.
They got permission to build someplace else, I don't know what's happening. I
think they're happy where they are now on TH 5. I don't know what's going on
there. I do not think a conditional use permit is required. I think this is
not a contractor's yard. This is a trade shop. I tried to find the definition
of a trade shop. It's not in our rules. It's not anywhere. The closest thing
I could find was a trade school. A trade school is where his employees go to
learn how to do what they do so I define a heating contractor, an electrical
contractor, the skilled trades as we call it. In the industry if you talked
about a trade person, that's your electrical, your millwrite, your sheet metal,
all these type people. They are a trade shop and this is a permitted use within
the IOP so I don't think we even need a conditional use permit. That we're
doing just a site plan review here. I would like to see a time schedule on
this. I don't think the sewer and water issues are just totally blown out of
proportion here in that we have 18 employees of which most of them aren't on
site most the time who are drinking coffee. The use of the sanitary sewer
system, the septic system is going to be considerably reduced over the teenagers
and Jim McMahon's, the rest of his kids and his wife and his 30 or 40 horses
that he waters out there. I think eliminating 30 to 40 horses off that site
will help Lake Susan and the other lakes that are tributary to Jim's property.
I see some good reasons for eliminating the horse farm in this area. If we had
a choice of what we wanted to have in our industrial park, a horse farm or a
heating ventilating contractor, somehow you feel the heating ventilating
contractor is more logical in the industrial park. I believe there is going to
be one thing that's going to be increased and that's traffic. Traffic is going
to be considerably increased. You've got 18 people coming in in the morning,
pick up the trucks, leaving. We're going to have a lot of trips per day going
in and out and I don't think that small rock driveway is appropriate for that so
in this case on complying with asphalting of the driveway and the parking areas,
I believe that is a necessary requirement. I don't want the driveway to get so
wide that it affects and possibly kills the line of trees on both sides of that
driveway. To put in an asphalt driveway 16 foot wide and end up killing 30 tall
pine trees would be ludicrous and we need to make sure our forester reviews this
site also as to what width of driveway we can put through there but I don't
believe 12 foot is appropriate for the traffic going in here. If 16 foot, which
is 2 foot added to either side, I don't think that's, probably 16 foot would
fit. As far as curbs, I would like to see this done either without curbs or
with asphalt curbs because I believe the access to Powers Blvd. is temporary.
That future access will be off of an internal road coming out of Opus so we're
going to force him to take that access off of Powers Blvd. because this is only
43
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
until the future Lake Drive East? West, will come through. I would like to see
a preliminary plat filed within one year and final plat. I think this is our
time constraint. I think in order to approve this, we're actually approving
several variances and the variances on the curbing would be the one. I'd like
to see that one of the conditions is that we give him a time schedule to have a
plat in here. Not a sketch or a drawing or something in the future but we want,
if the plat isn't in here by the end of the time schedule, they're looking for a
new place to go then. Whether that's a year or a year and a half or two years
for preliminary plat is debateable. I think a heating ventilation contractor is
a necessary person in the City of Chanhassen just like any other service to our
citizens and we definitely don't want to force these folks out of our town.
They live here, they work here, let's keep them here. Another condition I would
throw on here is no outside storage of parts equipment other than service
vehicles would be permitted. We're not permitting any outside storage for this
other than the dumpster that's going to have to be enclosed anyway. I'm glad to
see that they're talking about getting a lugger to haul away their stuff instead
of sitting out back like it currently is. I know I've harrassed staff a few
times on the old furnances and stuff.
Steve Berquist: We've had a roll-off for a few months and it works real well.
Councilman Johnson: Those are my con~nents. I'm in favor of something inbetween
what they want and what staff wants. I'd like to hear whether I'm right or
wrong on this being a permitted use. I think it will probably end up over in
Roger's court eventually.
Mayor Hamilton: I don't see this as a temporary use as was mentioned in the
report. It's a permanent business. They've been in business in this community
for a period of time already. They're buying a piece of property to move their
business onto and in doing so they want to then finish platting the property as
a function on that property and then continue to operate on there. I also don't
see it as a contractor's yard. I think Jay had a very good point. This fellow
is not a contractor's yard.
Councilman Johnson: It's a trade shop.
Mayor Hamilton: It's a trade shop. It's not a contractor's yard at all. It's
a part of 5he industrial park and it's appropriate that we get the residential
portion of the industrial park finally gone and out of the industrial park and
have industrial uses in there. The applicant has said he's willing to plat the
property, which he already has shown us a plat which unfortunately we didn't get
in the packet but he has put some thought to it. He has platted it. It's ~nat
he perceives is going to happen with the property but again you never know
what's going to happen to anything. Somebody may come in and offer to buy four
of his six lots and change the use of it but we do have a plat and it gives us
some idea of the direction he's trying to go. The sewer and water uses need to
be looked at to find out when, and I don't think Steve knows and I don't th~nk
staff knows, when the sewer and water might be available to that property. I
don't think it's fair, at this time, to tell Steve and his company that you have
to run sewer and water to your property at an exorbinate expense when not too
far do~ the road, perhaps in a year as McGlynn and the other people develop
across the street from this property, as more development comes in from the
east, sewer and water is going to be available and then they can hook into it
and continue to develop the property. I see it as a great opportunity for that
44
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
piece of the industrial park to continue to develop on a continuing basis. No
longer do we have a horse farm there and I think if they do a little bit of
screening and sprucing up of the place which Steve has said he'll do. He'll
paint the house and the barn and paint things up a bit, it's going to be a
better lookJ, ng part of the industrial park. I agree with Jay on several items.
I think we need a time table. We need a plat. If we say within a year or two
years or whatever is a reasonable length of time although you already have the
plat so that can be suhnitted as we already have it. You can do some screening
on the property of the dumpster and whatever else is required. I don't see any
reason why he needs to pave his road at this time. If he puts Class V down,
widens the road a bit and makes a Class V parking area, that should be adequate
for right now until he continues to develop the property. I think it's a good
use of the property. I'm glad to see someone interested in coming in and
working with the property and as they're on there, we don't have to worry about
vandalism or just knocking things over. I think it's a good use and I'm all in
favor of it 100%.
Councilman Geving: Tom, can I ask you two questions? How do you feel about
this going back to the Planning Commission for them to look at the new plan?
The one that they haven't seen yet. Plan B.
Mayor Hamilton: I would like to approve this with conditions and then pass it
back to the Planning Conm]ission for their comments and perhaps any additional
conditions they may want to put on but I think we need to get a clear indication
to the property owner and to the applicant as to whether or not they can move
ahead with this project. I know Steve is under a time constraint to get out of
the building he's in and that's a real concern.
Councilman Geving: I think the question I ask is an important one from a
planning standpoint. They have a responsibility and I think that they have a
right to see this plan but I agree also with you that we should give Steve an
indication tonight that this is either a no go, a go, a maybe so he can start
planning and the person he's negotiating with this property for so they know
what could happen. How do you also feel about this item on the feasibility to
be conducted to determine the best way to get sewer and water to this property?
Is that premature? I would say that's premature until we settle how we're going
to handle the total property itself and that can come later. Do you agree with
that?
Mayor Hamilton: I think it's premature too and I think the staff needs to look
at what's happening with the McGlynn property and I'm not familiar with all the
sewer and water runs and where it's at down there but I think we need to have
that information given to us as to where everything is. I'm not even sure that
Steve knows how he could access sewer and water and what the costs might be so I
think we need to have more information about it.
Gary Warren: The purpose of the feasibility, you just described what a
feasibility study does. I think as a minimum, that there should be some
conditions that if, whatever combination of reasons that the sanitary sewer and
water does become available, that this property be required to hook into it.
Mayor Hami 1 ton: Oh yes.
45
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
CounciLman Geving: And then the other question I have, and I guess that would
be of Barb, if the Planning Commission had viewed this as several councilmembers
did tonight, that this activity is a trade shop and not a contractor's yard,
would that have made any difference to the Planning Conmission?
Barbara Dacy: No. If J.t's a permitted or a conditional use, you're still
dealing with the same standards.
Councilman Goring: And they were still looking for a plan? They were looking
for a time table.
Jo Ann Olsen: They saw the preliminary plat. They brought it and showed us a
copy.
Councilman Geving: But apparently it was not an official part of the packet.
Jo Ann Olsen: They did not feel that was adequate.
Mayor Hamilton: It's an architect's drawing. I don't know how more official
you can get than that.
Barbara Dacy: The issue still is, whether or not the Council wants to approve
it as proposed or if you do want to establish a time line on the proposal as J.s.
Wlqether they submJ, t a plat drawing is not germane right now...able to expand.
Mayor Hamilton: I'm going to move approval of the, I guess it's a request for a
conditional use and I guess you and I agree that it's not a conditional use.
Councilman Johnson: Their actual request said Site Plan Review and it got
changed to Conditional Use Permit by staff's insistance I believe°
Mayor Hamilton: I still don't see it as a conditional use either because it's a
use in the industrial park.
Barbara Dacy: Fine. That's fine. Then your motion should say, as a permitted
use.
CouncJ. lman Johnson: We're doing a Site Plan Review then?
~arbara Dacy: Right.
Mayor Hamilton: Okay, I'm going to move for approval of the Site Pi'an Review
for relocation of an office/warehouse to the property located at 83gl Audubon
Road, Merit Heating and Cooling, Inc. with the conditions that a time table be
established as to how they propose the property to be developed and how you see
your facilities changing. To improve the driveway to widened it to probably a
minimum of 12 feet using Class V for the road and the parking area. To screen
the dumpster area and to do any other screening that staff may feel is necessary
to improve the site. To submit a plat within one year of how the property is
going to be developed fr~n this point. That there be no outside storage.
Councilman Geving: How about (c) here Tom?
46
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
267
Mayor Hamilton: Yes, comply with the conditions of the Building and Fire
Inspector.
Councilman Johnson: The feasibility study?
Councilman Geving: I think the feasibility study will come later.
Mayor Hamilton: Yes, I think that could almost be generated by the staff. I
guess I'm really wrestling with how, I know that sewer and water. Well, I guess
Gary's idea was when sewer and water becomes available that the property be
required to hook up to it.
Councilman Geving: Let's make that a condition.
Gary Warren: One correlary I guess that we would have here, at least in my
experience, with the Burdick property and the James property where we did not
have sanitary sewer pumps at that time to service that property, we added a
condition on that developer that he not develop until the City had proceeded
with evaluating and had satisfied how we were going to get trunk sanitary sewer
to that property which generated a public ~mprovement project which of
course...feasibility study. That certainly is an option here at this time
similar to what we've done with Lake Drive East and others is that Council
authorized a feasibility study to look at trunk sanitary sewer service for this
site.
Mayor Hamilton: I guess I see that as a little different property. You're
talking about property on the main street of the City that you know is going to
develop sooner. We felt it was going to be developing rather quickly. More
visible and you know there was going to be more activity there where this is a
new part of the industrial park, as I see it, and perhaps is going to be a year
or two. We already know that up front prior to, although we might be surprised
and Steve might be surprised. I told him, you get this platted and you're going
to probably find a lot of people interested in it so if that happens, I think
that's going to generate the feasibility study because he's going to have to get
sewer and water.
Councilman Johnson: In order for him to plat, he's going to have to do a
feasibility study to figure out how he's going to get sewer and water in there.
I would think that would be a condition of the platting was for us to do the
feasibility study.
Gary Warren: I believe it would be up, again to the Council, if you wanted to
make that a condition or not. You could put approve the plat without having
sewer and water service there.
Mayor Hamilton: That's a good point Jay. I think we should follow that.
Gary Warren: As long as there's some condition that the developer understands
that he would have to connect when we do come through. You've got Lake Susan
Hills West. Phasing of that could change overnight here along with what we do
with Lake Drive East so...
Mayor Hamilton: That's right and I think Steve's aware of that. There's a lot
of things changing out there and he's going to have to keep on top of how things
47
City Council Yeeting - July 25, 1988
are fluctuatJ, ng and how it's going to affect his property.
Councilman Johnson: So 7 would be hook up to sanitary sewer and water service
when available?
Mayor Hamilton: Right. That' s my motion.
Councilman Geving: I'll second it.
Councilman Boyt: I have some discussion. As I said, I was listening, trying to
listen carefully. I think any decision should stand the test of some logic so
I've got a couple questions. First question I have is how many variances are we
granting here?
Jo Ann Olsen: The paving...the screening and landscaping requirements, I don't
know...
Councilman Boyt: So there' s paving, sewer, the driveway, landscaping
potentially.
Councilman Horn: Erosion control?
Jo Ann Olsen: Erosion control, drainage.
Councilman Boyt: ErosSon control. Dra_inage. Okay, so that without Planning
Commission review I think I counted 7 variances that you're proposing that we
grant. So that was one question I had. The other question is, just so that I'm
clear, I'd like to hear how this is different than a developer who happens to
have the money to do the things we're requiring because one of the questions in
our variance is that there's something about this situation that demands
variances other than economic so I'd like to hear a bit about that.
Mayor Hamilton: Those are your questions?
Councilman Boyt: Okay. ! think that's two of them and if we could resolve
those, I guess I question, everybody can enter this with good intent, what's the
guarantee? In what way is the City in a secure position here? %fnat are we
doing to avoid ourselves from creating an industrial use that really isn't under
our control? That Steve, in spite of all good intentions, decides that this
isn't working. He leaves the property and now we've got something that has been
zoned and approve~] for operation and is available to other conceivable so %fnat
kind of guarantee do we have that in fact it will be developed along the lines
that intent says would like to be. So those are my three areas of questions.
Mayor Hamilton: Let me try to answer sc~ne of them. Starting a't the last one, I
don't think we ever get any guarantees from anybody that's going into business
in this town that they're not going to walk away from any project.
Councilman Boyt: We sure do.
Mayor Hamilton: No we don't. You get your llg% but that doesn't guarantee you
that the project's going to be completed.
Councilman Boyt: It guarantees you get the money to complete it.
48
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
Mayor Hamilton: I don't see that the City has any risk here since the applicant
wants to use the property in it's current state and temporary while he's
developing the property and using it for his business. I don't see that that
puts the City at any risk at all. If it doesn't work for him and he says the
heck with it, I'm going to South Dakota, the property is stilled IOP, which it
is today. We haven't changed that at all. Somebody else can still go in there
and pick up and develop it any way they want. He hasn't effectively right now,
let's assume he stays there for 9 months and things go to heck so he leaves
town, so what's changed? Nothing. The property is still for sale and somebody
else can come along and buy it and develop it or attempt to make use of it as he
has. So I don't see that the City is at any risk. I feel that this is a rather
unique situation and I guess I really do feel that we need to look at each, and
I try to always do this, look at each application on it's own merit. I don't
think I've ever looked or we've ever looked at anything quite like this. It
seems to me to be a good opportunity to keep a businessman in town and allow him
the opportunity to develop a piece of industrial property. The property's been
for sale for about 5 years. He's the only person to come along to say that he
would like to buy it and to develop it. I think that's what is different about
it. No else has come forward to attempt to do that. As far as the variances,
perhaps we do have to have some variances but again, I think it's a unique
situation and I don't see that granting variances on this particular property is
going to cause any hardship to the City or set any precedent. I think it's a
very unique piece of property. I've never seen anything like it or an
application like this on any s]miliar type property. I think it's a great
opportunity for the City.
Councilman Boyt: Let's go back to the Volk property. We couldn't get sewer
there but we were talking about light industrial uses. That got turned down.
We're losing the piece of property. It got turned down. Now we're going to
turn around within a year and say here's a place that could get sewer but we're
not going to require sewer so a similar business can start up.
Mayor Hamilton: They're totally different pieces of property. The Volk
property probably isn't going to have sewer to it from Chanhassen for the next
30 to 4g years. Somewhere in there. Sewer is going to be available to this.
It's already in the industrial park. It's within the MUSA line. It's going to
have sewer in the short term. There is a major difference. The Volk property
isn't going to have it.
Councilman Boyt: They are similar.
Mayor Hamilton: I don't think so. The Volk property was looking more really at
contractor's yard type uses. A paving company or well drilling or that type of
thing who wants to function in an area for a period of time until the city grows
and then they keep moving out. The same as Merle's contracting yard. As the
city grows and the growth keeps moving out, it's finally going to push him out
and push others like him out to go out further west where they can get their
property and buy their 1~0 acres and spread out and have all their equipment
sitting out and as the growth keeps going, they just keep moving. This is a
permanent use. He's going to be on this property hopefully until he dies, and
until his kids run the business. I don't see this as the same type of use at
all. It's permanent. I don't see the temporary use. It's a permanent use of
that property.
49
C~ty CouncJ. 1 Meeting - July 25, 1988
Councilman Johnson: Temporary use of the buildings.
Steve Berquist: If that was the case, there's no way we'd be paying $7.5g a
square foot for office and $3.5g a square foot for warehouse where we're at now.
If we could work out of a contractor's yard like Volk does, there's no reason
for us to be where we are now. We never would have done it.
Councilman Boyt: If we're trying to fill up a business park that we have now
and we make it as easy as possible to leave that park, are we helping the City
in the long run?
Mayor Hamilton: I don't understand your question.
Councilman Boyt: Well, we're taking a tenant fr~ the office park and we're
saying let's see if we can remove the barriers to leaving that office park and
go into this IOP. That's basically what we've done and I guess the question I
ask is one of impact. Not just on this piece of property but on the business
park that loses this type of tenant.
Mayor Hamilton: I see a tenant in the business park saying I want to make a
long term investment in the city of Chanhassen. I want to buy a piece of
property. Put my business there. Own my property and my building. There's
already, as Steve has told me, the landlord already has a person ready to rent
the space as soon as he's out of there. I would hope that as Steve develops his
property, the tenant that goes into there is going to come over to Steve and say
I want to buy one of your 1 acre lots to put my business on there permanently
and own my land. Somebody else will come in there and it's just a continual,
your a tenant, your business grows and you want to get into your own property.
I don't think it has an impact. I think it's a positive impact on the
con~nerc ial property.
Councilman Geving: In fact, I don't think it's really going to hurt our
industrial park any at all. We're actually running out of industrial park space
right now. We don't have that many lots left down there. If we could extend
the industrial park area that we've been advocating for some time to the west
and to the south, I think it's to our benefit to do it. This is the direction
we've been wanting to move for a long time. We don't have that many spaces.
Maybe Barb or somebody could fill us
Steve Berquist: There are 7 spaces left in the Opus Park none of which will
support a building of anything less than 15,g0g square feet without subdividing
the property.
Councilman Geving: I was going to say less than lg because when we started the
industrial park, we have about 35 spaces in there and if we're down to 7, I
think we've done a tremendous job. There's going to be more applications
coming in. We're going to fill that thing up before you know it.
Mayor Hamilton: I think that shows you this isn't going to...
Councilman Geving: It's a need. There's a need.
5~
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
27I
Councilman Horn: I've seen a rental sign for the last six months on a building
that we can't rent out and their rates are no higher than this. I think that's
exactly why we have zoning for our industrial parks. If we feel our industrial
park is running out, then it's incumbant on us to create more areas that are
zoned where we don't need variances to build. I don't think this is the right
way to go about doing this. I'd like to have our Attorney speak to us about any
type of precedent we might be setting in this area and maybe a little review on
how we can allow this type of growth and expansion to take place frc~n a zoning
aspect.
Roger Knutson: Your ordinance has a procedure for issuing variances that you
have all gone through lots and lots of times.
Councilman Geving: I think it's an unfair question to ask of Roger because
we're the City Council and we can make that decision.
Councilman Horn: I'm asking him to interpret the ordinance.
Councilman Geving: He just did. I think he just did.
Councilman Horn: I'd like to hear the rest of his comments if I could.
Roger Knutson: I was going to say, Dale's on the Board of Adjustments and
Appeals and he knows more than any of us here probably how variances are
processed. As far as the precedential effect of anything, that depends. It's
always a judgment call. It's dependent upon how similar or dissimilar they are
to that case in point. The more similar they are, the more precedential value
they have. A precedent, in many respects, means treating people fairly.
Treating people similarly treated, similarly situated similar.
Councilman Boyt: But you can't use economic hardship.
Roger Knutson: As a basis for a variance, no. Economic hardship is not a basis
for a variance.
Councilman Horn: I haven't heard economic hardship is a point in this case. In
fact I haven't really heard why the move has to take place. There's nothing in
here that indicates that. It's only a desire to move.
Mayor Hamilton: That's right. What's wrong with that?
Councilman Horn: Nothing. I'm just saying, why do we have rules, I can
understand bending rules if there's some hardship to keep a business here. I
haven't heard anything that says we're going to lose the business if they don't
do this. That's the whole intent that we've had with this contractor's yard or
whatever you want to call those things.
Steve Berquist: Is that what we have to get to? I have to say we're going to
pick up and leave if we don't...
Councilman Horn: If we could finish our discussion, I'm saying that I haven't
heard that that is even applicable in this case. There seems to be a lot of
question as to just what this issue is. Is it a contractor's yard or what
should it be called? Why are there so many fuzzy issues? It should be fairly
51
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
clear cut I would think. Why is our...staff that do our planning and organizing
for us and set up zoning, totally against this application? Do we have input
that they don't have? I would like to have heard someone from the Planning
Commission as to why. I read the Minutes but it wasn't terribly clear to me why
they objected to this. That's the group that really sets up our planning
standards. Just something doesn't seem very clear cut on this and I have the
same problem Bill does.
Mayor Hamilton: Well, we've got a motion on the floor and I have some
conditions and I'd like to add 3(g) from the staff's conditions. Jay, do you
have a brief final comment before we vote on this?
Councilman Johnson: Yes. I haven't commented on the motion yet. Item 2 of
your motion is improve driveway and parking to Class V. As Class V, that's
gravel correct?
Pmyor Hamilton: Right.
CounciLman Johnson: I'm not in favor of that. I still think we need asphalt
there because of the large increase, especially the loading areas also, just as
I said with the last applicant, Lyman Lumber. Their loading dock area needs to
be asphalt. I don't see a larger reason why we should give them a rough
driveway. As far as being equal, equal treatment. As I go through the variance
and what clobbers us on the variance side of it is that special conditions or
circumstances are not a consequence of self created hardship. I have some
problems of really defining exactly what the hardship is. I see the improvement
to the City of eliminating the horse stables. I see that as something we'd like
to do. I see that this is an opportunity to remove something from the IOP
district that is a non-conforming use but I'd like to eliminate some of our
variances. The ones I'd like to eliminate mostly, I think by doing (g), you
eliminated a couple there and I think asphalt will eliminate a few. We've got
almost none then. He's agreed to do the screening and landscaping that's
required.
Mayor Hamilton: Can ! just ask a question then Jay. Since we know that he's
going to be changing the configuration of where he's going to be at as he plats
it and moves into a more permanent structure, I think he's only concerned about
doing asphalt driveway and parking was he's going to have to tear it out again
as he moves into a new building. Would it be fair to make the condition that, I
don't ]<now to quite phrase this, that he's going to have to pave it within a
year if something. If he can't show us how he's going to move or how the
property is going to be configured or if he doesn't have his plans in place. I
guess I'm just trying to save the guy a buck. I see no reason why we make a guy
spend money that we don't have to. I don't see that putting asphalt in there is
really a tremendous improvement to the property that absolutely has to be done.
As long as you put a good rock base but if there's a condition that says you've
got to do it within a period of time as he plats and develops the property.
Councilman Johnson: The way I see it, I don't see this in reference to Merle
Volk because I think it's a different issue there. I see it more like a
John Prymmus. In that, if you can't afford to do it, he shouldn't be trying to
do it.
Mayor Hamilton: I don' t think that' s the point.
52
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
Councilman Johnson: I think it is on the asphalt. I'm willing to cut the curb
and gutter because we have no storm sewer to direct the water from the curb and
gutter into. Curb and gutter directs water into a storm sewer and takes it off
and away. An asphalt curb will do it. In this particular case I see there's
justification for an asphalt curb and asphalt driveway. I don't see concrete
curb because I don't see it as being permanent. We're definitely not going to
have this thing connected to the highway for full time but the increase in truck
traffic justifies the asphalt. If their erosion control and ponding all
requires the curbing, then I think asphalt curbing would be appropriate versus
concrete in this situation. There's something unique about this situation that
says asphalt. This is a unique piece of property. It's the only existing
farmstead within our IOP. We have one other that's already been converted to an
industrial use. There is no other. We're not setting a precedent for the next
guy because there is no next guy. I don't want to set a precedence of gravel.
I'm against the gravel in the IOP.
Mayor Hamilton: The other one doesn't have blacktop.
Councilman Johnson: There's no blacktop on the other one and that's wrong too.
I'm still trying to figure out why there's garbage trucks back there but that's
a different issue.
Steve Berquist: First of all I want to say that I take exception to the
comparison and that...
Councilman Johnson: Just on the money side of it. You're saying you can't
afford to do it. Maybe you shouldn't.
Steve BerquJ. st: I don't have a problem with paving the driveway. I don't have
a problem with paving the loading dock. I question concerning paving the entire
parking area. I'm convinced that paving of the driveway and the loading dock is
the way to go if for no other reason than to help present a professional image
when our light amount of walk-in traffic does walk in but as far as paving the
entire area that we intend to park our vehicles on and put our dumpster, I take
exception to that in that I don't believe that is necessary. That's just a
little overkill.
Councilman Johnson: For your dumpster, asphalt underneath it. Impervious
surface underneath your dumpster.
Steve Berquist: Impervious surface underneath the dumpster...we have a
tentative grading plan there before you in the packet of information. What is
your feelings on paving of the entire surface area?
Councilman Johnson: I think I'd like to see, there's a lot of fuzzy issues
here. I'd like to see a proposal of exactly what you think you can pave and
what you would like to not pave. More detail. We're kind of missing the
detail.
Mayor Hamilton: I think he just said the driveway and the dock area and not the
parking area.
Councilman Johnson: I'd like to see it in writing but anyhow...
53
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
Mayor Hamilton: We can make it a condition. I'll change my condition number 2
to blacktop the drive and the dock area and under the dumpster.
CounciLman Geving: Can we go through these again? I think it's important.
We're getting fuzzy.
Mayor Hamilton: Blacktop and curb the driveway and the dock area and underneath
the dumpster.
Councilman Geving: That's condition number?
Mayor Hamilton: 2. Condition 1 is a time table for development. 3 is to
screen the dumpster the same as 3(b). Condition 4 was to have a plat within a
year. Condition 5 was no outside storage. Condition 6 was to connect to sewer
and water when available. Then we had item (g) which will be condition 7 for
the erosion control.
Councilman Geving: We had also Building and Fire Inspector.
Gary Warren: Rural requirements for any property which is going to be on a
septic system, we always provide for an alternate site. That might be something
to consider here. The same reason that if the site fails, we have a back-up.
Councilman Johnson: Maybe if the site fails, then they're required to hook up
to sewer and water rather than an atlernate site. If we've got a site failing
in there.
Gary Warren: It should stand the test of any other septic site that we approve
for a subdivision request that they have...
Mayor Hamilton: I suspect the applicant wouldn't have any problem locating
another site should his current system fail since the system is in good working
order. I don't suspect that that's going to be a problem since there will be
less use now than there will be with residential.
Councilman Johnson: But you talked about doing the borings and getting the site
approved right now.
Mayor Hamilton: Do you have a problem with that Steve?
CounciLman Geving: What's the cost on that?
Barbara Dacy: I really think that maybe we should maybe place as a condition
for staff to review this. Being located within the urban service area, we
should really review in detail how the connection to sewer and water ties in.
Mayor Hamilton: Make that a part of that whole thing.
Councilman Geving: Usually an urban requirement isn't it?
CounciLman Johnson: Rural. But this is an urban area.
CounciLman Geving: But it's a rural requirement.
54
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
Gary Warren: ...making an exception here to have them out of sewer and water...
Mayor Hamilton: I think Barb's suggestion is good in that we're going to look
at the whole sewer and water issue and staff should review if an additional
septic site is necessary or not. That can come back as a consent item.
Councilman Boyt: Several times early this evening I heard about the need for
public input. When we grant variances, we have public hearings. We haven't
notified anybody so you can't consider this a public hearing.
Councilman Johnson: Granting a variance doesn't require a public hearing.
Roger Knutson: Take a look at Section 20-29.
Barbara Dacy: I think what we need to define here is, the motion for approval
is for blacktopping a significant portion of the area. I know you've made a
motion for approval, maybe we just should sit down with the applicant and give
staff time to determine what is a variance and what isn't. If one is necessary,
then we'll have to go ahead...and go from there. It was advertised as a
conditional use and there was a public hearing on...
Councilman Horn: I think that's a good recon~nendation. That if it requires a
variance, then a public hearing...
Roger Knutson: Or the Board of Adjustments.
Barbara Dacy: If you wanted to do that as condition 10.
Mayor Hamilton: I think that would be number 9 condition that should it be
approved, that the variances would be reviewed by the Board of Adjustments and
Appeals and advertised as such.
Councilman Boyt: That basically takes the whole issue and postpones it until
they make a decision and if they make a decision, they basically, we can give
them the conditions you've outlined...
Mayor Hamilton: It gives them a leg to stand on. At least they know we're
willing to, assumed that it's approved, we're willing to approve it with review
of the variances by the Board of Adjustments and Appeals.
Barbara Dacy: They won't be able to proceed until there's a findings by the
Council that no other hearings are needed...
Councilman Boyt: So if we approve it tonight and the Board of Adjustments and
Appeals approves it, then it's a done deal?
Barbara Dacy: Right. Intermediary to that we'll bring the item back on the
August 8th agenda pending approval of this motion and discussion with the
applicant.
Councilman Boyt: I don't think it would delay anything to put it back in front
of the Planning Con~nission.
55
City Council [4eeting - July 25, 1988
Barbara Dacy: The Planning Coaraission made a very strong statement about their
dissatisfaction with the plan. I don't know if they would change that as
proposed.
Councilman Boyt: One never knows. They've got all sorts of Minutes that they
can read that will give them insight into this situation. I'd like to see it go
back in front of them.
CounciLman Horn: So would I.
Councilman Johnson: This is really a tough one because I really like to enforce
our ordinances but since this is going to the Board of Adjustments and Appeals
for all the variance conditions on it, we're only voting on the site plan review
at this point, I'll go yea.
Mayor Hamilton moved, Councilman Geving seconded to approve Site Plan Review for
relocation of an office/warehouse to the property located at 83gl Audubon Road,
Merit Heating and Cooling, Inc. with the following conditions:
1. A time table be established as to how the applicant proposes the property to
be developed and how they see their facilities changing.
2. To improve the driveway to widened it to probably a minim~n of 12 feet using
asphalt for the driveway, loading dock area and underneath the dumpster.
3. Provide any additional landscaping requirements and proper screening of the
trash enclosure and proposed dock area.
4. Submit a plat within one year of how the property is going to be developed
from this point.
5. There will be no outside storage.
6. The applicant will hook up to city sewer and water when it becomes
available.
7. Canply with the conditions of the Building and Fire Inspector.
8. The applicant shall submit for approval by the City Engineer a grading,
drainage and erosion control plan prepared by a registered engineer prior to
final approval.
9. After review by the City Staff, any variances required will be reviewed by
the Board of Adjustments and Appeals and advertised as such.
Mayor Hamilton, Councilman Geving and Councilman Johnson voted in favor of the
motion. Councilman Horn and Councilman Boyt voted in opposition to the motion.
The motion carried with a vote of 3 to 2.
56
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS
Councilman Boyt: I'd like to see the City begin taking a very serious look at,
and I apologize, I don't have the name for it but this brown weed that has
attacked Lake Minnetonka.
Councilman Horn: Purple loosestrife.
Councilman Boyt: No. As bad as purple loosestrife is, you haven't seen
anything as bad as this weed.
Jim Chaffee: Eurasian watermilfoil.
Councilman Boyt: I drive between Wayzata Bay and my mind blanks suddenly but an
area that is heavily infested with this. Over the last two weeks I've watched
them trying to dredge it out of there and we need to identify some action where
we can clean boats before they go into our lakes with some sort of something
that will kill it because we can not afford to deal with that weed. They
cleaned for two weeks and you can hardly tell it. It grows in anything that's
14 feet and shallower. If it gets into Lotus Lake, we can close it down because
it grows right up to the surface and it's solid and it kills all the
photoplankton that feed the minnows, that feed the fish.
Mayor Hamilton: And it reproduces extremely fast.
Councilman Geving: It can migrate on the bottom of a boat.
Councilman Boyt: In a motor on the bottom of a boat so we need to get on top of
this in a hurry.
Councilman Horn: Does DNR have any advice on how to control it?
Jim Chaffee: Just what I've read in the newspapers that posting signs at the
city lake access asking that boater to check their boats and motors...
Councilman Boyt: You have to wash them off.
Councilman Geving: How about awareness? Can't you get somethin from the DNR
that would describe what this looks like and what to look for?
Councilman Boyt: We're talking small cells. I think what we're talking here is
that we take out boat attendant at Lotus Lake and we put somebody on Lake
Minnewashta and they do it. If we leave this up to the individual volunteering
to clean their boat before they put it in, we're sunk.
Mayor Hamilton: It's not just the boating, it's the trailer too.
Councilman Boyt: The boat, the trailer, the motor. We've got to spray all that
stuff.
Mayor Hamilton: If there's some spray you can use. Perhaps you can look into
that Todd to see what you can find out about that stuff so we can have it on our
next agenda or sooner if possible. Clark wanted to talk about the referendum.
57
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
Councilman Horn: Yes. I would like to make another attempt to propose that we
have a referendum item on our form of government. Again, let the voters of the
city decide on wlnat type of structure they'd like. Whether they like the
current situation of all at large members or whether we should have a ward
system. Each of us has an opinion on that is relevant. I think what's relevant
is what the voters want and what the City wants. I think the bigger we get, the
more necessary it is to hear what they have to say and give them that option.
Councilman Johnson: I'd like to get some professional input. I'd like us to
authorize money to hire a professor or whoever that does this kind of work to do
an analysis of our city and forms of goverr~nent and make a recommendation as to
the pros and cons of this. I feel that if we do this we probably have to redo
all of our voting districts and stuff and it is feasiable. I'm very split
either way. I think it'd be a good idea to have both at large and district
representation. I don't think the entire Council should be district representa-
tion. I think that we need a balance of at large like the City of Minnetonka.
Of course they have like 9 people or s~ething on their Council. I don't know
how many it is but some of them are district and some are general. I'm not sure
if we're ready to expand the size of the Council above 5. Whether we make it
two districts, two at large and a mayor. There are so many possible variables
in there that I think we need to study it first versus just go to the voters and
say ~nat do you want because they're uneducated also.
CounciLman Horn: I think we should get a group together to look at this issue.
I suspect we probably have...
Councilman Geving: I certainly support what Clark is recommending. I think
that I've changed quite a bit in my thinking on this process. I realize what's
happening to our City, I think we've grown tremendously in the last, since the
last general election. I can't tell you how many new subdivisions have been
created. How many new people have come into Chanhassen. To me it's a matter of
representation. Sitting here as a councilperson, I don't think I can represent
the entire City any longer. Four years ago I think I knew a lot of the people
who resided in Chanhassen. A good share of them in fact. Knew them personally
and I can't say that anymore. I can't say that that's going to be even better
in the future because as we expand and continue to grow, our ability to get out
and meet people and represent their interests is becoming less and less and I
would like to see this study. I do. I think we need to have some information
on how we might be better organized...I'd like to see this thing as a referendum
item where the people could make a choice. I support your proposal.
~yor Hamilton: Todd, another project for you. The monkey just jumped over
there. Perhaps you could check with some of the schools. Perhaps there might
be a poli-sci student who could do a project study like that for us to gain some
credit or something.
Councilman Boyt: It probably never hurts to study but look at how long our
Council meetings are now and we have four council people and a mayor. I'm a
little shocked Dale to hear you say that you don't think you can represent the
entire City when you're running for Mayor.
Councilman Geving: I'm talking as a councilman. That's what I referenced.
58
City Council ~v~=etJ. ng - July 25, 1988
Councilman Boyt: I don't think it's any different. You're still one person.
Certainly we want balance and one way we get balance is because we allow the
whole community to vote on each one of us so we're a small enough community to
have a lot of accountability for the people and we're accountable to everybody
in this city. As soon as we break up into four zones, then we're each
accountable to the people in that zone primarily and then we get into all sorts
of opportunities for political gerrymandering about where the zone lines are.
We don't need more politics in city government. We need more representation of
everybody in this city. I think that having us be accountable to everyone in
the City is by far in way the best system and some day we will be too bit to do
this. Eden Prairie has 38,000 people. We've got 9,000. We're a long way from
being at the point where we need to take a political football and put it out
there so it can be kicked around.
Mayor Hamilton: This raises it's head every couple years or every 6 months when
Clark feels like bringing it up but I think perhaps a short study or
recommendation from someone who knows might help to set it aside.
Roger Knutson: Just a brief comment. Maybe you dicussed for decades before I
came on board. Do you know basically how this is accomplished? It's through a
Charter Commission. The Charter Commission members are initially appointed by
the District Court and they go together for a Charter and it goes on the ballot.
Are you familiar with that process?
Councilman Johnson: No.
Roger Knutson: Ultimately, whether you like the Charter that's put together by
the Charter Con~nission or not is irrelevant.
Councilman Geving: Who makes up the Charter Commission itself?
Roger Knutson: The District Court appoints the Charter Con~nission.
Councilman Geving: But do they set the wards? The precincts and wards?
Roger Knutson: The Charter Commission puts together a proposal and that would
go to the voters whatever they put together.
Councilman Johnson: But our study, if we do a study, that's not a Charter
Commission? It's a study to say whether we want to form a charter commission.
If the study comes out and says we're too small, that we're best represented as
we are, I'm like Bill, I believe that I can represent the people. I have
friends in all sections of this community and they call me routinely and I
discuss the issues with everybody throughout the cc~munity and I personally feel
it best the way it is for our size but I think we need this study. I'd like to
know where that breakoff point is. If that breakoff point is 20,000 that it's
generally recommended, then when we hit 20,000 we might do it. I'm sure there
are probably towns of 500 people who are districts.
Mayor Hamilton: I think the point's made and Todd can look into it.
59
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
LIGHT RAIL TRANSIT, CITY PLANNER'
Mayor Hamilton: Do Councilmembers have any questions of Barb or A1 about the
study that you received?
Councilman Johnson: I think what A1 originally requested from us 2 weeks ago
was do we want representation on the Citizen Advisory Board or whatever it was
going to be called?
Barbara Dacy: No, it was to get our feelings about ~nether or not they should
purchase the right-of-way.
Councilman Johnson: But there was something else in there about forming an
advisory board and whether Chanhassen wanted to be represented on it.
A1Klingelhutz: Cur main concern at the present time is what interest
Chanhassen and Chaska have in the County reserving that right-of-way for
possibly some time in the future if we got light rail transit. It looks like,
according to Hennepin County planners, it will be 2~-25 years down the track, if
I can use that expression. What is happening rather rapidly right now, the
Chicago-Northwestern track looks like it will abandoned sometime before the end
of this year. The County Board felt that we should come to the communities who
have the most interest, probably would have the most interest in having a light
rail transit into Carver County and to see if the County Commissioners should,
with the...that we have it set up, acquire that track for possible use in the
future. There are other uses that it can be used for but if we designate it as
a light rail track, I don't think you'll have a problem they had with the one at
the present time. Right now that's more or less considered by the residents as
a trailway system for other purposes than light rail.
Councilman Boyt: I think we should do it.
Councilman Geving: Are the Con~nissioners going to make this decision?
A1 Klingelhutz: The Conmissioners will be making this decision and we just
wanted to get the reaction from the communities most affected by it at the
present time.
Councilman Geving: I think the community is very much interested and if there's
any representation to be made on a committee or board to assist you, I think
there's plenty of interest here at this table to make that representation known.
A1 Klingelhutz: The reason the light rail transit commission was set up was the
fact that we weren't sure we were going to get the backing. As soon as we're
sure we're going to get the backing, we plan on setting up a regular light rail
committee to do a lot of studies...
CounciLman Johnson: I think you heard Bill, Dale, I agree also we should go
for it if you're trying to get the whole Council's opinion. I think we should
have been part of the light rail transit commission that you set up as
yourselves from the word go.
A1 Klingelhutz: Actually, we did the same thing that Hennepin County did...then
they set up an advisory con~nittee.
6~
City Council Meeting - July 25, 1988
Jim Chaffee: Can we talk briefly about the goose hunt that I talked to you
about earlier?
Councilman Geving: I thought we agreed that we would go along with your
recommendation?
Jim Chaffee: Okay.
Mayor Hamilton: It's past time anyway.
Councilman Boyt: I would be actually in favor of controlled hunting north of TH
5 myself. I konw that's opposite of Jim's recon~nendation.
Mayor Hamilton: I'm in favor of it also. A controlled hunt north of TH 5.
The same as last year.
Councilman Johnson: It worked last year.
Mayor Hamilton: I see no reason why those property owners north of TH 5 who
have adequate acreage shouldn't be allowed to hunt on their land.
Councilman Geving: Have you got any applications?
Jim Chaffee: No. The real problem is the time thing here because if you are in
favor of allowing hunting north of TH 5, it's going to take an amendment to the
ordinance to do that. It's going to take some time to get it passed...
Councilman Johnson: Did we change the ordinance from last year?
Councilman Boyt: We certainly have to have the opportunity to control the
population of animals. Don't we have that? Then we better amend the ordinance.
Jim Chaffee: Yes, so that's what it's going to take.
Mayor Hamilton: Start the process.
Jim Chaffee: We can forget about September 1st. There's one coming up the end
of December and then next year also we'll be looking at it.
Mayor Hamilton: Let's start the process so it can be taken care of.
Councilman Geving moved, Councilman Horn seconded to adjourn the meeting. Ail
voted in favor and the motion carried. The meeting was adjourned at 11:00 p.m..
Suhnitted by Don Ashworth
City Manager
Prepared by Nann Opheim
61