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CC 2009 01 12 CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING JANUARY 12, 2009 Mayor Furlong called the meeting to order at 7:05 p.m. The meeting was opened with the Pledge to the Flag. COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT: Mayor Furlong, Councilman Litsey, Councilwoman Ernst, Councilwoman Tjornhom, and Councilman McDonald STAFF PRESENT: Todd Gerhardt, Roger Knutson, Laurie Hokkanen, Kate Aanenson, Paul Oehme, Todd Hoffman, Greg Sticha, and Terry Jeffery Mayor Furlong: Thank you and welcome to all those that braved the weather to join us here in the council chambers this evening. For all those watching at home, I’m glad that you joined us. At this time, our first item are the oaths of office for Councilwoman Bethany Tjornhom and Councilman Jerry McDonald. OATHS OF OFFICE: City Attorney Roger Knutson administered the Oaths of Office to Jerry McDonald and Bethany Tjornhom. Mayor Furlong: Congratulations Bethany and Jerry from all of us on the council as well as our residents and voters. Congratulations on being elected. Any thoughts or comments? Councilwoman Tjornhom: I just want to say thank you and what a great event this is again and I’m so privileged and honored to serve another 4 years in our great city of Chanhassen so thank you to everybody for this, for a chance for 4 more years. Thank you. Councilman McDonald: I guess I’d just like to echo the same thing. I really appreciate the support that the city of Chanhassen showed in voting for me and I will do my best to uphold that honor as I feel to help the city and do the best I can for you and reflect your views as best I can. Thank you again. Mayor Furlong: Very good, thank you. Let’s move on then with our meeting agenda. At this time I would ask if there are any changes or modifications to the agenda. If not, we will proceed without objection with the agenda as published. ORGANIZATIONAL ITEMS: DESIGNATION OF OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER. Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council members. We really have one choice when designating the official newspaper. That’s the Chanhassen Villager. They have to have a presence in the community and the Chanhassen Villager is the only newspaper that presently operates out of Chanhassen. So staff is recommending the Chanhassen Villager. City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any questions for staff? On this. If not, is there a motion? Councilman Litsey: I’ll make a motion that the Chanhassen Villager newspaper be designated as the official newspaper for the City of Chanhassen. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there a second? Councilwoman Ernst: Second. Mayor Furlong: Made and seconded. Any discussion on the motion? Councilman Litsey moved, Councilwoman Ernst seconded to designate the Chanhassen Villager as the City’s official newspaper. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. APPOINTMENT OF ACTING MAYOR. Mayor Furlong: Next step is designation of one of our members as Acting Mayor. This is a member of the council who’ll run council meetings, stand in ceremonies and execute the official documents in the absence of the mayor. Councilwoman Tjornhom has been in that position here. Councilwoman Tjornhom I know that you have stepped in a few times and helped me out, which I do appreciate so, any thoughts at all or comments on how it’s gone? Councilwoman Tjornhom: Well yeah, I just want to thank the council for the confidence they entrusted in me last time, allowing me to do that. It was a great opportunity. I can report back to everybody that we have a very hard working, dedicated mayor which everyone in the city loves. I think there were, I was fortunate to attend two events and they both were learning experiences and also showed me that, which I already knew, that we have a great, great town. I was entrusted to go the District 112 Teacher of the Year awards, and I tell you it was such a privilege just to see those teachers and to hear their stories and the difference they made in people’s lives. It just was very humbling and it kind of encouraged me to try to go out and do the same thing. Then I had a real fun event, and I think the mayor invited me to attend that because it was raining that morning. It was the Dave Huffman Race, so I was with my umbrella at the finish line watching every, all these dedicated athletes run to the finish line and that too was very encouraging and inspiring, and so it’s just been a great experience for me. I’ve enjoyed it. And so I once again would ask for council’s support in playing that role again in the future. Mayor Furlong: Great. Any other thoughts or comments? Councilman Litsey: Ready to make a motion? Councilman McDonald: Yeah, if you don’t mind I’d like to go ahead and nominate Councilwoman Tjornhom. She did such a good job and everything and you know maybe now what we can do is get her into another rain storm so she can at least use her umbrella. Councilwoman Tjornhom: It’s snowing tonight, I’m sure there’s someplace I should go. 2 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 Mayor Furlong: Very good. Is there a second? Councilman Litsey: I’ll second that. Mayor Furlong: Made and seconded. Any discussion? Councilman McDonald moved, Councilman Litsey seconded to appoint Councilwoman Bethany Tjornhom as Acting Mayor. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. CONSENT AGENDA: Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilman Litsey seconded to approve the following consent agenda items pursuant to the City Manager’s recommendations: a. Approval of Minutes: -City Council Work Session Minutes dated December 8, 2008 -City Council Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated December 8, 2008 Receive Commission Minutes: -Planning Commission Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated December 2, 2008 -Park and Recreation Commission Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated November 25, 2008 -Park and Recreation Commission Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated December 9, 2008 b. Approve Conversion of Lake Ann Ballfield #3 to a Designated Little League Baseball Field. c. Approval of Park and Recreation Service Award Program. Resolution #2009-01: d. 2009 Street Improvement Projects: Accept Feasibility Study; Call Public Hearing. e. Approval of Temporary On-Sale Liquor License, Chanhassen Rotary Club, February Festival, February 7, 2009. Resolution #2009-02: h. TH 101 Gap Project 04-06: Approve MnDot Landscaping Partnership Authorization Resolution. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: None. 3 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 PUBLIC HEARING: REQUEST FOR AN OFF-SALE INTOXICATING LIQUOR LICENSE, KLEINPRINTZ LIQUORS, LLC dba MGM LIQUOR WAREHOUSE, 7856 MARKET BOULEVARD. Laurie Hokkanen: Their request is for a liquor license from Kleinprintz Liquors for the MGM Liquors. The owners and applicants involved in the current application for Kleinprintz Liquors are one of the current license holders and then the other owner of the company. This is kind of a clerical change on their end that was recommended by their attorneys when they closed on the property. We did background checks on both of the applicants. There are no outstanding issues and also checked with the other operations that they have in neighboring communities and there are no outstanding issues with those. So staff does recommend approval of the liquor license. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Have you received all the information back for required documentation? Laurie Hokkanen: Yes we have. Mayor Furlong: Okay, so it’s not a contingent recommendation at this time? Laurie Hokkanen: Correct. Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Any questions for staff on this item? Okay, this is a public hearing so I’ll go ahead and open the public hearing and invite all interested parties to come forward stating their name and address for the record please. No one this evening? If not then without objection I’ll close the public hearing and bring it back to City Council for any comments or a motion. If there are no comments, would somebody like to move approval? Councilwoman Tjornhom: I’ll make the motion. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Councilwoman Tjornhom: I make the motion the City Council approves the request for the Kleinprintz Liquors LLC for an off-sale intoxicating liquor license for MGM Liquor Warehouse at 7856 Market Boulevard. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there a second? Councilman Litsey: Second. Mayor Furlong: Made and seconded. Any discussion on that motion? Hearing none, oh I’m sorry. Is there, no discussion? Okay. Councilwoman Tjornhom moved, Councilman Litsey seconded that the City Council approves the request of Kleinprintz Liquors LLC for an off-sale intoxicating liquor license for MGM Liquor Warehouse at 7856 Market Boulevard. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. 4 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 ARBORETUM SHOPPING CENTER, 7755 CENTURY BOULEVARD, KLMS GROUP, LLC: REQUEST FOR A MINOR PLANNED UNIT DEVELOPMENT (PUD) AMENDMENT TO ALLOW A DRIVE-THRU AND SITE PLAN REVIEW; LOT 2, BLOCK 1, ARBORETUM SHOPPING CENTER. Public Present: Name Address Mark Leutem 4645 Vinewood Lane North, Plymouth Lynne Etling 7681 Century Boulevard Kate Aanenson: Thank you Mayor, members of the City Council. As was indicated there’s a couple applications before you tonight. One is for a PUD amendment to allow a drive thru and then a PUD amendment for the site plan and then including adoption of Findings of Fact. This nd originally went to the Planning Commission back on October 22. At that time the Planning Commission did concur with the staff against the recommendation for a drive thru. This item th appeared last before you on November 10 to review the actions that were made at the Planning Commission and I think we had a pretty lengthy discussion regarding the application of the drive thru and it was directed, you directed the staff to, we worked to try to resolve those issues so I’m happy to report that we’ve made some fairly good strides on that itself. First I’d like to again put this in context of where the site is located. It’s located off of Century Boulevard, which is just to the east of Highway 41 and just north of Highway 5. A shopping center. Again when this application originally came in a number of years ago, fast food was proposed for this site. At that time it was considered a coffee shop and was not proposed. But since then the applicant has worked to find a different type of use to fit in that. So this is the approved shopping center that was built. There’s actually a couple of buildings on there. One is a gas station which this subject site is. Lot 2, Block 1 includes the gas station so the business that we’re talking about with the drive thru is incorporated into that building itself, and as you recall in your November meeting there was some discussion as to what type of use could go in there. What would be the maximum square footage. How would we quantify that? The City does have standards for different types of drive thru, parking requirements which would differentiate between a dry cleaning drive thru, a pharmacy drive thru and a fast food drive thru as far as stacking, so those are some of the design standards we looked at with this application. So the other building is a strip center to the north, and that’s this building right here. And then you have the Edina Realty and the other restaurants that are in there. One of the things that I wanted to point out that we looked at with this application itself is, the internal parking here, there is shared parking among the uses. If you look at the internal parking between the buildings and the orientation, when we looked at this application where the driveway is, and I’ll speak to that in a minute, we felt it was important that the access surely should be on the north side of the building in relation to how the center is being served. To get into the gas station you’re actually kind of coming at an angle itself. So again we did provide new Findings of Fact but I wanted to go back and just kind of re- visit some of the things that we talked about, and that’s that the building itself is 5,500 square feet and of that there’s the 1,500 for the restaurant. Again some of the concern was how that would fit in there. So with the 3 applications for the PUD, the drive thru, we are recommending 5 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 approval and if you look in the staff report, some of the things that we talked about was, with this we did go to the other operation and observe how it operated and looked at the stacking. It does comply with what we have already in our city code for stacking length. The concern that we had as a staff working with engineering is the original design and the blocking of the traffic. If you look at the first proposal that came in there wasn’t this green space and you crossed in front of the walkway and so the applicant did provide a revised drawing where you have more controlled access and one way so we don’t have that cross parking issue, and so we have one way going to parking and then one way through the drive thru. But we wanted to go one step further, again going back to what I mentioned on the orientation of that building. Access to the other strip center is really on that south side and it seems to make some sense to have access to this on the north side. Then it’s all encumbered in that same area. So what we were recommending is that the access to get into the front door, which is right here, be relocated on this north side, so this is the staff’s proposal, and we have met with the applicant, and that’s what the staff is recommending for that change. Again we have PUD standards in here regarding the parking stalls. It does meet all the underlying standards as far as the number of parking spaces. Again it meets what we believe is the engineering standards as far as access and control. And I just wanted to go and show you one other thing and that would be the revised interior, so this would be the new front door on the north. This area up in here and that could, would meet code as far as building code. We have reviewed that with the building official and then this door could be eliminated, and again that provides a better access. So one of the conditions we did provide again was the discussion that we would limit to the 1,500 square feet of this use itself so it didn’t creep into the gas station portion and become some use that we hadn’t intended. It wouldn’t meet the standards as far as parking and that sort of thing. So with that staff is recommending approval of the, the motions are laid out for you. Again for the drive thru. And again this would apply for this site only. For this business. For the square footage. And there’s a amended site plan as the staff is showing with the driveway, or the front door moved to the north, and then also the adoption of the Findings of Fact and I’d be happy to answer any questions that you have. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any questions for staff at this time? Mr. McDonald. Councilman McDonald: Yeah, I have one question. If you go back to the way the new layout is with the door to the north side and you’re talking about eliminating the door on the west side. Kate Aanenson: It could be eliminated. Councilman McDonald: Okay, because what I was going to ask was don’t you need two egresses for fire code? Kate Aanenson: No, there’s already, there’s just one right now. Well, it would work. There’s adequate. They could make that a non, it doesn’t have to be as large of a door. It could be an emergency access only coming out, yes. Councilman McDonald: Okay. Okay. Kate Aanenson: It wouldn’t have to be the primary. Right now it clearly looks like the primary entrance. 6 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 Councilman McDonald: Okay, and they have agreed then to go with the plan for the north entrance and to relocate the patio. Kate Aanenson: It has been presented to them. Councilman McDonald: Okay. Kate Aanenson: I’m not sure we got final concurrence on that. Councilman McDonald: Okay. I just wanted to make sure what it was because there’s about 3 drawings and I’m looking at an Exhibit A and it seemed like okay, that seemed to be in line with what you were talking about and I was under the impression maybe that they’ve agreed with you but okay, thanks. Councilman Litsey: In terms of making that change structurally, that’s a pretty easy, I mean is there some cost associated? Kate Aanenson: There is some cost associated with it but structurally it does work. It’s not. Councilman Litsey: It’s doable? Kate Aanenson: It’s doable, yes. We did have the building official look at it based on the plans. Councilwoman Tjornhom: I have a question. Mayor Furlong: Councilwoman Tjornhom. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Can you go over with me again the walking path. If I’m going to park my car on the west side. Kate Aanenson: Yeah. If you look at this picture here. So if you’re over here. So what we’re doing is taking these parking spaces out and these, so the additional parking is now located down here. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Right. But where’s the walking path to the door? Do you still have to. Kate Aanenson: This sidewalk is still here. Councilwoman Tjornhom: But you still have to walk across or through the oncoming traffic? Kate Aanenson: No. No. You wouldn’t have to be tied up into that oncoming traffic. Again some of the parking may be in this area too. Not all of it has to be here but you can cross over. Come up this and come into this sidewalk here. 7 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 Mayor Furlong: But you would have to, if you park on the western most parking spots there. Kate Aanenson: Correct. Mayor Furlong: The area that’s to the left of the one…as we’re looking at the screen, you’re going to have to cross the drive thru traffic. Kate Aanenson: Correct. At some location, correct. As opposed to between the menu board and the cars that are waiting at the window. Maybe folks seen looking at the building as opposed to where they would be looking to where the car traffic would be coming, if that makes any sense. Mayor Furlong: And with the door on the north side, would there still be sidewalks around? Kate Aanenson: Yes. This sidewalk would remain. This is the sidewalk that’s in place right now. This sidewalk right here. It’s hard to see with that gray. That one’s currently there right now and that would continue to have access. Mayor Furlong: And then is the applicant’s proposal on this picture here, is that the existing configuration? Or is that. Kate Aanenson: That’s new. The patio would be new. Mayor Furlong: The patio is new either way? Kate Aanenson: Yep. And then that would be, provided this sidewalk coming down. Mayor Furlong: Okay. So the patio, the orange on both of those is new under either proposal? Kate Aanenson: Yes. Mayor Furlong: It’s new. It’s not existing. Kate Aanenson: Yes. Yes. Yes. Mayor Furlong: Councilwoman Tjornhom, other questions? Councilwoman Tjornhom: Yeah, it still seems precarious to me looking at where the handicap parking stall is. Kate Aanenson: Yes. Councilwoman Tjornhom: That you, if you’re handicap you’re still going to have to go against the flow of traffic. I mean what is your safe path to get to the door? 8 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 Kate Aanenson: Well in looking at this drawing, this is where the handicap spot could be. That can easily be moved and I think that would be a recommendation that we put that where it has better access to where the front door lands, or on this end up. Where that front door is. Mayor Furlong: North west. Up near the patio? Kate Aanenson: Correct. I mean the handicap stall could be moved to the north and that could be re-striped. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Okay, and. Kate Aanenson: Or even it could be on the north side. The law just states it has to be so many per parking spaces. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Yeah, it just looks like kind of an awkward spot especially like a day like today when you’re trying to, if they were trying to like say you’re in a wheelchair and trying to get out. Kate Aanenson: I would concur and I believe that was put in place because that was the current door location so wherever that primary entrance is, I would agree with you that we should make that a condition that it be relocated to where that would fit best. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Okay. Councilman Litsey: When you’re parked on the south side, the newly created parking spots, what would be the pedestrian route for there? Would it be on the other side of the building? Kate Aanenson: Yeah, you can actually go around. I’m sorry, I keep flipping back but you can, so if you’re down here, you can go up this way and around too. Councilman Litsey: That would probably be presumably the way you would want to go or? Kate Aanenson: Um yes. Again there isn’t a lot of parking in that northern parking lot of the building. Over in this area here, correct. Councilman Litsey: So that means if they’re parking there business is good? Kate Aanenson: Well it’s a shared parking and they all do that now. If you go over to what, the two other restaurants over there now, there’s shared parking and those peak hours of restaurant but again with the drive thru, that’s going to be a large portion of their lunch time traffic, and we did go and observe that at their other location in Eden Prairie to see how that was functioning too. Councilman Litsey: Okay, thanks. 9 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 Mayor Furlong: Other questions? Ms. Aanenson, as long as you have those pictures up there with that south parking. By turning this into one way, is that going to be a natural flow for the car wash as well then? I mean cars pretty much line up back towards that… Kate Aanenson: Yep, and I believe that’s what engineering felt was the strong recommendation too looking at that layout, that that seemed to make the most sense for stacking. Mayor Furlong: For the overall development. The stacking requirements that are on page 5 of the staff report. The layout. The number of vehicles, stacking vehicles for type of use. Is this, did you say this is currently in our ordinance? Kate Aanenson: We recently adopted this with some of those code changes. Mayor Furlong: Right. Kate Aanenson: Yeah. Mayor Furlong: That’s why I thought it looked familiar. Okay. And item (h) there, the limitation on the square foot. Kate Aanenson: Correct. Mayor Furlong: Is that specific this PUD? Kate Aanenson: Yeah, what it says is for, what it should really probably read a little more clearly as recommended by the city attorney, like a drive thru restaurant. It does not say fast food but a drive thru restaurant would not exceed that. Again, that’s. Mayor Furlong: So a drive, a restaurant basically would… Kate Aanenson: That’s what it should say and that’s what the city attorney had recommended, just kind of changing that tweak on that and, because the concern was that, that the revenue wasn’t so great on the gas station side, you could kind of creep that into it and if it becomes bigger than what we intended, because the parking’s based on that square footage. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Okay, and does this, this portion of the building meets this requirement? Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. Mayor Furlong: But this is, (h) is PUD specific. The others are consistent with our existing ordinance. Kate Aanenson: Yes. It is the underlying zoning district for neighborhood business district does meet that and then, the stacking which would be the additional level, would also comply. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright. Thank you. Any other questions for staff at this point? 10 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 Councilman Litsey: One last thing with the one way traffic direction. Does that help flow the th traffic back to 78 Street better do you think? Or, I know that was one of the concerns where that’s going to go. Kate Aanenson: I would think so that you maybe would circle back around. We talked about the U turn and it was pointed out that that sign that was originally recommended is still not in place but I think I would agree with you Commissioner Litsey that that, Councilman Litsey, that that may come, you know force that to come back out this way as opposed to cutting through and trying to make that U turn, which is one of the, that bigger circulation which kind of goes back to the gas station or the car wash that they would make that movement, and that would be a goal. To try to get some of that turn movement. Councilman Litsey: Okay. Because I know that was one of the concerns. Yeah, I noticed that no U turn sign’s still not up on Century Boulevard. Kate Aanenson: Yes. Yeah. Councilman Litsey: That’s still the goal to get that? Kate Aanenson: Yes. The City Engineer is aware of that. Councilman Litsey: Okay. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any other questions for staff at this time? Is the applicant here this evening? Good evening. Would you like to address the council on any items? Mark Leutem: Yes I would. My apologies for being late. I was sliding through the broken glass and twisted metal coming down here. I live in Plymouth. It took me an hour and a half to get here. Anyway, and not hearing all the discussion. Mayor Furlong: Excuse me sir, if you could state your name and address. Mark Leutem: Oh I’m sorry. Mark Leutem and I live at 4645 Vinewood Lane North in Plymouth. Not hearing all the discussion earlier like I said, I just walked in the door here but I did look through, certainly I’m very happy about the aspects of the drive thru. We had, you know this is the direction I know we needed to go with it. Really not much issue there. There are probably finer things I would maybe bicker about but I don’t think they’re worth addressing. Last week Sharmeen brought me in and talked about moving the entrance to the building over to the north side. You know we discussed it. She gave some explanation as to why. Long story short of what happened is we initially proposed about a $23,000 change to the building. With what we have there, demo’ing out that sidewalk. Pushing it over. I mean essentially we’re gutting out the whole front. All the concrete work across the front of the building right now and re-doing essentially. This thing is really getting spendy. Now if I had a 7 or 8 or 10,000 square foot space that I could rent that I was changing, that wouldn’t be an issue. It’s 1,500 square feet. This little change right here, the change, moving the north entrance right there, I haven’t had a 11 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 chance to bid all those parts out because like I said, I can’t remember if I met with her Wednesday or Thursday, but I do enough of this stuff to know on the outside of just moving the doors, those things you know, we’ve got tens of thousands there. Now what do you do to the interior? On the interior you have fixtures of plumbing, drains, water, stuff like that that are laid in there where the kitchen is laid out. It’s laid out in a lateral format. It’s not laid out in an end format. I don’t disagree with staff’s recommendation saying hey, having the door over here would be good facing the other businesses. Conceptually I don’t disagree with that. I’m saying from a practical sense, we’re raising the bar pretty high but that one change right there will mean that all the rent I collect for the next 2 years will go just to that change. And that doesn’t include building the drive out or anything else. So if the city says this is the way it needs to be. If you want to do it Mark, I’ll have to accept it. Go back and do the math and see if we can make it work. If we’d really like to have an entrance over there, have the patio sitting area, which I’ve been in favor of. That’s originally went onto the drawing at my wife, well my wife drew it and then handed it to Westwood and they modified it but if we want to have another entrance over there, a secondary entrance, that’d be fine. But if you stand outside the building and you look at the window where the door would go, you have about 4 feet and the men’s restroom is right here. The door for the men’s restroom is right there, and so either you have an unappealing entrance into the building or you demo out the restroom. Cost about $12,000 to build one of those single stall restrooms somewhere else in there, and then that’s displacing something else so you don’t, you know we hadn’t really had a chance to analyze it, what the impact is but interior operationally it’s just going to get very spendy. Very, very spendy and again 1,500 square feet, I will not make that up, not even close. It’s just a matter of how much my you know, a lot of people that aren’t in commercial real estate say well it’s better to have something in than nothing, and that’s not necessarily true because when you put an expense out there, and again it’s a venture. I’m sure what we put in there will be successful, but you’re still at risk and there’s still a lot of money going into it. Like I said I’m probably tipping I don’t know, I’m right now guessing $60,000-$80,000. Just in this piece. Mayor Furlong: To relocate the entrance? Mark Leutem: No. Mayor Furlong: Oh okay. Mark Leutem: No, no. Mayor Furlong: The whole project. Mark Leutem: Yeah. You know the entrance, but see but the entrance like I said it’s kind of like well once you move this piece, okay now what do you have to move after that? Because again when you have 1,500, it’s very intricate. You know there’s not a lot, there’s no sloppy space in there and we’re being limited to 1,550 so I’m not up here arguing. I’m not saying this that. I’m just saying that moving the main entrance, if we were to say if we could keep the main entrance there, and they want additional, a side entrance say coming in from the other ones. Build the patio out there and the deck, that would make sense but saying well we have to redo everything over there, you know maybe you walk out. I know we’re going to build a patio but when you 12 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 walk outside, that’s fine but having to re-tool the whole, you know interior of the store. Well not the whole but at least half of it. Anytime you start moving plumbing you know. Moving ceilings around and light fixtures, I mean that’s not too bad but anytime you have to go into the floor and start moving plumbing around, it gets very, very expensive. Mayor Furlong: So if I understand you correctly with, I don’t know if it’s a request or just to make us aware. Adding a second entrance up there, a side entrance that would move out to where the patio is. Can you put up the schematic for the patio layouts that would fit for like the staff’s proposed patio orientation would be. An entrance right there with that sidewalk going all the way up. Mark Leutem: Yeah we have, I mean we want the patio area you know. I mean that’s mainly it’s appeal. I don’t know if I want to push it that close to my electrical box and the mechanical door and the gas station but maybe it comes over a bit. But if you’re saying look, you know we want to have access out this side, just if I can leave things alone, I can just pull out the fixture. Cut out 4 feet of concrete and drop in an aluminum door, okay that’s not disruptive in the grand scheme of the operation within the facility. Changing that as the main entrance, yes. Because someone going out a side door is not going to have a problem walking past a restroom. Someone’s coming in for a first time you know and it’s the main entrance like okay, that doesn’t fit. Also my concern somewhat too is that the entrance where it is right now is kind of central in the parking. The parking’s kind of all around it and if we move the entrance up to the north there, then now the parking is all this way around it whereas if it stays there it’s a little bit more central. The other part too from our standpoint is visual from County Road 5 you know and that’s, you know that’s a big deal from the standpoint of being visual to draw people off the street you know. Mayor Furlong: Can I ask the motivation for moving the entrance is for… Kate Aanenson: Well two fold. One, some of the, yeah the orientation. The two businesses face each other in that little corridor. I think you may have some people, problematic or not that would choose not to go between two cars. When you have peak hours of high traffic of going through the drive thru, that would choose not to walk between cars. You don’t normally see that. So when there’s a time that there’s not that, they would choose a different entrance, whether they walk through. We had our building official look at it. I understand your aesthetic issue. I don’t understand the plumbing issue but that you could get through this door and make that a reasonable, besides just a single pane. Maybe a little bit wider so I guess we would say that that makes sense to have that secondary door so you’re not forcing people that may not choose to walk, especially if you’ve got someone with kids that’s not going to probably choose to walk between parked cars, or cars that are, right. Mark Leutem: Sure, giving people some options and choices. Kate Aanenson: Correct. Mayor Furlong: So Ms. Aanenson if I heard you to have that north entrance as a secondary entrance, is that something that would. 13 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 Kate Aanenson: Yes. Yep. Mayor Furlong: Staff would support. Kate Aanenson: Yes. Mayor Furlong: So to continue to use the existing entrance and maybe. Kate Aanenson: That’d be fine. Mayor Furlong: But to have that secondary entrance as well. Mark Leutem: Right, and as far as the sidewalk work that you had in the other one there, if we could leave the existing sidewalk maybe and then just add the patio into that or you know incorporate it so. Kate Aanenson: Like this, and then still have one coming down here. Mark Leutem: Yeah. Kate Aanenson: That’s fine. Mark Leutem: Yeah, that’s a couple thousand dollars worth of sidewalk right there. Mayor Furlong: But I guess your point Ms. Aanenson was, if you go with the applicant’s proposal for the patio sidewalk, but also make a sidewalk connection from the patio to the side door, to the north door? Mark Leutem: Oh certainly. Yeah. Mayor Furlong: Would be a natural flow. Mark Leutem: Yeah. You know building the patio you build a few extra feet. I mean that’s. Kate Aanenson: It’s interesting, we had the discussion with Jimmy John's and I don’t want to digress too much but they have the front entrance facing the interior of Market Square. That’s the main entrance, but we strongly encourage them because people walking down Market Boulevard, the business community in here, can choose to go in that way instead of walking all the way around. This is the same example I would say here. You know that one doesn’t have a drive thru but people may not choose to walk, all the way walk around the building. Mark Leutem: Right, and as I told Sharmeen too, I conceptually I completely agree. Kate Aanenson: Okay. 14 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 Mark Leutem: That makes sense, but as we’re sitting right now, when I talked to my potential tenant about what does that do? It’s like can you make that work? Can you turn your store the other way? And again his question was, I don’t know. You know I know what I’m going to have in expense just moving the door there. I mean I haven’t worked it out to a detail because I just got this only a few days ago. Kate Aanenson: Well you weren’t planning on moving the restrooms anyways so I’m not sure what. Mark Leutem: Not necessarily, no. Kate Aanenson: Right. So if the door fits there, I’m not sure what the issue was. Mark Leutem: Well if you stand there and look at it, if you look through the window and say will you cut down through the rest of the brick and put the door in right there, literally that outer edge of the door will swing, will line up on that side of that wall so it’s just, it looks kind of tight. It doesn’t look open and inviting and whereas when if you walk in the front there, and if you want people to walk in the door like this and walk up to their counter. Kate Aanenson: Yeah, that’s how Jimmy John's is too. You’re coming towards the restrooms on that back side too. Mayor Furlong: But what I’m hearing is the north entrance is perfectly fine as a secondary side. Mark Leutem: If we can have it as a secondary entrance. Mayor Furlong: And it meets the goal of providing that entrance so that somebody parking on that north parking spaces don’t have to walk around, which is your goal. I think is there, and if there’s some way, through signs or something to leave a walkway in the drive thru area so people parking on the west side can walk across and not have to walk you know between two feet of bumper but if there’s a. Mark Leutem: Well the other part too, if you look at the drive thru too. The order box is going to be right before the sidewalk so everybody coming through there is going to stop. Mayor Furlong: Right. Mark Leutem: You know so there’d be, and then yeah we have some green that we have to put in there but I think obviously put in there so people can certainly see if someone’s walking up. We can’t put arborvitaes right up to the edge there and a car’s blinded by someone coming through. But you know that way we’d essentially you know, and once you get the additional signage, things like that, you know stop for pedestrians and stuff. Mayor Furlong: And I guess that’s my thought and I’m guessing Ms. Aanenson that was part of the staff’s concern was that pedestrians crossing the drive thru. 15 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. Mayor Furlong: As well, but to your point sir, since the order boards are north of that, there’s an action stopping there. Mark Leutem: Right, yeah. And you know the current entryway, now again you stand on that west side, I mean we have that big arch in the front. I mean that looks like the obvious entrance to the place and my concern is well if you left that, and people are going to compelled to go up there and find out it’s just glass. You know where’s the door and I think there’s, but if yeah, if we can say look. Let’s just open up an access in there that goes out to the patio anyway, that kind of actually makes sense to me because it’d be easier for someone to walk on the inside right out to the patio area instead of have to go outside and walk around to it. Mayor Furlong: Well and I think you can evaluate the cost too of the patio and the original proposal certainly has more sidewalk and cement associated with it than when staff’s, where you have that secondary access there. That may be something you want to look at from a cost standpoint as well, but was there another reason that staff wanted that patio moved to the east? Kate Aanenson: I think it’s just more enjoyable not to be sitting next to an idling car. To kind of move it towards the center of the building. And maybe somebody else that runs into the gas station side to get something there can also sit and use that so it’s just, you’re not right next to the cars. But certainly you can mitigate that with some landscaping and things too. Mark Leutem: Correct. Mayor Furlong: Alright. Mark Leutem: Yeah, I got a lot of trees in there don’t I. I haven’t assessed that one at all. I’d better start planting seeds now. Councilman Litsey: I think one of the other benefits of having that green island there too, along the drive thru, is that the pedestrians do have a spot to stop. They’re not in the roadway. They’re not yet crossing and they have kind of a spot there that they can, so I think that helps some. Going in that main entrance. Mayor Furlong: Talking a little bit landscaping. Can you talk a little bit about what you’re requesting there. Kate Aanenson: I’m not sure we put a lot of detail in there. Mayor Furlong: Page 9 of 11, and well that’s part of my question. We just say add landscaping within the proposed island. I’m not sure. Kate Aanenson: Yeah, I think we showed an attempt to put something in there but that’s something we would them. Typically we see low shrubs. You don’t want something high because the operations on both side can see. The cars and cars can see the, where the window is 16 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 and that sort of thing but certainly just something besides just rocks. And again that helps with carbon monoxide and some of the noise mitigation too. Mayor Furlong: Okay, and then there was discussion before in the landscaping south of the property along Highway 5. And there was some talk originally, the last time we saw this about berms and such. Are we, we’re not doing anything that’s going to block the building are we? Kate Aanenson: No. No, because this, let me go back. Sorry. This is Lot 2, Block 1. So that’s a separate legal identity. On the other parcel. You’re talking about this piece to the north? Mayor Furlong: Nope. I’m talking about the. Kate Aanenson: Oh, along Highway 5. Mayor Furlong: Exactly. Right where your mouse is now. Kate Aanenson: No, actually we addressed that previous with the previous application. Mayor you may remember when we did the. Mayor Furlong: The sign. Kate Aanenson: Electronic sign, yes. There was landscaping. Actually the signs are up recently but that was addressed with that. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Kate Aanenson: Some landscaping, right. Mayor Furlong: But the key here is there will be good visibility of this building and the businesses that are from Highway 5. Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. Mayor Furlong: Are you comfortable with the landscaping requirements sir? Mark Leutem: Yeah. Well it’s a, you know it’s a picture from the top here. You know I guess we’ll have to develop it further to see what it’s going to look like from the user’s perspective but you know he drew a lot of these arborvitaes along here just to kind of, you know tight in there and I think you know we have to kind of visit. There’s a lot of, we’ve got some spruce and things along there right now and maybe to kind of stay consistent with the direction that the berm’s been developed initially you know. Kate Aanenson: Yeah, and also because we just put the sign up but we can revisit that too just to make sure we’re not putting them too tight in there. Mayor Furlong: Too tight or too vertical so… 17 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 Kate Aanenson: Right. Well we know when we put them too close together, when we put them too close together they can kill each other too so we’ll revisit that one just to see what the spacing is. Mayor Furlong: Alright. Any other questions for staff at this point or for the applicant? I should say as well. No? Okay. Thank you. Mark Leutem: Alright, not to. Mayor Furlong: Did you have other comments please? Mark Leutem: Well just one other one. Not to bias your vote or anything but it is my birthday today so. Mayor Furlong: Happy birthday. Do you want to make some comments, we’ll certainly open up to public comments at this time. Lynne Etling: Yeah, thank you. Good evening Mayor and council members. My name is Lynne Etling. I live at 7681 Century Boulevard in Chanhassen and tonight I’m not knocking down the board at least. But obviously I have concerns about this project. I have from the beginning. I still think that they’re trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. You know they made a lot of changes and you know hopefully they’re for the good. However I do have a few other concerns that I’d like to ask. In regards to the speakers for the call box. You know please forgive me, I’m not sure how all this works but you know who on the Chanhassen staff would be responsible for the monitoring and the enforcement of those speakers to make sure they aren’t audible from the property line? You know so that we cannot hear them when we’re sitting outside on our patios. Mayor Furlong: I’ll defer to staff on that. Kate Aanenson: Planning staff would. Mayor Furlong: Planning? Kate Aanenson: Yes. Lynne Etling: The planning would? Okay. How would they monitor that? Kate Aanenson: Typically what we monitor noise by, it’s a dosimeter. It has to be frequency and duration of noise so that’s typically how we measure noise. And so. Lynne Etling: Alright, because you know obviously that’s going to be a concern to a lot of people that are living there. Kate Aanenson: Yeah. We do have the experience with fast food in, adjacent to other neighborhoods. For example McDonald’s is very close to that neighborhood and they have a 18 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 dual driveway so we do have pretty good experience of how to manage those and can work with the owners of that operation. Lynne Etling: Okay. Alright. And for the landscaping, you know there really isn’t a lot of specifics on it. I know you’re waiting for the final landscaping to come in but you know the same thing. Who actually makes sure on the city staff that you know that the finished landscaping is adequate and you know who would go through and like would there be a landscaping bond or a letter of credit to guarantee if something should, you know what’s there remains there and if it dies, if it’s going to be replaced and? You know obviously I just want to make sure that there’s adequate you know. Kate Aanenson: Would you like me to respond to that? Mayor Furlong: Please. Kate Aanenson: Before a permit could be issued, a building permit, all the final drawings would have to be submitted and they’d be reviewed by the appropriate departments. Engineering would review it to make sure it meets the designs as they’ve shown. Planning would review it. The City Forester would review it. If there is landscaping required, we typically have them post a bond for landscaping. So all of that would be done prior to the issuance of building permit. Lynne Etling: And I’m sure your city code would say how tall and how wide. Kate Aanenson: Yep, there’s specifications for all that. That’s correct. Lynne Etling: Yeah. And then also if something dies, that it would be replaced, right? Kate Aanenson: Yep, there’s a warranty on that, that’s correct. Lynne Etling: Okay. And then you said that you’re going to have the no U turn sign put in? Kate Aanenson: Yes. I did speak to the City Engineer about that so. Lynne Etling: Okay. Because there is no U turn sign. Actually the sign, the one way sign is actually down right now. Somebody hit it. Due to our lovely snow but you know obviously the traffic flow is a concern for me because of the way that they’re going to have people cutting through the drive thru lane so you know I just think it’s kind of a safety hazard but that’s all I really wanted. Just try to make it a win/win for everyone in the area. Mayor Furlong: Well thank you. Appreciate your thoughts. Lynne Etling: Do you have any questions of me? Mayor Furlong: Not at this time? Lynne Etling: Okay. Thank you. 19 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 Councilwoman Tjornhom: You know just real quickly. Before you showed us. Where is your residence in conjunction? Lynne Etling: Mine is. Kate Aanenson: I think it’s off the screen. Lynne Etling: Not the first unit but the second, yeah. On the right. Kate Aanenson: It’s just off the screen, yeah. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Okay. Lynne Etling: Yeah, just off the screen. And actually the, a few of my neighbors wanted to be here tonight. One of them is in China. The other two I think that they’re just hung up with the snow but there are several people in the neighborhood that are concerned about this and the traffic flow that it would bring because this is bringing in, it’s not, you know I don’t understand when you’re saying that you can make this specific just to this development because when you amend a PUD, PUD agreement, isn’t that for the whole city of Chanhassen and would open the way for a drive thru’s for everyone? Mayor Furlong: No, that’s a fairly. Kate Aanenson: We did have a, yeah we did have a discussion regarding that. How a PUD, while the underlying zoning district doesn’t allow it, a PUD can be amended to specific. Site specific for this one so it would only apply at this location. For the drive thru in a neighborhood business. Lynne Etling: Is that, and that is something enforceable? Kate Aanenson: Yes. Yes. Yeah, we have other PUD’s that you know it may be a shorter list of uses that would be acceptable in that district but maybe not in a similar location. Yes. Lynne Etling: Even though this will kind of give them the competitive advantage to other areas? Kate Aanenson: Well for example as we mentioned, McDonald’s is in a neighborhood business district. At that time it was permitted for drive thru’s and that’s a pretty high traffic area right adjacent to a neighborhood district. As a matter of fact that Park Nicollet’s in a neighborhood business district and the neighbors wanted a variance to go two stories and that’s a unique PUD that we put together there too so each circumstance is unique. And the council weighs those circumstances to decide whether or not it merits it so they have that legislative authority to amend that and make it specific to this one. To this use. This location. Lynne Etling: Right. I’m just concerned that it would you know people like Subway or the ones that are previously along the corridor would come back and want that. 20 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 Kate Aanenson: Yeah, Subway had come in before. They’re in the middle of a strip center. It did not have the same circulation and it just didn’t work. Lynne Etling: Yeah. Kate Aanenson: So again you have to look at the design and really engineering has a lot to do with that, if you can make the circulation work and those are some of the factors that they did address. Lynne Etling: Right, and please forgive me. I’m trying to, I’ve read through all the documents from 2003 and trying to educate myself on this and the process and just really want to make sure that it’s a win/win for everyone. Councilman Litsey: Absolutely. Lynne Etling: And obviously I live pretty close. Councilman Litsey: But are the concerns you brought up similar to what your neighbors would have brought up too, so we’re kind of getting all the concerns through you at least? Lynne Etling: Yeah. And others that are not relevant like we don’t need another sub shop when we’ve already got two. Councilman Litsey: Okay. Lynne Etling: Things like that. Councilman Litsey: So you kind of filtered those. Lynne Etling: Right. But they’re mostly concerned about the traffic and the U turn and things like that, and walking into the building. That we don’t lose the entrance. Councilman Litsey: Well thanks for bringing it up as a spokesperson. Lynne Etling: Okay. Thank you. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to provide public comment on this? Any follow up questions that the council of staff or the applicant? No? Okay. Why don’t we just bring it to council then for discussion and try to move this forward. Thoughts or comments. Councilman Litsey, want to start? Councilman Litsey: Well I think to be sensitive to the concerns that were raised, that we follow through with those and make sure we monitor. I know that noise can be an issue when you have an outdoor speaker, and you know depending on conditions at the time, sound can travel differently. So that we’re diligent with that. I think the compromise kind of worked out here 21 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 tonight in terms of entrances makes sense. I think that will help and so conceptually it’s an okay project to move ahead with. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Other thoughts, Councilwoman Ernst. Councilwoman Ernst: Well these are the types of projects I like coming before council because everyone is coming together and expressing their concerns and finding solutions to those concerns with staff. For example adding the side door. The landscaping issue. The noise issue. The traffic flow issue and it sounds like we found some things to address each one of those. Staff working with the residents as well as the owner and so I think that’s great and I think it’s going to be a great project. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Other thoughts, comments, Councilwoman Tjornhom. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Yeah. I think one of the things that sold me on this, even when we just reviewed it last time was, what Mayor Furlong said that we are also members of the EDA and it’s part of that I think responsibility to assure that our businesses do well here. Or we try to help them do what we can for them, especially this economic climate and so I’m all in favor of doing whatever I can do for this development and the owners of it to ensure success. So we do have businesses and places for people to go in town, you know that’s what it’s going to take to get this economy going and keep it going so thank you for Milo’s and everyone else for investing in Chanhassen and I hope, I wish you the best of luck. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Councilman McDonald. Councilman McDonald: Geez. Well, yeah this is economic development and I’m glad to see that maybe we’ve got a use for this particular area that will work, but you know I still have a couple concerns and I’m glad you at least worked with staff and worked through them. You know my biggest thing is people crossing in front of the drive thru. I’ve been sitting here trying to think of restaurants where that happens and if they’re successful or not and I can think of the Wendy’s up at 7-Hi and no one uses that entrance of anything so I just you know would pass along, I hope you would consider something else there to keep some space between cars and people because I just don’t have a lot of confidence as far as cars and people crossing. I’m okay with that being the main entrance. There is no other way and again in order for it to be a successful business and everything I think we have to go with that so I’m glad you compromised on the north entrance and so because of that, yeah I’d be willing to look at that as just a secondary entrance but my, you know my concern for the crossing just doesn’t go away. I would want you to do something there also because I would hate to see someone you know get hurt or anything but beyond that I think that I appreciate you looking to try to find a way to make this work so hopefully together we can you know get something that will be good for the city. Thank you. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. I would agree with a variety of comments mentioned here tonight. From an economic development standpoint. I think that’s one of the motivating factors that we heard last time that we didn’t hear as much this evening. Is the need to try to improve the opportunity for businesses to be successful at this location. And while that may bring additional 22 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 traffic, which we understand is a concern to the neighbors, and I also appreciate that being part of the discussion and I think the design here is to try to work with some of them by creating one ways where currently there are two ways and through the site and as we said, will probably move some of the traffic further east and the further east it goes, the more likely it’s going to come th around on West 78 rather than back out onto Century and with the U turns. So bottom line I think we’ve made some good progress here and I’d like to thank the applicant and the property, as far as the business owners as well as staff for working together to do that to come up with compromises. I think we, my sense here is we are going to go forward this evening. We should probably modify some of those. Kate I think under number 4. Kate Aanenson: Yeah. I just… Mayor Furlong: Are you working on that? Kate Aanenson: Yeah. Mayor Furlong: Relocate. Kate Aanenson: Yeah, are you under the PUD? Just yeah, the applicant shall relocate the patio and an entrance into space as shown on Exhibit A. Mayor Furlong: That’s cool. Kate Aanenson: Just take out main. Mayor Furlong: Add a secondary entrance? Kate Aanenson: Or, yeah. Mayor Furlong: It’s not a relocation of an entrance. Kate Aanenson: I just left, just scratch the word. Mayor Furlong: The addition of an entrance, is that correct? Kate Aanenson: Correct. That’s why I just took off the word main and just say add and gain additional entrance or something. Mayor Furlong: We saw the relocate word there proceeding. Kate Aanenson: Oh, I’m sorry. You’re right. Take relocate. Mayor Furlong: So locate the patio and secondary entrance as being shown. I guess the question is, there was still some discussion about the location of the patio. I understand staff’s thoughts about moving that further east. I also hear the applicant saying I don’t want, you know you’re avoiding cars but then I’m going over… 23 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 Kate Aanenson: We’re flexible on that. The goal is to get an outdoor space. I think our goal is to make it desirable… Mayor Furlong: Which I think would certainly be a good, absolutely. Kate Aanenson: …I think we can work it out internally. Mayor Furlong: And that’s what I would suggest there. Is that the staff and applicant work out the location. Make sure there’s access to that patio from the secondary entrance. The north entrance. But adding in that north entrance, it sounds like that can be done as well so. Yeah, we don’t need to keep talking about it. I think it’s a good project. I think it’s a good enhancement to an existing project and I think we should move forward on it with those modifications. Kate Aanenson: Mayor if I may, just one more on the Findings of Fact. We talked about it briefly and I think the city attorney had just changed, made one little tweak and if we could just in the Findings of Fact. Mayor Furlong: What page are you on? Also in the PUD amendment. Kate Aanenson: Yeah, it was actually in the PUD amendment and just to put in there, instead of saying fast food, I think it’d be probably better just to put restaurant. Mayor Furlong: Just strike the words fast food in (h)? Kate Aanenson: And put restaurant. Would that be as part of your recommendation? Yeah. Mayor Furlong: Is that clear to everybody? Kate Aanenson: With the drive thru window, yeah. Mayor Furlong: Okay. That would be on the PUD amendment? Kate Aanenson: Correct. That would be number, that’d be (h). Mayor Furlong: And was there a change on the Findings of Fact? Kate Aanenson: Yes. That would be on (h). It was on page 5 of 11. Mayor Furlong: And also further down under the amendment. On page 10. Kate Aanenson: Correct. Correct. Mayor Furlong: Okay. So the modifications would be to strike the words fast food under (h) under the PUD Amendment. And also to modify 4 under the conditions for the site plan 24 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 amendment. What are you proposing to say there? The applicant will locate the patio and secondary entrance as shown? Kate Aanenson: Correct. Mayor Furlong: Or near the space shown. They may want to modify it from staff’s proposal. Kate Aanenson: Correct. And again just to reference that we are speaking specifically to Lot 2, Block 1 so on that too. Mayor Furlong: Is that identified in the site plan amendment? Kate Aanenson: I’m not sure it is but I think we should probably put that in there too. Mayor Furlong: Where would you like that? Kate Aanenson: Just to be clear that’s for the drive thru facility. That’s for Lot 2, Block 1. Mayor Furlong: That’s in the PUD amendment. It does say allow drive thru on Lot 2, Block 1. Kate Aanenson: Okay, then we should be covered. Mayor Furlong: Is that sufficient or do you need it for site plan as well? Kate Aanenson: I think that’s, yeah. Mayor Furlong: Okay, so we covered that. Kate Aanenson: Okay. Mayor Furlong: So are we comfortable on the amendment, condition 4 for the site plan? How that’s going to be worded? Is the council comfortable with the intention of the wording there? Councilman McDonald: Yes. Councilman Litsey: Sounds good. Mayor Furlong: Okay, to locate a secondary entrance on that, and patio on the north side. Kate Aanenson: Yes. That’s correct. Mayor Furlong: And the location agreeable with the staff and applicant together. Kate Aanenson: Yes. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Mr. Knutson, you’re okay with those? 25 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 Roger Knutson: I’m fine with them. Mayor Furlong: Very good. Anything else? If not, would somebody like to propose a motion? Councilman McDonald: I’ll propose the motion but the question I have is from what I’ve heard the motion itself really doesn’t change, am I correct? Because everything we’re talking about is really within the findings conditions 1 through 3 on page 10. Mayor Furlong: To meet. Kate Aanenson: As modified in the staff. Mayor Furlong: The modified conditions. The conditions will be modified based on these discussions I believe, is that correct? Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. Councilman McDonald: Okay. I’ll see if I can get it then. Okay I’ll make the proposed motion that the City Council approves the Planned Unit Development amendment for the Arboretum Village (PUD 99-02), Planning Case #08-22, amending the design standards Section b. Permitted Uses, to allow a drive thru on Lot 2, Block 1 of the Arboretum Shopping Center with standards as shown on page 9 and 10 and approved as amendments to the Arboretum Shopping Center site plan permit 03-06, subject to the amended conditions 1 through 3 on page 10. Mayor Furlong: It’d be 1 through 4. Councilman McDonald: 1 through 4 on page 10 still. Mayor Furlong: And I believe it’s page 11 now. Councilman McDonald: Page 11. Mayor Furlong: Is that sufficient Ms. Aanenson? Kate Aanenson: Yep. Mayor Furlong: Alright, thank you. Is there a second? Councilwoman Tjornhom: Second. Mayor Furlong: Made and seconded. Any discussion? Councilman McDonald moved, Councilwoman Tjornhom seconded that the City Council approve the Planned Unit Development amendment for Arboretum Village (PUD 99-02), 26 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 Planning Case #08-22, amending the design standards Section b. Permitted Uses, to allow a drive-thru on Lot 2, Block 1, Arboretum Shopping Center, with the following standards: Drive-thru facilities for any use shall comply with the following standards: (a) They shall not be located adjacent to any residential lot lines. (b) They shall be provided with a suitable visual screen from adjacent properties. (c) Stacking shall be provided within applicable parking lot setbacks. (d) Stacking shall meet the following standards: (1) Fast Food Restaurant: six cars per aisle. (2) Banks: three cars per aisle. (3) Pharmacy: two cars per aisle. (4) All other uses: two cars per aisle. (e) The City may require a vehicle stacking study to determine whether more or less stacking shall be required for a particular use. (f) Stacking areas shall not interfere with vehicular circulation in the parking lot nor encroach into any required drive aisles. (g) Speaker or intercom system shall not be audible at the property line. (h) A Restaurant with a drive-thru may not exceed 1,550 square feet in area.” All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. Councilman McDonald moved, Councilwoman Tjornhom seconded that the City Council approvethe site plan amendment for Arboretum Shopping Center (Site Plan 03-06), Planning Case #08-22, to allow a drive-thru window and redesign parking layout and site circulation as shown in plans dated received December 15, 2008, with the following conditions and based on adoption of the attached Findings of Fact: 1.Approval of the site plan is contingent upon approval of the PUD amendment allowing a drive-thru window. 2.The western three angled parking stalls must be striped and signed as compact stalls. 3.Any existing bufferyard plantings that are removed for the development must be replaced within the same area. A landscape plan must be submitted to the city for approval showing locations and species. The applicant may group plantings together in order to add interest to the landscaping if the design does not diminish the screening capacity. 4.The applicant shall work with staff to locate the patio and secondary entrance into the space as shown in Exhibit A. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. Mayor Furlong: That motion prevails 5-0. Very good thank you. Appreciate everybody’s input and thank you for participating. 27 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 Councilwoman Tjornhom: And Happy Birthday. Mayor Furlong: Enjoy your ride back. Hopefully it’s shorter. APPEAL VARIANCE, AMBROSEN/SENN, 3830 MAPLE SHORES DRIVE, LOT 7, BLOCK 1, MAPLE RIDGE, APPLICANT: SAWHORSE DESIGNERS AND BUILDERS, OWNERS: MARK AMBROSEN AND ANN SENN: REQUEST FOR A HARD SURFACE COVERAGE VARIANCE. Kate Aanenson: Thank you Mayor, members of the City Council. This item appeared before the nd Planning Commission on December 2 and at that time they recommended 6-0 to deny the variance. This site is located on Lake Minnewashta, off Minnewashta Parkway. Maple Shores Drive and specifically it’s a cul-de-sac with a lot. There was some confusion about this being a flag lot. It’s not a flag lot. As we interpret a flag lot, a flag lot or neck lot has 30 feet of width. This is an unusual shaped lot but it does meet the requirements of a regular lot. What we measure the lot width where it meets the 100 foot depth, so it does meet that requirement so technically this came up at the Planning Commission. There’s some other information in the staff report that was brought up by the Planning Commission. I’m not going to go through all that tonight unless there’s specific questions on it. Just some background I think that the planning, the applicant had raised that we addressed and just to kind of reiterate so I’m not going to spend a lot of time on that. Just kind of focus on the issues itself. Again the Planning Commission did recommend denial so the application, or the request before you tonight follows through on that same motion. So the request is for a 3.7% increase in the hard surface coverage. This request was derived by the fact that the applicant had come in to do an addition to the house. The lot itself was slightly over. They wanted to proceed with the application prior to the frost so the staff did find a way to work through the process of allowing them to proceed, but requiring an escrow for that application itself. So this is the existing home on the site. The applicants wanted to take one of the garage stalls, the 3 stall garage. Turn it to a laundry area and add an additional garage stall so that would increase the impervious, so as it sits today, this is how the lot looks and this is the proposed addition, so you can see the existing garage in this space, so we’re over off the 28.7% so kicking out this additional garage space. So with that the applicant, again trying to work with the applicant, we did request that, if they did want to proceed that they would provide security to remove the hard surface coverage, which they demonstrated they could do, and allow them to proceed with that security in place with their requirement that they did proceed for the variance, so they have done that. So in looking at that application itself, you can see in this area here where they could remove the hard surface coverage to meet the requirement. At the Planning Commission there was a lot of discussion on lake erosion and that sort of thing but I think what we really want to kind of keep the discussion on the portion of the application here is where we could remove the hard surface coverage to meet the requirement. It is a lakeshore lot so there is enough square footage to get them under the, as you can see here, the percentage down to the 25% which includes some of the removal of the fire pit area. The extra turn around. I’ll show you some pictures that you do have in your packet. I think they show up a little bit clearer. There was an issue regarding the potential flag lot, how to back down. Again the staff’s opinion, when they went out looking and our staff, Angie Auseth who wrote the staff report and visited the site, felt it was pretty flat and relatively easy to back out and felt that that probably wasn’t part of the hardship, and obviously the 28 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 Planning Commission in their recommendation concurred with that, but that was some of the concern that being a flag lot it would be hard to back out, but in our opinion again that front part of the lot does appear to be relatively flat and that shouldn’t be part of the problem. So with that the, we believe that they can meet the requirement by reducing some of that hard coverage, which we had recommended. They did have to submit a detailed survey for us in order to determine, for them to proceed ahead of time. They would have needed it with the application, but with the building permit to figure out where, how much they were over, so that was a requirement as a part of this too, and as-built survey in order for us to figure out exactly how much hard cover they have. So again the staff’s opinion was that there was reasonable use of the property. We had put in the report that these are larger lots. At that time the lakeshore rules did require 20,000 so this is a 28,000 square foot lot so it is a little bit bigger and the homes obviously down in that area are larger too and they do have a 3 car garage, so these are some of the factors that the Planning Commission also looked at in their determination of the recommended, supporting the staff’s variance. Again the hardship was that they didn’t want to have to remove the hard cover that was already there. So with that, that was the staff report. The Planning Commission concurred with that and I’d be happy to answer any questions that you may have. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any questions for staff? Councilman McDonald: The question I guess I would have in looking at this, you said that you all had gone out there and kind of assessed the driveway. Is there room if someone is in the garage to back out and maneuver so that you can drive down instead of back out? Is there enough turning space? Kate Aanenson: Well there’s a 20 foot space here. Along the driveway that you could back out. Even on this one too, you could back into that. This is the additional driveway. Councilman McDonald: Okay. Okay, so really at that point you would still, you wouldn’t have to back down the driveway then? Kate Aanenson: I don’t believe so but even if you wanted to. Councilman McDonald: It’s flat enough and open enough that it doesn’t create a. Kate Aanenson: Correct. Councilman McDonald: And it’s also from. Kate Aanenson: The visibility appeared very clear. You’re at the end of a cul-de-sac. It didn’t seem to be a big conflict. Councilman McDonald: And it was also flat. Kate Aanenson: Right, because that’s what most people would do would be back out their driveway. Yeah. It’s relatively flat. 29 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 Councilman McDonald: Okay. That was the biggest question I had because that was the biggest area and I was just wondering how much space was actually there. Okay, thank you. Mayor Furlong: Councilwoman Ernst. Councilwoman Ernst: Kate, some of the things that you noted in here was the re-establishment of vegetation cover would slow the movement of surface water. Kate Aanenson: Well I think we got into a big discussion on the back yard. We got into some side issues I think of whether it’s a flag lot. The erosion in the back yard, but again certainly re- establishing the back yard would be great, but I’m not sure that’s the main thing that we’re looking at here tonight. If we want to have a discussion on that, I think those are some of the points that I brought up that were brought up at the Planning Commission. We kind of touched all bases on that issue. Councilwoman Ernst: Well the reason I’m asking that question is because I’m wondering, depending of course on how much vegetation would be replaced, is would it compensate for a majority of the additional percentages being asked for? Kate Aanenson: Well, some vegetation was taken down during the construction of some of the structures in the back yard. Terry Jeffery: If I may Mr. Mayor. Councilwoman Ernst. Mayor Furlong: Yes Mr. Jeffery. Terry Jeffery: No, I do not believe that it would count in saying for the additional hard covers that would be put onto this site. First of all, I mean it’s a DNR shoreland regulated area so they don’t have, within the SNR rules. There isn’t something that says if you go over by this and you do this to mitigate, then it’s okay. It’s just a flat rate. So exclusive of our city code for the 25% impervious, there’s the DNR rules because this is a shoreland area. So even if we didn’t have the 25% hard cover within the rest of the city, you’d still apply it here. But like Kate had said, it did. It became some side discussions. What about this? What about that? We put in this patio for these reasons when really the issue is, can they build their stated goal and meet the 25% hard cover and they’ve demonstrated that they can. Councilwoman Ernst: Well I know that we have made slight concessions in the past, depending on what the owner was willing to do and I’m curious as to what the DNR regulation is. So when you were talking about the DNR regulations, what is that for this kind of property that we’re talking about? Terry Jeffery: Anything within 1,000 feet of a DNR regulated water body cannot have more than 25% impervious cover. Councilwoman Ernst: Okay. So that’s outside of our city code? 30 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 Terry Jeffery: Correct. Our, we put together our own shoreland ordinance and submitted it to the Director of the Department of Natural Resources for their approval so that we then could regulate the lakes within our city instead of having to rely upon an outside entity. So our rules need to be consistent with the Department of Natural Resources rules. Councilwoman Ernst: But I mean even if we were to do that, it sounds like it would be against what DNR regulations are. Terry Jeffery: Correct. The Department of Ag, or the Department of Natural Resources would need also to sign off on it. Typically they will defer to the city but it would need to be submitted to the Department of Natural Resources for their approval of any variance that would be requested, or granted. Kate Aanenson: Mayor if I may, I just want to clarify. We have had smaller beachlots in Carver Beach and some cabins that were on Minnewashta that have gone over. I don’t want to say we’ve never gone over the hard, and I think Councilwoman Ernst is correct. We’ve tried to apply mitigation. But we look at the hardship rule. Some of those old cabins didn’t have a garage and we as Minnesotans, in weather like this, have deemed not having a garage is a hardship. So then we would find a way to mitigate that providing additional landscape. In this circumstance the Planning Commission felt having, already having a 2 car garage. Converting that and adding on didn’t meet their belief of that hardship rule. If that clarifies where, kind of where, because we have done that before. Provide that mitigation but it was that hardship test that they were struggling with. Councilwoman Ernst: Thank you. Mayor Furlong: Other questions? Ms. Aanenson, a couple questions. First of all, can we, let’s start with this picture right here that you have of the 8 shaded red areas, or red shaded areas. Are those the proposed removal of impervious surface on the site? Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. Mayor Furlong: And who put this together? Kate Aanenson: The applicant did because we wanted to see if they could meet the test before we issued the building permit. That’s why we asked for that design, because when we saw the building permit come in, it appeared to be over so we asked them for the as-built so we could determine what. Then we had to make the next decision. They really wanted to go forward and now we’re trying to be you know as accommodating as we could so we looked at could they find a way to do it. If they had to and didn’t get a variance. Mayor Furlong: And the answer was they came back with this showing that they could. Kate Aanenson: Yes. And just to be clear, I don’t think we would have felt comfortable letting them proceed, because we don’t have that authority to allow them to go without an opportunity 31 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 to meet that requirement so we wanted to say, does that seem a reasonable way to meet the requirement and let them proceed with the building permit in violation of the code, so we had security in place. So that was the reason we went that way. They provided that information to say this could work. Otherwise we wouldn’t have granted them that opportunity because normally we would say you can’t proceed until you work through this process. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright. And then if you could scroll back up a couple. You showed the existing square footage. Kate Aanenson: Oh sure. Of the original house? Mayor Furlong: Well that’s the proposed addition. That one right there. The existing site coverage. That already exceeds the 25%? Kate Aanenson: Yeah. Mayor Furlong: Did that happen with some patios and such…? Kate Aanenson: I would guess. Probably a patio or fire pit or something like that. That’s correct. Mayor Furlong: Okay. And generally permits now a permit is required but over the years. Kate Aanenson: They’re not always achieved, right. Mayor Furlong: They haven’t been, okay. Alright. And if you scroll down then to the proposed additions, the proposal in front of us is to allow the additional 850 square feet without removal of even the existing, or the pre-existing violation. But that the proposal is to allow what they were before plus the addition of everything, is that what they’re asking for? Kate Aanenson: Correct. Yeah. Well to get to the 25%, so we didn’t give them the .7, is that what you’re asking? Mayor Furlong: No, I just want to clarify that the 28.7 that’s being requested includes what the, how the property was existing before any of the additions plus all the additions. Kate Aanenson: Yeah, I think that’s correct. Yeah, the next slide I show them together. I think that there’s a comparison there. That’s probably a better comparison, yeah. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Now at the bottom there, percentage with reductions. So that actually within a few square feet. But what staff is recommending with the Planning Commission also recommended is that they be required to, with the additions, still remove enough so that they meet the 25 foot, 25% requirement. Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. 32 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 Mayor Furlong: So they can have, increase the additions but they have to take something out. Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Thank you. Okay, anything else at this time? Okay, is the applicant here this evening? Representative, that will work just fine. Please approach the council and state your name and address for the record sir. Fred Bruning: Yeah, my name is Fred Bruning. I’m with Sawhorse Designers and Builders, nd 4740 42 Avenue North in Robbinsdale. Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Please. Fred Bruning: Good evening Mayor and council members and city manager and attorney. I assume you all have read the report and think you guys seem to know some of the issues, so I’m not going to repeat the narratives and things I did before. What I’d like to do is comment on some of the items in the staff report. Also if I could now ask some questions for clarification. Mayor Furlong: That’s fine. Fred Bruning: What I did is I made some copies of some notes and comments that I have. Mayor Furlong: Please. Maybe if you have copies for the staff as well. Fred Bruning: Well I have 6 copies. I counted 5 council members and the mayor. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Well maybe we can share up here but I want to make sure that staff has copies too. Councilwoman Tjornhom: You go ahead and take a copy and Jerry and I will share. Assuming you’ll share with me Jerry. Mayor Furlong: Please continue. Fred Bruning: Yeah, and I’ll show you how this all works as we go through it but I’ve highlighted some things I’d like to comment about. First highlighted one with the one off to the left there. Based on the guidelines of the city code for the RSF district, the property owner does have a reasonable use of the property which includes a single family home and a 3 car garage. I’ve gone around a little bit on this as far as like a definition. I mean what is reasonable use? When I’ve asked staff before if it’s an R-1 zoned house and a 2 car garage, it’s reasonable use. It seems like that term could be substituted for reasonable use and be much more clear what is reasonable use. Mayor Furlong: Ms. Aanenson, Mr. Knutson? Kate Aanenson: Well I think, you know are you talking about for a single family lot? 33 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 Fred Bruning: Yeah. Kate Aanenson: A single family lot, depending on the type of home, you could have a rambler on that that meets our minimum which is probably less than 1,000 square feet with a 2 car garage. There’s no requirement in the city that you’re obligated for a 3 car garage. Fred Bruning: No, so my, and just for clarification then. You know the definition is an R-1 zoned house with 2 car garage. I mean that’s reasonable. That’s the only recognized reasonable use. Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. Fred Bruning: Okay. It’d be helpful I mean if you guys wanted to adjust things, put that language in there and it, you know it eliminates a lot of ambiguity. There is a reference I’d like to make, if you look to page 10. There are numbers at the bottom. Section 20-58 in the city code, the highlighted portion. For purposes of definition of undue hardship, reasonable use includes the use made by the majority of comparable property within 500 feet. The comparable property within 500 feet of this property exceeds, a majority exceed hard cover. I mean if you look at aerial photos it’s obvious. You know it seems that reasonable use is supposed to include uses made by the majority of people within 500 feet. Kate Aanenson: Can I clarify that? That was, most of these points were brought up at the Planning Commission I believe were addressed but there is a house that they pointed out that’s over the impervious and we’re following up on that one. We have some other ones, if we’re made aware of them and they’ve done work without a permit, we’re following up on those. I don’t believe a majority of them are over the 30%. Again, 25%. Yeah, again most of those lots on the end of that cul-de-sac are larger too, so. Mayor Furlong: But for clarification, the 25% requirement, obviously the allowable impervious coverage varies by the lot size because the 25% is of the lot size. Kate Aanenson: That’s correct, so you really have to do a survey. Mayor Furlong: A larger lot would have larger impervious surface coverage allowed. Kate Aanenson: Correct. And this lot is 28,000 so it’s already given quite a bit more hard cover. Fred Bruning: Yeah, I mean part of our issue at the City Council meeting was, we were asked to document that. I mean I don’t have any right to get a survey of someone else’s property. And if I were to survey 32 properties, I mean $32,000. So it’s hard. You can go on the Carver County web site you can look at it and we did math. At work we tried to be very fair but we came up with 20 out of the 32. The technique that was used to determine that this lot was over hard cover and required the calculations was the city staff doing an aerial photo examination of the property. 34 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 Kate Aanenson: Mayor may I just want to clarify that. Survey, as-built survey was submitted and that’s what we used. The survey that was submitted. Fred Bruning: Requiring as-built survey, the determination to require that was actually made, Rick Mylar our staff architect isn’t here but we met with the city ahead of time to go through the whole process to make sure that there weren’t any bumps in the road. We as a company try to do that so everything’s smooth sailing for our clients. Kate Aanenson: Again let me clarify for the council. The staff acted in good faith to allow the applicant to proceed knowing fair well they were exceeding the hard cover. We rarely do that but we acted in good faith to let them proceed based on the survey they submitted to us showing a hard cover. So we wouldn’t have issued you the building permit had you not submitted that. It wasn’t an after thought. It was permission for you to proceed. Fred Bruning: That was part of the building permit to require the survey. The calculation for hard cover actually weren’t initially asked for. We don’t mind providing that. I mean don’t get me wrong. We don’t mind providing them. The clients agreed to the terms and everything to grant the permit. I mean we’re acting in good faith too. I’m just trying to understand you know the process and how things work here. I mean, so that’s my only question on this item. Kate Aanenson: Can I just clarify again? There’s a disconnect here because how would we know they were over and allow them to proceed with security in place unless there was an as- built survey? Mayor Furlong: I guess the question, your question sir is about normal process so let me ask some questions for clarification. Kate Aanenson: Sure. Mayor Furlong: The normal process, assuming weather’s not a factor. A property owner will come in seeking a building permit. Perhaps with a representative and will, one of the steps prior to issuing that permit is hard surface coverage considered in any of those? Kate Aanenson: Yes. Every time. Mayor Furlong: How many? Kate Aanenson: Every one. Mayor Furlong: Every time. Kate Aanenson: Every time. Mayor Furlong: Okay. And to the extent that the additions or the existing property, the properties existing built out or the additions would exceed the impervious surface limit for that property, what’s done? 35 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 Kate Aanenson: Well normally we wouldn’t let something proceed. We would say you need a variance and stop right there. Mayor Furlong: Prior to proceeding with any. Kate Aanenson: With any building permit. Mayor Furlong: Before issuing a permit. Kate Aanenson: Right. Now let me just clarify. If you have a permit that was issued 6 months ago with an as-built survey that someone wanted to put a deck on within 6 months or a year, would we ask them for a new one? This was built a number of years ago so specifically. Mayor Furlong: But that would just be what information would be requested to issue the permit. Kate Aanenson: Correct. Mayor Furlong: But the, if I’m understanding the question correctly, and maybe I’m not so correct me if I’m wrong sir but I’m getting the sense that the question here is, we just came in for a permit and this hard surface issue came up later. Kate Aanenson: Right. I guess where I’m confused is, we tried to be, in good faith, we tried to do them a favor and now we’re being like we’re the bad person you know. Mayor Furlong: I guess I’m not hearing that but. Fred Bruning: No, not at all. Mayor Furlong: Maybe you could keep moving along here so that. Fred Bruning: Sure. Mayor Furlong: I mean make sure we understand what your concerns are. Fred Bruning: Sure. My clients come in, well there’s many of them and maybe I get onto the rest of the points but the whole process. I mean we’re replying we agreed to these things along the way. I, this first term here. I’m just, what’s reasonable use of a property? In the city code it says a reasonable use is also a use that’s enjoyed by the majority of people within 500 feet of this, well comparable properties within 500 feet of this. Mayor Furlong: And what I understand you’re saying is that in your opinion 20 of the 30 or 30 plus properties nearby also exceed the impervious surface coverage. Fred Bruning: Right, but I can’t you documentation because I don’t have a legal right to do that. On the web site you can actually look and see that. I mean I realize that the city has an issue 36 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 with hard cover and it has become apparent further, we’re trying to address that and maybe it will become more apparent later on but I think I have an understanding of my question. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Fred Bruning: Second point here. The process of obtaining the building permit and the reduction of 1,039 square feet. Staff indicates that demonstrates their goal of adding a home, adding to their home and bringing the site into compliance with the 25% minimum hard cover can be achieved. Mayor Furlong: I’m sorry sir, where are you in your document? Fred Bruning: Oh, the first page, the second highlighted item. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Fred Bruning: Page 3, and if you look over at the right hand side. The two with the circle on it. In one of the narratives I brought the point of just because my home, my clients are willing to accept a hardship, it doesn’t mean that the hardship doesn’t exist. Part of the process going through here is we had winter quickly approaching. We talked to the staff way ahead of time, end of September and just went through the steps of what we were proposing to do. We want to make sure there’s no hiccups in the road. Want to make sure it’s smooth sailing. Initially it went pretty smooth but then you know all these things started coming up, which we handled, and we agreed to everything that we’re into now. We were going to go through the variance process at the same time we’re going through the permit process. What we proposed to do here we’re suggesting is a hardship. What we’re being asked to do. Remove the driveway. Forcing our clients to back down 140 feet of driveway. Narrow driveway. Earlier when I said, and I had no way to comment at the time, the proposed driveway, I design a lot of driveways. I design a lot of projects. You can’t turn around out of 2 of those 3 garage stalls. The only one is the one nearest the house that you have a chance of backing up and going down the driveway. The other two, no. I mean the turning radius of a car to clear the garage doors, you can’t. That’s part of the issue is they would be required to back down a driveway. Mark Ambrosen: Excuse me. Mayor Furlong: Good evening. Mark Ambrosen: Mark Ambrosen, 3830 Maple Shores Drive. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Mark Ambrosen: I just wanted to, the point of backing out of the garage is. Mayor Furlong: Which picture do you want? Kate Aanenson: I’m trying to find a picture with the driveway. 37 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 Mark Ambrosen: Okay. The problem with backing out of the garage, to turn around and go down, you’re, the red depiction doesn’t show the 2 trees. There’s actually 3 trees in the middle of the turn around. We have an island built up around those trees. If you want us to cut down those trees, then we could back up but I don’t think anybody wants to do that. But that’s what’s preventing us. Kate Aanenson: Well I guess my question then is why did you show us the potential to be removed to meet the code, because that’s what we agreed to when we advanced that, that could be removed. Fred Bruning: Like I stated, we’re demonstrating something could be removed because we needed a permit. We anticipated getting a variance because what we’ve demonstrated is a hardship and that’s why we’re asking the City Council and Planning Commission to decide. Councilman Litsey: But out of each of those garages you could back out down the driveway. Each of those stalls. Fred Bruning: The only chance you’d have is the one closest to the house. It would give you enough turning radius to back up in the remainder there and head down the driveway. Councilman Litsey: No I’m saying back down the driveway. You could back down the driveway from any of those stalls. Fred Bruning: Oh sure. Sure. Councilman Litsey: Okay, and that’s the normal way most people exit their garages is to back down the driveway. Now you’re saying perhaps because it’s a longer driveway that’s creating some kind of additional undue hardship. Is that what you’re saying? Fred Bruning: Correct. Yeah, backing down a 30 foot straight driveway, sure. It’s not an issue. Some of the neighbors on that street actually do that. This is the closest stall is 140 feet. And it’s an 10, well average width about 10 foot 9 in the driveway. Councilman Litsey: Well I guess where it gets confusing is you make it sound like there’s no way out of those other stalls. There is. It’s backing down the driveway and then it’s a matter of whether that creates an undue hardship or not. Fred Bruning: Sure. I would just comment, there was a question for staff before I came up and it was said that you could back out of those garage stalls and turn around and head straight down the driveway. There’s only one chance on one of the stalls you could do that. Councilman Litsey: Yeah. Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council members, if I could add a point here. You know you could look at putting a hammer head in, but you would have to find another spot to pull out more 38 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 impervious. Fire pit as an example could come out of there. Allow you the prioritizing of which of the two you’d prefer versus backing all the way down or having the fire pit taken out and putting that impervious as a hammer head. If that makes sense. Mark Ambrosen: As far as I’m concerned, and my wife, we would take out the fire pit and patio down by the lake, we’d take out everything else. We really do think that having the turn around is a safety issue. My wife wanted me to tell you that she can’t back down. Todd Gerhardt: No, it’s. Mark Ambrosen: The other thing in, it’s probably not a problem legally but we do have a problem at the end of the cul-de-sac. If you look straight down that driveway on the bottom picture, 3 driveways back into, if we’re one of them, back into that spot. To the right is no factor. The house is coming down a driveway right across, yeah. Right across a broad expanse of one so there’s good visibility. To the left there was a large blue spruce tree. About 25 feet tall. They come, they back up a hill blindly. Fred Bruning: You can actually see it on page 6. Mark Ambrosen: Okay, on page 6. Yeah, that’s a good example. That guy has already backed in and hit my wife as she was parked in front of the mailbox because he can’t see her. So that’s kind of a blind issue. When you have 3 driveways backing into the same area. Compounding that, in the same picture you’ll see what is the neighborhood basketball hoop. That is owned by the entire neighborhood. We have 15 children in that cul-de-sac under the ages of, the oldest is 15. As you can imagine that gets a lot of activity. The youngest are, I think we have a 5 year old and a 7 year old. Mayor Furlong: And what, I’m sorry, where’s the basketball hoop? Mark Ambrosen: Yeah, on page 6. Todd Gerhardt: Here’s a picture of it. Mark Ambrosen: Just to the left of the driveway. Mayor Furlong: Okay, so they. Okay so the hoop, and we see that in cul-de-sacs where the hoop faces out towards the street and children play in the cul-de-sac. Mark Ambrosen: Correct. That’s the only flat place in our cul-de-sac because in the actual circle at the top, that’s fairly flat. Otherwise you have a hill all the way down to the parkway. Todd Gerhardt: The city manager loves basketball. Mark Ambrosen: That basketball hoop is, I don’t know how long it’s been grandfathered but that site has been there since before we were there in 1999. 39 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 Todd Gerhardt: Mayor and council members, from staff’s perspective, Terry if I can speak for you, we don’t care where the impervious comes out as long as you hit the 25%, and if you’re willing to take the fire pit out, staff could live with a hammer head or the U shaped as long as the square footage. Kate Aanenson: And the square footage, thank you. Todd Gerhardt: Yeah, is the same. Mayor Furlong: What I’m hearing is the overall square footage for the property. Kate Aanenson: Yep. We went by what their recommendations were. That’s why I was totally lost where they were going with the discussion. That was their recommendation they made so I would agree. If they can find whatever they want to take out to meet it. Todd Gerhardt: Yep. You don’t have to follow the red as long as you hit the 25%. Fred Bruning: One of my concerns though is part of the process. We were required to do calculations, which we did. Once this whole process ends we’re required to get an as-built survey of the property by registered surveyor. If their documentation is different from our’s? I mean I’m not a surveyor. I mean…that’s what I was required to do. All said and done when it comes to the end, maybe the fire pit isn’t big enough. Plus we’re being asked, I think we were 200 square feet over before we even started this on the hard cover for the lot. We’re being asked to mitigate what we’re adding plus that original 200 square feet. Councilwoman Ernst: Is that the .7? Kate Aanenson: Yeah. It sounds like we kind of need to meet on kind of where the hard coverage may be and we can work that out. Mayor Furlong: Perhaps. I don’t know if there’s an understanding here that, and Mr. Bruning I’ll let you continue but as I understand it, the schematic that showed the red area was submitted by you, through staff, saying here’s how, based on our best information, here’s how the 25% could be met. And that was submitted in order to obtain the permit and in anticipation on your side of achieving a variance. Fred Bruning: Correct. Mayor Furlong: But nonetheless it showed that the property, with the additions, could meet the 25%. Fred Bruning: Yeah, and that was a requirement for the permit, exactly. Mayor Furlong: Understand. Okay. Alright. And so what I’m hearing here tonight is, if we go forward tonight and adhere to the 25%, the red is not required. It is the overall property, 25% on the property. So whether that is a patio, pavers somewhere else, whatever that is necessary to get 40 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 down to that 25%, it doesn’t, what I’m hearing staff, Mr. Gerhardt and Ms. Aanenson say is, it doesn’t have to be the red if it’s, if you believe in terms of safely driving in and out of your driveway you want to keep some of the red up by the driveway but remove something else somewhere else on the property, that that would meet the requirements. Is that, am I stating that correctly? Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. If you look on the slide, our goal is to get to the 1,039 square feet. Mayor Furlong: Yeah, so. Does that? Todd Gerhardt: Yeah, and to answer your question, I’m following you. Once you get the actual survey completed you may want to have a fallback plan on the driveway because when you look at the red on the driveway, and you look at the size of the fire pit and the little patio next to it, having those two taken out probably isn’t going to match exactly to the red area in the driveway. So you may want to look at reconfiguring that driveway a little bit also. But you know it’s the 25% is kind of the rule that we’re following so I would start looking at potentially another alternative area and do the best math you can. Fred Bruning: Yeah, I mean we’d probably do that after the as-built survey. Kate Aanenson: Well let me just bring something back. We let a permit issue that’s not meeting it so I just kind of want to understand. We hadn’t done that before. Wherever the council’s feeling about that and you know again we issued it in good faith that they’re going to try to meet it and I’m hoping that they’re still trying to meet it. Fred Bruning: No, no we’re. Todd Gerhardt: I hear they are Kate. Fred Bruning: This isn’t adversarial. I’m sorry if you’re taking it that way. Kate Aanenson: Okay, yeah. Fred Bruning: Like I said, very early on in the process you know part of my job is to be creative. I met with the city way before we were going to even apply for a permit you know in September and laid out some different steps. What we were proposing to do. Through a collaboration of going back and forth, this is what we came up with. Everything was fine. Okay, this is what we’re going to do. We’re going to apply for a variance you know and so yeah, I mean we were going to request this being a hardship. You know it was understood and if the pre-existing conditions are deemed a hardship and is ruled in our favor, great. If it’s not, here’s the fallback position. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Help us understand then, to clarify I think it would help, what the hardship or hardship factors are. What are the special hardship factors? 41 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 Fred Bruning: Okay, I’ll, to answer your. I was going to get to that but I’ll get out of sequence here and cover that. In my narrative, and I’ll have to find it here. This one here. There are variations on the theme. If you look on page 3, the second paragraph. That explains the hardship and I can read it into the record if you’d like. Mayor Furlong: Why don’t you go ahead for those watching at home. Fred Bruning: Yeah. For the little kids at home. Because of the shape and topography of their lot my clients need to use precious hard cover for an atypically long driveway to access their home and retaining wall patio system, drain system to protect it. Three properties to the south have driveways longer than my clients. Each has a turn about. However they are near level lots. Two have flag lot exemptions to the hard cover requirement. The remaining is a much larger property. To the east are the only two lots within 500 feet that have an elevation change greater than this property. However it is only slightly greater and over a longer distance. This property is unique that it has both of these elements combined on a single parcel. Combined on a parcel that is substantially smaller than any of them. The lot size combined with the shape and topography is the hardship. It’s not self created and the willingness to accept a hardship doesn’t negate or create it. As part of that discussion, on page 11. Section 18-21. Building permits. It talks about variances and in hardship is that hardships are not mere inconveniences. The turn about on, to have a turn about isn’t just a convenient thing when you have a 140 foot driveway. It’s actually pretty inconvenient to back down a 140 driveway. The patio paver system in the back of the house is protection for the house. I mean they’re not doing it out of convenience. They’re doing it out of property preservation. We’re submitting that these, because of the shape of the lot, you know how far the home has to be set off the street, that that 46 feet of grade change in the back of the home make this lot unique to anything within 500 feet. Mayor Furlong: Okay. I think what I’m hearing is, is as the shape and the topography of the lot that you’re saying is the hardship in this case. Fred Bruning: Yeah, and in Section 18-22 I think you know it says that the hardship is caused by particular physical surroundings, shape or topography, conditions of the land. And that’s. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Okay. Anything else you wanted to share with us at this point? Then we may have some questions. Fred Bruning: And actually, I mean this is working fine if you want to ask questions along the way. Mayor Furlong: That’s fine. I just want to make sure we keep moving and you get an opportunity to present everything you want to so I don’t want to cut you short. Fred Bruning: If you continue onto page 2. Councilwoman Ernst: Can I ask just a question? Back up for just a second. Mayor Furlong: Sure. 42 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 Councilwoman Ernst: One of the things that you mentioned is that the pavers are protecting the property and preserving the property. In what way are they preserving the property? Fred Bruning: When Mark and Ann bought their home there was nothing back there. It was just you know the grade. In the first few years they were there, the hill, I mean just rain water would erode the hill and wash it out. I mean lots of soil I assume ended up in Lake Minnewashta. Councilwoman Ernst: So from erosion more or less? Fred Bruning: Erosion. Todd Gerhardt: It was a gravel driveway is what you’re saying? Fred Bruning: Oh no. This is the, she was asking about the pavers in the back of the home. Todd Gerhardt: Oh, back yard. Mark Ambrosen: The previous owner was a Vikings football player and he had cut down all the trees existing on the hill at about a 6 foot level so he had a great view. Subsequently we had some serious erosion so we started attacking, and this is what I think the young lady was referring to when we started getting off on the side conversations in the Planning Commission. But it also addresses some of the hard cover that we put back there. We built out the patio. As you see the pretty tall retaining walls back there. We built those and some of the smaller wing walls as you go down that hill. We let all the trees grow, especially the fast growing maples and some of the others. We planted a lot of vegetation trying to get that to go. Well Kenneth went back and forth. The vegetation took hold. Trees grew up real tall. Then we had a real thick canopy. Vegetation cease to grow. We put in a couple more holding walls on the hill and we did thin out some of the trees on either side with the intent of letting the sun go back in. Getting water in. Putting more vegetation back there. Councilwoman Ernst: So what’s the square footage of the hard surface that you put in to prevent erosion? Mark Ambrosen: I think that was 7.8. Fred Bruning: I think 7-23. That you know to allow that, to allow an exemption for that portion of it actually resolves the whole issue. Everything else can go back in and we can mitigate the hard cover if that’s considered an exemption. I mean that eliminates our issue. Councilwoman Ernst: Okay, thank you. Mark Ambrosen: One of the options given to us was replace that paver stone in the back with decking because then that would not, that constitute a non-hard cover surface I believe. Councilwoman Ernst: Would that serve the same purpose for erosion? 43 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 Mark Ambrosen: No. No, it wouldn’t. Because then the water would just go right through. Fred Bruning: If you had like a 4 foot retaining wall or something, yeah it would make a difference. I mean if that’s open soil and it could drain everything, but this is over 30 feet tall. I mean as soon as the soil gets saturated, I mean just the pressure on that wall with that column of water. It was engineered to actually take the water past the slope of the hill and discharge it onto, into a lower elevation. Since it was done they haven’t had any erosion problems. I mean it solved the problem. So I mean they’re kind of reluctant to remove that. It’s worked for 10 years. Councilwoman Ernst: Okay. Thank you. Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. Fred Bruning: No. No, that’s fine. On page 2 towards the bottom. Line number 5. Mark addressed a little bit of that there. You know the, and I’m sure they’re willing to provide more ground cover. A type of ground cover that you find suitable. However I mean you could talk to Mr. Jeffery. That makes no impact. I mean that’s not a consideration for hard cover. I mean hard cover is. Mayor Furlong: Is hard cover. Fred Bruning: It doesn’t make any difference if that’s a barren sand lot or if it’s got a forest of trees. You know they act different as far as runoff but the city code doesn’t recognize a difference. I think Mr. Jeffery is actually working on some things in that but it doesn’t help us. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Fred Bruning: I guess it’s in the page 3 towards the bottom. Options. I mean you know I spelled out 4 things I’d like you guys to consider. I mean obviously the first one is if you recognize a hardship. You know to grant the variance. The second on page 4, the second item is what Vicki was I think kind of alluding to. To grant an exemption for, to the hard cover calculations for like the necessary features of the property. That retaining wall, patio system that protects their hill. You know the city already recognizes similar exemptions for things like swimming pools. Driveways on flag lots. When you get into commercial properties you allow much more hard cover for a commercial property than you do a residential property. So that’s a second item I’d like you to consider. Number 3 is, and like I say Mr. Jeffery is working on some of these things but request that you look at other means of mitigating hard cover. If the spirit of the code is to protect our water resources. To keep the soils from washing in, prevent erosion, there’s a lot of ways to do that that aren’t recognized by the current city code. If you look at page 9, in my original narrative, item 3(a) to 3(g). I mean talk about some of them. There’s more permeable driveway, patio surfaces available and the U of M Arboretum has been testing these, but you guys don’t have any data on it. And so like permeable pavers, all those things are, don’t qualify, even though they would improve the situation. There’s a portion of their property that the shed at the lake is considered hard cover even though it’s elevated off the ground because water can’t get underneath the shed. To put downspouts on the shed and push the water underneath it would also make that a permeable surface. You know that’s not recognized. I 44 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 mean Mark and Ann are trying to come up with solutions to get at what the whole point of the hard cover code is and they’re willing to put effort, put money forward to do that. We’re just asking you to consider those options. Holding ponds. You require those on commercial properties. They’d be willing to do one here. Drain fields. Taking down spouts. Dispersing that water over larger area. Dispersing it to areas that are actually covered by hard surfaces. Allowing water to be under a hard surface. Putting a drain field underneath a driveway. Putting a drain field underneath a patio. Councilwoman Ernst: Is that the same as drain tile? Fred Bruning: Yeah, similar. Yeah, very similar. Councilwoman Ernst: Okay. Fred Bruning: We proposed granting easements. The neighbor to the north and east of them, huge lot. I mean you know hard cover is probably 7%. But to allow them to do an easement to their property to spread out their hard cover onto that adjoining property. That isn’t allowed. One I actually kind of like because it solves a lot of problems is actually doing a cistern. You’re trying to mitigate you know storm water. Water that in a short period of time you have a large water volume to handle. To bury a cistern. A buried tank in the ground that can disperse the water over a long period of time. Run down spouts to the house into it. Put the catch basin, a drain in for. The thing that’s nice about that is you can also use it for irrigation. You can water your lawn and use less city water. There’s other things. I mean soil types. You know ground cover. Different things you can do with pitch and grade and berms. The unfortunate thing is none of those things are recognized. Mark and Ann are willing to, if you choose, be a test case. I mean it’s been suggested none of these things can be monitored. The technology is to monitor all of these. My favorite, the cistern idea is very simple. Remove the cover. Take a water depth reading you know after rain. Find out how quickly it’s dissipating. Punch more holes in the bottom if you want it to dissipate further. You know faster. So they’re willing to consider that as a way to mitigate. Another thing is pea gravel has been suggested. We’ve actually done that as a mitigating factor for their dog kennel. To use pea gravel instead of a hard paver system. That’s also something that possibly could be used as a turn about for a driveway. Down side to that is, it’s not a hard surface. It’s hard to snow plow that. You know the stones. The small stones are bad you know because they get washed down the driveway. End up in the storm sewer. The only thing worst for a storm sewer than sand is pea gravel. It just catches in all the low spots. I guess the one last point I’d like to make is, and I think Bloomington’s going to adopt a 25% hard cover rule also but from my knowledge I think Chanhassen’s the only one who requires 25%. Shorewood, Mound. I mean Mound even has a 40% for some lots. Hard cover. 25 percent’s pretty tough. I guess that’s my points. Do you have any questions? Mayor Furlong: Okay. Any questions of Mr. Bruning? I guess the, you know the question before us here is the hardship. You brought up reasonable use and I think that’s really where it comes down to. What is the reasonable use creating this situation that we’re here this evening so. 45 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 Councilwoman Tjornhom: I think one of my comments would be, earlier we discussed that the items proposed by staff in red. Kate Aanenson: That was the applicant. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Was that the applicant? That maybe those need to be worked on a little bit more. Is that correct? The applicant seemed willing to reconsider some or to move to give and take some or I’m trying to figure out what I heard about 20 minutes ago regarding that issue. Fred Bruning: Sure. We proposed what’s in red in consultation with the client. However they’ve had a dumpster in the driveway at the turn about. They’ve had to back down this driveway and they realized you know how difficult that is. In weighing that all out the fire pit near the lake is less important you know than having the turn about and so they’re willing to put that hard cover back into the turn about. I fear when it’s all said and done, as you can see from the drawing, it’s not enough space. It’s not enough mitigation. We’re not going to have enough ground, enough hard surface from the fire pit to create that turn about. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Okay. Just so I’m clarified then. This is the proposal and there’s nothing else on the table for us to consider, or for you to consider tonight? When it comes to this variance. Fred Bruning: I think, well I think I’ve given you a lot of things to consider. For us we tried to work up the best thing and I think Mark and Ann are going to sacrifice their fire pit to add as much turn about as they can but like I say, my fear is that it won’t be enough. That there’s not many other, we’ve taken out about anything we could think of to take out. Roger Knutson: Mayor, members of the council. This plan is not a requirement. The requirement is to, at least the recommendation of staff and the Planning Commission is to get down to the required 24 or 25% hard coverage. How you get there is up to you. Do it. Whether it’s this or something else. That’s the recommendation. Councilwoman Tjornhom: And so just to the point of clarification for me then, what am I voting on tonight? Whether they should do that? Or whether this is what they should do or? I’m confused about. Roger Knutson: No. The question is do you grant them a variance or don’t you. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Okay. Roger Knutson: If the answer is no. No variance is granted. Then they have to get to 25%. If you grant a variance, then it depends on how much you grant. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Okay. 46 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 Mayor Furlong: Any other questions? For Mr. Bruning at this point. If not, thank you. I think we’ll bring it back to, unless there’s anybody else that wants to comment on this. I don’t see anybody else. Mr. Ambrose, do you want to say anything else? Mark Ambrose: No, I think it’s pretty clear that we’re requesting a variance to exceed the 25% but as little as possible. We would get rid of everything and if we could keep the turn around in the driveway. So what that would wind up being I’m not sure. Fred Bruning: Yeah, and like I say, I mean they’ve taken out everything they possibly could take out. Things we’ve done in the addition to minimize that. I mean taking out their dog kennel. I mean they’ve stripped out as much as they can and you know this is where they’re at. Mayor Furlong: But for clarification though, they’re building an addition onto their house. They’re adding 800 square feet. Fred Bruning: Correct. Mayor Furlong: So it say they’re taking it out, I think what’s creating this issue is the desire to expand. Mark Ambrosen: Oh absolutely. Absolutely. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Mark Ambrosen: Absolutely. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Fred Bruning: We’re just suggesting that it’s a hardship that they have to have these hard cover surfaces on their property that other properties don’t have to have because their topography is different. Because their shape is different. The properties that do have to have a longer driveway, you know within 500 feet, have turn about’s. This is the only one of this length that would not have one in this 500 feet. Councilman Litsey: Are you already committed to the design. Kate Aanenson: It’s under construction. Councilman Litsey: It’s under construction. Okay. Fred Bruning: We’ve already pushed, that’s part of it too. I mean for hard cover, a lot of other reasons, we’ve actually rotated and pushed the addition into the house. Taken square footage from the house away to get the addition, so we’ve, we’ve been pretty creative trying to reduce as much as we could. 47 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 Kate Aanenson: Just to clarify again. I just want to make sure everybody, there was a 3 car garage. They had a 3 car garage. Fred Bruning: There still is a 3 car garage. Kate Aanenson: Right. You converted one of them to a laundry room and added on so that was part of the addition, so. Mayor Furlong: And then there was another garage stall put in to replace the one… Kate Aanenson: Right, so that was the addition part. The 800 square feet. So I guess that’s where we were trying to find that balance and wherever they shake out on that yeah. Councilwoman Tjornhom: And one. Mayor Furlong: Councilwoman Tjornhom. Councilwoman Tjornhom: This is all kind of clear as mud for me. I just want to make sure I do thinks right tonight. So if, say the council does not approve the variance and they have to meet their 25% and they can’t, what happens to their construction? Or what will happen. Roger Knutson: What will happen it they will be required to meet it some way. It will be their decision on how to meet it. Councilwoman Ernst: And they’re at 25.7% today, right? Kate Aanenson: Right. Right, so it’s the addition that caused the. They were at 25.7. Councilwoman Ernst: But they haven’t started any of the addition. Kate Aanenson: Yes they have. It’s under construction. That’s what I’m saying, we in good faith let them proceed. Councilwoman Ernst: Sorry. Okay. Fred Bruning: One thing I also have you consider. Worst case scenario, if you want to deny everything else, have us mitigate the hard cover that we’ve added to the property. I mean don’t have us you know take it down to 25% below where we even started. Have us mitigate the hard cover that we’ve actually added to the property but the, what we’ve added to what we started with. Mayor Furlong: And that was, I’m sorry. Go ahead. Councilman Litsey: Well I mean the bottom line is you have, if we deny, you have to meet the 25%. How you do that is up to you. I don’t think that’s up to us to tell you how to do that. Or what you can and can’t do. 48 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 Fred Bruning: But we started with 25.7. Councilman Litsey: Oh I see. Fred Bruning: Before we even built an addition. Councilman Litsey: You want the baseline to be 25.7. Fred Bruning: If everything else fails, yes. I mean that’s. Mayor Furlong: And I guess that was the question I had asked earlier Ms. Aanenson of, before the addition it was 25.7. They were already in violation of our ordinance and the question was how did they get there? Was it the original permit or was it? Fred Bruning: How did the other 20 out of 32 properties get there? Kate Aanenson: I’m sorry, we disagree on that. Mayor Furlong: We’re talking about this property right now and. Kate Aanenson: Right, and we don’t know. It could have been a fire pit. It could have been some of the retaining walls. It could have been the dog pit you know. Mayor Furlong: Patios. Kate Aanenson: A lot of these go, correct. Mark Ambrosen: Excuse me. How long has this ordinance been on the books? Kate Aanenson: Impervious surface? Since I’ve been here in 1991. Prior to that. Mark Ambrosen: How long has it been enforced? Kate Aanenson: It’s always enforced. Sometimes we don’t know if people cut down trees. Mark Ambrosen: We had a, we had an addition put on about 10 years ago. 11 years ago that added onto the other side of the house, and there was no inquiry then about the hard cover. Kate Aanenson: I can’t speak to what the application was, or what review and I’m not sure, if somebody checked it or not so. I’m pretty confident somebody probably did. Mark Ambrosen: I was told by a young lady that was taking a lot of this information that the city didn’t start enforcing this until 2 years ago. 49 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 Kate Aanenson: No, we asked for the as-built surveys 2 years ago. We’ve always enforced the 25%. Mark Ambrosen: Well that was the verbology that was used to me. Councilman McDonald: I was actually on the planning council more than 3 years ago and I enforced it very strongly so it’s been enforced ever since I’ve been here for 3 years and before that. Councilwoman Ernst: Well I think he’s just saying what was told to him. Mark Ambrosen: That was told to me. Councilman McDonald: Well I just want to clear the air that the city was. Kate Aanenson: Mayor, can I get back to the question that was asked? And that was the addition was the 800 and, 848 square feet. That was the addition that we showed over here. Fred Bruning: It’s on your previous drawings. You have it I think in blue. Kate Aanenson: Yeah. So there’s the proposed additions. So to get, yeah. Actually driveway space to get out of that one garage. Mayor Furlong: What’s the total square footage of the house, either before or after? Before the additions? Fred Bruning: It’s on, I don’t have that paperwork. It’s in the documentation that we sent to the city as far as those calculations for hard cover. It has the original house. Kate Aanenson: 2779. Mayor Furlong: Is the footprint? Kate Aanenson: Total square footage. Mayor Furlong: Finished square footage? Kate Aanenson: That’s the lot size. Fred Bruning: My recollection is like 2,500 square feet is. I don’t know the exact number but that would be approximately what. Mayor Furlong: For a footprint? Fred Bruning: Footprint, correct. Footprint of the house. Garages, you know etc. 50 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 Terry Jeffery: Mr. Mayor if I may. Within the packet, wherever we’re at. Kate Aanenson: It’s on page 4. Terry Jeffery: Yeah, it says more than 27, 2779 square foot footprint of the home itself. Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Any other questions? If not, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Let’s bring it to council for discussion. Try to work through the issues before us. We’ve got clearly the issue before us is whether or not there’s a hardship. Applicants propose the shape and topography is the hardship as well as some alternatives. Thank you. I’ll start just to make some comments. I believe it was at least 2 years ago we talked at length about impervious surface coverage and ways that that could be mitigated and we spent a number of times as a council, a lot of the alternatives that were mentioned, we discussed at that time as well. We didn’t take any action on it but those were discussed. But in any event we had some alternatives put forth, and I guess I’d be interested in where members of the council are in terms of the, Councilman Litsey? Thoughts. Comments. Councilman Litsey: Well I think it’s important to look at it. I think it’s an evolving you know way to look at things but we’re not there yet. We haven’t really looked at it with enough data and information and recommendation from staff I think so, I still think we’ve got to kind of look at it from where we’re at with the ordinance currently stands. I mean that technology’s evolving and I think we need to move in that direction but we’re not there yet so I don’t know that I can really consider that at this point. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Anything else on the request? Councilman Litsey: Well I think partly the hardship was created obviously, as they put it, from the addition. It was fine before. They chose to move forward with it knowing that this was in place. Personally I don’t see any reason to deviate from staff recommendations. Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Other thoughts? Councilwoman Ernst. Councilwoman Ernst: Well I’d like to talk about 723 square feet of hard surface that was installed to prevent erosion. That to me sounds like a hardship. 723 square foot of hard surface, but it was put there for a reason, and so to me that should, we should look at that in terms of what do we allow for credit for that. So that’s one of, that’s one point. The other one is, I mean the whole big issue is runoff. That’s what we’re talking about and we’ve had, this is not the first time this issue has come back to council to look at. I mean we have a 25% limit of impervious surface and we have, we have a resident who has come in and they’re saying okay, in order to compensate that we are willing to do these things and I, what is it? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 options here. And in addition to that, which they sound like reasonable options to me. In addition to that they’re willing to be a test for any of these options. And I know that we have talked about permeable pavers before. You know can we do a project on that? We haven’t done, I don’t think we’ve done anything with that yet, but they’re willing to be a test for that. Maybe this is an opportunity. I don’t know. But I mean they’ve, I think that they’ve given us a lot of information 51 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 where we have some various options and if we would be willing to give them the opportunity to do that, which I think we should, I would be in favor of granting a variance. Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Other thoughts? Councilwoman Tjornhom. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Where do I start? Well I’ve, this is I guess my second term on council so that means I was on council for 4 years. And prior to that I was on the Planning Commission and so that dates me quite a bit and I recall reviewing quite a few of these so I know the ordinance has been enforced for quite some time. What I kind of scratch my head about is, a lot of times we’ll see these cases come before us and people have started a project or they’ve completed a project and just didn’t know what was happening. But this is peculiar to me because the applicant knew that there was a problem and so now they’re coming before us asking us to make an exception to the rule even though construction has already started. I always look at these cases for hardship and I look at that quite earnestly and I don’t see the hardship. I think they have reasonable use of their property and the hardship I think, or the problem was created with the addition and the beginning of construction on their property. And so because of that I am going to recommend denial of this variance request. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Councilman McDonald. Councilman McDonald: Well I too have a lot of experience, especially in this area of Lake Minnewashta because a lot of the homes you’re talking about we’ve had quite a few people come before us. One guy I know wanted to build a 3 car garage. We would not allow it because again he took over the impervious surface. Compromise came back. He got a 2 car garage and I think that was fair use of the property. The issue about the pavers and using this as a test case, I don’t think you want the city out there on a constant basis monitoring things. The Arboretum about 3 years ago came before the Planning Commission and talked to us about all this. It was all in a study phase and they had a lot of promising ideas but they had not brought anything to the city yet to say what was going to work so I think we leave that to them. Yeah, hardship unfortunately is a legal term that is ambiguous. I would agree with you, but it’s that way for a reason because it applies on a case by case basis and in this particular case, whereas you bring up a lot of exceptions to other properties but that’s those properties and I think we would have to look at them on a case by case basis and determine it. Here, I don’t see the hardship. I mean based upon everything that we’ve done in the past. We’ve been very consistent as far as granting variances. They’re not granted unless certain conditions are shown and those conditions have not been shown here. So at that point I would not be in favor of granting the variance either. Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. I think some of my thoughts are consistent in that the issue before us here tonight on this request is whether or not there’s a hardship. Does the shape and topography of the lot, which has been put forth, create a hardship. Being able to back down, back out, back down the driveway. Is that a hardship because of the length of, and that gets back to the shape of the lot. Some of the other items proposed I don’t think are necessarily hardships. I think they are preferences in terms of property use. The issue as far as, and Councilwoman Ernst you brought up the 723 square feet that was presented. One of the things that we have done over the last year or so, when we look at and you can see it. I don’t know if this is still showing on the screen or not but this lake view picture, just leave it right there. You can see that 52 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 there are retaining walls there that have been put up, and I’m sure that’s part of the erosion control because it changes the slope of the lot by leveling out a certain portion. The retaining walls we’ve been pretty clear are not considered part of the impervious surface coverage, even though vertically they might be because what they effectively do is they do change the slope and so they minimize runoff. What the issue here is, that on top of the retaining wall is a paver patio and that’s the impervious surface coverage. I absolutely think paver patios are nice and that popular in use but that’s where the impervious surface is coming from is how is the ground covered above the retaining wall for that. You know what it gets back to and Mr. Bruning started his comments about reasonable use of the property and we can talk about what the definitions are, but my sense is, and I think it was mentioned that there was reasonable use of this property prior to the addition being started. The addition might be preferred but the reasonable use was already there and while they were slightly over the 25%, my sense is it came from some of these minor additions that occurred over the years. Whether it’s the dog kennel. The pad for the gas grill. The shed. The patios. I mean all of these are just normal additions that occur over someone’s use of their house over a lifetime and use and enjoyment and there was just kind of an incremental expansion that would not necessarily be caught by the city process simply because up until recent years there was no need to get a permit for putting in a patio or for doing some of these other things. And so there was no check that might have occurred. I don’t know how many of these occurred before or after the last addition but when I step back and from a bigger picture is, I think from what I’ve heard my fellow members of council say is, is there was reasonable use before the additions. The additions go forward knowing full well that that would put them in an overage. It would make them more out of compliance than what they already were, and so I don’t see where the hardship is. If there was reasonable use before with the shape and topography, how can there, how can there be reasonable use after when there’s been an addition? I think it is self created from that sense and so why I’d like to allow people to expand and improve their properties as they want, you know we have to do it within the confines of the ordinance and treat people fairly. If we have other property owners that have exceeded that, you know there have been a number of times when we have after the fact variance requests. Or something’s been put in without the knowledge. They find out they’ve got to go through the process. Here staff was working to try to accommodate the request of the property owner and to move forward quickly, knowing that they had this in place. So this was, and I think Councilwoman Tjornhom mentioned it. This wasn’t an after the fact. This was known going in and I just, I can’t see the hardship here given the fact that I think they had reasonable use before and what’s creating this hardship now is the desire to expand. So unfortunately in this case I can’t see moving forward. There are a lot of additional factors that would suggest that we should move forward. It’s a lakeshore property. One of the biggest reasons we have these storm water ordinances in place is to protect runoff into our lakes. If we’re going to look at a test case or something like that, I’d rather do it as far away from a lake as we could. Not on a lake. And while I appreciate the property owner willing to do that, and over time we may change our ordinance to include some of those components and if we do then those ordinance would apply across the city, and all property owners will be able to modify their properties as they saw fit and take advantage of or work within whatever the ordinances were so, I’ve gone on a little bit here but it’s never enjoyable to say no to somebody for when they’re trying to improve and expand their enjoyment of their property. So that’s why I wanted to talk a little bit more but from evaluating the facts that have been presented, and even with the alternatives this evening, I can’t 53 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 see supporting the variance request. Any other thoughts or comments? If not is, would somebody like to make a motion? Councilwoman Tjornhom: I’ll make the motion. Mayor Furlong: Thank you Councilwoman Tjornhom. Councilwoman Tjornhom: I make a motion the Chanhassen City Council denies Planning Case #08-24 for a 3.7% hard surface coverage variance to exceed the 25% impervious coverage limitation by 1,038 square feet on Lot 7, Block 1, Maple Ridge Addition, with conditions 1 through 4 on pages 8 and 9 on the staff report and the adoption of the attached Findings of Facts and Action. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any modification to the motion? Kate Aanenson: Can I just for clarification? What I heard from the council is that they had discretion of what they wanted removed to get to that percentage so we can still work with the applicant on that? Mayor Furlong: I think that would fit within this motion as it’s been proposed. Okay, thank you. Is there a second? Councilman Litsey: Second. Mayor Furlong: Made and seconded. Any discussion on the motion? Councilwoman Tjornhom moved, Councilman Litsey seconded that the Chanhassen City Council denies Planning Case #08-24 for a 3.7% hard surface coverage variance on Lot 7, Block 1, Maple Ridge Addition and adoption of the attached Findings of Fact and Action, and subject to the following conditions: 1. The site must comply with the 25% maximum hard surface coverage requirement as outlined in the City Code. 2. Excess hard surface coverage must be removed and revegetated no later than May 31, 2009. 3. An as-built survey, signed by a registered land surveyor, is required and must be submitted no later than June 15, 2009 to ensure compliance. 4. Final building inspection will not be approved until verification of compliance. All voted in favor, except Councilwoman Ernst who opposed, and the motion carried with a vote of 4 to 1. 54 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS: Mayor Furlong: Thoughts or comments? Happy New Year to everybody. Just a quick comments regarding Southwest Transit. I served on the commission this last year and it was the best of times and the worst of times this last year. Ridership continued to improve in large part because of the fuel costs I think during the mid part of 2008. Really pushed up ridership. 2008 Southwest Transit, which is the public transit authority for Chanhassen, Eden Prairie and Chaska saw it’s first year where it had over a million riders. Ridership grew this year and again I don’t have a final numbers but we’ll be well over that as well. There have been some budgeting challenges last year and going forward this year. That shouldn’t be a surprise I don’t think to anybody. The source of funding for transit… I think there was an article again in today’s paper about that, has fallen. That’s the sales tax generated when people buy cars. People haven’t been buying cars and so there’s been less revenue coming in for all of the transit agencies. Southwest has, in mid-year we thought we’d be looking at a budget shortfall. The commission made some changes to the operations to reduce expenses and now it looks like we’ll be finishing 2008 in a revenue/expense neutral area. Perhaps a small surplus. Perhaps a small deficit but much better than where we thought we were. So bottom line, I just wanted to share that with the council on some of the things going on with Southwest. I continue to see good comments from people who ride the buses which is always good to hear. I know Councilwoman Ernst you use our service quite regularly and I’ve heard good things from you too. Councilwoman Ernst: Yeah, they got me back here for the council meeting tonight in one hour so that was good. Mayor Furlong: A lot better than I think some people in their cars were doing so, it’s great service. It’s a wonderful organization. We should all be proud of having, of being a part of Southwest Transit. They do a great job and they continue to grow and continue to innovate and be creative in how they provide services for our residents so I wanted to share that and obviously if anybody has any questions, let me know. Be sure to bring that up as well. Councilman Litsey: Thanks for your representation. We appreciate that. Mayor Furlong: Absolutely. It’s my pleasure. Happy to serve. Any other council presentations this evening? Councilman Litsey: Just quickly. Congratulations on Councilmember Tjornhom and McDonald for continuing in their respective roles on the council. I look forward to working with them in the coming several years. I think we’ve done some good stuff. I look forward to doing that some more and I also apologize for the cell phone interruption. I obviously, I got a new cell phone and I obviously have some learning to do. Mayor Furlong: I assume they were for emergencies and not bring home a couple gallons. Councilman Litsey: Ah, no comment. 55 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 Mayor Furlong: We will assume the former. Okay, anything else for council this evening? If not Mr. Gerhardt. ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS: Todd Gerhardt: Well a couple of things going on in the community. Today the University of Minnesota continued their carp study. You’ll probably see a story this week in the Villager. They were working on Lake Susan seining the lake out with the carp, and got caught a haul. Very few game fish found in the lake so, nobody needs to hang around out there so. Councilman Litsey: No trophy fish out there? Todd Gerhardt: No trophy fish. They’re real small fish out there so, but big participation from the neighbors interested to see what they pulled out and there was probably about 30 people out there. So it was, I think we have some pictures we can email you of some of the results of their seining so that was an existing project today. Mayor Furlong: If I could Mr. Gerhardt on Lake Susan. I saw the ad in the Villager about the possibility of aeration on Lake Susan. Have we started that or will we be starting that or there’s just a possibility? Hoffman: There’s a possibility. Mayor Furlong: And we do that every year. Todd Gerhardt: We’ve not started it yet. Mayor Furlong: We’ve not started it but for anybody watching be careful. While it’s well marked when that does start, it creates thin ice out on our lakes so. Thank you for letting me interrupt. Todd Gerhardt: No problem. That’s key, especially the seining holes are out there. I’m sure we’ve got those roped off or fenced off until they freeze over again. We do have our February th Festival coming up here on February 7. That’s Saturday from 1:00 to 3:00, so you can pick up your tickets at Byerly’s, Cabin Fever, Cub Foods in Chanhassen. Chanhassen City Hall, Southwest Metro Chamber in Chaska. The Chan Rec Center and Ivan’s Sinclair Bait and Tackle, so tickets are $5.00. Grand prize is a $500 travel voucher courtesy of Travel Advisors International and American Express here in Chanhassen so should be a fun event. Again we put this on for us to go out and appreciate our winters here also. I know driving on it today was not much of an appreciation but we have to go out and embrace our winters here in Minnesota because we’re tough enough to handle them. So should be a fun event for everybody in the family so. Todd and his group do a great job and appreciate the Chamber’s involvement this year also so. With that, that’s all I have for updates. Oh, we did have the 112 Leaders meeting. We hosted that last Friday. That’s where all the city managers, superintendent of School District 112 and mayors get together to talk about issues in the community. There’s some information on the Beacon. I don’t have that in front of me here. 56 City Council Meeting - January 12, 2009 Mayor Furlong: Yes, I was going to say that I think all the members of the council got this. The Beacon Council is an organization that’s been developed through the continuing education department of eastern Carver County schools and they have a meeting coming up for anyone th interested on January 24 at the Chanhassen Rec Center from 9:00 to noon, and if people have, if anyone has an interest in going there, or wants more information, they can get it on the District 112.org web site. Todd Gerhardt: And then some of the other things we talked about at that meeting, of course going into 2009, revenue concerns. I think every community has that and there were a bunch of suggestions on given by mayors and city managers on what their communities are looking at to try to make up some of those revenue shortfalls that may occur so. Nice to host it here and, it was a good start to the year and it’s always interesting to hear what’s going on in other communities. There’s still development activity throughout Carver County and you know I think we are starting to see some too come in right now. I know Kate’s had several discussions with developers this past week that are looking at moving ahead on some projects so good year. That’s all I have. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Gerhardt? Or his staff. No? Okay. Very good. CORRESPONDENCE DISCUSSION. Mayor Furlong: Any comments or items on the correspondence packet? Councilwoman Tjornhom: I just want to know, did Chanhassen win that story or lose? With the Chaska Herald’s story. What’s better, Chaska or Chan? Mayor Furlong: I think they had to fill something in at the end just to make it sound. Councilwoman Tjornhom: That’s what I thought too. Todd Gerhardt: I’m not biased but I’m pretty sure Chanhassen won. Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Anything else? Is there anything else to come before the council this evening? If not, is there a motion to adjourn? Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilman McDonald seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. The City Council meeting was adjourned at 9:25 p.m. Submitted by Todd Gerhardt City Manager Prepared by Nann Opheim 57