CC 2009 01 26
CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL
REGULAR MEETING
JANUARY 26, 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, and Councilman McDonald
COUNCIL MEMBERS ABSENT:
Councilwoman Tjornhom
STAFF PRESENT:
Todd Gerhardt, Roger Knutson, Laurie Hokkanen, Kate Aanenson, Paul
Oehme, and Todd Hoffman
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: INVITATION TO FEBRUARY FESTIVAL.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you and welcome to everyone here in the council chambers as well as
those watching at home. We’re glad you joined us this evening. At this time I’d ask members
of the council if there’s any additions or modifications to the agenda. If not, without objection
we’ll proceed with the agenda as it was published. At this time I’d like to start by extending an
invitation to members of the public for the City’s upcoming February Festival. The City of
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Chanhassen is proud once again to announce our special winter event. The 16 annual February
Festival. This is an event, out of a series of year long events, that the city sponsors in
conjunction with the Chamber of Commerce and in cooperation with our local business
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community. February Festival will be held on Saturday, February 7. At this time I invite all
residents, families, friends to join me at Lake Ann for the event beginning at noon. Various
activities will include skating, sledding, hay rides, bonfire on the ice as usual. Food and
concessions will be sold at the ice by the Chanhassen Rotary, as well as Boy Scout 330 will be
selling s’mores kits. The ice fishing contest will run from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. Prizes include
$3,000 of various prizes and $4,500 of door prizes. You can also play Bingo with the Friends of
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the Library who will sponsor the medallion hunt beginning on February 2. Ice fishing raffle
tickets and events are $5.00 for adults and children. You may purchase the tickets as you like.
Tickets are available at City Hall, Chanhassen Rec Center, or local businesses. The medallion
hunt I know is very popular with the city. This year’s, and with a number of people around the
area. This year’s prize is $750.00 for the library medallion which is nice. A few years ago we
had to worry about whether we’d have ice for the fishing contest. I don’t think that’s the case
this year, and as always staff has guaranteed us good weather for the event so we will hold them
to that as we usually do. Looking forward to seeing a lot of people out there. It’s a very fun
event. For anybody that’s been there, they know about what we speak and if you haven’t been
there, it’s a great opportunity to get out and enjoy winter in the city of Chanhassen. At this time
I’d like to move on with our agenda and that would be to consider the consent agenda items.
CONSENT AGENDA: Councilman Litsey moved, Councilwoman Ernst seconded to
approve the following consent agenda items pursuant to the City Manager’s
recommendations:
City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
a. Approval of Minutes:
-City Council Work Session Minutes dated January 10, 2009
-City Council Work Session Minutes dated January 12, 2009
-City Council Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated January 12, 2009
Receive Commission Minutes:
-Planning Commission Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated January 6, 2009
b. Approve City Code Amendment to Chapter 20, Concerning Conditional Use Permit and
Interim Use Permit Standards.
Resolution #2009-03:
c. Fox Hill Project 07-08: Accept Streets and Utilities.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0.
VISITOR PRESENTATIONS:
None.
LAW ENFORCEMENT/FIRE DEPARTMENT UPDATE.
Mayor Furlong: Tonight I will welcome back Lieutenant Jim Olson with the Carver County
Sheriff’s Department to give us an update on police services. Good evening Lieutenant.
Lt. Jim Olson: Good evening. Thank you Mr. Mayor and council members. I’d like to thank
you for the opportunity to come back to the city of Chanhassen. I’ve always regarded this as my
second home here and certainly welcome the opportunity to come back and it’s good to be back
so thank you. Before you in my packet I have the Sheriff’s Office Area Report for the month of
December, the Citation List for the month of December. A crime alert that was issued by Crime
Prevention Specialist Beth Hoiseth, as well as the Community Service Officer Report for
December. And for both our Sheriff’s Office Area Report and the CSO Report, they’re also the
year end numbers. I don’t want to go through each one individually at all but do you have any
questions on the numbers that you have in front of you?
Mayor Furlong: Any questions for Lieutenant on the numbers?
Lt. Jim Olson: One thing I would like to point out is that, as you can see the Part I and Part II
crimes did go down for the year for 2008 as compared to 2007 as well as our overall calls for
service so that is certainly a good thing to see the crimes go down in the city. A couple things
I’d like to bring up for the City Council. Over the past couple of weeks or past month or so
we’ve had a few thefts from cars in a parking lot from a local business. The week before last
Detective Bob Zydowsky, along with South Lake Minnetonka Police Department and the Edina
Police Department were able to identify the person that was doing some of these. South Lake
and Edina had also been victimized by this party. We identified him and we took the person into
custody in the city of Edina about a week and a half ago. And I want to say thank you to South
Lake Minnetonka Police Department as well as Edina for helping with this. Collaboration is
always a good thing and it’s very important in law enforcement and we’re fortunate to have good
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
partners around us so thank you to them. And speaking of working together with other agencies,
New Year’s Eve we received a call of a robbery in progress at a business here in Chanhassen.
Squads arrived quickly but the party involved was already gone, and we were able to determine
that it was not a robbery but it was actually domestic assault occurring in this business between a
female and her ex-boyfriend. We got the plate number out and the local law enforcement
agencies and Eden Prairie ended up locating the vehicle in their city. They ended up in a police
chase with that. He ended up running into a telephone pole but he was arrested and there are a
number of charges that are pending from that incident in a few different jurisdictions so that,
nobody got hurt luckily in that and it turned out to be, again he is in custody so. I want to go
back to thefts from vehicles that we’ve had. I want to remind everybody to not leave your
valuables in your vehicle regardless of where your vehicle is. Parking lots. Even in your own
garage. Take your valuables out of the vehicle. You know once they break into cars and when
they do break into cars, they’re using charge cards and cash cards and so on and they’re going
straight out to retail stores and buying big tickets items. It’s important to take those things out.
You know it’s not the theft itself that is so time consuming but all the follow-up that’s necessary
afterwards with trying to restore your credit. Cancelling all the charge cards and so on. Protect
yourself and don’t be the next victim. Last thing I want to cover is winter driving. The past few
weeks we’ve had a number of vehicles in the ditch as well as car accidents with all the black ice.
I know that we all know how to drive but it’s important to slow down and take your time. There
are times where you know accidents happen and there’s absolutely nothing we can do about it
but just slow down and take your time. That’s important. Is there anything else for the sheriff’s
office at all or for myself?
Mayor Furlong: Any questions for the Lieutenant?
Councilman Litsey: I didn’t have a question as to.
Lt. Jim Olson: Sure.
Councilman Litsey: A comment is welcome you back.
Lt. Jim Olson: Thank you.
Councilman Litsey: We already have but we’re fortunate to have a person of your
professionalism and leadership back in Chanhassen so looking for great things. Not to set the
bar high here but, no. But welcome back.
Lt. Jim Olson: Thank you very much sir. It’s good to be back.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you and I think we didn’t have a chance to formally thank Sergeant
Anderley. I know we thanked him informally at our meetings but we appreciated his service
from the sheriff’s office over these last year, year and a half I guess it was almost. So we want to
formally recognize his and if you would extend our appreciation to him Lieutenant we appreciate
it and again welcome back. We’re looking forward to working with you.
Lt. Jim Olson: Thank you very much. Have a good evening.
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
Councilman Litsey: Thanks.
Mayor Furlong: Chief Geske’s here with the Chanhassen Fire Department. Good evening Chief.
Chief Gregg Geske: Sound like you have a cold there.
Mayor Furlong: I do. And water. Thank you.
Councilwoman Ernst: That’s why he’s so crabby.
Chief Gregg Geske: Is that it?
Mayor Furlong: That was out of order.
Chief Gregg Geske: At least we have something to attribute it to anyways.
Mayor Furlong: You’re both out of order.
Chief Gregg Geske: In the council update we did our report last year that we had 539 calls
which was down 32 from 2007. Of course again that can only be attributed to the fine fire
prevention that we do quite a bit in the Chanhassen Fire Department but we have been lucky
during the cold periods here that we haven’t had much for structure fires. That’s kind of the time
when it’s 15-20 below 0 that we hope the pager doesn’t go off. We did have an attic fire last
Saturday evening but it was contained to the attic and put out rather quickly so we weren’t out in
the cold too long. It did start out slow in January. It’s picked up a little bit here with calls but
again we’re just about through the cold season so, we will be participating also in the February
Fest. We usually have some fire fighters out there for cuts and scrapes and if anybody slips and
falls and stuff and we are planning on that. Other than that I don’t have a whole lot else to report
tonight so. Any questions or concerns?
Mayor Furlong: Any questions for the chief?
Councilman Litsey: We appreciate you too.
Chief Gregg Geske: It’s great that I’m not locked out.
Councilman Litsey: You do a good job too.
Chief Gregg Geske: Alright, thanks. Have a great night.
Todd Gerhardt: Thank you.
PUBLIC HEARING: 2009 STREET IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS: PUBLIC
HEARING AND AUTHORIZE PREPARATION OF PLANS & SPECIFICATIONS.
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
Public Present:
Name Address
Wendy E. Thomas 6970 Redwing Lane
Marvin & Sandie Oman 6951 Redwing Lane
Babette & Laverne Wheeler 445 Lakota Lane
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Jay Kronick 78 West 78 Street
Dave Fabel 7283 Pontiac Circle
Jim Swanson 615 Lakota Lane
Paul Oehme: Thank you Mr. Mayor, City Council members. Just before we begin, I did put
some emails, correspondence we received this week, after the packet went out that weren’t able
to get into the packet so I just wanted to make sure you had a copy of those before we begin.
And then also I did put a resolution, draft resolution on your desk too for this project. Tonight I
would like to just briefly review the proposed 2009 street project and answer, try to answer any
questions that you have and then I certainly would request that a public hearing be held for this
project. Annually the City proposes street improvement projects to keep their pavement system
network in good condition. The streets identified for these projects can no longer be cost
effectively maintained just by normal patching and sealcoat projects and such like that. We need
to look at more improvements to these roads to get them back up to a good service level. Streets
have been identified. Have reached their design life as well and should be rehabilitated at this
time, so for this year’s project we are considering mill and overlays. Basically milling off the
surface layer of the streets and then re-paving a fresh, new bituminous surface, riding surface.
Also included is miscellaneous storm sewer improvements for these areas and then also
miscellaneous curb and gutter and sidewalk replacements throughout the city. We also are
considering including a pedestrian trail improving in this project as well. There are 3 main areas
within the city that are included in this project. Area number 1 here is shown. It’s just off of
Kerber Boulevard and that’s the low to medium density residential area. Area number 2 is down
south and that’s the rural residential areas or 3 streets down here off of 101. And then the third
area is the commercial area off of, well let’s just say west of Dell to 101. For this year’s project
about 3.1 miles of streets are proposed for improvements. Just as a background, where we are to
date. I just wanted to refresh your memory and the viewing public where we’re at within this
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project. On October 13 staff reviewed this project with the council at a work shop. On October
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27 the council authorized the preparation of this feasibility study that we’re going to be talking
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about tonight. On November 12 a neighborhood was opened, was held here at City Hall in the
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council chambers. Over 27 property owners from, in the project area attended. On January 12
the City Council accepted the feasibility study and called this public hearing. And then on
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January 21 of this month, a second neighborhood meeting was held and 5 property owners
attended. For this public hearing tonight 351 notices have been sent out. So I’d like to get into a
little more detail in terms of what is included in the project and in particular in each of the
project areas. The urban residential, medium and the low density areas. Medium density is
shown here in the blue area and the low residential area is shown more in the orange. The streets
considered in this project are Chaparral Lane, Chaparral Court right in this area. Redwing Lane.
Redwing Court. Buckingham Court, which is down here off of Kerber Boulevard. And then
Pontiac Lane and Pontiac Circle and let’s see, and then Pima Lane over here. That’s the areas.
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
Project was, is proposed and how we propose projects like this is we use our pavement
management system. Annually the city surveys about a third of the center line streets here in the
community. We rate the streets from 1 to 0. 1 being a new street all the way down to 0. And
then we take the software and kind of identify project areas or streets that need improvement
based upon certain criteria’s. The latest ratings for these streets are all within the mill and
overlay range which is between 60 and 40 say. Some areas being a lot lower because of the
stress pavement areas on those streets, but based upon our analysis the streets are warranted for
rehabilitation at this time. What does that mean? These streets would be milled. Anywhere
between 0 and 2 inches. The riding surface, pavement surface. Any of the major stress are
severely damaged curbs would be replaced. Those are the ones that have been settled or severely
cracked. Aren’t draining properly. Those type of things. The stress pavement areas like
alligated areas or running, big pot holes would be dug out and replaced with a structural
bituminous layer. Wide cracks would be filled in. So they don’t reflect through the pavement
quickly, and the whole surface, well all the streets would be paved with a 2 inch overlay. Also
included would be storm sewer improvements which includes the drain tile. We would propose
including portions of this area, and then also storm sewer catch basins. Minor repairs would also
be included. In it for this area too there’s no sidewalk that would be added in this project area.
This type of work was recently done, as you may recall, in the Pimlico and Preakness area.
Acorn Drive area 2 years ago so it’s basically the same type of work that we have done in the
past. Based upon the, and consistent with the city’s assessment practice, 40% of the street
improvement cost would be, would be assessed back to the benefiting property owners. In this
case there are two distinct areas for this project area. The low density and the medium density.
Based upon the cost for each of those areas we are estimating that the assessment for the low
density would just be over $1,400. For the 59 residents in that area. And for the medium
density, which has 261 units, the assessment, or estimated assessment would be just over $634
per unit. And the terms of the assessment that we typically use is 8 years at 6% interest for this
type of project. So to move on to Project Area #2. This is the rural residential area. Three
streets are proposed to be re-built. Lakota Lane here just off of 101. Mandan Circle just south of
Creekwood Drive. And then Vogelsberg Trail off of 101 as well. So here again I show you the
paving condition ratings for this area. 1 being a new street so very severely, severe stresses in
this pavement area so. This area’s just a little bit different than the low and medium density
residential areas for the project scope. We’re actually milling out the full pavement depth here.
This pavement is distressed to a level where we want to grind it up again and use it as base.
Very cost effective approach. We also would dig out any soft spots. We would typically test roll
the street after it’s milled off. See if there’s any soft areas we need to replace. Re-grade the
street over again and then pave off 3 inches of asphalt for this area. For basically a new
structural street. No city utilities such as sewer and water are proposed to be extended into this
project area at this time. We are looking at improvements to the Lakota Lane cul-de-sac here.
It’s a very small cul-de-sac at this time. Very hard to turn around a vehicle without driving off
into a private property’s yard, so we’re looking at expanding that cul-de-sac. Eventually buying
a little bit more right-of-way there. And for this area there’s 24 units that are in this project area
and the estimated assessment is just over $2,400. $2,400 so. And again the terms of the
assessment are 8 years at 6% interest. The third area is the commercial/industrial area. This area
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is again just off of Dell Road. It includes Quattro Drive here down 77 Street. All of 77 Street.
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187 Street and then 78 Street to 101. Pavement condition here is distressed as well. There’s
some alligated areas out here. Areas that the crown has settled out. Lots of pot holes. We found
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
some patches, pavement patches out here from past utility repairs that really need to get fixed
over again. The project is similar to the residential area. Medium residential area. We’re
milling off the surface of the pavement. Replacing any damaged curb and gutter that’s out here.
Severe damage, curb and gutter. Cutting out the distressed pavement areas. Filling in the wide
cracks. Minor storm sewer improvements associated with this project as well. Twin Cities and
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Western is considering replacing the crossing on 78 Street this summer so we’re already trying
to coordinate their work with this project as well. Currently right now it’s a rubber surface
crossing. We’re going to upgrade that to concrete as it is in the downtown area. Then the paving
a 2 inch overlay over the streets again for a nice smooth riding surface. Utility improvements
proposed in this area are going to be considered under a separate project and we’ve identified
some watermain and some sewer repairs that should take place out in this area before the overlay
takes place so we’re trying to coordinate that work as well. For this project area the assessment
methodology is just a little bit different than the other two project areas. The low and medium
residential and the rural residential that’s all assessed at a flat rate assessment. Split up between
the properties. This one, based upon the size and the characteristic of this area we’re looking at a
area assessment, acreage assessment. There’s 14 properties that are out here and dividing that by
67 benefiting acreage out in this area. That’s the methodology that we are proposing for this
project. And again it’s 8 year, proposed 8 year assessment over a 6 year, or 6% interest rate.
And just to make a note here too that all these assessments, if this project goes forward, would
not be payable in 2009. They would first show up on the 2010 county tax statement so there
would be no fees or costs associated with any of the properties out here. Having to pay any
assessments in fiscal, or calendar year 2009. Like I said before, included in this project is a trail
improvement. This, the trail considered for improvements is between Dell Road and Highway
101. Just off of Trunk Highway 5. Just north of our commercial/industrial mill and overlay
project. This trail has been, needs some repair and we’d like to include it in this project.
Basically the smaller trail projects, curb and gutter projects, what have you, typically we can get
a better price if we throw these type of projects into larger mill and overlay projects. More larger
street projects so that’s the idea behind this. There are no assessments associated with this to any
of the property owners, so. The, I’d like to move into the costs for the street project. Show the
costs associated with each of the project areas. Low, medium, rural, commercial areas, and also
I did include the Dell Road mill and overlay project. I didn’t touch on that. Eden Prairie is, in
conjunction with Eden Prairie, Eden Prairie’s looking at overlaying Dell Road and a portion of
Dell Road is in what, is in the city of Chanhassen city limits. To have a good driving surface,
consistent paving surface we’d like to partner with Eden Prairie and contract that work out
together. That’s not associated with the contract that we’re talking about here tonight or any of
the assessments. It’s something that just was included in this year’s budget for street
improvements. And then also I talked about the trail improvements and some sidewalk repairs as
well so. And then the associated assessments for each of the project areas is shown here as well.
For the two of the project areas, the low-medium residential areas, the city does have, does own
Meadow Green Park area and based upon past assessment practices we look at charging the city
7 units for that park area so there’s 7 units out there so out of the 80, let’s see the 84, $84,000
that’s assessed in this low area, of that $4,400 would be assessed to the city to pay off our
assessment share of our property in that area. And then likewise in the commercial area we own
2 parcels out in that area and trying to be consistent with how we assess commercial areas and
individual so we’re assessing ourselves for that land as well. There are some storm sewer costs
associated with this project. Your current cost estimates for each of these areas. It includes
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
catch basin re-do’s. Drain tile. Some storm sewer improvements in some of these areas. Storm
sewer piping and so all these costs are not being, proposed to be assessed. They’ll be paid
through the storm sewer utility fund. And if the project would move forward, there’s the
schedule that we would try to follow. Approving the plans and specs sometime in early
February. We’d like to try to get a bid from a contractor. Bid out the contract probably the end
of May sometime and then hold another hearing the end of April. And at that point if the project
moves forward we’d like to try to start the project in May and have substantial completion for
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the project on August 14. So based upon the analysis that we have put together, you know staff
feels that this project is necessary, feasible and cost effective. So at this time I would be happy
to try to answer any of the questions that staff or that council has and I would request that a
public hearing be opened for this project.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Any questions for staff at this time? Councilman McDonald.
Councilman McDonald: I have a question. A lot of people are questioning this based upon the
current state of the economy and as to where we’re at. You’ve said that this is, the city looks at
this based upon our numbers that we get from our pavement management program, and you’ve
provided those numbers to us for those particular streets. Can you kind of explain what those
numbers mean from the standpoint of okay, if we were to put this project off for a while, at what
point do the roads deteriorate to the point where we’re no longer looking at a mill and overlay
but we have to do a total redo of the streets and how much does that cost in your estimate.
Paul Oehme: Yeah we’ve, again we look at each of these streets once every 3 years and based
upon our analysis you know the pavement condition has been dropping in these areas and once,
if you look at a typical pavement degradation curve, once it reaches this type of level, typically
the streets tend to drop off a lot faster. Pavement condition index drops off a lot faster because
there’s a lot more cracks. There’s a lot more alligatored areas. A lot more pot holes out there. A
lot more water then can seep into the sub-grade and this type of weather here typically breaks
apart the asphalt a lot quickly. The asphalt is a lot brittle. Is very brittle right now because the
roads are at least you know 25 years old so you know we’re just trying to hold these roads
together for another 15 to 20 years. Trying to shoot for that with proper maintenance of you
know. That’s how long these improvements typically last so to answer your point, you know if
we do delay these projects, you know typically we, you know we’ve got 5 years of projects in the
queue already. This one probably would go to the end of the line. In 5 years I would venture to
say that the streets would degradate to a point that some of these areas we’re almost looking at a
reconstruction, which as you know last year’s project, that was $6,000 or so, so. So yeah, streets,
you want to try to get these streets as soon as you can. Try to eliminate as much of the pavement
removal distresses as much as you can before you have to go to the next step of reconstruction.
Councilman McDonald: And typically what’s the difference between a mill and overlay and a
total reconstruction? You know in rough figures as far as assessments to the homeowners. Just a
factor of what?
Paul Oehme: Yeah, we’re looking of a factor of at least probably 4. Based upon the projects
that we’ve seen in the last 4 or 5 years. You know and also I think this year is going to be a great
bidding season as well too. There’s a lot of hungry contractors that are out there. Not having a
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
lot of development work to work on. Plus the drop in fuel costs from last year. Plus the drop in
oil prices, the bituminous cost. We’re seeing some good savings there from last year’s cost so. I
mean I think this is a good market to start to put these things out for bid.
Councilman McDonald: Okay. Thanks very much.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Other questions? Councilwoman Ernst.
Councilwoman Ernst: Paul when you talked about some of the criteria as to what could happen
with these roads and you talked about if we waited until 5 years and what happens with the
degradation. What happens if we waited 2 years? I mean is it really deteriorating that fast that
you would see that much?
Paul Oehme: Well I mean it’s kind of hard to tell in 2 years what the roads are going to be.
Every road kind of degradates at a different level. So you know in 2 years, yeah. Maybe a mill
and overlay would still be appropriate but in terms of the areas that you’re going to have to rip
up and redo because the asphalt’s already alligatored because of the curbs have heaved. Because
there’s more water getting into the sub-grade. You know costs are definitely going to go up.
Plus 2 years of interest or inflation for contractor’s costs too so I mean there potentially could be
a sizable increase in the amount of project cost.
Councilwoman Ernst: So the cost that you had listed in here are estimates correct?
Paul Oehme: Right. These are only estimates. I want to make that clear. Once we get, if we get
bids from a contractor, we re-evaluate these assessments based upon, and the cost based upon the
numbers that we get from the contractor so and then we re-calculate the assessment amounts
based upon the actual costs that we get from the contractor.
Councilwoman Ernst: I don’t know that you could ask this but we have an estimate and that’s
based on past history, or are these actual estimates based on RFP’s that you sent out today?
Paul Oehme: No they’re, I mean these are based upon what we’ve seen in the market today. I
mean we can talk to asphalt suppliers and contractors and you know granted we do look at past
projects and see what a typical ton of asphalt would be but adjust it accordingly based upon what
we’re actually seeing in the market. That’s why from the neighborhood meeting time that we,
back in November when we had the neighborhood meeting to what’s actually in the feasibility
report and what’s in your background to date, those numbers have changed a little bit.
Councilwoman Ernst: I know when we did the project on Laredo Drive there was quite a
significant difference between what it started out with and what it ended up to be.
Paul Oehme: Right.
Councilwoman Ernst: My last question is, are there any other alternatives that you would have
to offer in place of what you proposed here today that would be of less cost to each of the
homeowners?
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
Paul Oehme: Not, no. I mean there’s really, this is pretty much the standard practice for the
industry right now. Once roads become deteriorate to this type of level, there really isn’t that
much alternative fixes that you can do out there. You really need to address the underlying sub-
grade issues and the cracking and the alligatored areas. Ripping those things out and trying to
pave it with a new asphalt layer. I mean there’s products out there. There’s micro-surfacing.
There’s sealcoating. There’s several other products that are out there but I guess personally I
wouldn’t recommend those products because I don’t think the cost benefit is there right now
based upon the condition of the road.
Councilwoman Ernst: Well I guess what I was looking at, I saw several things that were being
done as part of the project. Is there a way to prioritize some of those things that would get us
through so that we could go back later on to finish the project, and I’m trying to find it right now
and I can’t. But I know you have the criteria laid out as to what was included as a part of the
project for each of these.
Paul Oehme: Yep. Let me try to back up here. For low residential area. Here’s milling the
pavement surface. That’s to take out any of the.
Councilwoman Ernst: Drain tile.
Paul Oehme: Well the curb and gutter or the, I’m sorry. The pavement. The ride ability of this,
of the pavement deflects and we want to make it a smooth driving surface when we’re done with
it. The drain tile for example that comes out of the storm sewer utility fund so that’s not even
being assessed. So and that’s to help the sub-grade. That helps the property and the pavement
last a lot longer as well too so. Filling the cracks, you know that’s something we want to do in
conjunction with this project too because if you don’t do that then typically the cracks will
migrate through and reflect up to the surface very soon so we’ve experienced that in past projects
so we want to make sure we fill in those cracks properly. You know this is, it’s pretty straight,
it’s pretty much all inclusive. I mean there’s really nothing I would say that you can really take
out of there. The scope of the project without losing some quality and some longevity of the
project.
Councilwoman Ernst: And you took the price of the installation of the sidewalks out of this, on
number 1, correct?
Paul Oehme: Right. Yeah there was.
Councilwoman Ernst: So it’s not included in here.
Paul Oehme: Yeah, there was some discussion early on by some property owners in this area
that approached us. Wouldn’t it be nice to include a sidewalk in this neighborhood so we
looked at that and then we talked to the neighborhood about that. We actually petitioned the
neighborhood to see who was interested and who was not interested in having that sidewalk out
there and based upon that petition, feedback we received from the property owners, we did not,
we decided not to include that sidewalk in this project.
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
Councilwoman Ernst: Okay. That’s it for now.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Thank you. Councilman Litsey, questions at this time?
Councilman Litsey: Just one thing I guess. Are contractors pretty hungry for work right now? I
mean it’s still a real good market from the standpoint if you have to bid a project out?
Paul Oehme: Absolutely. I think this is probably one of the best years in the last 5 years I think
that we’re going to have so.
Councilman Litsey: Because I know a couple years ago when the road I live on was done with
the mill and overlay, which turned out really nice but I know came in lower than the pricing
estimates because the same kind of scenario, but it sounds better right now.
Paul Oehme: Yeah I think it’s, like I said I think it’s going to be the best in the last 5 years.
Councilman Litsey: Okay, thanks.
Mayor Furlong: Let’s see. The Lakota Lane cul-de-sac, is that, are the costs of that including
these, it sounded like there was some property acquisition to increase right-of-way there. Is that
going to be required?
Paul Oehme: That would be required and that’s included in the project costs as well.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Have we in any of these streets projects over the last few years done
something where we’ve expanded the right-of-way? I couldn’t recall if we had or not.
Paul Oehme: Not that I’m aware of that comes to the top of my head right now.
Mayor Furlong: Which one? Dogwood?
Paul Oehme: Well Dogwood was a different deal. That was more of a development, public/
private partnership there.
Mayor Furlong: Yeah, I guess I’m curious about the funding of that. If that’s, if you’ve given
any thought to it since we’re expanding the road. There’s an improvement there very similar to
the sidewalk improvement. If that’s a similar type of, should that be funded similarly to an
improvement such as the sidewalks on the Pontiac Lane and Circle area or not? Or if, because
it’s an improvement to the existing road. And I guess my question is, did you think about it in
that way or is that something that you want to think about?
Paul Oehme: Sure. Yeah it’s like, it’s one of those things that we’d like to include in the project
cost. I mean we’ve had comments from the residents on Lakota and we think it’s warranted and
needed so we’re pursuing that. You know if we can’t come to resolution, acquisition or cost or
what have you, then obviously we’re not going to pursue it any farther than that so.
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Well and I guess I would suggest think about, think about how that fits
into our assessment practice as well.
Paul Oehme: Okay. I gotch ya.
Mayor Furlong: See where I’m going?
Paul Oehme: Yep.
Mayor Furlong: And so give that some thought as we get to the next step if we go that way.
And then I think we’re going to probably have some other questions. I’ve got a list of some
things I want to make sure are covered but I want to make sure the residents have an opportunity,
and business owners if they’re here, to talk about and raise some of the issues as well so. Any
other questions at this point? If not, I would suggest that we open it up. Are there any other
questions at this time?
Councilman McDonald: I’ll wait. I have a follow-up but I want to give the public meeting a
chance so.
Mayor Furlong: Alright, that’s fine. Let’s go ahead and open up the public meeting. I guess the
way I’d like to do this is try to, since we have 3 different project areas and we may have people
from the different project areas, is focus on one project area at a time with regards to the public
comments and I would certainly suggest and start with project area #1, followed by 2 and 3 just
because they’re in the order there. Paul, if we could keep the information up on the board and
then when people come forward to discuss that, they can point to a number or something and
we’ll have a better idea of what their concerns are. So at this point let’s open up the public
hearing. At this point I would invite residents and interested parties that would like to address
the council on matters of this relating to project area #1. What I would ask too, something that I
found is helpful in the past from the council standpoint is to make sure we’re aware one, whether
or not you think the project needs to be done. Two, if you agree with how they’re proposing to
complete the project from a construction standpoint. Three, if you agree or disagree with how
it’s proposed to be funded. And then obviously four, anything else you want to tell us, or
anything that hasn’t been considered. Make sure you get your questions answered if they
haven’t been answered yet at the public meetings, but if you could make sure that we’re aware of
your position on those three items as well as anything else you’d like to tell us it gives us a better
idea as we listen to you and try to incorporate your comments into our actions later this evening.
So at this point let’s open up the public hearing and I would invite residents and other interested
parties with regard to Project Area #1. This is the, if you could put up the streets again there.
This would be the Pontiac and, there it is. There you go. Let’s start with that one and see where
it takes us. So anyone who would like to start in this project area, please come forward to the
podium. I’d ask everyone to please state their name and address when they begin their
comments for the record. Thank you.
Marvin Oman: My name’s Marvin Oman and I reside at 6951 Redwing Lane. We’re in Project
Area 1 and we just moved into Chanhassen less than a year ago and so we haven’t had a long
period of time to assess the street itself but from being there a short period of time, my thought is
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
that that particular area wouldn’t need to be done right at this time. Yes, there are some minor
cracks and things like that on the curves and stuff like that. I’m not a, I’m certainly not a
concrete or an asphalt expert but just on a visual basis, I’m thinking that maybe it could be done
a year later but again when we were here earlier last year we asked that question. What happens
if you do not do it? Well you go to the back of the line so it’s one of those things well you do it
now, that’s great and get assessed and bite the bullet and do it. My question I guess is where
does the 6% come in. I know that there’s probably going to be a bond that’s issued to pay for the
cost of this, but the, one of the things that I, that you mentioned, a cost savings aspect of doing it
now because of the price of oil being down. Hungry contractors. Things like that. Because of
that economic environment, what would be wrong with possibly saying here, we’ve got the
leverage as a city that people know that the projects are out there. What if we delayed the project
one year to help the citizens out but got the contract signed by the contractor to have the leverage
for them to bid in that environment. Meaning that they would probably have to bid lower
because of future business that they might like to receive today. I don’t know if that’s a
possibility but I know that the leverage is something that we could have because of the
environment.
Mayor Furlong: So to clarify you’re asking, what if we delayed the project for a year but got the
contracts in place and did the bids this year and locked them in for next year’s construction
season. 2010 construction season.
Marvin Oman: And the reason being is because of layoff’s. Economic conditions and things
like that. Some people might not be able to come up with that assessed value. It’d be better
when the environment turns.
Mayor Furlong: Sure. Mr. Oehme, would you like to comment?
Paul Oehme: Sure, I’ll take a stab at that. Typically contractors do not like bidding in that type
of environment because they have to purchase asphalt product, raw materials at the time they’re
actually going to be putting them in. In the next week or whatever so they would be extremely
concerned about potential increase in the cost say 2010 summer and beyond, so I think, I
definitely think you would get worst pricing. It would discourage potential contractors from
bidding on a project like that so I guess I would not recommend that. Under that scenario. I just
want to touch on one of his points about you know the cost for the project and you know try and
delay the project a year. We are trying to build this project in the summer of 2009. The
assessments would not be due until 2010 so there is a delay in when actually the cost for the
citizens would have to be, start have to be paying for the project so. There is kind of getting
back to his point that, instead of delaying the project there’s some delay in terms of when the
actual cost for the assessment would have to be paid.
Mayor Furlong: So by that, fair to assume that the city up fronts the cost for the entire project
and then receives payment on the assessed portion which is only a portion of it in the following
year.
Paul Oehme: Exactly. And you know council has the option to even further delay those
assessments…
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Marvin Oman: So you’re saying that then, the City Council could say well instead of doing it,
assess the homeowners in 2010, they could do that in 2011? Did I hear you right?
Paul Oehme: Well.
Marvin Oman: I mean is it a possibility?
Paul Oehme: That is a possibility. I mean that could be considered. There are some carrying
charges there that we would have to consider, and the council would have to consider but that’s
something that it’s maybe an option.
Todd Gerhardt: Whenever you delay a project there’s interest costs that’s going to occur in that
time period so you know staff would recommend to the council that if you were to delay it 2011,
we would also recommend that since we up front the money, that interest would also be
calculated during that period of time. Because if not then it’s, you know you’re going to have
additional costs with that cash being out of pocket.
Marvin Oman: But where does the 6% come in?
Todd Gerhardt: The 6% is a cost that we would have associated if we were to bond for it. You
have bonding costs. Issuance costs. In this case we’re going to do it in-house but if we were to
bond, that’s what the rate would be.
Marvin Oman: But because you’re doing it in-house it’s going to be 6% no matter what?
Todd Gerhardt: That’s been our practice.
Mayor Furlong: And that as I understand, that would be interest charged on those property
owners who would choose to pay off the assessment over a period of time. There would be no,
it’s a cost of financing the project through the city.
Marvin Oman: Right.
Mayor Furlong: Because that’s an option that we’ve put in place before.
Marvin Oman: Okay, thanks.
Mayor Furlong: Okay? Thank you. Anyone else that would like to address the council on
Project Area #1. Who lives on any of these roads. We did receive some emails on this project
area. One from a Ms. Michelson who indicated that the roads are in dire need of repair and that
they do want the streets done. She had a question about the interest rates, similar to what Mr.
Oman just mentioned. She lives on Pontiac Lane. There’s also an email from a Richard Brown,
also in the Pontiac area that was concerned about the timing of the project due to economic
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
situation. Also had questions on some of the water problems and the scope of the project. And
then there was another email from a Ms. Smith, also in the Pontiac Lane area that asked about
adding lift rings to man holes and sewer covers at the time that the final wear coat is put down.
That’s a question I will ask. It’s something we hit time and again. Is that going to be part of the
standard practice with these projects going forward? Put the lift rings in place.
Paul Oehme: Yes. It depends upon the condition and where the asphalt’s in. Typically for the
sanitary man holes that are typically in the center of the streets, we’ll put a lift ring in there and
feather the asphalt in. Typically keeping the man hole lids down about a quarter to 3/8 inch.
Mayor Furlong: And what that requires and obviously, or what has happened in past projects is
that an initial base coat of asphalt will go down following the wear coat, or the second coat goes
on in the spring. Is that correct? Would you follow that same procedure?
Paul Oehme: That’s for new construction.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Is that not true for a mill and overlay?
Paul Oehme: That’s not true for a mill and overlay. All we’re doing is placing down 2 inch
asphalt surface over the existing pavement surface.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Okay.
Paul Oehme: So we don’t.
Mayor Furlong: So it will be done by the end of the season?
Paul Oehme: Absolutely.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Well and I guess the real question here comes back to, you know are the
man hole covers going to be at the same level as the asphalt or are there going to be dips as
people drive down the road?
Paul Oehme: No, we try to make them as level as we can so there aren’t any dips, so our plow
trucks don’t hit them. Obviously it’s an impediment to the driving conditions of the road too but
that goes back to the point of for storm sewer and lift rings, especially in the curb and gutter,
that’s all funded out of utilities.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright, thank you. Anyone else at this time then with regard to Project
Area #1? No? Okay. Let’s move on to Project Area #2.
Councilwoman Ernst: Mayor, I have one quick question before.
Mayor Furlong: Councilwoman Ernst.
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
Councilwoman Ernst: This is a question for either Todd or Paul when you were talking about
the percentage of interest from the county. Does the city pay for that or does that get charged
back to the homeowner?
Todd Gerhardt: We charge it back to the homeowners based on an 8 year pay back period.
Councilwoman Ernst: Okay. And do we know what that interest rate is?
Todd Gerhardt: Well we’re internally funding that so you know typically if we were to sell
bonds for this project, we would probably see something around a 5% range and then you’re
issuance costs and administrative process would probably put you up into that 6% range.
Councilwoman Ernst: Okay. That’s what we were talking about earlier or is this a separate?
Okay. Sorry.
Councilman Litsey: And that’s only if someone chooses to go through the city. Obviously they
can pay it up front or go through their own financing if they want to.
Todd Gerhardt: Yeah, it’s up to them.
Councilman Litsey: It’s just for the people that opt for the city financing so.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Project Area #2. Lakota Lane, Mandan Circle and Vogelsberg Trail.
We’ll open the public hearing at this point. Anyone that would like to comment on Project Area
#2. No one this evening? Okay. Let’s go to Project Area #3. This is the area north of Highway
5 to the west of Dell Road. South of the railroad tracks. Open it up for anyone to comment on
this project. Anyone that would like to address the council on this project? Good evening sir.
Come on up.
Jay Kronick: Thank you. My name is Jay Kronick and that’s spelled Kronick. I’m a property
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owner on West 78 Street. I own the property that Lotus Lawn and Garden commonly sits on.
Presently sits on. I think the roads in the area certainly are due for some repair. There’s a lot of
traffic on those roads. A lot of heavy truck traffic. Semi-trailers and so forth. And I think the
engineer and staff’s assessment is probably correct. The roads in that vicinity need to be done.
I’m concerned, as we all are about the current times. I’m looking for ways in my business and in
my personal life to cut back. To defer things. When it comes to things that need to be
maintained versus not taken care of them and incurring future costs that are greater, I think we all
recognize whether it’s our home or our business or our public utilities that those things need to
get taken care of, so I would urge the council to look at the assessment schedule. The means of
financing this and the means of deferring or delaying, whether it’s pushing the project back a
year or two or coming up with some sort of creative alternative to the 8 year, 6% plan. Maybe
the payments kick in in 2011 instead of 2010. You guys can all come up with some good
creative ways and I would just simply ask for some understanding on that part. So I’m in favor
of this project. There was a trail thing suggested on this one and Chanhassen’s done a
remarkable job with it’s trails in general. I started using my bicycle to do my in town
commuting from my business to the bank. To the post office. To customers in the area and that
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
section along Highway 5 could use some work. It’s in bad shape. Not just from a personal
standpoint but I see a lot of people who I think are commuters. From Eden Prairie. To Eden
Prairie using that. Folks with backpacks and stuff early in the morning. Late in the afternoon. I
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think you know, an alternative to the semi truck traffic on the frontage road on 78 Street and
certainly the Highway 5 traffic, to encourage alternative means to car and vehicle transportation.
Bicycles, pedestrians is great. That trail could use some work. The last point I wanted to make
was just personal concern with my business in relation to timing of the project. If this is going to
start in May, if there’s some flexibility on that. My business is pretty seasonal. I do 60% of my
stthth
business from April 1 through June 15 or June 20 and as one of relatively few property
owners on that street, a little selfish consideration here. If the disruption to traffic patterns could
be delayed. If you have 3 projects, same contractor and this one could be done last and
completed on time to get past my busy season and disruption to my business, that would be
wonderful. I remember when Highway 5 was upgraded and 101 a number of years ago and we
certainly saw an impact from that and I’ve got enough impacts between the weather and the
economy. Other than that I thank you for your time.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you sir. Mr. Oehme, would you like to respond to any of his comments?
Paul Oehme: Yep, absolutely. He brings out a good point about staging the project too and
that’s one thing I didn’t really touch on but maybe I should have. Is Project Area #1 and Project
Area #2, those two have been identified and we’re thinking about, if this project moves forward,
starting those projects, probably Area #1 and then move onto Area #2. Number 3, in his area, in
the commercial area we are planning to do those utilities, sewer and water improvements this
spring and that potentially could carry over into later into early summer as well too so we have
identified Area #3 already as potentially going that, to June sometime as well so that might
actually might work in well with his schedule and our’s.
Mayor Furlong: For the utility work as well as the street work?
Paul Oehme: Well the utility work is, we were anticipating to start that in April, in May some
timeframe depending upon how that goes. That takes at least a month, month and a half to,
we’re figuring to complete that section of those utility improvements. And we don’t want our
contractor, the contractor for the street project to start in that area until those utilities are done.
Plus Twin City and Western Railroad out here, I don’t have a good feeling yet on when they
want to start. If they’re going to start the railroad crossing in that area too. We’d like to have
that railroad crossing in place before we actually start with the overlay as well so we don’t have
an ugly looking patch there right next to the railroad, so. I’m just saying that that area is
probably identified already as a later start date than the other two project areas.
Mayor Furlong: For the street part but there’s going to be utility activity going on beginning in
April-May timeframe.
Paul Oehme: Right. Yep.
Mayor Furlong: How disruptive is that going to be to traffic flow? To people getting to their
businesses.
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
Paul Oehme: Sure. That’s another good question.
Mayor Furlong: Customers as well as employees.
Paul Oehme: Yeah, let me bring up that area. Let me just touch on that project. We have
identified force main, sanitary force main that needs to be replaced in this area, along with some
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watermain improvements. There has been identified numerous watermain breaks along 77
th
Street here up to 187 Street. So the utility improvement project consists of directional boring
utilities through this area here. Basically starting from Dell Road over to approximately right up
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to the curve on 187 Street. So this area will always be open to traffic. There might be some
minor periods during the day where opening up a trench where they potentially can’t get through
but 95% of the time that road’s going to be open under utility work conditions so I don’t
anticipate you know at the Lotus Lawn and Garden area to be affected too much by the utility
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work that’s taking place on 77 Street.
Mayor Furlong: So to clarify that, the utility work is all on the east end of the project.
Paul Oehme: Exactly. It’s not down on the west end of the project area.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. And as far as access, to those businesses on the east end as far as access
to their business.
Paul Oehme: Yep, we’re going to try to maintain access to the business throughout the project
area. That’s why we were looking at directional boring the project which, instead of open
cutting. Having big trenches out there. It seems to be a good use of resources to go that
direction and try to maintain access to the property owners at all times through this area.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright, thank you. Anyone else who would like to comment on Project
Area #3. This evening. No? We did receive another couple emails that will be included in the
record. One from Mr. Herman at Sign Source who’s business is on Quattro Drive. Spoke about
the need for only minor repairs along that road. Concern about the, or the level of traffic was
minimal and thought that other streets would be appropriate. Also referenced economic
conditions with regard to additional financial burden on the property owners. We also received
an email from Mr. Steineker at Berquist Companies. Again commenting about the desire to have
a postponement of the work due to the economy. Anyone else on any of these project areas at
this point? Okay. At that point then, is there a motion to close the public hearing?
Councilman Litsey moved, Councilman McDonald seconded to close the public hearing.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0. The public
hearing was closed.
Mayor Furlong: Let’s, to the extent that some questions have been brought up by the public,
both through emails and comments here this evening, I’d ask if there are any follow-up questions
for staff at this time. Mr. McDonald.
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
Councilman McDonald: Yes, I have a question I wanted to follow up on that’s kind of been
touched upon and I just want to get to the heart of it. We’ve been asked about delaying the
project. If we were to take this and delay it out 2 years. First of all, as I understand in talking to
you, that really wouldn’t be possible because at that point we have additional problems that are
already in the pipeline so that’s what makes it difficult to just kind of reschedule these. Plus the
fact at that point what would be the impact to the city. I mean could we handle delaying
something out and adding on top of other projects and you know there’s costs associated with
also, isn’t there?
Paul Oehme: That’s correct.
Councilman McDonald: Okay. So really the best bang for the buck is, because these have come
up now, it is in the city’s economic interest to go ahead and complete the projects as scheduled.
Paul Oehme: Well yeah. I’d like to at least move the project forward to receive bids and see
where the bids come in at, and then consider actually awarding a contract at that time so.
Councilman McDonald: Okay.
Paul Oehme: I’d like to you know see where the market’s at.
Councilman McDonald: Okay. No further questions.
Paul Oehme: Okay. Any other questions Councilwoman Ernst?
Councilwoman Ernst: Yeah. Once you get the bids and you bring them back, and we evaluate
the timing on this, is it possible to, and I’m not going to say delay the project 5 years but once
you get the bids on it, depending on what it is, we could delay it for a few months, right? I mean
I know that that’s not a lot of time but it is some time. And the reason, I have follow-up
questions to this so that’s why I’m asking the question.
Paul Oehme: Yeah. Typically in the specifications that we put out and it’s standard throughout
the industry, you know we give approximate start date and then more or less a firm completion
date. We typically like to have these projects completed before Labor Day. Before school starts
to try to minimize the amount of impact to school starts and what have you so. Any delay in that
timeframe you know potentially could disrupt the contract itself. Plus once we get delay, if we
delay the project farther out into you know fall, you know typically weather patterns are
problematic for paving wear course. Typically we want to pave wear course in the summer time
when it’s nice and hot. You get a better product in the end. Better ride ability. Smoother
surface. Those type of things. That’s why we pin point summer for as much wear course paving
as we can.
Roger Knutson: Mayor, members of the council. I’ll just also comment. Once you get the bids,
your bid will say you have the right to hold them typically for 30 days. If you don’t award in 30
days the bids are gone.
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
Councilwoman Ernst: Oh, and then you have to start all over?
Roger Knutson: Right. And having gone through this last year, this is, in other cities, this is a
very sensitive subject, or may be sensitive depending upon what in the world the price of oil
does.
Councilwoman Ernst: Right.
Roger Knutson: If the price of oil goes down, everyone’s fine. You can delay it as long as you
want. But if the price of oil really spikes, and they haven’t, the contractor hasn’t locked in their
price, they, I mean it’s deadly.
Todd Gerhardt: They’ll file a delay claim you know back to the city and ask for compensation
on the difference. They have to prove that.
Councilwoman Ernst: You know one of the gentlemen brought up a point that I would really be
interested in knowing because I know that contractors are finding different ways of doing things
now just to get that lower price and I’m wondering if there, if they’re doing anything different in
terms of storing the materials or you know, granted there’s a cost associated with that as well. I
understand that but if it would, if it’s a contract that we could award and they could store the
materials and then do it later.
Todd Gerhardt: When it comes to a mill and overlay I think the technology that has changed
over the years are the machines that come in and mill, and they’re much more efficient and
effective and I think that’s the biggest cost savings that you’re seeing out there right now. As it
comes to the blacktop material, they’re buying from a batch plant, and they don’t control that.
They’re buying from a distributor basically and depending upon how many projects they may
have in the area and the quantity they’re going to buy from that batch plant may be a savings
back to us. But like Paul said, you know staff would recommend that we at least take bids and at
that time, if we do get favorable bids, we can talk about that at the assessment hearing. If you
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could put the schedule back up. There will be another hearing April 27. The public will be
invited back to that meeting to talk about the true benefit back to your property and we will have
the final assessment amount and at that time the council will decide if they want to move ahead
with the project or not at that hearing. And then we’ll know what our true costs are, but right
now this is great feedback that we need and you need to make the decision but until we really
have the true costs, we’re kind of going blind here.
Roger Knutson: And just to comment, if you tried to go out for a bid and say we want you to bid
it now but construct the project in 2011, the contractor’s going to have to go to the batch plant
and try to lock in a price for a year from now. With the volatility of oil, if they lock it in, they’re
not going to lock it in on the low side. They’re going to be scared and I mean I can’t imagine
how anyone can guess what the price of oil’s going to be in a year. But they will lock it in a lot
higher and so I think your costs would be quite a bit higher.
Councilwoman Ernst: Right, but I know that you know when you go out to bid and you bid a 2
year contract for example, that contract pricing stays good for to price, even though, steel for an
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
example. Steel index is sky high right now but there’s a contract out there that says you have to
honor this contract. And in some cases they get by with getting paid more and in some cases
they don’t, depending on the situation but.
Roger Knutson: Looking at oil in particular, steel has been troublesome but oil’s been insane. If
you look at, I know some contractors that got really burned because of weather and other things.
A project got pushed to the following year. Everyone anticipated it was going to be built one
year and it got pushed over to the next year and those contractors got burned really bad because
they hadn’t factored that in. I think contractor’s are, now factor that in and that will go into your
calculation of what the price will be.
Councilwoman Ernst: Certainly I understand what you’re saying. I understand.
Councilman Litsey: Well if they have to absorb too much of a loss, they’ll probably file for
bankruptcy so that’s another possibility that could happen.
Councilwoman Ernst: Yeah, right.
Councilman Litsey: I mean real possibility that could happen.
Paul Oehme: There’s a few out there that already have.
Councilman Litsey: Yeah.
Todd Gerhardt: It’s like anything. It’s a risk bubble and you know when they go out two years
they’re going to monitor that risk and usually when you have higher risk you have higher cost.
Councilwoman Ernst: Well I’ll wait with my other questions then until we get a firm price.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any other questions at this time? Councilman Litsey? Mr.
Oehme, a couple question of mine. If you could put up the project 3 PCI ratings.
Paul Oehme: There you go. Sorry. Thank you.
Mayor Furlong: One of the questions that we talk about was need. There’s quite a variance
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along West 78 there on the west end with the 60 and the east end with a 30. I guess my
question is, is there a reason why this project is not just concentrated on the east end of the area
rather than all the way across? Or why we’re going across and what’s the, we’ve got just two
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points there that are the high and the low, or almost, I mean clearly west 77 is down in the 20’s
and 30’s down there. We’ve got a wide variance across here and that might lead to some of the
difference in opinions in terms of need or not need depending upon what’s outside the front door.
Paul Oehme: Right. Yeah the, I can tell you that the west end is somewhat newer than the east
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end. When 101 was reconstructed a portion of West 78 Street was reconstructed. A small
portion and I think that 60 pavement condition index is kind of, is skewed in that area because I
think that’s where the rating was taken. In that newer section.
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
Mayor Furlong: Okay. So it’s not necessarily a linear change across there?
Paul Oehme: No. I don’t think so.
Mayor Furlong: It drops off pretty quickly just to the east of the 60?
Paul Oehme: Yeah, I think as you head east from there, I think it substantially gets worst and
worst so.
Todd Gerhardt: Yeah if you took one at the entrance to Lyman Lumber, that one’s going to be
pretty low too. And the amount of truck traffic that goes on there.
Mayor Furlong: And I guess my question, some of these ratings down in the 20’s and 30’s are
even below the standard of 40 to 60 for a mill and overlay. Do you think, I mean typically these
fall into reconstruction.
Paul Oehme: They do.
Mayor Furlong: Based upon these numbers do you think it’s feasible to do a mill and overlay in
this entire area and make it effective? Cost effective.
Paul Oehme: That’s getting back to you know delaying these projects. I mean this area we’ve
identified some significant areas that we’re going to have to chunk out. Remove the asphalt and
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re-pave those sections and 187 is that area and that’s why you’re seeing costs in this area higher
than you typically would in some of your other areas because of the pavement condition indexes
are so low in this area. We need to really replace that asphalt before we put that wear surface on
there to get a structural base so.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. And I, two things. One, delaying would reduce the ratings across the
board to the point that a mill and overlay would no longer be effective.
Paul Oehme: Right.
Mayor Furlong: Would put us into a reconstruction situation. Costs would be higher?
Paul Oehme: Absolutely.
Mayor Furlong: And so I guess my question is also, is a mill, what you’re saying is a mill and
overlay is still effective in this area even with these low ratings. That we’re still expecting to get
the 15 to 20 years life out of the project.
Paul Oehme: I think we are. And again there’s some spot areas out here that are really
degradated that we want to re-pave. Rip out. Re-pave again and then overlay so it’s isolated I
think enough where we can fix those problem areas without having to remove the entire roadway
section.
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Thank you. And then the other question I have, if we move forward this
evening we’re authorizing plans and specifications so that we can go out for bid. Get the bids in.
We’ve talked a lot about what we do once we get the bids. If there significant additional costs
between tonight and what it takes to put the plans and specs together and if most of that’s going
to be done in-house, is that correct?
Paul Oehme: That’s correct.
Mayor Furlong: What is the shelf life of those plans and specs? If for some reason we choose
not to go forward this year, are they usable a year from now or 2 years from now or you’re
basically starting over?
Paul Oehme: Well the way we like to put plans and specs together, we like to identify, and some
of the property owners can attest to this, we actually mark out the curb that we want to replace in
the field and then we put those sections on the plan sheets so if you delay a project you know 2,
3, 5 years, those reconstruction areas, those curb and gutter areas that we’re going to replace,
that’s all going to change. We’re probably going to have to be adding new so basically not
starting out from scratch but all the plan sheets definitely would have to get updated.
Mayor Furlong: There is significant re-work then?
Paul Oehme: There is. I mean there’s a lot of hours to put a plan set together.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Okay. Any other questions for staff? If not, why don’t we go ahead
and, we have a resolution in front of us. I want to make sure we have time for council members
to provide comments as well on the three project areas before us. Just try to push us along Mr.
Gerhardt. Slow, steady pace. Council comments. Councilman Litsey? Thoughts on this.
Councilman Litsey: Well I’ve gone through a few of these since I’ve been on the council,
including my own street so I do think it’s important to stay consistent and to stay on track as best
we can with our pavement management plan. Mr. Oehme and his staff I think have done a really
good job. I’ve really been impressed since I’ve been on the council about how they meticulously
go over things and really evaluate it and then try to work with the homeowners and people and I
trust that these numbers are good and that it’s kind of like pay me now or pay me more later if
you wait too long so I think it’s important that based upon the data that we’ve been given, and
we’ve looked at this prior to this meeting as well. We looked at our pavement management plan
and where we went ahead with that. I’m sympathetic to the economic conditions right now but I
think given what we have before us, we need to at least move ahead and see what the bids come
in. Hopefully they’ll be really favorable but based upon the numbers in front of us, at least if it
comes in at those numbers or below I think we really do need to move forward. I think
everyone’s pretty much in agreement that’s talked here and what we, feedback we’ve got. That
something should be done, it’s just timing and I hate to delay it. We’ve got a number of projects
in the queue and I hate to get that off track and. We also have another check point when the bids
come in so we’ll take a look at it then so I think it’s important to move forward tonight and we’ll
re-evaluate it when the bids come in.
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Councilwoman Ernst. Thoughts.
Councilwoman Ernst: Well just like everyone else has mentioned, you know economic changes
have definitely presented the events today compared to 2 years ago when I got on the council and
when we were doing these kinds of projects. I do, I really want to thank the homeowners for
coming in and expressing their concerns and giving us their feedback and their ideas. That’s
really important to hear that. It basically makes us think a little more too about what can we do
differently. I think we need to, actually we do need to move forward and see how the numbers
come in and then ask more questions if need be at that time but I think in order to even know
what we’re dealing with we need to see how the numbers come in so…move forward.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Councilman McDonald.
Councilman McDonald: I’ll just kind of second what’s already been said. I think that yeah, we
need to move forward. Find out what the numbers are and then kind of go from there. I too trust
the numbers and I do thank Mr. Oehme and his staff for doing this and explaining out and you
know laying out the project so let’s find out what the numbers come up with and then we’ll
discuss this some more.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. I would concur in terms of process here this evening. I think
it’s been helpful to hear the comments, both in terms of the email and those spoken this evening.
I think there are, for example with the trail along Highway 5, I was concerned about the need to
do that from a timing standpoint again like everybody else. Is this something that can be
deferred or not? I was going to suggest that we do look at deferring that based upon the
comments this evening I think we should keep it in and certainly at this point and look to make
that part of the project, especially if there’s, again if it’s the most cost effective way to upgrade
the trails. One of the things that we’ve seen this evening with these pavement condition indexes
is really the objective way that over the last many years that the city has been looking at our
streets and now our trails as well so that we can catch them before they deteriorate to the point
that costs accelerate beyond what they would be today, so a little bit of maintenance today
prevents more cost in the future. I think the, I asked about the Lakota Lane cul-de-sac and I
know you’ll take a look at that. The other thing I’d like staff to look at, and it came up this
evening and that is take a look at some ideas, and maybe we need to review our practice in terms
of establishing the interest rate for those property owners that choose to defer.
Todd Gerhardt: Got it down.
Mayor Furlong: Interest rates have moved substantially and over the last few years that we’ve
been doing this and I think that question came up last year and we looked at what the rates would
be and it still seemed to make sense. Maybe we need to establish something a little bit more
objective would be my thought there in terms of current market conditions at the time.
Something similar to the length of time that we’re providing. 8 years, if that’s what it is. I know
that number has moved different times based upon the size of the assessment as well so, but I’d
like to take a look at that and maybe review our practice there as well. Just to try to do that.
With regard to whether or not we consider deferring the first payment of the assessment, I think
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
anything’s possible, to answer the question but I think Mr. Gerhardt was right too. It’s a cost of
funds and we’d have to take that into account since the city is up-fronting the cost for the
assessed portion as well as for the taxpayers. Obviously the taxpayer portion is a cost to the
taxpayers but if we’re up-fronting the costs from an assessment portion too, basically the city
taxpayers are playing banker at that point for those homeowners. It’s a policy that we have had
and I think it’s a good policy to allow property owners with assessments to pay them off over
time, but it should be done at a fair interest rate, and that’s why I’d like to look at our practice
with the interest rate but then make sure that we’re being fair to all parties and consistent. But I
think moving forward this evening. Authorizing the plans and specs, specifications for all three
of these project areas makes sense. I think it’s the right thing to do. I think once we receive the
bids back we’ll be able to review at that time the true costs. We’ll have better information.
We’ll also have two more months of economic information and I don’t know if that’s going to
give us more answers or more questions but we can review it at that time and I think that’s a
prudent thing to do to keep this project on track so that we can, if we want to move forward we
have the ability to move forward. So unless there are any other questions there’s been a motion,
a resolution that’s been distributed to the council. If there are no other comments, is there a
motion to adopt the resolution?
Councilman McDonald: So moved.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there a second?
Councilwoman Ernst: Second.
Mayor Furlong: Made and seconded. Any discussion on the motion, or the resolution?
Resolution #2009-04: Councilman McDonald moved, Councilwoman Ernst seconded to
adopt the resolution authorizing the preparation of plans and specifications for the 2009
Street Improvement Project 09-01. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously
with a vote of 4 to 0.
PUBLIC HEARING: PUBLIC WORKS FACILITY, LOTS 5 AND 6, BLOCK 1,
TH
CHANHASSEN LAKES BUSINESS PARK 5 ADDITION; 7901 PARK PLACE,
APPLICANT: CITY OF CHANHASSEN.
A. CONSIDER VACATION OF DRAINAGE AND UTILITY EASEMENTS.
B. SITE PLAN REVIEW FOR AN 82,500 SQ. FT. BUILDING.
Public Present:
Name Address
Mary Borns 7199 Frontier Trail
Greg Fletcher 7616 South Shore Drive
Pat Neuman 740 Chippewa Circle
Tom Devine 7640 South Shore Drive
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
Kate Aanenson: I’m kind of combining them both if that’s okay.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, absolutely. Ms. Aanenson, please go forward.
Kate Aanenson: As you indicated Mayor, members of the council, there are two separate reports
but I think to put it in context I’d like to just kind of show where the site plan is for you and
everybody else.
Mayor Furlong: Very good, thank you.
Kate Aanenson: So our subject site, 7901 Park Place is the proposed new public works facility.
This is located, maybe someone can point out on the aerial where the current public works is.
It’s just north of the current public works, thank you. South of Highway 5. Also south of
Paisley Park there adjacent to Audubon Road. The site itself is actually 11 acres. If you look at
the floor area ratio we’re using less than, significantly less than half the site. It’s heavily
wooded. If you recall last year you did give a grading permit approval for the site so there has
been grading on this site, but the nice thing about this site with the wooded area against
Audubon, it does provide a natural screen for the setting of the subject site itself. So with those
11 acres it’s actually two lots. This subject site was platted, there’s a history in the staff report.
The one I’m just going to refer to is the grading permit that I mentioned back in September of
2008 and then in March, 1986 the City Council approved the Chan Lakes Business Park #5
which these two lots were created. So within those two lots, getting access off of Park Road is
how this would be served. There was a utility easement so this is the first action that requires a
public hearing tonight would be the vacation of that utility easement. And in that staff report,
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when this Chan Lakes Business Park 5 Addition was created the utility easement was put in
place, and so since that time reviewing of the document that was filed in 1986 which showed the
sanitary has been abandoned so that’s no longer there so in order to put this building over this
site we do require vacation of that utility easement so staff is recommending that. So I don’t
know if you wanted to wait to the end to kind of go back and circle back to that motion, I’ll just
go ahead and continue with the rest of the report if that’s okay.
Mayor Furlong: That’s fine.
Kate Aanenson: Okay. So what I’m showing you now on the rest of this project is the
remaining portion of the site so again keeping in mind that this is just the part that the building’s
sitting on. Again this is adjacent to the creek itself on the north side. Maybe I should go back
and just talk a little bit more of context of this site. If you look on Park Drive. If you look on the
east of Park Drive you see there’s an existing storm water pond that was created there. Actually
the creek runs through that. A meandering creek which affects some of the boundaries with
variances which I’ll talk again about in a minute. There’s also a wetland to the south. If you see
the two yellow highlighted parcels, there’s a wetland and that probably, that does, that goes into
the subject site and that also, there’s a variance on that too. So I’ll go through in a little bit more
detail how that’s affecting the layout of the site. And then again in reviewing this, trying to
preserve as much of the trees, working in between the creek and the wetland were some of the
criteria that was put in place. So there was several iterations of the site plan. Again while this is
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
a city initiated project, we hold ourselves to the same standards as we would with any other
developer so the planning staff working with engineering made some modifications to the site
plan itself. You can see the wetland, I’m not sure this is, on this portion. Maybe you can show
that Paul where the wetland is. Thank you. That’s the one wetland that’s, we’re seeking
variance from, and I’ll show that in a little bit more detail what percentage that is, but in order to
get the drive circulation through the site and then you can see the creek to the north. Kind of a
meandering, very circuitous as it works through the property right now. So some of the
functions that were needed for this building, on the original site plan it was laid out in meeting
with the planning staff we all try to figure out what needs to happen to get the circulation for the
trucks to go through the bays. Provide public access. This is an opportunity for a voting place
so we want easy access for public not to have to go into the back. Also providing screening for
some of our outdoor storage that the city needs. The public building right now there is a
significant salt storage that is a requirement so that same building, that same structure will be
place on this site so trying to find an adequate place for that. So those are all the functions of the
public works itself that laid out how this should fit on the site, so from the original site plan we
worked through some of those issues and modified it to the plan that is being proposed and the
Planning Commission did make a recommendation too. The Planning Commission held their
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hearing on January 6 of this year and they had some concerns regarding the implications for the
wetland and also the creek setback. We were holding ourselves to the same standards so we had
a good discussion on that itself. And the way the creek is sitting now and how it’s being used,
there’s direct flow into that creek right now so with this plan putting the curb in place,
monitoring the drainage, that will actually improve the quality of that site itself, and I think my
next slide shows the implication area. So you look at that brown minor area on the site. That’s
where the creek is. Not by the garage but on the east side. And then, north side. And then on
the southern side by the wetland is a part that the wetland setback. And in looking at this area in
the grading there was significant grading that’s addressed in the staff report. In order to
accomplish avoiding that wetland, significant grading would have to take place and more tree
loss so looking at that area, it’s always that conflict between the wetland impact, additional
grading and tree loss, and again some of that tree provides a screening from Audubon. If you go
now when you drive by the public works facility on Audubon, as you come over the bridge, you
look right into that storage area so really this is a nice feature of this site is you won’t see that.
That outdoor storage so there is an impact there. Again providing the storm water pre-treatment.
Saving, there’s a significant tree that we’re working to save. Coming around the, maybe you can
show that Paul. There’s a pretty significant oak tree right there we’re also trying to save. So
those are some of the features that we looked at in providing this layout itself. The Planning
Commission as we went through those issues concurred that that seem to make some sense.
Again the anomaly of the creek meandering through there. Working through to clean up,
providing additional vegetation to control the runoff that’s going to the site were all included in
that. So there’s the landscaping plan. Again providing for the mitigation and this additional
storm water and the circulation to the site. There will be a retaining wall up against the Paisley
Park studio site where those storage bins are. Kind of the area where there’s additional storage.
So, and I think the highest part of that would actually be approximately 14 feet. That’s laid out
in the staff report too. And that was one of the issues that we worked through to address too.
Staggering that to get additional landscaping in that back area there also providing that buffer.
There is a natural buffer as the change of topography from the back of Paisley Park to this site
but also working that we’re holding ourselves to that same standard. So again meeting the tree
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
preservation area does provide for that landscaping requirement. There was some additional
landscaping to be put in place. So with that if there’s any, isn’t any more questions on the site
layout itself then I’ll move into the architectural standards and if I get any questions.
Mayor Furlong: Do you want questions now?
Kate Aanenson: If there’s any questions on the layout or design, of that part of it or the vacation.
Otherwise I’ll move into the architecture part of the site plan.
Mayor Furlong: Any questions at this point? Ms. Aanenson, I guess we’ll be getting into the
wetland impact and the creek. Can you, you mentioned that there were some improvements to
the drainage with curbs.
Kate Aanenson: Yes.
Mayor Furlong: Will, what’s the, can you give us an idea of what improvements are being made
in terms of storm water drainage on this site with the improvements.
Kate Aanenson: Sure.
Mayor Furlong: There’ll be impervious, increase in hard cover surface but what are we doing to
manage storm water?
Kate Aanenson: Correct. There is no, it sheet flows right now so we’re putting additional
ponding in on site.
Mayor Furlong: So it sheet flows just across the site.
Kate Aanenson: Correct. Correct, and there’s been a significant amount of erosion on this site
so.
Mayor Furlong: Where does the erosion occur?
Kate Aanenson: Really throughout that whole kind of creek bed. Maybe you can show us that.
The creek bed, yeah.
Paul Oehme: Through the creek bed and then also into the wetland too.
Kate Aanenson: Yes.
Mayor Furlong: There’s been erosion over there?
Kate Aanenson: Yes, because really it has been unmanaged over the years. Since the business
park was put in place and I think it’s been altered over time.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
Kate Aanenson: So by doing that we’re committing to improve that and then provide any
additional landscaping, besides the landscape buffer to the wetland. And also the buffer, using
correct vegetation. Cleaning out the creek itself and providing additional landscaping and the
curb.
Mayor Furlong: When you say cleaning out the creek. Of debris and?
Kate Aanenson: Yes. Yes.
Mayor Furlong: Is it man made debris or is it natural?
Kate Aanenson: Yes, there’s been a lot of dumping in over time.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, so cleaning all that up, and then providing additional landscaping along
that, which would be the native. That’s just representative. We’re working now to put in what
would be upland type vegetation for that project so that would be the right type of filtering as we
talk about for wetland infiltration. So again we’ve done several of these projects in the past. For
example on, we worked with the General Mills. Remand that creek of vegetation so we know
how to do these type of projects so in-house staff we will be doing that. Working through that as
this project evolves.
Mayor Furlong: And will the runoff from the parking area and elsewhere, will that go through
storm water management to pond.
Kate Aanenson: Yes.
Mayor Furlong: So that’s not just going to go straight into…
Paul Oehme: There’s a regional pond that’s not shown on this drawing just east of here that all
of the surface runoff from the parking lot area and the storage facility area that’s going to be pre-
treated before it ends up in the creek so we’re managing our storm water on this site just like any
other development and we’re trying to improve upon that too and having some infiltration basins
and some bio-retention areas in this area too. We’re looking at that so, so I think we’re doing a
pretty good job in terms of water quality management.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, we’re meeting the standards and exceeding that, and by that I mean
because the site is devoid of vegetation because it’s had a lot of sheet flow runoff. We’re
actually going to increase that by helping reduce the velocity and some of those sort of things
which will help the erosion over the long term life of the creek.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you.
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
Councilwoman Ernst: Kate, you have one of the proposed motions in here is, and I know we’re
going to get to that later but are you still asking for the variance then?
Kate Aanenson: Yes.
Councilwoman Ernst: From the creek and the wetland?
Kate Aanenson: Yes. If you can, let’s see. Those two areas are the areas that we are too close.
Where that road comes in, and then the brown area adjacent to the creek. So again, to push the
building further to the, we’d take out more trees on that west side so that was trying to figure out
which would be the best way to go on that project. That wetland is, if I go back to, sorry. Make
everybody dizzy here. Going back to this site plan you can see where that wetland falls in and
there’s a significant amount of trees. And then as the city engineer indicated where that storm
water pond is already, that’s where we’re working with. So some of those things are in place
already.
Councilman Litsey: Which one’s the regional pond?
Paul Oehme: This one right here. This one takes a good portion of this development up here and
some of the Park Road as well.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, and I didn’t point out but we’re, where he was pointing to, that is also
city property. Right there. It’s kind of, it looks like a big scoop. It goes all the way towards 5.
Mayor Furlong: The regional pond is on city property?
Kate Aanenson: Yes, and then that bigger piece right there is all city property, so as a part of this
project that’s also where some of the creek right-of-way is too. Improving all that. So I’m just
going to back up too on where I was there. So this is the site itself. That wetland. Looking at
again the kind of circuitous meander of the creek and the site itself and then it’s proximity to the
project to the north. And then you can see that tree area. It’s heavily wooded right next to the
building and those are the trees that we’re trying to save by not doing additional grading. And
those are very mature trees so it’s always that balance of where we want to go with that.
Councilman Litsey: So you could make it work perhaps without the variance but you’d be
destroying a considerable amount of trees in the process.
Kate Aanenson: Correct.
Councilman Litsey: So you’re balancing that.
Kate Aanenson: That was the factor.
Councilman Litsey: The benefits, okay.
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
Kate Aanenson: Again looking at how you need to circulate through the building to get the
trucks in.
Councilman Litsey: Yeah.
Kate Aanenson: So again, the most northerly encroachment would require a 25 foot variance.
That’s the widest part of that, and then would require the 15 foot variance. Excuse me, the 3.5
encroachment to the minimum wetland buffer so again we’ll buffer that significantly, that area
between the road and the wetland itself. Providing that. Okay, now I’ll move to the site plan
itself. This is the Planning Commission had some questions on the grading and drainage but I
think we addressed that question already. The architecture itself. I’m on page 4 of the staff
report went into quite a bit of detail of the style of the building itself. It consists mostly of ribbed
insulated pre-cast tilt up panels with exposed aggregate. With brick banding. The brick is also
larger in size and dark brown in earth tones and maybe I can switch that, I know it’s a little
difficult to see that color. It also has a charcoal gray color with dark brown accents on it. So
some of the features of this, it does meet the window fenestration requirements. It also has the
clear story on the, go to this. The windows on this side which meets the fenestration
requirements. The back side where we have all of the trees, because you can’t see that. It does
have some penetration through these upper story windows but that also meets the standard. So
then you’ve got the clear story up above where the bays are again providing that indirect
lighting. That light source which, so you don’t always have to turn the lights on inside the
building itself. So over the 50% transparency the first floor office, as I mentioned, so that does
meet the requirements of the building. There is loading. The service yards. The wreckage area.
Waste removal and other things again are all screened outside which we do require of all
business so we’re meeting our standard on that which is an improvement from where we are
today, where you can clearly see the outdoor storage on that site so this is a significant
improvement from the buffer, I mean from the public. And we do know that on this site too that
will be used by the public so a lot of that storage will still be in that screened area if we do use it
for voting or something like that, so it will still all be screened off to the side. It does on the
compliance page, the compliance standards starting on page 6. It does meet all the city
compliance standards except for the two variances that we did note. And if we do need
additional parking, while it’s not striped, while there’s an event, it can be accommodated there
with temporary markings or something of that effect. For some reason we needed additional
parking for some public event that was to be held out there. I did mention the grading and we do
have a grading permit out there now but again putting the grading and trying to do additional
grading out there would exist trees that are out there. So other than that, if there’s any additional
questions I’d be happy to answer those. Otherwise there’s two reports in front of you. The first
report is for the vacation of the easement. And then the second would be approval for the site
plan for the 82,500 square foot public works facility. With the variances. Oh excuse me, and
that conditional use for the outdoor storage and that outdoor storage was the structure which
holds the salt, which we have in place right now at our current public works facility. We do
require a conditional use for outdoor storage.
Mayor Furlong: Aren’t there other outdoor storage bins on the north side of the property?
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
Kate Aanenson: Yes, those are screened which we do allow those sort of things. We have other
businesses have those things but this because of the size of that, it does require a conditional use.
Yeah.
Mayor Furlong: And this is, this is the same structure? The same cover that we have at our
current facility.
Kate Aanenson: Exact same structure.
Mayor Furlong: We’d just be relocating it.
Paul Oehme: Correct.
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor and council.
Mayor Furlong: Yes.
Todd Gerhardt: I’d like to just give you a short little update of how we got here. For the
public’s benefit. This has kind of been a work in progress for the past oh at least 4 years or more
and our current public works facility was built in 19.
Paul Oehme: 80.
Todd Gerhardt: 80? Okay. And there was a couple of additions put on to that facility and it’s
about 24,000 square feet. Through our analysis we have a need for about 82,000 square feet is
comparable to what other communities of our size. Number of miles of streets. Number of
miles of sewer and watermain that we have to maintain. That will house our utility department.
Our park maintenance department. Our street department. And our mechanics that work on all
the vehicles that we have, which are numerous, and through our analysis we presented to the City
Council this past summer, we looked at building new on other vacant lots in town. We also
looked at acquiring existing buildings throughout the community, and other communities, and
what we found when you have an operation like we have here, most existing businesses don’t
allow for trucks that may come in that have been out plowing snow and the melting the occurs.
The salt that occurs, so you need quite a drainage system that goes along with that. And then the
mechanics bay, you need a variety of different types of hoists. You know our dump trucks need
a heavier hoist so there’s a major improvement that you would have to put into an existing
building. And from our analysis at looking at this, we hired a private construction manager to
come in and take a look at some existing buildings and do a full cost benefit of remodeling an
existing building to meet our needs. The price of that was substantially higher than new
construction if you remember, and the true cost of that was trying to put that drainage system in.
And at the time that you get it all done, you still have a 15 or a 30 year old building that you
remodeled versus a brand new facility that you would have today with the one that’s before you.
When people look at the cost of a new facility like this at the $100, there’s some confusion that
goes along with that. The $100 a square foot is also includes a lot of the equipment that will be
in this facility. The hoist. The wash bay and the wand that washes the trucks down. You’re also
going to have office space finished out. Desks, chairs, conference room. So when you go out
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and look that you could buy a new building for $60 a square foot, you’re buying a vacant
building that doesn’t have the equipment that would be housed in there. So with that little bit of
history, kind of where we’re at and any updated questions that the council has.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Any questions for staff at this time?
Councilwoman Ernst: I have a couple questions.
Mayor Furlong: No questions at this time? Okay.
Councilwoman Ernst: No, I said I do.
Mayor Furlong: Oh you do? I’m sorry. Councilwoman Ernst.
Councilwoman Ernst: That’s okay. Kate, when you were talking about the wetlands a couple
questions I have are, can you tell me how close the underground fuel storage tanks are to Riley
Creek?
Kate Aanenson: Would you like to answer that please?
Paul Oehme: I don’t have a scale on me.
Mayor Furlong: Can you tell us where on the site plan?
Paul Oehme: Well the underground fuel tanks are right here and the creek is right about here.
I’m venturing to say it’s probably 200 feet away from the creek currently.
Councilwoman Ernst: Do you feel that’s enough from, to prevent any kind of contamination?
Paul Oehme: Well I mean these, the new tanks, and the architect’s here. He can probably speak
to it more than I can but I mean they’re tested annually in terms of leakage. These things are, the
fiberglass it not going to rot out on us. They have a long life expectancy and I’m not too
concerned about ground water, or ground contamination from these new tanks. They’re highly,
very structurally built and solid so I don’t really see a problem there. And the only aspect of
contamination that I would be concerned with, and that we are trying to address too is surface
contamination. Say a gas tank overfills and dumps out into the parking lot. How do we address
that so we’re looking at that through our best management practices and storm water
infrastructure that we’re having on the site here, instead of try to mitigate those issues and try to
capture them on site before it actually ends up in our storm sewer treatment pond and eventually
into the creek.
Councilwoman Ernst: Okay, and where would you be storing the chemicals? Like salt and that
sort of thing. What part of the building?
Paul Oehme: Yeah, the salt would be, the planned location for the salt storage facility is
currently right here and that’s completely housed. I mean there’s going to be walls as currently
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
as today on our site. Walls on 3 sides and then there’s a, kind of a fiberglass or a meshed type of
material, cover that covers the entire salt storage facility too, so it faces south so you know
prevailing winds from the north and to the west, you know it’s well guarded against that. Plus
any rain events, it’s all paved underneath there as well too so there wouldn’t be any salt
infiltration into the soils. And plus it’s on a flat surface so any runoff spillage is, there’s really
no place for it to go except on site and we’d get in there and sweep it up or probably…and re-pile
it into piles so.
Councilwoman Ernst: I know you showed it to me before but I couldn’t remember what the
relationship was between the creek and the storage. Can you tell me if by any chance we looked
at MTS building, or existing buildings? We did?
Todd Gerhardt: Yep.
Councilwoman Ernst: And that was the drainage issue as well?
Todd Gerhardt: That one had drainage and then kind of the flowage, the truck driving through.
You had posts every 30 feet?
Paul Oehme: If that.
Todd Gerhardt: If that. So there wasn’t adequate drive through. You know trucks would have
to back around inside. Same thing with the Teleplan building.
Councilwoman Ernst: Thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Any other questions?
Councilwoman Ernst: No, that’s it.
Mayor Furlong: Questions at this time? Let’s start by opening up the public hearing with regard
to the vacation.
Kate Aanenson: Correct on the utility easement.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. If you can go back up to that slide. Who’s ever controlling the pictures.
The specific issue here, and this is a public hearing with regard to the request to vacate this
easement and as I understand it there are no existing utilities in this easement? At this time.
Paul Oehme: Yeah, they have been removed.
Mayor Furlong: They’ve been removed?
Paul Oehme: All the public utilities have been removed and there’s no private utilities out there.
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Mayor Furlong: No private utilities? No anticipated need in the future for having this? Okay.
So let me open up the public hearing with regard to the proposal to vacate the easement and
invite any interested parties to come forward and comment at this time. Okay.
Patrick Neuman: I didn’t have anything prepared but I used to.
Mayor Furlong: If you could state your name and address sir for the record. Thank you.
Patrick Neuman: Okay. Patrick Neuman. I live on 740 Chippewa Circle, Chanhassen. And
I’ve been getting wood chips out of that lot for a number of years. Since we moved here to
Chanhassen in 2000, and I appreciate the effort that the project is involved in trying to save the
woodlands because I think there are some really nice trees there. There’s some nice maple trees.
I remember some people going back and trying to collect maple syrup through there. I hope
you’re aware of those trees.
Kate Aanenson: Yes I am. I didn’t know they were doing syrup though.
Patrick Neuman: I’m a little bit concerned about that this is a really nice, I mean location with
Riley Creek, isn’t that the creek that comes out of Lake Ann also?
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. That’s correct.
Patrick Neuman: I mean it’s a, everyone knows that Lake Ann is a special lake for Chanhassen
so the water quality in the creek you know is good and I mean it would be good if it isn’t
polluted below that area you know, so I think it’s important to manage this area well, you know
for wildlife, and I have seen a lot of wildlife in this area while I was getting my wood chips, with
approval from the public works people. They give you a key to get in. Now I go over to the
Landscape Arboretum for my wood chips, but anyways I have seen a lot of owls and
woodpeckers and wildlife in that area and so you know it’s kind of subdividing it by putting a
building there you know and so I think the city needs, Chanhassen needs to keep in mind that we
need to keep some areas for wildlife that are not broken up into little pieces because certain kinds
of wildlife of course need more space. Just they won’t be here if there isn’t that kind of an
environment. And I’m also interested in if you’re going to be putting in prairie vegetation?
Kate Aanenson: We’re going to put in is a more native that would be correct for the creek bed
itself to stabilize that. Maybe I can go. I think the nice situation that we have here is what we’ve
learned when we did the Highway 5 corridors. There’s an actual deer movement corridors so
one of them right now is going to be the creek itself, and we’re preserving that. The city still
owns that piece of property and by revegetating it should continue to make it a nice deer
corridor. And then again through the wooded area in the back will still maintain the corridor for
area for deer to go into in the back of the building while all the trees still are maintained so I
think by putting that natural vegetation to actually improve that creek from eroding should be
helpful.
Patrick Neuman: Okay, thank you.
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor I’d just like to point out, there are very few trees, if any that will be
removed that aren’t already gone today. So what you see there today is pretty much what’s
going to stay.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Normally in this process we would have the applicant provide
comments but since the city’s the applicant, they’ve been doing it right along so let’s go ahead if
there are other individuals who would like to provide public comment on either the drainage
easement removal or the site plan in general, that’d be fine too.
Tom Devine: I’m Tom Devine. I live at 7640 South Shore Drive. This evening I came really to
touch on really two issues as it relates to this, and some of it really relates to part of the process
that’s already been completed and done, and the rest really relates to the pieces going forward. I
want to be very respectful of the work that Todd and Paul and Todd have done and the rest of the
city people have done on the project. I understand the need for the project. I certainly
understand it’s been extremely well planned. It’s a beautiful building. It’s a nice city amenity
and all of those things. What I would like to touch on prior to the granting of the variances,
which as I understand have to be completed, and I’m asking that the City Council really give
some thought to is a couple of things as it relates to where we are today. If we look at the
extraordinary things that have happened in the last 60 days, 30 days. 60 days. Relative to the
economy. I spent quite a bit of time up at the legislature on a variety of matters and I do, I am
involved in seeing some construction projects and the re-bidding and that sort of thing. Much
has happened here in the economy here in Minnesota particularly over the last 30 days and when
we saw the announcement the Governor made earlier this month about the shortfall. The $5.2
billion dollar shortfall, I’m told that that budget shortfall is going to increase both in February,
March and April with the additional layoff’s and all of what’s happening. There’s a significant
thing that’s unfolding here in front of us and I think it’s something that we need to look at, and I
want to talk about what the impact is just purely to Chanhassen as it relates to this. If we look at
you know moving towards 9% unemployment and all of that, this type of project is obviously a
good project. It’s a stimulant type project and some of the rest of that. But the issue that I’m
most concerned about is the 3 corporate jets that flew to Washington D.C. and I say that as the
example. The 3 jets that flew from General Motors, Ford and Chrysler out to a hearing in
Washington D.C. It had kind of an ill effect in terms of what they were going out to do. We’re
asking the public right now to undertake, and as I understand the bonds have been sold or
whatever for do an $8 million dollar project. At the same time we’re going to be spending time
at the legislature, the city will be, the county will be, and looking for additional funds. State aid
funds that are going to come down to the city and the county. The school districts are going to
be up there looking for funds and I’m looking at what does this look like at the same time we
have a front page picture in the Villager at the point that this starts of building a new $8 million
dollar facility in part to store snow plows in and equipment and trucks and I wonder is now the
time to be doing it. I don’t question the need and I don’t question the quality of what we’re
building or anything. What I’m concerned about is the appearance and the timing that we’re
talking about. We’re talking about breaking ground, starting a project in April. At the same time
the legislature will be moving towards a decision process to decide what kinds of funds we’re
going to be getting. You know the Governor’s already announced that those workers that are
with the state, city and county. Anybody that gets raises is going to be impacted negatively in
how he divides up his pie to put, you know to circle down. I don’t know what control he has but
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
I sat in speeches where he’s given those things and I’m concerned about what the impact of all of
this is going to be. And so that end when we look at these various things, you know we know
building permits are going to be you know significantly reduced here this year and next year. I
look at this and say I don’t know what the bonding went out at but what is the possibility of
looking at re-doing the bonds because the bond rates have obviously dropped since October and I
also look at the issues of re-bidding and I was with one of the major contractors here in the Twin
Cities here this past week on a project that I’m involved with from my professional standpoint
and they sent the project back out to re-bid and they got about a 15% reduction in the cost of the
project over what was bid for earlier this fall. So I say to you three. Obviously you’re talking
about a variance as it relates to water quality, or the water. Drainage issue and that, but there is
an opportunity in extraordinary times to take extraordinary steps and I ask you right now to
consider, is this the right time to be putting out a huge project like what we’re talking about with
the kinds of costs that are involved in it at this particular juncture. So I say that in a very
considerate, polite way in terms of what you’re doing and what you’re undertaking right now,
but I also look at that and say is it the message that we want going out from the city of
Chanhassen you know in terms of what we’re doing. I understand the project’s been under, you
know we’ve been talking about this for a number of years. A delay of another 24 months or
whatever you know, what’s the impact of doing that or waiting? The environmental, the only
other thing I would just want to say is on the environmental piece. As most of you know I’ve
been very involved in the water quality issues here in Chanhassen and I’m obviously a little bit
bothered by the fact that the water is going down and end up in Lake Susan, and I don’t know if
anybody is here from Lake Susan this evening or not but clearly if it was over by my lake I’d be,
I’d be a little concerned about that because clearly we’re trying to do just the opposite of what
you’re asking for a variance for yourselves tonight on doing and so I think that that issue is
another issue that comes to mind but anyway. That’s all I really wanted to say unless there’s a
question.
Mayor Furlong: Yeah Mr. Devine. On the last issue, with regard to the wetland, or the variance
for the setback for the wetland. You said that’s opposite of what we’re trying to do across the
city?
Tom Devine: Well right now we’re doing everything we can to clean up our lakes and streams
and everything and the proximity of where this project is to that, to both the creek there and to
the wetland area, if I was a private developer sitting here right now, and I understand what the
needs of the city are different than the private developer but if I was a private developer, how
would this project be looked at right now in terms of the water quality issues in terms of what’s
being proposed?
Mayor Furlong: And that’s a fair question. It’s a question I asked staff earlier today and so I’d
like them to respond to that question as well.
Tom Devine: Okay. And I’m saying this very respectfully. I’m just you know, we’re all here to
talk and we’re in the same boat you know.
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
Mayor Furlong: That’s fine. And I think if we can talk, you raised some issues about the timing
of the project based upon economic conditions as well as other factors going on in St. Paul, and
then also the wetlands so maybe I’ll defer to staff.
Kate Aanenson: Sure, again those areas shown in brown, we’re not impacting the wetland itself.
It’s the buffer area requirement so again it’s our intention on those two areas, the small brown
area adjacent to the creek. So that’s the buffer setback area that we’re impacting. Not the creek
itself.
Mayor Furlong: We see wetland alteration permits from time to time.
Kate Aanenson: Right, this isn’t a wetland alteration.
Mayor Furlong: This is not an alteration?
Kate Aanenson: It’s the buffer requirement. So again if you look at the function of that building
coming off, again we’re trying to work out a couple of trees that are down there and Paul pointed
that significant oak that’s to the entrance there, but we’re going to provide buffer in that area.
Substantial buffering in the area where they come out of the, maybe you could show Paul on the,
either side of that drive. Yeah. Right through, yeah. Either side of that driveway we’ll have
significant buffering and picking up that area and that existing trees that are there that we’re
going to try to work around so we’re not impacting the wetland itself. It’s the buffer. And I
think the biggest issue that we’ve talked about there is how the water is being conveyed and
that’s to the creek and that’s where over time that’s significantly degraded and that’s what we’re
going to spend the most amount of time is looking at that. We have experienced doing other re-
re-meandering projects and not that we’re going to re-re-meander it but to stabilize those… I
think that’s what some of that sediment is so we’re going to try to reduce the velocity and the
volume as it goes through there. Slowing it down. Putting the curb along that parking lot itself
because how it functions today with some of that source that gets put out there, that’s what’s
going into the creek so I think it will significantly improve what’s going on out there today.
That’s our goal.
Mayor Furlong: And to follow up on Mr. Devine’s question too. How did the staff look at this?
Did staff look at this any differently than if it had been a project a developer…
Kate Aanenson: No, again you have to look at how the function is because no matter what, if
someone went in there that wanted to circulate, this is an industrial. It’s zoned IOP. It’s an
industrial office building. Pretty much everything that’s out there has some traffic entrance to it
where they would do storage. If you look at our industrial park. Back up. Even bay storage is
pretty typical of an industrial building so that would probably be fitting on here so then again
we’re back to it’s the implication of the trees as we heard earlier. A significant wildlife corridor.
And trying to manage that the best we can. Saving some of those trees that are also adjacent to
the building. That’s what we were trying to measure and we went around with numerous designs
with the architect trying to get that, what we believed was the best fit on this site with the least
amount of impact.
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you.
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, I’d just like to point out one other point on that is the site coverage. You
know if this property was under private ownership, most developers would maximize the
investment into this property and our site coverage is.
Kate Aanenson: .16.
Todd Gerhardt: It’s substantially below what the private sector would probably do if they owned
this piece of property. And that was one of the reasons why we acquired it was to ensure that
that large stand of trees stayed in place. And the other added benefit, it acts as a great buffer to
us, the recording studio to the north and some of Paul’s dirt piles that people are objecting to as
they drive by, but you know we really put ourselves through the same rigors we would any
private person that would come through and Terry did a great job of working with us and doing
some creative things that even for the impact that we’re doing in those buffer areas.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Thank you Mr. Devine. Other comments?
Mary Borns: I’m Mary Borns, 7199 Frontier Trail and I am on the north side of 5 far away from
Lake Susan but I am concerned mostly with the environmental issues and the close proximity to
the lake. And it just feels to me like we’re not meeting our own standards and it seems only a
year ago that we shorten our buffer setbacks and now we’re trying to get a variance to the
shorten, what was amended once before. I just, I don’t think that we should be making the rules
as we go. If it’s a rule, it’s a rule. In looking at the picture, Kate can you tell me what the
percentage of impervious surface is?
Kate Aanenson: Sure. It’s, if you go to the, do you have a copy of the staff report?
Mary Borns: No.
Kate Aanenson: Okay. On the first page of the staff report the entire site is 11.95 so of that the
floor area ration which is the building footprint is .16. So it’s less than a quarter of the site so
that kind of goes back to again what we were trying to say, if you had a typical developer, they
would probably maximize the site and gone back further into the trees so that was what we were
trying to balance. Some of that wildlife corridor and go back to, so this entire site. So if you see
where the building’s sitting on that, where the.
Mayor Furlong: What’s the percentage of impervious surface coverage allowed in this zoning
area?
Kate Aanenson: 70 percent.
Mayor Furlong: 7-0?
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct.
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
Mary Borns: And if the variance doesn’t, if the variances don’t pass we still go ahead with the
project?
Kate Aanenson: That would be up to the City Council to make a decision on that.
Todd Gerhardt: If City Council doesn’t approve the variances, the project cannot move ahead
unless we reconfigure the building and move it into the trees.
Mary Borns: Well and that’s my question is, you know would they make a different plan or
would they just not go ahead with the project?
Todd Gerhardt: It’s something we’d have to evaluate.
Mary Borns: Was it necessary in the steps that we took for the variance to come last. It feels
like there’s been so much has gone forward and worked into this project and for us now to say if
the variance didn’t pass we have to start all over. It feels to me like we kind of put the cart
before the horse in getting this far without…
Kate Aanenson: Yeah that’s a good question. Typically when we do a variance with a project
they come together so you can see how it lays out. What your options are. As we indicated
before we were trying to tie that into the entire site so you can see how it lays out on the site.
The amount of grading. If you do additional grading and the tree loss so you really have to see
how the layers work and the grading and drainage so, to look at a variance without looking at
how the site lays on there, you really need to see it all together so that’s pretty typical on a
project. It wouldn’t be any different if someone was to do an addition to their house. You’d
have them actually draw it out on the house to see how that would actually fit to look at your
options so that’s pretty standard.
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council. If you’re referring to the bond sale, we were trying to
anticipate interest rates going up at that time when we had the sale in November. We had 9
bidders on our bond sale and we got 4.38 if I remember right interest rate on those on a 20 year
issue so. AAA rated Bloomington had a 4.5% interest two weeks prior to that so that was the
reason we moved ahead on that.
Mary Borns: No, I don’t mean to be critical at all of the funding on it. I just think there’s been a
lot of steps and a lot of time and a lot of effort involved in a project that may not get off the
ground if the variance isn’t passed and that’s all I’m saying is maybe that should have been
looked at more firmly in the first place. I don’t think that it’s an ideal site by any means and I
understand that the city already owns it. I would think that they could get a really good price for
that particular site being that close to Lake Susan and the bike path and in such a nice area that
maybe there’s another site in town that would work better for us, but I realize that’s already been
figured out last fall. So I guess that’s all I really have to say. My main concerns are the
underground fuel tanks. Same as Vicki Ernst, Councilwoman Ernst indicated. Looks like the
fuel tanks and the salt are going to be the closest to the lake out of the whole drawing and I don’t
like to see them on the site at all. There’s going to be toxic waste from the oil. Some gas. Some
exhaust. The cleaning of vehicles. Things that you talked about. You talked about washing the
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
vehicles inside and it is, it does have to drain so those are my main concerns. Thank you for
your time.
Paul Oehme: To address, yeah.
Mayor Furlong: Please, address some of those questions.
Paul Oehme: Some, the washing of the vehicles there. We do have a fairly significant sump
man hole that’s planned for this area. It separates out the solids from the liquids and that water
does not leave this site through storm water conveyance system. That PCA rules that that has to
go into the sanitary sewer system so that doesn’t even make it to the lakes so a lot of that
washing materials and those hazardous, potentially oils and other debris would not even make it
into the storm sewer system so.
Mayor Furlong: So is it, are we going to be washing any vehicles outside in the parking lot
where it would drain to the storm water or would they all be done in such a way that any water
will be contained within the sanitary sewer system?
Paul Oehme: I wouldn’t say in all cases it’s going to be done inside but there would be some
cases that it would have to be washed outside but in terms of the heavier vehicles, the salt laden
vehicles in the winter time, all those type of really contaminated vehicles would all be washed
inside. The only vehicles I can think of that potentially could be washed outside, maybe a skid
loader that gets muddy. A street sweeper that you have to chunk off some dirt before we get into
the building but vast majority’s going to be done inside where again the conveyance system does
not go to the storm sewer. It goes to the sanitary sewer.
Mayor Furlong: Lake Susan’s been mentioned a couple times. I’ve heard Riley Creek which
runs along the east side. How far away are we from Lake Susan?
Kate Aanenson: I’m not sure if it’s on this other slide that would be better. There you go. So,
there’s the conveyance.
Mayor Furlong: So about half way between Lake Ann and Lake Susan.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah. And again I just want to, as the City Manager pointed out, we haven’t
maximized the site so you know you could have a significant larger parking lot on there so at the
70% hard surface coverage. So we don’t have an ordinance that says you can’t down any trees.
What we say is if you cut down a lot of trees, then you have to replace them with a significant
penalty but there is no requirement you can’t cut down trees to develop a site.
Paul Oehme: And again all the storm water from the development is going to be directed right
into the storm water treatment pond. Regional storm water treatment pond. A very big storm
water treatment pond. Curb and gutter around the entire site so they’re directed into the catch
basins and into the ponds so we are going to get I think better actually water quality from the
development than pre because of the erosion that Ms. Aanenson had mentioned before and some
of the other debris that’s washes into the creek right now so.
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
Mayor Furlong: Thank you.
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council members.
Mayor Furlong: Yes.
Todd Gerhardt: It goes through two storm water ponds. The one on-site just to the right of the
cul-de-sac and then it drains into the pond next to Lake Susan and then into Lake Susan.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, that industrial pond.
Mayor Furlong: So the storm water pond, I guess that’s another question. The one that we had
mentioned, maybe can we zoom in where we can see that storm water pond closer. I don’t know
if you can zoom but if you can.
Kate Aanenson: I think Laurie, can you just put the zoom in on the.
Laurie Hokkanen: Not when it’s on…
Mayor Furlong: If you can’t zoom in on that one, there’s another picture further down where we
saw the storm water pond earlier.
Kate Aanenson: Oh! Was it the next slide or.
Mayor Furlong: Yeah, back to that slide.
Kate Aanenson: Okay.
Mayor Furlong: That’s the storm water pond there?
Paul Oehme: That’s correct. This one right here.
Mayor Furlong: Tear drop. That drains from there into the Lake Susan storm water pond to the
north west of Lake Susan?
Paul Oehme: Yeah.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Paul Oehme: It goes through this storm water area here as well. It’s all overland flow as well.
There’s some other storm sewer ponds along the way so.
Mayor Furlong: So it’d be all part of your current system in that area?
Paul Oehme: Exactly.
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
Mayor Furlong: Sir.
Jeff Oertel: Mr. Mayor, council. I thought I’d interject and hopefully not belabor the meeting
too long but my name is Jeff Oertel and I’m the head architect on the project and for the record I
reside and work out of St. Paul. And we had actually discussed this project in a work shop last
year but I wanted to address a few things that seem to be a concern. The fuel tanks and the
fueling system are so highly regulated by the federal government that I think all the concerns that
you know, that we’ve heard tonight have been addressed and realized by thousands and
thousands of parties and municipalities. The tanks are a double wall tank and they have very
sensitive sensors strapped around the entire, entire unit. If there’s an infinitesimal leak of fuel,
either diesel or regular gasoline that would leak out of the inner chamber, it should be sensed and
immediately go to a panel that’s in the building. A monitor would go off and the containment
then would then, the innertiscial area would be equal to that of the greatest volume of fuel that
could be in the tank and then contained. As was indicated earlier the tanks are made out of
fiberglass and in addition to the tanks they are double wall piping and incredible amount of detail
that goes into these tanks so these systems are pretty safe as they come. I’d also like to give a
view point, my view point on a few other things. Again I’ll be quick. The City of Edina has
gone through the process of looking at, I think we’re up to 8 buildings trying to, you know look
at a building that would serve as a new facility and in that case the city would love to have a new
site. An open site. A site the size that’s necessary to bring all their parties together and there’s
just no site available and so we finally glommed onto a building that appears to be pretty
reasonable. Council’s aware of it and reviewing that project right now over the last 3 months.
The cost of that project is approaching a new building and it’s probably close to equal to a new
building and after it’s all said and done, it’s a renovated old building as was indicated earlier.
My perspective on the site and the quality of the storm water and the creek is that, my opinion is
after this project is completed, if approved by council, the quality ultimately of that storm
drainage and creek water will be improved. There’s no doubt in my mind because of all, I won’t
get into details but because of everything that’s been said already tonight. That pretty much
cover some of the high points that needed to be addressed. I felt I had to say something about
the fuel tanks because that was key. Are there any other questions for me I’d take them now but
I can come back.
Mayor Furlong: Alright, very good. Thank you sir. Appreciate your comments. Anyone else
that would like to provide public comments on any aspects of this project? No? Seeing nobody,
okay. We do have a required public hearing with regard to the request to vacate the easements.
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. So unless there’s anybody else that would like to provide comments
there, without objection we’ll close that public hearing and continue on with the project. Let’s
bring it back to council with regard to thoughts and comments or additional questions. Does
anybody have additional questions at this time?
Councilwoman Ernst: I do.
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Mayor Furlong: For city staff. Councilwoman Ernst.
Councilwoman Ernst: Paul how much do we have invested in the project as of today?
Paul Oehme: As of today? Oh I don’t know. We have corrected the site for poor soils. We’ve
made a pad for the building to sit on right now. The site still has to be graded somewhat but
minimal cost there. There are some architectural fees associated with the pre-design. We’re
about maybe 60% done with the site, or for what the building itself right now so. There’s some
significant costs associated with that. But besides that.
Councilwoman Ernst: I mean is it, can you give me a rock number?
Paul Oehme: Oh um, it’s in the hundreds of thousands because of the soil corrections.
Councilwoman Ernst: So if it’s, and Tom brought up some good points. If we went back to re-
bond, could we, could we do that like after April?
Todd Gerhardt: My guess the call feature on our bonds are probably 6 to 8 years out and you can
do a refunding on that and depending on the interest rate difference that you would have and
basically you know you find a second party to buy these and hold them until the refunding comes
into place. It’s something we’re looking at now on the library you’ll see in the next couple
months. So my guess the interest rate, what we got back in November and what we’d get today
would not justify it. I don’t think you would have a savings enough to do it right now.
Councilwoman Ernst: Today but maybe potentially after April. Who knows?
Todd Gerhardt: Well we always look at our debt on a monthly basis, you know whatever the
market’s doing. Ehler’s, our bonding consultants and Greg keep a close eye on that and what the
interest rates are doing, and if there’s any opportunities to do the refunding, a good example is
the library that we’re going to bring back to you and do a refunding on that.
Councilman Litsey: Yeah, that can be done…public safety facility that I’m familiar with figures
into it, but that can be done any time it looks favorable. I mean it shouldn’t really affect the
timing of the project or anything because you can realize those savings at any point where it
becomes advantageous to do so. Once you, you know once the bonds have been.
Todd Gerhardt: Yeah, in the case of the library you won’t see the true benefit until 2014 so.
Councilman Litsey: But I mean you could initiate that action at any time that it looks like it’s
favorable to do so. So we could move ahead with the project and down the road if it seems the
prudent thing to do, we can still do that at the time.
Todd Gerhardt: Yep. Just like you would refinance your house at a lower interest rate. We do
the same thing and right now we’re proposing back to you to look at that on the library.
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Councilwoman Ernst: But in addition to that it sounds like they’re going to be talking about
some things in the legislature where we might be able to get some additional state funding as
well.
Mayor Furlong: I’m not sure if Mr. Devine was saying there’d be additional state money or…
Todd Gerhardt: …anybody any money.
Councilwoman Ernst: Either way, if it’s even a reduction. I mean reduction of, maybe you
could clarify that for me.
Tom Devine: Me?
Councilwoman Ernst: Yeah. Because I know you’re down at the State Capitol a lot.
Tom Devine: Well, you know right now the Governor has made a number of pronouncements.
In December, you know before the start of the new budgeting cycle that’s taking place currently
in the legislature, and he put out some fairly clear edex relative to spending in terms of what’s
going on, and of course he’s announced what he could do and of course he did that first series of
cuts in December and those state aid funds that come out to the various cities, counties and what
not were trimmed back. Now, what’s in store? It’s very difficult to predict what the legislature’s
going to do. My concern that I’m trying to express here today is we’re undertaking a very
visible, expensive, glamorous project and I’m looking at that and saying at the same time we’re
going to be fighting, I assume. Assuming that the State doesn’t have new found income or
whatever between now and the close of the legislature, to make up the $5.2 billion, I mean over
the $5.2 billion is going to inflate by hundreds of billions between now and the close of the
legislature. So consequently what’s the effect going to be? The effect to Chanhassen is going to
be fewer dollars are going to come down and there’s going to be a fight between all the
municipalities about who’s going to get what and what projects and what things and what
funding and you’ve already seen a lot of what’s unfolding here. So my concern is the perception
is, well they can afford to build an $8 million dollar place to park snow plows, what are you
coming to us and complaining about we need, the State should be more generous in their state
formulas back down to us or the State funding for specific projects or whatever. That’s what I’m
concerned about. We’re talking about a time line that coincides with the close of the legislature
here in terms of what we’re doing so, whether there’s savings from the bonds or whether you can
go out and buy a new building, or an old building, and I do take this gentleman’s comments
about time you remodel and do this and that and make it to what it is, maybe it’s not but clearly
you can go out today and buy a building a lot cheaper than you could 6 months ago in the
commercial marketplace, you know and I don’t know what’s available in Chanhassen but all I’m
saying is I just bring up the perception. The 3 jets is the perception you know. It wasn’t
necessarily all the reality but it’s the perception that we’ve got to deal with and that’s my
concern. And I do know that those funds are going to get cut. He’s announced it. It’s clear as a
bell that it’s going to happen and that’s the concern is that we’re not penalized because we’re
doing such a visible you know, maybe what would be considered by a lot of municipalities an
unnecessary project and they use that as a club against us. And I’m just trying to bring up the
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
political side of it because I think it’s a reality. I don’t think it’s just a, you know slight
perception issue out there in terms of what goes on.
Councilwoman Ernst: So clearly it could have an impact on this project as well. No?
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council members if I can address Tom’s statements. The City of
Chanhassen is one of many communities that does not receive local government aid. We get
zero. And the other aid that the State provides out is market value homestead credit. Last year
we were scheduled to get $160,000 in market value homestead credit. We got $90,000. So they
kept the second half payment of $70,000. For 2009 we were scheduled to get $120,000 in
market value homestead credit and we have not budgeted that money anywhere in our budget for
2009, 10 or 11.
Tom Devine: Okay. So you’re saying that the income pack, the income, the impact of.
Todd Gerhardt: State aid.
Tom Devine: The impact of state funds coming back down into Carver County, that the city
won’t.
Todd Gerhardt: Oh Carver County it will have an impact.
Mayor Furlong: Absolutely. That’s a different story. We’re talking about the City of
Chanhassen.
Todd Gerhardt: City of Chanhassen.
Tom Devine: Okay. Okay. It’s the City of Chanhassen but I’m also looking taxpayer gets their
tax statement. What’s the effect on their tax statement at the end of the day?
Mayor Furlong: And I guess to that.
Tom Devine: And I understand this is city and you know.
Mayor Furlong: No, that’s fine but to that end with regard to the cost of funding this project,
both from a capital project as well as an operating project, we’ve discussed that both at a council
level to look ahead and what that would be. As well as the timing of this project is, as Mr.
Gerhardt said earlier, this has been discussed for a number of years. We haven’t been putting
together drawings and everything for that entire time because we chose to wait until from a
funding standpoint we had availability within our tax levy to do this in a manner that would not
increase property taxes. So we are not, as our debts or our bonds come due at different times.
Some are refinanced. Some are not. This is being timed now in large part because of funding
capacity within our city’s own ability to fund it. Okay. It’s not dependent upon state aid. As
Mr. Gerhardt said we haven’t budgeted it going forward. In fact the last 6 years we have not
budgeted in our general fund any funds coming from the state. We put any fund that is received
we put into our street and road project fund and that goes to offset the taxpayer’s side of costs for
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
some of the projects, the street mill and overlays and reconstruction projects that we’ve done and
that we discussed earlier this evening so we certainly, if the money is distributed from St. Paul,
we certainly take it and put it to use in the city through streets but we don’t, there are no staff
salaries. There are no general operating services associated with that funding. To the extent that
I think, and we can get into that in a little bit but I think clearly from a timing standpoint,
modesty aside, I think there would be, the state would like to see a number of cities run the way
we have run Chanhassen. We don’t depend on outside sources. Now we have opportunities that
other cities don’t have, and so I don’t want to say that everybody should do it our way but we
found a way to do it with, to plan long term for projects such as this and to time the, to look at
the timing of the projects such that we’re not doing everything all at once that needs to be done,
but looking at it methodically and logically and strategically on when these projects are
considered, and that’s been part of why you know, if initially when this was brought up, if we
were just going to do the project without regard to the financial aspect and effect on the city’s
financial position and taxes, we would have been having this discussion 3, 4, 5 years ago. Okay
because the need has been there. I think the other thing that hasn’t come up with regard to need
is currently our current facility is about 25, 26, 27,000 square feet?
Paul Oehme: 24.
Mayor Furlong: 24. He corrects too. And just about… And I’m just going to ask the question,
what’s the size of this facility?
Paul Oehme: 82.
Mayor Furlong: 82.
Todd Gerhardt: Now you’re getting it mayor.
Paul Oehme: About.
Mayor Furlong: The big question is, is how long will this facility last the city’s needs since we
are not fully built out. We are about 60% all the way developed. Once development occurs we
are going to continue to develop, and I think we’re going to get more than our fair share from a
rate standpoint but how long will this facility meet our needs?
Paul Oehme: I mean the building that we’re putting before you tonight is the, should last the
entire length of, until we’re fully built out. I mean we have a little bit of capacity in this building
for future expansion. We programmed that in. Into this facility. Not much but enough where
we think we can get by out into the future until we’re built out.
Mayor Furlong: The bottom line is we’re looking at a building tonight that is going to provide
the needs of the city, even to the point in time when we are fully developed, and that was a
question that came up. At some point we’ll have to put another addition on, right? And that’s
why the site probably wouldn’t handle another addition, but we don’t need to because we’re not
building just what we need today and leaving for future council and residents to look at what
they need. Why are we doing that? My opinion, I think it’s more economical to do it today.
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Anytime I’ve been involved in a project where you plan for an addition and you’re going to save
money on that. You end up never saying money, and you never you know. And I think we’ve
all been there and seen that so I think that’s the other thing we haven’t talked about this evening.
This is, this is a facility that is intended to support the city’s needs even after 20, 30, when we are
fully built out. So I think that’s all part of it.
Todd Gerhardt: Very similar concept that we did for the library. The library is built for the
city’s ultimate build-out. So it’s 35,000 square feet when we have an ultimate population of
about 35,000 so.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Councilwoman Ernst, other questions?
Councilwoman Ernst: The last question is if you could just tell what the impact would be if we
delayed the project? What would, I mean I know we have the costs out there but that doesn’t
mean that we’ve lost that money. It just means that it would be on hold.
Todd Gerhardt: Well, some of it’s a legal question. And then on the bonds it would be an
arbitrage question that we sold bonds and earned interest without spending that down based on
federal IRS guidelines so there would be a penalty for not doing that. If it’s more than I think 9
months or something like that.
Councilwoman Ernst: And so the legal part of it is?
Todd Gerhardt: The legal part is that we’ve entered into contracts with the construction manager
and architect and I don’t know what the language in those two agreements call for. I’m sure
there’s parts in there where we could probably stop the project. So we’d need some contractual
obligations there that we’d have to look at.
Councilwoman Ernst: What’s that? Roger, what’d you say?
Roger Knutson: I was just saying you’d be paying interest on your bond debt. That’s not a legal
issue I guess. It’s a financial issue. Until you reach your call period or equivalent.
Todd Gerhardt: Well we’ll be making a principal payment in 2010 so there’ll be a $900,000
payment in 2010. But we have money for that.
Councilwoman Ernst: So it concerns me that we’re this far into the project and now we’re
coming back and asking for a variance.
Todd Gerhardt: We grant variances almost all the time.
Councilwoman Ernst: Well we deny a lot of variances too.
Todd Gerhardt: Yeah.
Mayor Furlong: Other questions? Comments.
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Councilman Litsey: Well I hope people understand a lot of due diligence was put into this
project. I mean we’ve been looking at this for quite some time. All these questions have been
asked. I mean we looked at options. We looked at existing facilities. We looked at the current
facility and what we might do there. And it came down to this was the best approach. The city’s
positioned itself financially to handle this project, as Mayor Furlong has very well laid out for
the audience tonight and I look at this as an essential service that we provide the city you know.
Keeping the streets plowed and public works is a real critical element of what we provide for the
residents and the businesses in this community and there’s no doubt the needs been there for
quite some time but we have waited until financially we could do this. Fit it in within our current
projections and so forth financially and so I think it’s a needed project. It’s a well thought out
project. I commend everyone that’s been part of it to make this work. I’m concerned a little bit
about the wetland implications but I think it’s been well pointed out that if this was a commercial
development the impact would be considerably more perhaps and I think caution has been taken.
It’s on the radar screen moving forward that that’s a sensitive part. I mean I’m very much into
the wetland buffer zones and so forth. I’ve had issues with that before but I think that in this
situation, given the need and the thought that’s gone into it and the overall impact on this parcel
of property is quite less than the commercial development would be potentially and that we
realize that that’s a sensitive thing we have to pay attention to. I think it’s been well covered and
I think we need to move forward with this. It’s again I don’t want people to get the impression
this is just something we just kind of just, we’re just thinking through some of these items now.
All the questions that have been raised, all the things that we’ve talked about, we’ve talked about
in great depth in work sessions and I don’t think now’s the time to go back. We’ve moved
forward. We’ve done our due diligence and I think we need to continue.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Other comments? Councilwoman Ernst.
Councilwoman Ernst: I’m really struggling with this. We need this facility. I have no doubt in
my mind that we need this facility. I have some major concerns about the environment with the
location of where the chemicals are and where these fuel tanks are, and thank you for giving me
the, or giving the information that you did. I still have some concerns with the chemicals
because they’re actually much closer to the creek than the fuel tanks are. Where the salt and the
chemicals are.
Todd Gerhardt: It’s just salt.
Councilwoman Ernst: It’s just salt?
Todd Gerhardt: No chemicals. Salt and sand.
Councilwoman Ernst: And I’m feeling like okay, we’re coming back with this variance tonight
and I’m feeling like I’m forced into making this financial decision and I don’t want to feel that
way so I’m wondering if there’s another, another option here as to how, I don’t know if there is
or not, in where those are placed.
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council members if I can just maybe get you to feel a little bit more
comfortable about the salt. It’s the salt we put on the roads and once we put it on the roads and it
melts, it doesn’t disappear. It goes into the storm water ponds. It goes into our creeks you know.
It’s part of Minnesota. This is something we have to do and to maintain our roads. In the
parking lot there’s an environmental manhole so some of the heavy stuff that may come from
break pads will settle out there and then we will clean that out before it even goes into the series
of ponds. Before it goes into Lake Susan. So the chemicals for the anti-freeze and that are all
self contained inside the building and as Paul mentioned most of the car washing, the grease and
the things from the vehicles will go into the sanitary sewer system and be treated at the sanitary
sewer plant. So any spills that occur inside the building, same thing there.
Councilwoman Ernst: And the other piece to it is, I don’t have a clear picture of the whole
financial impact if we did delay this for a while. And because I don’t have those questions
answered, I mean I want to support the project but I can’t support the project based on what I
know today.
Councilman Litsey: I guess my frustration is that we’ve been down this road. We spent a lot of
time on this. We’ve looked at all the different options and this seemed the most reasonable. The
most prudent. They’re doing their best to fit it on this parcel of property. A lot of this is going to
be preserved the way it is. To push it back, well we’re going to take out trees. I mean you’ve
got to balance that out and this seems to be the best balance but I mean we’ve talked about all the
issues. The options and best place to put it and the square footage and the architecture and all
those things. We’ve been down that road for months. To stall it now, I don’t see what the
rationale is.
Councilwoman Ernst: Like I said before, when we were looking at this before I was not, I did
not see how that was in relationship to where the creek is. I saw that, I saw where it was placed
but I didn’t see that, there was not that relationship there.
Councilman Litsey: Well that might be but the creek hasn’t moved and this has all been talked
about and so. I mean I’m trying to respect your viewpoint but I just, I’m frustrated because
we’ve looked at this. We spent so many hours on it and it just.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Councilman McDonald, your thoughts.
Councilman McDonald: Well I guess I have to share Councilman Litsey’s frustration because
we have been over this for over a year. I am perfectly fine if it comes down to we don’t want to
go into the buffers. Fine. Then we move it up and over and we take care of the problem but at
that point we are going to take out significant trees and we will begin to infringe upon the music
studio above us. I think that you know we have granted these types of variances before. G.E.
Osmotics comes to mind where we went in and we granted a variance within the buffer zone at
that point because of what they wanted to do. This is not something new and this is not
something new within this particular area. Again it is salt. It’s going to get into the lakes
anyway because as Mr. Gerhardt said, it goes on the roads. It melts. It goes into the water
system. There’s nothing we can do about that unless we get rid of using salt on roads. The other
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
thing you need to look at is that if we delay this, right now a snowplow, how much does a
snowplow cost?
Paul Oehme: About $180,000-$190,000.
Councilman McDonald: We currently have assets of over a hundred thousand dollars just sitting
outside because we can’t fit them into a building. If you want to look at costs and what this is
costing us, the deterioration of those assets will far exceed anything we do as far as delaying this
project to re-bond it. Again we have looked at it for over a year. We have been through this.
And again Chanhassen, as the mayor says, we are not dependent upon the State to do this so
we’re not going to get the look back and see that we’re wasting the State’s money because we’re
not wasting the State’s money. So I think that you know based upon this, I am perfectly fine
with going forward. If the problem is the setbacks and if the council feels that we need to do
something about that, I don’t see where that needs to delay anything. It’s just start planning
which trees we’re going to cut down because it will fit upon the property with or without the
variance and I guess the question is, do you want the trees there or do you want the variance. So
I’m in full support of this project and I’m ready to go forward on it.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. I think there have been some questions raised this evening.
This has been a project that has been, that we’ve been discussing for a long time. We’ve looked
at a variety of options and we continue to each step along the way peel back the onion a little bit
more if you will in terms of some of the details. The site plan. Clearly the timing of this is
appropriate when you actually, just like a private developer would, take a look at whether or not
it’s your best alternative and I think in terms of where the alternatives are, whether to buy and
remodel or build new, that’s always a decision that any property owner would go through. We
looked at buying existing and completely remodeling. We looked at buying next, for the
property right next to our existing facility and having a two building campus if you will. We
looked at a number of the buildings that have been mentioned this evening as well as others, and
in all the cases the, it came back to this was the most financially prudent and operationally best
way to do what we’re trying to do, and I think that’s what we’re always trying to do. There are
more details. I think we’re all concerned about impacts to wetlands and the creeks that run
through our city and from lake to lake. Clearly that’s the case here. This entire industrial park
has I would guess, though I wasn’t on the council at the time, had issues with the creek flowing
through the area. The creek doesn’t start and stop at the borders here. It’s throughout the area
and I’m sure that there have been issues addressed. In this particular case what gives me comfort
is that with this project we’re actually improving the storm water management on the site.
Currently the water just runs off into the creek. There’s debris there. Runs into the wetland.
That all will be redirected and contained through a management system to reduce the rate at
which the storm water enters the natural storm water system called our creeks and lakes. It will
increase the quality of that. As we heard earlier tonight there’s actually a series of ponds that
the water will eventually flow through, including the last pond at Lake Susan which was just
upgraded a few years ago, before it even enters into Lake Susan. So I am comfortable looking at
this. I think the, you know it’s always a balance and I look at these and try to say are we finding
a fair balance between competing interests. The first interest is don’t affect any of the natural
resources, whether they’re trees or water bodies or wetlands and yet at the same time provide a
reasonable use. If this was a private developer coming to this site, as we heard earlier this
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
evening there would likely be greater intensity, as well as requests for some setbacks. Just in
terms of the access to the property and almost naturally is going to require one. So I think these
have come out in conversations. We kind of continue to move along as any private business
owner would in looking at the site of where to locate. How to locate. How can we fit it on the
best given what we have there. All these parameters. Chanhassen is not flat prairie. It is always
rolls or creeks. That’s what gives it the natural features that we all love, and so what we do is we
have to do our best to protect those and I think this does it. In terms of the timing, the objective
here is to go forward with the site plan and then we’ll proceed and next time we see this we’ll
have bids for most of the major items and at that time we’ll have again better information from a
timing standpoint as well as what the actual costs are. We’ll be in a better position to do that.
And so I am comfortable going forward with this plan because I believe that it provides a fair
balance with a reasonable use of this property based upon zoning as well taking into account the
natural features of the site as well. We’ve tried to do this in a way that is both cost effective,
fiscally responsible, as well as looking at the operational needs of the city and I think we’re
finding that we’re going to be able to accomplish those goals. So all told I think we should move
forward this evening on this project and continue to look at ways to save money. Make sure that
we get this project in on budget or lower. If there’s opportunities out there through bidding out
the contract or running it through a contract manager system, as we’re doing it, to save money
long term, short term, we need to look at those. But we always need to look at what those
options are and balance out the benefits against the costs so. So I’m comfortable going forward
this evening. We can spend more time moving it around on the site but I don’t know that we’re
going to gain any value from that in that whatever the variances are here, they’re being mitigated
I believe by better storm water management across the entire site. So I think we should move
forward this evening with what we have and with the information we have before us. I think
we’re comfortable moving forward. Any other thoughts or comments? If not we have a motion
before us. Two motions, correct?
Kate Aanenson: Yes. The first motion is regarding the vacation of the utility easement.
Mayor Furlong: And is that, is that the modified motion on page 1 of the staff report? Or is that,
where is that motion on the.
Todd Gerhardt: On the cover pages of each one.
Mayor Furlong: The very beginning, proposed motion A, B and the adoption of the facts?
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, that would be for the site plan and the conditional use.
Mayor Furlong: And the variances and conditions.
Kate Aanenson: The staff report before that on A would be adopt.
Mayor Furlong: So first page, proposed motions. Any other thoughts or comments or would
somebody like to propose a motion?
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
Councilman McDonald: I’ll propose the motion. I’ll do it. I make a motion that the City
Council approves a resolution vacating the drainage and utility easements located on Lot 5 and
th
Lot 6 of Chanhassen Lakes Business Park 5 Addition.
Councilman Litsey: Second.
Mayor Furlong: Is that the entire motion?
Kate Aanenson: That’s for the first one.
Councilman McDonald: That’s Part A.
Kate Aanenson: That’s A.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Councilman McDonald: Do you want to do these separate or?
Todd Gerhardt: You can do it all as one or separate.
Mayor Furlong: We can do it all as one unless there’s any objection.
Councilman Litsey: I’ll withdraw my second then.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Go ahead Mr. McDonald.
Councilman McDonald: Okay. I also propose that the Chanhassen City Council approve a Site
Plan for an 82,500 square foot one story office warehouse building with a mezzanine storage
area and setback variances from the creek and wetland for the parking lot areas, plans prepared
by Oertel Architects and the City of Chanhassen dated December 5, 2008, subject to conditions 1
through 24 of the staff report. Also that the Chanhassen City Council approves a Conditional
Use Permit for the outdoor storage subject to condition 1 of the staff report and adoption of the
attached Planning Commission Findings of Fact.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there a second?
Councilman Litsey: I’ll second that.
Mayor Furlong: And just to clarify, I was looking at the first item that dealt with the wetland
variances, correct?
Kate Aanenson: Yes.
Mayor Furlong: Mr. McDonald, correct?
Councilman McDonald: Part A. Part A, we’ve got them all.
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
Kate Aanenson: We included them all, including variances.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you for clarifying. So I’ve got a motion made and seconded. Any
discussion on the motion?
Resolution #2009-05: Councilman McDonald moved, Councilman Litsey seconded that the
City Council approves a resolution vacating the drainage and utility easements located on
th
Lot 5 and Lot 6 of Chanhassen Lakes Business Park 5 Addition. All voted in favor,
except Councilwoman Ernst who opposed and the motion carried with a vote of 3 to 1.
Councilman McDonald moved, Councilman Litsey seconded that the City Council
approves a site plan for an 82,500 square-foot, one-story office/warehouse building with a
mezzanine storage area and setback variances from the creek and wetland for the parking
lot area, plans prepared by Oertel Architects and the City of Chanhassen, dated 12/05/08,
subject to the following conditions:
1.The developer shall provide exterior benches and/or tables.
2.Signage shall require a separate sign permit review to determine compliance with City
ordinance.
3.The applicant shall mitigate for the lost functions and values of any buffer variance by replacing
an equivalent area of buffer in a location which will provide the maximum water quality benefit.
Preliminary review indicates that area to be northeast of the wetland.
4.The applicant shall restore the stream channel as well as the top of bank and flood plain for
Riley Creek including the removal of any construction and other debris in the area.
5.The applicant shall prepare a vegetation management plan for Riley Creek. This
management plan shall be created in conjunction with the landscaping plan and the
Environmental Resources Specialist and Water Resources Coordinator should be consulted in
the creation of this plan.
6.The applicant will modify the existing NPDES permit to identify the construction manager
for the project.
7.The applicant will provide adequate treatment for drainage directed to the wetland.
8.The applicant should look for ways to promote infiltration and incorporate alternative
stormwater management best management practices into the site design and build. One such
measure is the construction of a bio-infiltration feature at the outlet from the drive aisle
northeast of the wetland. Other features to investigate include pervious pavement systems,
cisterns, biofiltration trenches, preservation or re-establishment of vegetation, etc.
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
9.The final 200 feet of the swale located west of the proposed facility needs to be protected
with Category 2, Wood Fiber 1S Erosion Control Blanket.
10.Those areas to be planted in BWSR seed mix U7 should be seeded at a rate of 15LBS
PLS/acre where PLS means “Pure Live Seed”.
11.The buildings are required to have automatic fire extinguishing systems.
12.Building plans must be prepared and signed by design professionals licensed in the State of
Minnesota.
13.Retaining walls over four feet high must be designed by a professional engineer and a permit
must be obtained prior to construction.
14.The 51-inch and 45-inch oaks located near the northwest and southeast corners of the
building shall be protected by fencing throughout construction.
15.The site plan must show the dimensions of the lots.
16.The northern access must be revised so that the maximum width does not exceed 36 feet.
17.An encroachment agreement is required for the portion of the parking area that lies within the
public right-of-way.
18.If feasible, the runoff from the cold storage area access should be conveyed to the existing
storm sewer.
19.Revised drainage calculations and storm sewer sizing must be submitted to ensure that the
existing downstream infrastructure can accommodate the proposed runoff.
20.An encroachment agreement is required to construct the northern retaining wall within the
drainage and utility easement.
21.The proposed top and bottom of wall elevations must be shown.
22.The drainage and utility easement over the abandoned portion of the sanitary sewer must be
vacated.
23.The existing drainage and utility easements and abandoned utilities must be labeled on the
plan sheet.
24.The utility plan must include a note regarding the connection to the existing storm sewer.”
All voted in favor, except Councilwoman Ernst who opposed and the motion carried with a
vote of 3 to 1.
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City Council Meeting - January 26, 2009
Councilman McDonald moved, Councilman Litsey seconded that the City Council
approvesa conditional use permit for outdoor storage, subject to the following condition:
1.The proposed development must comply with the approved site plan, plans prepared by
Oertel Architects and the City of Chanhassen, dated 12/05/08.”
All voted in favor, except Councilwoman Ernst who opposed and the motion carried with a
vote of 3 to 1.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you everybody and thank you for your comments this evening. That
completes our items of business this evening.
COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS:
None.
ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS:
None.
CORRESPONDENCE DISCUSSION.
None.
Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilman McDonald seconded to adjourn the City Council
meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0. The
City Council meeting was adjourned at 9:55 p.m.
Submitted by Todd Gerhardt
City Manager
Prepared by Nann Opheim
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