CC 2009 03 23
CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL
REGULAR MEETING
MARCH 23, 2009
Mayor Furlong called the meeting to order at 7:05 p.m. The meeting was opened with the
Pledge to the Flag.
COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT:
Mayor Furlong, Councilman Litsey, Councilwoman
Ernst, Councilwoman Tjornhom, and Councilman McDonald
STAFF PRESENT:
Todd Gerhardt, Roger Knutson, Laurie Hokkanen, Paul Oehme, Kate
Aanenson and Todd Hoffman
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Mayor Furlong: Good evening and welcome to everyone here in the council chambers as well as
those watching at home. We’re glad that you joined us tonight. At this time I would ask if there
is any changes or modifications by members of the council to the agenda this evening. If not,
we’ll proceed with the agenda as published.
INVITATION TO EASTER EGG CANDY HUNT, APRIL 11, CHANHASSEN
RECREATION CENTER.
Mayor Furlong: With springtime almost here, the City of Chanhassen, in cooperation with our
local business community, is proud to announce the second of our year round special event
series. The event, the Easter Egg Candy Hunt will be held on Saturday, April 11 at 9:00 a.m. At
this time I invite all area residents, their families and friends to join me at the Chanhassen
Recreation Center for this event. The event starts off with children’s musical entertainment
performed by Sticks and Tones. Immediately afterwards there’ll be an Easter Egg candy hunt for
age groups. There’s also a coloring contest for children ages 12 and under. Prizes will be a
winner in each age category. Coloring forms may be picked up and dropped off at City Hall or
Chanhassen Rec Center and may be found on the City’s web site. There is a fee for this but pre-
registration is not required, but can be done at the City hall or the rec center. I look forward to
seeing everybody there. That’s always a fun event and rain, shine, snow or sunshine, it goes off
and is well received by everyone.
INVITATION TO CHANJAM’09, APRIL 17, CHANHASSEN RECREATION CENTER.
Mayor Furlong: Next event is an invitation to ChanJam ’09. This is the second year the City of
Chanhassen is going to be presenting ChanJam which is a musical showcase. This year the event
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will be on Friday, April 17 at 6:00 p.m. again at the Chanhassen Rec Center. I’d like to invite
all area residents, their families and friends to come out and listen to some great bands from local
students. We’re going to have bands from Chaska High School, Minnetonka High School,
Southwest Christian High School, and Holy Family High School competing this year. Ten bands
in all will be competing to be Chanhassen’s best band. The winning band will open for the
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Casablanca Orchestra at our annual event on July 3, which was well received last year by the
City Council Meeting - March 23, 2009
winner, and will also play at the State Fair. Tickets are $5 a person available at the door. Come,
bring your family and friends and it is a great event and a lot of fun there as well. More
information on that too can be found on the web site, is that correct Mr. Hoffman? On both of
these items. So check out the City web site if you want to get more information or call City hall
and they can give you the information you need. Thank you.
CONSENT AGENDA: Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilman McDonald seconded to
approve the following consent agenda items pursuant to the City Manager’s
recommendations:
a. Approval of Minutes:
-City Council Work Session Minutes dated March 9, 2009
-City Council Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated March 9, 2009
Receive Commission Minutes:
-Planning Commission Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated March 3, 2009
-Park and Recreation Commission Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated February 24,
2009
Resolution #2009-22:
b. 2009 Street Improvement Project: Call Assessment Hearing.
Resolution #2009-23:
c. 2009 Inflow/Infiltration Project 09-03: Authorize Preparation of
Plans & Specifications.
d. Approval of 2009 Liquor License Renewals.
Resolution #2009-24:
f. Authorize the Minnesota Department of Transportation to Prepare
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a Speed Study for West 78 Street between Century Boulevard and Powers Boulevard.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: PRESENTATION OF ANNUAL REPORT,
SOUTHWEST TRANSIT COMMISSION, LEN SIMICH.
Mayor Furlong: At this time we’ll go to visitor presentations. I’d like to invite residents and
guests to come forward and address the council on matters of interest to the council this evening.
No one? In that case I would like to invite Mr. Len Simich who is the Executive Director of
Southwest Transit Commission to come forward and give us an annual presentation. Annual
report on the commission’s activities. Good evening.
Len Simich: Good evening Mr. Mayor and members of the council. I want to thank you for the
invite. To give a little bit of an update of the state of transit here in our area, both from previous
year 2008 and looking forward here into 2009. First of all we’ll start off with a few of our
highlights. Three that we’re very proud of. Southwest Transit was honored last year with three
distinguish awards. The first being the Minnesota Public Transit System of the Year. We were
selected out of over 100 various properties around the state. This is the second time the agency
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City Council Meeting - March 23, 2009
has received this award, and only 1 of 2 two time recipients of this award. The other award that
we received was a national award and this is for our safety and service reliability. Southwest
Transit had the highest rated system across the country when it comes to safety, and there’s a
number of factors that go into that such as accidents and road calls and so on and so forth, but
again the previous year we were runner-up and last year we did take home the top honor. The
third is something that a number of our founding cities also have achieved and that is through the
Governmental Finance Officers Association we did receive the Excellence in Financial
Reporting for the second consecutive year. Some of the other things that we accomplished in
2008. Of course one of the big things was adding or opening two major park and ride facilities
along the new 212 corridor. One here in Chanhassen down at 101. It is our Chanhassen Village
or our Southwest Village site. The other is in Chaska at our East Creek. Combined we added
over 650 new stalls to the corridor, which has helped in terms of providing stalls for our
ridership. Speaking of our ridership, last year we had another increase that was 6 straight
increase years of increase. Five in double digits. We had a 13.3% increase last year. We
provide a little bit over a million rides per year. The last 2 years alone our system has increased
over 25%. Our fare box, one of the things we like to track with it also had an increase, almost
18% over the previous year and our overall subsidy per passenger, again transit is a subsidy type
of service and we were able to reduce that by 54 cents per ride over the previous year. And
that’s, I should point out, that’s in a time when gas actually reached up to close to $4.00 a gallon
on our system so a number of things went into place for us to be able to reduce that to that
amount. Our road call per mile ratio, this is really a testament to our mechanics and how well
they keep our buses operating. We had a road call per mile of 1 per 24,000 miles driven. Just to
put that in perspective, the national average is about 1 per 7,000 miles so we are quite a bit above
the national average on that. Our preventable accidents. Another one of those statistics that
went into our overall safety award. We reduced from 13 in 2007 to 5 in 2008. .42 per 100,000
miles that we travel. Again a very high statistic. National average is 5 per 100,000 so again we
are way, way above that. We achieved a 98% customer satisfaction rating. We do this by
issuing an onboard survey each year to our customers. We have over 70% of our riders respond
and they ranked us either the highest or second highest category there so again, another thing that
we’ve very proud of. Last year we kind of got out in front a little bit of what we had seen on the
horizon in terms of the overall budget. We are, as I get into ’09, I’ll talk a little bit more about
our budget but we, like everybody else, is really starting to see some of the budget crunch. The
majority of state funding we receive is through the motor vehicle sales tax and we all know what
has happened with auto sales, and so trying to get out in front of this, we put a number of budget
cutting measures into place starting last July. Through the 2008 we’ve seen a positive over
$250,000 adjustment onto our overall budget. One of the things we did there was we
successfully implemented a mid-day park out and what that means is, we have, our service is
primarily a peak hour, predominantly a peak hour type service where we take people to work and
to school. Rather than bring a lot of buses back out empty we were able to work an arrangement
with the State Fair. We parked out buses. We’re saving over $32,000 a month in doing that just
in fuel alone. We implemented some direct service to the U. That’s our fastest growing market.
It has been for years so we toyed around with actually running direct service there, versus
running things through downtown. Very successful. We see that continuing to be an area that’s
growing. Our State Fair ridership, that’s something that the residents of our three areas have
come to really enjoy. It also is that type of service that we can provide that everybody can take
advantage of. Not everybody works downtown or goes to the University of Minnesota so they
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City Council Meeting - March 23, 2009
really don’t have the need to use our services on an everyday basis, but going to the State Fair, a
number of folks in our area do take advantage of that and last year we were able to provide over
57,000 rides. And then the last of our major highlights in ’08. We did demonstrate a double
decker bus. We hope to be able to provide more of this type of service here in the near future.
This does a lot for us. Not only does it kind of fit with our overall image but this bus here can
transport 100 people very comfortably and compared to our other large coaches, which transport
around 60, we can see some real cost savings here because we can really provide more service to
more people without really increasing our operating costs substantially. So what’s kind of in
store for ’09? The budget. As I mentioned, we’re seeing some big budget challenges. This year
alone we’re reducing our overall budget by over a million dollars. We’re doing that through
some service reductions. Through some staff. There’s some other administrative cuts. So far
we’ve been able to balance it but again this is going to be a big challenge and we’re trying to do
this with the least amount of impact to our staff and to our riding public so it is a challenge and
one that we’re on top of daily. There was also some efforts to eliminate Southwest Transit.
Believe it or not we’ve been around for over 20 years. We’re the second longest opt out system
here in the metro area but there was some challenges to keeping this structure in place. As early
as last week there was some legislation that had been floated around that would eliminate our
agency. I think this is going to be a thing to come. We don’t see the advantage. I think we can
provide services more cost effective. We’re closer to the customer and you can see by some of
the things that we’ve been able to accomplish and the growth that we’ve had, we believe this is
the right course but nonetheless there’s always that challenge that we have to face in St. Paul. So
that is one of those things that we will continue to try to mitigate as much as we can. We have a
number of issues with the Met Council, as I’m sure the City does. And I’d like to say these are
getting better but they haven’t. I think in tough economic times they even get worst and we’re
continuing to try to work through these. We do have a good representative in Craig Peterson.
He was a member of this body. He was a member of my commission so he’s working. He’s one
voice but we are going to continue to work and hopefully we can get some agreement between
our agency and their’s on some very, very important issues. Some of the other things as we go
into ’09 or as we continue through ‘ 09 is technology. We think there’s some things that we can
be doing in this area that really will help us increase our efficiencies. Also improve some of our
customer service offerings as well. We are always looking at ways to incorporate sustainability,
both from our planning, our construction, our operations. Much like our mid-day park out. And
then we still need to grow our services. There’s pockets of our system that continue to grow. A
lot of our express services and again as the dollar is tight, we need to find out how and look
where we can reallocate those resources to continue to grow those services. This is just kind of
some of the areas that we’re looking at in terms of our growth. We have our reverse commute
bringing folks out to our job sites. Local services, partnership, express and so on and so forth.
Some of the major construction things. One you’ll hear more about this evening, we are still in
the process of trying to bring home a park and ride facility in downtown Chanhassen. We were
set a little, were side tracked a little bit last week with some of those plans but again this is
something that has been on the books for a number of years. We’re going to continue forward
and we really believe that in ’09 we’re going to start putting a shovel into the ground and getting
this project up and running. Our bus garage, we’re in our current facility we’re at maximum
capacity in Eden Prairie. We’re very close to purchasing a new facility in Chaska which we’ll be
moving all of our operations there. As well as we have another ramp and station slated for
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City Council Meeting - March 23, 2009
Chaska later in 2012 so these are all things that we’ll be working on. So with that I’d be happy
to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you Len. Any questions for Mr. Simich this evening? Councilwoman
Ernst.
Councilwoman Ernst: Len, good to see you again. Thanks for coming in and making a
presentation this evening. Can you tell me in rough numbers what the percentages are at the
Chanhassen park and ride here in Chanhassen? Whether they’ve increased or decreased and if so
by what amount.
Len Simich: In the downtown location itself?
Councilwoman Ernst: Right.
Len Simich: I would say right now in the downtown location we’re parking out about half of
what we were a year ago but I think the biggest change has been the facility we opened on 101.
The majority has probably moved down to that facility. Our system as a whole right now, we’re
down about 7 to 8 percent over the same time a year ago and part of that may be due to gas
prices decreasing, although we don’t fluctuate that as much. We’ve seen some spikes when it
went up to 4 bucks but I think the biggest thing is less people are working and that’s kind of
where we’re seeing the biggest decreases.
Councilwoman Ernst: Okay, thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Other questions at this point?
Councilman McDonald: I’ve got a question. I’m just kind of curious, I mean last year when gas
spiked, I take it ridership probably went up. What have you been able to retain from those
people? Are they staying out of their cars or what’s your overall gut feeling about that?
Len Simich: And it is a gut feeling. I think once we get them to try our system, we’re able to
retain a majority of them. They see the conveniences there. The cost savings is there. Again I
see the biggest impact we’re seeing right now is basically the less employment because our
student market is high. A lot of our monthly users, and we track things with our monthly card
passes and stuff, that’s staying pretty flat. Where we’re losing ridership is on the cash fares. A
lot of those cash fares quite frankly are the reverse commuters that are paying on a daily basis or
some of the more infrequent riders, and that’s where we’ve lost most of the ridership.
Councilman McDonald: Okay. And I guess from what I hear it is a very good ride for anybody
that wants to be going, you know commuting back and forth. Very comfortable seats and you
know a real nice environment. The only other question I’ve got is you know you brought up
something and this may not be something that you can answer and maybe I throw it back to the
council, but when you talk about the opt out options and everything and the pressure that’s being
put on you about that, what is that we as a City can do to kind of help you and are we doing
something there and is there anything more that we can do because again I hear a lot about this
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City Council Meeting - March 23, 2009
and this is a premium you know company and a ride and all like that and I’d like to see you be
able to keep your independence because I think that’s what allows you to give the customer
service you do and that’s the difference between Southwest and Metro Transit. So is that
something that we’re doing Mr. Mayor or anything that we can do to help ensure you stay
independent?
Mayor Furlong: No, I think that’s an excellent question. Len you want to start?
Len Simich: Yep. I think your voice is the big thing. You know talk to our area legislators, who
are very supportive of our system by the way. But the more they hear from you. The more they
hear from the riders. You know it just kind of reaffirms. I’m kind of the hired gun. They hear
from me all the time and they kind of see that as you know somewhat self serving but if they can
hear from the people that the services touches and then provides the benefit, I think that only
helps them as they defend our position, and they’ve done a very good job. You know hearing
from the City side of the equation. Mayor Furlong has been a good voice for us, as has the
mayors from our other two cities, Eden Prairie and Chaska. So I think the more you can tell the
other individuals, our legislators and so forth, I think that goes a long way.
Councilman McDonald: Okay.
Mayor Furlong: And I think to follow up. When we met, the council met with Senator Ortman
and Representative Hoppe, our county commissioners and actually Craig Peterson, our Met
Council representative, that was one of the items that we included on our legislative initiatives
this year as a council was to support the continuation of the opt out services and obviously we’re
very close to Southwest Transit, but there are other suburbs around the area that benefit from
their services. Other opt out organization services as well. And I think the real key there is, on
one of Len’s slides he talked about over 1.1 million rides last year. That’s phenomenal relative
to the number of rides that were originating out of this area prior to Southwest being in place. I
mean it’s just night and day and many of our riders ride by choice and so I think the organization
has done very well over the years to be customer focused in it’s delivery of it’s service and doing
it in a cost effective way and the ridership I think demonstrates the success of that strategic plan.
So but I agree. I think we need to continue to let people know the value of this service and that
includes not only elected officials but any other residents or riders that come in contact with
other elected officials to let them know too. Councilwoman Ernst.
Councilwoman Ernst: So Len, is this something that maybe would be good to put something out
to the riders because the riders certainly want that service provided to them and I’m wondering if
there is some kind of a marketing tool that you can get out to the ridership.
Len Simich: Yeah, and that’s a, Councilwoman Ernst, that’s a great suggestion. One that we’ve
kind of been holding in our back pocket to see if this legislation got any legs because then we’re
calling out all the troops and holding no stops but I do think some of those grass root efforts are
good. I think while the legislation may have stalled this year, I think it will be back in front of
them. The body in St. Paul next year and I think there’ll be some studies this summer and I think
that’s a great time to get those voices heard.
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City Council Meeting - March 23, 2009
Councilwoman Ernst: By the way I do want to say with all the construction downtown
Minneapolis that Southwest Transit did react to the challenges there and I, and we all very much
appreciate it so.
Len Simich: Thank you…
Councilwoman Ernst: Thanks for…
Mayor Furlong: More than a few. Final comment I make, Len first of all thank you for coming.
We appreciate the information and this is just a general comment to residents at home. If you
haven’t had a chance to try Southwest Transit, and you have an opportunity to do so, do it. I
think you’ll be very pleasantly surprised with their service.
Len Simich: Thanks.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you.
Councilman Litsey: Good job.
Mayor Furlong: With that, is there anyone else for visitor presentations before we move on this
evening? Very good. Thank you.
LAW ENFORCEMENT/FIRE DEPARTMENT UPDATE.
Mayor Furlong: I see Lieutenant Olson is here. Carver County sheriff’s department. Good
evening Lieutenant.
Lt. Jim Olson: Thank you Mr. Mayor, City Council. In your packet this evening I have
included the sheriff’s office report for the month of February, along with the community service
officer report and a crime alert that was issued by Crime Prevention Specialist Beth Hoiseth.
Are there any questions from any of the numbers or anything that was in the packet this evening?
Mayor Furlong: Any questions? I had just one question. It was relating to a memo that talked
about some double counting in the reporting but it’s now been cleaned up. Are you familiar with
that or did it, it was? Let me see if I can find it here. From Sandy Meyer. Something to the
effect that there might have been some double counting but it’s been cleaned up so. The reason
I’m raising the question is I think the year to date numbers in the February report are accurate. If
somebody’s looking at January it may be inaccurate.
Lt. Jim Olson: I think it had more to do with the, if it’s the memo that I think you’re talking
about, had to do more with the overall, I’m trying to think of the term that we used for it. The
contract that we put out. There’s a contract policing plan that we give to the City every year.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Okay.
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City Council Meeting - March 23, 2009
Lt. Jim Olson: And I think those numbers had more to do with that where they were taking more
out. They had put in citations, or they had taken out citations from it whereas they had not been
added in in the first place so I think it had to do more with double taking out than it was putting
in.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Lt. Jim Olson: So that’s the memo that I think that you’re talking about.
Mayor Furlong: I think it is. Okay. Thank you.
Lt. Jim Olson: I want to touch briefly on the crime alert that Beth Hoiseth had put out, and this
is a crime alert. If you remember last month I had talked about we had had 3 burglaries from
occupied residences in the City of Chanhassen. I’m happy to say we have not had any more in
the past month. From, as far as burglaries from occupied residences. However, we still have not
arrested anybody in this at this point. I would still encourage people to make sure that you close
your garage doors. Make sure you lock all of your doors that are in your house and any vehicles
that are left outside, lock those and bring in your garage door openers that you may leave in
them. I think that that’s very important for it. Touching on that as well, another thing I want to
mention is that the metro area has seen a pretty big rash of thefts from vehicles recently, and
these thefts which, they used to consist of you know car stereos that were being stolen or radar
detectors and those kind of things. Today they’re, those thefts consist of charge cards or they
consist of purses and wallets and laptops and what they’re looking for is charge cards, check
books, and personal information that people are using for identity theft and credit card fraud.
Keep that in mind when you go to work. When you go to work out or if you go to the park as far
as what you’re leaving in your car for people that they can see or that they can take. You know
identity theft is something that can take a long time for you to try to repair from a credit history
standpoint so try to remove all those things from your cars. We’ve also in the county have taken
a couple of calls recently where seniors have received calls from people that they think are their
grandchildren that are saying you know what, I need some money. I’m in some trouble, whether
it be I’ve been in an accident or I’ve had a medical problem or whatever but where people have
actually even sent them money thinking this is their grandchild. You know be very wary of you
know sending money to anybody based on that type of information. There are a lot of scams that
are out there right now and if you have any questions about anything regarding any of these type
of things, feel free to call law enforcement and we will certainly try to help you out with that and
help you sort through it. And the last thing I wanted to talk about, we’ve had some calls recently
regarding, or some inquiries I should say regarding parties with precious metals are brought.
Many people are not aware that there’s a permit that’s issued by the county that regulates these
and that they need to go to the county to get this permit, and the permit can be acquired through
taxpayer’s services and the number is 361-1972 that they need to call to try to get that so,
anything else for the sheriff’s office.
Councilman McDonald: Could I ask you a question about that? Just so everybody’s clear. I
mean I’ve seen a lot of these things and it’s like it’s the new Tupperware party of the age. Is that
what you’re talking about is even for that type of a party you would need this permit?
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City Council Meeting - March 23, 2009
Lt. Jim Olson: Yes, that is correct.
Councilman McDonald: Okay.
Lt. Jim Olson: Yeah, where people have, you know somebody will come in and people like a
Tupperware party, they come in to sell their used gold or gold or precious metals to these folks
and yes, that is what I’m talking about.
Councilman McDonald: Okay, thank you.
Lt. Jim Olson: Yeah, absolutely.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any other questions for Lieutenant Olson?
Councilman Litsey: I had a quick one. On the federal stimulus money that’s coming through
now and it’s kind of a tight time table.
Lt. Jim Olson: Yes.
Councilman Litsey: When you can apply and, how’s the sheriff’s department working with their
contracts like Chanhassen and to make sure that we’re taking advantage of that.
Lt. Jim Olson: We had a meeting on Friday with the sheriff, commander and a number of the
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cities within the county to talk about that. I know that there’s an April 14 deadline with that but
we are working through some of those issues. Currently there’s another grant that we’re looking
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at called the Berm Grant that you may be familiar with that we’re also, we’ve got til May 20 I
think for that in the county range for that but that’s another one that we’re also working on so
yes. We are working on those.
Councilman Litsey: Good. I just wanted to make sure you were on track with that but then I
know staff had mentioned we are too so I just want to make sure we get our piece of the pie.
Lt. Jim Olson: Absolutely.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any other questions this evening? If not, Lieutenant thank you.
Lt. Jim Olson: Thank you. Have a good evening.
Mayor Furlong: You too. Chief Geske is here with the Chanhassen Fire Department. Good
evening Chief.
Chief Gregg Geske: Good evening. I’d like to say that all of our call numbers have not been
double counted here or anything. Do want to invite the public to our annual Lions/Fire
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Department Pancake Breakfast which is April 5. If anybody’s seen the signs around town. We
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have a sign up at the station. April 5 from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. and as I always say, it’s a
good opportunity to us as fire fighters to meet with the public in a happier situation, rather than
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City Council Meeting - March 23, 2009
when we show up at your house or at an accident or anything and much like our fire department
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open house so we’re hoping for good weather on April 5. We did hire 2 new probationary fire
fighters recently here and took them both on and they came to us already trained, and that’s even
better for the City because we don’t have to invest into the training for them so, but we are still
posting on the public access TV that we still are accepting applications so if you see that on
there, feel free to put in an application. Did some different training this month that I’d like to
report on. We had an organization called BART which is Basic Animal and Rescue Tactics
come in and give us some training. Of course we train on medical and people training all the
time but a lot of times pets at fire incidents are just as important as people. We had an
organization come in and train us on doing CPR, administering 0 to animals and different
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techniques and stuff that we can use too so something that’s been done quite a bit in this state
and Minnesota’s kind of a leader in it and we’ve got some additional tools that we have in our
trucks now so that we can tend to the needs of pets that we come across at fires too so. A little
training out of the box but we’re trained for all the incidents now so. That’s about all I have to
report on. It’s been, not much for structure fires which is good.
Mayor Furlong: That’s a good thing. Any questions for Chief Geske this evening? No? Very
good. Thank you.
Councilman Litsey: Thanks.
PUBLIC HEARING: REQUEST FOR A SUBDIVISION CREATING AN ADDITIONAL
LOT WITH VARIANCES, 7160 WILLOW VIEW COVE, APPLICANT: MARK AND
SUZANNE SENN.
Public Present:
Name Address
Betsy & Herb LePlatt 7012 Cheyenne Trail
Mark Senn 7160 Willow View Cove
Kate Aanenson: Thank you Mayor, members of the council. As you indicated this is a request
for a metes and bounds subdivision to create a second building lot and variances for a private
street. Background on this is that the public hearing was held before the Planning Commission
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on February 17. At that time the Planning Commission voted 4 to 0 to approve the request for a
metes and bounds subdivision and the variance for the private street. City code does require a
public hearing before the City Council for a metes and bounds. That’s why this is a public
hearing. Typically that would have been held at the Planning Commission. Because there was
other variances, we just bundled that together at the Planning Commission so again a public
hearing is required for the metes and bounds. There were some issues that were brought up at
the Planning Commission that the staff did follow up on. One is a concern that maybe there was
some water, drainage backing up. We did investigate that and it appeared that the drain, the
catch basin in the cul-de-sac was performing and the other concern was the grading plan.
Because a house plan wasn’t shown, there’ll be future grading, that we will look at that carefully
to make sure that the drainage for that house doesn’t impede anybody else’s current drainage
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City Council Meeting - March 23, 2009
pattern so that will be something that will be reviewed when that building pad is actually
accomplished. And then the other one was the Planning Commission did add an additional
comment regarding additional trees because a tree survey was not completed at this time and I’d
be happy to discuss that in a little more detail later but with that the Planning Commission did
approve it. So with that, the subject site as you indicated is on Kurvers Point and it’s one of the
largest lots actually in the Kurvers Point subdivision. The subdivision itself was created in 1987.
It consists of 42 lots. This lot itself is 3.66 acres. Again one of the larger lots. A portion of this
lot was split and added to a neighboring lot and that slide is actually in your staff report. So
again there is a discretion with the variances. The City Council does have discretion with the
variances because they’re deviating from the standards, but as far as discretion on the metes and
bounds, because in order to have a metes and bounds you have to meet all that criteria so the
metes and bounds couldn’t be approved unless you approved the variances that it meets the
criteria of the metes and bounds. The metes and bounds says you are abutting a public street.
This one’s requesting a variance from that to meet that. Again in your staff report there was
originally two proposals being submitted. This is a subdivision, the metes and bounds as shown.
It will have to be modified based on revised recommendations but staff is, we’ll be sharing with
you here in a minute but I just want to make clear that the applicant did state to the staff that they
are requesting withdrawal of the zoning variances. I just want to make sure from Mr. Senn that
it’s still his intent that he is withdrawing the variances on that. If you want to, you’re
withdrawing your request for all the zoning variances and you’re just pursuing the subdivision
variances, is that correct?
Mark Senn: Yes.
Kate Aanenson: Okay. We didn’t get that formally so I just want to make sure that that was
clear that we’re all on the same page on that so, alright. So again the metes and bounds, you can
see Tract C is the part that he’s splitting so the bottom portion, Tract D is existing 3.66 acre lot.
Within that Tract C is the proposed subdivision lot. This is zoned RSF, the minimum lot size in
that zoning district is 15,000 square feet. So this was the original request with the zoning
variances, as we just heard that they’re, we’re moving away from that so the original one had lot
variances and the like and when we went through that with Mr. Senn, then he did, as stated,
agree to pursue the alternative plan which does meet the requirements. And I’ll just kind of
briefly go through those. There is the minimum lot size, which we talked about. The 15,000
square feet. What this meets but some of the issues regarding that is when you have a common
driveway easement, which is what he’s requesting, that can be, that cannot be included in the
calculation so while on face value it meets that, the metes and bounds will have to clearly show
that defined. So wherever that common portion of the driveway is, that would, could not be
included in the calculation. So the driveway going to the new pad could be cut off somewhere
between anywhere within that area, if that makes sense.
Mayor Furlong: No, help me understand that. Is this relating to an easement for which parcel?
Kate Aanenson: For both parcels. What the ordinance states.
Mayor Furlong: To use the common driveway.
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Kate Aanenson: Correct.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: Correct. So that would have to be, that portion has to be 30 feet wide with an
easement on it.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: So that portion, wherever that driveway comes in to that house, and we don’t
know that yet so that will be something that we’ll have to be, when you record the plat we’ll
have to show, right now since we don’t have a driveway location, that easement will be common
to the end of that lot. The 30 foot wide easement. Then the other thing is that, and I don’t have a
pointer here.
Mayor Furlong: Can I ask a question before we get off the easement?
Kate Aanenson: Sure, absolutely.
Mayor Furlong: Is that easement required to provide, I mean this, this new parcel, the new lot,
does it require an easement out to the public street?
Kate Aanenson: Correct. Let me go through that part first and I’ll go back to the slide. So the
criteria for a common street is that any portion of the private street serving both tracks has to be
placed in a common cross access agreement, so that’s one of your conditions. There has to be a
cross access agreement so both parties, existing home and the new homeowner can use that
property. So that’s put into an easement. Now the variances comes in here because within that
easement the ordinance requires 25 foot pavement width and 7 ton design so we’re saying we
don’t believe that’s necessary to serve the two homes, so that’s part of the variance request. Is
not to have to do that. We are requesting that there be a 30 foot easement for the driveway at 7
to 8 foot width can remain as it is. That was the staff’s interpretation. Again going back to the
private driveway, if we go back to the existing plat, you can see how narrow it is on the cul-de-
sac there. While this is a 3 ½ acre lot, it’s very narrow. To put another driveway on there,
another driveway access to that separate lot on the end of a cul-de-sac when there’s limited snow
capacity, it seems to make some sense to make it common. So then the real issue for you to
consider in the variance is, does it also make sense then to say is there, does it need to be then 7
ton and 20 feet wide. That’s where the staff would agree that it probably services the way it is.
The trash now currently comes out to the end of the cul-de-sac. Both parties would continue to
do that so there’s no heavy equipment going back. It’d just be used for residential purposes. So
that’s a criteria that was required with that request so the 30 foot easement and the driveway as it
sits today within that easement.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: Okay? So within that then the ordinance says that you have to have 100, where
the lot, you can’t start the lot until you get to that area where it meets 100 foot in width, and
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that’s the dashed line on there in the green. That’s 100 foot in, where the lot meets the 100 foot
in width, which would be to that easement line. Does everybody follow that? Now why does the
green go past that? Because you still need to have 15,000 square feet but you can’t count the
setback until you get to that portion. So from that setback line you go 30 feet to make the lot.
And the ordinance says if you don’t have a house plan you have to have a 60 by 60 pad. So you
go back to the other one, it didn’t make the 60 by 60 or the lot width, so that’s where we agreed
to make this change. So now we’ve eliminated all the requirements for the zoning variance. The
only variances now are just with the street and the subdivision variance. So with that we put in
the compliance table on the staff report. We’ve looked at the grading and drainage. Again the
issue there is because we don’t have a housing plan, that we will review it at the time of
application. One of the other issues that was pointed out in the utilities portion is that if the
subdivision is approved, that they must submit a utility plan showing existing sanitary sewer
services to the current home and then how cable and all that will be placed to the new home.
Again that’s another reason for the wider easement if anything needs to be in that. If a new
easement does need to be created along that property line, that would also have to be recorded.
As you know we record all easements within the lot line so that would be another thing that
would have to be added. I also wanted to point out because we are creating a new lot, then fees
are being recorded, required. So park and trail fees would be required as well as storm water
fees would be required on the plat. Again going to the tree issue, there is a significant amount of
trees. The Planning Commission felt like because we didn’t have a tree survey, the Planning
Commission did want that condition added. That’s condition number 18. What we’ve asked the
applicant to do is when they show us the home that they’re putting on the site, we estimate what
that tree removal would be. It is in excess of what the tree cover canopy requirement is so unless
for some reason it went beyond that, then more than likely additional trees would not be
required. There probably isn’t a lot of place to plant those, but the Planning Commission felt
because there wasn’t a tree survey, that they wanted to add that. So unless there’s any other
questions, the staff is recommending approval of the metes and bounds subdivision with the
variances, with the Findings of Fact and the conditions in the staff report.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Clarification, and then we’ll, you just said variances. Is the
variance, the variance relates to the drive or the private street.
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct.
Mayor Furlong: But within that, the proposal is not to do a 25 foot width nor do a 7 ton.
Kate Aanenson: Exactly. You’re correct.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. So that’s the, the variances are two but they both relate to the drive.
Kate Aanenson: Private street, correct.
Mayor Furlong: Private street, thank you. Thank you. Any questions for staff?
Councilman McDonald: I have a question. It’s kind of a clarification. What you talked about
on number 18 about the trees. As I recall reading from the report the concern was to the property
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City Council Meeting - March 23, 2009
to the north, and in here it also says enhance landscaping to the north side of the property. I
guess what the question is, and again I did go out and look at the site. I don’t see how you can
add any additional landscaping out there. Are you of a feeling at this point that that finding’s
really not required?
Kate Aanenson: Right, except that we don’t know exactly where the utilities are going in.
Those would be some of the unknowns right now and the grading plan to make this work. It
appears that it probably isn’t necessary. There’s quite a bit of trees there, but if for some reason
the utilities need to go in that area, then we want replacement. So we believe that when the site,
the house plan comes in, the utilities are spotted, we’d have a better indication then of where it
shows tree loss or replacement would go. But you’re right, right now I don’t know where else
you could put something on that site. It’s pretty dense right there.
Councilman McDonald: And right now we don’t have any idea of where utilities are going to be
coming or going from at this point because there are no detailed plans.
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct.
Councilman McDonald: Okay. That’s all I have for right now.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Other questions for staff at this time? Councilwoman Ernst.
Councilwoman Ernst: Kate, can you tell me why the property owner was obligated to subdivide.
Because it’s 4 acres. Haven’t we, I mean our ordinance doesn’t, what does it read? Does it read
beyond a certain amount of acres?
Kate Aanenson: No. It has nothing, there’s no, our ordinance says so many units per acre but
you can have 1 lot on 10 acres and still be in a residential single family home. What our
ordinance says is you can only have one dwelling, and this is residential. One home per lot. You
can have a variance to put, if you have somebody that you want to live with you in your home,
you can ask for a variance. We have criteria for that for someone to live in your house. If you
want to do a, have gramma or grampa live with you or you have a child that you need to have
live with you, you can do that but to have a separate dwelling unit does require a separate lot.
There is no mechanism to do that. Even on a twin home, you do two lots or a condominium or
something like that, except a rental would be the only circumstance I’m aware of where you’d
have more than one ownership for that conveyance. But it has nothing to do with density or
units per acre or something like that. It would require a separate lot.
Councilwoman Ernst: I thought we had put, I thought we had put other residential homes on the
same lot in town.
Kate Aanenson: Not on a single family, no.
Councilwoman Ernst: Um, oh I’m sorry. Go ahead.
Mayor Furlong: No, please continue.
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Councilwoman Ernst: For the grading plan, can you refresh my memory why are we
requiring…?
Kate Aanenson: The concern, always when you put a new house on, we’ve had this historically
and that’s why we require as-builts. When someone goes in and puts in a home, depending on
the type of home, we require that when you do a plat that they showed a walkout elevation, so
you’d know where the water’s draining. In this area. This is put in before. There was some
storm water ponds in place. There is 1 or 2 to the north but we want to make sure we’re not
causing runoff on this property to any other property so we want to see what type of home it is.
Whether it’s a walkout, lookout or just a finished floor elevation. Where that water drainage is
going.
Councilwoman Ernst: So I was out and looked at the site as well and it looked, there’s a couple
things. There’s like a, I don’t know what it is. It’s a sanitary drainage that goes down below a
hill. Below the trees there but then approximately 200 yards away from that there’s another
holding pond. So I guess I’m curious as to why there would be some concerns with drainage.
Kate Aanenson: We don’t know what type of home’s going in, so until you know that, you
know how they’re going to grade around that, then we couldn’t determine if it would create
additional runoff, the type of home. You know how much they’re going to excavate. How it’s
going to redirect the water. And if any other subdivision, that’s a standard question that we
would ask them to show us. You know you want a positive pitch on the front of the house to the
street so it catches that. That’s generally how we do it, so it goes into that catch basin there. On
the back of the lot. That it’s not going to the neighbor’s property so that is, it’s sheet flowing
across back towards the storm water pond.
Councilwoman Ernst: Yeah I, I mean I just didn’t see how there could be a problem there going
onto other people’s property. Based on what I saw there but.
Kate Aanenson: Right, being flat and unchanged but someone’s going to change that by putting
a house in, depending on the style house they put in. Yeah.
Councilwoman Ernst: And then the tree survey. I know Jerry had mentioned this too. I mean
there must be 300 or more trees out there and I’m just curious as to why the property owner may
be required to do a survey, a tree survey and some landscaping surveys because I didn’t.
Kate Aanenson: This is one issue.
Councilwoman Ernst: Again I guess it goes back to the drainage issue but.
Kate Aanenson: This is one issue the neighbors brought up, the visual impact and to screen that
and because there wasn’t a tree survey or a house plan to show that impact, the Planning
Commission just wanted to make sure, duly noted that it was an issue. A factor.
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Councilwoman Ernst: So we have approximately how many surveys that the property owner has
to have total?
Kate Aanenson: A grading plan.
Councilwoman Ernst: A grading and.
Kate Aanenson: Right, and that’s typical for any.
Councilwoman Ernst: The tree survey.
Kate Aanenson: That’s a typical requirement of any subdivision.
Councilwoman Ernst: And then the tree survey? And a drainage survey.
Kate Aanenson: Correct.
Councilwoman Ernst: It just seemed like an awful lot of surveys to have for putting in a house
that I, when I was out and looked at the site it didn’t seem like it was going to require all that.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, again the staff’s position on the tree survey, the drainage survey we
believe is necessary. The tree survey we agree that you know when we see exactly where the
house is going to sit, we’ll make a determine. We’re not going to cut down trees just to replace a
tree so depending on what gets removed and the visual impact, then we would assess whether or
not we need to put additional trees in.
Councilwoman Ernst: Is that something that has to be done? When is that done? Is that done
before or after?
Todd Gerhardt: Typically it’s done before the subdivision.
Kate Aanenson: Or with the application, yeah.
Councilwoman Ernst: Before the house actually goes in?
Todd Gerhardt: Well when you submit your original application to go the Planning Commission
and City Council, it’s one of the items that you’re to submit for a full application is a tree survey.
And then that would give the Planning Commission and staff you know verification of the
amount of trees on the site. And the size of those. So you know then you can see what kind of
impact’s going to occur at the housing pad site. You know typically you’ll see utility plans with
the bigger subdivisions and you can see what the impact of the road utilities would have on that.
Councilwoman Ernst: Well I just don’t know what they would know at that point that they
didn’t know what they know today. You know other than just getting a survey done.
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Kate Aanenson: Well I can answer that real quick. Within that buildable area there’s room for
flexibility. Now again that’s illustrative of what we believe the buildable lot is. That metes and
bounds from that original survey needs to be re-drawn to meet the standards of the 15,000. Meet
the 100 foot setback, 30 foot setback line with the 60 by 60 buildable pad. That’s our
illustrative. That is not the metes and bounds subdivision so that’s got to be re-submitted. So
that could change a little bit. So within that we don’t know exactly where that house is going to
sit, or how the utilities are in there so there is some unknowns here yet. So we’re just making
sure that it’s, meets the City standards.
Councilman McDonald: Could I just follow up, to follow that? Then I guess what this is
coming down to, I mean I looked at the site. There seems to be plenty of room there to put
something in. My question about to the north, I don’t see how the home’s going to impact that
but I think what you’re telling us is that once you have more detail and you can actually overlay
it in there. If you agree there’s no impact as far as the trees that are currently there. He’s not
going to cut down existing trees to place this, then there may not be a need as far as replacement
of trees. And at that point, I mean anything to the north, which would be along the fence line,
which is on the other side of the road, we’re not going to go in there and do an additional impact
that says you have to block everything at this point are we?
Kate Aanenson: No but you have to recognize that there is a buildable area to the north.
Someone could put a porch on. We don’t know exactly how that house is laid, but I would hope
in good faith that we’re going to use you know sound judgment and say, now of those trees are
impacted. There’s no more room for additional trees or if there is some additional loss because
of utilities, then we can push it, move a tree around or save a tree and move a tree over where it
provides an additional screening so that we would try to work on that.
Councilman Litsey: Just for clarification, what surveys have not been completed yet?
Kate Aanenson: Just the house pad survey and the tree survey.
Councilman Litsey: And normally the tree survey is required ahead of time?
Kate Aanenson: Typically we do.
Councilman Litsey: And why was it not? Why the exception this time?
Kate Aanenson: In this circumstance because it was a heavily wooded area, the place where the
house is going is the area with the least amount of trees. If it moved to the north side then
definitely we would have required a tree survey.
Councilman Litsey: But in reading through that earlier there was some, I mean the main concern
is with the trees.
Kate Aanenson: To the north.
Councilman Litsey: Yeah.
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City Council Meeting - March 23, 2009
Kate Aanenson: Correct. And if I go to this aerial wanting again, that you can see is the area
that they chose that has the least amount of trees on the site.
Councilman Litsey: It just seems to me we’re not being real consistent perhaps with not
requiring that survey up front.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I have a question in general regarding the survey. You know I think
we’ve all been to look at the property between the Planning Commission meeting and tonight’s
meeting. When you say survey, what are you talking about? Are you talking about someone
going out there and measuring and marking every tree that’s there?
Kate Aanenson: Yeah.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Or I mean are we going that extensive or are we just you know
taking an overview of what’s there right now.
Kate Aanenson: Right.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Because that’s really the question.
Todd Gerhardt: Any tree over a 6 inch caliper.
Kate Aanenson: Right. Right. And to be clear the City Forester did look at the site to make a
determination of that it was in the area of the least amount of impact of trees, so then at that point
you know, but if you were to do a tree survey, just like we did on the public works building, they
marked all the trees on that property, yeah.
Todd Gerhardt: You know I think our ordinance when it comes to tree surveys are typically for
larger lot subdivisions and in those cases you may have a very heavily wooded piece of property.
Similar to Mark’s but larger and as a part of that there’s no replacement calculation that’s used.
So that’s been in place for a long time. Probably ever since I’ve been here and so you know it’s
been a standard of our’s. It’s a real concern when you see larger stands of trees go down that we
replace that resource somewhere else on the site.
Councilman Litsey: Does the ordinance differentiate between lot size though?
Todd Gerhardt: No.
Kate Aanenson: No except for that this lot, even with this whole area is cleared, there’s a
significant amount of stands so what our ordinance, as the City Manager’s indicated, the
ordinance is if there’s few trees and you take them all out, it’s heavily punitive. There’s no way
you can do any subdivision without taking out some trees so you find that nexus or that balance
to say what’s the appropriate amount, so again the lot was located in the area with the least
amount of trees. So the majority of the rest of the property has significant amount of trees, so
we’re just trying to say what is the appropriate. If more trees go down than we think should go
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City Council Meeting - March 23, 2009
down with this, then we’re going to look at that replacement. We’ve asked them to stake the
house when they get to that point. That’s a condition that we evaluate that. If it seems
excessive.
Councilman Litsey: So we have the latitude to require that at some point…
Kate Aanenson: Yes.
Councilman Litsey: I thought there was something in there but I didn’t.
Kate Aanenson: Well I think that’s where the Planning Commission was a little bit firmer on
that condition.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: And while you’re looking for that, if I could just chime in another
opinion again. I, you know I totally agree with subdivisions when they’re coming in and there
are beautiful stands of oak trees or mature trees that are obviously been there for a long time and
they should be protected and this to me seems to be, where this house is going, it is just a lot of
trees that maybe are 6 inches or even less. I don’t see a lot of substantial trees in that area when
you first drive in so you know sometimes ordinances, I mean they’re there for a reason but
they’ve got to make sense at the same time and I’m not sure at this point if making the owner go
out and do a tree survey for everything 6 inches or more, in that spot because where the house is
going it is the least, that is where the least amount of trees are. I’m not sure if it makes sense.
Councilman McDonald: Yeah I guess you know to chime in. I mean what I looked at today, and
where the house is going to go, it’s already cleared. There’s one tree there that was damaged by
lightning that’s going to come down, and that doesn’t necessarily need to be replaced because the
tree’s dead.
Mayor Furlong: What I might ask, if we can, because I want to make sure that we get questions
for staff. I want the applicant to come up and then we have a public hearing as well so.
Kate Aanenson: Can I just clarify that?
Mayor Furlong: Sure.
Kate Aanenson: We do have a condition in here that speaks to just what I said and that’s
condition number 8 that says that they must submit a tree preservation removal calculation. So
we’re just going to ask them to show us what they’re removing, and then they protect, use that
protection fence around the remaining portion of it and then unless there’s additional trees
moved beyond that, what we believe is a calculation, then we would ask for additional trees to be
placed, and that’s where the Planning Commission wanted to make sure that if they’re replaced,
that they be put to that north side where they provide the most buffer.
Councilwoman Ernst: So that’s what the survey consists of?
Kate Aanenson: No. That’s not what the survey consists of.
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Councilwoman Ernst: Okay. Alright, I just wanted to be clear on that.
Kate Aanenson: This is a modification to that.
Councilwoman Ernst: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: The survey requires everything.
Councilman Litsey: That gives some comfort level moving forward that we have some control
over some of that, if they feel that more trees or whatever.
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct.
Councilman Litsey: That’s fine, and then as long as that’s clear.
Councilman McDonald: That’s kind of a trade off between doing the survey up front and you
know.
Councilman Litsey: Yeah, as long as we have some authority to you know, do that, that’s fine.
Councilman McDonald: Okay.
Mayor Furlong: Any other questions for staff? If not the applicant is here. Mr. Senn, would you
like to address the council on any items?
Mark Senn: Hi.
Mayor Furlong: Good evening.
Mark Senn: My name is Mark Senn. 7160 Willow View Cove, Chanhassen. Um, let’s see here.
We, we are I believe the largest lot in the entire area. I believe we’re also probably the longest
term resident in the area other than I think I surviving members of the Kurvers family. The,
when we purchased this property it was always our intention to look at this property as not only
meeting you know our current needs at that time but you know a lot of future needs and family
needs and a whole bunch of other things. Our strong desire here was to really just kind of come
in and ask permission or whatever we needed to essentially build another house on the property.
Small house. One level. No stairs and that sort of thing. The purpose of the structure is to put
my mother in it right now. Future purpose is probably putting me in it. The, we were kind of
told basically that that wasn’t possible and that we can do that life’s gotten I guess very
complicated since then no matter which way you turn in relationship to doing this. But it’s our
intention to never, I mean there will not be two separate owners here. There will be a covenant
in the divided lot, if that’s the approach that we end up taking and if that’s the only approach that
we’ll have a covenant on it saying it needs to be remain the same ownership as the other house.
That’s not something we leave to chance one way or the other. That covenant will be there and
will remain there. The, as far as the you know where we want to ultimately go with this, I think I
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City Council Meeting - March 23, 2009
kind of prefaced it earlier. I mean what we want to do right now is put my mother in it and in the
future my son will be basically moving into the house and probably my wife and I will be
moving out into this house when we’re not spending you know as much time around here. At
least during the winters. What we’re trying to do here, I mean basically that’s, we’ve been pretty
good stewards of the land out there. I think we have. We’ve even done something that most
people I don’t think ever consider doing but actually we even put a wetland on our property that
wasn’t there. And the, you know we’ve really kind of developed, since I’ve been there I’ve done
all the landscaping on the property in terms of everything. I mean there was essentially almost
nothing there when we purchased it so, we’ve really taken kind of a lot of care in what we’ve
done there and how we’ve done it. The situation is that you know it appears that you know this
is the way we have to go and actually subdivide, which is not really our desire but if that’s
what’s required you know we’re willing to go with that and we’re willing to work with that but
again we just don’t want to create a separate situation here. I don’t view this as a separate or
how do I say it, the typical subdivision because it’s not a typical subdivision and stuff. You
know we have almost, we’re just shy of 4 acres. We have about 430 feet of lakeshore and we
have over 1,000 trees on our property. Just to give you a feel for it. I really want to thank all the
council for coming out and looking at the property. Looking at the site. I was a little dismayed
at the Planning Commission that nobody would come out and then was talking about what to do
about certain areas and the area we’re talking about here essentially, if you look just to the north
of that site there, there’s basically 300 trees in that area right there between us and any
neighboring houses. If you go a little bit to the west, where the kind of center island area is and
the driveway there, there’s probably another couple hundred trees there and there’s another 100
on the north side of the driveway between there and the property line going up to the house.
Again behind the house that’s a whole different story. We have well over 500 trees in the back
of the house and stuff so it just kind of gives you a little better feel for the site and stuff. When
the house was put where it is on the site, which is essentially the narrowest point, it was kind of
put there intentionally because we really don’t want to you know look at anything else happening
between there and essentially the lake and stuff so that’s part of what drove you know our
decision in terms of where we wanted to put this. And we also located the house essentially
based on where it would be the lowest impact on the site, but also lowest impact to really any,
you know anything around the site and stuff so. The house we’re planning is going to be like I
say, single level, no stairs. About the only debate we’re still going through is whether there’s
going to be a basement in it for storage or not but the, it’s going to be at grade. Again, no steps
and there’s not going to be a walkout or anything like that. The topography there would be
destroyed if we put a walkout in and that’s not the intention again. Like I say we were even
thinking of slab on grade but I’ve been thinking a little bit more just creating some, at least some
additional storage space underneath. The house that we’re looking at doing is going to be
probably around 40 by 60 or so, with the garages. I mean we’re not talking about a large house
here. We’ve always kind of viewed this or look at it as, or at least I guess I should say I have
because I grew up with, started in Minneapolis and then in Minnetonka and a few other places
but kind of like a carriage house, which still exist in even many of our other surrounding suburbs
and stuff and that’s really kind of what we view this as and it’s going to remain part of the
property and be part of the property because that’s what we want it to be. Just to give you a little
more background on a few other things. The most the utilities come up the driveway. Under the
driveway, and the remaining utilities follow the southern property line there and I mean that will
all be laid out with the plan once we get the structure set. So we have really a couple different
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options in terms of where to come from in terms of the utilities go. At least currently I’ll just
give you a feel for. We currently have a fire hydrant on the south end of the house. Probably
about 15 feet off the house. And there’s also sewer, just so, the sewer goes all the way back
down to probably within 50 feet of the lake and stuff so, just kind of gives you a feel for what’s
there. As far as going with, you know we’ve been working with staff and you know if this is the
route that’s best and works for everybody, we’re happy to go with Plan B. Some of the
conditions that have been attached I think are kind of problematic and stuff but I’m not quite sure
how we deal with that. For example in number 8, the whole deal over the tree calculations and
survey and stuff. I think I mentioned to most of you and I can only hope that we’re not required
to do a tree survey. I don’t even want to know what that would cost with over 1,000 trees, but
going down there, item (c) under there causes me great concern, which tells me any tree I want to
do anything with I have to get the City’s permission from. I’m doing that almost on a weekly
basis. With as many trees as we have, we’re constantly thinning out and doing other things. I
mean for example I have boxwoods growing up into majestic oaks that are 150 feet tall and
that’s what kills oaks and stuff so I mean I thin out my trees and take care of them because I’m
trying to keep the big old oaks. I’m trying to keep the big, I’ve got pines in excess of 75 feet and
everything else and we’re trying to keep our mature trees but I think most of the people who
know me I spend, oh I spend, since I’ve been retired, most of my life in my yard and it takes a lot
of work just to keep that stuff up and heck, I can’t even keep up with the firewood I produce so.
I give a lot of it away. So I mean (c) again causes us a lot of concern because next thing I know
I’m going to be doing what I’m always doing and being carted away for it. Other items in here
that kind of concern us a little bit were number 12. Paying full parkland dedication fees. I’ve
already paid them really. Don’t think I should have to pay them again but. They’ve been paid
once on the property and I’m not really again increasing, I had more, how would I say more
people on the property over the last 20 years than I do now. And will after this house is built.
The revised survey stuff and as far as the drainage goes, again also concerns me unless it’s really
defined because the last thing I want to do is re-survey my entire parcel there for topography and
draining and basic grading and drainage, that sort of thing and stuff because we aren’t going to
alter it at all. In fact again that, one of the reasons why we picked where we’re going to put the
house because the drainage from that house is going to basically just go right to the east there.
It’s the only place it can go and there’s a big catch basin there and that catch basin just goes
underground then into a storm sewer which goes to a retaining pond that’s less than a couple
hundred yards away.
Mayor Furlong: Mr. Senn excuse me. That item, which condition were you?
Mark Senn: That is on number 13. I’m sorry.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, 13. Thank you.
Mark Senn: Yep. And then on number 18, again nobody from the Planning Commission came
out and stuff but to be honest with you I can’t even grow grass in any of those areas because it’s
so shady. I don’t know how I’m going to get anything else to grow if somebody wants me to
plant additional stuff and stuff. I guess maybe if the issue here is that the, if the neighbor to the
north doesn’t, or thinks this is going to alter their view, I guess I have a fence along the entire
north property line there that’s getting rather old and I mean I’ve worked, thinking about
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replacing it anyway so I’ll just replace that and when we do that section I’ll be happy to just put
in a privacy fence and then we won’t have to worry about it and stuff but again most everything
we’ve done there has been trying to be the lowest impact and have it kind of fit. Not have to do
things like that and the, but again just in that area, it’s impossible to look at, even if somebody
wants me to plant, it’s just throwing money down the tubes. I can’t even, like I say, I can’t even
get grass to grow in most of the areas so, not shade grass. But other than that, the you know
overall you know staff’s been really good. I think staff kind of came up with Plan B because we
were all kind of having a hard time trying to figure out how to do this with all the ordinances and
regulations that have come in since we’ve owned the property. But it’s a workable solution in a
lot of ways. Again not the desired one but we’ll just turn around and solve that with the
covenant and that sort of thing if we need to do that so. Other than that if you have any
questions, be happy to answer them. Again thanks you all for coming out and looking.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Thank you. Questions for Mr. Senn.
Councilman McDonald: I have a question. I mean it seems as though the biggest problem
between you and the City is a lack of detail, and the City’s put a lot of things in here that again
would be required under the ordinance of a normal developer, and I guess you know you’ve laid
out some of the problems with doing some of this. If it’s possible to provide detail to the City,
all we’re looking for is certain assurances and then at that point you know staff can, and again I
seem to be seeing that it’s stated in here. It’s kind of staff’s discretion on some of these surveys
as to whether they’re going to require them or not but for right now it appears that because the
lack of detail we have to put it in. If you can provide the detail and work with staff and come up
with the solution there to maybe do away with some of these, would that be acceptable?
Mark Senn: Yeah, I mean that’s our intention. I mean the only reason we didn’t is when we
originally walked in and found out we had all these rules hitting us from 10 different directions,
it was kind of really difficult to figure out exactly you know what we could put there. And then
when staff came back and said we’ll just put a 60 by 60 pad there, we said that’s fine because
we’re not even going to utilize a 60 by 60 pad so.
Kate Aanenson: Can I give a little clarification again? This is a metes and bounds subdivision.
A metes and bounds subdivision typically we do if you have a lot that’s maybe 200 feet on the
street that only requires 90 feet of frontage, so all the utilities and everything is there. This isn’t
a plat. This is a metes and bounds subdivision so there is a lot of vagueness in doing a metes and
bounds subdivision. So engineering was looking for where those drainage and utilities and so
I’ll let the City Engineer address what level of detail because that’s their bailiwick as far as what
they feel like they need for drainage, but that’s why that was put on there because a metes and
bounds is a different conveyance than a normal plat. So it doesn’t have a level of detail. If this
was a plat it would show the easement lines typically 10 feet around on the side so maybe Paul if
you wanted to address the requirements for the survey.
Paul Oehme: Sure. You know typically engineering requires drainage survey for new house
pads. It’s both for the property owner’s benefit and for the adjacent properties to make sure that
the drainage is properly getting away from the building, plus not impacting any associated
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buildings or structures or any other lots around them so all we’re looking for is some assurances
that drainage is being maintained or improved on this site.
Kate Aanenson: There’s also a requirement for the drainage and utility easement and that’s the
other one, I’m on condition number 13. That, because we don’t know where the driveway’s
going so there’s that commonality portion so we want to see where that would go because that
affects that, where that portion has to be 30 feet plus and then whether or not you wanted to show
the utility in a separate easement or not. As you indicated there’s a hydrant on there but this plat
doesn’t show if it’s on an easement or.
Mark Senn: Oh it is. We have a utility and drainage easement around the entire property and
stuff now so.
Mayor Furlong: Is that along the property line?
Mark Senn: Yeah. Along the property lines and stuff so.
Kate Aanenson: It’s my understanding we couldn’t find that so I don’t know.
Paul Oehme: Right, a metes and bounds survey typically doesn’t show a lot of that detail work
so.
Mayor Furlong: Does that exist already on the?
Paul Oehme: We weren’t able to find it, the easement on the property so.
Mark Senn: You wouldn’t. There isn’t.
Kate Aanenson: That’s the reason it’s here. We couldn’t find it on this one, yeah. So.
Paul Oehme: So all we are asking is just to verify that those easements are recorded. And if not,
we’d like to get those recorded.
Mayor Furlong: For just the new parcel or both?
Paul Oehme: Just, we’re just talking about the new parcel.
Mayor Furlong: The new parcel. And all this discussion has been around the new parcel, is that
correct?
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct.
Mayor Furlong: Alright. Any other questions for Mr. Senn? At this time. Councilwoman
Ernst.
Councilwoman Ernst: Not for Mark but for Kate. Or Paul. Whichever one can answer it.
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Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Councilwoman Ernst: So if you can, can you get the detailed information without him having to
do the surveys?
Paul Oehme: Typically not. A registered land surveyor is typically the person that would be
needed for obtaining the existing and needed easements on the property so he would do a title
search and look at what’s exactly out there currently and if anything additionally is needed, he
can point that out to us.
Councilwoman Ernst: Is this kind of what you were talking about Jerry is doing this aside from
the survey?
Councilman McDonald: Yeah I guess what I’m looking for here is, I mean what’s in the
requirements yeah, it’s pretty stringent but it’s required by the ordinances and everything. I
guess what I’m trying to get at is, the City’s just looking to protect themselves and once we have
assurances of some of this, and again it’s because of there’s no detail as to what’s going in there
and so the City needs to know.
Kate Aanenson: Just to be clear, we don’t have any records of it. It’s not that there’s no detail.
We don’t have records of it so someone has to provide that.
Councilman McDonald: No, I mean details of his house. Of what he wants to build and where
it’s going to go.
Kate Aanenson: Or existing conditions.
Councilman McDonald: Right. Yeah. So that’s the thing I think we’re looking for and it’s not
that we’re going to require a lot of this. It’s I guess it’s the option.
Kate Aanenson: Well, I don’t want to have the discretion.
Councilwoman Ernst: ...why do we have it in here?
Mayor Furlong: Yeah, Kate.
Kate Aanenson: Well my concern is that I’m going to be negotiating all these things and I feel
very uncomfortable doing that. You know I think and the staff’s position is, what we have in
here, but for the tree thing which we agree that we can resolve that. I’m not sure, if we don’t
have the easements here, someone has to go out and physically survey it and find that location so
it’d either be the City or.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
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Councilman McDonald: I guess let me, I’m not saying that they should come out. I understand
you’ve got to negotiate. My question’s more to Mr. Senn in that knowing that, that what we’re
looking for as a City, if you’re prepared to do it and give it to the City and then we’re willing to
say okay that meets our requirements, then is everything okay and it looks as though these things
are still open to negotiation somewhat.
Mark Senn: Well again most of that doesn’t bother me Mr. McDonald as long as it doesn’t cost
me a fortune to do it. I mean again I’m building a very small residence here that I’m not looking
to turn into a half a million dollar home so, especially when the half a million’s caused by things
that have absolutely nothing to do with the structure so. Because again you know, you know
we’re going to continue and we still do and will continue to look at it as you know as one piece
of land anyway so.
Councilman McDonald: Okay, and I guess I understand all of those concerns and what I’m kind
of looking for here is, how do we meet the requirements of the City and all it’s ordinance and
how do we meet your requirements of trying to build what’s basically a fairly simple home for a
very good purpose and such. That’s all I’m trying to look at is how do we get at that without
driving the cost of your home up to where it’s much more than what it should be.
Mark Senn: Yeah to be honest with you I wish somebody would have told me that they didn’t
know about the easements because that shocks me. I mean I believe I have a plat map for the
entire neighborhood when it was laid out with all the easements on it. For every lot and stuff. I
can, I’ll dig that out and stuff. I thought those were all here and on record and everybody
understood where all those were.
Mayor Furlong: Let me ask a quick question. With regard to condition number 13 in the staff
report. It says submit a revised survey showing the following a, b and c. Is that survey, just for
clarification, is that survey of Tract C and D or simply Tract C?
Kate Aanenson: I’ll ask Paul on that.
Paul Oehme: That would be just C.
Mayor Furlong: Just C.
Paul Oehme: Yeah C and drainage. Basically if the drainage is heading to the east, we’d like to
grab that information as well.
Mayor Furlong: And to the extent that the grading and construction might change the drainage
on that portion.
Paul Oehme: On that parcel.
Mayor Furlong: You’re looking for where the drainage is going to go after the house is built.
Paul Oehme: Exactly.
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Mayor Furlong: To verify that it’s not going towards the neighbor.
Paul Oehme: Right.
Mayor Furlong: That it’s going to the east, which Mr. Senn said that’s, it may not naturally go
there now. Some of it may, some of it may not but that’s what you’re looking at.
Paul Oehme: It’s both for the property owner’s benefit and for the neighbor’s benefit I think,
and for the City’s. They can capture that information and make sure that we know where that
water’s going.
Mayor Furlong: But again just to be clear 13 is just related to Tract C?
Paul Oehme: That’s correct.
Mayor Furlong: Not Tract D. And maybe we can clarify the language there to be clear.
Kate Aanenson: Sure. We can make that a part of the motion. Part of the condition.
Mayor Furlong: Alright. Okay.
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council members. If I can just add a point of clarification here. What
we’re trying to do here is once Mark is done with the subdivision, he can sell Tract C. I know
that’s not his intention but that’s the ultimate goal here based on our ordinance. If he had this
property and just put the carriage house, he couldn’t just sell the carriage house and so this is
allowing him the opportunity to sell that. That’s what our ordinance puts in place. We don’t
allow the carriage house and we can go through a whole white paper of why we don’t allow
carriage houses but at this point what we’re trying to do is to protect Mark and the future owner
of that property the rights with those easements of where water’s going to drain and the
neighbor’s next door. So just point of clarification.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Appreciate that. Any other questions for Mr. Senn? Otherwise
what I’ll do is, thank you.
Mark Senn: Alright, thank you.
Mayor Furlong: And we’ll have a public hearing here so at this time I’d like to open up the
public hearing and invite all interested parties to come forward to the podium. If you can please
state your name and address in addressing the council on this matter I’d appreciate it.
Herb LePlatt: Hi. My name is Herb LePlatt and we live at 7012 Cheyenne Trail, Chanhassen,
Minnesota and we are the property that’s directly to the north of the proposed Tract C that Mark
is proposing to put in. Several points that I wanted to bring up right away is Mark said that his
house was one of the oldest and that’s not true. There’s 3 homes just north of him that were
there since 1968 so his house, that’s not a true statement. There are other homes there that are
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City Council Meeting - March 23, 2009
older than his that have been well established. The other part of this is, just north of where this
building site is is probably the least treed spot on his entire property and that’s why it’s so critical
to have a tree survey and find out exactly what is going to happen to those trees because those
trees are critical to main our values and our expectation of what we bought 20 years ago. We’re
not the only ones that are in this same situation. There are two other neighbors right next to us
that are in the same situation as we are.
Councilman Litsey: Is there a way to put that map up so you can point to where you’re talking
about or?
Mayor Furlong: Can we put it on the table? Do we have one for the table?
Councilman Litsey: If not, then just the pointer.
Kate Aanenson: It’d be easier with the mouse just to point right to the north there.
Councilman Litsey: That’s fine. Just so I get it right.
Kate Aanenson: There you go.
Herb LePlatt: That’s our property right there.
Councilman Litsey: Okay. And the least treed area you’re saying is?
Kate Aanenson: Off that point to the north.
Herb LePlatt: Is off that point to the north, correct.
Councilman Litsey: Okay. Thank you.
Herb LePlatt: I believe that a tree survey, there was an assumption being made that a tree survey
would have to be done for his whole lot and that’s not necessary at all. I don’t think anybody
wants that but I do believe that a tree survey around the area of this Tract C is appropriate so I
encourage you to follow through with that if you possibly can. The utilities, there is an electrical
utility, the gas utility that runs right down that north lot line so we have no control over the trees
or what happens in that easement right there. I mean they can come in and take all those trees
down and now we’ve got even less trees because a majority of the trees that are there exist on
that utility easement. We have no control over that so I’d really like to encourage some sort of a
control by the Planning Commission to have landscaping done. Or at least ensure that there is a
buffer that remains there that we can control in this building process instead of waiting for the
power company to come in and take the trees down because they’re getting into their power
wires. A privacy fence was mentioned and the privacy fence would probably have to be about
20 feet tall in order for it to work or have any impact simply because where he’s building, where
Lot C is or Tract C is the highest point on that property. So anybody that is anywhere around
him is going to see that house and have, be impacted by it no matter what you put in there, unless
it’s tall trees. I guess the, I just wanted to encourage the council to listen to your own ordinances
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because they’re there for a reason. It’s not to cost him more money but it is to protect the other
people around a development. When we bought our house there 20 years ago we came in and it
was all plotted as single family homes. There was no expectation of any development behind us
ever, and I’m not sure exactly what it will do to our value of our home. If it brings the value
down I hope that it brings the tax base down with it. There’s 3 other homes here that will be
similarly impacted if they went to sell their homes later on. So just as a consideration I think that
the council should listen to what their ordinances and what their planning department has been
telling them and it is for a good reason. Thank you for your time.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. May I ask you a question?
Herb LePlatt: Yes.
Mayor Furlong: Mr. LePlatt. You mentioned trees and a utility easement on the north lot line.
Is that easement on Mr. Senn’s side of the property or on your side of the property?
Herb LePlatt: It’s on our side of the property line.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright. And what’s the listen of that? Of that easement.
Herb LePlatt: I believe it’s a 10 foot easement. It’s a standard electrical utility easement.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Herb LePlatt: There’s a gas line that goes through there and, a natural gas line and a power line.
Mayor Furlong: Because you do have some trees on your side of the property line but you’re
saying those are in the easement area?
Herb LePlatt: Correct.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. And then from the tree survey standpoint around there, you said it’s
important to do it. Help us understand your thoughts on how that would be used.
Herb LePlatt: That’s how you control what trees are going to be taken down and if those trees
need to be replaced. Is to have a tree survey done so in the utility process of coming into his new
tract takes down trees, or in the building process that’s off the roadway it’s off because there’s
going to be changes there, that you don’t even know about yet because it hasn’t been detailed. In
fact there’s, you’ve all been saying the same thing. There’s a tremendous lack of detail in this
plan and without the details you can’t tell whether it’s going to fit into your ordinance or the
variances on the ordinance that you’re creating. So I encourage you to get the details and that
would include a tree survey, and I don’t think it has to be done throughout the whole thing. I
think that the planning commission could give some guidelines on how large an area needs to be
surveyed.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
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City Council Meeting - March 23, 2009
Herb LePlatt: Most of the trees that are on the northeast side of his proposed lot are all under 6
inches. That means he could come in and take them all down if he wanted to and then there
would be no trees between us and, well the four, the subdivision, whole subdivision and this new
tract. So it’s, there’s a lot of gray area that needs to be worked through before I think that there
could be any approval process done with a fair conscience.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you.
Councilman Litsey: I just wanted to ask, are you comfortable with what, how it’s phrased in
here in terms of conditions of approval or do you still think that’s too watered down?
Herb LePlatt: Well from what I heard here tonight I think that what currently is there would be
acceptable to us. I think that that would do what would be needed to give the Planning
Commission oversight on the tree removal or the utilities and the new road that’s going to be
built in there. So.
Councilman Litsey: Okay.
Herb LePlatt: I believe that it, you know as it stands I would think that that’s, that would be
appropriate as long as there’s some oversight.
Councilman Litsey: Right. Thank you.
Herb LePlatt: Thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you Mr. LePlatt. Anyone else who would like to speak?
Betsy LePlatt: Hi, I’m Betsy LePlatt. I am the other adult resident at 7012 Cheyenne Trail. My
main reason for coming up was I was disappointed with the removal of the recommendation of
the Planning Commission to add some sort of landscaping on the north side and the reason this
bothers me a bit is I was hoping maybe there would be some sort of evergreen something that
could be planted on the new lot C since it is a little bit higher elevation than the part to the north
that’s not in Lot C. But however I think the privacy fence idea is not a bad one so I wanted to go
on record saying that and I guess that’s it. Thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Very good, thank you.
Councilman Litsey: Kate, doesn’t Section 18, or the condition 18 address that a little bit?
Kate Aanenson: 18?
Councilman Litsey: Yeah.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, I think maybe shy was under the impression that you were going to
remove that. You have been discussing that.
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Councilman Litsey: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: So I think there’s just a misunderstanding. You haven’t voted on that yet.
Mayor Furlong: Yeah, we haven’t made any changes at this point. We’ve been discussing the
different changes but as I understood Ms. LePlatt your comments is you prefer to keep 18 in.
Condition 18.
Betsy LePlatt: I don’t have 18…for me to know.
Mayor Furlong: That’s what I heard. That was the condition that the Planning Commission
recommended be added that dealt with landscaping.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Enhancing landscaping.
Mayor Furlong: Yes.
Betsy LePlatt: On the north.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: That’s what 18 said.
Councilman Litsey: It says the applicant shall work with staff to enhance landscaping on the
north side of the property.
Herb LePlatt: Would that be the Tract C property? The new property or the existing?
Councilman Litsey: Good question.
Kate Aanenson: It’s on the north side. I think we have to decide where it goes.
Councilman Litsey: So we have to clarify that language.
Herb LePlatt: …either the north side of his driveway or south side of his driveway.
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct.
Mayor Furlong: Alright, thank you. We’re still in a public hearing at this point so I would invite
anyone else to please come forward and address the council on this matter. No? Okay. Without
objection then we’ll close the public hearing and bring it back to council for thoughts and
discussions unless there are other questions. Councilwoman Tjornhom.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I’m going to throw a question out there. On these subdivisions, you
know we’re talking about trees and counting them and removing and putting them back and, take
me back to the planning commission days. What is required for the amount of trees on this
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subdivision, and what’s required if they’re removed? You know do they have to be replaced? I
mean what is our ordinance? What does it say?
Kate Aanenson: Well there’s a couple points here. One, when there’s a variance request you
can apply any reasonable condition to mitigate that impact and that’s I think where the Planning
Commission was going.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: Okay. And the other one is, I’ll just state it simply and that’s if there’s a lot of
trees you can take some trees out because there’s no way you can build without removing some
trees. If there’s very few trees and you take them all out, you’re going to be heavily penalized to
replace. So the goal is looking at the species of trees and what’s being removed, so until we
have the house in front of us, and we look at the floor plan, how the final grading works out.
What’s the best way? What we’ve found is kind of working through that, best way. To site a
tree. If we can place a tree on the site, again we hate to remove trees to place another tree, that
we would look to see, if another tree could be placed, would it be effective screening to make
that decision in the field at a future date, so we would look at how much is being removed. Can
we replace it? Where can it be replaced? You don’t want to replace it right next to the house so
we have to look at all that and evaluate once the house plan comes in and that’s why we think A
covers that, and again using sound judgment. What makes sense to make that work.
Mayor Furlong: Could you pull up the picture that showed the 60 by 60 pad, that showed the
setbacks? Of the staff B. Do you have a sense of the distance between the northern most point
of Tract C and the northern property line of Tract D?
Kate Aanenson: 30-40 feet.
Mayor Furlong: 30-40 feet. 30? And what’s the setback? You’ve got that point there but
what’s the setback from.
Kate Aanenson: Well that’s what I’m saying between the road and that, could something go in
that point and how close would it be to the.
Mayor Furlong: But isn’t there a setback there from that property line?
Kate Aanenson: Right.
Mayor Furlong: That northern most property line…
Kate Aanenson: Right, if I could just go to the original survey that was on here, you can see
that’s the property line where that driveway converges is. It’s the only place you would have on
Tract C would be in that point where the driveway is. The driveway’s kind of split. Is that what
you’re asking me?
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Mayor Furlong: I guess I’m asking the northern, we’ve got kind of a point, that northern point
almost looks like a house if you will.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, right there. Right.
Mayor Furlong: With the roof line, what I’ll refer to as the northern property line on C, which is
kind of the roof line. The two together.
Kate Aanenson: Right.
Mayor Furlong: Which will confuse everybody but what is the setback for building from those
two lot lines?
Kate Aanenson: Oh, I see. From that setback line. I probably have to go, if you’ll let me go to
the.
Mayor Furlong: Is it the side? Is it 10 feet?
Kate Aanenson: Yeah. This is where you’re showing it.
Mayor Furlong: Yeah.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah.
Mayor Furlong: It’s 10 feet.
Kate Aanenson: Actually the front, the front is where you meet the 100 so that’s, that would be a
side. So that’d be 10 feet.
Mayor Furlong: Okay so, because that’s 30 is coming from a quote, front.
Kate Aanenson: 30’s from the front and the back would be.
Mayor Furlong: And 30 in the back.
Kate Aanenson: Towards the lake. And then 10 on each side. You’re correct.
Mayor Furlong: 10 on each side.
Kate Aanenson: So there is room within there to put. Again looking at what the roof line looks
like, could a tree go in there? It may not, and if for some reason as the applicant indicated the
utilities are in there, something needs to be dug up to get drainage and we’re making a water
swath to put that in, that maybe a tree can be placed on the other side so we’ll have to make that
as a field decision. And that’s why I say we’ll go out there and look at it, once they stake out
where the house pad’s going to go, we’ll make that tree inventory there. What’s being removed.
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Can some of it be replaced? Where’s the appropriate place? That’s always a better field
decision to get the best screening.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: Did I answer your question?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: No it did. I just.
Mayor Furlong: Any other questions for staff at this point? Mr. Senn if you would, you had
mentioned that there’s some utilities that run along the driveway and some utilities that run along
the southern property line. Did I understand that correct?
Mark Senn: Yeah, the.
Mayor Furlong: Do you know which ones are under the driveway and which ones are on the
southern property line?
Mark Senn: The utilities that run up under our driveway I believe are our gas. The stuff on the
north, or I mean sorry, the south property line I believe is the, is the, what am I trying to say? I
think it’s the telephone and.
Mayor Furlong: Water, electric.
Mark Senn: And cable and stuff like that. The water I believe also goes up under the driveway,
if I remember correctly.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Mark Senn: And stuff, and then actually I think goes up under the driveway and then criss-
crosses over across to where that hydrant is that I was describing on the south side. Our sewer
for our house goes down towards the lake, not towards the street and stuff and so we tie into a
sewer deal that’s to the west of us basically and stuff. As far as what’s, I mean we drive the, how
would I say it. The utility easement along the north property line north of our property line
essentially, I mean all that, we don’t derive any utilities off of that. That all services essentially
the neighborhood to the north of us and stuff. It has nothing to do with us one way or the other.
Mayor Furlong: So all your utilities are at the driveway or south?
Mark Senn: Yeah.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright.
Todd Gerhardt: But those are your private utilities, correct? That go down the driveway.
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Mark Senn: Ah yes, but I mean what we’re looking to do is basically just tie, because I mean
again they’re metered at the house so I mean it’s our intention to tie into the utilities at the
closest point we can tie into utilities so.
Mayor Furlong: So I guess the question I have then, there is a request here in the staff report for
an easement on that access, the driveway. Does it need to be an easement…
Kate Aanenson: And that may be a double, that might be the easement for the utilities might be
one and the same.
Mayor Furlong: But does there need to be a utility easement from the public street as well for
this parcel?
Mark Senn: It’s usually all one in the same.
Kate Aanenson: Well it may or may not be. We have both conditions in here so.
Mayor Furlong: Where’s the second condition? The utility easement.
Kate Aanenson: It’s 15.
Mayor Furlong: Drainage and utility easement, okay.
Kate Aanenson: …the driveway serving both so that’s a cross access. And then.
Mayor Furlong: What about other utilities? 13 just says showing.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah. Number 4. And number 3.
Mayor Furlong: Utility plan showing existing, okay.
Mark Senn: Yeah, see all the utilities to the north property line are kind of sightly. They’re all
above ground. All of our utilities are underground.
Mayor Furlong: Alright. Okay, thank you. Thoughts and comments. Any other questions on
this one? Councilwoman Ernst?
Councilwoman Ernst: Well I personally would like to see staff and property owner, see what
they can come to on a conclusion and then come back. Work through the details that we talked
about tonight and then bring it back. That’s what I personally would like to see.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Councilwoman Ernst: See if they can work some things out.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: So are you saying you’d like to table this?
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Councilwoman Ernst: Yeah.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Other thoughts, comments.
Councilman Litsey: I’m fine moving ahead as proposed. I think it addresses the legitimate
concerns of the neighbors here without compromising the applicant’s ability to move forward so
I think we’re being mindful of what the neighbors have brought up and yet the applicant can
move forward. I think we should just do it.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Councilwoman Tjornhom or Mr. McDonald.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: You can start.
Councilman McDonald: I guess you know I’d be in favor of that too because my concern is,
after hearing.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: In favor of what? Tabling or.
Councilman McDonald: Tabling.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Okay.
Councilman McDonald: Yeah, I would be in favor of tabling and allowing some details to be
worked out because what I hear from the residents to the north, I’m not sure that that’s what
number 18 is and that’s where my confusion comes down because now if you’re requiring
buffering and landscaping over on basically it would be Tract D instead of C because I don’t see
how you’re going to do it on Tract C. I think that needs to be worked out as to what are we
going to do there as far as screening. Is there anything, because if we don’t take down any trees,
we’re not going to require anything to be put back in there but we don’t know that at this point
because we don’t know if there’s any trees.
Kate Aanenson: Mayor, unless someone submits a house plan, I really don’t know that I have
much more to negotiate with. I’m submitting what I believe to do a legitimate requirement to
our ordinances. Unless someone submits a house plans in more details then I don’t really have.
Councilman Litsey: No, that’s absolutely a good point.
Kate Aanenson: I don’t know what else to negotiate. If you want to waive something then, then
I would suggest that that take place there because I feel like this is our best recommendation to
meet our ordinance. You know we’re doing a metes and bounds instead of a subdivision which
requires a variance so I think, unless you want to give us some direction on that.
Councilman McDonald: Well if I misunderstand, I thought that’s what you were asking for is
we need more detail submitted in all of this to move forward.
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Councilwoman Ernst: I’m saying that they, let them work it out. However that needs to be, but
see if they can come to an agreement on some things and then bring it back to council.
Councilman Litsey: What I hear staff saying is to do that then we’d have to have house plans.
Councilwoman Ernst: Well.
Councilman Litsey: Is that what we’re asking for?
Councilwoman Ernst: I don’t know. That’s something they’re going to have to work out.
Councilman Litsey: Well I think we have to give staff direction. I don’t want to leave them
hanging.
Councilman McDonald: Well and I guess I’d be in favor of you know getting the details. What
do we need to work out? So that’s going to mean staff needs the details of what’s going in.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Councilwoman Tjornhom.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I guess everyone’s working with what they have at this point and
doing the best they can with the information they’ve been given. You know I don’t have a major
problem with any of this. I think my major problem, if I have one, is the ordinance itself that
requires people to count trees that are this big. You know I think that kind of sometimes over
burdens them, for developers and people that are trying to do something with their property and
so I guess that’s where I come back, and I’ve done this with other developments also and I’ve
said that it’s tedious for developers to have to go to that extent when it comes to tree
preservation. Obviously common sense intercedes that there are definitely those mature trees
that should be marked and taken care of, and so I guess that’s where I go back to, is it onerous to
go count all the trees or you know what’s required on the lot? What’s not? So I guess I’m
willing to move forward with it and in good faith hoping that there aren’t a lot of those small
trees that need to be counted and that I would think it would be in everyone’s interest, the
applicants and the neighbors and the person that’s going to be living there to keep all the trees
there for privacy. Common sense just tells me that at least that that would be what should
happen so I am willing to go ahead and move forward with this tonight.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you.
Councilwoman Ernst: I’m sorry Mayor, could I ask one more question?
Mayor Furlong: Certainly.
Councilwoman Ernst: Kate when, with the details that you have laid out here, are you saying
that this is basically everything that we have to work with? There’s no more.
Kate Aanenson: Well, we require a drainage and utility easement. I’m not the one to say you
don’t need to do that. You know I think if we’ve looked for that and we don’t have it. The
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original, this is originally a registered land survey so we don’t have that data so what we’ve said,
Paul clarified that and we just say for the new tract so we’re minimizing the requirements if this
was a subdivision so we’ve already kind of stepped back from that so I think what we’re
recommending here is to make it legitimate, as the City manager said, if there’s conveyances on
that property that it’s whole, and we don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. That
we’ve done our due diligence to make sure it’s correct. Nobody wants them to count any
individual trees but I think what we’ve agreed is that we’re going to stake out the area for tree
removal. We’ll examine that. If there’s a place to put an additional tree, if that’s what makes
sense, then that’s what we would do but to take down trees to put in another tree, we all agree
that doesn’t make sense. Whether or not you want to say that you know some of the other
easements are there, I don’t, or doesn’t have to pay park fees, I’m not sure that’s my place to
negotiate those things. I feel uncomfortable negotiating some of those things so.
Councilwoman Ernst: Okay, thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Does that answer your question?
Councilwoman Ernst: (Yes).
Mayor Furlong: A lot of different parts, a lot of different options here this evening. I think
based on the information we have, I do feel comfortable going forward. It may mean that there
might be some more requirements than typical. At the same time I think we have to look at the
requirements and make sure they’re reasonable, and I think this is, getting back to
Councilwoman Tjornhom’s thoughts and comments here on what’s reasonable. Our ordinances
are there. We do follow the ordinances but at the same time we have to take a look at the
ordinance and say is it reasonable to require that the ordinance be followed, and I think the best
example of that probably is the request for the variance this evening on the private street to not
require upgrading that current driveway to a 7 ton, 25 foot wide private street. That would
certainly take out a number of trees. I think trees will be the most used word tonight on our
council minutes.
Todd Gerhardt: In this room.
Mayor Furlong: Well, I think if the minutes get recorded somebody can do a word count on
trees. I just said it twice more. But I think to, within that I think trying to talk about, I’ve tried to
make some notes here and maybe I’ve missed something but you know with regard to some of
the issues before us I think the, Mr. Senn has already modified what he originally wanted, which
was a new structure on the existing lot without any, without any change in property lines. He
wanted a new structure on the existing lot. He’s moved away from that. With that, to staff’s
credit, looking for opportunities, a way to meet the ordinance and minimize the request for
variances, they’ve done that here. I think there is reasonable cause to support the variance
request. That the two variances, both of them on the private street, which is the width and the
construction of 7 ton. I think the, you know as I look down the conditions, some conditions,
number 12. Isn’t there credit in our ordinance for any parkland fees previously paid against the
current fees as well? I mean I think to the extent that, my sense is that any fees currently paid,
there’s also, that would be credited against the current fees. Mr. Knutson.
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Roger Knutson: For park dedication you only pay for the additional lot. Not, he already has one
lot so he only pays for the one additional lot.
Mayor Furlong: Right. You know with regard to the grading plan, with utilities and stuff like
that, the grading plan I think is very important and that can come with the house plans but what
that’s going to do is show where the lot will be graded. It’s going to have to be graded some,
even though it’s fairly flat and open, to make sure that water does run the way that they want it to
run, which is to the east. Currently it naturally drains probably to the east and south both. What
we don’t want is a situation where it amplifies the drainage to the south and therefore impacts the
neighbor to the south, so I think the grading plan is an important part of what we do, and that’s
important. You know with regard to, and now I’ll get back to the trees. We’ve got, and I fully
appreciate the LePlatt’s concern about their view changing and that’s going, that may or may not
happen. It’s in the winter time now so none of the trees have, are foliaged out but you know on
the north side of that driveway, if there’s 30 feet to the property line plus the setbacks, another
10. Given the shape of the buildable area, I’m doubtful that the building will go right up to that
setback and that peak but even if it does, it’s still 40 feet away with substantial number of trees
inbetween. I can understand the recommendation of the Planning Commission on number 18 but
I just, you know when I step back and say is it reasonable? I just, I don’t know that it is to do
that. I certainly don’t think under condition 8, you know I have, I don’t know that there’s a need
for a survey at all. I certainly don’t think condition 8(c), that no trees will be removed on Tract
C or D without approval of the City. I mean that’s pretty broad. How long does that last for and
is that really necessary? I think if the applicant, when they submit their building permit also
submit a plan for the tree preservation and removal calculations. Not including necessarily a
survey but on an area that can be reviewed by staff on site, which we’ve done and you said that’s
the best way to do it. And then protect those trees that they’re looking to preserve with fencing,
which we do on all developments.
Kate Aanenson: Yep.
Mayor Furlong: That’s kind of the best we can do. I mean I think that’s a reasonable
accommodation. We’ll be able to tell. There may be some big trees that have to come out. But
there aren’t only, there are a substantial number of trees there so, I mean I’m comfortable
moving forward with the adjustment to 8 that I’ve recommended. And with the adjustment to 13
that says a revised survey of Tract C showing the following. I k now there was a question about
easement over the road. In my opinion that absolutely has to be there for this parcel all the way
from the public street. Based upon personal experience with family members, they don’t always
talk nice to each other and Mark, I’m sure your’s is the exception but people change. Time
changes thoughts and that has to be there so, but I clearly think that that needs to be there, as well
as the easements for the utilities coming into this parcel. Currently they may be working
together but some day that may not be the case. Even with common ownership that simply may
not be the case and I think it just, that’s protection for all. So those would be my
recommendations, given what we have, unless there’s a desire on the part, I don’t even know
how much time we have left on this, if any. You know unless there’s a desire by the applicant to
wait, but then what I’m hearing is, you’d have to come forward with your housing plans and it
may be premature to do that. I don’t know, that’d be up to you. Is it? Okay. Then I think what
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City Council Meeting - March 23, 2009
we need to do is go forward with the information we have and seek reasonable balance between
the information that we’ve received this evening. Other comments.
Councilman Litsey: Mayor, you’re looking to strike under 8(c) then, or modify that language?
Mayor Furlong: I’d be looking to strike 8(c).
Councilman Litsey: 8(c).
Mayor Furlong: And I’d be looking to strike.
Kate Aanenson: Can we modify (a)?
Mayor Furlong: I’d modify (a), correct.
Kate Aanenson: Just to say submit a survey for the home location?
Mayor Furlong: Well not necessarily a survey. What I’m looking for is basically tree
preservation and removal plan to the City staff. This is all relating to Tract C.
Kate Aanenson: Correct.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. And what that does then is here’s, the property owner then is going to
have to say to the City here’s what I’m planning to do on Tract C. And then (b) would require
them to seek to preserve those that are being protected.
Kate Aanenson: Which is standard.
Mayor Furlong: By fencing. Correct?
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct.
Mayor Furlong: Throughout the construction process. And 8(a) would be accomplished based
upon staff and the applicant working together, likely on site. After it’s staked out. So that can be
seen, and I think that’s how we do it all the time, don’t we? I mean that’s just normal practice.
Councilman Litsey: That’s workable?
Kate Aanenson: Yes.
Mayor Furlong: So and with 13, now I guess for all of these, basically are there any conditions
here that are not related to Tract C? Or do all of these relate specifically to Tract C? Can you
review that quickly because.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, I would have to.
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Mayor Furlong: I don’t want to put Tract C in 13 and then leave it implied that…
Kate Aanenson: The only one I’m not sure on is the engineering on 13. If there were some other
drainage, because the original recording we had was a registered land survey, that’s why there
wasn’t an easement recorded, and I don’t know.
Mayor Furlong: And well that’s why I thought Mr. Oehme said earlier this evening that 13
related only to Tract C.
Paul Oehme: For the drainage, yeah.
Mayor Furlong: And the, what about the other a, b and c? Is that all Tract C or is some of that D
too?
Paul Oehme: Well to the east. I mean I think we need to do, evaluate how the drainage heads to
the east and potentially to the cul-de-sac. And also if these utilities are going to become public
we need to evaluate how those utilities are being brought in there so.
Mayor Furlong: So, okay then maybe I misunderstood. 13 needs to be for the entire Tract D as
well as C? Or is there a sub-set in, help me understand.
Paul Oehme: No, I would recommend just to the east of Tract C to the cul-de-sac.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, so Tract C and to the east of Tract C on D.
Paul Oehme: Correct.
Todd Gerhardt: It’s wherever you know Mark’s going to have to tie into those utilities and so
you may have to go onto Tract D to create an easement for the benefit of C.
Mayor Furlong: Correct, and I would think that the, if the connection is from Tract C straight to
the north to his driveway to connect into the utilities, it’s not just that easement but the easement
from that point back out to the public utilities as well.
Todd Gerhardt: Yes. If the private utility breaks, that property owner should have the rights to
go on there and fix it.
Mayor Furlong: Or to have…
Todd Gerhardt: …want to.
Mayor Furlong: Right. Exactly, and that makes sense. Okay. So the revised survey under 13
would be for Tract C and as necessary on Tract D to the.
Kate Aanenson: As necessary, yep.
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Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright, is that? Did you get that on the minutes Nann? Let’s go, and
then the last thing was, I guess the last thing was 18 and I fully appreciate the LePlatt’s concern.
I’m just, I’m looking at it practically and from a reasonable, and I believe that there’s, between
the distance between the northern part of, or the setback portion of the building on Tract C up to
the north property line, then additionally from the distance from that property line up to the
house on Cheyenne Trail, that’s quite a bit of distance. In fact it looks like on the aerial he’s
more distance than the distance of some of the houses from Cheyenne to, to Willow View further
to the east so. Those are my recommendations as a way to move forward here this evening.
Taking advantage of the compromise that’s already taken place between the applicant and staff,
and looking for a way to meet people’s needs as best we can.
Councilman McDonald: So are you saying strike?
Councilman Litsey: …remove number 18?
Councilman McDonald: Are you saying strike 18?
Mayor Furlong: That would be my suggestion, simply given the, well as I said earlier.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: In the motion 18 isn’t mentioned. It’s just 1 through 17.
Mayor Furlong: 18 is down at the bottom of the conditions.
Councilman McDonald: On the front page.
Councilman Litsey: On the front page it’s 1 through 18.
Mayor Furlong: Yeah but I think the staff report wasn’t updated back on, what was it?
Councilman Litsey: I don’t personally think 18 is too onerous on the applicant. I think it gives
flexibility and I trust staff would be reasonable. I would be, personally I’d be receptive to the
other two amendments or changes but I wouldn’t be to 18.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Councilman McDonald: Well I guess could I ask for clarification because that’s where all of my
problems have been tonight is on 18. It just says to the north of the property. Are we talking
about D or C? If we’re talking about D, then I guess I have some problems with that because
now we’re going beyond this property. If we’re talking about C, then make sure that the buffer
remains within that. Then I don’t think we have a problem. It should be okay to leave it that
way. I’m not sure what property we’re talking about and that’s what I’ve been trying to get at.
What trees? You know are we talking about making them build a berm. We’ve heard privacy
fences. All kinds of things and planting evergreens. That I think is going a little bit further than
what’s required and that’s the problem I had with 18 was it was too open ended as to what we’re
talking about.
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City Council Meeting - March 23, 2009
Mayor Furlong: Well I guess my thoughts on it, and the picture on the screen here, to the extent
that it says of the property, let’s for sake of discussion say it is Tract C. Okay?
Councilman McDonald: Okay.
Mayor Furlong: Then as we talked about before, based on the information I have the northern
most point of Tract C is about 30 feet from the north property line of D. Which is also the south
property line of the homes to the north on Cheyenne and you can see in this picture the distance,
you can see the distance that it is from that property line up to those homes. Yet if you go to the
furthest right of his picture you’ll see that the other homes on Cheyenne back to the home on
Willow View are closer than these two will be.
Councilman McDonald: Right. But I guess my point is you’re not going to put any landscaping
in there. It’s already full of trees and that’s why, then why is that there? If it’s going to the north
to the property line of Tract D, then I think we still have got some problems because now you’re
making someone go in and put things over and above what’s currently there and you can’t even
get to some of his property because of the trees so they have to go on the other side of the fence.
That’s my problem with 18 is I think it’s.
Kate Aanenson: Can I just again go to where the Planning Commission’s rationale was. If you
look at the criteria for a private street, prevailing development patterns. Okay? It’s on the end of
a cul-de-sac. We all are in concurrence on that. Public street would not improve the access. I
think there’s agreement on that. And then it says enhance protection of natural resources and
that’s where the Planning Commission said, you know maybe we should look at the trees to the
north. That was a generic north because we don’t have the house plan. We don’t know how it’s
going to lay out. As the mayor stated, which we concur, we’ll go out there. We’ll put a fence
around what goes and if we can put additional trees on, there’s enough loss or putting the utilities
in cause additional loss, we’ll try to put an additional tree somewhere to the north of the site. It
could be the house site. It says to the north. To the north of the home. To the north of the, if it
doesn’t fit, it doesn’t fit. So that’s all, it’s all covered in 8. That’s what we I think are in
concurrence on.
Todd Gerhardt: Right on. I mean 8 covers everything on Parcel C.
Mayor Furlong: It covers 18.
Kate Aanenson: Exactly.
Mayor Furlong: 18’s redundant.
Todd Gerhardt: And I think everybody’s in agreement that Parcel D does not, you couldn’t fit
any trees on there.
Kate Aanenson: Right, unless the road had to get ripped up to put the utilities in for some reason
but agreed, so.
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Mayor Furlong: So effectively 8 covers 18 so it’s redundant.
Kate Aanenson: I believe it does. Yeah. I think the Planning Commission was just struggling
with that, are we enhancing the natural resources, and we’ve modified 8 to make sure that that
happens.
Mayor Furlong: Yep.
Todd Gerhardt: So you can eliminate 18 then.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Councilman McDonald: I mean does that answer Councilman Litsey’s concerns?
Councilman Litsey: Well I’ll defer to staff if you think that that gives you enough latitude to
address the concerns that the neighbors have raised, and if the neighbors are comfortable with
that.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah. We’re comfortable with that. That we understand what the Planning
Commission intent is and that it’s reasonable requirement.
Councilman Litsey: Does the neighbors understand, do you understand that?
Herb LePlatt: You know I have some, I have some concerns about it but I do understand what
the intent is.
Councilman Litsey: That sits okay with you?
Herb LePlatt: Yeah. …okay the way it stands as long as they don’t come in and rip that road out
and they have to go back in and…improve that road, yeah. It’s like I said, our, the least amount
of trees on that whole lot of his is between the north of Lot C and his… That’s where the least
number of trees exist. And part of that is because his driveway goes through there.
Kate Aanenson: Right. That’s correct.
Herb LePlatt: So if we, you know you lose anymore in there, then there needs to be some
governance, some oversight into the…and make sure that those… And I think 8 does that but
what I understand, I haven’t read it thoroughly in the way it stands now but I think 8 probably
covers it.
Mayor Furlong: Yeah the key here from a concern standpoint, actually is not 8 but it is the
variance that doesn’t require them to rip the road out and to rip the road out, so I think your
concerns are covered.
Herb LePlatt: Well it would be for utilities because if his utilities are underneath that road, I
mean there may be you know, they may have to remove a portion of that road.
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City Council Meeting - March 23, 2009
Mayor Furlong: That, they may have to remove a portion of the driveway but the key is by
granting the variance the entire driveway doesn’t have to be taken out and built to a 25 foot wide,
nor would it if they had to rip out a portion of it would they have to rebuild it to 25 foot wide.
Okay. So I think you’re right. I think 8 and I think the variance, what I’m offering, the variance
provides the protection that you’re seeking. Any other thoughts or comments?
Councilman McDonald: Well and I think the other thing to one of your points about the
easements, they do need to be put in there because you’re creating a land locked lot.
Mayor Furlong: Absolutely.
Councilman McDonald: And so it’s got to have access, whether it’s family members or not, I
think law requires that. You can’t just create a land locked piece of property.
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct.
Mayor Furlong: Access easement as well as, as well as utility easements to provide any public
utilities from the public street. Okay.
Councilman McDonald: Okay, I guess we’re good.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Would somebody like to make a motion?
Councilwoman Ernst: What is the motion? After all that.
Mayor Furlong: Councilwoman Tjornhom, you want to give it a try.
Councilwoman Ernst: Go for it.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I’m going to go for it. No pointing fingers at me. I make the motion
the City Council approves Alternate B for Planning Case 09-02 with a variance to allow a private
street with a width of less than 20 feet and less than a 7 ton design, and approves the subdivision
creating two lots as outlined in the staff report subject to conditions 1 through 18 and the
adoption of the attached facts, Findings of Fact and action. Amending, or based upon, or.
Mayor Furlong: Amending. Yep.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Amending. Changes to condition 8. Is that correct? Do you want
me to give you the specific language?
Kate Aanenson: I think we’ve got it.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: That’s already been discussed? Okay. Condition 13. Is that correct?
Kate Aanenson: Correct.
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City Council Meeting - March 23, 2009
Councilwoman Tjornhom: And striking condition 18.
Mayor Furlong: Correct.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Is that it?
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Thank you. Is there a second?
Councilwoman Ernst: Second.
Mayor Furlong: Made and seconded. Any discussion on this?
Councilwoman Tjornhom moved, Councilwoman Ernst seconded that the City Council
approves Alternate B for Planning Case 09-02 with a variance to allow a private street with
a width of less than 20 feet and less than a 7-ton design, and the subdivision creating two
lots as outlined in the staff report, subject to the following conditions and adoption of the
Findings of Fact for Alternate B:
1.Approval of the metes and bounds subdivision is contingent upon approval of the private street
variances.
2.A grading plan must be submitted for review and approval and shall comply with the City
Code.
3.A utility plan must be submitted showing the existing sanitary sewer and water services to
the existing home,the existing gas, electric, cable and telephone services to the existing
home and the proposed sanitary sewer and water services to the new lot.
4.A drainage and utility easement must encompass any portion of the new services that crosses
another property. The easement width shall extend a minimum of 10 feet, on center, from
the service.
5.If the sanitary sewer and/or water service are extended from the utilities within Willow View
Cove, an escrow must be posted for the restoration of the street. The escrow amount will be
determined when the utility plan is submitted since the extent of excavation is unknown at
this time. The escrow will not be released until it is deemed the area is in satisfactory
condition after one freeze-thaw cycle.
6.The sanitary sewer and water hookup charges for Tract C shall be paid with the building
permit application at the rate in effect at that time. The 2009 rates are $5,087 for the City
water hookup charge, $1,893 for the City sewer hookup charge and $2,075 for the
Metropolitan Council sewer charge.
7.The party applying for the building permit is responsible for payment of the hookup charges.
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City Council Meeting - March 23, 2009
8.Environmental Resources Specialist Conditions:
a.The applicant must submit tree preservation, removal calculations and survey for Tract
C for City staff approval prior to recording.
b.All trees proposed to be preserved shall be protected by fencing throughout the
construction process. The fencing must be installed prior to any excavation or grading.
9.At this time, the estimated total SWMP fee, due payable to the City at the time of recording, is
$1,984.88.
10.The applicant shall apply for and obtain permits from the appropriate regulatory agencies (e.g.,
Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (for
dewatering)) necessary and comply with their conditions of approval.
11.All disturbed areas shall be mulched and seeded or sodded according to following table:
Time
(maximum time an area can remain unvegetated
Type of Slope
when area is not actively being worked)
Steeper than 3:1 7 Days
10:1 to 3:1 14 Days
Flatter than 10:1 21 Days
These areas include any exposed soil areas with a positive slope to a storm water conveyance
system, such as a curb and gutter system, storm sewer inlet, temporary or permanent drainage
ditch or other natural or man made systems that discharge to a surface water.
12.Full park fees in lieu of parkland dedication and/or trail construction shall be collected in full at
the rate in force upon approval and recording.
13.Submit a revised survey for Tract C and as necessary on Tract D showing the following:
a.Drainage and utility easements.
b.All utilities must be shown and relocated if necessary prior to recording.
c.Driveway access to the new parcel must be shown on plan.
14.Submit a 30-foot wide private cross-access easement over the shared portion of the private
street.
15.A drainage and utility easement must encompass any portion of the driveway serving Tract D
and encroaches on Tract C.
16.Tract C must meet the minimum criteria for a non-riparian lot within the shoreland management
district as described in Chapter 20, Article VI.
17.The applicant shall revise the lot lines as shown in staff’s layout (Alternate B). ”
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City Council Meeting - March 23, 2009
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you everyone. That completes half of our agenda this evening. No, I’m
glad we spent the time on it because it’s important that we spend time to make sure we get things
right so thank you everyone for your patience and participation. We do appreciate that. Let’s
move on now with our agenda this evening. Mr. Gerhardt, item number 5. Are we going to
proceed with that this evening? Which is consideration of feasibility study.
DOWNTOWN PARK AND RIDE FACILITY: CONSIDER APPROVAL OF
FEASIBILITY STUDY.
Todd Gerhardt: Yes Mayor. It will not take that long. Council sat through this before and I’m
sure Jon and Paul have a quick power point. All we’re doing is asking for the council to accept
the feasibility study this evening. There is no conditions that go along with that. All you are
doing is informing you of the design and then anything that would relate to TIF agreements or
master redevelopment agreements would all have to come back at a separate time.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Todd Gerhardt: So all you’re doing is accepting where the street would go. How the utilities
would be relocated.
Mayor Furlong: And, okay that’s fine. Let’s start with the staff report please.
Jon Horn: Good evening Mayor, members of the City Council. My name is Jon Horn. I’m with
Kimley-Horn and Associates. We have been working with City staff and Southwest Transit on
the downtown transit station improvement project. We have the completed feasibility report for
the project and wanted to run you through a very brief overview of the feasibility report tonight.
The project includes public improvements to support the construction of a park and ride facility
by Southwest Transit. The number of parking spaces to be provided in that facility is bouncing
around somewhere between 400 to 520 something that will be further identified as a part of this
process. The site is located directly behind the Chanhassen Dinner Theater property. We have
been spending a lot of time coordinating the proposed improvements with Southwest Transit.
There are improvements that Southwest will be building as a part of this project. There’s some
land acquisition that I’ll talk briefly about that’s included as a part of the project. Some roadway
right-of-way and some land that the City will be acquiring. We did do a traffic study as a part of
the process to evaluate the possibility for a traffic signal at either Great Plains Boulevard or
Market Boulevard, either to support the transit facility as well as potential redevelopment in the
area by the Bloomberg Companies. Bloomberg’s considering possibly an apartment building
and some office and retail use in the area. Based upon the results of that traffic study they’re
currently not proposed to be traffic signals at either location. It was determined not to be
warranted. There were some other recommendations that came out of that traffic study that I’ll
mention here briefly. This is the project location map. The red box shows the location of the
parking ramp, directly behind the dinner theater. It sits at about the location of the existing
corrugated metal building that’s used for a scene shop for the dinner theater as well as a bus
shelter at that location. In terms of the improvements, I mentioned the coordination between the
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City Council Meeting - March 23, 2009
City improvements and Southwest Transit. The City would be doing a number of things. We’d
be demolishing that metal scene shop building. Would be relocating some sanitary sewer and
water main that’s currently in the area that needs to be relocated for the construction of a parking
ramp. That includes some street and storm drainage improvements. Southwest Transit will be
building the parking ramp itself. Making some modifications to the parking lots in the area and
connections to the parking ramp. And then there’s a number of private utility relocations that
need to occur in the area where Southwest Transit would be handling that part of it. I mentioned
the land acquisition. There’s an existing depot station that sits in the area that currently does not
sit on land that the City owns. As a part of this process the City would acquire that property.
The City would also acquire public street right-of-way and then there is the acquisition and
relocation costs for that scene shop that I previously mentioned. This exhibit shows the
acquisition that would occur. In the yellow, and I don’t know Paul and Laurie maybe you could
use the mouse and kind of highlight the yellow area that would be public street right-of-way so
the City would acquire that public street right-of-way as a part of this process. There’s a
triangular piece of property just south of that where the depot station sits, and the City would be
acquiring that. Anything north of that public right-of-way would be easements that Southwest
Transit would be acquiring directly from the Bloomberg Companies. In terms of the various
improvements that are included as a part of the project, I mentioned the sanitary sewer and
watermain relocation. This exhibit shows in blue the watermain that needs to get relocated as
well as green, the sanitary sewer. Currently those facilities run right through the middle of the
gray box which is where the parking ramp will sit. So as a part of this process we need to get
those utilities out of the way to allow the parking ramp construction to proceed. There’s also
some street construction that would occur. Everything in yellow would be public streets that
Chanhassen would build as a part of this process, and red is public sidewalk that would be
constructed. I mentioned some of the improvements at Market Boulevard. The roadway
connection at Market would actually be expanded to allow a separate right and left turn lane at
this location to help facilitate movements in and off of Market Boulevard. In terms of cost, a
number of project costs. There’s cost for the construction as well as for the various right-of-way
and easement acquisition. A little over $970,000 for the various construction components. Two
of those components would be the responsibility of the City of Chanhassen. The relocation of
the sanitary sewer and watermain, and then there’s all the various right-of-way and easement
acquisition costs. Chanhassen will be responsible for the acquisition and depot station site, as
well as the relocation of the scene shop. The other right-of-way acquisition will be the
responsibility of the property owners in the area. Overall project cost a little over $1.9 million
dollars. In terms of the financing, a significant part of the project will be financed via
assessments to the benefiting property owners, Southwest Transit as well as the Bloomberg
Companies. Southwest is paying about 49% of that. Bloomberg 51%. Chanhassen does have
the sewer and water and land acquisition components again for that total project cost of about
$1.9 million dollars. Did want to mention as a part of this process, staff is proposing the creation
of a tax increment financing district to help write down the assessments to the Bloomberg
properties. If redevelopment does occur on the Bloomberg properties, there’s the potential for
their taxes through the tax increment district to help write down some of those costs for the
Bloomberg Companies. In terms of the project schedule, council is receiving the feasibility
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report tonight. We’re proposing to have the public hearing be on April 13. Project will then be
implemented as a part of two phases. The first phase is what’s necessary to clear the area for the
construction of the parking ramp. That is proposed to occur here in 2009. And then the later
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City Council Meeting - March 23, 2009
improvements would be in coordination with the ramp likely wouldn’t occur until 2010. The
ramp itself is proposed to start construction in the fall of 2009, and continue into 2010. That’s
just a very brief overview of the project. With that I’ll open it up for council questions.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Horn or staff? Mr. McDonald.
Councilman McDonald: Just one question. You talk about the traffic studies and the possibility
of lights and everything. Where are you looking at for the lights? You’ve got that one, yeah on
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that map right there. Are you looking for a light? Okay, we can go there. If you go to West 78
Street. Are you talking about something coming out there or are we talking about the new
Market Boulevard that would empty out onto Great Plains Boulevard?
Jon Horn: Yeah the reason I blew by the other exhibits, that didn’t show both intersections so.
Councilman McDonald: Okay.
Jon Horn: This overall map shows the connection of both Great Plains and Market, and I don’t
know if maybe you guys can highlight with the mouse there. Whoops, did I do that?
Laurie Hokkanen: No, I did.
Jon Horn: Great Plains Boulevard, at that location as well as Market over on the other end. Both
those accesses would provide access to and from the ramp so we looked at the possibility of
installing a signal at either location. We did not warrant a traffic signal based upon the proposed
redevelopment by Bloomberg. The one at Market Boulevard is actually a little closer to meeting
warrants so the recommendation then would be after some redevelopment plans are developed,
we would want to evaluate that a little closer to see if it’s possibly warranted at that location.
There are a number of extenuating circumstances with the railroad tracks and some of the other
intersections in the area, but they kind of complicate that but those were the two primary
intersections that we looked at for traffic signals.
Councilman McDonald: Okay and what you found is that they’re not warranted based upon your
initial studies.
Jon Horn: Correct.
Councilman McDonald: Okay.
Councilman Litsey: Is there any need for a redesign or improvements of those roads because
you know they both have, well at least the one over by Cub there and stuff, they have the two
lanes each way but if you don’t have turn lanes it can be accident prone if you’re making left
turns.
Jon Horn: Yeah, we looked at that and there was recommendations in making improvements to
the actual roadways that are connecting to that from the ramp, but in terms of modifications on
either Great Plains or Market, that is not proposed as part of this process.
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City Council Meeting - March 23, 2009
Todd Gerhardt: So you would say there’s not a need at this time?
Jon Horn: Not yes, based upon the analysis that was done there’s not a need.
Todd Gerhardt: And the ranking kind of goes from A to F and of course F being the worst. This
came in towards a C?
Jon Horn: Yeah, and probably the most significantly impacted or the most significant issue is a
left turn from the roadway from the ramp onto Market Boulevard. That was the most
challenging movement that’s there.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: And that’s challenging now.
Jon Horn: Right.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: So it will probably only get worst I would think.
Jon Horn: There was some discussion with Southwest in terms of operation at the ramp and how
they’d run their buses to try to avoid some of those issues. So I know there’s some operational
issues that Southwest was planning to evaluate as a part of this process as well.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Could you summarize again just what is before the council this evening?
Jon Horn: Before council this evening is to basically accept the feasibility report and then order
the public hearing which would occur in the first meeting in April.
Mayor Furlong: And the feasibility report relates to the relocation of the utilities as well as the
construction of the private, or excuse me, the public street.
Jon Horn: Yeah, it’s basically building demolition, utility relocation and public street and storm
sewer construction.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Can you go back to your schedule on the, or slide on the schedule
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please. Yep. So we’re here tonight on March 23 so we’ll have the public hearing on April 13
and then continue with the proposed projects, and during that period there would be a site plan
that will come forward as well?
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council. What I’d like to do this evening, we still have some issues to
work out with Southwest and Bloomberg and until we have those issues worked out, I would
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prefer that we wait until our April 13 meeting to call for the public hearing so we’re going to
push these things back here a couple of weeks. I still think we have time to accomplish
everything. The key thing here is Southwest needs to pull a building permit yet this fall so we
have to make commitments and I think we can do that still but we have to work out these issues
with Bloomberg and Southwest on ramp location and where exactly the road’s going to be so.
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City Council Meeting - March 23, 2009
Mayor Furlong: So tonight you’d recommend that we simply receive the feasibility report?
Todd Gerhardt: Yeah.
Mayor Furlong: Accept the feasibility study and then we’ll defer calling the public hearing until
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our next meeting on the 13.
Todd Gerhardt: That’s the goal right now.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. And I would suggest if that’s the case maybe we can just bring that
resolution calling the public hearing back on our consent agenda, since we’ve discussed it this
evening and all it would be doing is picking the date for the public hearing so that this process
can continue. Is that fair?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I think it is.
Todd Gerhardt: And Mayor and council, accepting the feasibility study doesn’t commit you to
anything. The feasibility study report and presentation is to inform the public of this project so
it’s on the public record. So anybody that may want to come in, review the information, it’s
available on our web site and by you accepting that you’re giving kind of a commitment that this
is the proposed plan.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Councilwoman Ernst: So there’s no financial obligations?
Todd Gerhardt: None whatsoever.
Mayor Furlong: Any other questions of Mr. Horn, Mr. Gerhardt, Mr. Oehme? No? Okay.
Very good. Thank you. Any discussion? This the starting point of what I think is going to be a
nice plan, but I’m interested in other people’s thoughts and comments as well.
Councilman Litsey: Well I agree totally. I think this is a wonderful project and it’s exciting and
we’re taking the first step so.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Yeah, no. I have to agree. I think as a council I think we did put our
initiative, one of our initiatives is being proactive when it comes to business and keeping our
downtown healthy and this is an excellent opportunity to bring 400 people in and out of our town
everyday so I think it’s a good project.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Other thoughts?
Councilman McDonald: I’m all in favor of moving forward on it also. I think it will add a lot to
the downtown area. It gives us a lot of future opportunities as to what we do with downtown
because it solves a big parking problem so.
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City Council Meeting - March 23, 2009
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Thank you. Anything else? Councilwoman Ernst.
Councilwoman Ernst: I think it’s a good project. I guess my only, I do have some questions
about the whole financing piece which I ask at a later date obviously, but you know I think it’s a
good project.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. I agree. I started out by saying this is a good starting point. It is a
good starting point. I agree with the comments made. It also is a good public investment right
near one of our major employers in town which is the Dinner Theater, and this is really going to
create opportunities. One of the advantages for locating this transit station, the parking ramp
where we are is Monday through Friday it will serve transit needs in the area and evenings and
weekends it will serve our theater guests. Patrons to our town so it really provides a dual
purpose and it’s nice to see it. Together I would like to publicly thank Mr. Gerhardt and anyone
on his staff that has been actively working behind the scenes trying to move this forward, and
successfully moving it to the point where we are today. I think we’ve got a few more things but
there’s some complexity to this and so we’ll work them out in the next few weeks and bring it
back and keep it moving.
Todd Gerhardt: Keep that plate spinning.
Mayor Furlong: Keep it going. Very good. If there are no other comments, is there a motion
that the City Council approve acceptance of the feasibility study.
Councilman Litsey: I’ll make the motion the City Council approves a resolution accepting the
feasibility study for the downtown park and ride project 08-11.
Councilman McDonald: I’ll second.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Made and seconded. Any discussion on the motion?
Resolution #2009-25: Councilman Litsey moved, Councilman McDonald seconded that the
City Council approves the resolution accepting the feasibility study for the Downtown Park
and Ride Project 08-11. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote
of 5 to 0.
Mayor Furlong: I would ask the council, given the time, do we want to take a quick 5 minute
break before we continue? Okay. Let’s go ahead and do that and let’s just take a quick break
subject to the call of the Chair but let’s make it really short. Thank you. We are in recess.
WESTWOOD COMMUNITY CHURCH EXPANSION: REQUEST FOR
CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT FOR MULTIPLE PRINCIPAL STRUCTURES ON ONE
LOT AND SITE PLAN REVIEW FOR A 51,000 SQUARE FOOT BUILDING
EXPANSION, 3121 WESTWOOD RIVE, APPLICANT: CUNNINGHAM GROUP
ARCHITECTURE, P.A. OWNER: WESTWOOD COMMUNITY CHURCH.
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City Council Meeting - March 23, 2009
Kate Aanenson: Thank you Mayor, members of the council. As you indicated there’s two
requests with this action tonight. One is for a conditional use to allow more than one building on
a lot, which we do allow in the commercial district, and secondly for a site plan approval. This
item did appear before the Planning Commission on March 3, 2009 and the Planning
Commission voted unanimously 6 to 0 to recommend approval of the project. Just to give a little
background of the project itself. This site. Originally the Westwood Church was given approval
from the City Council back in 2001. At that time the only access to the property was off of
Tanadoona Drive and they do have all their own private utilities on this site. With their next
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expansion we did request that West 78 Street be built and so now there’s two access. And they
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use that as their primary access. West 78 Street. So that resolves a lot of the issues that we
had. We didn’t do an environmental assessment but we did do a traffic study on this so this
project isn’t increasing the traffic, just providing additional building. The site plan that I’m
showing you.
Mayor Furlong: Now we lost it.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: There was such an echo I think, back feed that was going on.
Someone in the audience asked that we speak a little clearer and louder in the microphones.
Kate Aanenson: Alright. So the arrow that’s pointing, so this new building will be located
between the existing sanctuary and the parking lot, so there’s minimal grading. Minimal for
engineering wise. Minimal disruption of the site so the wetland, all the utilities are put in place
for this to actually be a pretty smooth project. So the applicants themselves are proposing the
darker building is the new addition. A 51,000 square feet to their existing fellowship hall which
is 72,120 square feet. So the new additional includes classrooms, offices, meeting rooms,
gathering spaces and a multi-purpose room. I’ll go through the architecture a little bit more. So
this would be the new facility. Now I’m looking at their valuation of their plans. The entire
building may not be built at this time. The gymnasium portion of that piece on this which would
be to the top of the screen, that area may not be built at this time. The classroom space. I’ll
show you how that is represented in a picture in a moment. So the two buildings facing you
would be the addition, the building behind you is the fellowship hall. So the building that’s
closest, in the foreground is actually a building that we’ve asked for a little bit more fenestration,
a little more windows on that and that’s a multi-purpose kind of gymnasium. Just to the top. If
you’ll notice there’s some smaller windows on the side facing the parking lot. If you could just
switch to this screen Paul. This is the material samples. The existing building’s cedar board.
They’re going with a hardy plank cement board and with these bricks which will be the…which
will be very similar in architecture. You can switch back, thank you. So again mimicking the
existing building, how that goes.
Councilman Litsey: Kate can I just ask you?
Kate Aanenson: Sure.
Councilman Litsey: Are you saying there’s, you’re asking for more windows than
what’s…here?
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City Council Meeting - March 23, 2009
Kate Aanenson: On the top, yep. On the top. On the top portion of that.
Councilman Litsey: Okay. Right up there?
Kate Aanenson: Yeah. Exactly. Thank you. So that would be to make it compliant and it has a
high visibility. So other than that I’ve gone through in the staff report it talks about all the
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architectural detail that it does meet, and again the access coming off of West 78. The grading
and drainage. There is a wetland on site. The storm drainage is on site. I think I’d have to go to
another view of the building. So now in the foreground is the new portions of the building. You
can see the fellowship hall with the brick towards the front, so they’re mimicking that brick as I
showed you on the materials on those lower portions. So it does meet all the architectural
standards. It does meet the site design. There is a play area. You can see between the two
buildings on the back there, which is nicely landscaped but then it comes towards the wetland,
storm water pond in the foreground on that picture. So the Planning Commission felt it was well
designed. Again we have done other projects where we’ve done them in phases where we’ve
done, approved 3 stories for a building. They’ve only built 2 so if this is built in phases, what
we’re doing tonight is approving the site plan for the entire site, and then if they break it into
phases, they wouldn’t have to come back before the Planning Commission or the City Council.
They would just submit their building permit and continue on with that phase so we’re giving
site plan approval for the entire site. Again the motions would be for the conditional use for
more than one building and then for the 51,000 square foot multi-purpose building. So with that
I’d be happy to answer any questions that you may have.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Questions for staff. Ms. Aanenson, the request for additional
windows on that one building. Is that included in one of the conditions?
Kate Aanenson: Yes. It’s condition number 2.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. And does this, is there a standard for fenestration for buildings?
Kate Aanenson: Yes.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Is it 50% or what is the requirement?
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, what we did is we looked at the entire building and then looked at the
purpose of that building and putting it up higher, it works.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Okay. So when it just says windows, you’ve already, well we can ask
the applicant.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, we discussed how…
Mayor Furlong: Is there agreement on that?
Kate Aanenson: Yes.
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City Council Meeting - March 23, 2009
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Okay for now. Thanks. Any other questions for staff at this time?
Okay? No? Is the applicant here this evening? Or representatives. Is there anything you’d like
to address the council or come forward at this point?
Charlie Stoffel: I don’t think so.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. The issue on the windows, you’re in agreement with that and what staff
is proposing?
Charlie Stoffel: I guess I will speak to that. Charlie Stoffel with Cunningham Group
Architecture representing Westwood.
Mayor Furlong: Good evening.
Charlie Stoffel: I guess the windows really was the only thing that came down to any of the I
guess items that staff had an issue with. It’s going to be a multi-purpose space which can be
used as an alternate worship venue. Right now we have very limited windows in this space
because they want to treat it as a black box on the interior. So adding windows to that face
defeats the interior use of the building. So if we were to put windows on it we’d end up putting
black out shades on it and have black out shades on it primarily during the entire use of the
building. So that would be our only, I guess our only concern with that exception to what we
have presented to the City so far.
Kate Aanenson: In other circumstances where we’ve done that, for example on Office Max
we’ve used the spanrow windows so they have the window look to that so I think we’d like to
work with you and do something so architecturally it looks like there’s something there. I think
we can work through that.
Charlie Stoffel: That was the only comment we had and I think we can come to a solution on
that.
Mayor Furlong: Good. Okay. Any questions for the applicant? Okay, thank you. Any
thoughts or discussions on the matter before us this evening? There are a number of motions.
So it’s a conditional use permit, modification to a conditional use, or approving it, plus the site
plan approval. Any questions on that?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: It seems to be pretty well in order. I guess it was one of those
scenarios we talked about where it’s not necessarily rubber stamped but a lot of work has been
done in the background with staff and the Planning Commission and now it is here and it seems
to be everything’s in order so I recommend going ahead with it.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Any other comments?
Councilman Litsey: I feel likewise. I think it’s pretty straight forward and I think it’s a nice,
architecturally it looks very nice and compliments what’s there already so I think it will be a nice
addition.
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City Council Meeting - March 23, 2009
Mayor Furlong: I guess I’ll just make a quick comment that, I’m happy to see the Westwood
Community growing and needing more space and that’s positive for that organization I know as
well as the City so good to see. Would somebody like to make a motion?
Councilwoman Ernst: Sure.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you.
Councilwoman Ernst: I make a motion that we approve a conditional use permit to permit two
buildings on one parcel, subject to condition number 1 on page 11 of the staff report. And that
we approve Site Planning Case #09-03 for a 51,000 square foot, two story multi-purpose
building, plans prepared by Cunningham Group Architecture P.A. and Westwood Professional
Services Incorporated dated January 30, 2009, subject to conditions 1 through 17 on pages 11
through 12 of the staff report. And adoption of the attached Findings of Fact and
recommendation for Planning Case #09-03.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there a second?
Councilman Litsey: I’ll second that.
Mayor Furlong: Made and seconded. Any discussion on the motion?
Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilman Litsey seconded that the City Council approves
a Conditional Use Permit to permit two buildings on one parcel, subject to the following
condition and adoption of the attached Findings of Fact and recommendation for Planning
Case #09-03:
1. The site development shall comply with the requirements of the approved site plan #09-
03.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilman Litsey seconded that the City Council approves
Site Plan Planning Case #09-03 for a 51,000 square foot, two story multi-purpose building,
plans prepared by Cuningham Group Architecture, P.A. and Westwood Professional
Services, Inc., dated January 30, 2009, subject to the following conditions:
1.The applicant shall enter into a site plan agreement with the City and provide the necessary
security to guarantee erosion control, site restoration and landscaping.
2.Windows shall be added to the northwest elevation in the multi-purpose area.
3.In addition to the fire sprinkler system required by the building and fire codes, Class III fire
department standpipes shall be added to the building in locations approved by the
Chanhassen Fire Marshal.
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City Council Meeting - March 23, 2009
4.The applicant shall contact Chanhassen Fire Marshal for location of yellow curbing to be
painted and locations of “No Parking Fire Lane” signs.
5.Buildings are required to have automatic fire extinguishing systems.
6.Building plans must be prepared and signed by design professionals licensed in the State of
Minnesota.
7.Retaining walls (new and additions to existing) over four feet high must be designed by a
professional engineer registered in the State of Minnesota and a permit must be obtained
prior to construction.
8.Inlet protection is provided for all proposed stormwater inlets until such a time as final
stabilization is achieved.
9.The rock construction entrance be expanded to 75 feet per City code or, if this is not practical
to do so, the applicant must show why this is not practical and maximize the rock
construction entrance to the greatest length practical.
10.Silt fence north of Pond B be extended to the northwest to the 990 contour.
11.City details shall be included in the plan set for all erosion control best management practices
and storm sewer structures.
12.One of the three inlets into Pond B must be eliminated. It is preferable that the most easterly
inlet be eliminated so that maintenance can occur as efficiently as possible.
13.Pond maintenance access should be shown on the plan.
14.The applicant shall determine if any additional permissions are required and apply for and
obtain these permits from the appropriate regulatory agencies (e.g., Minnesota Pollution
Control Agency, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (for dewatering)) and comply
with their conditions of approval.
15.Surface drainage from the top of the wall should be directed to the proposed catch basin, or
else a drain tile system shall be installed to convey the runoff to the storm sewer.
16.If on-site earthwork quantities do not balance and materials need to be imported or exported
from the site, the developer will need to supply the City with a detailed haul route for review
and approval by staff.
17.Any material exported to another location in Chanhassen may require a grading or interim
use permit.”
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
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City Council Meeting - March 23, 2009
PUBLIC WORKS FACILITY PROJECT 08-03: APPROVE PRECAST & STEEL BIDS:
REVIEW BIDS FOR OTHER ASPECTS OF CONSTRUCTION.
Paul Oehme: Thank you Mayor, City Council members. The public works facility used the
construction management approach to obtain bids and quotes for the project. This approach
allowed each of the specialty trades, contractors to bid separately on portions of the project
instead of through one prime contractor. In all 16 trade areas or bid packages were bid out. Staff
also obtained quotes from contractors for smaller items in the project that met quoting
requirements. The only bid items left for the project is the bituminous paving. This item will be
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bid out later this summer. On Tuesday, March 17 quotes were received for this project and then
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on March 19, last Thursday, public bids were received for the 16 advertised bid packages. The
City’s construction management service company, RJM Construction worked through the City to
receive the quotes and bids. For tonight’s meeting staff is requesting council approve concrete
and masonry bids for those categories. Precast walls, precast planks and steel material bids.
th
These items have long lead times to fabricate. On April 13 the council will be asked to approve
the rest of the bids. However for tonight’s meeting staff will be prepared to review the bids and
quotes received for the council. The City did receive favorable bids and some significant cost
savings for this project using this method we believe. For tonight I would ask Brian Recker with
RJM and Associates to give a brief review of the bids and the quotes that we received and
Thomas Stromsted is also here from the architect if you have any questions for them.
Mayor Furlong: Very good. Good evening.
Brian Recker: Good evening. Mr. Mayor and members of the council. Thank you for having
me here again tonight and very happy to speak with you in regards to the bids that we received
last week as well as the quotes and Paul did mention both bids and the quotes that we received,
we’re very pleased to announce that on Thursday for the 16 bid packages that we did have bid
out, we received 130 bids that spread throughout all 16 of those categories so we’re very pleased
with the turnout of what we’ve had. Much more, not much more but more than what we’ve seen
a lot. I think a lot of that’s to do with the market lots with the advertising and the direct calling
that we did to all the contractors as well. What I’d like to present tonight is a bit of a summary
of the bids and the quotes that we received and pertaining to the overall project budget. In some
past meetings we’ve had opportunities to take a look at some of the budgets that we’ve put
together and it’s a very similar format to what you’ve seen in the past so if I could maybe I’ll,
I’m not sure exactly where to put this down. Alright. I’m going to kind of lay those two side by
side and I think you might have received a copy of that in your packet here as well, and I did a
good job it looks like of making it very small writing to be able to read so I’m going to kind of
walk through there. Again I think you got some of this in your packet.
Todd Gerhardt: Brian, can you do one at a time?
Paul Oehme: Here let me put this up. Maybe that’s a little bit easier to read.
Councilman Litsey: Little bit.
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City Council Meeting - March 23, 2009
Mayor Furlong: For whom?
Paul Oehme: Let’s do one at a time.
Brian Recker: One at a time. Okay. This represents really all the construction costs associated
with the project on the first sheet, and how we separated it, as you can see is we listed at the
beginning all of the public bids that we received on Thursday, and those are the ones with the
more formal bid process and these we had everybody submit bids, sealed bids on Thursday of
last week. The next section are all the quotes that we solicited on behalf of the City to try to gain
more local participation and again try to get some smaller contractors involved, and you can see
by the value of some of those contracts, there are some smaller categories of work that we did
solicit. Below that we have some miscellaneous budgets. One of those budgets is for some
remaining site work that we have to do to get prepped for some of the areas outside of the
building. The asphalt paving that Paul noted earlier that’s going to be bid out here this summer,
and then some landscaping, appliances and commercial vacuum that we’re holding some project
allowances for. The bottom part here are just some general condition costs that RJM
Construction will have on the project as well as some other miscellaneous on site activities that
we’ll be managing on behalf of the City. And then you can see that the sub-total that we have
here of just a little over $7 million. We are currently holding a 5% construction contingency and
then there’s a construction management fee in the overall construction budget. The second sheet
that we have here summarizes some of the other costs, more of what we call the soft costs or
owner costs that you can see the soil correction that the City’s already done on the project site.
The testing company that we’ll need to hire to make sure that all of the work that’s done is of the
quality required by code. There’s some insurance costs. Some furniture costs and electrical
service and fiber optic. Those are utilities that need to be brought into the project site itself
through Xcel and who the City decides to choose for fiber. There’s design fees that we have
with that also, and so you’re looking at a total project budget, with the bids and the quotes that
have been received to date of $8,442,414 and what that reflects essentially is a savings to the
overall approved project budget of about $357,000. So what we saw through the last budget to
this budget, because we were tracking just about a percent higher than the budget the last time
we looked at the overall project is we were about 5% under where we were at when we were
projecting and where we see a lot of that coming in, again it’s just I think with the market and
with the number of contractors interested in the project we saw some savings, which we talked
about at the last meeting that we might see with this bid process. Before I talk a little bit about
the alternates, is there any questions from the council in regards to some of the information I just
presented. I threw a lot at you real quick there so.
Mayor Furlong: Any questions at this point?
Brian Recker: Great.
Mayor Furlong: Excuse me can I clarify something? In looking at the bid summary by trade
there’s some 3A, 4A and there’s a combined. Do we actually save money by going with the
combined?
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City Council Meeting - March 23, 2009
Brian Recker: We did. We did. A lot of times we have contractors that specialize in some
concrete. We’ll have some that specialize in masonry and that’s all they really want to bid on
because they don’t do the other. And some of the contractors that do those trades also do both of
them, and so whereas there is a bit of an economy of scale from maybe having just one of the
two contracts, if they can have both often times they find that they can be more competitive.
And in this situation with the contractor we’ll be recommending for that, that was the case.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you.
Brian Recker: As we looked at the alternates, we talked a little bit about this at the last meeting
as well, is that we looked at some opportunities for some cost savings and were also some
opportunities that maybe some additional cost items that we may be able to implement based on
how the bids came in. The first alternate we looked at is rather, we have a resonance floor which
essentially is kind of a clear epoxy type flooring in a lot of the offices in the facility. A little
more expensive than your standard VCT type. Those are the 12 inch square plastic floorings. So
we looked at an option of replacing all that epoxy with a VCT, and of course we saw a savings
with that of about $21,000. We have some retaining walls on the site and what we had in the
base bid is those larger, kind of 2 foot by 4 foot blocks that you see a lot that’s being put in a lot
of facilities and around, and we looked at well maybe, maybe if we looked at a Keystone, the
smaller one we’d save some money and there’s a little bit of a savings with that also. The next
two alternates, number 3 and number 4 pertained to a possibility of not paining certain areas of
the vehicle storage, if we need to try and save some money. And so to not paint the walls of the
vehicle storage we saved about $8,600. To not paint the ceiling of the vehicle storage was a
savings of about $27,000. We looked at an alternate to provide a motorized gate at the front
entry of the building. That option was about $10,000 as you see. The base building’s roofing
system right now is comprised of what’s called an EPDM roofing system. It’s a membrane
roofing that has a rock ballast on top of it and that’s for the majority of the building. We did
look at an option for what’s called a TPO roofing, which is a fully adhered white roofing system
that has no rock on it and we saw a proposed cost increase of about $55,000. There is a wall that
is on the west elevation of the building. It’s a precast wall and since that wall was not as
viewable from the public, there was an alternate that was taken to reduce the finish on that wall
to a lesser expensive finish and for that alternate number 7 there was about a $18,000 savings.
We have overhead doors on the project. Quite a few of them actually. The base bid was a 3 inch
thick door and we looked at maybe providing a 2 inch thick door, and we did that. We did see a
savings of $16,000. Alternate #9 we had in the project because we were working through code
requirements in regards to the large vehicle storage area and whether or not we needed to have
code, or we needed to have smoke exhaust hatches put in throughout the area, and so as we
worked through that with staff we found that per code, by doing some due diligence that that was
not required. And as you can see with that work actually that would have been $72,000 but we
did find out later that that would not require. And then the last alternate #10 was to provide
skylights through the vehicle storage area and the number that you see there is reflective of
adding 12 skylights to that area. So at this time, and with the construction management process
that we have, some of these alternates will affect the contractors that we’re recommending for
award tonight, and some of the alternates do not. And so it gives us some flexibility in making
some decisions on which alternates we’d like to select as a group. And so tonight with the
contractors that we are recommending for award, the only alternates that affect those contractors
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are alternate #7 and alternate #10, and that is for the standard gray finish at the west elevation
and the 12 skylights.
Mayor Furlong: Question then on the alternates. For alternate 7 and 10, are those included in
the proposed numbers earlier up to that, up to the $8,443,000 is it? 442?
Brian Recker: Good question. The summary of the budget above that, the summary of this
budget right here, above this entire box, this number does not include any of these items down
here.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Brian Recker: So as an example if you were to accept Alternate #1, you would delete $21,000
off of this bottom line down here. If you were to accept the 12 skylights, we’re adding $48,000
to that bottom line. Cost of the project, if that makes sense.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. So you’re recommending that we, for alternate #7, help us understand
what’s being recommended there. Is that multi-tone?
Paul Oehme: Yeah. Actually that, I can answer that one Mayor. That one we had originally
envisioned just a standard gray, concrete gray color. Smooth finish panel. That’s on the west
exposure to the building. It’s, there’s no access. There’s no access basically to that side of the
building. No one would really see it. There’s just a tree canopy on that side of the building.
That was our initial intent. Looking through, and it was kind of a last minute alternate. Where
else could we try to save some money so that, we threw that in as a, as another alternate that we
needed to look at.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Paul Oehme: What we recommend now is not accepting that alternate based upon code
requirements and basically maintaining the requirements that we would envision or require for
other, for other buildings or other developers that would come in. It’s a code requirement I think
that we want to be consistent with how we are dealing with this building as well.
Mayor Furlong: So when this says recommend for award, that is already included up in the
$8,442,000 and that is part of what we’re being asked to do this evening?
Brian Recker: Correct. Actually if I could, in the letter that was submitted with the various bid
categories for recommendations, and this was the.
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Mayor Furlong: The letter dated March 19?
Brian Recker: Yes. You can see those contract amounts right there that we recommended for
award would include accepting alternate #7 and alternate #10.
Mayor Furlong: Okay but I thought I just heard that we don’t want 7.
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Brian Recker: And that is correct. When Paul and I were working on this here last week and
putting together recommendations, there was a desire to accept alternate #7 at that time so when
we wrote the recommendations it did include that so.
Paul Oehme: Yep. Yeah, we received the bids on Thursday so in the scramble to get this
background together.
Mayor Furlong: That’s fine. I want to just clarify that this does not include alternate #7 but it’s
your recommendation this evening that alternate 7 not. We don’t, we don’t change to alternate 7.
We stay with the original plan.
Brian Recker: Correct.
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council members. After a short discussion with our planning director
and the architect it was recommended that we have all four sides look the same.
Mayor Furlong: That’s fine. I don’t have a problem with that. I just wanted to clarify so. Does
that, okay. So that would change the, that would change the numbers on this by the.
Brian Recker: It would change the number for the recommendation for bid category 3B only.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Councilwoman Ernst: Making it higher of course.
Brian Recker: By $16,000 and some change, correct.
Todd Gerhardt: It doesn’t change the low bidder though.
Brian Recker: It does not change the low bidder.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Thank you. Did you have a question?
Councilwoman Ernst: That answered my question.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. So is the amount in the proposed motion for 3B the correct
amount or does that need to be modified based on…
Brian Recker: That does need to be modified.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. To what amount? Or can you figure that out and let us know.
Brian Recker: I have it here if you’d like to modify that. That revised contract amount, not
accepting alternate #7 would be a total of $692,605.
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Mayor Furlong: 692,605.
Brian Recker: Correct.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Okay. Councilwoman Ernst.
Councilwoman Ernst: So that actually decreases our savings then right?
Brian Recker: Well currently the numbers that totaled the current $8,442,000 included the
upgraded finish to that wall. So we are not going to, the budget that we currently have does not
include that savings, so by not accepting that savings the budget stays exactly where it’s at. At
$8,442,000. That savings had not been taken into consideration when we established the budget
amount that we’re at right now.
Councilwoman Ernst: Okay. Thank you.
Mayor Furlong: And then another question. Alternate 10. Is that included in the proposed
motion numbers? Which category does that affect?
Brian Recker: That would affect the bid category 5A and the base bid amount that we’re
proposing for $400,863 would include the cost associated with alternate #10.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Okay. Do you want more questions now or do you have
more to present?
Brian Recker: Well I do have, if I could just quickly.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, please do.
Brian Recker: Present to the council just the summary of the bids that we did receive for the
various categories and the first summary we have, these are all the bids that we received for the
concrete bid package, and as you can see there was quite a few bidders that we had that
presented numbers. These were the individual bids that were received for bid category 3A and
these were a list of the combined bidders for bid category 3A and 4A that you were asking about
a little earlier and some savings that you’ll see. So Dayco Concrete is the contractor who
provided the combined bid for 3A and 4A and looking at the low bid for the 3A building
concrete and then with the low bidder for the masonry value and adding the low bidders for each
one, Dayco Concrete is a low as a combined bid of actually less than $1,000. So very close bids.
And so those are how the masonry and the precast. As an overall difference in the engineering
estimate and the actual amount for the precast and the masonry was a difference of about $5,000
from what we had in the engineering estimate. The precast wall panels, you can see we received
3 bids for those and that was from Fabcon, Hanson and IPC and as you can see Fabcon actually
had a very competitive bid amount of $692 and the reason we only have 3 bids in that category is
because there’s only 3 contractors in the area that have the capability of doing that type of work.
And it’s very similar to the bid category of 3C for the precast plank again. There’s a few people
that have that capability and Molin Concrete again very, very competitive and we recommended
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City Council Meeting - March 23, 2009
for award. And then the last category is the category 5A where we had 4 bidders and Thurnbeck
Steel as you can see again had a very competitive bid on it.
Mayor Furlong: Question for you. That last sheet, if you could put that back up. Please. That
shows 6 skylights under 10, is that correct?
Brian Recker: I’m sorry, and that actually should reflect 12. A total of 12 skylights. So that is
all the presentation that I have so I would be happy to accept any more questions that you might
have.
Mayor Furlong: That’s fine. Yes, Councilwoman Tjornhom.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: With all these contractors and the bids being accepted, do you have
any experience with these contractors?
Brian Recker: Good question. Actually with all the contractors being recommended tonight,
we’ve worked with all of the contractors. Quite often actually. Dayco Concrete is a local
contractor here in Chanhassen and a contractor that’s done a lot of work for our company over
the years. We have a very good experience with them. And the precast wall panels with Fabcon,
we’ve done multiple projects with them. Very similar type of facilities that is being built here
with this project, as well as Molin and Thurnbeck as the structural steel supplier so to answer
your question, we’ve worked with all of the contractors and had very good luck with all of them.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Okay.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any other questions? Councilwoman Ernst.
Councilwoman Ernst: Can you tell me what kind of a bid process you use for this?
Brian Recker: Well the bid process, there is an established competitive bid process that we
follow for all City projects and I’m not sure if that’s the question that you’re asking.
Councilwoman Ernst: Well was it a paper bid? Was it an electronic bid?
Brian Recker: Oh, okay. Yeah, exactly. How the bid process works is that after we advertise
for the project for bids, we establish a date in which all the bids need to be provided. That was
last Thursday and within the documents that we provide to all the contractors is a specified and
required bid form for them to fill out so that all the bids are the same from bid to bid so that we
have a very close comparison from one to the other. And so they provide, they write down their
bid on that. They provide some bid security with that. Put it in an sealed envelope and they
actually deliver it to the City by 2:00 that afternoon. It would have to be here by 2:00. Otherwise
if it’s after 2:00, we can’t accept it.
Councilwoman Ernst: So it was basically a sealed bid process.
Brian Recker: It was a sealed bid process.
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Councilwoman Ernst: And you compared, it was apples to apples except for the alternates that
were listed here.
Brian Recker: Yes. All of the bids, every one of the bids that we received for each one of the
individual bid categories was an apples and apples comparison. Within the bid documents we
tell the contractors exactly what they are supposed to include with each one of their bids. So
concrete has a very specific package of all the items that they need to include so when
contractors bid on that, they do have the same information from one contractor to another. Steel
might be a little different but it’s the same process.
Councilwoman Ernst: Okay, thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Any other questions? Mr. McDonald.
Councilman McDonald: I have a question about alt 8 and I guess maybe Paul can just give me
some assurances on this. We’re doing from a 3 inch door down to a 2 inch door. Structurally
what does that do to us? I mean I know we’re saving money up front but are these doors more
prone to damage so that down the road we’re going to have to replace them and any savings we
had we just lost because now we have to get new doors. Has that been looked at? I mean are we
truly getting something here that is going to last?
Paul Oehme: Yeah, right. I mean we looked at that and just summarizing the alternates that
were included in the bids, we didn’t know how the bids were going to come in. Our last
assessment was about $800,000, or $80,000 over the original project budget. So we added in
items for deducts and adds to the contract, depending on how the bids came in. This is one that
we just can’t, we just though you know, we know there’s some significant savings there going to
a thinner door. Roll up, or garage door. There is some loss in R value. Some structural strength,
as you had also pointed out so this is one of the items that we’re not, we don’t have to decide on
tonight. If we want to take the owner or not. We just wanted to present all the alternates before
you tonight and just talk about where we’re headed. I mean right now we would not anticipate
recommending to the council to award that. Award that alternate just based upon you know how
the bids came in and the 3 inch door’s already in the contract. In the base bid so you know we
prefer to use it, leave it in as a 3 inch door but that’s to be decided at a future council.
Councilman McDonald: Okay because yeah my only concern is that there may be some initial
up front savings but if anything happens to the door and it gets damaged, and it probably will. A
truck’s going to hit it. Someone will run into it. All of a sudden now you can’t repair it. We’re
looking at a brand new door and it ends up costing us, we eat up all the savings so.
Paul Oehme: Exactly. Yep, we were just looking out for the project budget.
Brian Recker: Yeah, just looking for some options. If we needed to find some savings, where
those savings may be able to come from.
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Councilman Litsey: Basically we’re just looking at the alternates as the bid package for that
comes up right?
Paul Oehme: Right.
Councilman Litsey: And since, the ones we’re doing tonight are the ones that involve what
we’re approving. Why approve something until it comes up and then if it comes in lower.
Brian Recker: We would anticipate for the next council meeting that we would bring the rest of
the bids back to the council. At that time we would, our plan is to have a recommendation for all
the remaining alternates as well.
Councilman McDonald: Okay.
Brian Recker: To do some more due diligence on some of those.
Councilman McDonald: Okay, thank you.
Todd Gerhardt: The only other point mayor and council members, the last time we were here, if
you remember, we were over budget by about $400,000 so you know we’ve brought good news
this evening and.
Councilman Litsey: Great news.
Todd Gerhardt: We got a little nervous a month ago and said oh we’ve got to bring this back
into budget so they’re still on the table for you to consider, but staff will bring back
recommendations for each one of the items and cost benefit of going for it or not.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright, thank you. Any other questions? Okay. And the items before
us this evening are some of the major items. Clearly it’s, the bids have come in favorably
relative to estimates and the overall project is looking better than it looked before which is
always good to see so I think we’re taking advantage of a competitive situation or perhaps not
taking advantage is the right word but enjoying the results of a competitive situation here and it’s
going to give us some more opportunities. So at this point I think the proposed motion, the
beginning of the staff’s report is correct but for, which one is it? Item 3B which would be
modified to read 692,605. Would somebody like to make the motion?
Councilman McDonald: I’ll go ahead and give it a try.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you.
Councilman McDonald: I make a motion that the City Council approves bids for category 3A
and 4A, building concrete and masonry to Dayco Concrete in the amount of $994,200. Category
3B, precast structural concrete walls to Fabcon Incorporated in the amount of $675,000.
Mayor Furlong: Nope. That’s the adjustment.
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City Council Meeting - March 23, 2009
Councilman McDonald: Oh, it’s 6, I’m sorry. 692, $692,605. Category 3C, which is precast
plank to Molin Concrete Products Company in the amount of $116,337. Category 5A which is
structural steel, joist, decking and miscellaneous steel materials to Thurnbeck Steel Fabrication
Incorporated in the amount of $400,863. And City Council approves, that’s it.
Mayor Furlong: That’s it. Okay, thank you. Is there a second?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Second.
Mayor Furlong: Made and seconded. Any discussion on this motion?
Resolution #2009-26: Councilman McDonald moved, Councilwoman Tjornhom seconded
that the City Council approve the following bids for the Public Works Facility, Project No.
08-03:
?
Category 3A and 4A - Building concrete and masonry to Dayco Concrete in the amount
of $994,200.
?
Category 3B - Precast structural concrete walls to Fabcon Inc. in the amount of $692,605.
?
Category 3C - Precast plank to Molin Concrete Products Company in the amount of
$116,337.
?
Category 5A - Structural steel/joists/decking/miscellaneous steel materials to Thurnbeck
Steel Fabrication Inc. in the amount of $400,863.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you everyone. We’ll have more back on our next meeting.
HISTORICAL ST. HUBERT’S CHURCH: CONSIDER APPROVAL OF LEASE
EXTENSION.
Todd Gerhardt: Mr. Mayor, City Council members. The item before you is to consider
extending the lease to old St. Hubert’s Church to allow City staff, St. Hubert’s and the
Chanhassen Historical Society to sit down and work out a potential purchase/lease agreement
st
with St. Hubert’s Church. That would allow staff up until August 1 of this year to complete
both of those agreements and bring it back for your consideration. The second option would be
to not extend that lease and provide notice to St. Hubert’s that the City is going to terminate our
lease agreement with St. Hubert’s which runs month to month right now and give management
and ownership back to St. Hubert’s. Or management. Not ownership. They already own it.
Just for the public to understand, the City has been, has had a lease with St. Hubert’s these past
20 years and has been maintaining the property and has worked with other sub-tenants. Two or
three churches have operated out of old St. Hubert’s. It’s been vacant for the last few years with
the City paying for all the utilities as a part of that and any general maintenance. To date we’ve
probably invested about $50,000 in capital improvements to the boiler system, new roofs, and
some carpeting and miscellaneous items. And then the utilities were paid by the tenants that
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were in the church with the exception of the last few years. With that you can open it up for
public discussion or amongst your council or any questions you may have of me.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Any questions right now of Mr. Gerhardt?
Councilman Litsey: Maybe just if we could articulate what kind of costs we’re talking about if
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we would extend it to August 1.
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Todd Gerhardt: Roughly extending it to August 1 the City would incur roughly $225.00 a
month in our portion of the utilities, which would be a third of those utility costs and St. Hubert’s
would pick up the two-thirds of the utility cost. As we would move ahead with Option 1, the
basis of that lease agreement with St. Hubert’s is that the City would pay a third of the utility
cost and be the property manager of the facility and St. Hubert’s would come up with a lump
sum amount each year to cover any capital costs that may need to be done into the future and
that’s kind of what’s changed from my staff report from what we talked about at our work
session about 3 hours ago.
Councilman Litsey: So rather than give specific direction what we’re probably looking at
tonight, at least the way I see it is an extension of the existing lease arrangement through August
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1 with the understanding that the interested parties, the City of Chanhassen, St. Hubert’s and the
Historical Society work together to try to come up with a mutually acceptable plan to present to
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the council on or before August 1.
Todd Gerhardt: Correct.
Mayor Furlong: Alright, any other questions of Mr. Gerhardt? I know we have a number of
people here that have been interested in this issue. Be happy to receive public comment or if
there’s a representative that would like to address the council.
Paula Atkins: Good evening ladies and gentlemen.
Mayor Furlong: Good evening.
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Paula Atkins: I’m Paula Atkins and I live at 220 West 78 Street in Chanhassen and I get to go
first because I have to open Caribou in a few hours. I’d like to begin by saying that we feel very
fortunate that the City has been taking care of this building over the last 20 years and
maintaining it. Having tenants in the building for many of those years kept it accessible and our
City maintenance staff did a great job with the upkeep of the building. Unfortunately it seems
we’ve been a little bit late in our efforts to keep historic St. Hubert’s accessible. The decision to
demolish the historic town house, which was on the property of St. Hubert’s, was a wake-up call
for all of us interested in the preservation of historic buildings in our City. What few there are
actually left to preserve. In the little over one year’s time since our fledging organization began
meeting we have held two events in the old church, each attended by well over 200 people and
one of the churches in Chanhassen also holds a concert series there every year and we are
grateful to hold our events in that beautiful building which has marvelous acoustics. Every time
we open it up to the public we discover more people who had no idea of this jewel within our
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midst. Plans are in the works for three more events over the next several months, along with
many more ideas for use by the public that we hope to implement. All events are designed to
make, to increase awareness of our organization and fund raising efforts. Our financial
committee is waiting for the word to go ahead with some major fund raising efforts as soon as
the lease is extended. Our 100 plus members are making every effort to make the public aware
of our preservation and re-use plans. The decision not to extend the lease will not halt our efforts
but will make our work more difficult. I respectfully ask the council to approve Option 1
proposed by staff which will allow us to more fully integrate the historic structure into public life
and develop a business plan. Thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you.
Councilman Litsey: Thanks.
Fred Berg: Good evening. Fred Berg, 6910 Chaparral Lane, Chan. You have to excuse me a
little bit tonight. I’m a retired school teacher after 35 years. You don’t have to excuse me for
that, but my sense of being in touch with the real world is tainted by the fact that I haven’t lived
in it for 35 years and so I appreciate if you bear with me and I become, I wax philosophically and
wander. Like my kids would do, if you just sort of let your heads hit the desk, I’ll know that it’s
time to stop and we’ll move on. My reality is of a much different nature than I think, than many
and that’s, my reality is history and as I said taught history and other things for 35 years I’ve
come to appreciate the value of what history is. And how it relates to who we are today, and just
importantly who we are going to be tomorrow. And with the kids that I dealt with, there was a
real lack or a real lack of a sense of how did we get here? What are we all about? What does our
past have to do with what we, well my parents are always saying we have to be, in my day this is
what it was. Well, kids don’t understand that often and something like St. Hubert’s I think
presents an opportunity to show them what that means. This is what Chanhassen was. This is
what Chanhassen was all about when it wasn’t this big bustling suburb that we have. We have to
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have the 4 of July and February Fest to remind people that this used to be a nice, comfortable
small town and the values that go along with that. I’m here obviously in support of St. Hubert’s
for that reason. There are other reasons that other people will articulate much better than I.
Mine is again strictly from a value of what it means to have contact, literal contact with your past
and to be able to see the impact that that has. I’ve seen the impact that it has. I’ve done so
many historical things with these kids over the years that I see when the light comes on and they
say, that’s what you’re talking about. That’s what that means when you say this is what we used
to be like in Chanhassen. This is what my grandparents are talking about when they say in my
day. Well in my day we had values like what St. Hubert’s represents and I think it would just be
a travesty of justice to see that disappear. To see that symbol disappear. There is a precedent.
There are precedents in this City for preserving things that everybody says should be torn down.
Many of you have a long history here, I would refer you back to the round house near Lake
Minnewashta, and a few of us put up a long, long struggle. We were laughed at for why are you
trying to save such an ugly, old building? Well today it’s again, it’s a part of that part of
Chanhassen’s history. It’s being used as a warming house. It’s got multiple uses because the
community and the City got together and they said, this is more important. It’s not, we don’t
want to just tear these things down. It’s important to see if we can’t find a way to use this to
make that connection. And I think that was a valuable thing. I think it was a valuable attempt.
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I’ll stop now but you know in this day and era of let’s hurry and rush and tear things down. It
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seems to me that it would be again, in my reality it would be prudent to step back until August 1
and just accept the first option and say, can’t we put our heads together creatively, all of us.
Everybody in this room plus whomever, and just say can’t we find a way because once it’s down
it’s gone and we’ll put up a parking lot. They’ll paradise and put up a parking lot. Then what do
we have? And we can’t put it back up and say gosh, let’s create what St. Hubert’s used to be
like. That’d be really cool. We can’t do that then. Can we take these 4 months, whatever it is
and just take a step back and see if we can’t get some creative things going. Some creative ideas
going. I appreciate your time.
Councilman Litsey: Thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there anybody else that would like to address the council this
evening?
Al Klingelhutz: Mayor and council people. Al Klingelhutz. I’m really concerned that some of
our historical buildings in Chanhassen, we lost quite a few of them already and I think it’s time
that we really get in gear to facilitate to save some of the buildings that are left. One of them is
the old St. Hubert’s Church. There’s a couple brick houses. The bed and breakfast. All of these,
most of those are all in the old Chanhassen township. Really. I know when Eden Prairie bought
the Mike Jake’s farm, originally the Riley Lake Farm. It’s where Riley’s Lake got their name
from the farmer that first sowed that land. You go down there and take a look at it and they’re
doing a heck of a good job of maintaining it. The old barn was like an old mare that kind of
broke down in the middle and the roof is kind of U shaped. They straighten it all out. The
machine shed was starting to fall apart and they fixed that up and they’ve got a real nice old
farmstead with a brick house on it. I don’t know how many thousands dollars Eden Prairie
spent. I know how much they paid for the land because I was involved in the sale of the land. It
run into a lot of thousands of dollars. Of course the improvement of the property and the
maintenance of the property is still all being done by the City of Eden Prairie. We’re looking at
something here that I think if we went around with a petition to save some of these old buildings,
I’d be willing to bet we’d get at least 2,000 signatures. A lot of people, when you talk about
history and my history is probably just about gone because I’m getting to be a pretty old buck
here but I still would like my children and my grandchildren and their children to see something
that happened in my time in Chanhassen, and if we’re going to let everything to go to heck on
these old historical buildings, they won’t have that opportunity. So I think it’s really important
for the community. Oh, there goes my cane. To get together with the Historical Society. I
talked to Tracy Swanson who is the strong supporter of the Historical Society in Chanhassen and
they saved what the town used to use as a horse barn to put their horses in when they came to
town so they wouldn’t freeze out in the cold, and they spent thousands of dollars remodeling that
building and now it’s the Chaska Historical Society building. I don’t think we have to go quite
that far. We have a chance to get a fairly good building here very reasonable. I think Father
Mike mentioned to me that he’d sell it for a dollar. Are we going to let all this slide away from
us? And forget about history. I think that’s really important and I have the same feeling that
I’ve had when I helped acquire Lake Ann Park for the City of Chanhassen. Bandimere Park and
I thought we just needed a lot of space for our people to enjoy and I never regretted what I did in
that park. I always thought it was one of the highest accomplishments that I did for the City of
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Chanhassen. And I think this is council should really look at what’s happening. If we’re going
to let these, all these old buildings fall apart and our next generation and the generations after
that will, I wonder what Chanhassen was 100 years ago? And if we don’t take action we won’t,
they’ll never see what Chanhassen was 100 years ago. The township has got quite a few
historical buildings. We’ve got a lot of old Chaska brick houses here and I think we should get
strong enough that when somebody comes up and says they want to destroy one of these houses,
that we could say something to them that that’s a historical site and we’d like to preserve them in
Chanhassen. And that’s the same thing I think about the old St. Hubert’s church. It’s kind of
between the City and the church now. They’ve got a beautiful new church there now. The
church really doesn’t need that old building anymore and I was really happy when what happens
for the first almost 15 years after the City leased it, the church for 20 years, that we started 3 new
parishes in Chanhassen. The Missouri Synod Lutheran Church and the next Lutheran Church
and I think the third one, the pastor there was a lady, very fine lady and I think it was a
Congregational Church. See my memory’s getting kind of old. It takes me a while to remember
all these things but I sure.
Todd Gerhardt: You’re doing good.
Al Klingelhutz: Feel that the Historical Society and the City of Chanhassen has to work together
to keep some of these, actually I’ll call them treasures that just could leave us and wouldn’t be
anymore. For our grandchildren, great-grandchildren to say well what did Chanhassen look like
50 years ago? 100 years ago or 125 years ago. It’s really something that I think is really
important for a community to remember their history and that’s one of the ways of remembering
your history. Thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you.
Mary Borns: I’m Mary Borns, 7199 Frontier Trail and I’m here to support and encourage the
City to extend the lease for the old St. Hubert’s and get the building back into the hands of the
City hopefully to work out a lease agreement for the future. I’m not from Chanhassen originally.
As a 23 resident of Chanhassen I used to think that this town had very little history. Unlike
Excelsior and Chaska we don’t have the quaint, old town feel. And after entering 500 pictures
on the Chanhassen Historical Society web site, I now know we have a great history full of hard
working, entrepreneurs, families, farmers, lake lovers and hunters. We are rich in culture and
diversity. What we lack is old buildings. We all know the old town names. Kerber, Pauly,
Coulter’s, Meuwissen’s, Klingelhutz, Dimler’s, Wraser’s and Vogel’s and when I entered those
500 photos I found out that there were 50 more family names in this town in the early 1900’s.
Prior to that I just thought those 12 families continued to marry amongst themselves.
Todd Gerhardt: Some did.
Mary Borns: And working on photos I found out that they were very hard working, involved in
church activities, endured blizzards and hosted parades. They were having fun and picnicking at
local beaches. Some were taking the Milwaukee railroad out and enjoying the speak easy on
Lotus Lake. Many of the town’s, many of these names in town are still recognizable today, of
the 50 names that were here in the early 1900’s. You all probably know me more from my
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environmental interests and when I, when we hosted the watershed meetings at the Legion and
following that I entered all the names of the people who came, I see similar names as charter
members of the historical society as the, as the people that attend the watershed meetings and
that tells me that people that want to preserve, want to protect our future are the same people that
want to preserve our past, and as one of the previous speakers had told us that we are constantly
including history as part of our student’s curriculum because we want them to value our past and
protect our future. The history of Chanhassen is interesting and very important to our future.
Some people have said isn’t it odd that they would use the church as the building and my
response has been, not if the people who are giving of all their time and sharing their past are the
same, are the descendents of the people who built the church. In the early years most of the
town, many of the town’s activities revolved totally around the church and the historical society
needs a place to display their artifacts. Thank you.
Councilman Litsey: Thanks.
Wendy Bjorn: Hi. I’m Wendy Bjorn. I’m the Executive Director of the Carver County
Historical Society. I’ve been up here once before. Recognizing a few. I look at things a little
bit differently than, I’m not from around here. Grew up in southwestern Minnesota and I look at
things in a sense of, what, I listen to you. I listen to the work session and I listen to them and I
always believe there’s always someplace in the middle that people can meet, and I always, one of
the notes I put down in my paper is why do I love my job? I love my job because what I do
today makes a difference for the people in the county and for the future of the people in the
county, and that’s what all of you do. So when I listen to the people back here and I listen to you
in the work session, I’m hearing a couple of things. So here’s my notes. It says it’s my job to
look at arguments and create creative ways to solve them. The arguments that I heard against
taking it was the cost to the taxpayers. Well, I also listened to somebody over here saying the
cost of the actual taxpayers I believe was $225 a month. Right? And part of utilities. The cost
for 4 months then is about $900, plus utilities in the summer which is basically zero. So the cost
is $900 to keep this place going to choose number 1. That’s minimal. That’s very minimal and I
would bet this organization would be willing to pay that $900 to have the opportunity to present
to you a decent business plan that could possibly keep this thing going, not only for us but for
our kids and for something into the future. That is minuscule. That is basically, if they paid it
would cost you nothing and it gives them a business plan that they can take into the future for
this, for this building. Think about that. That takes away that argument. The other thing is we
have citizens in an emergency. What I have that about is, the benefit is much greater than the
small cost to the taxpayers. There are a number of citizens who have come forward, as alluded
back here, in an emergency. I heard it, the citizens will step forward if this is an emergency. I
heard that, but they have in a small sense with the organization but a little bit later than we would
have liked to have had. But they are doing it. Here again if you take that 4 months and if they
can do what they’re saying they’re going to do, you’ll have your answer. There isn’t an
argument. Another argument is that the City, if the City takes it on there are grants available to
the historical society. That’s true. If the City does not take it on, those grants are not available.
But the grant that they need is a re-use study. That is imperative. What it does is that allows
them to look at a business plan that will be long going. Ongoing which will generate income that
will support that building. That’s an argument that I’ve heard. How are we going to support it in
the long term? I’ve heard it from you. I’ve heard it from them. How are we going to support
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the building in the long term? A re-use study would help us with that. The next grant cycle is
guess when? This fall. The points that I’ve made are really basic business points. Coming from
a historian that’s probably an odd thing, isn’t it? But sometimes we have to look at history in the
sense of business because the thing is we want this to be an ongoing, long term, self sustaining
project. That’s everybody’s goal because we all get older and we all want this, like I mentioned
earlier, something that will go on into the future for our children and our children’s children.
And in order to do that we need a self sustaining project. So what I am asking of this council to
do is take a look at number 1, the cost is minimal. Maybe they’ll help pay for that. It costs you
nothing. Plus it will allow them the time to present and put together a business plan that might
be self sustaining. If it doesn’t work, at least they know they have tried. We know that we have
tried and we know that you have done the very best you can as council members for our future,
for the one last building in downtown Chanhassen. That is on the National Register I might add,
which is very difficult for a church to be on there because typically they cannot be. A church
can’t be on there unless it shows other substantial evidence to the forming of a community,
which it has. Thank you.
Jack Atkins: I’m the last speaker from this group over here so. My name is Jack Atkins and I
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live at 220 West 78 Street and I think they spoke very eloquently of most of the things I wanted
to say. I guess the biggest thing to me is, if you tried to get a majority of Chanhassen people to
vote whether to keep that building or not you may not, but I think that there’s several thousand
people that care very deeply. They’re a minority but I think they should be heard. I heard a 2
inch garage door is $16,000 less for, if we did the garage door. That would support your
commitment to this building for 4 years. I’d like to submit our membership list. These are the
people along with the Chanhassen Historical Society. We’ve got a couple hundred there. I urge
you to go with Option 1. Thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Is there anybody else this evening like to comment on this? Okay.
Couple of questions and clarification. I guess the, Mr. Gerhardt when we talked earlier Option 1
which is being, or was supported by the people who spoke tonight, while that’s for 4 months the
intent of that period of time is to move towards the City ownership of the building. That’s key
within Option 1 is moving forward with City ownership of the building.
Todd Gerhardt: That’s correct.
Mayor Furlong: So it’s not just business plan and other things but it’s the move towards City
ownership. In the past we have leased it from St. Hubert’s. This would be the City acquiring it.
Todd Gerhardt: That’s correct.
Mayor Furlong: Is part of Option 1. Okay. Alright. Mr. Litsey.
Councilman Litsey: Well I was just going to say I agree with what’s been said here, which
comes as no surprise but, what’s been said by the people in the audience I should say. But I
think what we’re looking at tonight is maybe a modification of what was in our memorandum at
the work session. I think what we’re looking at is a continuation, and correct me if I’m wrong
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but a continuation of the current lease agreement through August 1 to try to come up with a
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business plan and that would be the only commitment right now by the City. Utility costs are
minimal. The insurance costs are fixed but that’s pro-rated for the next few months so $2,000
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for a year, we’d pro-rate that down to carrying it out through August 1 which would be a lesser
amount. I think that’s, I think the City owes it to the people that are working hard to make this
thing work through the formation of the historical society to grant them this pretty much a grace
period to see if we can’t come up with a business plan. I’m committed to it. I’ll continue to
meet with the group. I know staff’s been committed to trying to come up with a viable option
that’s basically between three parties, the City, St. Hubert’s and the Historical Society. They’ve
done some good fund raising. Yeah, everybody wishes that it would have been formed sooner
but you know the bottom line is they did it and they’re here. It’s a reality and they’re doing good
stuff for this community and cities do partnership with private and non-profit organizations to
better the community and this is certainly bettering the community so I would submit that as a
motion after we’ve had more discussion.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Is there a representative from St. Hubert’s Church here this
evening? I know she was at our earlier work session.
Jack Atkins: She is not.
Mayor Furlong: She is not. Okay. Alright. Because some of the points raised tonight such as
tearing down the church and such like that have not been discussed and are not in my mind a
desire by St. Hubert’s, if the lease is not committed. I don’t think there’s any desire on St.
Hubert’s part to look at tearing down old St. Hubert’s church.
Jack Atkins: Yeah, I believe that…
Mayor Furlong: Could you come up to the microphone Jack? We want to make sure we’re not
missing.
Jack Atkins: It’s my belief that it’s not their intent if you cancel the lease to tear the building
down. They’re going to shutter it and there’ll be no public access to it so any plans to try and do
anything from that point forward would be very difficult because their insurance doesn’t cover
the building so we’re under the City’s insurance.
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Councilman Litsey: I agree from that meeting we had on the 17, Councilwoman Ernst and I
were at, that it sounded like they would just, they would close it up and I think the unfortunate
thing about that is there’s some events scheduled, some public awareness and some fund raising
that would, or the historical society would have to forego to do that so. That’s why it’s
imperative I think to give this additional time to try to work out a solution, and if we can’t, like
was eloquently said tonight, you know everybody gave it their best shot.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Other thoughts or comments? Councilwoman Ernst.
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Councilwoman Ernst: Well I attended the meeting on the 17 as well as Bryan alluded to and I,
you know we heard some of their concerns. I have definitely very much struggled with this
because I love that church. I love looking at the outside of the church, and I can totally
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understand the compassion and the love that you have for the church and the history that goes
with that. And I agree with Mayor Furlong. This was the first time that I’ve ever heard the
tearing down of the church so I hope that that doesn’t happen. We talk about the obligation of
the City and the City has funded the church for the last 20 years and we renewed that lease I
believe every 5 years for the last 20 years. In Option 1 we talked about a part of the whole I
guess comprehensive plan in Option 1 was for the City to take ownership at the end of August
and then if St. Hubert’s would be responsible, it was my understanding with Option 1, that St.
Hubert’s would be responsible for all the capital expenses thereof. But it doesn’t sound like that
is the case. St. Hubert’s doesn’t feel that they could obligate themselves to that capital funds that
they would need to keep the church running. Or to maintain the church. So with that, you know
one of the things that we asked at that meeting was to come back to the meeting with some plans
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and a vision and I didn’t hear that tonight again, and I feel that since December 31 there has
been some time in there for, between St. Hubert’s and the historical society to come up with a
plan as to how to raise some money for the church, and I was with the understanding that there
was going to be some fundraising and that sort of thing. And I don’t know what happened
between December and March with the understanding that you know as long as, the City was
involved that potentially they could get a grant and I don’t know if the City has to own the
church to get a grant or if they can lease the church to get a grant.
Todd Gerhardt: It has to be in ownership of non-profit or City. Government entity.
Councilwoman Ernst: So we would have to own it or someone?
Todd Gerhardt: We would have to own it. St. Hubert’s would not qualify as an owner to receive
some of the grants that are out there.
Mayor Furlong: Would a non-profit quality?
Todd Gerhardt: I’m not a history expert but I don’t know if a 501(3)(C) would qualify or not.
Wendy Bjorn: Most grants are not eligible if they are owned by a church. Probably 99.9% of
them. The capital grants and aid, which is the one for the re-use study has to be owned by the
City. It cannot be owned by a non-profit. It’s specifically designed for a property that is owned
by a City or a public entity and managed by a historical society. It’s very unique that way.
Councilwoman Ernst: Thank you. And I think Jack you alluded earlier tonight in the work
session that someone had assumed that the Archdiocese wouldn’t want to have.
Jack Atkins: I’m sorry.
Councilwoman Ernst: Yeah, I think it was the Archdiocese that you alluded to tonight in the
work session.
Todd Gerhardt: I did.
Jack Atkins: Who alluded to what? I’m sorry.
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Audience: The Archdiocese.
Jack Atkins: The Archdiocese? The what?
Councilwoman Ernst: I just thought that he said that they didn’t want to have a part in it. That
they would not take ownership of that. Of the church.
Jack Atkins: The Archdiocese is the owner right now and they will continue to be the owner if.
Councilwoman Ernst: Okay. I think I misunderstood what you were saying tonight then so
disregard that comment.
Jack Atkins: Okay.
Councilwoman Ernst: But I guess my point that I’m trying to make is there’s been some time in
here from you know between December and March. That there was a time to put some plans
into place and I haven’t heard those plans and I don’t feel that the capital expenses that the City
would inherit by taking ownership or leasing the church really does any service to our taxpayers
in the City. And we’re not talking $225 a month in that case. We’re talking 50, we’re talking, I
mean if we had to replace a boiler. Mary was here earlier tonight. That’s capital expenditures
that the City would be responsible for and so, and I struggle with that and because of that I
would, I cannot support Option 1.
Councilman Litsey: Maybe we need to separate out, and I don’t know but there’s two other
things we’re talking about here. One is a more comprehensive option 1. The other is a very
simple, straight forward approach to extending the City’s lease on the building through August
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1 to give people time to put together a business plan that doesn’t obligate the City beyond that
but just buys some more time to do that. I mean this organization, historic society has done a
stellar job in getting membership and raising money but that all takes time and good for you for
going out and making a difference and, but they need a little more time. We all need a little
more time to get our arms around this and come up with a business plan and then we’ll deal with
that once we have that before us. So really what we’re talking about is a very minimal amount of
money. I think taxpayers, I would guess would think this was a very wise and prudent thing for
the City to do. Just to take a look at this.
Mayor Furlong: And to clarify what was before us this evening from earlier this evening in our
work session and again this evening was our staff report that provided two options.
Councilman Litsey: Yes.
Mayor Furlong: And Mr. Gerhardt said basically said we’re down to two. The first one, Option
1 which some of the residents spoke in favor of included what Councilwoman Ernst was talking
about which is the City ownership and moving towards an agreement for the City to take
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ownership by August 1. Or not. And Option 2 was to terminate the lease.
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Councilman Litsey: But I think in the work session this thing’s evolved. We realized that that
might be too ambitious right now and that you know I’ll throw it out to the audience I guess or
the people that spoke. Is that a reasonable compromise right now is to, is the City to extend the
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current arrangement through August 1 to look at a business plan and the City can take a better
look at it. And I’ll commit time to that.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Other thoughts or comments.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I guess I’m next in line. You know I have to probably make a
confession to everybody that I think this is probably one of the most uncomfortable evenings for
me with this issue because I look out in the room and we all know each other and we’re all
friends and I think we all have the same goal in mind and that is to preserve the church and to, as
Mr. Klingelhutz said, be able to look back and show our children what Chanhassen was and what
it’s become. And if you look on the membership roster, I’m there. It’s late so I’m not going to
bore everybody with a long story but I grew up in northwestern Minnesota and there’s a small
church still in a country wheat field called East of Maus that my great-grandfather helped build
and there’s a cemetery society and that’s where my family is and that society maintains the
church and it’s an important structure to that community. Just like this church is and so I
understand the emotions and I understand the desire to do something with this building, and I
think the City in good faith has had a relationship with St. Hubert’s regarding this building for 20
years. And I think it’s been a good relationship. You know we’ve maintained the property and
sometimes had some tenants. Sometimes not had some tenants. It’s a back and forth, but
unfortunately you know 20 years have flown by and now we’re at this crossroads where we have
to make a decision as a council, as a body as to what the next step is or what the direction should
be for the City and I have to say that I’m more inclined to probably, you know we come to an
end of this relationship. You know the historical society is here. St. Hubert’s here. We’re all
here. It doesn’t mean we can’t participate in helping the historical society individually or in the
group but I think when it comes to the City’s responsibility to the building, like I said, 20 years
was a long run and a good relationship but I think it’s time that we end it.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Mr. McDonald, thoughts.
Councilman McDonald: Well yeah, I guess I would agree with Councilwoman Tjornhom. It’s
been one of probably the most uncomfortable evenings we’ve had and everything. I you know
expressed my views earlier about all of this. I made those views based upon the fact that we’re
not talking about tearing it down. I’m not in favor of that. As a matter of fact I remember when
the City got into it, that was a lot of discussion was you know the building was going to be torn
down. I know the City stepped in to keep that from happening. My concern is that it has been
20 years and it takes until the end of all of this to suddenly decide we have to do something, and
this is not aimed at the historical society because I understand you’re kind of new to the scene
but this has been a problem with the day of reckoning that the two parties involved have known
about since well 20 years ago. My concern going forward is that, I’m not sure why the City
needs to be involved in owning the building. No one’s answered that question. What are we
going to do with it? I talked to a number of people about what can you do. I mean we have
weddings and those things. People tell me in the summer time it gets too hot in there. There’s
no air conditioning. It really would not be the best use for turning it into a place for weddings
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and such. There’s other uses. You know definitely we can put on the community plays we do.
That’s a good use for it. But why is the City involved in doing that? The City’s business is not
to be a business to make money. That’s not what we do things for. You talk about the public
works facility and we’re saving money on doors. Yes, we’re trying to scrutinize that because
that goes to a public good of basically protecting city assets. The roads. The streets. The
equipment and I’m sure that you as taxpayers do not want those things to deteriorate because we
don’t take good care of them. So we’re trying to be careful stewards of what you the public give
to us to do our job. To protect and serve the community. I don’t see the link to the church. I’m
sorry, I just don’t see the link. I think that by forcing this, what this will create is that a decision
needs to be made and it needs to be made between I think St. Hubert’s and the historical society.
I think St. Hubert’s needs to decide what do they want to do with that. The Archdiocese needs to
get involved. For 20 years they’ve known about this problem. There are certain issues that will
be involved with the church. The cemetery, the graveyard. A lot of the property around that.
How much do you carve out and say becomes public property or so. I do not think this is the end
of this. I think what this gives you is a better opportunity to go back to St. Hubert’s and to say
we’ve got to do something about this. Now this is what we can do. What can you do if we have
to re-approach the City at some point, I think you should feel free to do that but I just do not feel
that we need to continue to keep this on the inventory of city property without a good purpose.
And until I think someone comes forward with that good purpose, I think we’re just delaying the
inevitable. If we continue to own this I think nothing will happen to that building and it will
eventually just fall down because of inaction. If we back out of it now I think it will cause
something to happen. Whether that’s to save the building or everybody just decides, as you said,
it’s not worth going forward with. That becomes a collective decision at that point and we’ll all
feel you know sad about it but we will feel that we tried to do our best. I think the best thing the
City can do in this is to get out of the discussion. So I’m not in favor of extending this until
August and the reasons why are as I’ve stated. If anything is going to happen, I think the City
needs to be out of it and that will force some decisions as to how the property’s going to be held
and owned and I think at that point you’ll get a decision one way or the other so I now, I’m in
favor of voting Option #2.
Councilman Litsey: I just think when you take a look at this, the totality of the situation you’ve
got a new organization that’s been formed and is really trying to make a difference in this
community. Preserve our heritage and turning our backs on them at this point in time I think is
embarrassing. As a council. I think it’s not doing our due diligence. They’re coming to us to
help support them for another few months and they understand that if they can’t come up with a
business plan that’s going to work, you know what? We gave it our best shot and we’re going to
have to try something else. We partner all the time with other people. We’re looking at giving
tax increment financing to a private enterprise to help them promote business in the community.
We’re giving them tax breaks to do that. How can you say that we’re not helping others, and it
isn’t a money making proposition. We’re trying to promote the heritage of the community and
so forth. It’s minimal. It’s just a minimal cost to see what we can do in the next what, 4 months
or whatever to try and make something work.
Councilman McDonald: Well if I can address that because Councilman Litsey brings up some
really good points and it’s with a heavy heart I say what I do but 3 months ago we sat down with
St. Hubert’s. Everyone knew what was on the table. I have not seen anything come forward to
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address the core issues of ownership of this building. I haven’t seen anything where anyone else
is willing to give as to this is what we’ll do for you. I’m not willing to give them another 9
months to sit around and still say, well we’ve got to talk to this party or to that party and we
haven’t advanced the ball down the field.
Councilman Litsey: But there has been movement. Actually we had a meeting with St.
Hubert’s. I thought that the people that represented St. Hubert’s were very amenable to coming
up with some solution and putting some money on the table to help make this work and
contribute to it in a number of ways. You know give them a break. They’re just starting out as
an organization. We sit up here sometimes and spin our wheels for months and we can’t come to
a consensus or we can’t move forward either. They’re a new organization. They’re just trying to
get their membership in place and they’ve been raising money and how can we expect them to be
able to raise money for this church and to save this church if it’s not even open? If the doors are
going to be shut on it and they’re trying to showcase it to the community to show what a value it
is. You know and this is an opportunity for the City to get it right. You know my opinion a few
years ago, not to go over things that have already happened but you know where the Goddard
School is now. Nothing against the school but there was a great sight line down that street. You
can see that beautiful church and that opportunity’s gone now because the City sold off that
property. Let’s get it right this time. Let’s give these folks a chance and if they can’t get it right,
then in August okay. It’s, they’re on their own and they’ve got to make it work.
Mayor Furlong: Well I think the issue that I’m hearing here tonight for the first time, and
because my thoughts towards Option 1. I’ve got a lot of concerns towards Option1 in large part
because of the ownership issue. And what I don’t want to do, if we don’t have a sense of the
council that City ownership is a viable course, then to continue to extend the lease to August 1
with people thinking we’re going down this road when the majority of the council does not think
we’re going down this road. You know I think that’s a dis-service. If there’s a, what I’m
hearing here from the council members is that generally they, and I haven’t heard you one way
or the other here tonight but that’s fine is whether or not the City should be the owner or not, and
that’s I think where I have the biggest concern. When you look back over the history, and we
heard some wonderful, wonderful comments this evening about history and such. You know a
lot of that was just people doing the right thing. Getting together as a community and doing it on
their own. It wasn’t the City they were doing it for, and I think that’s one thing that we see just
as a broader societal and broader government role is, what is the role of government for things
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such as this. So my concern is if we go forward with an extension of the lease to August 1 but,
I mean what Option 1 here was basically to authorize staff to move towards an agreement where
the City would take ownership of the building.
Councilman Litsey: But the City would take ownership of the building, and I’m not opposed to
that as long as there’s protections in place such as who’s going to bear the long term capital cost?
What we originally talked about is perhaps St. Hubert’s would bear that cost or perhaps the
historical society. So the exposure to the City could be minimal, but they could take advantage
of grants and so forth so we’ve got to look at the bigger picture here. We don’t, is in and of itself
city ownership isn’t necessarily bad if we have some safeguards in place to minimize our
financial liability to the building. We don’t know that yet. We have to explore that further. This
gives us the opportunity to do that. What is St. Hubert’s willing to put up? Are they willing to
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assume the capital costs? Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t. They’ve said tonight in our work
session.
Mayor Furlong: They said that they’re limited.
Councilman Litsey: They’re limited but that’s not the end of the discussion. We’ve started that
discussion. There may be some other funding sources that are out there, and if the historical
society can do some good fund raising, great. You know I mean we bend over backwards for
you know, to keep the Dinner Theater in town, which I don’t think is a bad thing. I think that’s
good. We should try to keep them here but let’s try to keep our history here too.
Mayor Furlong: No, and the issue that I’m hearing is whether or not that should include public
ownership. I think that is the issue. Because with ownership comes liability at some point.
Councilman Litsey: Depends on how you write the contract. That’s what we have a city
attorney for.
Mayor Furlong: Well and contracts are, contracts have their purpose but in the end it’s the issue
of what are we setting up? You know 20 years ago a council sat here and agreed to lease the
building for a dollar a year plus take on the liability of utilities and capital maintenance for the
purpose of preventing it from being torn down. I’m not going to go back and question whether
that was a wise decision or not. We’re here today trying to do the best we can and this issue of
tearing it down is not an issue anymore. But really the question is what are we going to do with
an old building, which in my mind it’s asset is the emotional attachment associated with the
history. Because it is a physical building and even within the agreement here, if anything
happens to the building that St. Hubert’s want the land back, and can appreciate that. You know
what’s the best way to do that? Is there a role and then is there, what is that role for the City and
what I’ve heard tonight is that role keeps changing. It’s different now than what was presented
before and what was discussed at your meeting just last week, and now when we hear tonight
that, Business Administrator from St. Hubert’s says that what she thought they might be able to
do, and I wasn’t at that meeting. You guys were at the meeting but.
Councilman Litsey: It’s different from then, yeah.
Mayor Furlong: But my sense is, is that there was a change in what they thought they could do
in terms of financial relationship with the City and that it was limited on capital expenditures to
some amount to be determined. The problem I have with that is a building of that age,
something can go wrong and the cost can be significant. Very significant and I don’t think we
have our, we don’t, I don’t think we have our hands around that. You know I think that there’s a,
my sense is that the proper ownership of this building should be with a private organization.
Councilman Litsey: Perhaps it will someday but we facilitate and we help others and we act as
partners to get things going and then we hand it off. That’s what tax increment financing is.
You give people 10 years to, in this case to get a business going and then they, it hands it off.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I think it’s late so excuse me for being so candid.
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Councilman Litsey: Let’s just take a vote on it because I’d like an up or down on it. At least for
fairness to these people that stayed.
Mayor Furlong: Well I’d like to hear from the Councilwoman.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I would love to vote on it. I have no problem with that at all. I think
maybe for, and I can’t, I’m speaking for myself right now but there’s an elephant sitting right
there and it’s the fact that should city government be owning a church. You know, I mean is it
our role to be maintaining and keeping up a religious institution or something that is you know, I
mean there is a separation with church and state and so that is an issue.
Councilman Litsey: Didn’t we just help partner on financing some construction at St. Hubert’s?
Didn’t the City help facilitate that construction of bonding? A while back. Perhaps we
shouldn’t have done that then.
Todd Gerhardt: That’s correct.
Mayor Furlong: Councilwoman Tjornhom.
Councilman Litsey: That was how many million dollars? So let’s be consistent in our, and I
think, this is not even a church anymore.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: …I don’t remember that.
Councilman Litsey: Yes. They needed to help finance their construction.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Okay, I wasn’t a part of that.
Councilman Litsey: This whole council was a part of that. I was on the council at the time so
were you. The thing is is that this isn’t a church anymore even. It’s not even commissioned as a
church. It’s a historic building.
Councilman McDonald: Well it still comes down to.
Councilman Litsey: I suppose they lost and they could say…don’t save any of those buildings
either.
Mayor Furlong: Alright. Mr. McDonald.
Councilman McDonald: Well it still comes down to ownership.
Councilman Litsey: It’s embarrassing.
Councilman McDonald: And it still comes down to the point that everyone knew 3 months ago
that ownership was the key issue and I haven’t seen any movement on that on the part of the
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Diocese or even St. Hubert’s as to how it gets turned over to us. It’s the same thing over and
over again. I think that by voting this down. No I, truthfully. Voting this down will force the
issue and I think that will help save the church. Not us continuing to say we’ll give you another
9 months. We’ll give you another you know 2 years. 20 years is enough. We did our part. We
fixed the roof. We have maintained the building. We kept it from falling down. It is in better
shape today than it was when we took it over. It is time for someone to step forward besides the
City and say this is how we’re going to save it.
Councilman Litsey: Walk away from it, that’s fine.
Councilman McDonald: Sometimes you have to walk away from something to save it and I
think this is one of those cases. We’re not doing the church any favor by the way that we keep
debating this over the years. It’s not, nothing has happened. So that’s the basis of my vote is
that if we want something to happen, we need to turn it back to the society and we need to turn it
back to the church and they need to come up with a conclusion. We’re not adding anything to
that discussion at this point.
Mary Klingelhutz: Could I just say something?
Mayor Furlong: Please. Please come to the podium.
Mary Klingelhutz: Okay. I’m Mary Klingelhutz and our historical society already has two
things planned for the first part of April and one in May and all we’re asking is if we could use
that building. You know we won’t be able to use it if you turn this down and we’ve advertised it
already and everything you know in the papers and we’ve sent out our newsletters and
everybody knows about these things that are scheduled and if we could just have the 4 months
time to plan a better business arrangement and get some time to try for grants and things like
that, that’s all we’re asking is 4 months time and then after that if you know, if you don’t think
that we’re making any progress we can just drop it.
Mayor Furlong: Can I offer a suggestion here. We’ve been offered, thank you Mrs. Klingelhutz
because I’m hoping, you just raise an issue asking 4 months time. Option 2 is to terminate the
lease effectively March 31, which is next Tuesday. A week from tomorrow. Perhaps a
compromise here is that we make a motion to terminate the lease by continuing our existing
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relationship of 50/50 on July 31. That’s the 4 month time. That sets a deadline. Mr. McDonald
to your point. There’s no agreement, or move to move forward. That gives time. 4 months for
people to…
Councilman Litsey: Well how is that any different from what I proposed? You’re proposing
the same thing I did except one day difference.
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Mayor Furlong: Well August 1, July 31. I understood Mr. Litsey that you were looking at
Option 1.
Councilman Litsey: No, no. I’ve made it very clear. Go back and listen. I said what’s on the
table. Well then go back and listen because what I said tonight was, let’s look at this
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compromise and let’s look at extending the lease to August 1 to come up with a business plan
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and that’s all our exposure is, is to continue it to August 1.
Mayor Furlong: Well then I misunderstood you because I was under the impression that you
were supporting the Option 1. As long as so that’s clear that by extending the lease, I don’t
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care if it’s August 1 or July 31, but that there isn’t the expectation or the direction that’s in
Option 2 where the staff’s going to move forward negotiating an agreement for ownership.
That’s what I thought we had…
Councilman Litsey: Well I thought we still, the City would still play a part in trying to come up
with a business plan.
Mayor Furlong: Well we can certainly play a part with people to come up with a business plan
but there isn’t, there isn’t, I don’t want the expectation on the table that we’re moving forward
with an agreement for ownership. That’s what I’m hearing the majority of the council say. But
I’m also hearing is that 4 more months can provide some opportunity to use the building to raise
funds and to, and to be able, so I’m looking for a compromise but I want to make sure it’s clear
that we’re not promoting Option 1. We’re modifying Option 2. If that’s what you’re doing, if
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you’re modifying Option 2 to August 31, or August 1, I’d support that.
Councilman Litsey: Well I’d still like the City to help facilitate a business plan but they don’t
have to, they don’t you know, and that’s fine. I think you’re okay with that.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, and I don’t think the onus is on the City to do it. I think we’ve got a
historical society that has a lot of passion and a lot of interest in putting something together and
by doing this, there’s some use of the building during this 4 month period but there isn’t the
expectation that we’re moving forward with August 1. And I throw that out to the Council and if
Mr. Litsey’s proposal is Option 2 but changing the date to August 1, 2009. If you want to make
that motion, I’ll second it and see if we can move this forward but there isn’t the expectation of
moving towards ownership, because that’s what I’m hearing is the challenge for the majority of
the council. And if the business plan comes back we can consider it but the City’s you know,
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our commitment ends on August 1. Mr. McDonald, I mean does that address your concern
about putting a stop date on it?
Councilman McDonald: That would do it. I’m fine with doing that because yeah, I want
ownership terminated. I want it very clear that if something doesn’t happen by a certain date,
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which whether that’s today or August 1 or whatever, that’s it. City’s out of it and I’m perfectly
fine with advancing it because of the activities that are planned. That may help.
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Mayor Furlong: And by Option 2, amending, or adjusting Option 2 to read August 1 and the
expectation is that we would continue the arrangement that we have with St. Hubert’s during the
first 3 months of this year. So that would be a 50/50 split on the cost. It gives time for people to
put something together. There’s under no obligation. We take affirmative action by the council
to do anything beyond signing the lease. That gives you time. That gives the group time and it, I
think it’s, if the rest of the council agrees with that, perhaps that’s a compromise that can get us
home this evening and still give clear direction to those that are interested in preserving our
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history, which to Councilwoman Tjornhom’s comment, we are all interested in preserving
history. It’s just a question of how we get that done.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I would like to make a suggestion with that.
Mayor Furlong: Certainly.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I don’t think anything, any issue is ever justly served when it’s the,
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you know the 9 hour or the 11 hour like it is now again with this lease and it’s 10 after 11:00.
So I think if council’s going to go ahead with Option 2.
Mayor Furlong: As amended.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Yeah, as amended. That the next time we have one of these
discussions it’s not, I don’t have a calendar in front of me but it’s not a day before or 5 days
before the lease is to expire again you know because these conversations are too important to be
rushed and to be, no one makes a good decision when your back’s against the wall so that’s one
frustration I’m having with the issue is, I don’t feel we’ve had enough time. Work session, it
was a fast discussion.
Mayor Furlong: Yes it was.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: And now tonight it’s a late discussion and I think things get done a
lot better if everyone can sit around a table together and talk about it and work it out and so.
Mayor Furlong: Well and perhaps what I would propose then is that whatever discussions take
place, clearly if the historical society, I think the onus is on them to put together a business plan.
It’s not the City’s responsibility.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Right and I don’t.
Mayor Furlong: Can we participate in those meetings? Certainly but I think there’s also a, I
hope there’s some understanding of direction, desire from the council in terms of direction. And
if there’s going to be other meetings with the council, I’d like to do it in a full council setting
rather than just a few of us so that we can make sure that all, all ideas are shared and that we do it
in a timely fashion so we’re not up against the deadline. The advantage, if there’s an advantage
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of Option 2 is, we’re going to send notice of terminating the least on August 1. That at that
point our obligation is legally done and if the council wants to do anything else after that, it
would come to a council meeting and be fully discussed. I agree with you about the late hour but
that’s in part what I’m suggesting we can accomplish by doing this. Is Option 1 is simply we are
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sending notice that we will terminate but on August 1 rather than next Tuesday. And I think
that speaks to your point about doing it at the last minute.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Yeah, I just think no one is served by this necessarily.
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Mayor Furlong: Agreed but hopefully these next 4 months will provide some service to
everybody.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Yeah, and I look forward to attending the events and even helping.
Mayor Furlong: Absolutely.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I’m not against the church or your cause. It’s strictly coming from a
decision of whether or not we want to own a church.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Mr. Litsey, would you like to make a motion?
Councilman Litsey: Well my motion was simply that we extend the lease. The current lease
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arrangements through August 1.
Mayor Furlong: So that’s different than what I’m suggesting. Okay, would somebody else like.
Councilman Litsey: I’ll support the other one but I’m not going to make that motion.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. I guess I would make the motion that we move forward with Option 2,
but that the date change to August 1, 2009.
Councilman McDonald: I’ll second that motion.
Mayor Furlong: Seconded. Is there any discussion on that motion?
Councilwoman Ernst: Yeah, I have some things I’d like to say. I feel that the advertisement that
went out to the people that gave them you know where they’re going to hold these events, I feel
that that was something that was done prior to really us giving them the go ahead to do that. To
say basically you know here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to do this event now so
basically you’re kind of pressured into doing this, and so I’m struggling a little bit with that. But
I’d also like to say that Councilman Litsey, you said that it’s embarrassing tonight where we
were not supporting your, some of your, I guess the direction you wanted to go with this. Quite
frankly I found it embarrassing as to how you treated your other colleagues tonight and I like to
think that we can all respect each other and have a difference of opinion and I didn’t feel that
coming from you tonight.
Councilman Litsey: Well we’ve had our discussion that if you go back and listen to the meeting,
we’re right back to where I suggested at the very beginning when I summarized what Todd said
and there was a lot of stuff said here that I think was pretty hurtful to these people that were good
enough to stay the late hours and to that I apologize to you and the audience.
Jack Atkins: Yeah, I’d like to address your other comment. There was no malice of intent with
that or trying to put pressure on with that. The person who put the newsletter together is a State
Representative and she’s very busy. She was supposed to hold off on issuing that but she just
ran out of time and published it.
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Councilwoman Ernst: And I apologize if that was an accusation that I made. That was not the
intent.
Jack Atkins: Alright. Apology accepted.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. We’ve got a motion before us. I would suggest that we make, vote on
the motion and we can address this and talk about options and business plans and opportunities
and common goals at another time. There’s been a motion made. It’s been seconded. All those
in, is there any other discussion?
Mayor Furlong moved, Councilman McDonald seconded that the City Council approve to
continue with the current 50/50 arrangement with St. Hubert’s Catholic Community while
sending notice to terminate the lease agreement on August 1, 2009. All voted in favor and
the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you everybody. We’ve still got a couple of things. The council has a
couple things so thank you for staying so late everybody. We’ve got a few things we want to
move quickly. If we can work it quietly.
APPOINTMENTS TO COMMISSIONS.
Mayor Furlong: I’d like to move on, next item of business here which is consideration of
appointments to the commissions over the last, this evening and 2 weeks ago at our work
sessions we interviewed a number of residents who were interested in serving on our various
commissions. Council thanks everyone that applied and wishes we had positions for all the
qualified candidates. Unfortunately we don’t but what we want to do is talk about those
appointments that we will make this evening. And what I’ll do is just read down the
appointments that we discussed and then ask for a motion for someone to approve it and
certainly if anybody wants to make discussion, they can do that. For the Planning Commission
there are two-3 year appointments. We would, the council would appoint Kurt Papke and
Debbie Larson to those two positions. For the Park and Recreation Commission there are two-3
year appointments. The council would appoint Jeffrey Daniel and Elise Ryan to those two
positions. For the Environmental Commission the council would appoint William Fouks to a 3
year position. For the Senior Commission the council would appoint Pat McGough, Barbara
Nevin and Virginia Prior to 3 year positions each. Is there a, I would make that motion and ask
for a second.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Second.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there any discussion on that motion?
Mayor Furlong moved, Councilwoman Tjornhom seconded to approve the following
appointments to city commissions:
?
Planning Commission - 3 Year Positions:
Kurt Papke and Debbie Larson
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City Council Meeting - March 23, 2009
?
Park and Recreation Commission -3 Year Positions:
Jeffrey Daniel and Elise Ryan
?
Environmental Commission - 3 Year Position:
William Fouks
?
Senior Commission -3 Year Positions:
Pat McGough, Barbara Nevin and Virginia
Prior
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS:
Councilman Litsey: I’d just like to respond real briefly to Councilmember Ernst. If you think
that by expressing my opinion I don’t have a right to do that, I don’t quite understand why you
would think my comments were out of line.
Councilwoman Ernst: Absolutely, you have your rights to your. Just like we all do.
Councilman Litsey: If I feel it’s an embarrassment then I have a right to say that.
Councilwoman Ernst: And I’d just like to clarify. When other council members are trying to
express their opinion I feel that it’s respectful to let them finish and not raise your voice because
they may not necessarily agree with your opinion. Bryan, you and I have had many differences
but yet we’ve maintained a respect for each other.
Councilman Litsey: And we did tonight.
Councilwoman Ernst: And I just, I felt that it was crossing that line.
Councilman Litsey: No, I don’t agree with you. I think that.
Councilwoman Ernst: And that’s okay.
Councilman Litsey: When you’re passionate about something you should express it. That’s
what I was elected to do and I’ll just leave it at that.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Thank you. Any other council presentations? No?
ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS:
Todd Gerhardt: We’re hosting this week’s 276 Leaders meeting. That’s when the mayors and
managers get together and talk about opportunities of partnering and what’s going on in the
school district and so the City of Chanhassen’s hosting, hopefully this Thursday. Had to change
the date from Wednesday but it looks like it will probably be this Thursday and that’s all I have.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Just a couple of other announcements, if I may. Probably should have
done it in council presentations but it’s late. This week Chamber of Commerce has their
luncheon. I believe it’s at Hazeltine this week. Representative Joe Hoppe will be speaking there
so anyone interested in attending the Southwest Chamber’s Luncheon can do that. Also for
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anyone still awake and watching, or for anyone on Saturday afternoon that isn’t watching
basketball when this meeting gets re-played on cable TV, the Chanhassen Government Service
Center is now open for service.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Oh it is?
Mayor Furlong: It is. It opened up about a week or so ago. It’s a beautiful facility. We want to
set up a time where the council can get a tour of the facility so if we can work, coordinate that
with Mr. Lundgren, the County Auditor or others, let’s do that. It’s a nice facility but it is
th
opened up. It’s just south of West 78 Street on Kerber Boulevard and will be a great service for
us. For our city. Full service government service center. Passports, drivers license, DNR
licenses. There is a drive up window so in the winter time if all you’re doing is renewing your
tabs with a check, you can drive up. Give the check. Get your tabs. Drive away and then put
them on before they expire so. With everybody, I encourage you to use that. Hopefully we’ll
have a time to promote that again so if we can get that up on the web site too. Or not the web
site. On the cable. Is it on there?
Laurie Hokkanen: …when we heard there were no lines last week but I’ll make sure.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright. Okay, if it’s already on there that’s great but…
Councilman McDonald: I used it today and there is absolutely no waiting. Just walk right in and
they have someone there waiting for you and they give you personal service and they walk you
to the right window so go now.
Mayor Furlong: They have catered the operation of that center off of the Eden Prairie center, if
anybody’s been there, the old library and I don’t care what time you go in there, there are lots of
people there and you go in and out fast so I would not be surprised even when there are more
people using the facility that you’re still going in and out fast and it’s going to be a great, great
addition. It’s late. Any other questions for Mr. Gerhardt?
CORRESPONDENCE DISCUSSION.
Councilman McDonald: Yes, can I take us back to the correspondence package?
Mayor Furlong: Yes.
Councilman McDonald: I have a question about the letter from Mediacom. What is the
alternative? What are they talking about there as far as taking away the TV Guide channel.
Does that mean they will no longer provide an information to viewers of cable as to what’s on?
Laurie Hokkanen: Can I talk?
Todd Gerhardt: Sure.
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City Council Meeting - March 23, 2009
Laurie Hokkanen: I believe Mediacom has their own channel and so rather than paying the TV
Guide program, to run that channel...for the Mediacom programming. …and then the bottom
half of the TV screen turns into what’s on at what time. I think they’re just ending their
relationship with TV Guide.
Councilman McDonald: Okay. There will still be access to people with cable to tell what’s on
and what channel and everything?
Laurie Hokkanen: That’s how I understand it.
Councilman McDonald: Okay, because I was reading the letter and it looks as though you have
to rely upon either magazines or newspapers and everybody doesn’t take magazines or
newspapers. They kind of depend upon the channel guides. Okay.
Laurie Hokkanen: I can call Theresa tomorrow and make sure that my understanding is
correct…
Councilman McDonald: Okay, thank you.
Todd Gerhardt: Well I think the built in guide is only on newer TV’s is what it’s saying here.
Laurie Hokkanen: Well I’ll find out.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Any other questions on the correspondence package? We will not be
continuing our work session after the meeting this evening. If there’s nothing else to come
before the meeting, who would like to make the motion to adjourn?
Councilwoman Tjornhom moved, Councilwoman Ernst seconded to adjourn the meeting.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. The City
Council meeting was adjourned at 11:25 p.m.
Submitted by Todd Gerhardt
City Manager
Prepared by Nann Opheim
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