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CC Minutes 2001 04 09CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING APRIL 9, 2001 Mayor Jansen called the meeting to order at 7:05 p.m. The meeting was opened with the Pledge to the Flag. COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT: Mayor Jansen, Councilman Labatt, Councilman Peterson, and Councilman Ayotte COUNCIL MEMBERS ABSENT: Councilman Kroskin STAFF PRESENT: Scott Botcher, Roger Knutson, and Todd Hoffman Public Present for All Items: Name Address Linda Landsman Terri Lee Paulsen Wayne Fransdal 7329 Frontier Trail 8006 Erie Avenue 6200 Murray Hill Road PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: Mayor Jansen: Good evening, thank you for joining us this evening. Under our public announcements I do want to check and see, is anyone here representing the Tonka United Soccer Association this evening? Okay. What I'd like to do is on our consent agenda we are actually going to be accepting a $2,500 donation from the Tonka United Association and I certainly don't want to fail to thank them for that donation. It's towards our fields and the maintenance and we certainly appreciate their partnership so I did want to acknowledge that rather than just have it go through on our consent agenda. Our appreciation to them. CONSENT AGENDA: Councilman Peterson moved, Councilman Ayotte seconded to approve the following consent agenda items pursuant to the City Manager's recommendations: Ashling Meadows First Addition, Lundgren Brothers: 1) Final Plat Approval. 2) Approval of Development Contract b. Accept $2,500 Donation from Tonka United Soccer Association. c. Approval of Bills. Approval of Minutes: - City Council Minutes dated February 5,2001 - City Council Minutes dated March 21,2001 - City Council Work Session Minutes dated March 26, 2001 - City Council Minutes dated March 26, 2001 City Council Meeting - April 9, 2001 Receive Commission Minutes: - Planning Commission Minutes dated March 20, 2001 All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously 4 to 0. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: PRESENTATION OF LETTERS FROM THIRD GRADERS AT CHANHASSEN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL REGARDING A SWIMMING POOL. Public Present: Name Address David & Emily Royer Debbie & Alyssa Fuhrman Jim Thompson Barb Force Matt & Anna Marijke Van Doom Sommara Monthiran 950 Lake Susan Hills Drive 1031 Lake Susan Drive 8511 Flamingo Drive 1001 Hesse Farm Road 8674 Chanhassen Hills Drive 2381 Stone Creek Lane West Mayor Jansen: Under visitor presentations this evening we have a presentation of letters from the third graders at Chanhassen Elementary School received regarding a swimming pool. Staff report. Thanks Todd. Todd Hoffman: Mayor Jansen, members of the City Council. I received these letters oh about a week and a half or two weeks ago and I thought it would be appropriate, since the letters are addressing a community wide issue, first to present them to the City Council and then we took that a step farther and asked if some of the children would like to come in and then actually read some of their letters so I'll let them introduce themselves and they'll sit at these microphones and introduce yourself by name and then read your letter. Justin Thompson: My name is Justin Thompson. I am representing a Chanhassen public swimming pool. Somewhere in Chanhassen, an easy place to get to, could you build a public swimming pool? A swimming pool in Chanhassen would be good because, because Chaska's too far away. If you go to Chaska you have to pay more money. All of Chanhassen will get to go more often. It will be fun to have a swimming pool in Chanhassen. If you could build it by this summer we would really appreciate it. Residents of Chanhassen and other towns like Shakopee, Chaska, Eden Prairie would be able to come too. I know it will cost a lot. I know it will be expensive but we would really like it. Please build it. Sincerely, Justin Thompson. Mayor Jansen: Thank you Justin. Hi. Chris B: Hello. My name is Chris B. and I wrote this letter for the Chanhassen swimming pool. Dear Mr. Hoffman. I want a public swimming pool in Chanhassen. Somewhere easy to get to. I don't want to go to Chaska because Chaska is too far away from where I live. The people of Chanhassen can go for free and others like Chaska, Bloomington and Shakopee can go get a fee. But if you have guests they can get a low fee. More people in Chanhassen will go to the Chanhassen pool more often. The pool will be fun and Chanhassen is a growing community you know. My mom, Alison B. is on the Planning Commission and she really wants a pool too. I really hope you can... Sincerely, Chris Blackowiak. City Council Meeting - April 9, 2001 Mayor Jansen: Thank you Chris. Hi. Anna Marijke van Doom: Hi. My name is Anna Marijke van Doom and I have lived here for almost 5 years. I came here from Germany. Germany has a public pool. Could we have one? Dear Mr. Hoffman. Would you consider a Chanhassen public swimming pool? Maybe in a place that is easy to get to. I would like a public pool because Chaska's pool gets so crowded that you can hardly swim so you hardly have any fun at all. Since Chaska is so far away, about 15 minutes to get there, 30 minutes in total, not counting traffic, that sometimes it takes too long so I can't go. This pool would be much closer. The resident fees would be lower. I could go there more often. The community would be very proud. I would be able to have more play dates at the pool. A lot of people in Chanhassen would be there and love it. It would be so much fun. My parents love the idea. We are a growing community. If it was an outdoor pool I would like it this summer. It would be for residents of Chanhassen and guests if they pay a small fee. Please consider a swimming pool. Pleeeease! Thank you for taking the time to read my letter. Sincerely, Anna Marijke van Doom. Mayor Jansen: Thank you. Todd Hoffman: I might have failed to mention that these students are from Mrs. Force's third grade class. Mrs. Force is here in the audience. If you didn't get the hint, this is a persuasive writing class. Mayor Jansen: And speaking. Todd Hoffman: And speaking. Since real is always more effective than pretend when writing letters and making public presentations, they decided to come in in person so thank you very much for taking the time and putting the effort into this presentation. Councilman Ayotte: I'd like to add one point though. I think you've got some competition next time round here Mayor. My goodness. Mayor Jansen: Absolutely. Well on behalf of the entire City Council I want to thank all of you for submitted such wonderful letters to us. You've made some terrific arguments. We certainly have read them all now and can appreciate that you've acknowledged to us something that you need and you think is important to our community and we always appreciate hearing those things. We do have a community survey that's going to be called around for during the month of May and we'll see if the majority of the Chanhassen residents agree with you. So that question will be on there so make sure your parents know how you want them to vote on the survey. Scott Botcher: Offish it out of the mailbox. Mayor Jansen: Thank you for coming this evening. SOUTHWEST METRO TRANSIT ANNUAL UPDATE REPORT, LEN SIMICH. Mayor Jansen: Also under visitor presentations we have with us this evening the Director of our Southwest Metro Transit Service. Len Simich. Hello Len. Scott Botcher: You're not going to be able to follow that act Len. City Council Meeting - April 9, 2001 Len Simich: Yeah, thanks Scott. Put me behind kids. Well I'm Len Simich, Executive Director of Southwest Metro and I do live in that far away town of Chaska that you just heard about. Mayor Jansen: With that wonderful community pool. Len Simich: It is too crowded. Chanhassen does need their swimming pool. I'll throw my vote behind that. It's my pleasure to be here this evening to provide you with the highlights of Southwest Metro Transit's past year. Now I understand that you received the 2000 year in review document that was prepared for my commission in your council packet so I won't go through all of that same information in that great of detail. But I would like to point out some of the major highlights. In the year 2000 ridership again increased. Overall we grew by an additional 8% in our overall ridership with our express ridership increasing by 15%. Our revenues generated by fares increased 8% and the overall cost or subsidy per passenger actually decreased by 31 cents per passenger. For the budget our system revenue which not only includes the dollars generated by passenger fares but generated through various contracts that we have, and on interest on our investments, increased by 37% overall. Our tax revenue was a little less than we projected, or that was projected for us by the Department of Revenue and that's primarily due to delinquencies and abatements but we were able to spend less than we originally projected. We did this by bringing various functions in-house like lawn maintenance, snow removal, general cleaning and so forth, and we also held off on various expenditures. Overall we were able to spend about a quarter of a million dollars less than we had originally budgeted. As for the milestones, the agency really accomplished a lot over the past year. There are four milestones or basically four major areas that I think really stand out that I'd like to spend a little time on. The first is that we were able to stay relatively stable in terms of our front line staff, which is our drivers, dispatch and customer service. This is no small feat considering that these are the $10 to $13 an hour employees with limited benefits. These employees are highly sight after. Our major competitors pay quite a bit more than what we're able to pay, and we've very proud of the fact that last year we did not miss a trip due to any labor shortages. Now as a comparison, and it's the only reason I point this out is just for comparison purposes. The region's largest transit provider misses on an average 3 to 5 trips per day because of the labor issue that's going on. Currently have about a $1.3 million effort to try to attract more drivers into their system, so we're very proud of the fact that we are able to retain the quality staff that we have. The second major milestone is that we took another step towards becoming the premiere transit provider here in the region. Our equipment is highly maintained. Our new coach style vehicles are the envy of the other metro transit operators here in this region. Our breakdowns or road call per miles are well below the other regional providers as well as national averages, and our on time performance exceeds 97%. Our customer approval rating is very high. Third major accomplish is that we secured over $15 million in capital grants for the next 5 years. These grants will enable us to replace, as well as expand our fleet as well as our facilities without forcing us to use valuable operating funds that are generated here locally through the tax dollars. The fourth and final major milestone is that we finish master planning our 22 acre site in Eden Prairie. We entered into a purchase agreement with a developer to develop a transit village with retail, office and housing, all which will work well with our overall transit operation. We also re-negotiated the payback provision with MnDot for the property which will provide Southwest Metro Transit an additional $2 million that we are able to put back into our overall operations. There are many other milestones. The year 2000 was very busy. I think it was a very good year for Southwest Metro Transit. I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have about the agency. Mayor Jansen: Council members, any questions for Len? Councilman Ayotte: I'm kind of curious as to whether or not you see, I hear the good things. Where are your anticipated issues with respect to Chanhassen? Any at all? City Council Meeting - April 9, 2001 Len Simich: I see more growth. We're seeing more and more ridership coming out of our Chanhassen park and ride lot for example. We're putting in additional, and we have put in additional express service from Chanhassen that does not stop. It goes direct basically downtown. By doing that we're seeing even some of the shifts take place. We're at full capacity basically over at our southwest station facility in terms of parking and seats on the bus so what we're doing is adding more direct trips from Chanhassen. We'll probably be adding more from Chaska as well to try to, some of the passengers that are currently driving to Eden Prairie we're now able to pick them up on the system before they actually get out onto the road. So that we see. We also see more of a need and a demand for regular route services off peak hours. Really services that tie the three communities together. Right now everything's done with the man responsive, our Dial-a-Ride. Dial-a-Ride's are only going to be so effective. A good dial-a-ride operates at about 5 passenger per hour, which we're almost there right now. What we're seeing is density starting to increase. Population increase that we think regular route service will be able to be successful. We rolled it out about almost 3 years ago, I think it was a little bit premature. We think it will be able to be successful now and we're in the process of designing that. Councilman Ayotte: Do you see stress on parking then? Len Simich: There is a big stress right now on parking and the availability of parking. We're working with MnDot in coordination with their 212 expansion and we're going to secure some property from them to put in additional park and ride lots. We're also looking at some additional areas in Chaska and as well up on Highway 41 and 5 in combination with the church that is looking at developing shortly. Mayor Jansen: Any other questions? Councilman Labatt: You kind of answered my question there as far as expanding the services directly in Chanhassen. The lot down at the bowling alley. That's pretty well packed. Len Simich: Yeah, we're averaging about 100 cars a day there and that is up I would say about 30 to 35 cars over the same time last year. Councilman Labatt: Okay. That's it. Mayor Jansen: Okay. I have to commend Len and his staff for the job that they do on behalf of the communities with Southwest Metro and your ability to have secured that $15 million in grant funding. I mean it's a significant amount of capital that comes into the organization that then our taxpayers are not having to pick up and you've got some just wonderful relationships and you work with the other organizations so admirably well that we certainly benefit from it, so thank you and our appreciation for that. Len Simich: Thank you. Sometimes it's just good to be a little lucky as well. Mayor Jansen: Thank you. Scott, did you have anything to add? Scott Botcher: No. Their service is outstanding. Mayor Jansen: Appreciate it Len, thank you. City Council Meeting - April 9, 2001 PUBLIC HEARING: CONSIDER RAISING FEES FOR ON-SALE BEER AND WINE LICENSES AND ON-SALE 3.2 MALT BEVERAGE LICENSES. Scott Botcher: This was in response, pursuant to Mr. Kroskin's request, who is not here tonight but it was his request, and the memo I think is fairly self explanatory. Mark had an interest in considering an increase in specifically two of the fees, and if you look on the back page liquor license fee summary is there and so I guess it's up to you as to whether or not you wish to increase the fees for on-sale beer and wine and the on- sale 3.2 licenses, which is what Mark had identified. Mayor Jansen: Okay. Any questions for staff or shall we open this for public hearing and then come back to staff? Councilman Ayotte: I would prefer the public hearing first. Mayor Jansen: Okay. If there's anyone here wishing to address the council on this agenda item, if you could come forward please and state your name and address for the record. Seeing no one, we will bring this back to council. Reading the minutes from the last meeting, the suggestion had been that we're not within even the average of the communities that in fact have been surveyed for these license fees. In fact in speaking with staff I gather this is more to cover the cost of our actually administering the licenses. They have not increased since '94 1 believe was the date. So if only to maybe bring us a little bit more in line with the averages that are reflected here, I'll throw out at least a base number for consideration. On the 3.2 beer fee, if we just simply went up, what is that, to the 410. 410 is the average for the other 11 entities that were surveyed. It would at least bring us up to average. And on the wine license fee, we would be putting a tremendous increase on this. The average is actually 994 for the license, so currently with these, if you look at the two fees, they're actually comparable to each other so I thought maybe if we just kept them comparable and again went 410 on that wine license fee, it's still half the average of the other 9 communities that are listed here. And maybe better reflects the additional cost of processing and administering the licenses and certainly would seem reasonable I thought from that perspective. But if I could maybe throw that out for discussion if council wants to kick around the 410. Councilman Ayotte: Would the 410 cover costs? Scott Botcher: I don't know if it would cover all of them but it would certainly go a long way more toward covering it than 280 would. Councilman Peterson: How many do we have? Scott Botcher: If you look in the back, right behind the hearing notice. In back of the hearing notice there's a list. There's 6 parties. 2 with the on-sale non-intoxicating 3.2 and 4 with the on-sale beer and wine. Councilman Peterson: I think the 410 is reasonable and logical so no other comments. Councilman Labatt: I had taken a little different approach. Close in the numbers. I had come up with the average and then I rounded up to make it even and I came up with an on-sale of 500 and the off-sale of 100. And in looking at the comparison of wine license to on-sale, there's some cities that seem to be 1½ times up to 3 times as much. So I wanted, with wine licenses I went up to 750. City Council Meeting - April 9, 2001 Councilman Peterson: Yeah I think, I thought about that same thing when I looked at the original numbers but the kinds of restaurants that are currently in Chanhassen are not high volume sellers so I think we're putting an undue burden and they may just drop it because of that. They're probably not making a lot of money with the amount of wine that they sell already, so I'd be concerned about that big of an increase. Mayor Jansen: I guess that's initial reaction as far as taking that big a jump on the licenses. I'm wanting to maybe equalize it from where it is currently, but to a more of a reasonable level. That would be, what is that? 2 ½ times on the wine license fee. And we could always have staff do something of an analysis maybe because these are, it's reviewed annually as to whether or not it is actually covering the cost. But I guess I would concur with what Councilman Peterson said as far as the size of the establishments and not wanting to too burden them in the increase. But at least try to cover our costs a little more effectively. Any comments? Councilman Ayotte? Councilman Ayotte: No. I don't have any additional comments. I think I feel comfortable Mayor with what your point and Councilman Peterson's point. Don't want to hit them too hard at this point in time. Mayor Jansen: Okay. Any further discussion? Councilman Labatt: No. I like my numbers but there's more people up here so it takes 3 of us tonight. Mayor Jansen: Okay. If I could have a motion please. Councilman Peterson: I'd make a motion that we raise the on and off sale to 410 and the wine and liquor fee to 410. Councilman Ayotte: I second that. Resolution #2001-18: Councilman Peterson moved, Councilman Ayotte seconded to adopt a resolution establishing the 2001 liquor license fees at $410.00 for on-sale 3.2 beer and on-sale beer and wine. All other fees will remain at the same level as established in 2000. All voted in favor, excluding Councilman Labatt who opposed and the motion carried with a vote of 3 to 1. Scott Botcher: Linda you didn't touch the 3.2 off sale did you? That's still $55? Mayor Jansen: Correct. Yes. Correct. CONCEPTUAL APPROVAL OF FIRE DEPARTMENT RELIEF ASSOCIATION PROPOSAL. Mayor Jansen: We have the conceptual approval of the Fire Department Relief Association proposal, that was previously distributed in last council meeting's work session. Scott Botcher: Right, and you all discussed at that point, and the Fire Relief Association felt more comfortable. I won't recite it to you, because you guys all have it. Having at least a motion on the record that shows a conceptual approval of the fire department proposal. They will then begin working on their By-laws, so a simple motion saying that is what we're looking for. Mayor Jansen: Okay. Any discussion council? Otherwise looking for a motion for approval of the conceptual approval of the Fire Department Relief Association proposal. City Council Meeting - April 9, 2001 Councilman Labatt: So moved. Mayor Jansen: A motion. Do I have a second? Councilman Ayotte: Second. Councilman Labatt moved, Councilman Ayotte seconded that the City Council give conceptual approval of the Fire Department Relief Association proposal. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously 4 to 0. LIBRARY PROGRESS REPORT, PRESENTATION BY MS&R. Public Present: Name Address Janet Karvis Melissa Brechow Lois & Conrad Fiskness David Happe Jeffrey Scherer Patrick Mackey 782 Liberty Heights, Chaska Carver County 8033 Cheyenne Avenue 604 Summerfield Drive MS&R Architects MS&R Architects Scott Botcher: What's their time limit before they start? You think I jest. Mayor Jansen: Welcome. Jeffrey Scherer: We want to give you a brief overview of where we have taken this project to date. Mayor Jansen: Mr. Scherer, if I could just bother you to maybe pull the microphone over so that we do capture everything on the minutes. I think it will swivel over for you. Scott Botcher: And we are live at home so they want to hear you. Jeffrey Scherer: My name is Jeff Scherer. I'm with Marsh & Rockcastle, the principle architects. Barry Pettit, principle at Marsh and Rockcastle, as well as the project manager and Pat Mackey is the project architect. Over the last several weeks we've had a series of three public meetings and we wanted to quickly take you through the conclusions that have been reached by those public meetings. There have been really good attendance. I think we've had somewhere in the order of 30 to 50 people at each meeting. Some people have come to all the meetings and some people have not been able to do that. We've had some new people at the later meetings who weren't able to be at the early meetings, but generally the process has been one where we would present an issue, or a process and then we would open it up for very candid discussion about the pro's and con's. And I'll just stand here Barry and talk if you want to put the sheets up. Let's just start with this, now who's got the zoom. Barry Pettit: What we're going to do is real briefly just, real briefly, just sort of go through what the process was. City Council Meeting - April 9, 2001 Jeffrey Scherer: The first thing we did was we had what we called a Roshak test. Can everybody see? Scott Botcher: Well do lights help or do you want to use that? The overhead Barry. Jeffrey Scherer: Well we were asked by somebody. Barry Pettit: Let's just see what happens. Scott Botcher: I know we're trying to get home but if we can't see, it doesn't do us any good. Jeffrey Scherer: Do you want to switch that camera then? Okay, while she's doing that let me just explain what we did in the first meeting and that was, we conducted a series of, we had what we called Roshak test and we showed slides of libraries from around the world and we actually had score sheets and voted on those and we came up with a series of, a list of guiding principles for the building. And I'm going to ask Scott if he could, or Pat if he could put these 10 guiding principles, actually 13 guiding principles. And these were really important because they not only were the consensus about, from the committees, but also they represented our, the boundaries that we wanted to work with on the project. The first, there was a strong preference for a building that was symmetrical. Second, a building that balanced the calm and intense places to work and by that we talked about the interior having spaces for lots of activity and for quiet places as well. Use of natural materials such as masonry and wood were important to the group. We had a lot of discussion about brick and how brick is used. That was one of the more lively conversations I think. Use of daylighting is important. We're not going to dwell on these in detail. The building should express a sense of purpose and not be too busy and that really was a reflection of some of the slides we showed and intentionally trying to get some points of view so we could be clear, but I think generally the consensus was they wanted a building that had a sense of purpose. It had a sense of civic pride, but it wasn't too designed if you will in the sense that the architect should restrain themselves. Number 6. The design should flow from the program and the practical needs of the community and not be wasteful. 7. The library in general and the main entrance in particular should be self evident and expressed and we'll get into that a little bit more because that guiding principle is still a tough issue to deal with on our site. Number 8. There was a lot of discussion about what is Chanhassen. In other words, we tried to talk about the question of if you drive by this building, should it express what Chanhassen is, and we had lots of recommendations including thinking about the origin of the word. Looking at historical things from the past and that discussion is still going on. The building should be warm and soft. And then the landscaping, there was a lot of lively discussion about the landscaping, including issues about all seasons. The smells. How the space could be used both by adults and children. There was a lot of discussion about how to balance the needs of the adults and those of the children. And then the last one, the last 3 was the library should be joined with, not separate from existing civic building and should compliment, not copy the existing building. Now we have moved on from this one in the sense that one of the proposals you're going to see respects this, but after we got into the design, the committee then voted to also amend that guiding principle and include another option. No parking on the street and public art is important. Now there are a lot of drawings here and I want to really save our, save the most time for the recommendations but let's just quickly go through that first set of processes and then we can have you be aware of what we considered. Obviously you can see from this site plan, we're looking at solar access.., building is about, a little over 2 acres. The Coulter Road extension through from Market to Kerber, I would say it was more than a majority's opinion amongst the group is that that cut through should go away. And you'll see that reflected in the drawings in a second. We then went through a series of very schematic plans. I think we had a total of 8 on this round, and these were then narrowed down to 5, and then we've narrowed them down to 2 ½. City Council Meeting - April 9, 2001 Because we have a librarian that has an interest in one variation. In this option for example, and these are all done to the same scale. We also talked about the, you'll see in this in a minute the differences between a single story and a two story building. This option extended the parking along the west. It included a little deck and it had a drop off entry off of Market. This option showed what it would look like with a two story building at the comer of Market and West 78th. This is Option 3 which was to put the building one story in front of City hall, and create some kind of link that would be open between City hall and the library. You can see we were doing a little work there in the meeting. This is what the same drawing but in two stories. And another variation on that same theme with a big parking lot on the west, reducing the green space in front of the two story building to the east. That didn't get many votes. A long, thin one story building with parking between the green space and the City hall. Now after each of the public meetings there were building committee meetings the following day and one of the things that has emerged, you'll notice in the upper right hand comer of these drawings there's sort of a parking count. One of the things that has emerged is how we deal with parking. We're going to add as much parking as we can wisely add within the budget, but we want to have some design that allows for increased parking in the future if the demand shows that it's necessary. This is a one story building at the comer of West 78th and Kerber Boulevard. And I think we've got 1 or 2 more on this one. Two story building with a new parking deck on the west side that would open directly into the upper level of the library with some kind of vertical circulation going down. Now those were all reviewed and we voted on those. I think at that meeting that was, I think that's the Saturday morning meeting. I think we had close to what, 50 people or so. Somewhere, and those were voted on and we then went to the next round. So we have two more rounds, right? The next round, we came up I think with 5. That is a new surface parking lots on the east and the west with a front yard that's approximately the size of the existing front yard. About 100,000 square feet. But two towers either side of that atrium piece that would signal where the front door was, but you would enter the building in that enclosed atrium between City hall and the library. Now obviously one of the issues about this guiding principle of having the front door self evident is difficult when you have a City hall that in itself has it's front door on the north side, away from the street, and how these two things fit together is a tough little issues and we're still struggling with that, which we'll show you in a minute. Councilman Peterson: Is that a two story or one story? Jeffrey Scherer: That's a one story. We are evaluating the two story, both in terms of the economics of building them, but also in the operating cost and we're not done with that analysis. This option put a one story building along West 78th. This was done at the expressed interest of many of the community to look at what it would be like if we were to respect that planning principle of bringing buildings out to 78th. It's already been established further along the road on the east, and putting a courtyard between City hall and a park on the comer of Market and 78th with new parking on the west that would more or less serve the library and new parking on the right that would be overflow for meetings but could generally serve City hall. And then a covered walkway, but not enclosed, running east/west along that entire faCade so that if you were parking on the west you could quickly get into that logia and walk to the front door which is on the west side. This is a variation on that theme except that in this version the through street was kept. This was nixed pretty loudly by the group. Not wanting to have that cut through for safety reasons. For lots of urban design reasons that was not considered ideal. That last drawing by the way, when we made it drop off only without a through road, went way up in voting for so it was not the placement of the building so much as it was the through road along that way. And then is there one more? Two more. This is a basically three city parks, if you will. One more formal between City hall and the library, and then two at the comers of Kerber and Market and those parks are approximately about 150 feet square so they're about half an acre each. And in this case you can drive through to Kerber but it's not easy. It's a one way system from east to west, and it would also allow us to have in this case, because it's on the drivers side, a 10 City Council Meeting - April 9, 2001 drive up book return on this version. And then scheme 5 is attaching the building again like we saw before. This is just a refinement of that but with two stories instead of one story. Barry Pettit: I think it's important, it's out of. Why don't you show sort of the three schemes that have evolved. This, well I just wanted, real quickly. This one was not a top vote getter at the point of the meeting and one of the concerns was the cost for attaching to city hall. Now I've done a little bit of work on that and there's a bit different thinking on that than we shared on the last meeting, whenever that was. So this one sort of is still hovering around. And then this again, as Jeff just said, once Coulter got eliminated from the equation, this became a much more popular scheme. And then the final one, and this one was kind of interesting because it kind of evolved during the meeting. Again Coulter got eliminated. The building start to get closer to city hall. It didn't go all the way to city hall like we did in the other scheme but kept about 100 to an 80 foot plaza between city hall and the building, and those are the next 3 schemes that I think we're going to see. Jeffrey Scherer: Another important aspect of that is, the scale and the material relationship between city hall and the new building. We've had a lot of discussion about whether the building should simply look like city hall. Whether it should have it's own identity. If you get too close to it, does it have to be big enough to mask the city hall or what is that design relationship and those are really tough questions but, okay now we've narrowed it down to 3 schemes that from the 5, so we started with the 8 or 9. We went down to 5 and now we're down to 3. And these will be looked at in detail but in this case we have a net gain parking of 82 and we have a single story library that is connected to an enclosed glazed link serving both parking lots, and one of the important things to notice. You've probably already figured this out but if you come onto Market and park on the east side and that lot is full, you have to leave that parking lot and go around 78th to the other parking lot. So this symmetrical issue is great except that the, those lots are not connected and because of the grade change, the upper lots are not connected to the lower lots so one of the issues there is, is whether the parking on the west side, the shared parking that's labeled on the upper, the northwest comer and the new parking should be thought of as more library parking and the parking on the east should be thought of more as city hall parking. So that's one scheme. The second version creates a two story building, more out towards 78th. Now this is a hybrid of the previous ones we showed in the second meeting. In order for us to start thinking about respecting that alignment of the buildings along 78th but getting it close enough to city hall that we can, that we would have a covered walkway connecting city hall with the library. Those dotted lines on the west and east side would be a logia that would be covered that you could then walk in a covered way. And one of the important aspects to this too is that city plaza in the middle would become a different kind of plaza. More intense and more manicured and designed than say the green space that surrounds in a U the remaining, the library so you would concentrate some of the landscape money in the middle to create a kind of city plaza and then have a different kind of landscaping, more informal on the rest of the site. And if you park in either side, really anywhere on those two lots, you can get into a covered walkway to get into the front door. Now, one of the things about this version that some people are not happy with is the front door is not self evident from 78th. Now if we flip this building around, and we had unlimited operating expense, we could have two doors but it's just out of the cards to have two means of ingress and egress for the library, just in terms of the management of the thing. Because of the economics of supporting it, so that's a big issue we have to struggle through here. And then finally, this is, the group hasn't seen this. Those who are in the committee, building the public review haven't seen this one but this is a drawing up of what we talked about. If you cut out that through road, you would have a drop off and a waiting to pick up and then that's that scheme, I think it was 3 or 4 that's on the comer. And then you've got one big green space to the east. 11 City Council Meeting - April 9, 2001 Barry Pettit: You can sort of point this out Pat as I go along. One of the issues with that last scheme that was compelling to some folks is the fact that the building came back out to the street. The 78th Street and began to reinforce that urban edge again. The other issue with that, right. Yeah. The other issue with that is it began to break down the scale of Byerly's parking lot, especially as you came from the west heading east. Again the topography along 78th is such that the parking lot is a pretty formidable object, and the theory with this idea as an urban idea that a couple people were fascinated with is it began to break up that kind of open zone if you will. Jeffrey Scherer: Now one of the other, finally and then we'll open it up for questions. Another one of the important design issues here is it was obviously clear to a majority of the public that they wanted a symmetrical building around the axis of city hall. The advantage to that is it satisfies that sort of inner urge to have things lined up. The disadvantage is that if you place it axially along city hall, do you then create a design that's different or same or as if it were an expansion of that? By placing it off center you are obviously not the same building. You're a different building so it creates a different opportunity or different thought process of how that object is designed. So it's a real interesting conundrum between wanting to maintain the landscaping, or excuse me the symmetry and having a larger landscape to the east or putting it in the middle and having smaller landscaping on the east and west. This one would also have, if you're going west on 78th, it would be more clear that it's not, that it's something different than an extension of city hall. And I think from that we can open it up for questions. Obviously we still have a long journey to go to get to the right solution but we are closing in. We have these 3 distinct, different points of view and we need to reach a conclusion at some point here but we'd open it up for questions now. Mayor Jansen: Great, thank you. And council, just maybe to frame up the point at which we find ourselves tonight, is as we're reviewing all of these different plans and diagrams, the building committee is working as that link, if you would, or filter from the public comments to council. And at this point your building committee has been going back and forth on a couple of issues, and those issues being addressed here already, attached or not. Whether council in fact has any strong feelings or not, the building committee is certainly working through some of the key issues on each one of these so if you care to comment and give any perspective, certainly do but I guess this evening we're anticipating that we're reviewing it. It's going back to building committee and we've already scheduled another public hearing, correct? I don't have that date in front of me but. Barry Pettit: 17th. Mayor Jansen: April 17th. Jeff Scherer: Yeah we added one. We had 3 planned and we needed another one, obviously. Mayor Jansen: Okay. So as it was raised here tonight, attached or not. We're reviewing one or two story. I'd say your building committee is strongly in the one story category due to the operational costs as well as building costs. And the parking issue. On being able to more so look to the future expansion versus building a tremendous amount of parking initially on this site where we may be able to be more flexible with that and put a little less asphalt around the two buildings. Jeff Scherer: One caveat that I would make for you to consider about that parking issue is, just be ready to act quickly if the demand is there. We've just finished a project where we did the same thing and their circ doubled and their attendance went up from 1,000 to 2,000 people a day and we thought we had a good 5 years of wiggle room. And the building's only been open 2 months so the council's already, this is in 12 City Council Meeting - April 9, 2001 another state but they're already planning the expansion of the parking so I think the prudent thing to do but just be aware that you need to act fast if it's needed. Mayor Jansen: Sure. Scott, any comments before we open it up for a conversation? Scott Botcher: No, the only thing I would add, and I've mentioned this to the council before. We do have to be aware of the agreement we have with the Chan Bank as it relates to parking on that side. And not that we have to base any recommendations you might make tonight to the building committee so we can continue our work upon that agreement, but understand that it is out there. And at some point we're going to have to either we'll have the good fortune that our design selection will allow integration of the same parking, consistent with that agreement, or we will have to go back and deal with that agreement. Councilman Peterson: What is the agreement Scott? Scott Botcher: You know I thought I had, have I shared that with you all? Have I distributed that with the council? Mayor Jansen: I thought we had it at one point. Scott Botcher: I thought we had. The down and dirty is that where the existing building is out front here, the city entered in, the old bank building. The city entered into an agreement to allow the Chan Bank a parking, they called it an easement or an option, that they have the right until December 31, 2010 to facilitate the construction of 80 parking spaces on that site. And there's all sorts of clauses and liquidated damages and all sorts of things in there and Mr. McShane at the bank has indicated certainly a willingness to work with us if his parking needs as outlined in the agreement and our parking needs as determined through the construction of the library, dove tail together so it's not an adversarial position at this point, but it is certainly a legal obligation the city has made with the Chan Bank and we need to make sure that we deal with it at the appropriate time. Mayor Jansen: If you need more detail we can have staff provide. Scott Botcher: Please call me and we'll be more than happy to do that. Mayor Jansen: Okay. Alright, we had not actually slated this for any public hearing. I don't know if there's anyone who at this point cares to make any comments or if we shall just proceed but I don't want to fail to at least acknowledge the people who are here, and I know you have been diligently attending our public hearings and we sure appreciate it. I think the one thing that I heard said here was that at the 3 meetings we have had new people attending and that to me is a great indication that we may have done the right thing staggering the days that we held them as well as the times and the intention was to try to enable as broad a segment to be able to attend the meetings as possible. So I appreciate your flexibility in having allowed us to do that kind of staggering, including a Saturday morning, so thank you. Was there anyone who felt a burning desire to say anything at this point? Okay. If you could say your name and address for the record please. Randy Wall: Randy Wall, 6891 Redwing Lane. Mayor Jansen: Thank you. 13 City Council Meeting - April 9, 2001 Randy Wall: All the design concepts were great and everything except for, I saw a couple of the images where there was no, where Coulter Boulevard got eliminated, and coming from a fire department perspective, we've got about 25% of the members living in the northwest quadrant if you will, northern Kerber, Carver Beach area and stuff, so from a response standpoint, when you guys do figure out what your scheme is. I saw a couple of them with the road up onto, to the north. There you go. That would make a nice, for when we respond to the station, otherwise coming down to West 78th there, we're probably going to get pegged with a couple of lights and could slow down response. I'm sure we've got enough members that live on the east but for those that live out in the northwest, but that was about it. Just from a response standpoint, some sort of road concept. Mayor Jansen: Okay, thank you. Okay, council members. Open this up for discussion, if anyone has any comments you'd like to share. Councilman Peterson: That's a hard question. I mean that's a lot to process clearly for not really having been through the meetings thus far. I think that what I warmed up to I think was the idea of that, of the center park space or gathering space, however the definition is. Similar to the one that was just up there. The need to balance, the closeness of city hall with the closeness of the library and how do you still build a new building that's creative versus what, by all standards is this is an uncreative building. I think you need to keep them far enough apart to be able to let you guys create something that the city can be proud of so I'm probably biased towards keeping them farther apart, but I like this kind of design where it is in there. I won't say that it's covering up city hall but to some degree I guess it is. Go ahead. Jeff Scherer: Just to say on that one point. Several citizens raised a really good point and that is, we've programmed this for 20 years. We really haven't stepped back and say okay what's city hall going to be in 20 years. How big is it going to be? What's going to be in there? At some point it might be worth considering that because if that building is going to need to expand, that might inform more, more better inform the whole block. Mayor Jansen: Staff is in fact addressing that very issue as far as taking a look at that and again, you've got a building committee that is comprised of staff members to be able to give some of those sorts of perspectives on it, as far as the specifics of how we accomplish it. The conceptual part of what I heard you share was you don't want the two buildings to look alike, and being able to direct the architect in that direction certainly is the right way to go. If it can be connected and they can be unique, there might be some amenities in fact that can be gained from that but if you don't mind my maybe coming up with conceptually what I heard you say. Councilman Peterson: It was a good summary. It goes back to what I didn't like when the library was set off to the left towards the Byerly's parking lot. It just, for whatever reason, didn't work from a flow standpoint. It looked like it was just put there. You lose the connection with city hall so, but I like the idea of a park on both sides, or some sort of green space on both sides and a gathering place between the two I think is in a very encapsulized summary that would do that. Mayor Jansen: Okay, thank you. Councilman Labatt: I was kind of taking the opposite approach. My concern is with scheme 1 and 2 having the road, can you put up scheme 1 or 2 to show that road on the north side of city hall. It cuts through the 2 hockey rinks. We lost 1 to the skate park and I don't want to lose 2 more. As selfish as it sounds, Chaska and Chan have a lot of hockey players that use those rinks. 14 City Council Meeting - April 9, 2001 Jeff Scherer: This road here? Councilman Labatt: That's the skating rink. The concrete or asphalt pad to the right. Jeff Scherer: Here? Councilman Labatt: No, down. That square pad there is the skate park and the hockey rink. Jeff Scherer: How you would connect this to preserve that is an important piece, right? Councilman Labatt: Yeah. Barry Pettit: I think just as a quick point, I think that idea is pretty schematic and it does ultimate it goes back to the city and say is there a way to weave around back there. Re-organize some of the kind of parking... Mayor Jansen: No, it's a good comment. Councilman Labatt: But in looking at that though, that's not going to be something that's done for a couple thousand dollars. It's a huge portion to put a road up there, so is that money used for that road being taken away from the library then? Mayor Jansen: No. It's not even a real serious part of the discussions at this point quite frankly. Scott Botcher: It's been reflected in some previous stuff and I know Todd is aware of it and it's just one of those things that's out there. It's not even in your 5 year CIP. Mayor Jansen: It apparently was just on a master plan someplace at some point, yeah. Councilman Labatt: Okay. I personally like scheme number 3 better, which was the one that Craig didn't like. Councilman Peterson: Big surprise. Councilman Labatt: I like them. I mean I agree with hiding up the mass of Byerly's parking lot and having, is it better to have two parks smaller on each side of the building or one larger green space? I like the fact that it has a drop off turn around right here. And it gives you room for expansion if you do have to cut in there for additional parking. On the new parking deck, are you talking a two story structure? Jeff Scherer: No. We turned the why's in the financial equation here and that would simply be extending the existing lot out level on the upper level and tucking in something below so it's not really, it is a structure ramp above but it's not like a formal parking garage in that sense. It's creating a shelf. Councilman Labatt: ... up on top. Jeff Scherer: Making the upper one just keep going and then because of the grade change, a portion of that could be tucked under parking for staff and things underneath. 15 City Council Meeting - April 9, 2001 Councilman Labatt: What is the black and yellow or black and green? Jeff Scherer: That's a bad rendition of a stair. The treads were drawn in and when it was reduced to this scale the treads became black, sorry. Councilman Labatt: Okay. So it's a stairway going from the upper to the ground level. Jeff Scherer: Right. And another thing that's critical is, this one hasn't been, this was a hybrid of the two. It hasn't been studied as carefully as the other two so whether or not that drop-off actually looks like that or is in exactly that position is not really relevant for now. But the idea that there should be a drop off on this scheme is there. Councilman Labatt: Okay. Jeff Scherer: So we have one vote for the plaza. We'll see if the percentages equal the percentages from the public. Scott Botcher: We're not letting them vote yet. We're just getting into it. I have a couple of questions, and I guess for Randy, this is what I thought you were going to ask. I didn't think you were going to let me take the fire relief money to build that road to increase response time. If you want me to, we could do that. No my serious question is this. Can you guys make that cul-de-sac with your fire equipment? I mean can you, and I guess it's a multiple choice question. Can you build a cul-de-sac with a radius that will allow him to drive his equipment in there? Randy Wall: The truck and ladder would be out, that would take the shared parking over on the east and it would take the shared parking on the east and west side on the north up there. But an engine could get in there. Scott Botcher: Okay, so if you had to. Jeff Scherer: What we've done in some communities is to, even though this is rendered as public plaza, in some communities we've designed those pavements to accept emergency vehicles just to go straight on through and planned it so that there is a way through. You can drive the hook and ladder right on through there. Scott Botcher: Yeah, I don't want the building to be so, and isolated is a terrible word but so isolated on the comer away from the equipment that you guys need to use in care of an emergency that we can't get there. Councilman Labatt: It sounds like a good issue for the building committee to work on though, yeah. Scott Botcher: Okay. Thanks. Councilman Labatt: ... the radius of some of the residential cul-de-sacs. Scott Botcher: Some are tight. 16 City Council Meeting - April 9, 2001 Mayor Jansen: Were you through with your comments Steve? Councilman Labatt: Yeah. Mayor Jansen: Councilman Ayotte. Councilman Ayotte: Just 5 points. Cost analysis trade-off, parking, life cycle analysis, operational expense, access. Whatever concept we go to, I hope we have high reliability, and that's key. The building committee's going to take a look at the concept but what you bring up and what others bring up is extremely important. Get as much library for our buck as possible, and there is that trade-off between architectural aesthetics and so on, but these points are extremely important. To me, and I'm hoping, and I've heard you. I know that it's embedded in your thought process, but reliability's got to be a key term in this whole thing. Scott Botcher: Did you all, just because it piggy backs on what Bob said. We talked the other day about, it wasn't a pure cost benefit analysis but a cost comparison between the glazed connection between the two buildings and the court yard and then the life cycle costs involved in that and Mr. Hoffman mentioned issues of again, maintenance and skate boarders and everything else with the outside. Or is that something that's still in the works? Barry Pettit: Yeah, I did a quick little comparison and the two that Scott is talking about, can you kind of put them side by side. That's not too bad. Just keep them moving around. Interestingly enough, this sort of street, this internal street if you will that connects city hall with the library, came out not costing much different than the plaza. The issue with the plaza is we have these logia's. These sort of covered walkways that certainly have, when they're done well there's a cost to those. I think the kind of plaza that Jeff was talking about that becomes a highly regular, highly designed, more crafted if you will, becomes pretty expensive so by the time that you took those two factors into account on the right scheme and balanced that with the enclosed space, they were pretty close. Pretty close. Scott Botcher: And then the maintenance issues when you're comparing that. Barry Pettit: Of course the issue with, when you've got the outdoor space, it obviously has a different level of maintenance because it's subject to you know to the other issues and, versus the atrium. For those obvious reasons and so the maintenance on the outdoor areas is just your general clean-up. It also comes along with the issues if you're going to go in with a very formal planting with the trees, flowers, whatever. They need some time and maintenance and annually you've got to take care of those so. Jeff Scherer: One concern that we always have, since we get the call, is what is the water integrity and if we do, this is a scale of the height of the existing city hall. And this is the height of the single story library. It's shorten just simply for this discussion because it would end up way over here. But you can see that city hall is higher than a single story library and how we do that connection, knowing a, that this building is going to move differently than that building and how we glaze that without it causing issues with the water integrity, and the fact that these offices will all lose their outside daylight, need to be thought through also in the equation. So you're not really masking it totally. You're really kind of continuing to step down. It's not an easy issue. 17 City Council Meeting - April 9, 2001 Scott Botcher: I guess I wanted to raise the issue because I thought you were probably still working on it but I know that, knowing Bob's focus on life cycle costs and cost benefit analysis, that that was something that the committee frankly is still looking at I believe. Mayor Jansen: Yes. The building committee is meeting again tomorrow I believe and taking those issues into consideration. And it's been an interesting process. Being able to get the public comments and coming back as the building committee and working those issues through and especially with staff as a significant part of that process so that we can work through more the technicals and how we actually can bring all of this together in a practical way. And coming up then with that next public hearing, based upon just bouncing things off of council, taking it back to the building committee. Working through some of these cost analysis and then going back out to the public so it's been a really interesting and I think very productive process. And Melissa you're standing at the microphone. Melissa Brechow: I am Mayor Jansen. I just wanted to tell you city council a little bit, some of my concern. Some of my concern. I've been the loudest proponent about this front door. If you put the front door in an atrium that connects these two buildings the idea of where is the front door and we know we can do some design things but my concern is, where is the front door and how do you access that front door? And our discussion has been, closed atrium? Open atrium with a green space in there and how we define that. I think if we put the city hall and the library together with an atrium, we restrict both buildings for future of what we do. I also see some security issues happening with an atrium. Mayor Jansen: And we're certainly working all those issues through with the building committee. Melissa Brechow: We are. I just wanted to bring that forward, particularly about the from door. Where is it and our architects know that too. How do we access this building? How do we get in and out? How do we park? How easily is it for the parents to bring their children to the library? Mayor Jansen: Absolutely. No, we've appreciated Melissa's insight on libraries and it's certainly been very constructive so thank you Melissa. Any other comments from council? I think we've got a good conceptual overview from everyone and we certainly will continue to keep everyone informed as to how this is proceeding. Like we said, the next public hearing is April 17th. I believe 7:00, is that correct Lois? At the senior center and hopefully we'll have some nice attendance there so thank you very much. Thanks for the presentation. Councilman Ayotte: Thanks a lot. COMMUNITY SURVEY, DECISION RESOURCES. Scott Botcher: What we have before you this evening is a preliminary draft of the survey. This has been, we had a meeting with Mr. Morris, the Mayor and department heads to review some surveys from other communities. We indicated to him some of our areas of emphasis as it involves the city of Chanhassen. And Mr. Morris has put together the preliminary version that is before you today. I guess two things are expected, or requested this evening. First of all, I hope that you've all had the opportunity to read through the survey. If there's anything in there that you find to be offensive or lacking or somewhere inbetween, speak now please. And then secondly, I guess we would ask for a motion authorizing the mayor to formally execute an agreement with you all, as soon as you give it to me, so we don't have to wait another 2 weeks frankly, if that's okay with you. So I don't know if, I guess what I'd recommend to spare you the, unless the mayor wants you to, introductory of who you are, that sort of stuff. I don't know if you need to 18 City Council Meeting - April 9, 2001 walk through this for us but if there's anything of special interest the council has, they could direct it directly to Mr. Morris. Mayor Jansen: I guess I was assuming we'd probably just direct questions. Council, if you've come with some. I had posed one that Mr. Morris already answered that I think maybe everyone else might be interested in what you and I had discussed. And my initial reaction was, it seems awfully long and so what amount of time can we expect our residents to stay on the home answering questions, so maybe if you wouldn't mind answering that. I found your reply very interesting. Bill Morris: I'd be happy to answer that. Mayor Jansen: If you wouldn't mind stating your name for the record. Bill Morris: Certainly. Bill Morris, 31218 Court, Minneapolis. The mayor raised a good point. It's a point that comes up constantly when we're dealing with quality of life surveys. And from the surface it may look like it's a very, very long document. However remember that people won't be reading through it. They'll actually be interviewed on the telephone and time then becomes a little bit more relative. But we always follow the same, or we recommend the same pre-survey protocol in order to ensure that people know first that this isn't going to be a fast 5 minute, quick impression of number of questions about their impressions of the community. We do make appointments telling them beforehand that it will require some time on their part. And we do ensure them that people have the opportunity to be interviewed at the most convenient time for them. Now the current questionnaire that you have in front of you, we estimated would be at about 30 to 35 minute mean. That is the average respondent would take about that long to go through. It's not a prohibitively long survey by any stretch of the imagination. One way that we keep people on the phone is you probably noticed that topics jump somewhat. That's deliberate. We found early on that if we ask 50 or 60 questions on recreation facilities we get a drop off among certain segments of the community terminate before the survey is over with. But that 30 to 35 minute approximation really does cover one fact and that is that we've talked with people at Hennepin County and up in Carver County. We actually have at least 10% of the respondents who will stay on the phone with us for over an hour, by their choice. The record is held by a woman in Chaska who spoke with one of our interviewees for 1 hour and 56 minutes. She was 90 years old. She then called the mayor to talk to him about the fact that she was glad that she was chosen, but she expected him to give her name to us. She didn't understand random samples, and thanked the council for the opportunity to express her opinions. What we've found, we do a lot of product surveys. We do political surveys and then we do quality of life surveys. Is that residents are more than willing to stay with us on the line through an extensive survey as long as it deals with one of two things. Their cities or their school districts. If we tried to do something like this dealing with a political campaign, or dealing with a product for example one product that we've dealt with a lot of 3M scotch tape. We could never even attempt a survey a quarter as long as this one. So it really is the topics. It's the interest. It's the pre-work ahead of time announcing that a survey is about to be taken and then the convenient way we give respondents in terms of being able to tell us when they want to be interviewed. In surveys this long we expect our non-response rate to stay below plus or minus. Sorry, not plus or minus. We expect to stick below 5%. The problem will be, as we found to be the case in the last survey we did for the City of Chanhassen, and also for the survey we did for the Carver County library, is finding your residents at home. And there, we're in the field for 2 weeks. We will call our target households up to 30 times if necessary in order to make sure we do get them. But rather than refusals, our refusals generally stay at about 2% or less. The other 3% usually comes in in terms of not being able to find the target and make a substitute. 19 City Council Meeting - April 9, 2001 Mayor Jansen: Appreciate that. I actually found myself too to be a perfect example. Any time I pick up the phone and somebody wants to ask me questions, I decline. I got one of the phone calls for the park and trail referendum. I stopped what I was doing. I sat down and I answered every single question and I was not a knowledgeable resident at that time by any stretch of the imagination. Didn't even realize there was a survey going on but as soon as they said, you know this is about Chanhassen and at the time they were saying it's about your taxes, because it was about a referendum, you know I definitely sat down and gave it the time so I thought it was an interesting bit of background that Mr. Morris was able to share. Craig, did you have a question to add to that? Councilman Peterson: I guess I was surprised, you know I looked at 160 some questions and I got scared, just like my fellow council did. What did surprise me, you said only 2 to 3% refused. I would have assumed for this long of a survey it would have been significantly more than that, thus biasing your results so you indirectly answered my biggest concern about you have to call 100 people to get 2 to do it and then you've got a biased group so, I'm amazed at that. Bill Morris: That isn't the case with quality of life surveys. It can become the case in product type of test and that sort of thing. The record length that we have is the City of Richfield where residents actually sat through, or stood through in some cases, a 238 question survey. But it talked about the airport issue. It talked about highway construction, that kind of thing and all of those were very, very salient topics as far as residents were concerned. Scott Botcher: The two samples we had in our packet to work for, one was from Lakeville, one was from Woodbury. One was 180 some and one was in excess of 200. It was like 2 and a quarter, give or take. Both communities, from my conversations with the professional staff in those communities had very, very strong responses. The same type of refusal rates that he's indicated here so obviously if it's, I'm fairly comfortable with the methodology. Councilman Peterson: I didn't compare the number of questions last time, the last survey to this time. Were they significantly different? The number of questions. Scott Botcher: I don't remember frankly. Mayor Jansen: And those were just targeted at the park and trail referendum questions so it was just one topic, so I think that was, or is the difference between the two as far as length. Because when I looked at it I thought okay, we have to carve this in half or something, but you go through the questions and staff did such a wonderful job of throwing out the issues that we're really going to be faced with over the next 2 years, this survey will give us a very good indication for a lot of our policy and strategic planning issues and things that staff is going to be bringing forward so I had a great deal of difficulty trying to come up with anything to cut out. I was intrigued with the questions. I did come up with some and I don't know how much time we want to spend on actually going through the questions, judging by Steve's face he doesn't want to spend too much time. I can throw my questions out to staff and Mr. Morris to see about some of these revisions. Mainly in some of the terminology and maybe a better definition for instance on the, we ask about the need for affordable housing. I'm looking for a definition so at least they know what they mean when we hit that topic but I have 2 pages worth so I can certainly go over those at another time. If there's something conceptually or if there are specifics that other council people have. 20 City Council Meeting - April 9, 2001 Councilman Ayotte: I just want it to happen quickly. The results of this tool is so important for us to do our business. So even if there was a discussion point or whether or not a question needs to be tweaked, I think it's extremely important that we get this thing going and done. So that's my. Mayor Jansen: Good. We are targeting having it ready to go after this meeting. After a little, maybe if you could, maybe speak a little bit to the time line for us. I believe we were talking about making phone calls starting in May? Bill Morris: That's exactly, although we may be able to push that up by a week. We'd certainly like to pre-test this month and then get back to you, if residents are doing anything unexpected or if they're having problems with a particular concept. Usually we stay in the field for 2 to 3 weeks. Again we track down people who are, who have active life styles because we don't want to bias against those people. Then normally it takes us 2 weeks after that to tabulate, get the data on the computer and then one week after that we would have the frequencies out to you with an executive summary. And then set up a meeting and also start generating out cross tabs for a final report. Mayor Jansen: Wonderful. So I'm hearing results sometime in June. Bill Morris: Exactly. Mayor Jansen: Great. Very good. So per Scott's direction, if we can have a motion to approve. Scott Botcher: I would just ask to authorize you to execute the agreement. Mayor Jansen: What he said. Scott Botcher: Because he was going to, I haven't seen this yet but we're all comfortable with it and, just so you're authorized to sign mayor. Mayor Jansen: Okay. A motion authorizing the mayor to finalize the agreement with Decision Resources please. Councilman Peterson: So moved. Councilman Ayotte: Second. Councilman Peterson moved, Councilman Ayotte seconded that the City Council authorize Mayor Jansen to execute the agreement with Decision Resources to conduct the community survey. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously 4 to 0. Mayor Jansen: So it passes 4-0 and I'll give my comments through Scott and yourself then. Bill Morris: Fantastic and I'll get a revision out to you as rapidly as possible. Then we'll pre-test. Mayor Jansen: Great, thank you. Appreciate it. COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS: 21 City Council Meeting - April 9, 2001 Mayor Jansen: The only thing that I added to this were any commission reports. I did attend as the liaison the last Planning Commission meeting and in that meeting, the main topic that ended up being of discussion were the ordinance reviews and all of them were tabled. No surprise. Lot of issues to work through. We're expecting that at the next Planning Commission meeting that 2 out of the 4 will come back for their review. They were just minor questions that needed to be walked through, and then 2 of them will probably take more of about a month to come through, so they're working on some detail and reflecting some really good questions on behalf of the planning commissioners. They were doing a real good job of walking through some of the issues on those. The other thing that I did want to mention, I think all of you have gotten a copy of the press release that Kate had put together on the housing forum. She did a wonderful job of taking the initiative on this and contacting people and pulling together all the plans so she really, really did a wonderful job of being proactive. The first date for the first public forum is April 26th at 7:00 and it's at the Chanhassen Dinner Theater, and the title of that first topic is affordable life cycle housing. What is the issue? And she has a professor coming in from the Urban and Regional Planning at Hubert Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. And then also a speaker from the Met Council. There are two follow-up forums after that scheduled for May 3rd. The title of that one is, how can affordable housing be achieved? Who's providing it and how are they doing it? Those speakers are from the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency. Also the Carver County Housing and Redevelopment Director and someone from the Met Council. And then the last segment is on May l0th. The title of that program is what has Chanhassen done and what is the city's role? And that will be a facilitated session with Ms. Aanenson and Nancy Lenhart from the University of Minnesota Extension Office facilitating the group discussion around everything that has been heard at the previous two forums so it should be a good basis then for us to get some good information back from the community and businesses. The press release went to the Villager. It is also going to businesses. Our churches. As well as I asked her to also forward it onto the Carver County Board of Commissioners because they have a large educational project that they're working on also as far as affordable housing. That's all I had on my list of things under the council presentations. Did anyone else have anything else to bring up this evening? Councilman Labatt: 41's closed. It's under water. Mayor Jansen: So is 101. Councilman Labatt: Yep. Mayor Jansen: Okay. ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS: Scott Botcher: I just have two quick ones. First of all, and this just came late today. Received from Hennepin County, these are the revised 2001 Section 8 income limits, which as we do our affordable housing stuff, will become important and you guys can have a copy of those and Kate handed me this late today and asked that I just... When you share that with other cities of course, we'll knock off the billable hours. And then secondly, I just want to call attention to one thing in your correspondence packet, and that is a letter that I wrote to Carver County officially seeking relief for the $91,000 in penalties applied to the Chanhassen bowling alley property. It's staff's opinion, and we hope it's your's, that the, you know it's in the county's best interest as well to get this property cleaned up and maximized in terms of value to generate revenue for, not only the city because we're just 20% of the pie, but for the schools and for the county. For everyone else that receives tax payments. And that all parties would be better served by having that $91,000 available for reinvestment into the property in order to maximize the money and 22 City Council Meeting - April 9, 2001 maximize that future revenue instead of simply paying it to the County of Carver. And so we have officially made that request. It's our understanding that it will not be on the agenda for a matter of several weeks. I guess I bring this to your attention because I know that some of you have contacts or have regular contact with county commissioners, both from our area as well as other county commissioners in Carver County and staff might solicit your support in, if you speak to these individuals, that you bring this to their attention because we feel very strongly that if we're talking about nearly $100,000, I'd much rather sink it into the property than simply write a check to Carver County. And under the law, unless I misunderstand this Roger, the County keeps the penalties. This is not something that's split with anybody. It's simply just, they keep it. And we would like them to be partners with us in maximizing the revenue stream from this property. Secondly, and parallel with that, I don't know what influence Mr. Lundgren may or may not have but I guess I would say the same thing that I said about the commissioners about Mr. Lundgren. If you have contact with him, you may wish to impart upon him the importance of this $91,000 relief because it's staff's belief that certainly a positive recommendation from Mark would go a long way to helping our case. Conversely a negative recommendation certainly would be more difficult for us to deal with so, please pay some attention to this because we're talking real money. Mayor Jansen: Thank you. Thanks for initiating the letter. Scott Botcher: So I will try to do that. Beyond that I don't have a thing. Mayor Jansen: Okay, appreciate it. Motion to adjourn. Councilman Labatt moved, Councilman Ayotte seconded to adjourn. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously. The City Council meeting was adjourned at 8:35 p.m. Submitted by Scott Botcher City Manager Prepared by Nann Opheim 23