CC Minutes 2001 03 12CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL
REGULAR MEETING
MARCH 12, 2001
Mayor Jansen called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. The meeting was opened with the Pledge to
the Flag.
COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT: Mayor Jansen, Councilman Labatt, Councilman Ayotte,
Councilman Kroskin and Councilman Peterson
STAFF PRESENT: Scott Botcher, Roger Knutson, Kate Aanenson, Bob Generous, Todd Gerhardt,
Bruce DeJong, Todd Hoffman, Teresa Burgess, and Kelley Janes
Public Present for General Information:
Name Address
Deb Lloyd
Dave Happe
Rod Franks
Dave Soliday
Bill Coffman
Jean Mancini
Bobbie Headla
Diane Potts
Molly Willette
Tom Devine
Barbara Vemes
Kari R.
Rich Slagle
Frank Mendez
Linda Landsman
Robert Mortenson
Dan Shoemaker
Charles Hallau
Dan Russ
James H.
Vernelle Clayton
Lee Kaufman
7301 Laredo Drive
604 Summerfield
8694 Mary Jane Circle
291 Shoreview Court
600 West 78th Street, #250
820 Santa Vera Drive
6870 Minnewashta Parkway
420 Chan View #201
8201 Main Street
7640 South Shore Drive
Resident
Resident
7411 Fawn Hill Road
7361 Kurvers Point Road
7329 Frontier Trail
7371 Kurvers Point Road
7380 Kurvers Point Road
115 Choctaw Circle
6791 Brule Circle
Americana Bank
422 Santa Fe Circle
300 Hidden Lane
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Mayor Jansen: Thank you all for joining us. Tonight under public announcements we were going to
present the last two of the Maple Leaf Awards to our Public Safety Commissioners. Unfortunately they
were unable to join us this evening due to an illness and a sick child in the family so we will be rescheduling
those awards.
CONSENT AGENDA: Councilman Peterson moved, Councilman Kroskin seconded to approve the
following consent agenda items pursuant to the City Manager's recommendations:
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
b. Approval of Certificate of Compliance for Bluff Creek Corporate Center, Project 98-13.
Approval of Site Plan for 28,821 sq. ft. Office/Warehouse Building; Lot 8, Block 1, Chanhassen
Lakes Business Park 7th Addition; Eden Trace Corporation.
Approval of Site Plan for 26,040 sq. ft. Office/warehouse Building; Lot 7, Block 1, Chanhassen
Lakes Business Park 7th Addition; P.O.S. Plus, Inc., The Design Partnership, Ltd.
e. Approval of Public Gathering Permit, INT Waterski Tournament, June 2-3, Lake Susan Park.
f. Approval of Bills.
Approval of Minutes:
-City Council Work Session Minutes dated February 26, 2001
-City Council Minutes dated February 26, 2001
Receive Commission Minutes:
- Planning Commission Minutes dated February 20, 2001
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously 5 to 0.
VISITOR PRESENTATIONS:
UPDATE ON 2001 DAVE HUFFMAN 5K RUN, KEN GARVIN AND MIKE HOWE.
Ken Garvin: Good evening.
Mayor Jansen: Good evening.
Ken Garvin: Thank you Mayor. Thank you City Council for giving us the opportunity to present the Dave
Huffman 5K to you once again. IfI could, we are trying to make this an annual event in the City of
Chanhassen and the purpose of our coming before you tonight is to just to keep you apprised of what the
race committee has been up to. Last year we had 238 runners. It was a gorgeous day. Dave Huffman's
family was present and we had the Rock-a-Bellies and it was just a beautiful day. It couldn't have been a
better day for the event. This year we've got some new developments. We've got Joe Schmidt. He's
committed to help us emcee the event as well as talks are currently underway with Debra Jones, who is the
PR person at the Minnesota Vikings headquarters and she is working on several different marketing
opportunities for us as well as player attendance possibilities. This year's event will be September 15th at
9:00 a.m., just like last year, with shuttle service to Lake Ann Park starting at approximately 8:00 a.m.
Mike Howe: Thanks Mayor Jansen and council members. I'm the park commission rep on the Dave
Huffman Race Committee and I just, I want to thank you for your support on this and we're excited about
it again this year. You've got about 6 months exactly to train. Okay, and I know there's snow on the
ground but it's going to be gone soon. As far as the budget, last year we budgeted about $2,500 in the
Park and Rec budget. We didn't use any of the money. This year we budgeted $1,000. Other than in-kind
services from staff, we don't expect to use that either and mostly that's because Ken's employer,
Americlnn and Northcott and Lou Fowler came up with a sizeable donation so that's kind of our seed
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
money. We have a lot of entrants and we're pretty much paying our way but we're excited about it and I
hope to see you all there.
Mayor Jansen: Well that's exciting for your second year and I had the opportunity to volunteer for this
one. I certainly don't run but it was, oh it was a wonderful event and I would sure encourage everyone and
council, they'll be looking for volunteers to work the event. Otherwise we're going to require you to run.
Right? Shouldn't that be one of the requirements?
Mike Howe: Absolutely.
Councilman Peterson: I won't second that motion.
Mayor Jansen: So thank you and we sure appreciate your company stepping forward and putting this event
together with us and our commission for working as diligently as you have on this to make it happen so
thank you. It's a wonderful event for the community. The recommendation, I gather we need to vote on
supporting the use of the in-kind services and public safety staff time and financial assistance that's
budgeted. If I could have a motion for approval please.
Councilman Labatt: Move approval.
Mayor Jansen: And a second?
Councilman Ayotte: Second.
Mayor Jansen: We have a second. Any more conversation? Any discussion?
Councilman Labatt moved, Councilman Ayotte seconded that the City Council approve and endorse
the Dave Huffman 5K Race and support the use of in-kind services, public safety staff time and
financial assistance that has been budgeted in the 2001 Recreation Budget. All voted in favor and the
motion carried unanimously 5 to 0.
Mayor Jansen: Under visitor presentation it does allow for visitor comments and if anyone in the audience
would like to approach the podium and address an issue to the council at this time, please do. State your
name and address for the record please.
Debbie Lloyd: Debbie Lloyd. I live at 7302 Laredo Drive and I just want to know ifI'll have time for a
public comment tonight for the Igel subdivision.
Mayor Jansen: That issue does not appear under our public hearing time. We will be hearing from the
applicant, which is fairly standard, and if you have a neighborhood representative, we could then have a 5
minute presentation at that point.
Debbie Lloyd: Thank you, I appreciate it.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you. Anyone else who cares to address the council? Good evening.
Chuck Gabrielson: Good evening Mayor Jansen. I'm Chuck Gabrielson. I believe most of you are fairly
familiar with me.
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Mayor Jansen: And your address please for the record.
Chuck Gabrielson: And my address, my permanent address is 2600 Arboretum Boulevard. My temporary
address falling medical leave is 400 Santa Fe Trail, both in Chanhassen.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you.
Chuck Gabrielson: And many of you know that I've been an active resident in Chanhassen for the past 20
years. I've been extremely active in the years through activities, volunteering in churches, schools,
community, political, social groups, and the reason I'm coming here tonight is actually with kind of a fairly
heavy heart. It's trying to bring some culmination in the end to a kind of a process that I've been dealing
with, and it was the election of this past year. And many people, besides myself, have felt that the election
that we had, we saw this last fall was probably one of the nastiest that we've seen in Chanhassen, and I
promise to do my best, even a recent letter to the editor in trying to find answers that were still left
questioned. And in finding out answers, which largely some have come within the last week or so to me, I
also am going to announce this is probably my civic swan song, largely because I won't probably be
around for the next election. My doctors tell me that, because of the stage of my cancer and such, I
probably have about 3 months left to give. So this will probably also be my last appearance before the
City Council and I'm sorry it's of this nature but it's one where I'm going to kind of be passing on the
torch. One of the concerns that I have, one of the great concerns that I have is the appearance of what has
started to appear to me to be a tremendous quid pro quo from this past election. What I have done is I have
put into form a number of questions that I'm going to address, and I've also written them out and I would
beg your indulgence since I know this is going to be my last performance before the City Council, if I run
slightly over, that you would beg my indulgence since you won't ever have to probably worry about seeing
me up here again. It's two separate issues that I wish to address. The first is the red postcard that was
mailed out shortly before this last election. And what I'm going to do is try to be as straight forward as I
can in my questioning of the situation. And the questions I have start with questions for Mr. Kroskin.
Mayor Jansen: Excuse me Chuck, just so you're.
Chuck Gabrielson: I know he can't answer my questions this evening. I know that...
Mayor Jansen: Okay, but it's just proper procedure that we don't respond at visitor presentations.
Chuck Gabrielson: I'm very well aware of that. I'm not expecting any responses, but I'm just putting
them on the record for potential future response. Mr. Kroskin, is it true that at the time of the past election
you were the box holder of P.O. Box 1082 here in Chanhassen, the return address for the red postcard used
as a last minute attack against Mancino, Senn and Peterson? Number 2, the name Renee Fry appears as
the person signing the recording documents for Citizens for Integrity in Government. The responsible party
for the red postcard. Is this the same Renee Fry residing at Forest Lake and practicing law in Roseville
who served as your incorporating attorney for your company, Mark Data Systems? Number 3. If these
are true, then it appears that great lengths have gone to attempt to cover any direct relationship between
you and the red postcard. The evidence leads me to conclude that you played a major pivotal role in the
smear attack against Mancino, Senn and Peterson, and is that true? In addition to looking at that situation I
also became intrigued, because during the swift appointment process, as to how a person of mystery all of a
sudden got catapulted into a seat on our city council so I decided to do a little digging of my own and I
found some very interesting information. I now have a number of questions that I would like to put also on
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
the public record, and I understand that I will not receive a response tonight but I believe the questions
deserve answers and soon. With all due respect to the mayor and other city council members, I will direct
my questions to Councilman Kroskin and I will give Councilman Kroskin a list of my questions at the end
of my presentation. As a preface, in addition to what I believe are many misleading and inflammatory
statements on the red postcard, it states that ethics, character and integrity are important in city government
and that we clearly need skilled individuals that live ethical lives and display strong character on the
council. And I'm assuming that you stipulate to the notion that this criteria set forth in the red postcard
should be generalized to all candidates for City Council, including yourself. First question I have is this. Is
it true this past election that you certified your legal voting address as 9821 Deerbrook Drive while being
aware that you are no longer the owner of that property, and does that constitute voter fraud? Number 5.
Are you a homeowner in Chanhassen today? Number 6. Do you currently pay property taxes on property
you own in Chanhassen? Because I have a question Mr. Kroskin who you really are. In a 1998 federal
deposition you stated that you hold a Bachelor of Science degree in Math. You stated in your City Council
application your highest level of education is a 4 year college, 4 years of college with a major in finance
and computer science, and you've stated to others that you graduated from Mankato State.
Mayor Jansen: Mr. Gabrielson, with all due respect. I realize you must have quite a list of issues and we
do have an extensive agenda this evening so out of respect for the issues that are on the remainder of the
agenda, since you can't be responded to this evening. Since you do have your questions in writing, if you'd
like to submit those at this time. You are at your 5 minutes on the visitor presentation portion of the
meeting.
Chuck Gabrielson: Well then what I may have to do is come back. And use 5 minutes at a time because I
believe that these are very important issues. I understand, that's why I asked for indulgence earlier.
Mayor Jansen: And I don't disagree with you but right now if we clock our agenda, we're here until 12:30
so all due respect for the people on the later part of our agenda, we have some major issues that we are
trying to get worked through this evening so I would appreciate your understanding. I understand.
A number of audience members stated they deferred their 5 minutes of time to Mr. Gabrielson.
Audience: You can't dodge these bullets. Ethics. You can't dodge these. People...
Mayor Jansen: Excuse me. This is a business meeting and unfortunately we are going to stick to protocol,
and we do have major issues on the agenda. You are more than welcome to come back.
Audience: It is a major issue.
Mayor Jansen: I'm not disputing that and sir, I'm going to ask you to please not interrupt again. I
appreciate that. If you'd like to submit your questions, you are certainly welcome to do that. Is there
anyone else who would like to address the council at this time? If so, please state your name and address
for the record.
Steve Berquist: I would gladly give him my 5 minutes. I've simply got a question regarding protocol
again. The Puke project is up. It's not a public hearing. Will you allow public input?
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Mayor Jansen: If you would like to share your comments with us at this time, you are more than welcome
to. We are, as we've discussed previously not holding public hearings on each one of the issues so thank
you.
Steve Berquist: Be right back.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you.
Steve Berquist: My name is Steve Berquist. I live at 7207 Frontier Trail and I come before you regarding
Arboretum Village. For the record this project proposal came before you on the 12th of February. That
version had received approval from the planning department, Planning Commission, Park and Recreation
Commission, Senior and Environmental Commissions, as well as from all senior staff and it was in keeping
with the Highway 5 corridor study, the Bluff Creek Overlay District and the Comprehensive Plan. I wish
to question the tweaking that this council was so eager to do on this project. One of your concerns was
inadequate parkland. The plan that I've seen to resolve this, you've chosen to provide additional acreage in
the northeast comer of the project and for this the City of Chanhassen gives up over a half a million dollars
in park dedication fees. The Comprehensive Plan specifically states on page 49 that we currently have
more parkland than we need for our current population. In fact, we have more parkland than we will need
when we are fully developed in 2020. The comp plan does indicate additional neighborhood parks will
probably be needed to serve new residential areas. This new public park is not needed according to our
own comp plan, which you've all advocated following and enforcing. So I'm confused as to why you've
chosen to delete a totlot, which amounts to a neighborhood park, and add a 6 acre public park in a non-
public area off of a private street. On November 28th you Madam Mayor, Mr. Kroskin, Mr. and Mrs.
Ayotte, Dennis Griswold from Puke and a Longacres residents were the only people in attendance at a Park
and Recreation Commission. At that meeting the Longacres residents expressed concern that the Longacres
parks may provide areas of recreation for ~these people". Further, she was sure this would cause friction.
Check the Minutes folks. The statements are in context. So with the new tweaked plan the citizens of
Chanhassen lose a half a million dollars in park dedication fees, but we get a publicly owned, publicly
maintained park in a very non-public area off of a private street. It's a heck of a deal. The other neat
thing, the land we're losing a half a million dollars to get, we're going to allow a storm water pond to be
built on. This is per the last drawings. To the best of my knowledge we as a city have never allowed a
storm water pond to be built on public parkland before. It's a new twist. There was also a desire to keep
the entire stand of trees at the south border of the property. You've accomplished this. This 2 acre
additional stand of trees has forced a loss of 18 of the most affordable units and has been instrumental in
forcing the adoption of private streets throughout the project. The only non-private street will now be West
78th Street. The use of private streets will deter from the affordability of the units insofar as the association
fees will now have to cover road maintenance, snowplowing, etc, but you know this. The residents will
continue to pay their full share of property taxes. Again, when contrasted with your stated goals of
providing and ensuring affordability, the change seems very contrary. Which brings me to sustainable
affordability. The staff report on page 3 says, this is extremely difficult to do unless there's a commitment
from another agency. This isn't news. Subsidation was never the intent on this project and yet that's what
sustainable affordability is, but it sounded good at the time. I'll admit that. While I'm on this subject, I
want to refer to item 39 of your conditions of approval. It states, the developer shall work with the city to
accomplish goals for affordable housing. 30% of the ownership housing shall meet criteria established for
affordability by the Met Council. Now I want to know when was the public hearing that changed the
language of the Livable Community Act. That agreement as I recall says that the overall goal should be
30% of the entire housing stock in the city of Chanhassen. The language of item 39 indicates a change that
has not been approved by this council and last time I heard that discussion was going to occur in April.
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Further, item 39 states the developer shall also work with the city on affordability mechanisms for income
qualifying and maintenance of affordability. I read that and I thought, what does that mean. They're
warm, fuzzy words and they're very politically soothing. I think the sentence should be removed. To sum
it up, a sustainable affordability is not doable without subsidation, the marketplace should work. Moving
on to the gateway in Chanhassen which has now become a pond 11 feet below the roadway. The residents
of Arboretum Village now have private streets, coupled with public exposure to the traffic of Highway 5
and 41. Noise, lights and action galore. Plus the pond, according to the staff report, will be difficult to
maintain. More of our tax dollars to spend. Lastly, with the changes negotiated by Mayor Jansen and
Councilmember Kroskin, why is this a PUD? Don't the net densities and housing types now allow this to
be a standard subdivision? I hope you address that within the context of the hearing. I submit that the plan
staff report dated for the council meeting of February 12th was superior to today's plan and I submit, I
propose that the council reconsider the previous plan and act in a manner that is responsible to the entire
community, thank you.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you.
Susan McAllister: My name is Susan McAllister. I live at 7461 Hazeltine Boulevard. I am potentially
Puke's own neighbor, if they get approved, and I want you to know how important, and I'm not going to
take very much time because I've already been through it. This comer I've seen since 1959. The way it's
been. It's very emotional. I'm not going to cry because I already did, about a half an hour ago. I've tried
really hard to be a really good person for that comer. Accept this development and I've gone through many
changes with them but that's the way it is and I've always tried to support their plan. The plan that I
believe Steve is talking about was the February 12th one. I cannot support that for the fact that I have been
granted a 10 year interim use permit. I need protection of that 300 foot ordinance, even though the city
attorney does not agree with that. The Mike Lien who is head of Carver County Environmental Services is
willing to give his input on this entire situation here with this 300 foot buffer setback we want to call if. He
and I had a conversation today. He did clarify with me that yes indeed, even it's contrary to the city
attorney's belief that if I were to purchase land that's next to a feedlot in the unincorporated parts of
Carver County, even though they don't regulate the incorporated cities, okay. I would indeed have to stay
1,000 feet away from that feedlot as a developer coming around it. It's the burden put on the development
coming around the feedlot. The reason being is to prevent the noise and smell. The farmer can't move his
building so therefore they're putting the burden on the developer. I have tried to you know, say this 300
foot thing which is 60% or whatever it was of 500 feet if I weren't a commercial operation, is something
that I'm going to try to adhere to to the best of my management practices. I absolutely have to have that.
When we calculate that Mike Lien said that in Carver County they take 50 animal units per 1,000 foot
setback. I have 17 when I'm up and running. Therefore that makes it 340 feet at the same calculation,
which means it's one animal unit per 20 feet so therefore we calculate that the same. It comes to 340 feet
buffer, okay. Like I said, I'm trying to work this and the city attorney in this situation is wrong. The
reason being is that philosophically the reason for that buffer is to limit noise and smell coming from me.
Noise and smell comes from both sides. It's like saying I'm pregnant but I'm going to have a baby. They
go together. I need you to understand how serious this is. IfI don't get the 300 feet, I'm going to be
setting myself up for many nuisance suits and I can't afford to defend myself. But like I said, I do plan on
doing the best management practices I possibly can. This is a development that I've supported. I can't
support it ifI don't get the 300 feet. I don't know what the answer's going to be but I want you to know
how serious this is so thank you very much.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you Sue.
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Rob Moschet: Good evening Madam Mayor, Honorable Council. My name is Rob Moschet. I reside at
7006 Cheyenne Trail here in the city. I'm here again as a representative of Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church,
but I'm speaking at this point in my individual capacity. I think it's unfair, and I'd like to for whatever it's
worth, register a protest that the public comment portion of the meeting here tonight is coming before we
get a chance to hear from the staff and the report on the changes or the tweaking of the Puke plan that was
to have occurred since the February 12th meeting.
Mayor Jansen: Did you have an opportunity to come in and pick up a copy of the staff report by any
chance, or no?
Rob Moschet: I did not and I have not picked up a copy of the staff report, but I haven't heard from the
staff as to their position on that and until it's publicly stated before the council, I don't know that, I mean
staff reports are amended all the time. From what I understand however, the tweaking that has gone on,
and as Mr. Berquist has pointed out here before you tonight and in his editorial to the paper, leads me to
believe that the February 12th plan was much preferable to what is apparently going to be proposed tonight
in that February 12th plan allows for more units that we've labeled affordable. And also did not contain the
provision that the streets in the proposed development be privatized. I think that with the privatization of
the streets and the loss of the affordable units the new proposal, as I understand it, and if it's actually going
to be proposed as stated, is much less preferable than the February 12th proposal and I would go along with
Mr. Berquist in urging the council to reconsider and to pass the February 12th proposal. I'd also urge the
council to open up the meeting for public comment after we've had a chance to hear the staff presentation.
Mayor Jansen: I appreciate your comments, thank you.
Peter Prosen: Hi. My name is Peter Prosen. I live at 2701 Longacres Drive in the Longacres subdivision.
I back up to the property in question, the Puke Homes and I'm just looking for a justification on, you have
a $600,000 deficit in your budget. You're throwing away $560,000 in parks money and 18 tax base
properties. I don't see how you can justify cutting back lots and taxes when you don't meet your budget as
it is. Thank you.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you. Anyone else? Caring to address the council. Okay. We'll end visitor
presentations.
PUBLIC HEARING AND ACCEPT FEASIBILITY REPORT FOR CENTURY BOULEVARD
PROJECT 97-1C; AUTHORIZE PREPARATION OF PLANS & SPECIFICATIONS.
Teresa Burgess: Madam Mayor and Council. This evening we are, on February 12th the City Council
received the feasibility report. This evening we're asking the council to approve that feasibility report
directing that and recommending that the improvements to Century Boulevard, including watermain,
sanitary sewer and storm sewer be constructed and at this time to authorize plans and specifications and we
will be going to RFP for selection of a consultant services. Tonight is a public hearing and with that I'll
answer any questions.
Mayor Jansen: Any questions for staff at this time councilmen? Okay, thank you Teresa. We will open
this then for the public hearing portion of this agenda item. If there's anyone who cares to address the
council, if you could approach the podium at this time. Seeing no one, we'll close the public hearing and
bring this back to council. Any discussion? Any comments? Otherwise I'll look for a motion.
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Councilman Peterson: Motion to approve as submitted.
Councilman Labatt: Second.
Mayor Jansen: There's a motion and a second. No more discussion?
Resolution #2001-12: Councilman Peterson moved, Councilman Labatt seconded to approve the
feasibility report and authorized preparation of plans and specifications for Century Boulevard
Street & Utility Improvements, Project No. 97-1C. All voted in favor and the motion carried
unanimously 5 to 0.
CONSIDERATION OF A MIXED HOUSING DEVELOPMENT (379 UNITS) CONSISTING OF
CLUB HOMES, MANOR HOMES, COACH HOMES, AND VILLAGE HOMES ON 89.5
ACRES AND 2.94 ACRES OF NEIGHBORHOOD COMMERCIAL USES ON PROPERTY
ZONED A2, AGRICULTURAL ESTATE AND RR, RURAL RESIDENTIAL; LOCATED ON
THE NORTHEAST CORNER OF HIGHWAYS 5 AND 41; ARBORETUM VILLAGE, PULTE
HOMES:
COMPREHENSIVE LAND USE AMENDMENT AND PRELIMINARY PLANNED UNIT
DEVELOPMENT FROM LOW DENSITY RESIDENTIAL TO MEDIUM DENSITY
RESIDENTIAL AND MEDIUM DENSITY RESIDENTIAL TO COMMERCIAL.
SUBDIVISION OF 120.93 ACRES INTO 2 ADDITIONS; THE FIRST ADDITION
1NCLUDES 26 BLOCKS CONTAINING 199 UNITS AND OUTLOTS A-F, AND THE
SECOND ADDITION 1NCLUDES 24 BLOCKS CONTAINING 180 UNITS AND
OUTLOTS A-C.
SITE PLAN REVIEW OF 32 CLUB HOMES, 105 MANOR HOMES, 82 COACH
HOMES, AND 160 VILLAGE HOMES.
WETLAND ALTERATION PERMIT TO FILL .54 ACRES OF WETLANDS IN 2
SEPARATE BASINS.
Public Present:
Nflme
Address
Susan McAllister
Dan Cook
Tom Green
Peter Prosen
Terrie Wehse
Leah Hawke
Mike Ryan
Mike Zumwinkle
Dennis Griswold
Mark Guenther
Pat J. Connolly
7461 Hazeltine Blvd.
Pemtom
Mills Properties
2701 Longacres Drive
2719 Longacres Drive
7444 Moccasin Trail
2595 Southern Court
7250 Hillsdale Court
Puke Homes
Puke Homes
2008 Grand Avenue #306, St. Paul
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Albin Olson
Naomi Moe
Sherol Howard
Rob Moschet
Susan Engh, Pastor
Mel Kurvers
John Getsch
820 Santa Vera #122
820 Santa Vera Drive
820 Santa Vera Drive
7006 Cheyenne Trail
Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church, Excelsior
7240 Kurvers Point Road
Dogwood Road
Kate Aanenson: Thank you. What I'd like to do is just review. I would like to review the changes since
the council looked at this one month ago. Just kind of take a summary review of the changes that the
developer's made to the project. Just a point of clarification.., what's in the staff report, the executive
summary. That has the changes in it. I also handed out some language changes and also a letter from Mrs.
McAllister, which I'll go through also. So in summary the changes are, the original unit count was 379.
It's now 342. Most of those units being absorbed by the introduction ofa 5 acre park in the northern areas
of the project. All of the trees along Highway 5 have now been saved. The developer also introduced a
gateway treatment and the affordability. The language on that should be a minimum of 30%. That was the
intent. That was my mistake. A minimum percent of 30. Actually with this project now it's still close to
50%, so that was the intent to a minimum. Because we didn't know what the final numbers were as this
was moved.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you.
Kate Aanenson: Okay. So what I'd like to do, excuse me. You can't see it on this side but this project
still includes all of Outlot E and F will still be preserved outlot. E and F are the two northern parcels. One
on the west side of 41 and then E is the piece that's on the other side, straight north of, right there. Thank
you. That's north of the site that's kind of topographically separated. The applicant has also changed the
architectural features on the edge of the village units. They're brick. Brick feature on the edge of these
units facing the perimeter of the project. Those will be all brick. Staff did have some recommended
changes which are reflected in conditions of approval of the staff report. Those conditions are the
elimination of the pond on 5 and 41. The reason for that is based on the depth of that pond and where it's
draining. When MnDot looked at this pond originally they felt it could all be handled by the pond that's
adjacent to Century Boulevard. Also MnDot has 3 or 4 other pipes that are coming into this property on
the other side of 41. Kind of mid-way between those two ponds and trying to take this pond's water over to
that other, the larger pond on Century. This water over to that pond would cause some problems with
existing pipes and drainage. The other concern that we had is based on the grade change, it would be
difficult to get in there and access to clean that pond. So what we're recommending, and again that is
reflected in the conditions of approval, what we're recommending is that we do some sort of, there is an
existing wetland that we want to enhance to do some wetland vegetation, and then add some additional
trees. A mix of trees. We believe that would also provide a better buffer to those homes that are right
there at the comer, as far as noise and light attenuation. So again that is reflected in the conditions of
approval. There is a 5 acre park to the north. In order to accomplish the 5 acres we're recommending that
the pond not be included in that total. Again that is reflected in the conditions of approval. And then also
the 3 units, the 1 twin home and the 2 other doubles be eliminated from that to give integrity to that pond. I
mean that park. That it's a little bit larger and contiguous.
Mayor Jansen: And you're relocating them, which is one of the conditions.
10
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Kate Aanenson: Right. There would still be 342 units. They would just be located wherever they can put
them on the site. Again the overall density would be still 5.7, which is what we were looking at before.
The overall net went down because we took the parkland out. You don't get to count that twice for density.
So the parkland's taken out so the actual wetland, excuse me, upland is approximately 60 acres. So the
overall density is still 5.7 units an acre. The area to the north is 3.6 units an acre, and the units to the south
is 8 units an acre.
Mayor Jansen: And Kate, if you could clarify on the north, the maximum number under the zoning would
be 4 and they're at 3.6.
Kate Aanenson: Correct, so they're under. And the other one would be 8.
Mayor Jansen: And they're at 8.
Kate Aanenson: Right.
Mayor Jansen: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: The other change that the developer made was the private streets, all except for West 78th.
Staff believes that the main loop streets as Bob is pointing out, should be just the major loop streets should
be public streets and we did recommend that. That is reflected in the conditions of approval. Also, we are
recommending access to the McAllister site. That site does need sewer and water. In talking to the City
Engineer, we believe that can be accomplished with just, without putting a road there but securing an
easement if at some time in the future. Her concern is that she doesn't have a road with security and end up
being somewhere were people would park, but if we could secure an easement on that access, that does
provide an opportunity to use that easement to get sewer to the site, because that's where the sewer is
coming from. And that does provide an alternative for that property to be developed, and I think that
should alleviate her concern about the street being right next to her property.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. And Kate, while you're on the streets. The lower loop you mentioned is being
recommended to go back to public.
Kate Aanenson: That loop, yes.
Mayor Jansen: And also the upper loop, correct?
Kate Aanenson: Yes. So we would have a public street to that park.
Mayor Jansen: So though it was proposed to us by the developer to be private, staff is suggesting we stay
with public.
Kate Aanenson: That is correct.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, thank you.
Kate Aanenson: The other, as far as the 300 foot separation again, that was addressed by the city attorney.
How that works. Currently as this site sits right now, there's a 300 foot separation between the uses. The
house, the closest twin home and the McAllister property.
11
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Mayor Jansen: So with the 4 located there, just so I'm clear, you're saying that from the end unit it's 300
feet currently from the property.
Kate Aanenson: That's correct. Approximately, correct.
Mayor Jansen: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: I did hand out to you a change in the conditions of approval. The staff report. We did
add a condition regarding architectural standards. The developer at the last meeting provided the materials
because we were concerned about making sure that we had, at the Planning Commission they recommended
that there be a mix of materials and stone and brick. This just tightens that up a little bit in that condition
number 9 which would be under motion C would state that no adjacent unit shall have the same front
elevation colors or architectural styles with any 4 types of homes. Materials to be consistent with the
Arboretum Village elevation materials dated 2-7-01, which is what I attached to you. And this was
submitted by the developer last time. We just want to make sure what our expectation was with that.
Councilman Labatt: Did you say number 9 or number 107
Kate Aanenson: It'd be number 10. I handed that out.
Councilman Labatt: Yeah, I just want to make sure.
Kate Aanenson: Number 10, correct. Again, all the changes requested by staff are reflected in the staff
report so if you were to approve it, it would be with the modifications so when it would come back for final
plat, those changes would have to be reflected in the plan. I also wanted to state that there are 4 separate
motions with this. The original staff report is attached, and the reason it is attached is it's got all the
background regarding engineering. It also has the Findings of Facts for all the approvals. So that is
important, if you are to approve it with the conditions outlined in the staff report with modifications, that
you also are approving as referenced in the first motion, those Findings of Fact. And with that I believe
I've covered everything and I'd be happy to answer any questions that you might have.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. Any questions for staff from councilmen at this time?
Councilman Peterson: Kate, do you have any idea how many, what the price increase of putting brick on
the one bank of units would be? Is that going to bring it up $3,000?
Kate Aanenson: I'm not sure. You'd have to ask the applicant that, I'm sorry.
Councilman Peterson: But you don't think it affects the affordability of them?
Kate Aanenson: Not significantly. I think the Planning Commission recommended brick on those too. The
exterior and the foundation walls.
Councilman Ayotte: The issue of the traffic light, could you address that.
12
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Kate Aanenson: Well we are recommending that they pay a portion of those on a per unit basis, similar to
what we've done with other projects. We also will be asking Westwood to do a traffic study with their
project so we'll see what the warrants are.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, thank you Kate. The other part of the staff report would have to do with the
parkland and a clarification there. Were we are currently, within this project, is a 4.7 acres on that
northern peninsula and that northern peninsula was recommended by staff as far as a location for this
passive/recreational park area because it would be then contiguous with the primary corridor. We could
require 9.8 acres, which is where that $457,000 number comes from so it's an either or land or fees.
Currently we're at 4.7 in parkland and at a fee approximately of $250,000 coming back to us still. And
Todd and Mr. Griswold have been in discussions over what that number actually is. I listed on our sheets
that what has been proposed to us, and I'm mentioning this because we'll have Mr. Griswold come up next.
I've noted here that what Puke has proposed is dedicating another couple of parcels to that parkland
number in order to reduce those fees further. The discussion on the first two actually are along the two
trails, and those are currently covered with easements. Trail easements. The outlot on the north side of the
wetland area, which is 3.03 acres is also currently covered with a conservation easement. And what that
means is it's not our property. It just means that they can't go in and do further development, correct
Kate?
Kate Aanenson: Correct. Yeah, I was just going to add, I didn't point out the other change and that was
the trail that was put in along this edge. This trail was also added in.
Mayor Jansen: And that mirrors one that you're working on, correct on the other side so it becomes a
complete loop then and back down to 78th Street with the development that's on the east side. Thanks for
pointing that out.
Councilman Peterson: Another question Madam Mayor. I'm trying to figure out, what you handed out
before the meeting on the trails, you've got 120 to 150,000. Does that mean that we pay that or the
developer pays that by putting it down here? I'm trying to add up all the numbers.
Mayor Jansen: That is what the fees would go to construct. The 120 to 150,000 in construction fees is
what the parks and rec director is estimating on those two trails right now, and that number will be then
finalized once those construction costs come in. This development is generating 150,000 in fees. Trail
fees.
Councilman Ayotte: That's one time without it incurring service.
Mayor Jansen: Correct.
Councilman Peterson: But that's more, under the 2-12 plan, February 12th plan, that money would have
been paid through the developer, not through those park and trail fees, right?
Mayor Jansen: I noted under the original that it was 80,000 on the original for that northern trail, which
would have covered construction. That would have come out of the 150,000 in fees.
Councilman Ayotte: That's more trail for the same amount.
13
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Mayor Jansen: We've added the eastern trail that is approximately 40 to 70,000 is what the parks and rec
director's estimating at this point.
Councilman Peterson: So we're around 325,000 in incremental costs, with the %urrent plan". Am I
reading that right? The 250 on the 4.7 acres and say the 70,000 you said on the eastern trail that wasn't in
there before, so approximately 325,000.
Mayor Jansen: Correct.
Councilman Kroskin: I don't know if that's incremental cost.
Councilman Peterson: Well it wouldn't have been there if we would have approved the 2-12 plan.
Mayor Jansen: We would not have had the 4.7 acres and we would not have had that additional trail,
correct. Correct.
Councilman Peterson: I'll rephrase my 2-12 analysis to.
Mayor Jansen: Okay.
Councilman Labatt: So the eastern trail, you're talking about the one along.
Kate Aanenson: Yes, that's a new trail.
Councilman Labatt: That's new. And Kate, when you and I had met that one day we talked about the need
for that trail and why this wouldn't abut up to the end of the cul-de-sac and intersect with the inner
sidewalks.
Kate Aanenson: You'll have to talk to the park and rec director about that.
Councilman Labatt: Okay, Todd.
Todd Hoffman: Your question again Steve is whether or not that trail is needed on the east side?
Councilman Labatt: Right. The question is right at that park shelter, where it joins up with another
sidewalk that goes up along the northern end of the cul-de-sac and then connects to the inner sidewalk.
Why do we have to have that? Two paths. Why wouldn't we just eliminate that eastern path to preserve
those trees in the area along there?
Mayor Jansen: One's private, one public.
Todd Hoffman: Well the sidewalk, if this is a public street, would be a public sidewalk as well. As far as
transportation they're a duplication. You can get there either way. As experience they're a completely
different experience. So this trail provides a loop of about $40,000 to $60,000 in public investment that, as
a council you can decide whether that's a value to the city or not and request the developer to leave it on or
take it off. It is not in our comprehensive trail plan. It's an addition which often happens when these
individual sites come in. You kind of take a look at any added value that you can gather from the site. The
trail on the north side is in the comprehensive trail plan. It's integral to the overall circular loop which will
14
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
go around this entire wetland area. So this is just an added amenity which is nice and it just needs a
decision whether or not we want to invest those public dollars in that loop trail connection.
Councilman Labatt: Okay, but with staff's recommendation for making the looping roads public, that
sidewalk would then in essence become public.
Todd Hoffman: As well.
Councilman Labatt: Now that would set up during the winter months would be maintained by the
individual homeowners?
Todd Hoffman: Correct. And that can be a problem during the winter. During the winter this would be
plowed by our maintenance people. Sidewalks in the city routinely are not plowed so.
Mayor Jansen: And the other conversation that we had is that was being added in, was that you've got
public that's coming to enjoy the public space and the wetlands and if you're routing them then into the
neighborhoods, you're now putting them into a different experience than they're actually there for and
you're actually putting them in the neighborhoods instead of keeping them out on public space. Was the
difference between those two that we had discussed when we were reviewing it.
Councilman Labatt: Okay... the debate had become that this was a public park at the end of a private
street. Now with staff's recommendation this would become a public road. Similarly, the little shelter or
little park in the Stone Creek neighborhood up at the end of Stone Creek Circle, at the end of the cul-de-sac,
I mean that's a neighborhood park but yet that's a public park, correct?
Todd Hoffman: Correct.
Councilman Labatt: Okay.
Councilman Kroskin: Todd, can I ask a question on the trail on the east side, you said the cost to put that
in is.
Todd Hoffman: Approximately $40,000 to $60,000 based on lineal foot calculation. Cost estimates are
dependent, the actual cost is dependent on what we find in the field for construction conditions.
Councilman Ayotte: It's certainly no more than, will it be the high side?
Todd Hoffman: $60,000?
Councilman Ayotte: 60 would be the high side?
Councilman Kroskin: So I think the, Councilman Peterson and I were just jotting some numbers on the,
and I just want to be clear in the incremental cost versus the February 12th plan. You've got $457,000 in
fees versus 250 that are dealt there plus the 40 to 60,000 is how we're arriving at the, correct?
Councilman Peterson: Todd you left me before, where'd he go? Kate, I'll ask you and Todd a question.
To put you on the spot. I'll put you on the spot first. If you had to vote for one versus the other, would
you vote for the February 12th or this one?
15
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Mayor Jansen: Actually I don't think that's a.
Kate Aanenson: I wouldn't answer it anyways.
Mayor Jansen: And we should probably move on to the developer comments at this point.
Councilman Ayotte: Nice try though.
Mayor Jansen: That puts staff in a really political position unfortunately.
Councilman Peterson: That's why we get paid the big bucks then?
Mayor Jansen: Yeah. That's your decision. Mr. Griswold, if there's anything that you would like to
address to the council at this point, you're certainly welcome to come forward and we have surely
appreciated your cooperation and hard work with us over the past couple of weeks to meet that list of
points that we had reviewed with you in the last meeting. You have certainly been a real partner with us on
this so thank you.
Dennis Griswold: Well thank you Mayor and members of the council. Since we did have that February
12th meeting, we have had a number of meetings, as you know and I just went through and counted them up
and I counted 7 meetings with staff and everybody else involved relative to this property so we are taking it
very seriously. We do appreciate the fact that, well first of all we appreciate the situation that the city has
gone through and we do appreciate with the new council the directives and requests that we received last
time, which were in the form of a firm direction to proceed on our plan. And I understand that 100% of the
people cannot agree on one or the other. I think we have two plans that are both excellent plans for the city
of Chanhassen so I do think they both would work. I think that the second plan does something that the
first one doesn't, and that does give more green space and open space to the site and to the residents. The
first plan had more of the site within association ownership. The second plan has more of the green space
in public ownership and I think from the public's viewpoint that is a positive direction. The plan represents
a fairly complex set of changes that balance the green space and the units and the unit count and
profitability on the total community. And community I'm saying Arboretum Village. If you take certain
parts of that plan away, the plan starts to fall apart from an economic standpoint and it starts to fall apart
from just being a viable plan in a number of regards. And I heard of several items tonight that are eroding
away at that plan, and I would like to address those because I am in favor, and I would hope that the
council could make a decision tonight on either Plan 1 or Plan 2 or a combination thereof. And I think
we've, over the last 17 or 18 months we've looked at the site in every way we can possibly look at it. I
think we have some very viable alternatives here and I would hope that the council would approve Plan 2
tonight. Now the positive aspects and I would like to just comment on 2 or 3 of the items because they
have been changed. Number one, the public portion of the plan has been expanded in the form of park
dedication and as was mentioned, the plan indicates the greater part of the open space along the northerly
wetland through here, along this area and through here and along the east as park dedication. It also
includes the park dedication being that 3 acre parcel on the north side of the wetland area that is up off of
the paper in this location here. In addition to that, the plan is dedicating to the city through easement and
open space the portion west of Highway 41. That has really been fairly consistent over the last several
alternatives. The net affect on the open space then is that per this plan we're showing 16.26 acres of park
dedication, and out of that 16.26 acres we're only requesting a credit for a portion of that. And I
understand that there's a balancing act going on between dollars dedicated and acres dedicated. I also
16
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
understand that there's some of the land could be left as easement or open space as part of the corridor.
However, I think through park dedication that does not necessarily go against the credit. The city would
have the use and the definition of that as park so that we would not be looking in the future of that being
changed by any means and it would not have to necessarily go against the park dedication portion. The
park dedication that we're required, according to your formula is 9.98 acres so you can see that we're
dedicating 6.28 acres in addition to that required amount. Now in addition to that we are, we will be
paying the trail fee, which is as I understand roughly $150,000, and in addition to that we would be putting
in all of the interior trails that connect to that public system. So the public is not only getting the public
portion of the trails that will be within the public land but there's a greater part of the system that will be
accommodating not only our future residents but the people who would be coming to see them and other
parts of the public. So I think that's a definite plus for the city of Chanhassen and the public in general.
The density, as was mentioned, does meet the comp guide plan. 8 per acre on the south and 3.6 on the
north. Part of that formula as far as this site working is that I would request that we keep the private drives
private. Private drives are built to public spec. They're covered by a public easement. They look and
function exactly like a public street except the public doesn't have to pay for the maintenance on them.
And I think it's a positive that those are kept private. All of the streets that we're talking about are interior
loop streets. They're not streets that would be circulating traffic from other subdivisions, other parts of
Chanhassen. They're all looped streets within Arboretum Village proper and the public street, West 78th
Street, would remain public obviously and that would be the public corridor through the overall
community. Now we think that is a very important item in this. We do not feel that that long term
maintenance is a detriment to the associations because we do have the population and unit count to justify
maintaining streets like that. We do it all the time in other subdivisions where typically there's a public
street going through the property and private drives off of that. So it's very common and it's done all the
time.
Mayor Jansen: So Mr. Griswold, if you don't mind my asking.
Dennis Griswold: Yes.
Mayor Jansen: Then the net effect on the homeowner association fees that each of these individual units
will be impacted with, is that significant or insignificant with the change from public to private?
Dennis Griswold: I think it's insignificant. You're talking just probably a few dollars a month to do that.
And there again the maintenance is a very long term situation and the maintenance of snow removal and
that type of thing is really a small portion of the overall fee because the private factor is doing the
individual driveways on those units that back out to the public street. So they have to essentially remove
all that snow off the public right-of-way anyway and so it's really a small amount that they're dealing with
there.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. Thanks for addressing that.
Dennis Griswold: Thank you. The other portions that are important I feel are that the gateway aspect was
addressed. It was addressed in a way that was suggested by the city and we feel that this particular
solution would work well with this development. We are dealing with similar amount of trees and species
through...back to this area so it's.
Mayor Jansen: So you doubled it up?
17
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Dennis Griswold: Well it's the same amount of trees, just moved to a different location back away from
the highways.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. And the berms are still present, correct?
Dennis Griswold: It's all sloped through there. It slopes down to the pond with the tree buffering against
the buildings themselves. Now if you look at the older plan, and maybe we have that. I think I addressed
that it sloped from the buildings down to the pond with the tree, the vegetation.
Mayor Jansen: So in that area it's the natural slope and along the 5 and 41 it's bermed? Isn't there
berming Kate?
Dennis Griswold: There's berming in other areas but in that particular area it's the building with the slope
going down to the pond with the trees between the building and the pond.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. And that was true of the original plan too then?
Dennis Griswold: Correct. The difference was that in the original plan, as you can see there are two
buildings that come diagonally directly out to that comer and the trees were out closer to that existing
wetland right in the comer. As you compare that to the adjusted plan, the buildings were split so you have
this larger green space at a diagonal to the comer with the pond. Same amount of vegetation.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, thank you.
Dennis Griswold: And of course the one major item that council was requesting before was the
preservation of the trees along Highway 5, and the way we did that of course is to make the streets through
there a private drive and relocated it to accommodate those trees. So I think that's an excellent solution
there. It's a combination of all of those items. It's not just a combination of losing 37 units. It's not a
combination of only making the streets private versus public. It's all of those factors combined that really
make the plan work. So with that we have enjoyed the council's position direction from the last meeting.
A lot of times coming to a council meeting you sort of get direction, but not really and this was very easy to
follow. There were 5 points that were given by council through staff which we met with just 2 or 3 days
after that council meeting. The points that were mentioned were work on the park dedication, full
compliment of land versus fees is desired. The maintenance of trees along, south of 78th Street, which
we've done. The affordability maintenance which we are addressing in terms of what we can as market
rate builders. We are willing to work with the public entities who might be interested in that longer term
approach. The gateway accent we've accomplished and we feel that we are definitely in compliance with
the Bluff Creek Overlay District and the Highway 5 corridor with the upgrade of the village homes on the
ends that face the highway. So with that we would appreciate any questions or comments you have, but we
would also very much appreciate your consideration and vote tonight. Thank you Mayor.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you very much. We've certainly enjoyed working with you through this so
appreciate all the time you have put in. Thanks.
Teresa Burgess: Madam Mayor? Before we go to council discussion I do have two items I need to bring
to the council's attention. The first one is the gateway pond that the developer referred to. We have not
received the comments in writing from the Minnesota Department of Transportation. However the council
needs to be aware, MnDot does have approval authority on this plat because it is adjacent to a MnDot
18
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
highway. It's actually adjacent to two of them. Their verbal comments to us are that they do intend to, as
a condition of that approval, require that the gateway pond, the one that was added between this and the
previous proposal, be removed. They do not want that pond adjacent to their wetland because of potential
interactions between the piping for that pond and their existing piping. So council needs to be aware of
that. The second issue I'd like to bring to your attention is the public versus private streets. Engineering
and public works are very hesitate to have 342 homes on private streets for two reasons. The first being
that we receive all the calls when those streets do not get plowed and as such we are dealing with those
property owners anyway. We would prefer to maintain the major loop streets and make sure it is done to
city standard, instead of having to deal with people not understanding that they're on a private, not a public
street. The second issue is quite often we see these streets come back to us several years from now when a
property owner's association that does not understand proper street maintenance, for budgetary reasons has
put off the preventative maintenance that they should have done on those streets and once they reach a point
where they're looking at major reconstruction, they come to the city and ask, beg, plead that we take those
streets back as public. We feel it is cost effective and in the city's best interest to take those streets at the
beginning, the major loop streets and maintain those to our standards rather than end up with those streets
at the end or end up with a situation where we cannot help the property owners to bring their streets back
up to standard, which is why staff is recommending those major loops, not all the streets but the major
loops be public streets instead of private streets.
Councilman Ayotte: If they were, may I ask a question?
Mayor Jansen: Certainly.
Councilman Ayotte: If they were private they would not go under your road index program and there'd be
no way of understanding their life cycle, is that a true statement?
Teresa Burgess: They would not be maintained by the city and they would be tracked by the city under
our pavement maintenance program.
Mayor Jansen: Kate if I could ask a question in reference to the roads, realizing we're talking about the
same width of pavement. I'm gathering the concern is the amount of right-of-way that's actually required
in the setback because what we're trying to accomplish is being able to have that density available through
that right-of-way.
Kate Aanenson: That's one point. Also private streets we don't allow parking. If you look at the
reconfiguration of the visitor parking, it's not always in convenient places on the revised plan. Again he
was trying to accomplish some of the park space. There are some areas that aren't convenient for visitor
parking and that tends to be a problem. You can park with the wider on a public street.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. I thought I heard that the pavement width is the same width. Did I misunderstand
that? When you're saying that on a private street there's more room for parking.
Teresa Burgess: The city standard for public streets is wider. We could have a public street that is
narrower. That would be allowed. They would need to signed no parking. Property owners would need to
be informed that this is an area that we will not issue the standard lifting of the no parking during a party.
Property owners can come in, there's that policy that says they can come in and request that on certain
areas. This is an area that would not be allowed to have those because of the narrow street. Because it's a
PUD we can allow that.
19
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Councilman Ayotte: Cannot?
Teresa Burgess: We can. The council can authorize them to have the narrower streets.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, because it is one of the preservation steps that's suggested, at least in these
topographical types of areas. Kate, just a question on Walnut Grove and Mission Hills. What are those
interior streets? Are they private or public?
Kate Aanenson: There is the main artery through there is a public street. There are private streets in there
and that's similar to Mission Hills. The main street, West 86th is a public street, and then there's private
streets off of that and that's the same thing we were trying to carry through here. You get a main thread to
get people out onto to get out of their development.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. I'm trying to figure out how we accommodate of course what Mr. Griswold needs to
accomplish with the units. I mean we can, I assume we can leave the plan as, let me ask the question
instead of assuming. Can we lave the plan as is with the units that are in there even if we designate them as
public streets?
Kate Aanenson: I think you have to do two things, as Teresa indicated. You're going to have to give some
relief on the street width, and then allow, which you can in the PUD. The flexibility of the less setback.
Mayor Jansen: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: Again, that was our concern with the no parking. If you've got a narrower driveway so I
think we can work through some of those. Parking on one side of the street, I guess we can look at that.
But I think between now and if it was approved this way, final plat, we can resolve all that.
Councilman Ayotte: Do you think there'd be much risk, what's the risk associated with a narrower street?
Is there anyway of couching that?
Kate Aanenson: I'll let Teresa answer that question.
Teresa Burgess: The risk with a narrow street really comes down to there's no parking available on that
street and there is a compromise position inbetween the 24 that's proposed and the 31 that is the city
standard that would allow parking on one side of the street, accomplish the goals that are set forth in here,
and we just need to work with the developer to make sure that those standards are met and the appropriate
signing is put up.
Scott Botcher: There's also the whole theory of traffic calming as it involves narrowing streets. The more
residential feel that you bring to a neighborhood. The only other question I have on the streets, or the only
statement I have on the streets is I doubt the couple bucks a month on the association fee to have them all
private, my guess is from other conversations, it could possibly be 20 to 25 bucks a month in association
fees. There's no way they're going to be able to support the streets in there for a couple bucks a month.
And that drives up the question of maintaining affordability. We are not engaging in direct public subsidy
from the city of Chanhassen in this. Obviously we want to encourage participation with HRA and all the
other agencies that are out there, but if maintenance of affordability is an issue, that does, by itself anyway,
lend you to consider a public street as opposed to a private street.
20
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Mayor Jansen: Okay, and it sounds like we can accomplish going to public and not impacting the
development as it's been proposed, was what I'm hearing staff say.
Kate Aanenson: If we're allowing the flexibility of the narrower street, yeah.
Councilman Ayotte: Mr. Griswold has a question.
Mayor Jansen: Yes Mr. Griswold.
Dennis Griswold: If we're going that direction I guess I'd like a clarification then. Are we able to density
transfer the 6 units involved in the south portion to the north because right now we are even on our density
at 8 units per acre south of 78th Street, including the right-of-way. The density transfer would go to the
north where we are 12 units shy of our maximum density so I'd like to density transfer those, which is, as I
understand it, a feature of a PUD to density transfer within.
Mayor Jansen: Sure.
Dennis Griswold: So I would like that clarified, thank you.
Mayor Jansen: Kate?
Kate Aanenson: The PUD ordinance allows that.
Mayor Jansen: Sure. But I guess in what we were just talking about, are you foreseeing that there's going
to be an impact that will end up having to shift units?
Kate Aanenson: I anticipated that he's looked at that already so, and did I heard you 6 units?
Dennis Griswold: 6 units.
Kate Aanenson: 6 units. He'll still be under the 4 units an acre with no problem.
Mayor Jansen: Okay.
Councilman Labatt: Do we have to relocate the 34 and 33 on the eastern road, right?
Kate Aanenson: Correct.
Councilman Labatt: Or is it 32, 33 and 34?
Kate Aanenson: Actually it's 6 units. Those blocks.
Councilman Labatt: So 32 and 33 and 34.
Kate Aanenson: Correct.
Councilman Labatt: So you've already got to relocate those 3 in here somewhere.
21
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, but they're still staying on the north side so it's just.
Mayor Jansen: Yep. If you go to the old plan, on these interior cul-de-sacs, he'd go back to this look in
order to bring those units in here. But it'd still be on the north side.
Councilman Labatt: I see.
Mayor Jansen: Yeah.
Councilman Labatt: So am I looking at an old map?
Mayor Jansen: No, that's the new one. And then transfer these units, he'd go back to, yeah.
Kate Aanenson: And that's one of the major changes. Everything on the north side was a twin and we're
saying that some of those interiors may be triples to accomplish that.
Mayor Jansen: Going back to that original. Is that clear?
Councilman Labatt: Yeah.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. Alright. And then the other issue that Mr. Griswold brought up was the park
dedication. Todd, if you might address for us the difference between staff's proposal and Mr. Griswold's
proposal of taking the current conservation easement properties and making them park dedication.
Todd Hoffman: At the last council meeting when staff took the direction to seek, or for the applicant to
seek a full compliment of park dedication, one of the my hesitancies was that the applicant would come
back and give the city land which would have already been preserved under the original plan under a
conservation easement. Obviously being responsible for those fees and for that dedication, that park
dedication ordinance. We don't want to give up something that we would have already been receiving. So
the, let's see go to the new plan. When this was submitted I went through an exercise of identifying this
area simply in a rough attachment, that approximately 7 new acres of property were identified as open
space. Let's find where those are. I can just point those out. And those areas included this rectangular
piece of property in this location. The property north of the cul-de-sac with this new property outside of
the primary zone, and then half of these trees in this location. This however was not being proposed as
public open space. These areas were being proposed as park dedication, public open space. It's not, it's
my recommendation not to accept those areas that Dennis talked about, Mr. Griswold. These areas that
would have already been preserved under the old plan as park dedication. I'm comfortable with those being
protected through the conservation easement that's recommended in the staff report. It's used many other
places in this city, and in order to accomplish two things. Seeking out to have additional land identified for
open space which the council desired, is about splitting the park dedication so we take this 4.7 acres of
public dedication which provides good opportunity for the city in the future to respond to additional citizen
inquiries in this area. When these people move in and start to establish their community, they may find out
that they have additional needs or desires for recreation facilities. Having this public area here would allow
the city to react to those inquiries, or those needs of the citizens. So that's a positive. The other half of
that is, if that does, if you carry through with that type of a circumstance, retaining half of the fees or 50%
of the park dedication fees, or the quarter million, would allow the city to be in the position to invest those
dollars in this location. But still preserving the other areas that Mr. Griswold has pointed out as public
22
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
dedication. In the best of all worlds it would be absolutely wonderful to have public ownership of about a
third of this site, but we don't live the best of all worlds. We can't have everything and so this is a
compromise that I can support.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. Any questions for staff on that?
Councilman Labatt: Todd that 4.7 acres up on the north peninsula, in comparison can you tell me another
park in the city that's that size?
Todd Hoffman: The park just near your home.
Councilman Labatt: Sugarbush is about 4.7?
Todd Hoffman: About 5 acres. It's about the smallest size that we're interested in maintaining as a public
park. We have 27 park sites. We don't want to assume ownership of 40 or 50 tiny, little park sites
throughout the city so we attempt to keep them 5 acres or larger.
Mayor Jansen: And it's not in this staff report, however when you were discussing this with the parks and
rec commission, in the comprehensive plan noting that the neighborhood parks will be located within a half
a mile radius of a neighborhood, so this was fulfilling that need as well, correct? Even though it wasn't
identified, there's one that's going in on the east side, but that will be private as part of that Lundgren
development. So this is really the closest active park area that this neighborhood would have.
Todd Hoffman: Public amenity. Yeah, the private amenity, the comprehensive plan allows for private
amenities which three were identified in the original plan to be considered opportunities for recreation. But
this is a combination of those two things.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. Thank you. Okay, I think that was everything that Mr. Griswold brought up.
Councilman Ayotte: I need clarification on the MnDot issue. The wetlands again. Could you just.
Mayor Jansen: Just so everyone's clear that in the staff report the recommendation on page 14 addresses
that issue and it has been revised to, yes. The staff recommendation takes it to the configuration that Ms.
Aanenson and Teresa were talking about.
Councilman Ayotte: So this is something new that's in here?
Mayor Jansen: It's in the conditions. Staff made their recommendations and adjusted the conditions
accordingly. Okay. I think that was everything, the two issues that I heard Mr. Griswold bring up. So as
we're reviewing this, we need the discussion around, we're kind of inbetween what Mr. Griswold would
like to see as far as the fees, and the park dedication number. We're 50/50 at this point between land
dedication and the fees that staff is recommending compared to these areas that are covered with the
conservation easements and whether council feels that those should be noted or not as park dedication. So
if you could address that as that comes around, I would appreciate it. Otherwise it sounds like the road
issue could be addressed at the staff level then as this is coming through for final plat.
Kate Aanenson: Correct. I do have some modifications to the condition as you get to the point.
23
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Mayor Jansen: Okay. Thank you. So council, whoever would like to start on comments. Please.
Councilman Ayotte: Well the only concern that I had, and I won't address the park issue at this point. I do
agree wholeheartedly with the need to make the public streets. I think the thought of a variance to allow the
streets to narrow is the right way to go. I'd like to react to some of the comments that were made from the
residents. I think the approach approached under 2 is basically something I favor because it one, will
reduce some measure of operational expense. It's within the constraints of the PUD obviously. It affects
the infrastructure. It improves traffic ability. It enhances quality of life. And for those reasons I favor it.
The point made with respect to not generating revenue, the offset is a reduction of operational expense and
I believe this council, I won't speak for the entire council. I know we've been working towards it. We're
going to do all we can to take care of the revenue issue, but the revenue issue will not be handled by this
project alone. Believe me. So this is just a start point. It's lasted too long. It's eaten up too many
resources. It must be resolved. I'm going for Option 2 basically with some discussion points on the
parkland issue so I just want to make those points. Thank you Mayor.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you. Further comments?
Councilman Labatt: Just a quick question. Did we get Mrs. McAllister's questions answered?
Kate Aanenson: There was a second part which I didn't address, if I may. Which was regarding in the
conditions of approval, and this is one the Planning Commission added. Mrs. McAllister had.
Councilman Labatt: What page is she on?
Kate Aanenson: I'm on page 9. Motion A. Number 3. Bottom of the page.
Councilman Labatt: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: The intent of the Planning Commission here is that they wanted all parties to be advised of
what they're moving next to so what this language says is that both parties should be aware of their
neighbors. She was willing to accept the homes and also that the homeowners have to understand that there
is a petting farm next to them. They have to do a full disclosure, and that was the language that the
Planning Commission added. So can number 3 be left in? It doesn't remove the 300 foot separation that's
onus on her property. It could be taken out, which is what her recommendation is. It could be left in. It's
really kind of put people on notice, unless the City Attorney had something else to add. It's up to you.
Mayor Jansen: Anything you'd like to add?
Roger Knutson: I believe you got my letter.
Mayor Jansen: Yes.
Roger Knutson: In the packet. I believe you got my letter, it's in the packet. The feedlot ordinance of the
county doesn't apply in the City of Chanhassen so, whatever that says doesn't apply here. And as far as
interim use permit, it's just like any other setback you have in your own single family home you have a
setback from the street and you have a setback from the rear yard and you have a setback from the side
yards. Your neighbors don't have to maintain those for you. You have to maintain those. That's what our
ordinance provides.
24
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Mayor Jansen: Any other questions?
Councilman Labatt: No, I'll just make my comments now.
Mayor Jansen: Okay.
Councilman Labatt: It has been a long process and as I stated before in the first meeting that I am a
resident of this neighborhood to the north of here. Made that clear to Mr. Griswold early and in talking to
some of my neighbors it's been a long process for you and them and they appreciate what we have in front
of us today because it meets their request was bring in your development under the color and letters of the
ordinances and the comp plan and the overlay districts so they're happy for that and I appreciate that.
Other than that, I'm okay with going to public and allowing a little fudging the road width.
Mayor Jansen: Okay.
Councilman Labatt: The current plan on parkland and fees, I'm okay with what's proposed. The 4.7 and
there seems to be a little misunderstanding or confusion what the fee amount is between the two parties so I
don't know how we work that out. And that's all I have. I can support it.
Mayor Jansen: Okay.
Councilman Peterson: Madam Mayor, I clearly have been struggling with this one for the last few weeks
and listening to the last meeting when it was here, and as I was for the previous plan and I really sat
through the last few days looking for a compelling reason why I would like the Plan B, for lack of a better
term, in front of us better than the previous one. And I'll go through my points as succinctly as possible. I
think that the gateway issue has been resolved. I mean I wasn't real overwhelmed with the ~new gateway"
and I agree with staff's recommendation. I think the berming and the trees would be better. The tree stand
is really the area that I do find a better plan under the Plan B. Kate, I've got a question for you. Could we
potentially make that passive parkland so the city doesn't own that and transfer it back to the association,
similar to what we did with the Fox property just off of 212? Is that a possibility?
Kate Aanenson: You mean leave it natural?
Councilman Peterson: Yeah. It's trees. I mean it's no different than.
Kate Aanenson: Well I think the intent right now is to take it as public property. What it becomes later
hasn't been decided yet. I think the intent right now is to take public ownership and looking at Bluff Creek
Overlay District, some of the things that the plan envisions, and I think we've had that public dialogue,
Todd went through his process is my understanding.
Mayor Jansen: But the tree stand that's on Highway 5, that's just staying as.
Kate Aanenson: A conservation easement, correct. That's not counted for parkland.
Mayor Jansen: No.
Councilman Peterson: It's not at all?
25
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Kate Aanenson: No. There's a couple areas.
Mayor Jansen: It's still private property.
Kate Aanenson: Right. The developer is dedicating 16 acres. There's a couple things happening here.
One goes with the PUD to get some of the preservation through the PUD, which we always said the 11
acres on the other side of 41 and the most northerly property is being dedicated for park. But the trees
behind the McAllister property and the trees along 5 are just being dedicated through a conservation
easement. They're not being dedicated as parkland.
Mayor Jansen: So they're just being protected but they're still private property?
Kate Aanenson: Correct. In the name of the homeowners association.
Mayor Jansen: Yes. Okay.
Councilman Peterson: Thank you. The private streets we've addressed. I think that's the most prudent
way to move ahead. The real big issue is the parkland on the north side and my biggest concern is that
we're putting ourselves in the position of the public buying open space and that's really I think my biggest
issue with this plan is that the city will have to write a check per se for $250,000 to $300,000 and that's a
big concern. We've spoken as recently as this evening as a group, in a work session about the need to
conserve cash and to be fiscally responsible and I don't see a compelling reason for us to purchase parkland
for this development, particularly because it's not really a public park. It's really going to be inaccessible.
You know essentially it is, it doesn't have a compelling reason in and of itself because it's farmland.
...I'm having a hard time looking at that and feeling as though that's the best way to move ahead. We
don't have many options left for a development like this and going back in an overall review, this PUD
works well with our comprehensive plan as it stands today. It brings in a diversity of housing that we
absolutely need and I think that we need to move ahead under kind of a combination of the three. I guess
I'm recommending that we let the northern part go and keep the trees and bring it back from private to
public streets and keep the gateway as it was in the previous plan. And I guess as a closing comment, you
look at item number 39 where we talk about the 30% affordable housing issue. I guess as we make a
motion, whatever motion we made, I'd like us to either rephrase that so that's...
Kate Aanenson: It should say minimum.
Mayor Jansen: It should be minimum.
Councilman Peterson: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: And that's consistent with our goals.
Councilman Peterson: And I think we may want to rephrase it so that we speak directly to, that we would
work with Carver County to try to find a sustainable affordable housing. I think that's the only possible
way that we can do that versus working with the developer, but I'll leave that for further discussion to my
fellow council people. I don't want to use tax dollars to buy open space and that's my biggest concern with
the current plan.
26
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Mayor Jansen: Okay. We didn't address it yet and I apologize on the sustainable affordable. I actually
have worked with staff a little bit in conversations about the workshop that I had gone to and the discussion
that had surrounded around how businesses and faith communities have stepped forward in communities to
help provide the sustainable aspect. Mayo Clinic was one of the ones that was quoted as having provided
millions in funding to provide housing for their workers, and on a smaller scale there was a project in
Hutchinson where the businesses stepped up and they say that it occurs more readily in the rural areas
where you end up with the business out in these non-population centers if you would, and they're trying to
draw workers out. So they're actually building their own housing. We've had the conversation about
pulling a program together working with the County during our housing forum then approaching the
businesses in the faith communities and Scott had had an opportunity to bounce the idea off of one of our
faith organizations and found some interest and I did the same thing and also found some interest out there.
So that would be the other way to maintain that.
Councilman Peterson: However we deal with it I think we need to make it a little bit more less vague.
Mayor Jansen: And I guess we're trying to leave it a little loose in that, and you know having spoken with
the developer, I'm just making sure that they're working with us. That was actually a phrase and clause
that had gone into the Villages on the Ponds PUD. To just make sure that we're all conscience of the fact
that the city's working on pulling together this program and we won't be surprising the developer if and
when we manage to pull it off if you would, and bring it forward to be a part of the development. So that's
one of the options that we're pursuing but it takes a little longer to bring one of those programs together
and our housing forum will be in April so that's where our discussion surrounded the issue of actually
being able to bring that public. The other point that you addressed on the parkland, and again we didn't
discuss this but Mr. Hoffman had mentioned that as they designate neighborhood parks, they don't
necessarily development immediately. The land is set aside and then eventually as the neighborhood
develops they come back in and actually then put the park in place. So this would not remain as farm field
and it would not remain as open space. We were looking for a chunk of property all in one contiguous area
so that it could be a 5 acre park eventually as the neighborhood develops. And the discussion on the
roadway had been that it needed to be a public roadway and probably a parking area then at the top, but
again that's eventually as we develop that park area the city would be putting in that lot versus it being a
responsibility for the developer. So it would be designated as eventually being an active area and being
developed into a park. Other comments?
Councilman Kroskin: Well I guess I agree with a lot of my fellow councilmen. Their comments. Again on
this park issue, and Mr. Hoffman correct me if I'm incorrect. We're balancing taking 100% fees versus
100% land for the park. So we're not really, we're taking less fees. We're not taking tax dollars and
actually purchasing, you know current tax dollars out of fund that's already seeing with the city to
purchase this land. It's a trade off.
Todd Hoffman: Correct.
Councilman Kroskin: Okay. Again, with regards to the park I feel this is a nice blend and again I'm going
to go back to the community survey where 70% of our residents use and enjoy their neighborhood parks. I
don't feel that it's acceptable or that it's right for us to not provide that amenity to the future residents that
will be enjoying this development. As far as the gateway, I agree with staff's recommendation. I agree
with the recommendation on the public streets. I think that staff has done an excellent job in pulling this
together. I want to comment Puke for again rolling up their sleeves and working with our staff to make this
what I consider the best possible development that can go in here. That's my comments. I can support it.
27
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Mayor Jansen: Okay. And thank you for complimenting staff. I didn't mean to overlook you. Kate, you
worked very hard with all of us pulling this together and we certainly appreciate all of your efforts and also
Mr. Hoffman, your efforts as we were pulling this together. And not to overlook you Mr. Botcher, you as
well. Thank you.
Scott Botcher: I've been quiet.
Mayor Jansen: Yes you have been quiet. Okay, I'm hearing a general consensus then from council on the
roads and staff working with the developer to go to public roads. Kate, you had mentioned that we would
have to then change one of the conditions or modify one of the conditions.
Kate Aanenson: Yes... for the City Attorney too. As part of the motion for the subdivision, we are looking
at changing possibly 6 units. That would change the lots and blocks which are part of Motion B. We're
not sure how that's going to lot yield out yet.
Roger Knutson: So you can just delete, make it in the form of a concept. This is a preliminary approval.
Kate Aanenson: I'm just saying, there's not a problem if we change it under final plat. This comes back.
The total number of units isn't going to change. It's going to be the configuration of lots and blocks.
Roger Knutson: You should give some indication in the conditions of approval that that's what you're
going to do. You don't have to be specific.
Kate Aanenson: Okay. As part of that motion with modifications. That would be motion B.
Mayor Jansen: That would be motion B.
Kate Aanenson: Correct, the very beginning.
Mayor Jansen: Page 10.
Kate Aanenson: That's the preliminary plat. And the other change I had, in speaking with Teresa, just to
get the, this would be on page 15. Condition 37. The main loop street south of West 78th Street and the
other loop street. It should be, not just the street to the park but both those streets, loop streets north and
south of West 78th Street be a public street. They would have a 60 foot right-of-way but we would work
to, the city approve design standards and then in parenthesis less than standard pavement width. We want
the flexibility to look at that but it's our intent to do less than standard 31, 32 pavement width.
Mayor Jansen: So with less than standard pavement width.
Kate Aanenson: Correct. And then while we're on that, 39 should say a minimum of 30%. And then on
41, that's 6 units. It says lots. It should say Block 33 through 35, with Lots 1 and 2. It'd be a total of 6
units that would have to be removed.
Councilman Ayotte: Which point is that?
Kate Aanenson: Point 40.
28
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Mayor Jansen: Point 40. You're changing lots to, I'm sorry, units?
Kate Aanenson: Blocks.
Mayor Jansen: Blocks?
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, the intent that it includes 6 units. Just to be clear. And then just again for
clarification, I handed that one out earlier. On page 17 we added a condition number 10 on design
standards. That should reflect all the changes.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. Okay, I think that reflects everyone's comments. Yeah, so I think we're set unless a
council member has anything else. Okay, so we're going to be making four separate, do we need these to
be four separation motions?
Roger Knutson: They don't need to be four separate motions unless you want to do it in that way. I'd
point out item number one requires 4 votes. Item number three, excuse me item A requires 4 votes. B, C
and D require 3 positive votes. So if you combine them together, it will take 4 positive votes to pass the
motion.
Mayor Jansen: And we can say as modified with the points we just put in.
Roger Knutson: Yes.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. With that, if I could have a motion please.
Councilman Peterson: I would move that we do four different votes unfortunately, because I would prefer
to vote differently on different things so I would make a motion for the first one would be the City Council
approve the resolution for a comprehensive land use amendment from low density to residential medium
density and medium density to residential as noted in the recommended motion to approve.
Mayor Jansen: Okay.
Roger Knutson: Just so we're clear there Mayor. That approval is contingent upon the Metropolitan
Council sign off so.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, thank you. Do I have a second? Do I have a second?
Councilman Labatt: Can I clarify, are you reading right from page 9?
Mayor Jansen: Yes.
Councilman Peterson: Yes.
Mayor Jansen: Page 9, Motion A. All this is going to do is approve the, if you'll.
Councilman Labatt: Land use amendment.
29
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Mayor Jansen: Yep. If you look on the front, it's the comp plan amendment to PUD.
Councilman Labatt: Okay.
Mayor Jansen: Do I have a second please?
Councilman Labatt: I'll second it.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, I have a second. Any further discussion from council?
Resolution #2001-13: Councilman Peterson moved, Councilman Labatt seconded that the City
Council approves the resolution for a Comprehensive Land Use Amendment from low density
residential to medium density residential and medium density residential to commercial; and approve
the ordinance for a Planned Unit Development rezoning property from Agricultural Estate, A2, and
Rural Residential, RR to Planned Unit Development Residential, PUD-R, subject to the following
conditions:
1. Contingent upon review and approval by the Metropolitan Council.
Compliance with the Development Standards (site plan dated October 23, 2000, revised February
7, 2001, and revised March 5, 2001.)
This resolution shall not entitle the owner of any land adjacent to the new development to seek
enforcement of any existing setback requirements in such a way as to prohibit the development of
the new planned unit development in accordance with it's approved conditions. And (b) shall not
entitle the owner of any land located in the new planned unit developments to seek enforcement of
any existing setback requirements in such a way as to prohibit the construction, maintenance and
use of any adjacent land of buildings and structures that now are or would be currently allowed by
the zoning code as it now exists.
4. Contingent upon the following approvals:
a. The subdivision request.
b. The site plan review.
c. The Wetland Alteration Permit.
d. The Environmental Assessment Worksheet.
e. The Conditional Use Permit for subdivision in the Bluff Creek Overlay District.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously 5 to 0.
Mayor Jansen: Why was it so tough to get a second?
Scott Botcher: I'm going to become a ventriloquist.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. Now B. Could I have a motion please. This is for the subdivision.
Councilman Labatt: So moved with modifications. Do you want to lose your voice like I did last week or
what?
30
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Mayor Jansen: Do I have a second?
Councilman Ayotte: Second.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, I have a first and a second. Any discussion?
Councilman Labatt moved, Councilman Ayotte seconded that the City Council approves the
preliminary plat dated October 23, 2000, revised February 1, 2001, and March 5, 2001, for the
subdivision of 120.93 acres into 2 additions; 1st Addition has 61 blocks including 164 units and
Outlots A-F, and the 2nd Addition has 35 blocks including 178 units and Outlots A-B with
modifications, subject to the following conditions:
Final platting for the commercial area located in Outlot D shall include a site plan review and
approval.
Submit soils report to the Inspections Division. This shall be done prior to issuance of any
building permits.
3. Submit streets names to the Building Department, for review prior to final plat approval.
An erosion control plan shall be incorporated on the preliminary and final grading plans and be
submitted to the City for review and approval prior to City Council review. The erosion control
plan shall include, but not be limited to, Type III silt fence adjacent to all wetlands and an erosion
control blanket on the steep slope adjacent to the eastern wetland. Staff recommends that the
applicant use the City's Best Management Practices Handbook for erosion control measures.
All utility and street improvements shall be constructed in accordance with the latest
edition of the City's Standard Specifications and Detail Plates. Detailed street and utility
plans and specifications shall be submitted for staff review and City Council approval. The
utility systems, upon completion, will be owned and maintained by the City. The private
streets shall be constructed to support 7-ton per axle design weight in accordance with the
City Code 20-1118 "design of parking stalls and drive aisles." The private streets shall be
located in a strip of property or easement 40 feet wide.
Wetland buffer areas shall be surveyed and staked in accordance with the City's wetland
ordinance. The City will provide wetland buffer edge signs for the applicant to install after the
utilities have been completed. The applicant shall pay the city $20 per sign.
The applicant shall provide detailed storm sewer calculations for 1 O-year and 100-year storm
events and provide ponding calculations for stormwater quality/quantity ponds in accordance with
the City's Surface Water Management Plan for review and approval prior to City Council
approval of the preliminary plat. The applicant shall provide detailed pre-developed and post-
developed storm water calculations for 100-year storm events and normal water level and high
water level calculations in existing basins, created basin, and/or creeks. Individual storm sewer
calculations between each catch basin segment will also be required to determine if sufficient catch
basins are being utilized. In addition, water quality ponding design calculations shall be based on
31
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
Walker's Pondnet model. Stormwater ponds must have side slopes of 10:1 for the first ten feet at
the normal water level and no more than 3:1 thereafter.
The applicant shall enter into a PUD agreement/development contract with the City and provide the
necessary financial security to guarantee compliance with the terms of the development contract.
The applicant shall apply for and obtain permits from the appropriate regulatory agencies, i.e.,
Watershed District, Metropolitan Environmental Service Commission, Health Department,
Minnesota Pollution control Agency, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, and Minnesota
Department of Transportation and comply with their conditions of approval.
Fire hydrants shall be incorporated per the Fire Marshal's recommendations.
The applicant shall include a draintile system behind the curbs to convey sump pump discharge
from units not adjacent to ponds or wetlands.
The appropriate drainage and utility easements shall be dedicated on the final plat for all utilities
and ponding areas lying outside the right-of-way. The easement width shall be a minimum of 20
feet wide. Consideration should also be given for access and/or maintenance of the ponding areas.
No berming or landscaping will be allowed within the right-of-way except landscaping along the
frontage road in accordance with the Trunk Highway 5 Corridor Study.
The lowest floor or opening elevation of all buildings shall be a minimum of 2 feet above the 100-
year high water level of adjacent ponds, wetlands or creeks.
If importing or exporting material for development site grading is necessary, the applicant shall
supply the City with detailed haul routes and traffic control plans for review and approval. Also,
any off-site grading will require temporary easements.
The cul-de-sac in the northeast comer of the site shall be revised to meet the minimum street grade
requirement of 0.75%. Staff also recommends that the cul-de-sac be moved to the west and
possibly shortened in length to minimize grading, tree loss, and the impact to adjacent wetlands.
The applicant shall report to the City Engineer the location of any draintiles found during
construction and shall relocate or abandon the drain-tile as directed by the City Engineer.
Access to the commercial parcel may be limited to a right in/right out along Century Boulevard and
a full-shared access off West 78th Street with the parcel to the east. A cross access agreement will
be required at the time of final platting.
Site grades adjacent to West 78th Street, Century Boulevard, Trunk Highway 41 and Trunk
Highway 5 shall be compatible with the future widening of Trunk Highway 5.
Landscaped median islands maybe permitted within the public streets contingent upon the
developer entering into an encroachment agreement with the city and the medians do not pose a
traffic safety issue.
32
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
A 5-foot wide sidewalk shall be added along the south side of the public street in the northwest
comer of the site.
A Conservation Easement prohibiting any alteration shall be created to preserve Outlots E and F,
the stand of trees adjacent to Highway 5, and the significant stands of trees to the north of the
McAllister property. The conservation easement shall be dedicated in Phase I.
Accessibility shall be provided to all portions of the development and a percentage of the units may
also be required to be accessible or adaptable in accordance with Minnesota State Building Code
Chapter 1341. Further information is needed to determine these requirements.
Walls and projections within 3 feet of property lines shall be of one-hour fire-resistive
construction.
Any building classified as an R-1 occupancy ( a building containing three or more dwelling
units on the same property ) and with over 8500 gross square feet of floor area shall be
protected with an automatic sprinkler system.
A final grading plan and soils report must be to the Inspections Division before permits
can be issued.
The buildings will be required to be designed by an architect and engineer as
determined by the building official.
The developer and or their agent shall meet with the Inspections Division as early as
possible to discuss plan review and permit procedures.
Landscaping and tree preservation:
Tree protection fencing shall be installed prior to construction around all areas designated for
preservation.
All evergreens used as overstory trees in buffer yard areas shall be increased to a minimum
height of 8 feet. The plant schedule on the landscape plan shall be changed to reflect this
requirement.
The minimum number of shrubs shall be required in buffer yard areas along Highways 5 and
41. Applicant shall work with staff to meet minimum requirements for shrubs along West
78th Street.
d. Boulevard trees along West 78th Street shall be spaced 55 feet apart.
All Colorado spruce specified in landscape plans shall be replaced by a new selection of
evergreen.
f. Revise plant schedule to show seven foot evergreens for understory trees.
33
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
Proposed trail along the eastern property line shall be realigned in order to completely avoid
tree #1743 and the majority of it's roots.
h. A revised landscape plan shall be submitted to the city for approval.
The applicant shall work with city staff to preserve any or all of the following trees: # 1369
(52" oak), #1743 (60" oak), #1742 (48" oak), #2173 (42" oak), and #1881 (36" maple).
A walk through inspection of the silt/tree preservation fence shall be required prior to
construction.
Remove the stormwater pond located at the comer of Highways 5 and 41. A revised
landscaping plan shall be submitted. This plan shall include wetland vegetation and
appropriate plantings for buffering from the intersection including berming. These plans
shall be revised and approved by the City Council at the time of final plat.
Before the final plat the restrictive covenants shall be approved by staff.
The outlot west of Highway 41 shall be consistently referred to as Outlot F on all plans.
To ensure clear communication the applicant shall have all homebuyers sign a disclosure statement
that would be part of their restrictive covenants. The statement shall include information about
Miss Rosie's Petting Farm, Gateway Group Home and potential future road extension. Signed
statements shall be submitted to the City.
Staff should consult with DNR regarding the necessity to relocate turkeys.
Staff shall prepare a report regarding trees for fees options.
Platted right-of-way width for Tanadoona Drive shall be increased to 50 feet.
The applicant will be responsible (escrow) for a portion of the cost of the future traffic signal at the
intersection of Trunk Highway 41 and West 78th Street.
The main loop streets north and south of West 78th Street and the street accessing the city park in
the northeast comer shall be a public street. These shall be a 60 foot right-of-way but the city will
approve design standards (less than standard pavement width).
Access to the McAllister parcel in the northwest comer shall be provided to the parcel through the
extension of a public street which terminates at the property line. Sanitary sewer shall also be
extended to the property line.
The developer shall work with the city to accomplish city goals for housing including the provision
of ~affordable housing" a minimum of 30% of the ownership housing shall meet the criteria
established for affordability by the Metropolitan Council. The developer shall also work with the
City on affordability mechanisms for Income Qualifying and Maintenance of Affordability.
34
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
40. Blocks 33-35, Lots 1 and 2 (6 units) of Phase I shall be relocated north of West 78th Street. All
units along the perimeter of the development north of West 78th Street shall be twin homes.
All voted in favor, except Councilman Peterson who opposed and the motion carried with a vote of 4
to 1.
Mayor Jansen: Can I have a motion please for item C, site plan review. Can I have a motion please?
Councilman Labatt: So moved.
Mayor Jansen: I have a motion. Do I have a second?
Councilman Kroskin: Second.
Councilman Labatt moved, Councilman Kroskin seconded that the City Council approves Site Plan
Review #99-21 for 20 club homes, 98 manor homes, 68 coach homes, 164 village homes, as shown in
revised plans dated February 1, 2001 and March 5, 2001, subject to the following conditions:
1. The development must comply with the Arboretum Village Development Design Standards.
2. The open space north of the shortened cul-de-sac (approximately 5 acres) be preserved as park
dedication excluding land in the primary corridor and the stormwater pond. The area along the
eastern edge of the development shall not be dedicated for park land.
3. The remaining park dedication requirement be collected in cash.
4. Puke Homes shall construct the north and east wetland trail as public amenities with
reimbursement from the city's trail dedication fund. All necessary public easements required to
accommodate these trails shall be dedicated to the city.
5. Full trail dedication fees be collected.
6. All remaining open space areas be protected by a conservation easement.
7. The Planning Commission recommends that the following design standards be incorporated in the
development:
a. Include vinyl shakes as an acceptable material on all home styles.
b. Prohibit shiplap siding.
c. Specify that all buildings use UL Class A asphalt/fiberglass shingle, 230 pounds or better.
d. Specify that all foundation walls be screened by landscaping or retaining walls.
e. Specify that central air conditioning shall be included in the base price of all homes per the
EAW noise abatement recommendation.
35
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
f. Specify the percent of brick for each building style.
8. Commercial design standards shall prohibit standing seam siding as a curtain wall.
9. The applicant shall consider providing benches in the totlot area.
10. No adjacent unit shall have the same front elevation colors or architectural styles with any 4 types
of homes. Materials to be consistent with the Arboretum Village elevation materials dated 2-7-01.
All voted in favor, except Councilman Peterson who opposed, and the motion carried with a vote of 4
to 1.
Mayor Jansen: Motion D is the Wetland Alteration Permit to fill .54 acres of wetlands in two separate
basins. Can I have a motion please?
Councilman Labatt: So moved.
Mayor Jansen: I have a motion. Can I have a second?
Councilman Kroskin: Second.
Councilman Labatt moved, Councilman Kroskin seconded that the City Council approves Wetland
Alteration Permit #00-4 to fill .54 acres of wetlands in two separate basins as per plans revised
February 1, 2001, subject to the following conditions:
The applicant shall resolve the encroachment of the following structures into the wetland buffer
setback:
Phase I:
Phase II:
Outlot A, lA Court Basketball Outlot A, Lot 12
The applicant shall provide an ~nvert elevation for the proposed storm sewer inlet on the upstream
side of Drainageway 1 to ensure that wetland loss will not occur due to excessive drainage of the
drainageway and to ensure that the drainageway will not become wetter.
Wetland buffers of 0-20 feet with a minimum average width of 10 feet shall be provided around
Basins B and C.
Wetland mitigation areas must be constructed prior to wetland impacts occurring.
Wetland mitigation must occur in a manner that is consistent with the Minnesota Wetland
Conservation Act (MR 8420).
36
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
The applicant shall provide proof of property ownership for Outlot F, as well as a Declaration of
Restrictions and Covenants for Replacement Wetland.
7. The applicant shall submit a wetland banking application.
Silt fence shall be provided adjacent to all areas to be preserved as buffer or, if no buffer is to be
preserved, at the delineated wetland edge.
The applicant shall re-seed any disturbed wetland areas with MnDOT seed mix 25 A, or a similar
seed mix which is approved for wetland soil conditions.
10.
Drainage and utility easements shall be provided over all existing wetlands, wetland mitigation
areas, buffer areas used for mitigation credit and storm water ponds. The wetland easement shall
be dedicated as a part of Phase I.
11.
Wetland buffer areas shall be surveyed and staked in accordance with the City's wetland
ordinance. In addition, the applicant shall provide vegetative barriers to define buffer edges. The
applicant will install wetland buffer edge signs, under the direction of City staff, before
construction begins and will pay the City $20 per sign.
12. NURP ponds shall be constructed/expanded in conjunction with the construction of Phase 1.
13.
Based on the proposed developed area of 64.66 acres, the water quality fees associated with this
project are $98,929.80 and the water quantity fees associated with this project are $192,363.50. The
applicant will be credited for water quality where NURP basins are provided to treat runoff from the site.
This will be determined upon review of the ponding and storm sewer calculations. Credits may also be
applied to the applicant's SWMP fees for oversizing in accordance with the SWMP or the provision of
outlet structures. The applicant will not be assessed for areas that are dedicated outlots. No credit will
be given for temporary pond areas.
14.
The applicant shall modify the wetland replacement plan to accommodate the proposed realignment
of Tanadoona Drive.
15.
The applicant shall demonstrate that no unintentional wetland impact will occur when Pond 2 is
excavated adjacent to the existing wetland.
16. The applicant shall provide storm water quality and quantity calculations for Ponds 1 and 2.
17.
The applicant shall contact the Minnesota Department of Transportation regarding the proposed
location of Pond 2 to ensure compliance with MnDot standards and requirements.
18. The applicant shall provide access to Pond 2 for maintenance purposes.
All voted in favor, except Councilman Peterson who opposed, and the motion carried with a vote of 4
to 1.
Roger Knutson: Mayor, just to make it clear to everyone. When you pass those motions, you pass the
Findings of Fact along with them as I understood it. They were incorporated in your motion.
37
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Kate Aanenson:
Mayor Jansen:
back.
Mayor Jansen: Yes, thank you. And with the modifications.
Councilman Peterson: And Madam Mayor, just for clarification. My nay votes were, as I discussed in my
review of, I believe we had a better plan previously and less cost to the city.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you. Do I have a motion E? Do we have to do the EAW or is that not a motion?
That's not a motion. There were just all the issues...
Okay. With that, we're done with agenda item 4. Thank you. 5 minutes break and we'll be
APPROVE PLANS & SPECIFICATIONS FOR BC-7 AND BC-8 IMPROVEMENT PROJECT;
AUTHORIZE ADVERTISEMENT FOR BIDS, PROJECT 00-01.
Teresa Burgess: Thank you Madam Mayor. This project would normally be on the consent agenda.
However we did not feel it was fair to ask the council to vote on this item until after the discussion on the
Puke development. So this evening we are asking for approval of plans and specifications, authorization to
bid for the project. In addition the council is requested to authorize easement and right-of-way negotiation
and approve the attached resolution authorizing condemnation. And if I may Madam Mayor, Roger how
many votes do we need to approve that resolution?
Roger Knutson: Is there a petition on this?
Teresa Burgess: It's a condemnation.
Roger Knutson: If it's a condemnation, it's just a simple majority.
Teresa Burgess: Simple majority. Okay. If there's any questions, I'd be happy to answer those.
Mayor Jansen: Any questions for staff? Could I have a motion please?
Councilman Ayotte: I make the motion to pass the, to approve the plans and specifications for BC-7 and 8
improvement and authorize advertisement for bids, Project 00-01.
Mayor Jansen: And a second please?
Councilman Kroskin: Second.
Resolution #2001-14: Councilman Ayotte moved, Councilman Kroskin seconded that the City
Council approve the plans and specifications for BC-7 and BC-8 Improvement Project and authorize
advertisement for bids, Project No. 00-01. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously 5
to 0.
Teresa Burgess: Madam Mayor, I do need a second motion. We need authorization to acquire right-of-
way and easements, and if the council would approve the resolution approving, or authorizing
condemnation. The second half of that motion.
38
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Councilman Ayotte: Why don't you mm the set point down on the thermostat. I'm dying in here.
Scott Botcher: Why don't we open the door.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you. So I need a motion to approve resolution authorizing condemnation of
easements for public purposes.
Councilman Peterson: So moved.
Teresa Burgess: I also need authorization to negotiation for right-of-way and easements, otherwise I can't
go make offers.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, what she said.
Councilman Kroskin: Second. What she said.
Councilman Ayotte: So move and then second.
Mayor Jansen: So I've got a motion.
Councilman Peterson: I made the motion.
Councilman Kroskin: He made the motion.
Mayor Jansen: From Councilman Peterson. A second from Councilman Kroskin.
Resolution #2001-15: Councilman Peterson moved, Councilman Kroskin seconded to approve the
Resolution Authorizing Condemnation of Easements for Public Purposes and authorizing the City
Engineer to negotiate for right-of-way and easements. All voted in favor and the motion carried
unanimously 5 to 0.
REOUEST FOR REZONING OF APPROXIMATELY 40 ACRES OF PROPERTY FROM
RURAL RESIDENTIAL TO RESIDENTIAL SINGLE FAMILY; PRELIMINARY PLAT
REOUEST FOR 53 SINGLE FAMILY LOTS AND 40UTLOTS; AND A WETLAND
ALTERATION PERMIT TO FILL 3,360 SO. FT. OF A WETLAND; LOCATED ON THE EAST
SIDE OF GALPIN BOULEVARD JUST SOUTH OF LAKE LUCY ROAD, ASHLING
MEADOWS; LUNDGREN BROTHERS.
Bob Generous: Thank you Madam Mayor, Council members. This is a 3 part review. The first part is to
rezone the property from Rural Residential, which is really a homing category to RSF, which is single
family residential which is consistent zoning with the land use designation of the property of low density
residential. Second part is preliminary plat approval to subdivide the property into 53 lots. The only issue
we had on that was the 53rd lot, the one that would be adjacent to Lake Lucy Road. We don't believe this is
a viable lot and we're recommending that that be deleted from the plat. The developer has shown some
concurrence in that. And finally the wetland alteration permit is required. They're providing a mm lane
into the development on Galpin Boulevard. This impacts the wetland immediately adjacent to the roadway
and so they're impacting 3,000, approximately 3,000 square feet. They would have to develop a
39
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
replacement plan for that but they have adequate area to do that adjacent to the wetlands. Staff is
recommending approval ofthe development proposal subject to the conditions of our staff report. With
that I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have.
Councilman Ayotte: I did have a question. I'm afraid Teresa may have to be the one to answer but let me
see if you know it Bob. In this area we've got a high water table I would suspect. We have the concerns
for runoff and those sorts of issues that are probably a little bit more severe than other areas, would that be
a, or is that a non-issue?
Bob Generous: The applicant is providing storm water ponding for the development so they should more
than adequately address those.
Councilman Ayotte: More than adequate.
Kate Aanenson: Correct. Plus they have to provide storm water calculations and demonstrate how they're
going to manage that.
Councilman Ayotte: I didn't hear you.
Kate Aanenson: They also have to provide storm water calculations and demonstrate that their ponds and
that their plan accommodates that.
Councilman Ayotte: Thanks.
Mayor Jansen: Any other questions for staff.
Councilman Labatt: The existing homes on there, are they going to be removed? Destroyed?
Kate Aanenson: Correct. Yes. Yes.
Councilman Labatt: The entrance to Topaz Drive, can you tell me, I mean the driveway's between the
Scott's Landscaping the next house out, where about's does that fall in relation to where this drive is?
Kate Aanenson: That wetland, it's just north of that wetland. This is the existing.., where the driveway is
right now. It's pretty close.
David Hinners: Do you know where the Kuder driveway is? That's the one that's immediately north, or
excuse me, south of the Scott's Landscaping. It's approximately there.
Councilman Labatt: Okay.
David Hinners: The final alignment is basically on the north side of the Kuder's driveway.
Councilman Labatt: Okay.
Councilman Ayotte: And one other question. Bob had said the 53rd lot is a no go and what was going to
happen to the 53rd lot?
40
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Mayor Jansen: I believe it's already been dropped from the recommendation, correct? The conditions of
approval.
Kate Aanenson: Correct. The staff is recommending that they be eliminated. The Planning Commission
also concurred that it should be eliminated.
Mayor Jansen: So if we approve the recommendation as is, it's out. Okay. Any other questions for staff?
Any questions for the applicant? Okay. At this point we're really just having the applicants come up. If
you have any additional information that you want to share as far as any expert, I don't want to say expert
witness but if there's any issues that you want to address other than what we have in the staff report.
David Hinners: My name is David Hinners. I'm with Lundgren Brothers. Tonight with me is Bob
Molstad with Sathre-Berquist and Mark Anderson, also with Lundgren Brothers. Don't have anything
really to add to the report. I think it was very well written by staff. I'm happy to answer any questions
that anyone might have.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks for being here tonight. With that I'll bring it back to
council. Any comments on the staff report? Motion please.
Councilman Ayotte: I make a motion to approve the request of rezoning of the 40 acres as stated in the
document.
Mayor Jansen: Can we do the Wetland Alteration Permit at the same time?
Bob Generous: You can do them all.
Councilman Ayotte: Do the whole thing, okay. For rezoning of approximately 40 acres of property from
Rural Residential to Residential Single Family, Preliminary Plat request for 53 single family lots and 4
outlots and a wetland alteration permit to fill 3,360 feet of a wetland located on the east side of Galpin just
south of Lake Lucy Road, Ashling Meadows for Lundgren Brothers.
Mayor Jansen: And a second please.
Councilman Peterson: Second.
Mayor Jansen: Any further discussion?
Councilman Ayotte moved, Councilman Peterson seconded that the City Council approves Rezoning
#00-5 to rezone 40 acres of property zoned RR, Rural Residential to RSF, Residential Single Family
for Ashling Meadows as shown on the plans dated Received December 15, 2000. All voted in favor
and the motion carried unanimously 5 to 0.
Councilman Ayotte moved, Councilman Peterson seconded that the City Council approves
Preliminary Plat for Subdivision #00-15 for Ashling Meadows for 52 lots and four outlots as shown
on the plans dated December 12, 2000, stamped received March 12, 2001, subject to the following
conditions:
41
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
The applicant shall enter into a development contract containing all of the conditions of approval
for this project and shall submit all required financial guarantees. The development contract
shall be recorded against the property.
2. The applicant shall meet all conditions of Wetland Alteration Permit #00-5.
The proposed drainage swale in the backyard of Lot 44 shall be moved closer to the rear lot line.
This will minimize the amount of drainage easement required.
If importing or exporting material for development of the site is necessary, the applicant will be
required to supply the City with detailed haul routes and traffic control plans.
5. Each of the ponds shall be designed to National Urban Runoff Program (NURP) standards.
The proposed drainage area in the southeast comer of the site shall be routed to the southwest pond
and adjacent wetland instead of to the northerly pond. This will better follow the proposed
drainage pattern shown in the City's Surface Water Management Plan.
Staff has reviewed the ponding calculations and found that additional information and revisions are
necessary. Staff will work with the applicant's engineer to correct the calculations.
Prior to final platting, storm sewer design calculations will need to be submitted. The storm sewer
will have to be designed for a 1 O-year, 24-hour storm event. Drainage and utilities easements will
need to be dedicated on the final plat over the public storm drainage system including ponds,
drainage swales, and wetlands up to the 100-year flood level. The minimum easement width shall
be 20 feet wide. Emergency overflows from all stormwater ponds will also be required on the
construction plans.
Erosion control measures and site restoration shall be developed in accordance with the City's Best
Management Practice Handbook (BMPH). Staff recommends that the City's Type III erosion
control fence, which is a heavy-duty silt fence, be used for the areas adjacent to the existing
wetlands. The final grading plan shall incorporate erosion control fence around the perimeter of
the grading limits. In addition, tree preservation fencing should be denoted on the grading and
drainage plan as well. Erosion control matting or wood fiber blankets will be required for the
steep, rear yard slopes of those lots in the north and southwesterly portions of the site.
10.
Prior to construction commencing, each of the existing wells and septic tanks will be required to be
capped and/or removed per state health codes.
11.
Sanitary sewer for this development shall be designed to serve the neighboring properties to the
east. Staff will work with the applicant's engineer to establish a sufficient sewer depth to serve the
neighboring properties.
12.
The property has not been previously assessed for sewer and water hookup and connection
charges. As per city ordinance, each newly created lot will be required to pay a sewer and water
hookup charge of $1,322 and $1,723, respectively. In addition, since the property is within the
Lake Ann sewer district, a sewer interceptor charge of $1,011 and a sub-trunk charge of $828 will
be due on each lot. The sewer and water lateral connection charges will be waived contingent on
42
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
the developer installing the internal lateral utility lines. All of the above fees are due at the time of
building permit issuance.
13.
Utility improvements will be required to be constructed in accordance with the City's latest edition
of Standard Specifications and Detail Plates. Detailed construction plans and specifications will be
required at the time of final platting. The applicant will also be required to enter into a
development contract with the City and to supply the necessary financial security in the form of a
letter of credit or cash escrow to guarantee installation of the improvements and the conditions of
final plat approval.
14.
Landscaped median islands maybe permitted within the public streets contingent upon the
developer entering into an encroachment agreement with the City and that the configuration be
acceptable to the City's Fire Marshal.
15.
The applicant should be aware that the maximum allowable street grade is 7%. Areas with a street
grade greater than 7% should be revised to meet the criteria.
16. Existing driveway entrances to the site off of Galpin Boulevard shall be removed.
17. Lot 53 shall be deleted and Outlot C be expanded to include the northeast comer of the site.
18.
Increase the amount of platted right-of-way from the centerline of Galpin Boulevard to 50 feet in
width. Likewise, increase the amount of right-of-way from the centerline of Lake Lucy Road to 40
feet in width
19.
Revise the preliminary utility plan to show the proposed sanitary sewer pipe size and ensure that all
of the sewer manholes are a minimum of 10 feet deep. Also, add an additional sanitary manhole
along Topaz Drive at Station 3+00.
20.
Revise the preliminary grading plan to show the existing 18-inch culvert that enters the site in the
northwest comer. Also, show all proposed easements and add a legend.
21. Submit streets names to the Building Department for review prior to final plat approval.
22.
The applicant shall apply for and obtain permits from the appropriate regulatory agencies, i.e.,
Watershed District, Metropolitan Environmental Service Commission, Health Department,
Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Army Corp. of Engineers, Minnesota Department of Natural
Resources, and Carver County and comply with their conditions of approval.
23.
The applicant shall include a draintile system behind the curbs to convey sump pump discharge
from homes not adjacent to ponds or wetlands.
24. Storm water shall not be discharged into any wetland basin prior to pretreatment.
25.
Silt fence shall be provided adjacent to all areas to be preserved as buffer or, if no buffer is to be
preserved, at the delineated wetland edge and shall be removed upon completion of adjacent
construction.
43
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
26.
Lot lines shall not extend into wetland basins. Prior to going to City Council, the applicant shall
submit the revised plat that shows lot lines do not extend into wetland basins and the recalculated
lot areas.
27.
Drainage and utility easements shall be provided over all existing wetlands, wetland mitigation
areas, buffer areas used for mitigation credit and storm water ponds.
28.
Wetland buffer areas shall be preserved, surveyed and staked in accordance with the City's
wetland ordinance. The applicant shall install wetland buffer edge signs, under the direction of
City staff, before construction begins and shall pay the City $20 per sign.
29.
Based on the proposed developed area of 35.25 acres, the water quality fees associated with this
project are estimated at $28,200 and the water quantity fees associated with this project are estimated
at $69,795. The applicant will be credited for water quality where NURP basins are provided to treat
runoff from the site. This will be determined upon review of the ponding and storm sewer calculations.
Credits may also be applied to the applicant's SWMP fees for oversizing in accordance with the SWMP
or the provision of outlet structures. The applicant will not be assessed for areas that are dedicated
outlots. No credit will be given for temporary pond areas. At this time, the estimated total SWMP fee,
due payable to the City at the time of final plat recording, is $97,995.
30. Environmental Resource Specialist conditions:
The applicant shall revise landscape plan to show a minimum of 323 trees to be planted.
Minimum requirements for buffer yard plantings shall be met.
b. A minimum of two overstory trees shall be required in the front yard of each lot.
The developer shall be responsible for installing all landscape materials proposed in buffer
yard and rear yard areas.
Tree preservation fence shall be install at the edge of the grading limits on lots 20-23, 27-
28, block 1 prior to any construction.
According to tree preservation plans dated 11/30/00, all trees on Lot 23, block 1 shall be
preserved by the developer/builder.
Any trees removed on lots 20-23, 27-28 in excess of proposed tree preservation plans will
be replaced at a ratio of 2:1 diameter inches.
31. Building Department conditions:
a. Demolition permits must be obtained before demolishing any existing structures.
b. Final grading plans and soil reports must be submitted to the Inspections Division before
building permits will be issued.
32. Fire Marshal conditions:
44
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
a. An additional fire hydrant will be required. It is to be located on Topaz Drive
approximately 150 feet east of the intersection of Galpin Blvd and Topaz Drive.
b. If any trees or shrubs are to be removed, they must either be chipped or hauled off site due
to close proximity of neighboring homes. No burning permits will be issued.
c. A ten-foot clear space must be maintained around fire hydrants i.e., street lamps, trees,
shrubs, bushes, Xcel Energy, US West, cable TV and transformer boxes. This is to ensure
that fire hydrants can be quickly located and safely operated by firefighters. Pursuant to
Chanhassen City Ordinance 9-1.
d. The proposed street names meet approval with the Chanhassen Fire Department.
e. Fire protection including fire apparatus access roads and water supplies for fire protection
is required to be installed. This protection shall be installed and made serviceable prior to
and during time of construction. Pursuant to 1997 Uniform Fire Code Section 901.3.
f. Submit radius tums and dimensions for the cul-de-sacs with center islands to the City
Engineer and Fire Marshal to approve. If the cul-de-sacs are to have islands, ;;no parking
in cul-de-sac" signs will be required.
33. Park and Recreation conditions:
a. Full park fees be collected in lieu of land dedication.
The applicant provide the necessary trail easement or outlot and construct an 8 ft. wide
bituminous trail connector from Topaz Drive north to the intersection of Lake Lucy Road and
Galpin Boulevard. Trail fee credit shall be granted in consideration for this condition.
The City Engineer's office shall ensure that the 8 ft. wide bituminous trail connector is located
far enough away from Galpin Boulevard to ensure that a future tum-lane or widening of the road
can be accommodated.
34. The lot depth for Lot 46 shall be adjusted to maintain 125 feet.
35. Outlot B shall be replatted as a lot prior to issuance of a building permit."
36. Dead end streets shall be posted with signs that say this street may be extended in the future.
37. The applicant shall consider including benches in the totlot areas.
38.
To ensure clear communication the applicant shall have each home buyer sign a disclosure
statement. The statement shall include information about future upgrading of Galpin Boulevard
and Lake Lucy Road. Information about wetland buffers and the disclosure statement shall also
include a plan that clearly shows the home placement, the area available for future deck, porch or
patio and all setback lines.
39.
The applicant should be aware that retaining walls greater than 4 feet require a separate building
permit.
40.
Prior to final platting, the location and elevation of Emerald Lane may need to be adjusted both to
the south and lower in elevation to coordinate with the development of the easterly property.
45
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously 5 to 0.
Councilman Ayotte moved, Councilman Peterson seconded that the City Council approves Wetland
Alteration Permit #00-5 for Ashling Meadows as shown on the plans dated received December 15,
2000, and subject to the following conditions:
Wetland replacement shall occur in a manner consistent with the Minnesota Wetland Conservation
Act (MR 8420). Eight copies of a wetland replacement plan shall be submitted to the City for
review, comment and approval by the City and other agencies prior to final plat approval. The
applicant shall provide a Declaration of Restrictions and Covenants for Replacement Wetland.
The City s hall approve a wetland replacement plan prior to any wetland impact occurring.
The wetland mitigation area shall be constructed prior to wetland impact occurring and shall meet
the City's buffer strip and structure setback requirements.
The applicant shall re-seed any disturbed wetland areas with MnDot seed mix 25A, or a similar
seed mix that is approved for wetland soil conditions.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously 5 to 0.
LUCAS IGEL ADDITION, 7303 LAREDO DRIVE, DAVID IGEL:
me
REQUEST FOR PRELIMINARY PLAT APPROVAL TO SUBDIVIDE A 1.1 ACRE
LAKESHORE PARCEL INTO 2 SINGLE FAMILY LOTS WITH A VARIANCE FROM
THE LAKE SHORE WIDTH REQUIREMENT.
Be
REQUEST FOR PRELIMINARY PLAT APPROVAL TO SUBDIVIDE A 1.1 ACRE
LAKESHORE PARCEL INTO 2 SINGLE FAMILY LOTS.
Public Present:
Name
Address
Jerry & Jan Paulsen
Deb & Dick Lloyd
Emily Paulsen
Ron & Ann Kleve
Dan Huseth
Dana Muller
Arlis Bovy
Fred Cuneo
7305 Laredo Drive
7302 Laredo Drive
Resident
7307 Laredo Drive
7332 Frontier Trail
500 Highland Drive
7339 Frontier Trail
7335 Frontier Trail
Bob Generous: Thank you Madam Mayor, Council members. This item actually has two proposals before
you. One is a subdivision with a variance from the shoreland width requirements. City ordinance requires
90 feet. The applicant has 15 feet, or 75 feet, sorry, oflakeshore for each property. That's the plan that
shows up on the left. As part of this development staff would recommend that the city take a conservation
easement over the treed area in the western part of the site that's outlined in green in the staff plan. The
other alternative is a straight subdivision that stacks the two lots. There would be one lakeshore lot and one
46
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
non-lakeshore lot. Both of the alternatives are accessed via a private street system. On the first one, on the
plans that you have the applicant has shown the buildable areas for the plan and they've incorporated a 60
x 60 foot building pad. The staff lot subdivision we believe complied with the ordinance requirements. We
had recommended approval of the subdivision with the variance because of the additional preservation of
the trees and character of the neighborhood. However we need to make a decision on which one we should
approve. The applicant has stated that if one of the developments is approved, they'll withdraw the other
application.
Councilman Ayotte: Say that again please.
Bob Generous: If the City Council approves one of the subdivision proposals, they will withdraw the other
application. With that I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, thank you. Council, any questions for staff at this point? Okay. We have allotted 5
minutes, if the applicants would like to come up and address the council. I would simply encourage
everyone who's here tonight, I realize that this has been a somewhat emotional issue at best. If we can just
keep our comments focused on the issue at hand would be much appreciated. Thank you.
David Igel: Thank you Mayor Jansen and council members. My name's David Igel. I live at 6195
Strawberry Lane. I hope I don't take up the whole 5 minutes this evening. We've been through this for
some time. It's been over a year since we've been at it. It's been a very emotionally charged issue and I'd
like to just kind of get down to kind of the essentials to it. I wanted to thank you for taking the time. We
do have the two separate subdivisions in front of you. The side by side is our, I guess division of
preference and it's what we started with over a year ago. The reason we do have the two and I hope I don't
come across as being disrespectful but I think it's important to note that we've been put in this position by
a failure of staff to clearly identify the proper ordinances in this case and have really put us all, the council,
myself, my family, my neighbors and the neighbors at the lake in this position. I want to give you a brief
history. We found the lot September 3rd. We met shortly after with Mr. Generous. Discussed the different
ordinances and what could be potentially done with the property. We then had it surveyed. Met back. Mr.
Generous confirmed that two lake lots weren't possible with the existing house so we decided we would
remove the existing house. He then confirmed with us that that would be possible because the lake lot, the
lakeshore requirements were 75 feet. We consequently bought the house. We spent a considerable amount
of time cleaning up the yard. There was 20 years of dead trees and brush I think we've just in the time we
spent last spring made it better. Made it through the first Planning Commission. Within 2 days before we
were to go before the City Council for what we expected final approval of the side by side lot, Mr.
Generous called and told us that there had been a misinterpretation of the shoreland ordinance in terms of
the width and if you've ever been punched as hard by someone could in the gut, that's about what it felt
like. There's been a lot of things that have been discussed in terms of who we are and what are plans are.
My wife and I want to live on Lotus Lake. It's a beautiful lake. We like Chanhassen. We've got an 18
month old son. We've got two neighbors that have agreed to purchase the other lot who we're bringing
with us from Strawberry Lane. That's all that this thing started off as and that's all that we had hoped that
it would end in. We're now put in the position to where we've got massive amount of money relative to our
standards invested in it and we are forced to have to do something to, at the very least cut our losses. The
only real option that looks like without having to be granted a variance is the front to back split, which is
not our preference but it is certainly something that we would accept if the council decides to do that. I do
think the side by side is the best decision. I think it has less impact on the neighbors. I think it has less
impact on the community. I'm a Coast Guard licensed pilot with a 100 ton masters license. My wife is an
environmental attorney. We are professionally sworn and have a personal interest in maintaining the
47
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
quality of any body of water, and that goes beyond Lotus Lake. I do think again a key point of this is the
reason we're here and put in this position is through a failure of staff to properly expand, expound on,
explain and be clear with the ordinances and it's unfortunate that that's where we are, but I think that there
needs to be some accountability with that. But whatever you do decide to do, we will be accepting. We've
tried to be very flexible in working with the neighborhood and working with the city. We will still be
flexible if anything is asked of us and would be willing to look at anything. We just ask that you make the
right decisions. Sometimes the right decision isn't always the easiest and just appreciate you giving me the
time to talk with you and be happy to answer any questions.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, thank you. Any questions for the applicant at this time? Okay. I did tell the
neighbors that if they had a representative who wanted to speak for a brief 5 minute period, that would be
wonderful. Again, if we could just keep it to the issue and we certainly all acknowledge and have read the
minutes from the Planning Commission. We know all of the angst that exist around this issue so we
certainly can appreciate it. Thank you.
Debbie Lloyd: Thanks. My name's Debbie Lloyd and I live at 7302 Laredo Drive. Staff would like you
to believe tonight that you don't have a choice regarding the Igel subdivision but you do have a choice.
Your choice is to do the right thing and abide by the code. The Igel's purchased a beautiful piece of
property on Lotus Lake. They are bright people. They were well aware of the risks associated with their
investment. They had been informed by the selling realtor that the land may not be subdividable. Staff it
appears has done everything in it's power to put forth the notion that subdividing on the lake is justifiable
because subdividing the other way meets code. We are here to prove that wrong. The facts are that the
Igel's need variances for both lots. As a City Council you have the power to deny this request. Or at a
minimum tonight that all applicable codes be applied to both proposals. Only then can you assure
yourselves and our community that you are doing the right thing. This is the foundation of authority in
Chanhassen. This is the code book which we're supposed to apply. Just going to leaf through a couple
things. You received my letters. The rules of construction and definition. In the construction of this code,
and of all ordinances, the rules and definitions set out in this section shall be observed unless construction
would be inconsistent with the manifest intent of the council. Generally all general provisions, terms,
phrases and expressions contained in this code shall be liberally construed in order that the true intent and
meaning of the City Council may be fully carried out. In the interpretation and application of any provision
as this code, they shall be held to the minimum requirements adopted. Where any provisions of the code
impose greater restrictions upon the subject matter then the general provision imposed by the code, the
provision imposing the greatest restriction shall be deemed to be controlling. There's some key words in
here. Must. When you look at your ordinance it says look at this must. Must be construed to be
mandatory. Non technical and technical words. Words and phrases shall be construed according to the
common and approved usage of the language. Shall. The word shall be should be construed to be
mandatory. Street. Right there on page 3. Street. The word street means a way, public or private for the
conveyance principally of vehicular traffic, whether designated as a street, avenue, parkway, road, alley,
lane, thoroughfare, expressway, highway, place or however otherwise designated. Street. It's amazing
how this word has been manipulated. Shared driveway. Common portion of the driveway. Cross access
easement. Private driveway. Private drive. Private street. Driveway access easement. The simple facts
are, for the subdivision to be legal it must have 30 feet of frontage on a street, public or private. The
common section or in legal terms, the serbiant tenament must be paved to a width of 20 feet. The
uncommon section doesn't have this requirement but it must be located within the easement of 30 feet.
This is known as the right-of-way provided again in legal terms in the dominant tenament. This is a classic
case of right-of-way whereby an owner agreed to allow a neighbor to cross his land in order to allow the
neighbor to reach his own land. It lives in perpetuity. The only place in our code which provides for this
48
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
access is in Section 18-57, Streets and under Section O, Private Streets. But boy can staff confuse us on
this. Getting back to our.
Mayor Jansen: Deb, please.
Debbie Lloyd: Okay. Getting back to our ordinances. When the City Council have past in their wisdom
and in conjunction with our City Attorney, Roger Knutson, devised our city ordinances they had to ensure
that the ordinances were, reasonably certain in their terms and set forth objective standards to provide
adequate notice of what is required. Must be consistent with the Minnesota Constitution and Statutes.
Must not limit or deny any common law or constitutional rights. Must not constitute an unreasonable
restraint of trade and must be reasonable. So, when Mr. Knutson helped to draft these ordinances back in
1988, and all ordinances since then, he had to be assured they passed all conditions just mentioned. A
sound understanding of the law was required. The ordinance book is a public record. It is evidence in
court. Actions by the council which are administrative in nature are subject to judicial scrutiny and will be
set aside if arbitrary, unreasonable, or capricious. Therefore we have compiled a set of findings to provide
for the council in support of the code and it's applicability to the Igel subdivision. We have two lists of
stack of findings. For the two lakeshore lot proposals, which we view as negative toward the community of
Chanhassen. In the stacked lot proposal, the one up, one down proposal, which we construe to be negative
towards well. If you have any questions about any of these items, the application of each code for each
inconsistent application is listed. The Minnesota State Statute, if it applies, is listed. There are DNR
regulations that are controlled here. Shoreland regulations. And I don't know how I'm doing on my time.
Mayor Jansen: I need you to wrap pretty quick.
Debbie Lloyd: Okay. And also provided with a handout is a letter from a former councilman who served
on Chanhassen council from 1986 to 1990. Talking about private streets. And we've, as you know we've
delved into the history of the private streets. We were trying to balance the long term interest of the city
with the reasonable desire of property owners to develop the economic value of their property. I believe the
council was concerned about protecting the city's ability to support future development by providing space
for a transition from private streets to public streets. Providing room for related utilities and protecting the
lot size and characteristics of future development within the city.
Mayor Jansen: Deb I do need you to wrap please.
Debbie Lloyd: Okay, thank you for listening. For all the time and efforts you've helped us through this
past year. It's hard to wrap up a year in 5 minutes, thank you.
Mayor Jansen: Appreciate it. Let me just say, I mean obviously we realize and we're sensitive to what a
long, drawn out issue this has been. In fact I'll share with you that I don't think I'm alone sitting up here
tonight having probably lost more sleep over trying to figure out what to do with this one than Puke. And
when you go around shaking your head saying, it's a lot split. It's significant in that it is in an established
neighborhood and we are all sensitive to that. We're unfortunately in a position where our ordinances
maybe don't provide us the full extent of the relief that we'd like them to provide us as far as being able to
address the situation. I don't know that in the past that there's been the political will to necessarily open
these up and take a look at it. I'll share with you that later on our agenda we will be addressing those
ordinances in order to be able to suggest that they need to be looked at and given some scrutiny. And
potential revision so I certainly can relate to the angst that everyone's gone through on both sides. You
know there's some really difficult, difficult circumstances here. Bringing this back to council. As staff
49
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
said on the subdivision proposal for the two lakeshore lots, we do have findings of fact in the report to
deny. On the second division of the front to back, that isn't a proposal that we're being advised that we
have the latitude or the ability to deny it.
Councilman Ayotte: Point of clarification Mayor. On the front/back we do not have the authority to deny?
Mayor Jansen: We don't have the ordinances in place, the language is not clear enough.
Scott Botcher: I might suggest you let Roger address that.
Mayor Jansen: If you'd like to on the record, you certainly could.
Roger Knutson: Mayor, I think I've written plenty about the subject but I will just say, one of the things
that may frustrate people from time to time is the courts when they read our ordinances construe them
strictly against regulation and strictly for doing what the property owner wanted to do with their property
and so as we're interpreting ordinance, we have to apply that same rule that the courts apply. As far as
going into the substantive, I don't think that would be appropriate right now. You have my opinions on the
subject.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you.
Councilman Ayotte: May I ask a question about the water service?
Mayor Jansen: Certainly.
Councilman Ayotte: On water service to be extended to Lot 1 in page 4 of the staff report, what are the
adversities during construction with respect to, if we have to extend the water service?
Bob Generous: The impacts to the trees, it doesn't follow the current alignment. That was the only
concem.
Councilman Ayotte: They didn't state it black and white so.
Bob Generous: It was staff's opinion that with the extension of the water service they should follow the
driveway alignment rather than at one time they were showing it going through that wooded area in the
western part of the property.
Mayor Jansen: Was that your question?
Councilman Ayotte: Yeah.
Mayor Jansen: Okay.
Councilman Ayotte: Page 10, there was a comment Teresa about engineering will ensure there will be no
increase in runoff. Could you kind of, are you familiar with that?
Teresa Burgess: Let me find the comment real quick to make sure I'm answering the right question.
50
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Councilman Ayotte: Well it was talking about, I'm sure Kate wrote that and put you on the blame line that
you would make sure there wouldn't be any additional runoff during.
Teresa Burgess: What she's referring to is that between the single lot and the two lots, they could build a
larger home if they were to stay on the single lot because they would still be restricted to the 25%
impervious. The developer, or in this case the Igel's would be required to submit stormwater calculations
showing that they have not increased the runoff to the lake.
Mayor Jansen: Was that the extent of your questions?
Councilman Ayotte: That will take care of it.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. Any other direct questions for staff at this point? Okay. This is a tough one
councilmen. I am going to toss something out, just for discussion as this goes around the table. I'm not
suggesting that it's something that we do but I think with the numerous new members on the council who
may not be aware of this as an option, I do at least want to throw it out as a possibility. On the side by
side, because it is a variance request, were council to consider granting the variance for that request, you
can apply conditions to that in granting it. I did pose the question to Mr. Knutson as far as applying this
same sort of restriction on the side of the houses we did on the Carver Beach property recently. It could
arguably be, would you like to address what you and I talked about, just so I'm saying it correct. I don't
mean to put you on the spot but just so I'm saying it correctly.
Roger Knutson: The discussion you and I had was on the issue of limiting the size or the height of the
house. And whether you could do that and I said you could do that in a reasonable manner for the
variance, regarding the variance because a variance relates to lot width and the size and the height of the
house. There's a nexus there between those two issues. If you want to maintain open space or open feeling
or the sort of thing you would gain if the lot were larger or wider.
Mayor Jansen: And keep it more consistent with the neighborhood that way.
Roger Knutson: That's correct.
Mayor Jansen: And in doing that also the setbacks on the homes in the existing neighborhood, they're a
little bit more restrictive, not a lot more restrictive but could we also then apply the existing setbacks from
that neighborhood?
Roger Knutson: As far as lakeshore setback you're talking about?
Mayor Jansen: These were from the side yard setbacks.
Roger Knutson: That would seem reasonable, yes.
Councilman Ayotte: So are you saying that the 60 x 60 pad would be made smaller so it'd be less intrusive
to the setback? Is that what.
Roger Knutson: Well I don't think anyone, very few people build a 60 x 60, there are very few 60 x 60
homes.
51
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Councilman Ayotte: Well but.
Roger Knutson: What you can do is you can tighten down and say for example, I'm hesitating because I
don't want to put ideas in your head. That's for you to decide but for example, if you decided because of
the vistas you didn't want a 2 or 3 story home, you wanted a single story home, or you decided you wanted
to maintain certain setbacks you could say the house, the footprint of the house may not exceed and then
I'll let you fill in the blank. Or must maintain an extra large setback from the side yards of, fill in the
blank.
Mayor Jansen: That's why my thought had gone to maintaining the existing setbacks that are in the
neighborhood so that the size and the setback of the homes would be consistent with the existing
developments.
Councilman Ayotte: So the existing setbacks would drive it's integration?
Mayor Jansen: Yes. But what Roger's also saying is that if you wanted to go so far as to limit the
footprint of the house, that you can only push so far on the reasonableness of the requirements that you've
put on this.
Councilman Ayotte: How do you couch what is reasonable given that there's a certain point where you
don't want to pack guidance too terribly much but at the same time you've got to satisfy the neighborhood.
How do you find that balance?
Roger Knutson: That is councilman why you make the large salary you do.
Mayor Jansen: That's why what I went to in looking at the neighborhood was the larger setbacks.
Roger Knutson: I mean for an example, and I was being facetious there hopefully. The ordinance requires
90 foot of width. They only have 75. So for example if you wanted to increase the setbacks by 15 feet,
that would be one approach to things. But there are many ways you can accomplish what you're trying to
do.
Councilman Ayotte: One of the confusing points on the side by side, what's appealing about it is you have
about 69, 70 some percent of the canopy remains versus the front back, and how to, but you combine both
to retaining that canopy is something also that's got to be thrown in there.
Mayor Jansen: That's why I thought if that was one of the things council was struggling with, that you
should at least be aware of this option. Now I'll also make you aware that I did share that alternative with
the neighbors, at least the two that have been so involved in this project, and their preference is to stay with
the front to back. Now what I've struggled with all weekend, continuing to drive by the property, is it just
seems to impact the entire neighborhood more to pop a home in the middle of that big stand of trees versus
moving two down by the lakeshore. But I am so adamantly opposed, and there's my struggle. I am so
adamantly opposed to wanting to put two lakeshore homes on this property that it's a real struggle, even
knowing that that is probably a good alternative. So I probably just complicated that a little bit for
everybody but now you're at least aware.
Councilman Ayotte: Let's talk it out a little bit more, because this is really important to everybody in the
room.
52
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Councilman Kroskin:
Mayor Jansen: Yes.
Councilman Ayotte:
Is that what we're doing, is we're having a discussion of?
If you don't mind if we can, this is a tough one.
The erosion is less intrusive with the side by side, I think. Is that true?
Kate Aanenson: I'll let Teresa.
Teresa Burgess: The erosion?
construction?
Councilman Ayotte: Yeah.
You're referring to during the construction? The erosion during
Teresa Burgess: The builder's required to mitigate any erosion and we do look at the erosion control plan.
Because there's less tree removal, there would certainly be less potential for erosion into the lake. You're
not removing that natural vegetation. It acts as a filter, but the city would require adequate erosion control
methods.
Councilman Ayotte: I understand that but you have a more optimum fight against erosion if you keep 70%
of the trees versus going to 46%.
Teresa Burgess: Existing vegetation certainly has a much better chance of doing that than man made
alternatives.
Councilman Ayotte: Could we impose, if we went with the front back more measures or not? Do we have
to just keep with the minimum?
Mayor Jansen: The front to back does not require a variance so that one we have no control over.
Councilman Ayotte: No control, okay.
Mayor Jansen: And hence my concern. That one will pass. That one can happen. And I did notice that
staff does have the tree conservation easement now reflected on the side by side plan. Now the only thing
that caught my eye on the side by side plan is the driveway, it seems from the grade of that property that
you would lose more trees than is necessarily indicated on there.
Councilman Ayotte: On a side by side?
Mayor Jansen: On the side by side. Because the way the roadway is, actually I don't know if you have one
of the plans.
Teresa Burgess: ...shows tree canopy.
Councilman Kroskin: She can have mine.
Mayor Jansen: On the one that crosses over to the far side. It just seems to come extremely close to a lot
of the trees that are indicated as lost. Is there any way to shift that driveway to have less impact?
53
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Teresa Burgess: When they come in with their actual building permit they are required to meet the city's
ordinance on driveway grade and so sometimes that does dictate where the driveway must go because they
have to meet that driveway grade. We do allow some shifting to accommodate and they would actually
come in with an actual building plan for each of these projects for their building permit and we would look
at the driveway at that time. But this is looking already at those grades and those trees probably, we would
look at it again at the time of building permit but we probably would have to take the trees.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. So if the tree preservation is a big part of your consideration, which is what I was
hearing you say, that the driveway could impact more of that then is currently reflected.
Councilman Ayotte: On the side by side.
Mayor Jansen: Yeah.
Councilman Kroskin: But which plan affects the tree canopy the most?
Teresa Burgess: I believe the from back does. And certainly we could, if they do the side by side, we
could add a condition that they do proper management to minimize tree impacts. That requires some
additional construction work when they're out there. Instead of just going through and ripping to put in the
driveway, they would need to first properly treat those roots. We may be able to save some of the trees that
are relatively close to the driveway.
Councilman Ayotte: Could we impose a requirement to introduce more trees for those that are taken down?
Teresa Burgess: I'm not able to answer that question.
Roger Knutson: Yes.
Kate Aanenson: Yes.
Roger Knutson: Yes.
Mayor Jansen: Roger said yes.
Councilman Ayotte: Okay.
Mayor Jansen: Does anyone else care to jump in?
Councilman Peterson: It's probably easier for me to jump in only because I've already voted on it. As I
offered to somebody earlier today, I think I've spent more time on this project and Pulte than I have any
other project in the last 7 years of giving service to the city of Chanhassen. You know I believe that we
need to follow the ordinance and it's, I voted for the one lakeshore and one non-lakeshore lot in the
Planning Commission and I really haven't seen anything since that vote that provides substantial more facts
that would sway that decision. You know I'm concerned about the trees, but I'm more concerned about
following the ordinance and that's really the way I felt a few months ago and that's probably the way I feel
tonight. But I will say, as I did say I think in the Planning Commission, I think that as a compliment to the
citizens that are here tonight, many of which have been to multiple meetings. Whether it be council or
54
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
commission, I think we are a better city because of this project and we're going to do things differently as
we go forward, both from a commission standpoint, from a council standpoint, from a staff standpoint.
And I know that doesn't make anybody, probably but me and maybe hopefully you guys feel better but I do
think that we are going to function better as we move ahead. So thank you.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you.
Councilman Kroskin: Well I too have, I can't believe the amount of time I've spent looking at this situation
and I agree. It's not just a lot split. I certainly, as I looked at the decision in front of us I personally am not
going to feel good about either decision that I'm going to vote, whichever way I'm going to vote tonight. I
commend the neighborhood for their very professional and polite interaction with myself, and the
documentation information that they've provided and the opportunity to sit down and speak with them.
And I also want to thank the Igel's for their professional conduct towards myself and the professional way
in which they have provided their information. I'm still thinking about it.
Mayor Jansen: Anything to add Councilman Labatt.
Councilman Labatt: It's a tough one. When you've got one that you really can't say no to but it has a
greater impact. And you have Option A, and Option A is the two lakeshore that has a lesser impact on the
abutting neighbors, but yet we have to fudge on a variance and on the lakeshore width but we can impose
restrictions as we did in Carver Beach to the footprint and the size of the building, I think we have to take a
look at that. A serious look. Are the neighbors, I mean I talked to Mr. Paulsen out in the hall during the
break and tried to figure out which way, or pin down to we have to say yes to Option B. The stacked.
Would A be better? His concern was that we're looking at the quality of the lake and mitigating the affects
on the lake and still preferred the stack, if I quoted you correctly Mr. Paulsen. But I just wonder with the
fact that we can control the building pad and the height of the building, I wonder if you guys as neighbors
are willing to take a look at that option and go...
Mayor Jansen: Hey, I was looking for that too.
Councilman Labatt: Okay. I mean I'm just looking for some direction you know.
Mayor Jansen: Unless you've changed your mind.
Councilman Labatt: I can't remember the name of the neighborhood down south on 101 that we gave them
a little 5 minute recess to group together and think about what they wanted to do and come back to us.
Which neighbor was it?
Kate Aanenson: March Glen.
Councilman Labatt: March Glen. I just wonder if we could give that to them.
Mayor Jansen: I don't know that this would get resolved by doing that. I literally told them on Friday, so
they would have the weekend to be able to mull it over and share and at this point they're front to back.
Councilman Labatt: Okay.
55
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Mayor Jansen: And I guess, okay. And I didn't mean to throw out a complicator and actually as I think
about it, I think I would have more difficulty knowing that I granted a variance than causing the front to
back. And that's where I guess I'm feeling as though we're here to execute ordinance. I don't think it's the
right, not that it isn't the right thing to do. I don't know that it's the best thing to do.
Councilman Ayotte: It is not.
Mayor Jansen: To go with the front to back.
Councilman Ayotte: It's not the best thing to do for resale, for all those reasons, for canopy but the
ordinance does dictate front to back. I've gone this way up and down, sideways, and.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. Roger, let me ask you one more legal question. It has been pointed out to both
yourself and us now again leading into tonight's meeting that within our ordinances there's a requirement
for the 30 foot easement on a private street, and I know that you know we're dealing with some issues with
this but a 30 foot easement and a 20 foot setback. Is that anything that we would be able to put on the
front to back as a condition? Is that not a fair question for tonight?
Roger Knutson: Kate, did you want to say it and I'll think about it.
Kate Aanenson: Well I was going to say that's the one that we originally interpreted to need a variance so
was your question is could you put a condition on a plat that met ordinance?
Mayor Jansen: Yeah.
Roger Knutson: You can't impose it, but since you don't have a variance here you lack the flexibility to
impose the kind of conditions you could if you had a variance. So you don't have that kind of flexibility.
Mayor Jansen: And so the 30 foot easement and the 20 foot setback don't apply to this property? Is that
the interpretation?
Bob Generous: It applies for the common portion.
Roger Knutson: It's where they split that it doesn't.
Mayor Jansen: Okay.
Roger Knutson: It's no longer a private street at that point, it's a driveway.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. Alright. Council, any more discussion? Are we ready to call for a motion? Why
don't we start with 7(a). The side by side. Request for a variance from the lakeshore width requirement.
Do I have a motion?
Councilman Peterson: I'd make a motion for denial of request for preliminary plat with a variance to
lakeshore width requirement to subdivide 1.1 acre of lakeshore into 2 single family lots.
Mayor Jansen: Do I have a second? I'll make the second. Any more discussion?
56
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Councilman Peterson moved, Mayor Jansen seconded that the City Council deny the request for
preliminary plat to subdivide a 1.1 acre lakeshore parcel into 2 single family lots with a variance from
the lake shore width requirement. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously 5 to 0.
Mayor Jansen: And the motion carries 5-0 to deny the variance for the 2 lakeshore lots. Variance from the
width requirement. Moving onto (b). Request for the preliminary plat approval to subdivide the 1.1 acres
into a front to back. Do I have a motion please?
Councilman Ayotte: I make a motion to approve.
Mayor Jansen: And a second?
Councilman Peterson: Second.
Mayor Jansen: Motion and a second. Any discussion?
Councilman Ayotte moved, Councilman Peterson seconded that the City Council approve
preliminary plat, Subdivision #00-2 for Lucas Igel Addition as shown on plans prepared by Carlson
& Carlson, Inc., dated February 11, 2000, revised March 8, 2000, revised March 30, 2000, revised
April 20, 2000, and revised August 4, 2000, subject to the following conditions:
1. The front setback for Lot 1, Block 1 shall be at the line where the lot width meets 90 feet.
All existing utilities must be abandoned and inspected as required by the appropriate department or
agency.
3. Final reports must be provided for any soil correction work before building permits will be issued.
4. Sanitary sewer services must be installed in accordance with the Minnesota State Plumbing Code.
The developer shall submit a landscape plan showing minimum buffer yard requirements including
one overstory tree, two understory trees and two shrubs. The buffer yard plantings shall be located
directly north of the proposed home on Lot 2.
The developer shall pay full park and trail fees for one additional lot. One-third of the fees will be
payable at the time of final plat recording. The balance of the fees will be payable with the first
building permit for a home in this development.
The proposed residential development of 1.09 net developable acres is responsible for a water
quality connection charge of $872.00. If the applicant demonstrates that ponding provided on site
meets the City's water quality goals, all or a portion of this fee may be waived. The applicant is
also responsible for a water quantity fee of $2,158.20. These fees are payable to the City at the
time of final plat recording.
A demolition permit must be obtained before demolishing the existing building. The existing
building must be demolished prior to recording the final plat.
57
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
All existing utilities must be abandoned and inspected as required by the City's Building
Department. All sanitary sewer services must be installed in accordance with the Minnesota State
Plumbing Code and/or the City of Chanhassen's standard utility specifications.
10.
A detailed grading, drainage, erosion control and tree removal plan along with a utility plan will be
required prior to final plat consideration for city staff to review and approve. Tree protection
fencing must be installed prior to site grading.
11.
The applicant and staff shall work together in determining the paths for the sanitary sewer and
water services that creates the least disruption to existing vegetation. The City, at the applicant's
expense, will extend a water service for Lot 1 from Laredo Lane to the property line of Lot 1. The
applicant shall be responsible for extending the water and sanitary sewer services to Lot 1. The
applicant shall escrow with the City $4,500 to guarantee the water and sanitary sewer service
extensions. A sanitary sewer and water hook-up fee and connection charge will be applied at time
of building permit issuance on Lot 1. The cost of extending the water service to Lot 1 from Laredo
Lane shall be deducted from the watermain connection charge for Lot 1. The applicant shall
prepare and record a cross access easement agreement for the water and sanitary sewer line that
encroach upon the lots.
12.
The typical 5 foot and 10 foot wide side, front and rear yard drainage and utility easements shall be
dedicated on the final plat. In addition, a 20 foot wide utility and drainage easement shall be
dedicated over the existing sanitary sewer line that runs through Lot 2.
13.
The developer shall be responsible for all city attorney fees associated with the review and
recording of the final plat documents, park and trail fees, Surface Water Management Fees and
GIS fees pursuant to city ordinance. These fees are due at time of final plat recording.
14.
All driveways shall be paved with an all weather surface such as asphalt or concrete. Both lots
must be accessed via a common curb cut as shown on the plans. The location of the driveway is to
be reviewed by the applicant and staff to minimize tree removal. The common portion of the
driveway must be 20 feet wide and built to a 7 ton axle weight design. Cross access easements and
maintenance agreements shall be prepared by the applicant and recorded against both lots. The
driveway access easement shall be 30 feet wide.
15.
The engineering department will review to make sure that there is no increased runoff into the lake
from the construction of the private street and driveway.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously 5 to 0.
Roger Knutson: Mayor, just to clarify the record. Since you approved the one, I believe the applicant has
indicated the one requiring a variance has been withdrawn. Is that correct? Okay.
Mayor Jansen: Do we need to do anything else then?
Roger Knutson: No, as long as it's been withdrawn, that's fine. Otherwise we'd have to draw up findings
on that but if it's been withdrawn, that's not necessary.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. Thank you. I don't think they get any harder than that.
58
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
CONTINUE DISCUSSION REGARDING METER REPLACEMENT PROGRAM.
Teresa Burgess: On February 26th the City Council discussed the meter replacement program as proposed
by staff. Council had requested additional information and requested that the project be brought back for
continued discussion this evening, which we are doing. What staff is recommending is that we use the
funds allocated for the 2001-2002 of drilling of Well 9 to jump start the program. We would then use the
funds that are captured from the replaced meters to continue the program, or if once we've done that first
half million we are astounded by the results we would then re-discuss the project at a later date. But at this
time that is our proposal to use the funds for the jump start and then to use the captured funds from the
replaced meters to continue the program. It becomes a self sustaining program. We did do a couple of
things to answer some council questions. The first thing we did is we surveyed local utility departments
and as you can see most of the local utility departments have gone to radio read or a combination thereof.
And we've surveyed our local, Victoria, Hopkins, Eden Prairie, Chaska, Minnetonka, Edina and then
Chanhassen is the bottom one that you see listed there. We currently have 7 employees, one of which has
been on medical leave since November of last year. Looking at the staffing need, if we do nothing to
change our system except add units we are looking at needing to add another worker to be able to continue
our meter reading in a timely manner in the manner we're doing them now. That was one portion of the
project. And in doing that we looked at how much time is required to do our meter read program.
Currently we use one week, using 4 employees full time to read 33.3% or 1/3 of the city. Right now that
cost is $4,307 per month, or approximately $51,600 per year. That's approximately one full time
equivalent. Please keep in mind when you're looking at those numbers we did not include, we used an
average salary for calculating those numbers. We did not include our water utility superintendent because
he does not do meter reads. We currently use our assistant superintendent to do meter reads just because
we do not have staff to eliminate him. Dropping him out of the picture we lower that dollar amount but
we're not able to do that right now. Just to make sure we were comparing apples to apples we did not
adjust the numbers for the hourly rate, even though our assistant utility superintendent would no longer do
meter reads. To look at the 4 hours that would be required to do the entire city, we're looking at a cost per
month of approximately $108 or a yearly cost of $1,300 to do the entire city once per month. The
additional, and I just wanted to point out real quick for the council, we added 322 units tonight. It's that
quick and that doesn't include, that's just Arboretum Village. That doesn't include Ashling Meadows or
the Igel Addition that we just approved. Those are additional meter reads that will have to be done by our
staff and so it's that quick that they can come up and all of a sudden we've got these added onto our
system. We looked at two things also for looking at the cost. We looked at spreading them out and you
can see that Bruce has done an analysis of our cash flow. The one that we have in here is assuming in the
first place that we are postponing Well 8 including the meter replacement and assuming that meter
replacement, he has assumed that we will not be adding a meter reader position to the city to accommodate
the additional meter reads. He'll be able to do them with radio reads. The second option is a review, not
replacing the, going ahead and putting in Well 9 but not putting in the new meters and the new radios and
in that case he has assumed the need to hire an additional worker to do meter reads. Bruce is here this
evening so I'll let him address any questions on the financing rather than try to struggle my way through it.
I did want to point out for the council this, today the city did do a meter change out, and I won't give the
address because we don't want to do that, to publicize it too much, but we did a meter change out today.
The difference between the meter in the house and the box on the outside of the house was 462,000 gallons.
That was lost revenue to the city. Over the life of that meter and so that is exactly the type of problem that
we are proposing to correct. If there's any questions I'd be happy to try to answer those.
Councilman Ayotte: Are we still on TV? Can I undo my tie?
59
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Scott Botcher: She's the dress code enforcer.
Mayor Jansen: Sorry, go ahead.
Councilman Peterson: Teresa, excuse me. In that specific instance, do we have any idea how old that
meter was and how much that would have saved us?
Scott Botcher: Bruce, why don't you come up.
Teresa Burgess: This is the actual meter that was pulled out. Do we know how old this meter is Kelley?
Councilman Peterson: Mark that as Evidence A.
Teresa Burgess: We don't know the exact age of it.
models.
Councilman Labatt: You're looking at 1970's.
Scott Botcher: How much is 462,000 gallons? How much money?
Kelley Janes: ...about $3.90...water and sewer.
Councilman Ayotte: Did one of your guys change it out?
Kelley Janes: Yes, about 3:00 today he brought it in.
Councilman Ayotte: And about how long did it take?
Kelley Janes: Approximately, that one was strictly a change out, I would say about a half hour to 45
minutes.
Mayor Jansen: If I might jump in, I think where we left this the last time was more discussion around how
we go about financing the project versus it being a discussion of necessity. So as I understand it this
evening, what staff is looking for is an approval to take the project out to bid, correct?
Teresa Burgess: If we are approved to use those funds we'd like to take it out to bid, yes.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. Go ahead.
Scott Botcher: I think now's a good time, and not to belabor it and beat a dead horse but Bruce and I and
the Mayor, and Teresa all met today around lunchtime about, and actually Bruce I'll let you start. Kind of
go through some of the funding issues. Linda raised some good questions electronically this morning. I
guess I'd like you to address the fund balance issue within the water fund. Maybe a brief discussion on
how the enterprise fund is segregated from general funds and then some of that reimbursement resolution
stuff we talked about.
Because it is this type of reader, it is one of our older
60
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Bruce DeJong: Well there's a couple of things that are important to note when you look at this. The
analysis that I put in here is not a set plan. It does not commit the city to any particular bonding or to any
particular operating decisions regarding revenues or expenditures. It's just taking the status quo to give
you an indication of the magnitude and direction of the change if we were to replace the meters of the city.
I did another analysis this morning that showed using only the $65,000 in 2001 and $480,000 in 2002 for
postponing Well No. 9 that shows that at the end of 2005, given the same constraints that we have here and
taking approximately 43% of the savings because, of the $545,000 is about 43% of the total cost of
replacing all the meters and putting in new readers. So doing that it shows that there's a positive change of
almost $690,000 over the course of the next 4 ½ years. That really is a tremendous savings in this kind of
a business. Now when I talked to the mayor about it, and the city manager and the city engineer is that we
certainly can have a discussion about what the fund balance is in the enterprise fund. That is a separate
fund run as a business on it's own and perhaps we're not making the best decisions as far as having that
much cash on hand in that fund. Certainly we don't have to bond for everything. We can finance this out
of the proceeds but the amount of work contemplated in the capital improvement program is such that
sometime during the course of this 5 year period you will have to bond for some of those improvements.
Scott Botcher: The question was raised this morning about our financial situation. Our debt study. Those
types of issues that we talked about and Bruce and I you know have lived and breathed this since we got
here but the debt issue and the financial issues that we face, our general fund and our TIF issues, they're
not our enterprise funds quite frankly. And as I mentioned to Linda, every year the audit comes out and as
you did this year, the auditor said there's no necessary change in the rate structure. In other words, the rate
that we're currently charging our customers are adequate to support operations and adequate to support the
debt. Now if debt were to be issued in some way, shape or form, it would be revenue debt. In other words
the revenue of the utility would support the debt service and it would be scheduled as such so there's no
general fund tax levy impact and there's no negative impact on, in terms of our other debt or balloon issues.
It's a segregated entity within the city.
Bruce DeJong: And as we discussed earlier in our general fund discussions, if you move some things out
and issue equipment certificates for them you can have an 18 month period where you can refund that
money to yourself through a debt issue. So if you decide to go ahead with this project or with an additional
phase beyond the $545,000, we have that 18 month look back window that we can reimburse ourselves for
that. Then we could issue debt if you decide to assume a different course of action.
Councilman Ayotte: Now you really cannot adjust fee until we get an accurate depiction of what we're
doing.
Mayor Jansen: Correct.
Councilman Ayotte: So if you cannot adjust fee, can you incrementally introduce the upgrade and go ahead
and finance it and then adjust the fees as you go?
Teresa Burgess: What we can do is once we have a reasonable number of the meters replaced we should
start to see what the impact of that is. Right now we have an estimate but we would have actual real data
to go on. And then we can do, initiate a rate study and have one done to look at. Addressing the issues of
the upcoming CIP issues. The water treatment plant. The upcoming water towers. I do want to stress to
the council, and we're recommending postponing as well. We really can't go beyond 2 years. We're going
to have to do that well that's scheduled in 2003. So we are looking at this as we feel that this is more
important because we have to address the revenue issues to make sure we're healthy to address the water
61
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
treatment. The towers, the wells that are upcoming and though we can't do, we've been advised we cannot
do a rate study that would be accurate without having the meter change out at least started so that we can
see what the impact is.
Mayor Jansen: So tonight staff is just looking for our approval of using the well funds towards the meter
replacement and being able to take this out to bid. Correct?
Scott Botcher: Yeah, I think from my own perspective, and I'm not even sure we need to go that far, unless
Bruce tells me otherwise. I think the request tonight is to seek approval to solicit bids for the provision of
these goods and services. The financing decision is important but that is not necessarily a part of tonight's
issue because as Bruce said, I think there's a fair question. And when we did our financial policy we never
really addressed, and primarily you two because you guys weren't part of that but we talked general fund
and we talked TIF and we talked investment policy. Remember all that? We never really spoke a lot about
what's an adequate cash balance with an enterprise fund. Probably because they're both okay and frankly
with everything else on our plate we just, we looked at it. We didn't worry about it and then finally
because we know our rate structure needs to be tied to operational costs as well as debt service costs and
that linkage has to be there otherwise your auditor will get on you to fix it and so there's always generally a
relationship there. But his question's a good one. How much cash is enough in an enterprise fund that is
looking at towers, wells and treatment plants?
Councilman Ayotte: You really don't know until you put the RFP out to see.
Mayor Jansen: Well no we'll discuss that as a policy.
Scott Botcher: That's a whole other day.
Mayor Jansen: Completely different policy issue, yeah okay.
Scott Botcher: So just to clarify with, simply tonight just can we go to bid and see what the market brings
US.
Mayor Jansen: Can I have a motion please?
Councilman Peterson: So moved.
Mayor Jansen: I have a motion and a second?
Councilman Kroskin: Second.
Councilman Peterson moved, Councilman Kroskin seconded to authorize staff to advertise for bids
for a city wide meter replacement program. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously 5
to 0.
DISCUSSION OF CARVER COUNTY SHERIFF'S WORK PLAN.
Mayor Jansen: If council doesn't mind, maybe we jump over 10, the discussion of the City Council retreat
to do the discussion of the Carver County Sheriff's work plan. We have Deputy Potts here to work with us
on that so why don't we accommodate his schedule.
62
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Councilman Ayotte: I guess if it's okay with Sgt. Potts.
Sgt. Dave Potts: Yes it is.
Mayor Jansen: He's already at the podium, I think it's okay.
Scott Botcher: We learned today that Bud was unable to make it tonight. He had some conflicts so, which
I didn't know until today but.
Sgt. Dave Potts: One of an officer's least favorite calls in the world is a domestic dispute and I couldn't
help but.., those domestic calls. Watching council struggle with being between a rock and a hard place so I
can identify with what you folks went through with some of those issues earlier. And I'd also like to thank
you for on my month to month times in front of the council, putting me on early. I hope this is one of those
rare exceptions.
Scott Botcher: That's what you learn about government Dave. Basically what we have here, not to
interrupt but we'll get this thing going. Is that the council had established, and has established a deadline, a
self imposed deadline admittedly March 31 for the adoption of the work plan on an annual basis. That was
communicated both to Dave and Bud and included in the packet is the work plan from 2000. A memo from
Dave, and you guys can read this yourselves. And then I guess what I would consider more of a draft
outline of the work plan 2001, and I think what we're looking for tonight is a couple things. First of all are
the categories within the work plan acceptable? Do you want to add some? Do you want to delete some?
And again, starting from the top, conceptually what's the framework. Within the framework what kind of
bullet points do you wish to have included as performance measures and again like the incentive plan they
can be tangible. They can be intangible. And then I guess beyond that we've got the categories, anything
else that's new or different or responsive from the council to the contractor that we need to include in the
work plan because our goal is to get this in final form so it can be before you next time, and then at the
same time the final addendum to the contract which contemplates the work plan which is consistent with the
motion will then also be before you. So those are our goals.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. And I think just to frame this up for our new council members, I don't know if
you're familiar with the recentality of Sgt. Potts actually being stationed here with Chanhassen. The 2000
work plan was the first work plan and developed by Sgt. Potts and Mr. Botcher as they both came on at
about the same time, correct?
Sgt. Dave Potts: Actually the primary architect of the work plan was the sheriff.
Mayor Jansen: Okay.
Sgt. Dave Potts: He brought the work plan. It was his idea. In fact it's something he's instituting
throughout the entire sheriff's office. The different divisions in the sheriff's office. Last year was our first
taste of it here in Chanhassen. This year it's been expanded to the rest of the sheriff's office. And so for
the rest of the sheriff's office this is the first year doing something like this...
Mayor Jansen: So this is only our second annual.
63
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Sgt. Dave Potts: The sheriff left it up to me to take, to come up with a draft for 2001 and since I didn't
write the first one, you know putting some things and thoughts into my own words so you'll see some
differences between the 2000 plan and 2001. I'm certainly open to suggestions and concerns of the council
on that but at this point in time the draft contains some things that I wanted to put in there. Some things
that the sheriff and perhaps Scott Botcher wanted to put in there and now we're looking for council, as my
memo stated, as our community representatives and our community leaders you are out there talking to the
public. You have your own ideas and you have the public at large ideas of law enforcement in Chanhassen.
So we're looking for some of that input to perhaps include in black and white on this work plan document.
And I don't know with all your other issues how much time council has had to consider this and to think
about some issues that they'd like to put in there. If you have some ideas or some discussion tonight, that's
fine. Otherwise we just need to get this wrapped up in the near future so we can bring the final version
before council on the 26th.
Mayor Jansen: Sure.
Scott Botcher: And understand that you retain the right, working with the sheriff, to really go back and
flush out or amend your work plan midstream if you like. In other words you can pick it up in August and
say you know geez, this didn't work very well or this is a great idea for the fall. Let's make this
amendment. Obviously in conjunction with the county because you can't make a change in November and
say by December 31 you have to do x. I mean we really always have to take a long term vision here.
Many years down the road but we do it in one year increments so Dave's right. We do like, we would like
to get at least one draft of this tied together but if you have issues that you want us to expound upon in the
future and become more detailed. I know one of the things that I had an interest in, and I'll just share it
with the council, was to get, and what's here is fine but I like to have some more, and I'm using a Bob
word, quantifiable data in here. In terms of... in the past year, and quite honestly the software that the
county used just couldn't do it. Couldn't do it. And Bud has gone through an install and we have new
software at the county and so some of those numbers that actually track issues of, what's the average stop
time for this type of activity. What's the response time for this? How many of these? Before that was
very, very painful to get, or impossible to get. With the new software we're going to be able to get that sort
of stuff. And again, as we said last year, start building that baseline to go. Is that an accurate statement?
Sgt. Dave Potts: Well and that might bring us to the very first thing under the heading of contract
administration. Law enforcement records and reports. That's one area that's going to be changing
throughout this year with the new software that's going into place and the training that goes along with that
and finding out what we can do with it. What it can track you know. What it can print out on an ongoing
basis and what kind of reports we can generate.
Councilman Ayotte: One of the questions and desires that I had, tracking a lot with Scott, I've talked with
more than one deputy on this issue just to get a feel for myself. A point of frustration is conviction rate, or
lack thereof. You guys bust your butts to, it takes a lot of time with DWI, DUI, 3 to 4 hours. You're
making head way to reduce that process time and then they go in, if you get them into court then there's a
question of conviction and whether or not all the efforts that you do pay off. So what can we do on the
other end of the continuum to take a look at our Carver County court systems to make sure that conviction
rates are starting to tally. Going back to what Scott was saying with the data but what mechanism could
we have to evaluate the success of the court system to demonstrate if the activities that say you guys are
doing are paying off.
64
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Scott Botcher: Elect different judges. I'm very serious. I'm very serious. You elect different judges. I
mean they run unopposed half the time. Elect different judges.
Mayor Jansen: And we're actually venturing off the work plan though because that's monitoring a
completely different.
Scott Botcher: That's a judicial process.
Mayor Jansen: Organization so if we could maybe stick with this it would be appreciated.
Councilman Ayotte: Sure it will be appreciated but Sgt. Potts, can we have a discussion about that
because I really think that that's where we're going to make our money.
Sgt. Dave Potts: Well I just had a discussion along this last week and I was just trying to recall who that
was with, but there was a discussion about the enormity of the job to follow from call point to conviction
point and track the whole system versus tracking what does the sheriff's office do alone or what does the
judiciary do alone.
Mayor Jansen: ... issues that we have talked about since last year and now the sheriff has requested it,
probably 2 years in a row, the community involvement participation part of the original work plan. I know
I would like to see that part of it come together as far as a group and you can see in the original work plan
there was multiple different options thrown out. Whether it was the focus work group or task forces or
contract oversight committee. Do you have a feel now for yourself as to what type of a group you would
feel the most comfortable and could give you the most effective information that you might need? Whether
it's a commission per se again or this contract oversight committee was definitely probably given the most
serious consideration previously.
Sgt. Dave Potts: Personally the citizen group that I deal with is the City Council. And I don't see a need
for a specific commission that meets on a regular basis. The sheriff threw out the idea of perhaps more of
a single focus work group that's brought together from time to time to deal with one issue or another. My
concern with something ongoing is keeping the group busy with whatever their work would be and for me
personally I would need direction from the city manager, from the sheriff and from this council as to what
they would envision for that type of a group. And kind of give me some guidance and steering that way.
Councilman Ayotte: How about a task force to measure the success our judges have on convictions? What
do you think?
Scott Botcher: Yeah, yeah. My understanding is that Bud still supports the idea of coming up with a
citizen task force that would meet on like a quarterly basis. Dave's question we have discussed in my
office. Okay, so we do this. We have to give them some sort of direction. Some sort of task to continue to
do. One, to keep them interested and two, to keep them on task. And so my guess is when Bud comes here
in 2 weeks he's still going to be supportive of it unless he's changed his mind, which he obviously can.
Sgt. Dave Potts: And he had mentioned to me that the City of Monticello contracts with the sheriff's
office up there and they have some type of a citizen group and so he suggested that I look into that and see
how their's is run and get some ideas that way. And perhaps that's the guidance I'm looking for from
council. If this, some type of citizen group is of interest and you'd like me, as representative from the
65
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
sheriff's office to pursue this, that could be the piece that goes into the work plan as some direction to me
to look at these and come back with some ideas for the council to consider.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. I know just speaking for myself I would be interested in pursuing what would be the
best arrangement and maybe letting staff work that out as to making a recommendation as to what would
be the best set-up for getting that kind of input. The other part that I also liked that was listed under this
section was the evaluator conduct a community survey on community attitudes for policing for 2001, and
we are of course trying to pull together our general community survey at this point but I don't know how in
depth we necessarily would be able to go into what we might want to know about the policing services from
our residents. Scott, do you have any idea as to whether we would end up needing to do a separate
evaluation or do you suppose we could work in enough questions into the general.
Scott Botcher: I don't know yet. How's that? I'll have to see what the questions come back like. What
the cue looks like and if it's a bigger deal than anything else, it may have more questions but my guess is
that it will probably have some but not as many as some would like and probably more than others.
Mayor Jansen: Okay.
some questions there.
we're addressing.
So maybe just be aware that we are pulling that survey together and addressing
If there are things that you'd want to bring forward to our attention to make sure
Sgt. Dave Potts: And in reference to that survey, and the mention of a survey was directly from the sheriff.
He obtained some software. He mentioned it to both Scott and I from what was it, the Department of
Justice or something along those lines, of doing a law enforcement community survey. And so that's
where, you know after we had received this software and before it was put down on paper here, that's
where that idea had come from originally.
Scott Botcher: Yeah, the issues of the survey, any survey is not driven because of the existence of any
software. It's driven from methodology and what it is you want to ask and whatever the results are, they
need to be incorporated within the software at the county, that can be done but obviously we're interested in
more results but, we can meet, maybe time together.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. And then probably for recentality sake, the second bullet point underneath that was
the establishing a community crime fund for crime prevention activities and rewards for information on
crimes. I know that Sheriff Olson had mentioned that possibility of needing some sort of a reward situation
with what happened at the Legion recently so he re-raised that as an issue as to whether it was as a
community we should be addressing as far as having some sort of a reward fund set up. And I have no idea
what that means as far as executing it.
Sgt. Dave Potts: Well and that was something that I was under the impression that as a sheriff's office
they had something like that. I don't know who has operated it in the past or how it's actually worked.
Scott Botcher: At the city level my guess is that it would be a general fund issue. My personal experience
in the past when I was in Delafield with my own police department, whenever they needed something I
simply wrote them a check and had a little line that I took it out of and we made sure that it didn't appear
as succinctly as the bills as it might otherwise because we didn't want to have in there, money for drug buy
at 12, I mean really you don't. So that's how we've handled it. It's really not difficult to do.
66
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Mayor Jansen: Okay. So maybe that's just a conversation as to whether that's something we would even
need to address.
Scott Botcher: Well and you guys will just need to fund it as part of your. My gut tells me that it's just
something that you extend to the county and you make it a general fund. Withdrawn out of the fund
balance whenever you need it because I wouldn't necessarily support levying for it. For the amount of
money. It's really generally not a lot of money from year to year.
Sgt. Dave Potts: I wouldn't think so.
Councilman Labatt: But then again I think.., sheriff's idea, in previous employments both Bud and I
worked together at Minnetonka and they had a crime prevention fund there. It was donated to by area
businesses and a board, if I remember and don't quote me or hold me to this but the money was paid out
by their crime prevention group that was overseen by 3 to 5 business leaders that determined the value of
the work. The reward be paid and the value of information versus the money. All that stuff so.
Mayor Jansen: So it might actually be something to address with like the Chamber or.
Councilman Labatt: I don't think that Minnetonka used city funds for it. I think it was donations from X
and Y Z business and this and that that wanted.
Scott Botcher: We used, any forfeiture money? Would you guys comes off of that and give us some to put
into a crime prevention fund?
Sgt. Dave Potts: I don't know.
Councilman Labatt: There's certain guidelines with forfeiture money.
Scott Botcher: Alternative revenue sources Steve.
Councilman Labatt: I know but, the only questions I had. Again I had you know a commission advisory
board under community involvement participation but I don't know if that's just maybe a wordsmithing or
a little bit of how my background sways me on things here but under the law enforcement operations on
page 2, under the 2001 draft, traffic enforcement. Growth in Chanhassen has brought increased traffic and
increased concern for traffic safety. Next followed by ongoing enforcement. I think that ongoing is a
minimum that you expect. I'd like to see that changed to increased enforcement to, and not even, I'm not
even talking a quota or anything. I'm not even going down that road but I think there's a minimum level of
acceptable output or whatever you want to describe it as but when you begin to outweigh the number of
traffic editions added in 2000 and compare that to '99 and see what we had in comparison for increased/
decreased and now look at that as 2000 what, you know. Maybe set a goal or whatever you want to call it
for 2001 but that's all I wanted put on. And then I did not see in here anything on the compliance checks.
I saw it in the 2000 work plan but it was dropped from 2001.
Sgt. Dave Potts: Compliance checks are something that's conducted by a separate division within the
sheriff's office so I thought for the purposes of our work plan, that really wasn't the place for it. And last
year when it was put in there, the idea was, the sheriff's office was going to accomplish one county wide
but the city was looking at two and funding that second one and putting that into the work plan and that's
how it originally got there. My latest conversation with the sheriff is they are wanting to conduct two
67
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
county wide and that has to be done by the end of June, I think the fiscal year for that program is July to
June and so I think they're kind of under the gun to get their two done. And then the next year would begin
July 1st and they probably would then continue with that program and unless the city saw a greater need for
that, then I don't know that it would necessarily need to be in the work plan.
Councilman Labatt: So once we get on track then, theoretically we could have one, they're going off of a
July to June fiscal year. We could theoretically have one in the second half of 2000 again.
Sgt. Dave Potts: That's the way I'm reading it, yeah.
Councilman Labatt: Or second half of 2001 and then another one in 2002, the first half.
Sgt. Dave Potts: That's the way I'm reading it as well.
Councilman Labatt: We could have 3 this year then, theoretically.
Sgt. Dave Potts: Yes.
Councilman Labatt: Good. I'm okay...
Mayor Jansen: Anything else?
Councilman Ayotte: One other question. Is there, Sgt. Potts, is there any grantmenship effort, Paul
Schnell used to write proposals and grants and so forth once upon a time. I know when he left you didn't
fill that function. Do you think there's going to be?
Sgt. Dave Potts: Well yeah, and Paul was our lead person when it came to grants but not the only person.
One of the investigators, Bill Bennett has always been our grant writer for the Safe and Sober Program.
That is wide spread throughout the state. And some of the other grants that have been written by other
people and that is the same with this liquor compliance program is somebody else, Lieutenant Hubie
Widmer in charge of the investigative unit is also in charge of getting the liquor program up and running.
So that's one of his assignments at this time.
Councilman Ayotte: Is that imbedded in the other programs then, the grant money activity or should we see
if we should promote that and should we possibly look at some of the safety folks that Scott has on staff for
grantmenships to try to generate, formalize it? Is it appropriate to consider formalizing grantmenship or is
it imbedded in the other programs?
Sgt. Dave Potts: I'm not sure I'm following the question other than to say that I know as opportunities and
grants present themselves, currently the sheriff's office doesn't say oh. Grant goes to this person. They're
looking for what is the grant about and the person from the division that would be involved in that type of
activity picking up the ball and taking it.
Councilman Ayotte: So it's not formalized, it's just as it comes we go at it?
Sgt. Dave Potts: Correct.
Mayor Jansen: Anything else?
68
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Councilman Ayotte: No. No ma'am.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you. Any other comments?
Councilman Peterson: I just had one quick comment. I think the plan in and of itself I think is thorough
and meets the needs. The only thing we'd maybe consider doing is integrating in there, you know the
sheriff's office if they can do some PR for itself. The sheriff's office does some tremendous projects in
various things I think we're kind of silent to and I haven't got an idea about how to do that. Whether, and I
may be embarrassing myself, that we already focused that in the news bulletin but if we don't, somehow I
think we need to integrate that in. Versus the, you know how many people were stopped in the newspaper
every other week.
Sgt. Dave Potts: Some of those kind of things, along the lines of public relation efforts, I think have just
been beyond the scope of what our new sheriff has had time to deal with over his first 2 years in office.
You know a lot of challenges. A lot of things coming up. A lot of issues to deal with. Not only organizing
the sheriff's office the way he sees fit so I think that's just down the road a piece, but just knowing the
sheriff I can't say we've spoken on this topic but I believe I can safely speak for the sheriff and say that
that would be one of his priorities just as soon as time allows.
Mayor Jansen: And on some of the projects that Sgt. Potts and Beth Hoiseth have launched, there's been a
great deal of exposure given to them when possible in the city newsletter, as well as the Villager covering
like Project Leadfoot. Neighborhood Night Out.
Sgt. Dave Potts: Yeah, the National Night Out.
Mayor Jansen: Yeah, so there's been some of that at least community based. Trying to make sure that
we're giving them as much exposure as possible. Any other comments?
Scott Botcher: Put it in final form and bring it back next time. Can you make sure Bud's here next time?
The next council meeting.
Sgt. Dave Potts: Yes, you bet. And anything that comes up that you can get to Scott or myself that you
feel you'd like to see included in the plans before that time, please let us know.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you.
Sgt. Dave Potts: Thank you.
Mayor Jansen: Appreciate it. Okay. Why don't we stay with the Planning Commission ordinance review.
PLANNING COMMISSION ORDINANCE REVIEW.
Mayor Jansen: Kate, I don't know if you want to speak to that just briefly.
Kate Aanenson: I'm not really sure, I'm assuming that this came out of the work session, or excuse me the
last Planning Commission meeting where we went through. They always put this on their agenda and they
wanted to get some prioritization and I guess what they're looking for is council's direction on that. Some
69
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
of the stuff is ordinance. Some of it's not but it's my understanding you're looking at ordinance stuff. We
have been working on the glitch ordinance. We're taking it one at a time.
Mayor Jansen: Well some of the notes that I took as in fact it was Deb Kind at the last Planning
Commission meeting that had raised this and asked the commission if they would be willing to put priorities
on some of these so they could rank them timing wise. I had written down that the ones they discussed that
evening were the flag lot amendment, the design standards, existing neighborhood standards, fertilizer
ordinance, and then Deb added to the list wetland exclusion from lot calculation, a lakeshore setback
standardization and I'm not quite sure what she was talking about there.
Kate Aanenson: That's where we have the setback if one house is in the older areas of town they're set
back maybe 150 feet and we have a thing where you have to average it and it's sometimes very onerous to
try to apply that. So we'd go back and re-examine that to see if it's working. How it's worked. I'm just
going to put that under a glitch ordinance because it's an ordinance that's in route.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. So you're going to put that under glitch and.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, taking it one at a time...
Mayor Jansen: Okay. That was one of the ones that she was just suggesting maybe they wanted to get to a
little sooner than possibly the others. And then what I noted was the private street ordinance, since that's
come up to at least have them review that. Those were the ones that they mentioned. And as a part of the
design standards, staff noted that this had become before the City Council a while back. We were looking
at updating the Highway 5 to include building material percentage, and I noted that separately because that
seems like something we could probably move forward on rather quick. And then also then what we were
discussing was taking that Highway 5 corridor ordinance and reflecting it into some of our basic ordinances
and I know the ones that I look at that are somewhat without enforcement capabilities on some of the
projects. The office industrial is pretty broad at this point and the commercial. So I had listed those two as
possibilities to move to the top of that stack as far as looking at them, because when we were talking as a
council last year, it might have been '99 even about looking at these design standards, it was to look at
overlaying similar requirements on architectural detail and building materials over the entire community so
that we had more control over those issues.
Councilman Ayotte: Is it given what vacant land exists, can we anticipate, based on what vacant land
exists, a more specific order of merit? Question 1. Question 2.
Kate Aanenson: I'm sorry, I didn't understand the first question.
Councilman Ayotte: Okay. If we've got vacant land.
Mayor Jansen: That's why I'm looking at these. That's why I have these listed. I know exactly what
you're saying. And yes, that's why they're here.
Councilman Ayotte: I understand that's why they're there but can we be more specific as to insuring that
before we have to deal with another Igel property scenario, that that ordinance is addressed prior to be
exposed to that sort of situation. How can that be couched? How can we?
Mayor Jansen: Kate, did you hand me the only copies of the?
70
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, I handed you like 10 of them.
Mayor Jansen: Bummer. Okay, I'll see ifI can find it here real quick. We had the conversation, I had the
conversation with Roger knowing we were going to be talking about this tonight, about putting a building
moratorium on subdivision. So that we can quick mm this back to the Planning Commission and nothing
coming up can come before we get the ordinance addressed, and Roger's recommendation was to
implement that and that that would be the best answer.
Councilman Ayotte: Good.
Mayor Jansen: So I'm not recommending it on these other issues.
Councilman Ayotte: I hear you.
Mayor Jansen: But that one I thought because it impacts our existing neighborhoods would be the most
important, unless Kate you've got any broader direction for us.
Kate Aanenson: I didn't really take a look at it. I saw it at 4:30. I made you copies. Roger sent it over I
think at 4:25. It has some implications. We have other projects in the works so I have to see what, for
example. We've got someone that wants to split a duplex. It's in an existing neighborhood. It's very
emotional to them. It's got two garages on one side. It's not pretty but it's very important to them. So not
everything unfortunately fits the perfect model. So I guess I need to see what, and Roger knows. He
drafted it, what exactly those subdivisions on any like industrial.
Roger Knutson: Mayor?
Mayor Jansen: Please. I don't know what I did with the copies.
Roger Knutson: Just to go over what I, it's a draft ordinance and it was just based upon a short
conversation with the mayor. This is a temporary moratorium to allow you to study the issue better
integrating, as I say new subdivisions into existing neighborhoods. What this ordinance would do if
adopted, it would temporarily prohibit approval of any subdivision, residential subdivision within 1,000
feet of an existing single family home. And it would remain in effect, I suggested and many of these are
subject to your change. All of them are actually, until December 1, 2001. So it'd only apply to residents in
residential subdivisions and it would only apply to those within 1,000 feet of an existing single family
home.
Scott Botcher: I'm sort of like Kate, I saw this at 5:00 and moratorium is not a word you throw around at
the municipal level without I think more thought and discussion than seeing it at 5:00. It smells to me like,
and having not studied it, there's some nuances to this that I'm going to need to understand before I can
respond.
Mayor Jansen: I'm not suggesting that we necessarily do this tonight but if we can have some conversation
around it. What we would like to avoid having occur obviously.
Scott Botcher: But no matter what rule you pass, in any part of our code, you're going to have bugaboos.
I don't know how else to explain it. I mean we have our comprehensive.
71
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Councilman Labatt: You handle everything differently.
Scott Botcher: I mean our comprehensive plan was just approved what, 2 years ago?
Councilman Ayotte: What was approved 2 years ago?
Scott Botcher: The comp plan was approved 2 years ago. Is that right Kate? It pre-dates me. 2 ½-3 years
ago. And I just don't want to get in the position of whenever we have, and I'm not saying this is the case
but I'll just say it so I'll feel better. I don't want to have, when we have a really tough issue, to come up
with the solution that says well geez we'd better stop everything and look at all the rules. It must be the
rules that are somehow lacking. And whenever people use the moratorium, that's sort of the feeling that I
get. That somehow there's a rule fix that we could have done, and certainly there are technical applications
we can apply but I'm not comfortable that you're going to find them all. And I'm real, I always move with
extreme caution when I see the moratorium word.
Mayor Jansen: Absolutely and obviously I'm not doing this in a knee jerk reaction to any single issue.
Every time one of these things has come along I have not seen a good, okay I have to phrase this carefully.
I have not seen an application of the flag lot ordinance used in an instance that I would have supported and
I think there are some issues around it that I want to be sure we have stopped and evaluated because it does
seem as though our subdivisions are coming into our neighborhoods and we have not addressed these
ordinances and how it's actually impacting us. That's where I like the fact that they were also looking at
this existing neighborhood standards. So that we're more so making sure that what we're doing is fitting in
with the neighborhoods.
Scott Botcher: And if that's the concern then I would recommend you have a moratorium on the utilization
of flag lots then. Again, I've just seen it so, but these are just off the top of my head.
Councilman Ayotte: The thing that I noticed tonight and over the weekend, I almost missed the Soprano's
because of this.
Scott Botcher: I hear it's going downhill anyway Bob.
Councilman Ayotte: Ah, just the last two but the problem that we have is that all the resources that council
has put into reacting to the fact that there may have been some ambiguity in an ordinance or two, and look
at what the staff has had to go through. You've worked your butt off on trying to debug or I have another
term that I can't use.
Scott Botcher: I know the one you're thinking of.
Councilman Ayotte: Okay, to deal with this issue so it's also at least considering it, what we can do to give
staff time to evaluate. We may come back and say the ordinance as they read is fine but at least to have a
formal review to come to that conclusion.
Scott Botcher: And that's okay. I'm just again, is a moratorium the way to do that.
Councilman Ayotte: I don't know. That's what we want you guys to go back and.
72
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Mayor Jansen: However this ends up being executed, we don't want to have come before us over the next
60 days or however it takes, how long it takes to get this through, we don't want to see a flag lot, private
streets, and something inconsistent with neighborhood standards come into the system.
Scott Botcher: And what does that, just because I'm a dummy. What does that mean? What are
neighborhood standards? I mean seriously. I'm not trying to be a pain. I'm just.
Mayor Jansen: They've got it on here consider an ordinance that would require an average lot size and
building height based on existing neighborhoods. So again they're looking at addressing issues that are
affecting.
Scott Botcher: Right, okay. And that's what I thought and then I go back to Steve's comment when he
said there's a lot of interpretation and he's right. I'm just saying, I'm not saying we shouldn't talk about it
but you can write whatever rule you want to and Steve may look at it and say it means x and Bob may see
it and well it's x + y. I'm just cautioning.
Mayor Jansen: Roger would you like to maybe touch on the fact that this did partly stem from your and I
conversation when you said, I mean the language could be addressed.
Roger Knutson: First, most of the stuff in here, not all of this but 90% of what I have drafted can be
changed. There are a few things the statute say we've got to do but for the most part this is my best effort
this afternoon to put something together.
Mayor Jansen: At a template.
Roger Knutson: Right. I also mentioned to you that for most things involving, or for things involving
zoning I will say we have 60 or 120 days, if we take the extra 60 to process an application. For
subdivisions we have 120 days to approve. So if something comes in here today and you take, maximum
time allowed by law to process at 120 days. If you change the rules in that 120 day period, while the
application is pending, the new rule change applies to that application. But my concern with that as I
expressed to you is that if someone spends a substantial amount of money preparing plans based on your
current ordinance, they will be mightily annoyed at you if you change the rules at the 11th hour so to speak.
Which is your right, but it creates some friction when you do that. So this approach doesn't have that. It
has other disadvantages. There's pros and cons to everything but that was my concern with that approach.
Councilman Peterson: To help mitigate that we could have staff work with the individual applicant that
may be affected by the potential change, at least give them a head's up.
Roger Knutson: Yeah, that would be very helpful.
Councilman Kroskin: ... proceed at your own risk.
Roger Knutson: Yeah, if you gave them a head's up and I would even put that maybe in a letter to them, if
you're going to do that saying, okay. You've applied for what looks like a flag lot. You have...wasting
your time and money and energy. That's another approach.
Councilman Kroskin: I personally, I don't like this temporary ordinance.
73
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Mayor Jansen: Okay. Then let's take a look at the ones that we were discussing and put some timeframes
on these. One of the things that one of the Planning Commissioners brought up was just at least giving a
rough idea of expectations as to getting some of these back and Kate had mentioned to the Planning
Commission that they're coming into a little bit slower time. Not to say that there aren't other things on the
burners at this point that they're working on but there may be an opportunity for staff to be able to bring
some of these through the system.
Councilman Ayotte: I wouldn't be comfortable putting suspense dates on. I think I'd go back to Scott and
ask Scott with his staff to target.
Scott Botcher: Well and I think that's sort of what Linda's saying.
Councilman Ayotte: Well then why didn't you say that?
Scott Botcher: Well no, I think that's what she said.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, on the flag lot amendment what I would like to suggest, and let's just go ahead with
these and correct me if anybody disagrees. The flag lot amendment, if we could bring it through the
Planning Commission in the month of April for council to review in May. I was looking April-May.
Scott Botcher: Kate, doable?
Kate Aanenson: I'm just writing them down.
Scott Botcher: That's not what I asked you.
Kate Aanenson: My plate's full. I'll see what we can do. We're coming into a slow period but I'm also
doing the housing forum and.
Scott Botcher: I know. Is this something that if we had Roger draft the ordinance on the flag lot.
Kate Aanenson: We've done some of the background research on this. Sharmin's done some of the private
street. We've drafted a preliminary one on that.
Mayor Jansen: It's been drafted for a while if I'm not mistaken. I mean some of these have been kind of
sitting out there.
Kate Aanenson: But we cannot get consensus.
Scott Botcher: From?
Kate Aanenson: From Planning Commission. From Council. Those are the kinds of ideas.
Roger Knutson: On the time line, just so I'm, Kate your not having public hearings on the amendments are
you? You're just, or are you?
Kate Aanenson: Correct.
74
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Scott Botcher: You have to don't you?
Roger Knutson: Yes you do. You do but I didn't know whether you were just having a discussion down
there. You're having public hearing, okay.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, we've had work sessions on this.
Mayor Jansen: Work sessions or public hearings?
Kate Aanenson: Work sessions on some of them.
Councilman Peterson: I think we had a public hearing on the flag lot.
Kate Aanenson: I thought we did, yeah.
Scott Botcher: Is that ready to come up?
Councilman Peterson: We sent it back to staff to work with.
Scott Botcher: Well and Kate's right.
Mayor Jansen: On some of those I'd like to yank them up here then. If they're just sitting.
Scott Botcher: And if Roger says that the public hearing that was held suffices, then you could do that.
You've got the whole issue, are you reaching down and taking, you know that whole commission, council
relationship thing.
Roger Knutson: You might want to consider directing, if that's how you feel about it, to the Planning
Commission to tell them we want you to give us your recommendation on these issues and we want them
here by now and if you can't reach a consensus, pass them up without a recommendation. If that's what
you want to do.
Scott Botcher: That's been done before.
Mayor Jansen: Yeah, let's do that. And you know, Kate I'm not meaning to add to your burden, just
realizing as you were discussing with the Planning Commission the potential of doing this and you had
called off your two big projects. I'm assuming that you've got your other staff people as well that work on
these sorts of things so not wanting to over burden. But if you then were to take Deb's list and prioritize,
again I'd go down to the existing neighborhood standards, whatever it is that they're looking at doing there.
Again that April-May period with the private streets. I mean those aren't, at least the flag lot and the
private streets I'm not seeing as a huge ordinance amendment so I'm just not seeing it as a huge time
commitment as far as research and so forth. Anyone else have any other comments? It did not make it
onto the agenda but we were going to discuss the City Council liaison appointments. After we had met
with the Planning Commission on Monday evening, I came down. They asked me to come down for the
Tuesday Planning Commission meeting and we discussed the whole concept at length again, and there
seemed to be some general consensus around let's give this a try. Let's work it through. We can certainly
work through the issues and make this the positive step forward that I think it can be as far as
communication. So with that we've got the Senior Commission who wanted to know who and could they be
75
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
at their next meeting. Environmental Commission was about the same reaction. Parks and Rec certainly
seemed amicable to making this arrangement work. So with that, I don't know if we have any volunteers at
this point. I would like to serve as the council liaison on the Planning Commission. Would be my only
request.
Councilman Ayotte: Not me.
Councilman Labatt: Not me.
Mayor Jansen: Not you on the Planning Commission? Or not you on.
Councilman Ayotte: Planning Commission.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. No, I would like to serve that role so.
Councilman Peterson: Have we thought about length of time or rotating these things?
Mayor Jansen: Looking at an annual, we could certainly discuss whether all of you would be more
comfortable with a 6 month rotation. I guess it depends on your schedules. Whether you like to get into
the routine.
Councilman Ayotte: Did we finalize whether or not it's going to be, there was a discussion point that
someone recommended that there would be some meetings that would not necessitate a liaison
representation. Some that would really require a lot of involvement. Some that just require sitting. Did
that get resolved?
Mayor Jansen: I brought that up with the Planning Commission again, and actually when I came over on
Tuesday night they had one of those just meetings that as a liaison I probably would have considered not
coming over for. And in the course of our discussion they talked it through and said in fact it had been a
good meeting to have me sitting in the audience because they started talking about that whole ordinance
discussion and they wanted to engage a conversation with the council so at least then I was able to bring it
up the very next meeting and get it on our agenda. So to their point, but you could certainly use your own
judgment. You know if there's one of those evenings where you just absolutely can't get there. You'll
know the real important evenings, and again you're just simply there to provide guidance if they do hit a
policy discussion that needs a little council input. It would not be participating in their actual discussions
on any of the commissions or getting involved in any of their projects. It's more just for input.
Councilman Peterson: I think given the fact that we're 5 people and we've got 4 commissions, and I think
there is value in us rotating around to get a feel for all of them as to what's going on. I think 6 months is
reasonable. A year sounds like a lot for, if truly part of the goal is us being educated and working as a
liaison, we rotate around every 6 months.
Mayor Jansen: Do you like that idea? And we can certainly work it as we go too.
Councilman Labatt: I've got so many things on the plate right now that, I mean obviously there are some
commissions that meet less than other ones and I'd rather assign myself to one of those if I have to.
Councilman Peterson: The seniors requested you as the least...
76
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Councilman Kroskin: Because you can pack heat.
Councilman Labatt: They're a pretty rowdy group. They meet during the day on Fridays so that would be
a hit or miss thing with my schedule April through October now.
Councilman Peterson: It'd be what?
Councilman Labatt: It'd be hit or miss with.
Mayor Jansen: Steve's working days now.
Councilman Labatt: I'm working days now so, but.
Mayor Jansen: You had said possibly parks and rec.
Councilman Labatt: Parks and rec would be a commission I'd have some interest and I have no interest in
going to the Planning Commission.
Councilman Kroskin: Do you want to rephrase that maybe?
Councilman Labatt: I speak the truth.
Councilman Peterson: Yeah please.
Councilman Labatt: I mean God bless them.
Mayor Jansen: Because of the time commitment.
Councilman Labatt: God bless the commissions. That is a heck of a time commitment. I just have no
interest in giving up that much more time. I've got 3 kids and a wife at home to take care of too.
Councilman Kroskin: Well with my schedule, the seniors meet.
Mayor Jansen: Friday mornings.
Councilman Kroskin: At 10:00 a.m.?
Mayor Jansen: Yeah.
Councilman Kroskin: It's once a month, correct?
Mayor Jansen: Yeah.
Councilman Kroskin: I can probably make that work. On the seniors. When does the environmental
meet? Anyone know?
Scott Botcher: 7:00 p.m.
77
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Councilman Labatt: Tuesdays.
Scott Botcher: 7:30? 6:30? 7:30, okay.
Mayor Jansen: I don't have the schedules with me tonight.
Councilman Peterson: Part of my rationale is I am probably doing a lot of traveling in the next 4 months so
if I rotate, this would be a rotate off period that would be best for me.
Councilman Kroskin: Yeah, I am going to be doing traveling overseas as well for business so it's, I'll do
my best.
Councilman Labatt: Well why don't Mark and I take a joint, the senior commission. I think we can handle
it, the 2 of us can handle them.
Councilman Peterson: I was the one who said I was traveling first.
Councilman Labatt: I mean.
Mayor Jansen: Between Parks and Rec and Seniors, both of you. Is that what you're talking about?
Councilman Kroskin: I think Craig was hinting that he needs to be off the rotation for the next few months.
Councilman Labatt: Or the fifth person that's off, that we use that as the go to person as a fill in person if
someone's traveling.
Mayor Jansen: And if there is a big meeting and I just can't imagine on these commissions, of course I'll
need someone that I can call if there's a big Planning Commission meeting and I can't make it. So I'll rely
on you guys for that back up but otherwise it'd just be Parks and Rec that might have like a public hearing
or something that you'd cover. That leaves Environment.
Councilman Ayotte: Anything you say Mayor. I'm here to serve. Sign me up.
Mayor Jansen: So you're Senior. Environmental. Parks and Rec. You're Environmental.
Councilman Ayotte: Me?
Mayor Jansen: Yeah. Thank you gentlemen. I do appreciate it.
Councilman Labatt: So this is a 6 month basis and we rotate?
Mayor Jansen: We'll talk about it.
Councilman Kroskin: And Craig's on call then.
Councilman Labatt: And if Craig can't do it then Linda does it.
78
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Scott Botcher: We'll get you kicked off. I do want to go back to the, and I know the memo was very brief
but the brief part of the memo that I wrote on the whole liaison thing is that this is an opportunity also for
you to consider not doing some things that you currently do in terms of work before.., council. I mean there
are certain site plan approval things that frankly are not earth shattering and as you integrate yourself into a
liaison relationship, not right away but fairly soon, you're going to want to consider what you can identify
that you want these filter groups to do for you. That may not be worth your time in terms of making
policy.
Mayor Jansen: I think we need a little more experience on the council before that conversation.
Scott Botcher: Oh yep, absolutely.
Mayor Jansen: You had mentioned wanting to do a conceptual review with council on the bowling alley
situation.
Scott Botcher: Two things. Well I've got two things I guess. One is the cable. I gave you 4 copies of
cable TV memos I think is what they are. Bottom line is, and I can paraphrase it in like two sentences.
The venture capital market has dried up. There ain't no more money. That's two sentences so, Everest and
Wide Open West, neither one at this point will be coming into the City of Chanhassen. The Wide Open
West process will be stopped, and we had established some hearings and that sort of stuff. Everest
Communications has declined to execute the franchise agreement for which we had approved, and Melissa,
I think you picked up some of those. There are 2 what's there are memos from Brian Grogan and one I
think is a memo from a cable TV official. I can't remember which one. Bowling alley. We have some
dates coming up on the bowling alley. I am, and as is Todd, are moving ahead with the assumption that the
EDA/Council wants us to consider moving ahead on the track identified at the last EDA meeting, and that
is that your interest in the property is still there. And if it is then we will act appropriately. I mentioned to
the mayor I don't want to come back here March 26th having set in motion certain things to prommelgate
the acquisition of that property and then have you all look at me and say you big dope, what were you
doing? We're still on that track, correct?
Councilman Ayotte: Here's my reaction to it. I think we ought to acquire it. I think we should do
everything we can to mitigate.
Mayor Jansen: We don't need the detail. It's just whether or not he should be continuing to take action.
Councilman Ayotte: Well take action but I don't want him to be so concerned about making a buck as he
should be concerned about getting control of that area for downtown development.
Mayor Jansen: That's an EDA issue.
Scott Botcher: I want to just communicate to my employer that if I take a specific action consistent with
what I believe your policy direction is, then I'm going to come back here and find myself strapped to the
flag pole back here so, how's that? That's what I'm saying. So if that's okay, that's what we'll do.
Mayor Jansen: So are we giving Scott direction to continue? Okay. Steve, same?
Councilman Labatt: Oh yeah.
79
City Council Meeting - March 12, 2001
Mayor Jansen: Okay. Mark, did you weigh in?
Councilman Kroskin: I'm fine.
Mayor Jansen: He should continue, okay. On the retreat. The discussion of the City Council retreat. I
know it's gotten late. If you would like I could e-mail you the dates that Kent Ecklund had available and
what it will be is a discussion over probably Saturdays but he gave us a few dates to work with in the
month we're trying to get it done in the month of April assuming that March was probably bad because of
which sport? Hockey?
Scott Botcher: Well March was just coming quickly and I said Steve's going to be at the State High
School Hockey Tournament. Not knowing you're going to be sick.
Mayor Jansen: So, why don't I e-mail that to everyone.
Councilman Peterson: We talked about it in conceptual in the last meeting, did we talk about it in more
depth? We picked a person?
Mayor Jansen: Kent Ecklund who has worked with the city on the strategic plan in the past would be
coming in to work with us in probably a combination of council. You know working together. Those sorts
of conceptual things and partly strategic. So at least we're all sure we're focused on the same strategic
plan, big picture issues and then there would need to be a follow-up discussion of that. We know we can't
cover either one of those in 2 hours but thought it would probably be best to touch on both of them.
Councilman Peterson: Sounds good.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. Anything else?
Councilman Labatt: Where's the retreat going to be at? Location?
Scott Botcher: We don't know yet. We're having trouble getting our own rec center for the housing
forum.
Councilman Ayotte moved, Councilman Kroskin seconded to adjourn the City Council meeting. All
voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously. The meeting was adjourned at 10:55 p.m.
Submitted by Scott Botcher
City Manager
Prepared by Nann Opheim
80