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CC Minutes 2001 10 22CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING OCTOBER 22, 2001 Mayor Jansen called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. The meeting was opened with the Pledge to the Flag. COUNCILMEMBERS PRESENT: Mayor Jansen, Councilman Boyle, and Councilman Ayotte. Councilman Labatt arrived after the Consent Agenda. COUNCILMEMBERS ABSENT: Councilman Peterson STAFF PRESENT: Todd Gerhardt, Roger Knutson, Teresa Burgess, Kate Aanenson, Bruce DeJong, Matt Saam, and Mahmoud Sweidan PUBLIC PRESENT FOR ALL ITEMS: Deb Lloyd Jerry & Janet Paulsen Alison Blackowiak Shibani Khora Dave Hutton 7302 Laredo Drive 7305 Laredo Drive Planning Commission WSB & Associates WSB & Associates PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: None. CONSENT AGENDA: Teresa Burgess: Madam Mayor. Item number l(b) requires a 4/5 and so if we could pull that and table it. It's a vacation of easement. Mayor Jansen: We were just having a conversation about that as we were missing another council person. If our city attorney could comment please. Roger Knutson: Yeah, the question becomes, mine doesn't work either. Mayor Jansen: I don't think our microphones are on. Roger Knutson: The question is do we have a petition from the affected property owners requesting... If we have such a request, then it's a simple majority vote. If we do not have such a request, it's 2/3 or 4/5 vote. Teresa Burgess: It is a condition of the sale of property. Roger Knutson: Who's making the request? Teresa Burgess: The buyer. The buyer owns the other parcel that the easement is across. Roger Knutson: The seller... City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 Teresa Burgess: Roger Knutson: Teresa Burgess: Roger Knutson: Mayor Jansen: The city is the seller. The city is the seller? The city is the seller. The buyer has requested the easement vacation. Since both parties are in agreement, I think a majority vote would be just fine. Okay. Thank you for mentioning that though Teresa. Councilman Boyle moved, Councilman Ayotte seconded to approve the following consent agenda items pursuant to the City Manager's recommendations: Approve Resolution Certifying Delinquent Utility Accounts. Approve Vacation of Driveway Easement, 8175 Hazeltine Boulevard. Approve Resolution Establishing No Parking Zone on Brenden Court. Resolution #2001-65: Resolution #2001-66: Resolution #2001-67: Approval of Bills. Approval of Minutes: - City Council Work Session Minutes dated October 8, 2001 - City Council Minutes dated October 8, 2001 Receive Commission Minutes: - Planning Commission Minutes dated October 2, 2001 - Park and Recreation Commission Minutes dated September 25,2001 Award Consultant Services Contract for Trail Connector Feasibility Study; TH 5 at Bluff Creek, TH 5 at Riley Creek, TH 101 South from Lake Susan Drive to Bandimere Park. Request for Site Plan Approval for the Construction of a 20,785 sq. ft. Office Building; Located on the Northwest Comer of Highway 5 and Dell Road; Dell Professional Building, Mount Properties. Resolution #2001-68: Call Assessment Hearing for Sanitary Sewer Extension for Dogwood Road. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously 3 to 0. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: UPDATE ON SCHOOL DISTRICT 276 REFERENDUM. Mayor Jansen: We have one presentation actually scheduled this evening, which is an update on the School District 276 referendum. We have Tom Berge and one other present this evening to do that presentation. If you would come forward to the podium please. City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 Bill Wenmark: Thank you very much Mayor and City Council members and guests here for this evening. And a live audience as I understand too. Mayor Jansen: Yes. Bill Wenmark: My name is Bill Wenmark. I'm on the school board. Been on the school board for 2 years so I bring welcome greetings from our elected officials at the School District 276 to your City Council. Thank you for this limited time. We won't take much. We do represent about 12 to 14 percent of your property owners in the Chanhassen area so some of those property values will be affected by our referendum. Our technology levy as well. And so that's what we're here to talk to you about tonight. I can represent to you though, before I introduce Tom Berge, our Finance Director, to briefly give you some of the numbers but I can tell you that 2 years ago when I came on the school board I was coming from a health care background and I thought that I had seen the most complicated way of paying for things ever created by man or machine or technology. The RG's, RPG's, APG's, CPT's, ICP9's. That's the way they reimburse us for practicing medicine and I thought I had seen the most complicated way. I have now seen something to rival medicine. School financing and it's primarily because we don't really have a whole lot of control over what we do. It's a booth of people over there in St. Paul that think that they know best about our children's future and they try to play around with it a lot. Not only from a financing standpoint but also from a curriculum standpoint. We'll only talk about the financing standpoint now. As you are all facing as well some of the changes last year in the legislature, we too have faced a property tax adjustment. And I think the most exciting thing that I can say is in my 2 years of looking at our school district, I went through the numbers in the books and thought that I'd find all of these wonderful little places you know that there was money stashed away. There aren't dollars stashed away anywhere. In fact I'm so proud of our district, we've got a AA, double or triple Tom? Tom Berge: AA1. Bill Wenmark: AA1, Moody's credit rating. We're the only one in the State of Minnesota to have that. We have a number of layers of supervision of our budget. Not only the administration, the school board, but also totally independent group of CPA's and financial persons who are in our budget and audit committee and that's chaired by Dan Severson who is the chairman elect of the Twinless Chamber of Commerce. In addition to that, Lars and Alwisher does an audit of all our finances so I'm very confident that when we look to do the referendum, our board considered the numbers and looked at the authorization of the legislature given us to increase our levy, I can tell you that it's going for good reason. The most important thing is, that all of these dollars stay home. That probably is more important than anything else. When we do pass the levy referendum, the technology, all the dollars coming from your homeowners in Chanhassen, 12 to 14 percent, will stay right here in the Minnetonka School District and go to their education. That's the most important thing. I need to say this and Tom will probably repeat it. Will this be the cure all? Will this be the last time that we'll have to come and ask for assistance from the taxpayers? Probably not because as you all know, this year is redistricting. That's going to end up in the courts. We're not going to see anything of that map until probably February or March and then the whole landscape changes. So there's a lot of change and who can ever predict what the legislature or in this case a tri-partisan government will go when they get tinkering around with certain things so no promises that it is going to be a cure all. Most important thing is, it will be money that's permanent and stays here in our district educating children. So with that, thank you very much. Let me introduce the guy who puts all the numbers together. In fact let me give him an accolade that he is so embarrassed for me to do this but he is recognized probably across the State as one of the best school finance people. In fact he's testified many times at the state legislature to make some sense out of this complicated system of school financing. And City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 may I add in the end, maybe his job will be made easier because the governor did agree this year to have a tri-partisan commission appointed to study school financing. I think it's long overdue to look at the complicated way that we do this and maybe his job will be made easier but Mr. Tom Berge, our Finance Director. Thank you. Mayor Jansen: Wonderful, thank you. Tom Berge: Thank you Mr. Wenmark. Mayor Jansen: Welcome. Tom Berge: Mayor Jansen, council members. I'm always a little I guess embarrassed with introductions such as that. I guess all of us in the public sector try to do our jobs well and do the best we can. We have a presentation we've been providing to our communities. It's a power point and this evening I'll give you what I call the Reader's Digest version of it rather than the full length version. We have two questions on the ballot on November 6th. One question deals with operating referendum. A second more narrowly defines the technology and classroom equipment referendum. Why now? Well, the main reason is the legislature made some major changes in how public education is funded. That's one reason. Technology referendum is there because we have a levy approved in '92 that's expiring in 2002 and so we're bringing that back to the voters and looking for an increase in that particular referendum. The major change that was put in place by the legislature was first of all a large reduction in school district property taxes. Basically they did a lot of re-arranging in terms of how aid is paid to local political subdivision in the city. I know that you folks are facing some increased levies because you lost some aids. On the school side, our levy is going down 51%. A little bit over $19 million just for the Minnetonka School District. And that's happening statewide in every district throughout the state. There's a major reduction in the tax levy. The reduction in school tax levies, which is replaced with state aid came at a price and that price was, there were a few dollars left in the state budget to increase K-12 funding. Our funding for next, well for the year we're in right now, 01-02 on a per pupil basis is going up 7/10th's of a percent. For the next year the per pupil funding is 2.2%. The strategy of the legislature was to make the increase in taxes and school funding more accountable at the local level and they did that by increasing the referendum authority. Our district has been capped at the amount that we've had as a referendum since 1994. And this increase that was permitted by the legislature is basically the pressure relief for public school funding. The referendum itself, the operating referendum, will provide $304 per pupil or a total of $2.7 million. And as an example of what's happening statewide. For November 6th there is 178 districts having referendum elections this fall. About 80% of the metro districts. A lot of the metro districts are facing the same kind of revenue increase that Minnetonka is dealing with. The bottom line is, we're facing an economic squeeze. Our costs are going up about 4 to 5 percent per year and the revenue that's provided by state formula is going up by less than half of that amount. The important thing to remember too in all of this is that the first rule in school finance is that the legislature makes the rules. They're the ones that determine how much every district in this state has available for funding. And the only exception to that rule is the voter approved referendum and they set the amount that local school districts can request from their voters and also set the mix between property taxes and state aid. So basically what we have as a school district, if the legislature permits the option, is to go to the voters and that's what we're doing this November 6th. Without the referendum for our next fiscal year, we're facing about a million dollar shortfall and the following year about a 2 million dollar shortfall. One of the things that we like to point out in our presentations is that the majority of our budget does go to instruction. There's a misconception out there that school districts are top heavy with overhead expenses. 76% of our budget goes to instruction. About 8.7% goes to operation and maintenance. A little over 5% for transportation. A little bit under 5% for support services and about City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 4.6% for administrative costs. The second question deals with technology and the referendum covers four major areas. Number one, let me back up a little bit. It's technology and instructional equipment so it's broader than just technology. So it's updating our regular classroom instructional equipment, and that's there because again the state formula has not increased. In '91-'92 we received $65.00 per pupil. This year we're receiving $68.00 per pupil so over 10 years it's gone up $3.00 per pupil. And as a result, the replacement cycle of classroom equipment has fallen behind and so this referendum will allow us to catch up with replacement of the non-technology equipment. The referendum also permits us to replace existing technology equipment. To have some dollars to expand the technology program for students and then finally to have dollars to fund the technology support for that equipment. The staff, the network administrators, the equipment repair people and so forth will be funded from this referendum. I think in finishing up the one thing that we want to point out, in terms of the overall issue of school finance and property taxes. If we take a look at where we were in 1995 on a $250,000 home. School property taxes in our district were about $3300. A couple years later in '97, and assuming the value of that home increased up to $283,000. School property taxes were about $3800. At that point the legislature started putting money into increasing state aid and bringing down property taxes. So this year, 2001, on this same home that now has gone up to about $315,000 in assessed value, the school property taxes are $2800. That compares to $3300 in 1995 when the home was at $250,000. So it's a $65,000 increase in the value, but yet the school property taxes have gone down. And for next year, with the buy down that the legislature put in place, that home, again assuming an increase in value, will have property taxes of less than $1500. School property taxes. And so that's where basically the state money has gone and the legislature has enabled school districts to go to their voters and make their case to their voters. And so that's what we're in the process of doing. We're visiting with city councils like this throughout the district. We're having community meetings. I guess we're visiting wherever people are willing to listen to our presentation and explanation so again thank you very much for allowing Mr. Wenmark and myself a few minutes on your agenda just to talk about the issue that's important to our Minnetonka public school district. Thank you. Mayor Jansen: Well we appreciate your coming in and sharing this information with us. I'm sure that we've all had numerous taxpayers inquiring of us as to what we know about the referendum so it is helpful to have this information. And I don't know if you care to mention if there's a website that people can actually access to get more information or if you have any other public open houses that you'd like to mention that are scheduled? Tom Berge: We do have a website. It's the Minnetonka School District website. Included with that there's an e-mail address that people can send questions to. There's a telephone number that people can call. It's 401. It's area 952-401-5000 and we will get back to people. We have questions coming in daily and we try and keep up with questions that people have so if people have questions, we encourage them to send them in. Mayor Jansen: Great. We'll pass those along. Thank you very much. Tom Berge: Thank you. Mayor Jansen: Appreciate your being here tonight. LAW ENFORCEMENT UPDATE: SGT. DAVE POTTS, CARVER COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT. City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 Sgt. Dave Potts: Good evening Mayor and council. Sorry or I apologize for my absence these past few weeks but I am back full time. Will be back full time and full duty beginning next week. Mayor Jansen: And we are glad to have you here so thank you. Sgt. Dave Potts: Thank you. This is my September report. The Sheriffs office area report is in your packet that I just got you earlier this evening. Again, the area citation listing is not something our records division is yet able to generate with the new software package. They're still working on that. I've attached the Community Service Officer highlights for September for your review, and then just quickly regarding the miscellaneous items that I chose to bring to the council's attention tonight. I believe council is aware that in September we had a rash of break-in's to vehicles that have been parked outside overnight in some of our neighborhoods. That has continued into October. Our investigations division is working pretty hot and heavy. They were however only able to charge one local youth with crimes related to break-in's to vehicles. Identified several more suspects however so the investigation continues and with these new break- in's, we'll have more work but perhaps more leads to go on. In total, September 1st through October 19th we had 51 reports of break-in's to vehicles and I know I've been in front of council before so this is nothing new to you but for any of our citizens that are out there watching, we remind them through articles in the Chanhassen Villager, which has been very good to us in putting out information that we requested, as well as the Chanhassen Connection Newsletter, as well as crime prevention program, Crime Watch Alerts that Beth distributes on a regular basis, encouraging and letting people know, do not leave valuables in your vehicles parked outside overnight. We've had everything from laptop computers to weapons being stolen from vehicles that people for one reason or another make the time to bring those objects into their home overnight. So whatever means we can use to encourage people not to leave valuables in their car, we will do that. What have we been doing? Again, your Crime Prevention Specialist, Beth Hoiseth has put out numerous crime alerts to the Neighborhood Watch groups trying to get everybody alerted to the problem that's been at hand. Again I mentioned our investigation division is working pretty hot and heavy on it as well as our patrol division. Our deputies out there even, been out there in unmarked vehicles trying to do a little more surreptitious patrol of some of our neighborhoods in the city. Specifically some of the areas that were getting hit were just north of the downtown area here. A few of the different neighborhoods. Down south of Highway 5 in the Chan Estates area. Mission Hills and down by Springfield. Those are some of the more specific areas that were hit and then scattered throughout the city would be an odd one here and there, but no neighborhood or no area is safe from this type of activity. It's a crime of opportunity so we try to let people know to be on the lookout for it because the citizens are our eyes and ears out there. Had a fatal accident on County Road 117, which is Galpin Boulevard near Brinker Street. 37 year old Chanhassen man lost his life in that accident. County engineering is having a meeting just this week apparently a timely meeting to talk about Galpin Boulevard, County 117. Both Teresa Burgess and I are going to be attending that meeting for our input from law enforcement and city perspective regarding that roadway. On the Amoco robbery, I believe council is aware that the Amoco was recently robbed. It was a strong arm robbery. That's a robbery where force is used but no weapon is displayed or threatened. Fortunately, unfortunately there were like 13 robberies in the metro area by this same perpetrator. Our investigators were at a meeting in Burnsville 2 days after the Amoco robbery, and at that exact time the same robber was in Burnsville committing a robbery and the call went out and he was apprehended that very same day so the suspect from the Amoco robbery is in custody and will probably be charged in a variety of communities for that activity. But that as you know was the fourth robbery this year we've had in Chanhassen and robberies are a rather unusual thing in Chanhassen. Councilman Ayotte brought up an idea possibly. Our Crime Prevention Specialist and the sheriffs office hosting a robbery seminar for any local businesses that may be interested in something like that. So Beth Hoiseth is doing just that. Looking City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 into the viability and the interest out there amongst our business community to putting on that type of seminar. Mayor Jansen: Very good. Sgt. Dave Potts: And the last item, on the lighter side I guess. American flag outside the main Chanhassen fire station was stolen recently and you know very unusual and kind of disheartening act. However, as our patrol deputies were discussing this incident with some local youth, the flag was anonymously returned so. Mayor Jansen: Oh that's wonderful. That's good news. Sgt. Dave Potts: It was apparently a prank undone and we're happy for that. That in a nutshell is my report for this month. Any comments or questions from council? Mayor Jansen: Council, any questions for Sgt. Potts? Councilman Boyle: No questions. Councilman Ayotte: No. Mayor Jansen: Okay, thank you. And again, good to see you back. Sgt. Dave Potts: Glad to be here. Mayor Jansen: Moving on. We do not have a representative from the fire department here this evening, correct? Okay. So we will move onto our public hearings. PUBLIC HEARING: SPECIAL ASSESSMENT HEARING, CENTURY BOULEVARD, PROJECT 97-1C. Teresa Burgess: Thank you Madam Mayor. I believe the council has a copy of this in their staff report and it's probably easier to read it than on the small screen. Just going to run through real quick. The Century Boulevard project was recently nearing completion and if you look at the cost estimate, and I believe it's page 2 ofyour's. It gives a rundown of the total cost of the project which is $546,554. This amount includes the engineering as well as street and storm sanitary, Highway 5 storm and watermain. As you can see that's higher than the original feasibility study estimates. The increases were due to a number of issues including higher construction costs than expected and also the Highway 5 project. Looking at the actual amounts assessed, this was intended to be an assessment project all along. As you can see on the assessment role we have adjusted the assessments comparable to the price increase. The street storm and sanitary reports them to be assessed 100% is $447,791. The watermain was oversized on this project. As you can see there's a city share to the watermain. What happened is, when the city does a project like this, a lot of times we know of future development coming along so rather than put in a pipe that's too small, we ask the developer to pay for his share of the pipe now. The city uses water and utility funds to pay for the additional pipe sizing and when the new development comes in, they will be charged trunk and lateral connection fees that will go back into that water utility fund and pay for this pipe dollar amount that the city has put into this project. And the Highway 5 storm sewer, that was something that was a city project. It just happened to be done under this project so it was paid for 100% by city funds. As you can see, there are only two parcels that are proposed to be assessed under this project. The property owner was informed City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 by notice and we also spoke with him today again to confirm because as you'll notice in your handout there was an error in the mailing. We confirmed with him that he was still in support of the project and did not have any objections to the assessment and I'm not sure if he's here this evening or not. With that, if there's any questions from the council. Otherwise I'll step down and let the public hearing start and then do a closing statement. Mayor Jansen: Any questions for staff at this time council? Okay, thank you Teresa. We will open this for the public hearing. If there's anyone present who would like to comment on this project, please come forward to the microphone. Seeing no one, we will then close the public hearing. Council, any comments or discussion? With that, if there are no comments, if I could have a motion please. Councilman Labatt: Move approval that we accept the feasibility study. Rather the assessment hearing. Councilman Boyle: Second. Teresa Burgess: Madam Mayor. We need to approve the assessment roll. The final assessment roll. Not the feasibility study assessment roll. Councilman Labatt: Okay, so approve the assessment roll as dated October 15th. Mayor Jansen: Does that work? Teresa Burgess: October 2nd. That's my memo. Mayor Jansen: Okay. If I might, we're going to be approving the recommendation that the final assessment roll dated October 2, 2001 for the Century Boulevard project Number 97-1C be adopted at a term of 8 years and an interest rate of 8% is the motion I gather. IfI could have a second please. Councilman Boyle: Second. Resolution #2001-69: Councilman Labatt moved, Councilman Boyle seconded to approve the final assessment roll dated October 2, 2001 for the Century Boulevard project Number 97-1C be adopted at a term of 8 years and an interest rate of 8%. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously 4 to 0. PUBLIC HEARING: SPECIAL ASSESSMENT HEARING, CRESTVIEW CIRCLE UTILITY & STREET IMPROVEMENT PROJECT 00-05. Public Present: Name Address David Struyk Mary Trippler 1941 Crestview Circle 1931 Crestview Circle Teresa Burgess: Thank you Madam Mayor. This one needs a little bit more introduction. This one's a little bit more confusing. This was a petitioned project by the neighborhood. The reason for the petition was a failing septic system. A property owner came to us and requested sewer, sanitary sewer to address City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 that septic system failure. At that time it was determined in the feasibility study that we would also install water and street. Two properties did not have sanitary sewer or water, and there was one undeveloped property that did not have sanitary sewer and water. The remaining three properties on the site that weren't assessed for this project did have sanitary sewer and water and so they were only assessed for street. A seventh property is on the project, however did not gain benefit and was not assessed anything for this project. The assessments were calculated in the feasibility study and as you'll note in your staff report, when we went back and re-calculated the assessments, we increased the feasibility study to cover the cost of this project by 5%. That left a substantial amount of the project uncovered by the assessment roll. Approximately $39,200. The exact dollar amount is in your staff report. That increase is due to construction problems, increases in cost between the time of feasibility study and construction, and substantial increase in the amount of engineering that was required for this project. If you'll look in the overhead, and you do not have this in your packets, and I apologize for that. You can see the difference between the actual project cost and the feasibility cost. As you'll see this project was not completed on time and so the contractor was required to pay liquidated damages. In addition to the liquidated damages the contractor was also required to pay damages to several private property owners for damage to their private property. We had a number of bills that were submitted to the city and were passed through to the developer. I'm sorry, the contractor. The total engineering for this project was originally estimated at $59,180. The actual, I'm sorry I've got the wrong line...and so that's how the assessments were established.., engineering above and beyond the original feasibility study estimate. You can see the difference between the feasibility study and the actual cost. The feasibility study had estimated at $75,634 and the total project came in at $95,863. The city picking up the entire difference. And if you look at the assessment roll you can see that we looked at two, we actually looked at 3 scenarios and totally disregarded the third scenario. We looked at actual project cost using the actual engineering cost and that would have come out with assessments, as you can see here, of $55,166 and $9,808 and $11,921 for a total of the entire project cost, less the increase in engineering. We then looked at option 2, which was feasibility estimates plus 5%, which is still substantially lower than the entire cost. Now those estimates included the 30% indirect cost which the city typically uses for estimating engineering on a project. It does not include the actual engineering which was closer to 45% for an actual total in the assessment difference as shown. We had the consultants supply two assessment scenarios doing this and looking at it, the city's share difference between the two. If we had gone with the original feasibility study plus 5% we come up with $39,187 that is the city's share. If we had passed on the 100% of the project that were originally proposed to be passed on by the feasibility study, we would have had a $23,000 share for the city. Looking at it we did not feel that the increase costs were anything associated with the neighborhood. They did not gain benefit by those increased costs so we chose not to pass those costs onto them. Instead of recommending that the city take on the $39,187 of increased assessments. I know that both Steve and Linda were on the council at the time it was discussed. The other two council members were not. One property owner had requested deferment of assessment to a non-developed lot until the time of development. We are not recommending that deferment because of the increased cost to this project. The city has already taken on a substantial amount of cost in this so we are recommending that that parcel be assessed at this time. The property owner certainly has the right to request an adjustment to that assessment and I know he's here this evening. With that I'll step down if there's no comments or questions, and answer any questions from either the council or the public. Mayor Jansen: Okay, thank you. Any questions for staff at this time council? Teresa Burgess: I do have one that was a written that will not be here this evening that has submitted their's in writing. City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 Mayor Jansen: Okay. Councilman Labatt: Of the residents that had their property damaged by the contractor, were those bills paid? Have they been paid up yet by the contractor? Teresa Burgess: All of the bills that were received by the city were paid by the city and those amounts were deducted from bills due to the contractor by the city. So we have ensured that they were paid. They received a city check. And then we decreased the dollar amount we paid to the contractor. Councilman Labatt: Okay. Mayor Jansen: Good question. Any others? Councilman Ayotte: With the, as you explained with the other scenario, is there any oversizing in the sewer and water applications here? Teresa Burgess: No. Councilman Ayotte: Okay. Teresa Burgess: We did have 6 properties that were proposed on this project but only 2 without sewer and water, and then the undeveloped parcel without sewer and water. The city had in the feasibility study proposed to take the assessments for the 3 properties that had hooked up through other property lines. They had hooked up 2 lines that were constructed elsewhere and paid connection fees. So the city was going to use those connection fees to pay for our share of the sewer and water. And that was our contribution to the project. Councilman Labatt: Help me just kind of pose this here. So when the contractor bid on this project they gave us an estimate and we awarded it way back when. Now it's come in and it's been higher. Okay. So what's to prevent some contractor from coming in and low balling and then doing an end around on us and saying well all these other project costs increased the price on us. Teresa Burgess: They have to be able to show the change in scope of the project. In this case we struck materials that were unsuitable. There was no knowledge of those materials. There was no reason for the contractor to have anticipated those materials so at that point it was a justifiable change order. Councilman Labatt: So when you say material, you mean. Teresa Burgess: They hit black dirt. Organic. Councilman Labatt: So they didn't do any soil borings or? Teresa Burgess: The city chose not to do soil borings on this project because of the length. We did not believe we would have problems and we did run into problems. A substantial amount of the cost, in fact over $14,000 worth of the increased cost were engineering and they were related to the contractor did not finish on time. The work was supposed to be completed in October of 2000. The project was completed this summer. Because of that delay we incurred an increased engineering cost for inspection of the project. Increased legwork trying to get the contractor to get the project completed. Our specifications only have a 10 City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 dollar amount for liquidated damages. We could not collect the additional engineering fees. We are in the process of revising our specifications so that if this were to occur in a contract that was let under those specifications, we would be able to collect the entire amount of the increased engineering fees related to delays by the contractor. Councilman Labatt: So I couldn't see that. How much were liquidated damages on there? Teresa Burgess: $1,900. Councilman Labatt: $1,9007 If it was 19, I couldn't tell if it was 1,000 or, okay. That's it. Mayor Jansen: Okay, thanks. Thank you. With that we will open this to the public hearing. If there's anyone present who would like to make comment on this item, please step forward to the microphone and state your name and address for the record please. David Struyk: Thank you. My name is David Struyk representing myself and my wife from 1941 Crestview Circle. Of the project in question. It was our understanding that we had to submit any information or objections in writing so I've done that. I would assume that you would, am I just to read this or? Mayor Jansen: That would probably be appropriate, sure. Thank you. David Struyk: Okay. Mayor Jansen: And then submit it. David Struyk: Council. The improvement project number 00-05 now appears to be complete and assessments have been proposed. While this seemingly small project has most certainly had it's challenges, and has been referred to locally as the project from hell, we do feel the city has done an outstanding job. Teresa Burgess and her staff have been superb to work with, even in the midst of contractor shortcomings and I see that WSB representatives are here. Dave Hutton and I think it's Shibani, is that right? They also did a great job. Mayor Jansen: Well thanks for sharing that. We appreciate those comments. David Struyk: The problems we had really were with the contractor. In fact working with the WSB folks, including people like Phil Tipka and their surveyors was a really good experience. We have the following concerns regarding the proposed assessments. Number one. We respectfully request that assessments against Parcel Number 25-7500040, an undeveloped property, be deferred until the property is either developed or sold. This request was echoed by Ms. Burgess at both the previous council meeting and in a memorandum to former City Manager, Scott Botcher dated August 14th and I have that with me where she stated that this request was both reasonable and appropriate and recommended that the council grant a deferment at the time of the assessment hearing. I understand where Teresa was coming from tonight, although I must say that that was a complete surprise. At the moment our proposed assessments are $26,000 approximately. That's $13,000 for each parcel. Our front parcel is an undeveloped parcel. We've always had the understanding and the expectation that that particular parcel would be deferred. The assessments would be deferred until it was either sold or developed and we still request that that goes forward. It would not seem appropriate that cost overruns would have a bearing on whether or not a 11 City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 deferment was granted. Those seem to me to be two very separate items. It's unfortunate that it did cost more than the city expected but whether or not our deferment is granted, I don't believe that that has a bearing on that cost. Item two. Which deals with cost overruns. Many of these questions have been answered already in Teresa's comments and with comments to her prior. Any cost overruns as a result of errors on the part of the contractor should not be attached to the assessments. It appears that the proposed amount agrees with the original quote from the contractor. However, if there are any cost overruns as a result of performance errors on the part of the contractor, these should not be included in the assessments. There were many mistakes along the way which required repair and/or re-work, including additional inspections and engineering time which should not be charged to the assessments. These also include broken gas mains 3 times, cut telephone lines 5 times and cut television cables at least 5 times. The unexpected re-paving of the neighbor's asphalt driveway as a result of unauthorized use and multiple re- sodding attempts as a result of inadequate watering. These inconveniences do not even take into account the multiple times our road and driveways were blocked for days at a time against the rules and regulations of the city requiring all of us to carry our groceries and children 2 blocks through ankle deep mud for many weeks. Any assessment amount above the value of the actual completed work would be unfair. Any cost overruns as a result of performance errors need to be charged to the contractor or absorbed by the city. And like I say, I think that Teresa addressed a lot of that already. Item three. Do assessments exceed increased to fair market value of parcels? It has not been determined as to whether or not the proposed assessment amounts exceed the fair market value increase to our parcels as a result of the improvements. We understand that under the laws of the State of Minnesota, the assessment amount cannot be greater than the increased value to the parcel as a result of the improvement. We are primarily concerned about the roadway improvements, $6500 per parcel and not so much about the water and sewer, which are $3300 and $3400 respectfully. We are the ones who originally requested the sewer and water but would have preferred that the road was left as gravel. It was explained to us at that time it was a maintenance issue for the city and that we did not have the option. Seeing the value and importance of the sewer and water improvements to the neighborhood, our neighbors reluctantly agreed to sign the petition for improvements. However, they all noted at the time that they would dispute the amounts of the road improvements at the time of assessment hearing, as that was the only assessment that they would be faced with. Respectfully submitted, David and Kristi Struyk. Mayor Jansen: Okay, thank you. David Struyk: So do I leave this? Mayor Jansen: If you would, maybe go ahead and give that Teresa. Appreciate it. Mary Trippler: And I'm another property owner on Crestview Circle. My name is Mary Trippler and I live at 1931 Crestview Circle, and thank you for hearing us this evening. I received notice of the city's intent to assess $13,326 against my property and I have four points which I'll cover quickly and then I've got something to submit in writing. My first issue is whether indeed the amount of the assessment is appropriate when calculated on my property. I purchased my home in July of 1994 and I paid approximately $120,000 for it. The attached assessed value in 2001 is $125,500. The $13,326 that's proposed to be assessed against my property is more than 10% of the tax assessed value and more than 10% of what I paid for it and I acknowledge that it's gone up in value since I did it but I question whether adding sewer and water and paving the street indeed adds that much to the market value. And that doesn't even include what the city has already obtained that I had to pay in cash to obtain a hook-up, $3,000 and change to one fund and $1,100 to another fund and that means that through hook-up and the assessments it would be 14% of the tax assessed value of my property and it just does not seem that adding sewer and 12 City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 water and a paved street should account for that much. It's also my view that paving the cul-de-sac doesn't add any value to the property. Our neighborhood always kind of took pride in the fact that we had one of the last dirt roads in this area of Chanhassen and we understand that the road was paved for the purpose of being able to better maintain or not damage the sewer and water, the manhole covers or whatever was needed to maintain the sewer and water for our homes, but I don't see the paving as being a benefit at all. I also question whether it's appropriate to assess the full amount given the problems that we've had in the project, and I'm not sure whether legally this is something that should be taken into account or not but it certainly is important to the neighborhood. I think Teresa and everyone started referring to us as the project from hell on Crestview Circle because every day brought some new problem. David's mentioned some of them but our roads were impassable for long periods of time from mud in the fall. From runoff in the spring. I had to even drive my son across my property line to the middle of the cul-de-sac so he could get just the school bus in the spring because the water was too deep on any way around the cul-de-sac for him to ford the water. My dog fence was cut last fall and has been inoperable until this July when finally, or pardon me, until September when I finally had it repaired figuring that everything was finally done. And that repair statement hasn't been paid yet Teresa. I don't know what happened to that. Teresa Burgess: That's on tonight's. I believe it's on tonight's agenda or the next agenda, but it is to be paid. Mary Trippler: The third point that I want to make is that the work I think is barely acceptable. For example, when the contractor put in the sod they did it without filling in black dirt so in my property for example, when you try to mow it you take off big scarred areas because there's lumps over tree stumps and so on and so it's on the city's right-of-way and perhaps the city doesn't care but it, the work wasn't well done. The paving in front of my house had to be ripped up within a week of the time it was done because when the contractor laid the pavement he didn't have an appropriate area for runoff so now at the end of the driveway there's a big square scar where it had to be redone just shortly after it was done. And the last point that I would like to make to the council, and again I'm not sure that this is an appropriate thing to consider legally but I think that the city should be concerned about the issue of affordable housing. What you're talking about is assessing an additional about $200 a month onto my house payment, and that's a lot of money for a single parent and I think you know that's something that people should be considering too when they're considering how to assess, appropriately assess a property. I agree with David and Teresa and Bill and everybody that the city has been wonderful. They've listened to me cry because every time we turned around there was another $3,000 or another $1,000 so, but that's a tough issue for me and I just ask that the council, ask your consideration for making these decisions. Thank you. Mayor Jansen: Thank you. Is there anyone else here who would like to address this issue? Seeing no one, I'll close the public hearing. Teresa, if we could maybe just have you address some of the points. I don't know if you wrote down what some of the concerns were. I certainly appreciate your having started your presentation preparing us for what some of these problems were. Again, I'm sure we're all feeling for the neighborhood and everything that you did have to go through and we appreciate your commenting that staff and WSB were there to try to help you through it, but our apologies. It does sound like you came up with a good solution as far as our picking up what we could of the extended engineering costs. We've born all of that and taken care of the contractor then picking up all of those additional costs on the overruns. Teresa Burgess: IfI can start with the one that I'm sure Mary will be pleased to know. The council did approve the check for the dog fence repair this evening. Councilman Ayotte: Teresa, could you speak up? 13 City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 Teresa Burgess: That check will be cut tomorrow and we'll drop it in the mail for you. Councilman Ayotte: I can't hear. Teresa Burgess: The dog fence was approved by the council this evening. So that was approved with the bills. It will go out tomorrow. It will be cut and the check will go in the mail. So her dog fence has been taken care of. That was an outstanding bill. And as far as the issues with the contractor, we did run into a lot of issues with this contractor. In hindsight we could have done a lot of things differently. Unfortunately, we couldn't see it from that end. We kept seeing the issues of cutting the project and trying to go in and cut our losses. If we had stopped this project last fall and tried to pull the bonds, my understanding from discussions with legal counsel was that in the process of pulling the bonds we would not be able to go in and correct the problems they had left us with. At the time we were initiating that process, we had a hole approximately 15 feet deep and about 30 feet wide, so we chose to continue with the contractor. In hindsight we probably should have said, forget it. Forget the whole thing. Go on with city forces and correct the problem. However we didn't see that as a viable option at the time. The increased cost, and the reason the city did not pass on those substantial costs were that we did not feel that the neighborhood was gaining any benefit by those increased costs. The 5% increase is in keeping with the difference between the feasibility study estimate and the actual construction bid. Not the construction cost. The construction bid, and the actual construction bid was higher than 5% more than the feasibility estimates. But we felt that that was a reasonable request of the neighborhood. Given that we do have 4 properties requesting, contesting their assessment, my recommendation to the council this evening is that we table the adoption of this assessment roll for review by staff and we will present the responses to the conversations and the items that were brought up this evening at the next council meeting for either adoption or for adjustments as appropriate. And that way we have a chance to look at these in more depth and respond, and if necessary make adjustments. Mayor Jansen: Okay. That sounds very reasonable, and then you'd be able to contact the property owners and maybe answer some of the concerns and document those back to us. Teresa Burgess: Right. And we will copy all of the property owners on the staff report. One thing ifI can clarify for the neighborhood. It would not be a public hearing. We've heard the concerns. We've received the objections. Anyone not contesting this evening, they have missed the deadline for contesting. We're not extending that. We are only extending the adoption of the assessment roll for review. Just so the neighborhood, anybody that's watching at home understands that. Mayor Jansen: Okay. Mary Trippler: ... clarification. Mayor Jansen: Certainly. Mary Trippler: Does that mean, Madam Mayor and Teresa that you'll consider what David and I said and the other person, and we'll respond to those? Teresa Burgess: We'll respond specifically to those issues and any others that are discovered during that review. 14 City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 Mary Trippler: But we won't have another public hearing? Teresa Burgess: There would not be another official public hearing. We'll review those and if necessary we'll discuss them and come back with a response. Mary Trippler: Thanks so much. Mayor Jansen: Great. Alright. Council, are there additional questions or direction to staff before we table this? Councilman Ayotte: I'd like to know, not at this time Teresa but eventually, what the value of the overrun is imbedded in these numbers, one. Two. I'd like to have irrespective of the reasons for it, what was the original period of performance and what was the actual period of performance. If I could have those two points clarified. Number three. From a legality standpoint, how far out can the assessments be pushed with respect to a timeline? 8 years? 10 years? 12 years? What are the constraints there? I'd like to know that eventually. Teresa Burgess: That is set by the council. We are proposing 8 years because that is the standard, but the actual length of the assessment is set by the council. We can extend them longer. Councilman Ayotte: So we don't have any constraint there legally? Mayor Jansen: Why don't we pose that to the city attorney. Roger? Roger Knutson: You have a statutory limit of 30 years. But I have never heard a council do a 30 year assessment roll, but theoretically 30 years. Councilman Ayotte: I've never heard of a screw up with this vendor before either. Roger Knutson: No, you can go 30 years. Councilman Labatt: I've got one more question for Roger. Mayor Jansen: Okay. Councilman Labatt: If we defer on that one lot, can we put a sunset or an end of deferment on it? Roger Knutson: Yeah. Councilman Labatt: Rather than say until he develops or sells it, I mean that may never happen so can we say well we'll defer it up to x amount of years and then at that point? Roger Knutson: Yes. Mayor Jansen: Okay. Councilman Boyle: One other question. Do we have any recourse to the developer? Or I mean the contractor. 15 City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 Teresa Burgess: We've already taken our legal recourse. We've levied the. Roger Knutson: Liquidated damages. Teresa Burgess: Liquidated damages, I'm sorry. I'm already onto the next one in my mind. We've levied the liquidated damages. We have revised the specifications so that in the future we would have more teeth in the specifications to avoid a similar problem. However, that change cannot be done retroactively. We are stuck with what we've got. We could certainly have pursued more vigorously higher liquidated damages. However our chances of winning that case would have not been great and our cost in legal fees would have been more than our liquidated damage that we would have gotten in that argument. Mayor Jansen: And again as I understand it, the city is bearing the cost of the overrun on the project, correct? Teresa Burgess: Correct. We're only asking for a 5% increase in the assessment, which is less than the increase between the feasibility study estimate and the actual award of contract. Mayor Jansen: So the overruns are being taken care of by the city and so we did pick those up versus passing those on and that was the staff recommendation. Councilman Boyle: Understand, thank you. Mayor Jansen: So if I could have a motion to table the acceptance, or approval of the final assessment roll. Councilman Boyle: I'll make a motion to table the assessment roll dated October 1, 2001 for the Crestview Circle Project #00-05. Mayor Jansen: And if I could have a second please. Councilman Labatt: Second. Councilman Boyle moved, Councilman Labatt seconded to table the assessment roll dated October 1, 2001 for the Crestview Circle Project #00-05. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously 4to0. Mayor Jansen: Our next council meeting I assume is when this will appear? Teresa Burgess: We will attempt to have it ready for the November 13th. If we cannot have it by that date we will inform the neighborhood of the next time, but assessment rolls do have to be adopted by the end of November if they're going to be assessed this year. Otherwise they will go on property taxes next year. Mayor Jansen: Okay, wonderful. So staff will be in touch with you as far as the issues that you raised and the questions that you had and we will see this item again then at our November 13th meeting. Okay, thank yOU. 16 City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 Teresa Burgess: Madam Mayor, if I could just clarify for the neighborhood too. November 13th is a Tuesday so that's not an error. It is the 13th. PUBLIC HEARING: SPECIAL ASSESSMENT HEARING, OUINN ROAD UTILITY AND STREET IMPROVEMENT PROJECT 01-02. Public Present: Name Address Amy Schuette Tom Schrupp Jeff Reitan Quinn Road Quinn Road 8900 Quinn Road Teresa Burgess: This is the last one this evening until the next council meeting when we get a few more. The Quinn Road project was also a petitioned project. It was brought to us by the neighborhood. Again for a failing septic system. In this case they had been given 3 years to correct the problem. They were coming to the end of their 3 year period and also were selling their property. The property owners requested that we extend sanitary sewer. They had also requested water and street improvements. At the same time as we discussed with the Crestview neighborhood, we felt that street was very important when you're putting in sanitary and as long as you have the trench in, you might as well put in water. This neighborhood chose to fight street and water improvements. Unfortunately, it was approved without those items. Staff again still strongly feels that those were an important part of the project. However they were not done. So in this case we are only assessing sanitary sewer. Street improvements and water improvements have been requested again by the neighborhood and we are currently looking at whether those should be installed coming up next year. That is the reason that we put them all together. Also because street improvements protect the sanitary and the watermain and allows better access for maintenance of those items. In this case there's only 2 properties being assessed for proposed for assessment and again the project cost did overrun the feasibility estimates. In this case the contractor was not the problem, it was just a difference in the estimating due to increased costs with construction between the time of feasibility and the actual bidding. If you remember this is the project that we did have to reject bids because of an error with the bid form. We saw increased prices for that. However, they were reasonable costs so we did award the contract. We are proposing 100% assessment of the project. The city is not picking up the costs for the majority of that. However there is a $7,385. That is for the addition of an extra sanitary manhole to correct an alignment problem. That was discovered after the assessment roll was already published and we cannot increase assessments once the assessment roll has been published. So the city is picking up that increased cost. That's a risk of trying to get this project on the assessment roll. But it's a reasonable cost to the city and does aid in our maintenance of the system so we still feel that's an important thing to be done. As you can see with the two properties that are being assessed, one property is an undeveloped parcel that is proposed to be split and eventually developed. However, the actual split has not been done yet. And the second parcel is the parcel with the failing septic system. Now the parcel, you'll see there's a difference in the two assessment rolls. The difference is one parcel only received one sanitary sewer stub. The other parcel received two. They were charged for 50% of the construction of the main and for two sanitary sewer accesses for services. The other parcel was charged 50% of the main and one sanitary sewer service .... I will step down and answer any questions and open it up for the public hearing. Mayor Jansen: Thank you. Any questions for Teresa at this time? 17 City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 Councilman Ayotte: Not yet. Mayor Jansen: Okay. Then we'll open this for the public hearing. If there's anyone here tonight who would like to address this item, please step forward to the podium and state your name and address for the record please. Jeff Reitan: My name is Jeff Reitan. My address is 8900 Quinn Road. I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to speak before you. I really have two issues and I'm not sure which you'd prefer to hear first. One issue is regarding the project and the condition of the work. It does not appear to be finished. And I have several recommendations for completing the project such that it can resemble pre-existing conditions. The other item is a written objection to the assessment for the lot that I am part owner of and that would be the Parcel 25-5690030 or the lot on the west side of Quinn Road. Mayor Jansen: Wherever you'd like to begin, you just go ahead. Teresa Burgess: Madam Mayor, ifI could answer the issue of the road not being completed. They have not completed the construction. It is legal for us to do the assessment roll prior to the completion of the project. It will not go on property taxes until after the project is completed and they are on schedule for completion. It will be brought to as good or better than what it was before. Mayor Jansen: And what is the completion date on that? Do you know? Teresa Burgess: October 31st, SO that would be next week. Mayor Jansen: Okay. Jeff Reitan: If I can just wait on those issues to see what happens I guess. Alternatively I can submit those in writing to the mayor and the council or the engineer. It's really up to you. Mayor Jansen: Oh you can certainly submit them. That's fine and then if it isn't complete, then certainly there can be some discussion around the issue, sure. Jeff Reitan: Great. I haven't prepared those in writing so I will send those to the project engineer, Mahmoud Sweidan. In that case I'd like to read a letter, written objection to the assessment for our lot. We, the owners of Oakwood Estates 2nd Addition, Outlot A, Parcel No. 25-5690030, we're on record as opposing this project, are of the opinion that this project was initiated because one residence had a failing septic system and they did not want to replace it. Apparently they felt that sanitary sewer was their only option. As such the project was approved against our wishes and we are now asked to pay for half of the project. I'd like to interject that one neighbor petitioned that this project be initiated and we were not for any of the improvements so I don't want to infer that we sanctioned the sewer improvement, despite the fact that said improvement was made. There are two reasons supporting this supposition. Water was not included. The project scope was limited to sanitary sewer only. And the project was limited in size to providing only 150 feet of sewer trunk to facilitate connecting the impacted residence. Two additional connections were also installed in anticipation of future development of our property, despite our indication of no intentions for development in the short term. We recognize that improvements will happen in the next few years, but we feel unduly burdened by this project. One which was initiated to serve the limited needs of another party. The cost of the improvements are excessive because of it's size. The cost is 2 to 3 times 18 City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 higher than it should have been were it part of a larger improvement. We feel that the cost would be far less. The improvement is diminished by the fact that water was not included in this project. The addition of city water service, although of insignificant cost if included in this project, now entails bringing up the very same earth that was removed to install the sewer trunk. The cost to do this later is now higher than if it were included in this project. It was suggested by a council member at the last hearing that we would not be negatively impacted by this project since our lot would improve in value an amount at least equivalent to the cost of this project. We disagree for the reasons stated above. Additionally said value enhancement cannot be realized unless the lot is sold. As stated previously we intend on subdividing the lot as follows: 18% to be annexed to the adjacent lot to the south. No plans to develop further. 41% to be annexed to the adjacent lot to the north. No plans to develop further. The remaining 41% will stand as the remainder of Outlot A. We ask that the proposed assessment on Outlot A be reduced by not less than 50% and withheld until or when our lot is developed. Because this project served the interest of one party, we do not feel obligated to equally share in the cost. In addition, on future improvements we ask that the city consider the best interest of all impacted residents. We ask that the city mitigate the cost of the future road and utility improvements by not embracing spot solutions. It is anticipated that development will soon take place to the north of Quinn Road, and that Quinn Road will be extended to the east and then to the south to connect back to Lyman Boulevard. As such we ask that any future improvements take place only when cost effective and in conjunction with said development. Thank you very much. Mayor Jansen: Thank you. Is there anyone else here this evening that would like to address this item on the agenda? Okay, seeing no one, I will close the public hearing and again Teresa, I don't know if you want to be on the spot to answer some of these questions or what you would prefer to do on this one this evening. Teresa Burgess: Certainly some of these questions will need to be answered. We'll need to spend some time on it, but I can answer the question of why this project was authorized. The property with the failing septic system was required by ordinance to hook up to sanitary sewer. However the pipe was not long enough for them to hook up to it so we did have to do a project for them to connect. The ordinance requires that if a home within, what's the distance? 150 feet of existing sanitary sewer has a failing septic system, they are required by ordinance to connect to sanitary. They cannot construct a new septic. That was part of the reason this project was approved. The water and street improvements were eliminated from the project and the original project did require sanitary and water to go down much further to serve properties all the way to the end of the public road. Those were taken off the project based on neighborhood dissention. Only one property owner did support the project. That was the property owner that required it for their septic system so going back to the original, there was only the one property owner. However, with the failing septic system we were forced into doing that minor project. We will go through and review and make a written recommendation to the council so again we'd ask that the council table this assessment roll until the next meeting and again for the neighborhood, it would not be a formal public hearing. We will be in contact with them probably in writing to let them know what our recommendation to the council is. Mayor Jansen: Okay, great. Thanks Teresa. Any questions for Teresa at this time? Okay. Seeing none, if I could have a motion please. Councilman Ayotte: I make a motion to table this until the 13 November. Same date did you say? Teresa Burgess: We will attempt to have it done by the November 13th date. Councilman Labatt: Second. 19 City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 Councilman Ayotte moved, Councilman Labatt seconded to table the adoption of the final assessment roll for the Quinn Road Project No. 01-02. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously 4 to 0. Mayor Jansen: The motion carries 4-0 to table this item and you will then be hearing from staff as they're responding and making a recommendation to us that will hopefully be presented at that November 13th meeting. So thank you for bringing your concerns forward. Appreciate it. CONSIDER AMENDMENT TO CITY CODE TO PERMIT ONE DRIVEWAY ACCESS PER LOT. Kate Aanenson: Thank you. This item came out of the private street issue. This map refers to the private street. That's not what we're talking about tonight. We're talking about a specific individual driveway for a lot. But this was included in your packet and what we're focusing in on is these two lots. There was no attempt to misdirect anybody but we're focusing on these two lots. The revised item that went to the Planning Commission included that. When we did the private streets, private drive we recognized the failure of one way to convey property, which was if you could get an access through adjoining property. This has two driveways on one lot. By having this ordinance in place it would prevent this unless you requested a variance. The other reason we recommended this ordinance amendment has been the proliferation of people that have accessory structures, by using them for commercial businesses or renting out backs of garages. It causes a lot of concerns with adjoining property and we don't have a took in place that says you only get one driveway. So based on the outcome of this, private street, private driveway, we made and the concern that we've been receiving over the last few years, staff proposed an ordinance amendment. As it went through the process, the Planning Commission had some concerns regarding driveway setbacks. Staff had recommended 0. The reason being is, there's been an increasing number of accessory structures that are parked in the front yards where the driveway hits the streets. As you recall recently we passed an ordinance that says you can't keep a boat or an RV on the street for more than 24-48 hours. Right now the city ordinance recognizes that if you want to pave your driveway and put your boat or your accessory structure, your snowmobile on the side yard, that's where it belongs. That's the least intrusive to the neighborhood, and that historically has been the way the ordinance has addressed that. What we're concerned with is that if you were to go this way, it would create a lot of non-conforming situations and then we're back to the problem of trying to relocate those boats. There are a lot of subdivisions in our community that have only 2 car garages and this is how they address that. Even those with 3 car garages still have the other uses, boats or whatever, or teenagers. Of the 2. So in this staff report you actually have two recommendations. One, the staff deferred, has a separate recommendation than the Planning Commission. The Planning Commission wanted to leave in the language regarding the 10 foot setback. Staff had recommended that we not have that in place. There was also some concern about, on (g). If you follow on page 5, that we take that out. All lots. We have a lot of circumstances where the city actually had access to a lift station of such where actually over runs a property line because generally an easement goes 5 feet on either side. We actually run it down the middle of an easement so that would make all of our easements that we have over property that we use for public purposes where we actually have hard surface covers in violation of that too. So we recommended that come out. So there are some differences there between the two. The City Manager has given his recommendation, but we believe this is the way to go. The Planning Commission did table this. It did hear it twice and I'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have. 20 City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 Mayor Jansen: Okay, thank you. I guess one of the issues that I started exploring with staff that maybe would somehow meld staff's recommendation and the Planning Commission's recommendation. The key concern on staff's part that I'm hearing are these parking pads that people are putting next to the garage space for the accessory vehicles. The concern on the Planning Commission's part is that they don't want a functional part of the driveway running that close to the adjacent property, and that's where they're coming up with wanting to do this 10 foot setback from the property line. There was an original, going back to where staff had begun, your original discussion had been around a 5 foot potential setback, correct? Kate Aanenson: Let me comment on that. That was engineering's recommendation. It was not the planning staff. Mayor Jansen: Okay. Alright. We'll pass the buck back over to engineering. Okay. An engineering staff recommendation that a 5 foot might be acceptable, but in your discussion again it came down to how many then non-conforming situations would we be creating. Kate Aanenson: Right. What we did is we kind of went, there's some, again it's not, the world's not flat and square and we've got some circumstances where they immediately create non-conforming situations. For example on Lake Lucy we've got the common driveways. We've just recently given a couple of variances showing for the driveway where we've got storm water ponds for example on this lot. This is a large storm water. The driveway has to butt up against. You've got a 3:1 slope. This person hasn't come in for the building permit yet. If we pass this ordinance, they would now need to come back and get another variance. Mayor Jansen: And let me maybe just explain to council what Kate is showing us is as I was then posing the question of well what if we come down to say a 5 foot setback. What would that affect and what she's showing us are projects that are in the system that would, that would then require a variance to be processed in order to bring them in. This being one of them. And the Lake Lucy project is one that would be a non-conforming use if we put that setback in, and there they were trying to combine access points so that there would be less access points on Lake Lucy so it was. Kate Aanenson: They're right on the property line. So they're too close, right. And this is another example, the one we just approved. Big Woods where we actually have our lift station and that's our easement going down to the lift station and we're going to rebuild that one and it's on the property line. It's into both easements on both sides. Actually kind of straddling the property line. Again, it's our easement but it is straddling the property line. Councilman Boyle: Well are there houses next to that Kate? I mean. Kate Aanenson: Yeah, there will be. Sure, there will be houses on either side, sure. We've got them throughout the community where we have driveways getting to our utility services. Mayor Jansen: And what is the reason for putting it right on the property line? Kate Aanenson: Well generally there's a topographic situation. For example when we do specific subdivisions when the homeowner picks out, and we've had this discussion before, you don't know the exact placement of the home until the home buyer selects where it's going to go. We talk about what the elevation's going to be, but often we try to save a tree, so maybe we have to swing it to save a tree. There's a wetland. There's an anomaly, we're trying to save grading. Too steep of a driveway. We're 21 City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 trying to save grade so that's, you probably need that flexibility and so you won't know until what you're holding up is an individual homeowner that's now put their money down, ready to go or doing some modifications and saying now you're too close and we're saying, for the most part we don't have that many problems. One of the issues the Planning Commission's had were side loaded garages. When we have that. Generally we've required those now with some of those variances we've got the flag lots, when those come through. Now that we, it's through the variance process that we can try to mitigate that by adding additional trees or some of those sort of factors that those come into play. But we're going to have some non-conforming situations of people that don't have permits yet to proceed. Mayor Jansen: So then they would have to be coming through and looking for the variance to be able to build. Kate Aanenson: Correct, to put their driveway in and I'm not sure there's always appropriate way to, in this gentleman's case, I'm not sure how else you get there. There's a storm water pond there. I mean it has to abut the property line. Councilman Boyle: Well there will be exemptions I'm sure. Kate Aanenson: Well I guess what, the rule I look at it, if you're giving a preponderance of variances then maybe the rule doesn't work. You know, and we're saying there's going to be quite a few of them out there. I mean that's where we want people to park their RV's and their boats is in their side yard and to put it there and if you can't make your driveway closer than 10 feet, there's going to be a problem. Councilman Boyle: I would have a serious problem if my next door neighbor wanted to abut my property, and I go on my deck and have to make a decision if I'm going to sit in his boat or sit on my deck, then having a cup of coffee. I mean that would bother me a great deal. Kate Aanenson: That's what the ordinance says right now, right. Mayor Jansen: That they can actually do that. There is nothing to stop that situation from their putting the boat alongside the house and there's numerous of them in the community, and though we did have a discussion, and Todd I don't know if you want to jump in and maybe share the perspective of how we could actually modify this a little bit to not make those pads. Parking spaces or pads or whatever you want to call that along the side of the garage non-conforming. Todd Gerhardt: Yeah, you can definitely separate the two issues. The driveway is one of the issues and then the parking along side of the house is the second issue. And what we've talked about doing is, right now the ordinance would allow your neighbor to put his boat alongside the house. The question is, would that be better to put the boat alongside of the house or put the boat alongside of the house on a paved surface. I've got one in my neighborhood where the guy parks it along side of the house and he didn't move it all summer. And he didn't mow it either and then I've got 2 neighbors that have paved issues on each side of their house and it looks good. I mean they incorporated it with their driveway. So one way, if you want to allow the paved surface alongside of the garage you can make a 20 foot or a 30 foot setback from the front yard before they can start to pave the side of their property. And then as the driveway should go along side the lot line or not, you just have to understand if you go with that ordinance, you're going to be processing quite a few variances that might go with that is what Kate's telling you and she showed you at least 2 that will be coming to you fairly quickly if you pass that ordinance tonight. If you 22 City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 put it on the lot line. I think engineering's standpoint requesting the 5 foot is to allow for drainage I would think is why you're making that request. Teresa Burgess: For drainage and then also for, that is where we run our utility easements. Todd Gerhardt: So not always is the utilities through there and we let people know that if you do pave over them and we need to get to those utilities, we're going to rip them out. And usually enter into some type of agreement with people with that, right? Teresa Burgess: Right. And we would still require an easement encroachment agreement with anybody that was paving into that 5 foot. The purpose of that agreement is two fold. One, it informs us what's going on out there and we have something in writing. And the other is it informs the neighbor or, not the neighbor, the property owner that we do have some legal rights to that easement and they need to be aware of what their, when they pave that section, what that means when they pave in that easement. Mayor Jansen: And just so council understands, our current ordinance allows for those vehicles to be parked alongside the garage and we've almost created the situation where people need to do that because we've said you can't park them on the street. And so if that purpose is allowed for, and it's the fact that they're paved that it became an issue as a part of this conversation as to the setback on those pads. So those would end up needing to be an exception and what Todd is saying is that by having that front yard setback, they would not be paving that right out to the curb. It would start as a turn up closer to the garage so that they could make that turning motion. But we would provide for that setback so it wouldn't come all the way out to the street is where he was going with that. Councilman Ayotte: Is there, from what I've heard and the e-mails that I've received, which have primarily addressed setback. It's primarily the visual encroachment. It's the aesthetics. It's, as Councilman Boyle points out. It's a good thing he doesn't live next to me because he'd see my red boat. Councilman Boyle: Well as long as it's 10 feet away. Councilman Ayotte: But is design standards an option, standards an option to, if someone introduces something next to their home, that we can in some fashion make arrangements so it's not as distasteful? I've done things to mine to accommodate my neighbor and so forth. Is that a reasonable consideration or no? Todd Gerhardt: I'd have to refer this over to Roger, but I'm not aware of any design standard that would allow for a side yard screening of anything. Do you Roger? Roger Knutson: I can't think, no. If you can articulate what you want done, we probably can accomplish it. I mean if you want to require a fence or if you wanted to require some sort of screening, the only reason I'm hesitating and this is really not my issue, is whether you'd have space under that circumstances to do those sorts of things. I mean if you're putting your RV there and, or whatever you put in there, do you have enough space to put in a fence or a row of trees? Probably not the trees but maybe you have room for a fence. Mayor Jansen: And I'm assuming that that's a completely different issue than what we're actually looking at here this evening. 23 City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 Councilman Ayotte: Yeah, I understand, yeah. Yeah. Mayor Jansen: So all that I was addressing with staff was that that seemed to be, at least one of the issues that was coming up as far as if we put the setback in, we currently have that use in place and so they were trying to remove the setback altogether. What I was trying to accomplish was how do we not impact that particular use, because it is allowed for, and still include a reasonable setback. If the 5 feet is something that the engineering department was thinking would be something they would like to see go in or would be reasonable, it's still going to end up causing variances to come in on driveways on properties where again, staff is trying to avoid or work with the topography of the lots and those are some of the only options on those particular lots. Councilman Boyle: You have to then ask the question I believe, what's the best route? What's it going to affect? Are you going to have more non-conforming lots or are you going to have more lots where you're going to have an unfavorable situation of having two lots right together and a boat or an RV right next to your property? Kate Aanenson: You have to separate the boat or the RV because it's going to go there no matter what. If we tell somebody, your neighbors are complaining. They can't get to the mail because your boat's parked in front of the mailbox. You've got to get it where it belongs and that's your side. You're going to put it there. The question is, do you want them to throw rock down? They don't need a permit for that. They're going to put rock down or they're going to pave it. So now they pave it and I'm going to go out there and tell them, you're going to have to take the asphalt out because you can't go that close to the side yard. Yes, you can put your boat there but you can't put a hard surface on there, whether it's rock or pavement or something. That's what I'm saying. There seems to be a little bit, adjust the position on that. Say what you know, if that's where you're supposed to store it so it's not a nuisance. Mayor Jansen: And have it be the most visually appealing versus having it mm into weeds growing up around a vehicle. Kate Aanenson: The dead grass or... Mayor Jansen: Yeah, or the boat. Councilman Boyle: So we're saying, don't pave it or don't put anything under it and you can go ahead and park it there but the minute he puts some kind of permanent structure there, then you need a 10 foot setback or a 5 foot or whatever it might be. Kate Aanenson: Correct. Councilman Boyle: Maybe the need is not to do it there if there's not a setback at all. I mean can you approach it such that they can't put their boat or RV there? Kate Aanenson: We'd have to amend the ordinance. Mayor Jansen: That issue was actually addressed at one point. Kate Aanenson: I think you'd fill the room if we did that. 24 City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 Todd Gerhardt: That gets into the administrative nightmare is my comment. Councilman Labatt: Well what about, I know in my neighborhood we have restrictive covenants. Kate Aanenson: Sure. Some neighborhoods have restrictive covenants. Some of the newer subdivisions. Councilman Labatt: You're not allowed to store boats outside so as more and more neighborhoods are coming in, obviously they're having covenants too. So how many of them are having these same covenants that my neighborhood has that says you're not allowed to store your boat or camper trailer, RV outside in your driveway alongside your house? So then if that's the question, if the answer is well 99% of the new developments are having that, then you go back and say well, for all these people that have it right now, do you have to grandfather them in? And say well, boy I've had this here for 20 years. Now you're going to change your little rules on me. Kate Aanenson: Does that include extra cars? Like could you put a car on the side? Councilman Labatt: I don't know. I mean you could. Todd Gerhardt: See, this is what I was afraid of is that you were going to go down this road. I mean how can you tell one neighborhood that it's okay to park your boat in it and another neighborhood you can't. That's up to the neighborhood and your restrictive covenants. And you're creating the nightmare that I thought you would. How are we supposed to go out and enforce this? When you go into Carver Beach where everybody has something in their side yard and one in my neighborhood that wants to do it and you've already got 2 that are doing it and he can't, I just don't know how you do it. Councilman Labatt: I agree Todd. I don't, I think you're opening up Pandora's box. When I bought my house and they said here's your covenants. Read them and before I bought I knew I couldn't put my boat in my driveway or on the side of my house so. Todd Gerhardt: We tried doing it 20 years ago and the city employee was run off the property physically. To tell the guy he couldn't park his camper in the side yard. It's, people take their property as their property and to go in there and tell somebody you can't park your camper or your boat there, they take that very personally. Councilman Ayotte: I still would like to, because I don't know if I got my question answered. Is it doable to consider some sort of standard so that if someone does introduce a private driveway, that they'd be held to some sort of standard so they are not imposing something negative to your neighbors. Is there any way of researching that? Teresa Burgess: There are some standards that are imposed on that property owner. The property owner cannot change drainage onto their neighboring property. So for instance they cannot direct more drainage towards their neighbor. So that means they can't change the grades. They couldn't come in and make a substantial change to install that driveway. They can't make substantial grading changes to their property without applying for a grading permit. So those are things that we can do already. They're already existing in the ordinance. As far as putting a fence down the property line, that could be a problem in a number of cases. If we have utilities in those areas, we're going to have to give those people an exception so we're going to be back into that variance. We probably don't have room for trees and we would not allow trees in those easements. If we were to... 25 City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 Kate Aanenson: ... and I tell they've got to plant trees or put a fence in, they're not going to pave it. They're just going to park their boat there. More than likely. Councilman Ayotte: So the answer is it's not practical. Kate Aanenson: Well I guess what I'm saying is what's the appropriate nexus to say if you're going to make it aesthetically pleasing, then you have to do this much more. Right now you can park your boat there. I mean that happens all over the city in the areas where there's not restrictive covenants. And as far as the number of subdivisions that have restrictive covenants, there's a lot, probably equal that don't have restrictive covenants, or more. Mayor Jansen: And then the alternative is, you end up with these boats parked in back yards. Kate Aanenson: Right, and there are some of those around the community too. It's in the back yard and we get calls on that... Todd Gerhardt: And that's what Jeff gets paid for. Mayor Jansen: And that's even worst. Kate Aanenson: Worst, yes. Mayor Jansen: I guess where I was trying to go was, the inbetween. You know how do we address the issue of not wanting that active driveway right on the property line, but not disallowing or making difficulties parking areas next to the garages that are being used for a purpose that's allowed. Councilman Ayotte: See I don't understand the advantage ofa 5 foot versus a 10 foot versus a 3 foot versus a 2 foot. If a setback is a setback. Kate Aanenson: Well the 5 foot is a general utility easement. Generally the utility easement on a side yard is 5 foot on either side. That's where the magic 5 foot comes from. Teresa Burgess: That's where the magic 5 foot comes into. That is what is dedicated on the plat is 5 foot. I don't know where 3 foot or 1 foot comes from. Councilman Ayotte: That's just came out. Teresa Burgess: 10 foot is a number that also comes out because that's a standard rounded number. It seems like everything's a setback of rounded 10's, 20's, 30's, and so that's where the 10 comes from. Mayor Jansen: So I can see where we could maybe justify the 5 foot. It will still cause variances to come in for the driveways, but you could find a way then to put that 5 foot on there and make it exempt on these parking areas with that 20 foot setback on the parking area to the front yard. Councilman Boyle: If there was no setback could you feasibility have 2 driveways together? Run right down the property line. 26 City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 Kate Aanenson: That's what I'm saying. That's a circumstance we have right now and the city has some, right. Right. And people do share common driveways. That's the ones I was pointing out, correct. Teresa Burgess: That is something we actually encourage in many cases. Commercial drive would be a perfect example. We encourage a shared driveway in places where. Councilman Boyle: I don't think I'm talking about a shared driveway. I'm talking about. Teresa Burgess: Where we would have them put them side by side. Councilman Boyle: Really? Teresa Burgess: And that would be to limit access to the road. The number of access points. The more access points on a road, the more points of potential conflict, potential accidents. And so we do encourage that in some cases. But we usually try to narrow them down. We don't have 24 foot on either side. We wouldn't have 48 foot of pavement in those cases. And most developers won't do that. It's a cost savings to put the driveways together. You can save 24 foot of pavement and it's a decreased cost and an increased green space. Roger Knutson: My experience in some other cities, and it's not a common experience but when you have residential property abutting directly on a high speed roadway and you want to minimize turning movements on that roadway. I've seen cities require shared driveways. Mayor Jansen: Which is what we did on Lake Lucy Road. Kate Aanenson: Correct. Roger Knutson: Because you want to cut down on the points of access on that high speed roadway. I've never seen that required on a local street but on the high speed collector or arterials, cities have conditioned approval of the plats on that. Mayor Jansen: But the main concern that the Planning Commissioners were looking at again from reading the verbatim minutes, their concern was the active part of the driveway and it was the side loaded garage that very much drove that discussion. And then the topography was raised as far as abutting properties and how the driveway would affect an abutting property. But I don't believe that you would have, for instance staff driving a driveway off to the side of a property if it's going to be impacting an environmental issue or major trees. I think everyone tries to avoid those sorts of situations. But again, the major issue seemed to be more that active part of the driveway and not wanting it right next to the abutting properties windows if it's in fact going to be going right by the side of the house was more an issue so the parking area wasn't so much the concern being that close. I do know that we have at least one member of the public present this evening that would like to make comment on this issue. If council is okay with my opening it up for a brief 5 minute presentation from the resident, then I will do that. If you would like to address this issue at this time to the council, you're certainly welcome to step forward to the microphone and I'm just going to reiterate what we talked about earlier today. If we could just keep the comments strictly to the issue that we're reviewing, it would certainly be appreciated and avoid there being any derogatory comments. Councilman Ayotte: We're going to do multi-media. 27 City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 Debbie Lloyd: You betcha. Would you mind Todd putting your finger right there, holding that? Thank you. Councilman Labatt: Do you want me to hold that for you Debbie? Debbie Lloyd: Steve, would you mind just looking at that number and verifying that it's 10 feet. Councilman Labatt: Yeah, it's 10. Sure. Debbie Lloyd: Thank you. We'll just leave that there. I like visuals. I was never in education but I think they can be helpful. My name's Debbie Lloyd. I live at 7302 Laredo Drive. And I'm going to try to keep this short and succinct. You did receive the survey that I sent to you e-mail yesterday. Here are the pictures I was unable to send over e-mail. We just got a digital camera and I haven't figured out how to do it. Some brief comments. A driveway needs to be at least 10 feet, to have at least a 10 foot side yard setback for privacy. For preservation of trees. To separate impervious surfaces. To aid in the absorption of runoff. Gary asked a question just a few moments ago about could 2 driveways run along together on a lot line. With this ordinance allowing 36 feet of a paved surface, you could have theoretically 72 feet of paved surface. It's like a parking lot running down a lot line. I really don't think that's what we want for our community. I think we're getting a little side barred with parking areas versus driveways. I have some pictures here. The first one's an example of two garages side by side where there's no setback. He took their parking pads for their boats and that's it. Imagine if one of those garages was your bedroom window. The second page is a neighborhood where you have the left one has provided a buffer yard adjacent to the property line maybe 2 feet wide. The property owner on the right has provided a buffer yard a little larger. Maybe 5 feet. They have tried to make it aesthetically a little more pleasing. The next page is, if anyone's visited your fellow council members, this is Bob Ayotte's house. Again he has adequate side yard setbacks and he has done a good job of trying to make it environmentally friendly for his neighbors. That is a rock surface. On the issue relative to the survey I did again, this is on an old neighborhood with 3 driveway access points. It's a curved driveway with access points on 2 different streets, plus a third driveway into a garage. And the last page is in my neighborhood. It's a home with a tuck under garage on one street and an access to an upper garage on another street. When I surveyed 906 homes I found that only 18 of the homes had parking structures within 10 feet of their lot lines. And another 7 were really questionable. I wasn't sure of the distance, but really what surprised me is there were more homes with more one driveway curb cut into their property than there were homes in violation either with a parking pad for a boat or a driveway running next to each other. So if this is our existing community, there's a 2% overall population, and of course there can be error in this study, but I really tried to go into the entire community. I looked on a map and kind of went in and around a circular drive. I think we have a method for the variance that Kate is concerned about and I thought that's what variances were for. The unique situations. The topographic situations. I think by and large most of our new development has a 10 foot side yard setback, if not greater because most driveways go into the garage. The houses are constructed at least 10 feet from side yard setbacks. Again, I'm most concern about RSF districts. PUD's have their own rules and the larger lots, I don't know too much about but I think they're more like RSF. And I just would like to ask Jan to come up here for a second because. Mayor Jansen: And then I need you to wrap up pretty quick, thank you. Debbie Lloyd: We will. A driveway needs to be just a driveway into and within one lot, not into and through one lot to another lot. 28 City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 Councilman Ayotte: Say that again? Debbie Lloyd: Okay. A driveway needs to be just a driveway into and within one lot, not into and through to another lot. And that's what Jan's going to address very quickly. Because code needs to be really clear about that. Thank you. Jan Paulsen: My name is Jan Paulsen. I live at 7305 Laredo Drive and I wish to address kind of the unspoken driveway and that's called the cross access driveway. That's this one. Going up through one lot, into another lot. This could be, it is essentially like a road. Ever since 1990 a driveway like this has had to be within a 30 foot easement like that. 30 feet across. In fact just this July you passed a subdivision next door to us that requires a 30 foot cross access easement going down to the bottom lot. I would like to suggest that the solution to a landlocked lot is already available in code and it's called a private street. It starts here. Runs right up through here and then it becomes a driveway here. I think cross access driveways should not be allowed, especially in RSF districts and that's how you could solve that problem. Private streets there for access for a landlocked lot and I suggest that if you don't have 30 feet for an access, the lot should stay landlocked, thank you. Mayor Jansen: Thank you. That issue was raised at the Planning Commission and having been given that information we have been forwarded the recommendation as it is. So I'm hopeful that everyone went through the verbatim minutes as this came up from the Planning Commission so that we don't maybe have to re-hash that piece of it again. But as to some of the other issues, I mean you're seeing the visuals on this. I'll bring this back to council as far as any additional comments or if you want any clarification from staff at this point. Councilman Ayotte: Well I just want to ask you for your honest opinion, of all the pictures that are shown here, which is the most aesthetically appealing? Mayor Jansen: You did a wonderful job Councilman Ayotte. Councilman Ayotte: Thank you. I just wanted, but seriously though. I believe people who have a concern about setback is more with the visual aspects of it. And in my personal situation what I did is I went and talked to the neighbors before I did anything and I made sure that it was something that could be altered if the next neighbor moved in and didn't like it, as what happened by my flower bed in the back yard which is another story. But I really think that I'd like, personally I'd like to look at other ways of addressing this thing because, and I don't know, this first picture I don't want it to go on TV because it does look bad, but it's exactly what I'm talking about. That is what folks get upset about. They don't get upset about something that's well maintained and taken care of so I'm still stuck on my standard and I'm not exactly sure how to get off that one. The other part of it is, I don't know how we enforce this so I'm trying to work that through because we can't give to staff something that is not enforceable. Cannot do it. Mayor Jansen: And I heard the engineer say that were we to require that there be a fence or any landscaping in that easement potentially, they're going to object to that sort of a structure being placed in the utility easement. Councilman Ayotte: I understand and I'm not saying that's a standard. I'm saying I'm not sure what that would be, I don't know. Mayor Jansen: And I don't know that that's something that we can actually address this evening. 29 City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 Councilman Ayotte: I agree. Roger Knutson: Mayor, just one last comment. I think Councilman Ayotte what you said is excellent advice for anyone who's doing anything is to go talk to your neighbors. But that's one thing we can't do by ordinance. We can't delegate to the neighbors the right to approve something. We can establish standards but the one you can't establish is getting your neighbor's approval. If you can develop standards and enforce them uniformly, that's fine but that's one we just can't, one place we can't go. Councilman Ayotte: I understand. Mayor Jansen: Thank you for mentioning that. It does go a long way to just work out the common courtesies between neighbors on issues like that. Can we arrive at any conclusions this evening? We have a staff recommendation. We have a Planning Commission recommendation. Councilman Boyle: Can I have just one more question? We use, what was it Lake Lucy? Where was the example you showed a little bit ago where they're going to develop some more lots that would, was that Lake Lucy? Kate Aanenson: Those have already been developed with shared driveways. Councilman Boyle: They have been with shared driveways, okay. Kate Aanenson: Yes. Councilman Boyle: So if they want to do something, that would require variances there. What I'm trying to get to is how many realistic variances are we talking about? Is it really a lot? Or could it be a lot? Kate Aanenson: Yes. Councilman Boyle: Okay. Kate Aanenson: Well the bottom line is, they can put their boat in the side yard. That's what we want. Okay, that's where it goes. The question is, do you want to allow them to put a hard surface underneath? That's really the question here. We're going to have some problems. If you want to take them all through variances and plug up the system, that's fine. We can do that, but the bottom line is people are going to put their boats in the side yard. That's where they belong. Councilman Boyle: I agree. Kate Aanenson: So the question is, do you want to give that flexibility for the people that yes, that pave it. You have a 10 foot setback. The pavement goes to the garage. Just exactly as was stated and as I showed in my example, but generally people tend to slip a little bit asphalt over. I think that's what the mayor suggested was you get back past that point, make that extra turn to go over. You see that in 3 stall garages. Generally a developer doesn't run the full 3 car width all the way out to the street. Generally they're tapered down. That's pretty much standard practice. I guess we were looking at the same sort of thing when we get that request. 30 City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 Councilman Boyle: Understand. Councilman Labatt: How about a resident has a tuck under garage, it's accessed from the lower level. You know behind the house. Back yard. And they want to run a driveway back to there. Kate Aanenson: That's what we're trying to prevent. That's where we've had the problems. This would say 1 driveway per lot. That's the problem we've been having when people do access onto 2 streets. Coming through the back. Putting a storage shed out in the back. Coming back and forth. That's what causes the neighbors some problems too so everything, we try to maintain some uniformity and I think that's what Todd was getting at too. Is trying to treating people equally throughout the community. Now if you live in an association and that's what you've chosen to have those rules in place, that's the lifestyle or the thing that those people have chosen. Other people specifically pick neighborhoods that they can do those. We get questions of people looking for property that specifically say, these are my needs. Can I put an accessory structure out? What sort of things can I do because that meets their needs. Whether it's a batting cage or a swing set, they ask those questions. What they can do. Teresa Burgess: As it stands right now, engineering gets a number of requests for second and third driveways. We have no legal authority to say no and that's what we're asking for is the legal authority to say no. We could theoretically have 7 driveways into 1 parcel. There is nothing we can do to stop them as long as it's reasonable and not a significant grading change that they're making. And we want to be able to control that. Every driveway onto a road is a potential conflict with the traveling public. It's a potential place for an accident. It's a place that slows down traffic as you have people trying to figure out where am I supposed to turn. And so we want to avoid that situation. I do have an alternative that I'll just throw out for the council for consideration. As it stands right now there is no easement, there is not setback from the property line. If you'd like to have a setback without having to go through a variance process, that would allow staff to review that, you could do that through the easement encroachment agreement requiring that all driveways or pads within that 5 foot easement is required to go through a review process and acquire an easement encroachment agreement. At this point we try to catch them all. We do try to get those easement agreements in but I'm not sure, correct me if I'm wrong Roger, there's nothing that requires that easement encroachment agreement. It's really if the property owner consents. Roger Knutson: It's not required unless they are interfering with the present use, our present use of the property. Teresa Burgess: So if we don't have a utility in that easement, they don't have to sign an easement encroachment agreement. You could require them to sign an easement encroachment agreement every time they do it. Whether we are in there or not. Councilman Ayotte: That'd be an additional workload for staff. Teresa Burgess: Engineering would like to review those. We would be willing to do that. It would be a staff level, we would like to get easement encroachment agreements on all those easements when they go right up to the lot line. That is something that we try to catch those as it is. Mayor Jansen: Is that because of drainage issues? Teresa Burgess: Because of drainage issues. We would like to review those and so we do try to catch them. When we see somebody working, we stop by. We ask what they're doing. We ask for plans so that 31 City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 is not really an increase in staff effort. And it would eliminate the need to go through the variance process. It would also allow us the teeth to say you have to have us review this. You have to stop and let us take a look at it. It's a halfway inbetween. Mayor Jansen: And so that would be bringing forward an amendment to a separate ordinance, not this particular ordinance, correct? Teresa Burgess: Roger? Roger Knutson: An ordinance is an ordinance no matter where you tuck it. If you want to put it in here, you certainly could put it in here. You could put it someplace else. If you think it needs some more work or more study, you could do this now and address that issue later. It's really your decision. Mayor Jansen: Okay. Roger Knutson: But if you want it here, you could put something. You could put it here. The only, yeah. You could. Mayor Jansen: Alright, thank you. Councilman Labatt: So, let me just, Kate. I'm trying to decipher between the Planning Commission recommendation and your recommendation, or staff's recommendation. Planning Commission wants a 10 foot side setback. Right? And you don't? Kate Aanenson: Correct. Right. Councilman Labatt: And then (g) has also been omitted from your's. Can you explain that again? Kate Aanenson: Well basically it just ties into the fact that if you don't have the, if you allow them to go into that it's moot for the Planning Commission. The side yard setback. Because if you let them go into the 5 foot you're in an easement so they would conflict with each other so we said, and like I said for example we already have a driveway access that straddled the 5 foot. We have a 10 foot paved surface going back to one of our utility structures. That's completely within that 5 foot so it doesn't meet that. It fails that test. So that's why we would strike it out. Councilman Labatt: Okay. Kate Aanenson: That's why we have the utility easement. To use it to get through our stuff. Councilman Boyle: Can I ask one more while you're thinking Steve? Councilman Labatt: Sure, go right ahead. It might trigger me again. Councilman Boyle: I'm a little, 6 people on the Planning Commission said they wanted 10 foot setback. Side setback. Why? Primarily. What was their reasoning? Kate Aanenson: One of it had to do with the fact that there was concern with the side loaded garage. 32 City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 Councilman Boyle: Right, I remember reading the minutes. What was the primary, do you think, reason? Mayor Jansen: From what I gathered from the verbatim minutes, and Alison is here. She can certainly address it but reading the verbatim minutes, their focus was more on the active use of the driveway going next to a home. Councilman Boyle: Okay. That's as I read it too. I just wanted to make sure that that was it. Kate Aanenson: That was my understanding too. Councilman Labatt: So they want to eliminate it by putting a setback, they want to eliminate a person using that side you know access driveway. Kate Aanenson: Right. Councilman Labatt: On the side to access another structure. Kate Aanenson: Well this ordinance, I mean it keeps it 10 feet away but it doesn't prohibit a side loaded driveway. The way they have it structured, it gives it 10 feet. Councilman Ayotte: Personally I'd like the direction to staff to revisit the utility encroachment position and to consider any other options other than setback that would possibly deal with encroachment. Encroachment doesn't have to be physical in terms of the distance. That's what I'd like to do. The setback distance to me is too difficult to enforce but I understand completely Councilman Boyle's position earlier of what it does to a neighbor and I'm just wondering whether or not we can introduce something that is easily administered, yet sensible. And going towards the encroachment business is a step in that direction. But I don't want to go near this thing tonight because it has to be altered too much. Mayor Jansen: Well what I'm hearing, if we were to go with Teresa's recommendation would be that we would take the staff recommendation and add the point for your review. Teresa Burgess: Then we would go back and look at the encroachment agreement and see if we can't get some teeth into requiring those encroachment agreements. Councilman Labatt: What are we doing as far as creating problems for existing homes already? Are they going to have to come in and apply for a variance? Teresa Burgess: They would have to come in and sign an encroachment agreement with the city each time that they were to pave into that area. Councilman Labatt: Okay. What about everybody's who existing right now? Teresa Burgess: That would be with those existing homes. Properties that come in for new building permits, we usually work with them to avoid that situation, but they would just need to do an encroachment agreement if they were to be paving into the 5 foot easement that's already out there. And in that encroachment agreement we would have the ability to discuss how close can they get to the property line. Should they do anything to address drainage issues? What happens if we need to get into that easement? 33 City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 What happens to the pavement? Who's responsibility is it to repair it? Those issues could be addressed in the encroachment agreement. Councilman Labatt: Okay. So how do we as a council become proactive when we have new developments coming in that aren't coming in as a PUD, don't have the covenants but want to have, can we dictate to them so and to avoid having variances come up in the future on this, to push the building pad over to accommodate for this in the future or do we have that authority? Teresa Burgess: As the ordinance sits right now, if you were to force them to push that building over further, they could park 2 boats or a boat and a motorcycle or, they could park up to that property line and there's nothing to stop them. If they have more space between their garage and the property line, they can park more vehicles. Or they can leave a space between their garage and the vehicle and park it right up to that property line. There's nothing to stop them from doing that as it sits right now. Kate Aanenson: Let me just answer it a different way. They show us an elevation approximate for drainage. Lowest floor elevation and typical style of home. Whether it's a rambler, lookout, walkout. Exactly how it sits on the lot is not determined until the homeowner gets it. And they're going to make that decision. Some people go with a 2 car garage assuming that down the road they're going to put 3 on and site the house further to the side so there's so many variables. You can't, when it comes in for subdivision, the ordinance says you can have that so we couldn't stop it at that time. Councilman Ayotte: It's just avoiding the adversity of putting something there that will have an adverse impact for drainage and that sort of thing. Kate Aanenson: Right. Councilman Ayotte: And it's not in the utility. Teresa Burgess: They cannot impact that drainage. They are required to convey the drainage as it sits when they came into the property. Now they can alter it within their property but when it leaves their property it still has to be conveyed in the same manner. So they can't dam up what's coming in from another property. At the same time they can't suddenly start dumping a lot more than what was being run off in their property. Kate Aanenson: But they can park a camper or... and have the paved surface that goes, they're still going to park the boats. That's where we want them to be. Not in the front yard. Not in the back yard. Councilman Ayotte: That's why I don't like the setback at all. I would prefer to look at it in another vein. Kate Aanenson: Right, well that's what I'm saying. And if people have to jump that hurdle, they're just going to park it either on gravel, which they don't need a permit for. They're going to come in and get some gravel. And/or something else and not do the paved surface. People do it every day and they don't need a permit for it so that's... Teresa Burgess: I know the one you're thinking of Councilmember Ayotte I'm sure is the one that's in your neighborhood right now. He moved less dirt than is required to get a permit through the city. He moved less than 50 cubic yards of dirt and so the only reason we were aware of it is one of our employees drove by and noticed it and stopped by and said what's going on. And he is in compliance. He's not 34 City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 changing the drainage patterns. It's one of those that we would approve. If it was to come through, we would approve it. There's no reason not to and when he gets done it will, although not as well screened as your's, it will fit into the neighborhood. And so that is a situation where the homes are very close. There is no alternative. He doesn't really have a choice except to park in an area with no paving or to pave it, make it look nice and put his boat there. Mayor Jansen: So if as part of the motion we would like to direct staff to review the encroachment proposal this evening and bring that back to us, it sounds like we could have that handled and move this issue forward. Is what I'm hearing. With that, we've been on this for quite for a while. I don't know if we're ready for someone to make a motion. Councilman Ayotte: I'm not. Councilman Boyle: Well I wouldn't. Mayor Jansen: A motion to table also works. I'm just saying somebody make a motion. Councilman Labatt: I move we table this to allow staff to look at making another condition of reviewing encroachment agreement. Mayor Jansen: And you would like to see that be a part of this ordinance versus it being part of the separate engineering ordinance. Councilman Labatt: Right. Mayor Jansen: Alright. And a second? Councilman Boyle: Second. Mayor Jansen: Discussion of the motion. Teresa, is that enough direction for you as to what to come back to us with as far as adding something to this addressing the encroachment issue? Teresa Burgess: Kate and I will work on it and I'm sure it will get us started in the right direction. Mayor Jansen: Okay, great. Councilman Labatt moved, Councilman Boyle seconded to table an amendment to the City Code to permit one driveway access per lot with direction to staff to address the encroachment agreement. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously 4 to 0. APPROVE CITY CODE AMENDMENT CLARIFYING PROCEDURES FOR ADMINISTRATIVE SUBDIVISIONS. Kate Aanenson: This item came via the Planning Commission and the staff regarding administrative subdivisions that get approved and aren't always recorded in a timely manner. Again, you asked for housekeeping. We felt it was important. What caused some ambiguity, if you look on Section 18-37, as Sharmin went through and re-codified the code regarding private streets. In Section (a) got new language that was recently adopted within the last few months regarding the private streets up to 4 lots. Again, 35 City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 administrative subdivision or a better term to call it would be a lot line adjustment does not require approval from the city. There's a different exemption if it's 20 acres, agricultural and they want to split it into 20 acres, that's exempt from the subdivision. What we're doing here is, because it's exempt from the subdivision, we can't put those rules in place, and that was our recommendation to the Planning Commission. The Planning Commission felt like if that discourages somebody, we'd like to leave the language in. Again staff's concern was that it created some ambiguity. There was some concern with the Planning Commission that other communities have this language in, specifically the City of Plymouth was stated and the fact that our city attorney also represents them. I did call the City of Plymouth the next morning and they were advised by their city attorney, that they should amend their subdivision regulations because they weren't consistent with the State law. So again our city attorney also advises the same, so our language that the staff is recommending again differs from the Planning Commission because we want to be consistent with the legal aspect of that. And again what we're trying to do here is if someone does do an administrative plat which is just transferring a line, buying property from a neighboring property, that we have that recorded in a timely manner. Generally our policy with the County Recorder's office is they do not accept those unless they're stamped by the City of Chanhassen. We stamp but it's been exempted from the subdivision regulations which means that we've reviewed it. We do require a fee with administrative subdivisions. We do review the legal descriptions. We also meet with the applicants. Advise them of any legal things that may be going on. Generally for the most part we've had these when someone wants a variance, and they don't have enough side yard setback. They may buy some property from their neighboring property. The other frequent is that there's a vacant lot between two property owners. This happens frequently that the two neighbors decide to split the lot and sometimes those lot lines can be convoluted but they'll split the lot between them and just bring it into the existing description and then they do the description in and we do review those before they go down. Again that's an administrative but what we're saying is after we've approved this we want to make sure they're recorded in a timely manner. The other concern that came up was at the Planning Commission was that what happens if someone creates a non-conforming lot. You know if you have a 15,000 square foot minimum and you sell some of your property so now you're under the minimum. That rarely happens. I'm not saying it can't happen but generally if you have the bank is part of the mortgage holder, the bank also has to sign off on if you're selling, disposing of some of your property so that's kind of one of the catches there. We also as part of, when we review them again apprise them of any problems that they may be creating. Whether it be a setback from the side yard. You can't sell that much. Now you've got a side yard problem so they know because now they've got a problem themselves that they can go to do something in the future is sell their property. Often when someone sells their property the bank, the mortgager will ask if there's any issues with this property when they do the title search so most people don't want that cloud over their property. So we didn't see that as a problem, and again the state law does allow you to create that situation, but historic in the city of Chanhassen have we seen a lot of that? No. In my experience in my 10 years here I haven't seen one of those come through. That created a non-conforming on the other side. Generally they create a better situation. They're trying to rectify it, make it better. So with that staff is recommending approval of the language recommended by the staff and I'd be happy to answer any questions that you have. Mayor Jansen: Okay, thank you. Council, any questions of staff at this time? Okay. Roger, if you might just give us a little clarification since statute and the state statutes have come up as an issue as to what we can have in our ordinance and how it's superceded by the state. If you might just give us a little direction there as to why you've recommended that we take out some of the verbiage. Roger Knutson: Yes Mayor. In contrast to the last issue, we had discussed whether a 10 foot setback for driveways was appropriate. That's within your discretion. You can, based on your own judgment and 36 City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 reviewing planning issues you can decide whether 10, 5 or nothing is the right answer. The state law gives you that authority. State law also enables you to adopt subdivision regulations. We can only do what the state tells us we can do. What the state has done in this case is define term subdivision and it says here's what the term subdivision means and here's, if you adopt regulations addressing subdivisions as the state defines it. I won't read the whole thing to you but it defines it to mean separation of an area into two or more parcels with a few exceptions. And it says these exceptions are not subdivisions and one of those exceptions is the adjustment of a lot line by the relocation of a common boundary. By state law that is not a subdivision so if you're just, you're not creating a new parcel. You're just moving your property boundary. Conveying some property to a neighbor. That is not a subdivision. Whether it's wise or foolish, it is really not relevant. The issue is that's what the state law is. Just so we're clear. I consistently gave, have given this advice to my clients for 25 years. It's not a new law. Including the City of Plymouth. Mayor Jansen: Okay. So basically what you're telling us is if we did have a property owner come in who has shifted their boundaries, you couldn't do anything to enforce what we're requiring? Roger Knutson: That is correct. Mayor Jansen: If you ended up taking this to court, we'd be spending fees and spinning our wheels and getting no place because they'd hit us over the head with the state statute and say we can't do that. Roger Knutson: And anyone who can read can point that out to a judge and say read this. And I would say well, I don't know what I'd say. Mayor Jansen: Okay. Mr. Gerhardt, did you want to make comments? Todd Gerhardt: Yeah. Debbie Lloyd and I talked this afternoon and I've talked with Roger. We both kind of agree, it's not a good law. It's kind of a poor law really because it does allow for somebody to create a non-conforming use. And has it ever created a non-conforming use in Minnesota? I don't know. Roger doesn't know of any. Kate's saying she hasn't seen any in 10 years but I'm sure Representative Workman would consider some special legislation if you added one section onto that sentence that said, as long as this didn't create a non-conforming use, that would probably be a good law. And Roger thought it was a good idea so I would offer that over to talk to Mr. Workman. If he's want to introduce something like that. Roger Knutson: I would think that's a great idea but address the issue we have right now. Right now someone has to come in and if they want to do this they have to meet with city staff and city staff would point out you're creating a non-conforming lot or whatever you're creating. Non-conforming structure, setback or something, and although they can do it now, let's not lose sight of the fact that they'd be shooting themselves in the head. Because if they want to come in and do anything with that, they want to add an addition, if they wanted to whatever they want to do, they've created a self-created hardship so they're not going to, they will not be of any entitlement to a variance. So they can create serious problems for themselves. Now that could occasionally happen and again from my own personal experience I'm not aware of any I can point out to you but it could happen. But the potential in that, something that for those of us who have been working at this for a long period of time have noted and wondered what in the world they were thinking about when they adopted this, and I can't answer that for you. But I think what Todd has suggested is an amendment makes a good deal of sense but it's not there now. 37 City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 Mayor Jansen: Certainly. And then one of the points that Kate touched on, and Todd you touched on this earlier in a discussion with me about what mortgage companies reactions are to lots that are non- conforming. Maybe speak to that a little bit. Todd Gerhardt: Yeah, Kate has dealt with those issues more. Do you want to? Kate Aanenson: Sure. Generally on a refinance often they'll send a letter over to the city to ask if there's any variances or anything non-conforming on the lot. And again if you want to get sign off, generally when someone does a lot line relocation, the bank would also have to sign off because they're on the title. They're also part of the property owner so generally they would call too and say what's this about. Is this going to create any problems? The bank also wants to secure their property too or the mortgage company. Mayor Jansen: Okay. I am not going to open this issue up for further comment this evening because I think the points are made throughout the letter that is attached as well as the comments at the Planning Commission meeting and the issue is whether or not those lines should stay in our code. Obviously the Planning Commission is just suggesting that they stay in there so that it's more of a warning or whatever to people coming in. And it's whether or not we're going to listen to the city attorney in what is defensible or not as to whether our code is brought into conformity to what he thinks he can actually defend. So with that I'll open it up for comments from council. None? Okay. IfI could have a motion please. Councilman Labatt: Move approval of the attached ordinance amending Section 18-37 and the exemptions thereof. Mayor Jansen: Clarification of the motion. Is that staff's recommendation? Councilman Labatt: Yeah. Mayor Jansen: Following staff's recommendation. If I could have a second please. Councilman Ayotte: I second that. Councilman Labatt moved, Councilman Ayotte seconded to approve amending Section 18-37(a) Exemptions consistent with state law. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously 4 to 0. LIVABLE COMMUNITIES ACT. Kate Aanenson: The two action items for tonight that staff is looking for is one, approval of the resolution and then review of the goals. Back last winter staff went through the Livable Communities Act and spent some time going through the history. I did attach all that and I updated some of the numbers but I attached that again for everybody's edification. Kind of how they got started. Why we participated and I hope that was helpful. Mayor Jansen: It's great information. Thanks for including all of that. Kate Aanenson: There's a little bit of duplication but I also included in this packet then where we are to date. The ISTEA scoring which is the Met Council will be using as far as looking at, or any other agency, looking at grant applications. Where our ranking would be. And then also the ALOHA account which is how much are we spending for affordable housing, which we are meeting our goals and I also wanted to 38 City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 point out to you that our household tax capacity went up substantially. They're catching up on some of the valuation of the homes that are in the community but we are currently meeting the goals of what we should be spending per year and that is also documented in here. I also wanted to update you too. We did hold the housing forums in April and May to communicate to the residents. Hear some of their concerns and also educate them. One of the things that staff will be working on, I mentioned earlier tonight, is the land trust. Working with probably the city of Chaska because one of the concerns that has come out is maintaining affordability. If you can look at for example where we are meeting our goals is in the affordable housing but the problem is maintaining that work. They were coming in under market but the problem is they're moving outside the market so fast. And that's really evident in the North Bay project where we put in the assistance and were actually managing those. It takes up quite a bit of staff's time. Todd and Bob and myself, when you're actually meeting with people. Was a young couple that wants to move in and has questions about how much they can recapture if they finish the basement and looking at some of these other programs, specifically the land trust. Somebody else would own the underlying property. We'd have someone else manage the program but they would just be taking out mortgages on the property itself. And why we're in a good position to do that is we have a lot of affordable housing coming on line in the next few years. And we can capture that at a certain rate and maintain that affordability, which is our goal. To try to maintain affordability. We're doing a good job of bringing it in but the maintenance is a problem. As valuations are continue to increase here. The other thing we pointed out in here is, and everybody's aware of that, is the rental housing tends to be the hardest to do. To make that affordable. We've done two significant apartment projects. The Lakeview Hills and the Powers Ridge Apartments. None of those were we able to accomplish the affordable. Presbyterian Homes which is coming in we're hoping to accomplish the 36 affordable within that project. But again we're well on our way to the goals. I think again with not a lot of brow beating, the projects that come in, a lot of it's market rate. Working on some of that sort of thing so staff is recommending that we leave the goals as they are in place. Again we use the yard stick of what we put in the report to say that we're well on our way and again as a part of that would recommend adoption of the resolution. And I'd be happy to answer any questions that you have. Mayor Jansen: Thank you. And I guess the other point that supports your recommendation is also the community survey. Kate Aanenson: Correct. Mayor Jansen: And we certainly heard from the residents their concern that we provide the affordable, and I think key to what you just mentioned again, the maintenance of our affordable so that they can remain in the community as well so that certainly was a loud and clear message from the survey for us. And the one piece of an encouraging information that I would share with you is earlier this year we did have a meeting with the Met Council had come out and met with staff and we were discussing affordable and it was the affordable that we were trying to achieve in Villages on the Ponds, and one of our concerns had been previously whether or not the Met Council would show us flexibility as we're trying to achieve our goals. If we can't hit a number, are they going to really hit us with the financial restraints and would we be penalized. And in that particular meeting I would have to say I was extremely encouraged at the amount of flexibility that they demonstrated to us as a community that they would have with us. They were even suggesting that if we needed to swap affordable units, if we couldn't get them in that particular complex and location, that we could in fact provide them elsewhere to meet the goal. So I would share that with council to say that the Met Council certainly has worked very well with Chanhassen and I think that that's commendable of staff's relationship with them and what they've done to develop that kind of flexibility on behalf of the community. So with that, council if you have any comments or questions for staff. 39 City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 Councilman Labatt: Kate, so in reading the memo here. Our score is 48, correct? Kate Aanenson: Yes. Councilman Labatt: And that would be used in evaluation of the TEA 21 and Livable Communities Demonstration Account. So just run me through a scenario on how that is going to benefit in Chanhassen in the next minute if you can. Kate Aanenson: Sure. Actually I'll mm it over to Teresa because most of the ISTEA projects or the TEA projects are going to go through engineering. Those are mostly road projects so I'll let. Teresa Burgess: I'm sorry, I wasn't paying attention. You caught me in the one time I wasn't paying attention. Councilman Labatt: A little brain fade there, that's okay. Kate Aanenson: I don't know if she's read the report but part of the scoring thing Teresa is that they're going to rate us as far as points. Giving us extra points based on our TEA applications. Teresa Burgess: What it means is we apply for ISTEA funding through the state. Councilman Labatt: For what kind of funding? Teresa Burgess: ISTEA. It's an acronym. It's Federal funding. And it's for transportation. If we make an application, for instance the pedestrian bridge that everybody likes to talk about over Highway 5 was an ISTEA project. It was funded through federal funding. The tunnels that are currently being built on Highway 5 as part of that project, and the trail along West 78th Street is I STEA. Highway 101 project, if we are able to go forward, that will have ISTEA funding. Kate Aanenson: It could be enhancement projects too for 212 maybe Teresa. Teresa Burgess: Right. So those type of projects, when they go through, we get extra credit for certain activities and one of those is the Livable Communities Act. We get extra credit as we're ranked against other communities and if we have two equal projects going through, our's and somebody else that does not have that Livable Communities, that they're not meeting their goals, we get funding and they don't is what it comes down to. Councilman Labatt: So a score of 48 is where in the spectrum? Kate Aanenson: Right. Well what it does is it give you a point thing. You're getting 5 extra points I think is what the bottom line is, and this came out of the Governor's policy as far as there was communities that didn't participate in the Livable Communities Act and they were being treated the same. Everything was getting pointed the same, so those that were participating said well there was supposed to be some teeth to this. So what they did is they came back and put together a score and I believe that's what the letter said. Is that you'll be getting 5 to 10 points for your ranking. Which I think, except for the affordable renting, affordable rental, we're just doing fine. I think the Met Council would concur with that. Mayor Jansen: And it's 48 points out of 100, correct? 40 City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 Kate Aanenson: Correct, right. Mayor Jansen: Yeah, okay. Councilman Labatt: Thanks. Mayor Jansen: Any other questions or comments for staff? Councilman Boyle: I'd like to make a motion that we adopt the resolution to continue participation in the Livable Communities Act and the LCA goals. Mayor Jansen: We have a motion. Do we have a second? Councilman Labatt: Go ahead Bob. Councilman Ayotte: I'll second. Mayor Jansen: We have a motion and a second. Any discussion of the motion? Resolution #2001-70: Councilman Boyle moved, Councilman Ayotte seconded to adopt the resolution to continue participation in the Livable Communities Act and the LCA goals. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously 4 to 0. Mayor Jansen: Again Kate, thanks for providing us with all that information. It was a very detailed, thorough packet. Thanks. COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS: COUNCIL/COMMISSION LIAISON UPDATE. Mayor Jansen: The Planning Commission had their work session with Kate this past meeting and so I did not attend so that they could have their open communications at that point with Kate, but feedback that I received, Gerhardt went on the tour. And Kate took the Planning Commission on a thorough tour of some of the projects. Maybe share with council, Steve wasn't at the work session, just some of the highlights of the things that you did with them that you may end up doing with us. Kate Aanenson: Sure. Actually we got on West 78th, the new road and that's coming along fantastic. Excellent views. I think once we get that project underway, Puke came in. The first permits are on my desk. They've been through building department already so they'll be pulling their permits but it's going to be nice the way that's all shaping up. We went down and went through the business park, Arboretum Business Park. Looked at the buildings through there. We did go into, took a tour of the apartments. The Lake Susan Apartments. There was a lot of concern, as you recall, on the EA when that went in. The neighbors concerned about the height and the pond so we actually got out and walked around the back of that and even when you're on the top of the third floor, the trees are still taller than that building. And when you're on the other side, the lake side, which I think people were.., happen so it's beautiful views. Very nice so it's good to get out and see what we've done and kind of measure ourselves and see what we did right and what we can do better and improve on that so. 41 City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 Mayor Jansen: Thank you for taking them on that tour and as I just mentioned, maybe we as council would benefit with going out on a similar tour with staff to just see some of the projects and how things have progressed. Any other commission updates? Councilman Ayotte: Well the Environmental Commission met and they re-worked their by-laws. They've had legal review of those by-laws. There is some restructuring and so it will take council a close scrutinized look at what they're doing. They're increasing their standard for participation in the environmental commission. And then they also offered through Jill Sinclair approaching other staff, specifically engineering and public works, to use them as an educational tool to address some of the water issues on a positive note. Doing some of the re-write that was suggested in the community assessment. Mayor Jansen: Very good. Councilman Ayotte: They really did, they're stepping out. Mayor Jansen: Very good, that's great. Anyone else? ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS: WATER TREATMENT PLANT DISCUSSION, CITY ENGINEER. Teresa Burgess: And I apologize. This is what I was thinking about when Steve caught me. I can say that's the first time you've caught me though. Since I've been here. I do usually pay attention. Mayor Jansen: Daydreaming about water treatment plants though, I'm a little concerned. Teresa Burgess: The pictures I've handed out, I won't put these up on the screen because they are difficult to see as it is, they're very dark, but these were taken on September 5th from the inside of our water tower that's located down by the Arboretum on Highway 41. Councilman Labatt: The new one? Teresa Burgess: The new one. What you can see in there is a manganese deposit and the red is an iron deposit. And if you page through you'll find one that looks like it's got a blotch on it. A white blotch. That is where somebody took their hand and wiped away the material, just so you could see color comparison. When manganese is first exposed to the air, it is kind of, you're still able to remove it with just wiping your hand across it. Once it's exposed it does chemically react with the air and harden against a surface. This tank will be eventually taken down and cleaned. As you'll notice the date September 5th. September 11th was the World Trade Center and so at that point we locked down our water tower. Our intention was to clean this tank on September 15th. But because of the issues that are, that were occurring at that time and are continuing to occur, we have chosen to delay that until next spring when we can do it with better security and not expose ourselves to having a tank out of service at a difficult time. This tank is currently locked up. The people that were in this tank, just for anybody that's at home, our consultants that we do have their resumes. We did check who they were. We checked all their references and they are properly bonded to do this type of work so just so people who at home wondering, we do check all of those people that are up on water towers. We appreciate the help we've gotten from the public on keeping track of what's going on out on those public facilities and encourage people to continue to call us with concerns. We'd be happy to answer those. With that side bar, going into water treatment. We are scheduled to begin the process for water treatment. We are scheduled to study and design a plant in 2002 with construction in 42 City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 2003. Our intention is to hit that as hard as possible while still taking reasonable steps to make sure we're spending the city's money in a financially conservative and responsible manner. That is why we do need to do such a substantial study is to make sure we're installing what's best for the city of Chanhassen. At this time we have two complete zones of water pressure. We have what we refer to as the high pressure zone, and what we refer to as the low pressure zone. Within those zones there are additional zones of pressure, water pressure, however they can be served within the existing zones. The two zones do not go back and forth very well at all and so they are something that needs to be modeled as part of the study. What we're proposing is that as it's time for us to select a consultant, we use a qualification base selection process. I do have a graphic of that. I don't know how this will show up on the overhead. It's a little bit small. If we can zoom in. Just to step 1. The first part of step 1 is you establish the evaluation criteria. Our evaluation criteria as it's proposed right now by staff is that we receive references and resumes showing what work has been done by a firm. We are proposing that we would advertise nationwide for firms. For engineering firms to come in and present themselves for possible work. At this point it would be strictly written. There would be no contact directly. We would not be selecting but we would be reviewing resumes and short listing so that we could have a committee look at... The next step would be statement of qualifications. We would then develop the short list of 3 to 5 firms for an interview with the committee. We're proposing that committee be made up of staff, possibly 1 or 2 experts that would be consultants that would not be proposing on the project but do have the qualifications to assist us in that review, and then a number of water utility customers within the city. Both business and private citizens. We are looking for those people. We have included in the next newsletter a request for volunteers. We are looking for people that would not have a conflict of interest. Obviously we don't want to put anybody in a bad situation. But we'd like to have a group of people come in and help us select the consultant for this. Tell us what your issues are. Take an interest and assist us with this. We get a lot of people saying what can I do to help. Here's your chance. So if they want to contact me here at city hall, we're looking for probably 4 to 5 people to sit on that committee at this point. As we move through the process we may be asking for additional people to assist us. The next phase of the project as you go into Step 2 is we ask that consultant that we've selected through that interview process to assist us in defining the scope of work. They actually come in and work with city staff, with that committee that we'll be working with and talk about what are we actually looking at? Are we looking at one treatment plant? Two treatment plants? How should they be configured? Should we be doing softening? Shouldn't we? All of those issues. They would be defining that. What exactly are they going to do for our money? They would then, at that point, tell us what's it going to cost. We would negotiate with them and say, is that acceptable or not? It's very similar in how we handled selecting an architect for the library process. If we cannot come to an agreement, we go back to our step one and we go to our second selection. The second ranking of a consultant. We go through the scooping and the contract terms again. We do that until we find a consultant that we can work with, that we can hammer out an agreement with that's reasonable. We then ask for, we sign the agreement and we start the work. So that's the process we're proposing to use for selection of a consultant. It means that we'll be selecting a little bit different than we normally do for Chanhassen consultants. Normally we go out and we say, okay. Here's our scope. We tell them what are you going to do. And after we've told them what to do, we ask what's it going to cost us? In this case we will not know what it costs until we've gotten to a point of selection already. Now obviously if they come to us and say $3 million, we're going to say no. We're not interested in you and we'll go find somebody that can do it for a reasonable price. But if they come to us and they say okay, it's going to cost this much. This is the work you need to do, we're going to turn to our technical experts and say is that reasonable? We're going to look at it as a staff and say, are the services that we're asking for there and under the services that are being proposed reasonable. At that point we'll come to the council with a recommendation for approval of an agreement. As we put this committee together, one of the reasons I'm here tonight is to ask the council first of all, is there an interest to have a council liaison? And if so, who would be that person? We do need to get this process up 43 City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 and running in the next month and so at this point I don't have a recommendation on whether it's necessary or not. I'm asking the council what your position is. If you want someone on that committee or not. Or if you prefer to have them act as an advisory committee to the council and we will keep you as staff will act as liaison and keep you updated with what's going on on that committee. With that I'll answer any questions. Mayor Jansen: Okay, thank you. At this point any questions for Teresa? Okay, thank you. Councilman Labatt: Maybe I'm way ahead of the cart here but have you forecasted locations within the city? Without naming a certain street or comer or intersection. Teresa Burgess: Our water treatment, our water plan that forecasts our 20 year plan names possible locations. As we've talked with different consultants, talking about getting started on this process, it's amazing the consultants are coming out of the woodwork as we get closer to doing this work. They're showing up on our doorstep wanting to discuss a potential water treatment plant. They've all had some interesting ideas and we've been listening to them as they come forward and we're kind of taking notes and thinking well, when we get down it, now we kind of know where we're going. Looking at it, the city currently has land for a well field and we've looked at that. We've always looked at that site as a potential water treatment plant because we already own the land. That makes it a good site. It has 3 wells on it. It has capacity for additional wells, which is an important thing to be looking at. So that one's a very viable site. However we don't want to tie a consultant into that site and say you have to go here. We may be able to have cost savings that we're not aware of by looking at another site. The second site would be dictated by how we configure that high pressure zone and how we address that high pressure zone. We've talked about everything from on-site treatment, which would mean we'd have a small treatment plant at every well. That may be cost effective. At this point we don't know. The alternative would be to pump that water to a central location and treat it at that location. At this point that location has not been determined. One of the big problems is finding a piece of land large enough in that neighborhood, and we're looking at the Lake Minnewashta/Longacres, that area of the city. It's very difficult to find a parcel that's in the right location, has the right size and is not going to cause other problems. And so at this point we haven't looked at that one too close for where is the best site. Councilman Labatt: Okay. So as you look at, as I look at other cities, what they have for water treatment plants, you know like Eden Prairie. How they put their's in a building. Teresa Burgess: We would be looking at a building. It would definitely be contained in a building. Councilman Labatt: I think Minnetonka put a hill over their's. Teresa Burgess: Minnetonka has on-site treatment. They have treatment at each well. It would be a building. The question is how is it landscaped? What's the architectural amenities and that is something that that committee will be assisting us with. What does the city of Chanhassen want our's to look like? If you go through the city of Savage you'll see a building that is very much a landmark. They view it much like a water tower. They have it out there with big letters on it. They say City of Savage Water Treatment Plant. And they're out there showing it off. You go to Minnetonka, they have it landscaped into a hill. It depends how we want to view our water treatment. If we want to proclaim it and be proud of it and show it off and do the architecture to do that, or if we want to say let's not do brick face and split rock and do those type of things. Instead we want to do landscaping to screen it from view, we're still proud of the fact that we have water treatment, but we don't necessarily want to show off the building. And so it will really come 44 City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 into, a lot of it will come into what neighborhood do we end up in. If we end up in a neighborhood that is more industrial setting or more commercial setting, we're going to be much more like the City of Savage where we're going to be out front with that building and not doing the screening type. If we're into a residential type neighborhood, we're going to be screening that thing pretty heavily so it's not real visible. Mayor Jansen: I think staff's recommendation to provide a committee and then as you mentioned here, project advisory committee to stay with the project. To explore a lot of those issues is an excellent recommendation. Just my opinion. But I thought that at least provided, or would provide council to a similar set of opinions as we sought on making our city manager decision, on the library. Having a library building committee involved on forwarding that project. I think it's excellent to be suggesting that we involve as many different perspectives on this project as possible. So certainly appreciate that. The only comment that I would make as to the proposal would be the selection of the public leaders and citizens. I would certainly want to see a staff recommendation on the city staff members that would be a part of this committee as well as the outside technical experts. I would then like to see the applications for the other positions really reviewed by council so that we're putting together with staff the full breadth of what this committee would be as far as the representatives from the community, and designate what we are looking for as far as areas of expertise. As you mentioned, people in the business community who are currently users that may be able to bring the perspective from the business community and whether or not we have an application form that would put together. I know you mentioned that you already put a letter, an article of solicitation in the newsletter. Teresa Burgess: We have not put together an application. And actually what we're looking for is that person who's just a normal citizen of Chanhassen. Business owner in Chanhassen. We have technical people. We have staff members who have, those people that will be doing some of that and we do have a couple members in our community we will be directly soliciting and contacting and saying you have this background. We want you to come forward as a civic leader and take this role because of your technical expertise. But what we're really looking for from the community is not the technical. We're not asking them to come forward and advise us. Should it be a gravity or a pressure? Should it be a softening plant or should we be doing? We're not asking them to review those technical issues. What we want them to come forward is really to give us issues like, well softening is a bad example of the technical because softening is an issue we want them to discuss. Should we be building a softening plant? Does the benefit equal the cost? That's something we want the public to really be advising us on. Talking about things like location when we start to talk about, we might come into a situation where we say if we put the plant here it will cost us this much. If we put the plant here it will cost us a little bit more but we have less impact to developable property. So it doesn't have a direct impact cost wise to us now for savings, but we may see a savings in the future that is more aesthetic than it is dollar wise. We are looking for those types of input. We're also looking for people that can act as links back to the community. As people we get a lot of comments about people calling us and saying we have a rush problem. Okay, we know that. We need to have people going back and saying okay, this is what's proposed to address that. This is how far we are going to do that. Is that far enough? We need that public link with those people. What we found is sometimes that people are uncomfortable calling me as a city engineer and saying, this is my comment on this project. This is where I think we should go but they may contact a local representative in their neighborhood and that person will come forward and say okay, this is what our neighborhood feels about this project. We see it very often in street projects where they won't come forward to a council meeting and make a public statement in a public hearing, but they'll go to the petition carrier and say, okay this is what's important to me on this project and I hear that second hand from that petition carrier. We're looking for those type of people that are willing to go out and be that link back to the community both directions. Bringing us information from the community. Bringing information back to the community 45 City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 from this project and keeping them updated. So we can certainly put together an application process and bring that to the council for approval. We would try to keep that relatively simple and the biggest thing we would be looking for is conflict of interest. We do not want to have somebody that would have a perception of conflict of interest from the public. We want this process to move forward and any decision made to not be mired in controversy based on one or more individuals. Mayor Jansen: Sure, absolutely. Great. Any questions for staff? Okay. Alright. Any other comments? Okay, if council would like to, I don't know if you want to discuss whether we're appointing a council member or a couple or wait until we see the breadth of how the committee will be pulled together. We can certainly discuss one or. Councilman Boyle: I think we should wait personally. See what it looks like and then decide whether or not to have a councilman. Councilman Labatt: I'd nominate Bob tonight. Councilman Boyle: Well Bob is probably going to nominate Craig because Craig's not here. Councilman Labatt: That's what Bob does in the military. He's got the, so we might as well use him. If he'll take the nomination and accept it. Councilman Ayotte: I'll leave it up to you. I'll step in and work with Teresa because I like Teresa. But if you have something else in mind. Mayor Jansen: I don't have anything in mind as far as what the whole consistency of the committee would be. I just assumed that you would definitely be an excellent representative on the committee. Councilman Labatt: ... second it so one and two and you're on. Mayor Jansen: I will second the motion but the discussion of the motion would be, I don't know that it should only be one council representative and whether or not anyone else is interested in serving on the committee. I certainly consider this to be a significant project. But if someone else wanted to be present on the committee and we can certainly throw it out to Councilman Peterson when he comes back as we're pulling together the entire consistency of the committee, if there should be one other representative. Councilman Labatt: Craig may want to. I don't have the time. Mayor Jansen: Sure, understood. Councilman Boyle: I'm not, I appreciate the importance of it but I question the need for, I mean we've got a great liaison I feel that's going to be coming to council so one representative should probably, unless somebody else wants to be on it. Councilman Ayotte: Why don't we start with one and if we need more we'll get another one. Mayor Jansen: We can certainly go forward with this motion this evening and then discuss the entire make- up of the committee then as we're reviewing the different citizens and the public leaders. I would just like to make as a part of our discussion here this evening, clear that the other appointments to the committee 46 City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 will be determined by the council versus that being a recommendation that's coming up. We should be reviewing the applications and having a full discussion in review of the committee members. Okay, so with that we have a motion and a second. Councilman Labatt moved, Mayor Jansen seconded to appoint Councilman Ayotte to serve as the City Council liaison on the Water Treatment Plant committee. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously 4 to 0. Mayor Jansen: The motion carries. We'll make it a 4-0 and Bob Ayotte will be one of the representatives on the committee. Thank you. We appreciate that. Councilman Labatt: On these pictures, is this normal I mean after 2, that's what 2 years of service on the tower. Teresa Burgess: This is not normal. If it was normal I wouldn't have supplied these. Mayor Jansen: Is it normal for our water? Teresa Burgess: We were shocked. Councilman Labatt: It's only been up for 2 years now right? It's the second year. Teresa Burgess: It's only been up for 2 years. And our intention on September 9th, we were scheduled to drain down the tower completely. We were not able to do that because of the hardening of manganese when it's exposed to air. We had to fill that tank up before it had a chance to do that so that we did not incur an additional cost to remove it. We will be cleaning this off. But we did not anticipate nearly this level of manganese deposit on this. Councilman Labatt: What's it cost to clean that tank? Just shoot me a rough estimate. Teresa Burgess: We're considering a couple of options. And at this point we don't have a cost estimate. Councilman Labatt: So I mean if we do this next year, obviously you're going to have to do this again in 2 years until we get a treatment plant. Teresa Burgess: We've asked that KLM Engineering, who actually was already on retainer for doing the inspection, give us some recommendations to avoid this, or at least slow it down. We can't stop it until treatment comes in, but we may be able to slow it down. And so we've asked them to review our current operations and make any recommendations for binding up that manganese and iron. There are some things we can do. If they're cost effective we will implement as appropriate. Councilman Labatt: Okay. Mayor Jansen: Okay. Any other issues under administrative presentations Todd? Todd Gerhardt: No. We will have a volunteer fireman here at our next City Council meeting to update you. They had a special anthrax training tonight that they needed to get done so everybody was involved in that. 47 City Council Meeting - October 22, 2001 Mayor Jansen: Okay, great. Anything else from council? Anything in the correspondence packet? Okay, if I could have a motion to adjourn. Jerry Peterson: Mayor, would you permit a short comment? Mayor Jansen: No. We can have a conversation after the meeting certainly. If I could have a motion to adjourn please. Councilman Labatt moved, Councilman Boyle seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously. The meeting was adjourned at 9:50 p.m. Submitted by Todd Gerhardt City Manager Prepared by Nann Opheim 48