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CC Minutes 2001 06 11CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING JUNE 11, 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 Labatt, and Councilman Ayotte. Councilman Peterson arrived after the Consent Agenda. STAFF PRESENT: Todd Gerhardt, Roger Knutson, Matt Saam, Bob Generous, Bruce DeJong, and Jill Sinclair Public Present for All Items: Name Address Wayne Fransdal Judy Meier Bruce Feik Deb Lloyd Jan & Jerry Paulsen 6200 Murray Hill Road 695 Pleasant View Road 1773 Valley Ridge Trail South 7302 Laredo Drive 7305 Laredo Drive PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: None. CONSENT AGENDA: Councilman Ayotte moved, Councilman Labatt seconded to approve the following consent agenda items pursuant to the City Manager's recommendations: a. Tristan Heights, Ridgehill Road, Lundgren Brothers: 1) 2) 3) Final Plat Approval Approve Utility Plans & Specifications and Development Contract Approve Revised Joint Powers Agreement b. Approval of Bills. Approval of Minutes: - City Council Work Session Minutes dated May 29, 2001 - City Council Minutes dated May 29, 2001 Receive Commission Minutes: - Planning Commission Minutes dated May 15,2001 Approval of Private Redevelopment Agreement, Lot 2, Block 2, Arboretum Business Park 2nd Addition, Steiner Development. e. Approval of Temporary Beer License, Chanhassen Rotary Club, Fourth of July Celebration. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously 4 to 0. City Council Meeting - June 11,2001 VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: None. PUBLIC HEARING: VACATION OF A PORTION OF ROADWAY EASEMENT LOCATED IN TRACT D, RLS 18 FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF A GARAGE, 695 PLEASANT VIEW ROAD, THOMAS MEIER. Matt Saam: Madam Mayor, Council members, thank you. Staff has received a request from Thomas Meier, property owner at 695 Pleasant View Road in Chanhassen. His request is to vacate a portion of a roadway easement. The impetus for his request is his wish to construct a garage in his front yard area. Any proposed garage in his front yard would encroach into the city's current 30 foot structure setback requirement. As such he would like us to vacate the easement. In reviewing his application, there are two main issues that staff considered. First, future access for the property to the north. Property to the north of 695 Pleasant View is a large lot, approximately 1 acre in size. It has the potential ability to develop in the future. It's current access is off of Pleasant View Road. I went out and looked at the site for a potential access off of the cul-de-sac. The northerly lot is approximately 8 to 10 feet higher in elevation than the current cul-de-sac so it would be virtually impossible to construct a public city street to our current standards because of 7% slope grade requirement. The second issue we looked at was emergency vehicle mm around capability in the existing cul-de-sac. The existing cul-de-sac is currently substandard in nature. Very narrow. The Fire Marshal and I went out to the site and his basic opinion was that currently fire trucks cannot turn around in the cul-de-sac as it is today. Whether or not we vacate the easement, that would make no difference. As such, staff is recommending approval of the vacation of the easement with the conditions outlined in the staff report. I'd be happy to take any questions. Mayor Jansen: Thank you. Councilmembers, any questions for staff at this point? Seeing none, this is a public hearing. If you'd like to address the council on this issue, if you would approach the podium and state your name and address for the record. Seeing no one, we'll bring this back to council. Any discussion council? Okay, otherwise if I could have a motion. Councilman Ayotte: So moved. Mayor Jansen: I have a motion. Do I have a second? Councilman Peterson: Second. Resolution #2001-35: Councilman Ayotte moved, Councilman Peterson seconded that the City Council approves a resolution vacating a portion of the existing roadway easement located in Tract D of Registered Land Survey #18 as defined in the attached vacation description, subject to the following conditions: The applicant shall grant to the City of Chanhassen a 10 foot wide drainage and utility easement over the existing public watermain. 2. The front, rear, and side lot lines of the applicant's lot shall be identified as follows: From lot line - east property line. Rear lot line - west property line. Side lot lines - north and south property lines. City Council Meeting - June 11,2001 All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously 4 to 0. PUBLIC HEARING: CONSIDER REQUEST FOR SPECIAL ASSESSMENT OF HOOK-UP FEES. Bruce DeJong: Mayor Jansen and Council members. What you have before you is something that we discovered as our City Council was looking at special assessments in general and Mr. Knutson and I had several lengthy discussions regarding the process that we use, and in that discussion we discovered that there was an assessment process going on that was by-passing the City Council. So what you have before you is a listing of all of the special assessments that have been asked for, basically through a policy that allows people at the time of a building permit to request to be specially assessed on a parcel. Those have not been coming to you for approval, but they have been specially assessed on either a 4 year or 8 year basis as indicated on the sheet. What I'm asking for is really some guidance from you as to how you would like to proceed on these since you have not really seen them in the past. Typically special assessments are part of a building project where we are constructing a road or putting in some other type of public improvements and then assessing that against the benefiting property owners. In this instance the property owners have either hooked up or paid the assessment costs at some point in the future but are now finally hooking up to our utility system. It's either the hook-up fees or the connection charges that are associated with the costs of those public improvements that we've already paid for that they are paying now. After the fact. So what I would recommend, and I think what Todd Gerhardt has recommended is that we bring these to you once each year, probably the last meeting in November which is the timeframe necessary for us to have these certified and sent down to Carver County for assessment on the following year's taxes rather than bringing them up on an individual vote each time they come in. If you want to do that though we certainly can. It will delay issuance of the building permit though so that we know that we will get paid for the assessment one way or the other. So if you have any questions. Mayor Jansen: Thank you. Appreciate you bringing this forward and just so council understands the background behind the discovery of this and bringing it into the process. In the last year and a half you've been bringing our processes and procedures in line with, well technically how things should be done. This is just one of those things in the course of your going through our financial department, which you've now been with us a year and a half. Are we two yet? Bruce DeJong: Correct. No, we're not at two yet. Mayor Jansen: So thank you for bringing this up and working with the city attorney to get us in line properly with a process and procedure here. As I understand it, it certainly is easier to handle it on your once a year basis. I appreciate our Acting City Manager putting a proposal and recommendation in here as well. Backing up staff. Council, any questions for staff? Councilman Peterson: Just a point of clarification. Bruce, so if we do an assessment and the land owner or building owner knows there's assessment in say January, they won't be assessed in dollars until the next tax year? So it would wait? Bruce DeJong: Correct. Councilman Peterson: Yeah, that seems reasonable to do it once a year. City Council Meeting - June 11,2001 Mayor Jansen: Okay. Any other questions for staff? Councilman Ayotte: And typically the numbers that you'd be looking on a per annum basis if we do it once a year, 10, 12, 15, 30, what would be your? Bruce DeJong: It'd be probably a couple hundred thousand dollars. As you can see there's probably, included in the council packet, someplace in the nature of about $100,000. Councilman Ayotte: I'm not talking about the aggregate. I'm talking about the number of events. Number of assessments... Bruce DeJong: Something less than 100. Yeah, most of the time property owners do elect to pay those up front and not put those on a mortgage or end up paying the interest costs. Councilman Ayotte: Which is manageable once a year? Bruce DeJong: Correct. Mayor Jansen: Any other questions for staff? Councilman Labatt: No. Mayor Jansen: Then if I could have a motion please. Councilman Labatt: Move approval per staff recommendation. Mayor Jansen: With the staff recommendation being the once a year. Mayor Jansen: Once a year. Once a year. Mayor Jansen: Okay. And do I have a second to that motion please? Councilman Peterson: Second. Councilman Labatt moved, Councilman Peterson seconded to approve that special assessments (e.g. delinquent utility bills, project assessments, hook-up/connection charges) are approved annually in the fall of the year in time to be sent to the County Auditor. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously 4 to 0. Mayor Jansen: Onto new business. In fact I'm going to pause for a moment. I'm going to apologize to our Acting City Manager for not welcoming you to the table with us this evening. Todd Gerhardt's joining us and acting as our City Manager in the interim as we're continuing our search for the City Manager, so thank you and thank you for joining us. Todd Gerhardt: Thank you. Mayor Jansen: I apologize I didn't do that right away. City Council Meeting - June 11,2001 Todd Gerhardt: No problem. SELECT RECIPIENTS OF ENVIRONMENTAL EXCELLENCE AWARDS. Jill Sinclair: On behalf of the Environmental Commission I am pleased and excited to be here tonight to ask for your approval of the 2001 Environmental Excellence Award recipients. The Environmental Commission was happy with the response it got to the program this year, the first year and with the wide variety of applications it received. As you can see in the report, there are 7 applicants that the commission has decided to award recognition to. In Category A, for Landscaping or Land Management it was Mark and Kay Halla. For Reduce, Reuse and Recycle, Marcus and Jennifer Zbinden. For the Stewardship Award, the River Bluff Girl Scout Troop 1894 and for the other category, the Sunrise Hills Neighborhood. In Category G for Landscaping or Land Management, the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. For Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle, the Chanhassen Child Development Center, and for the Stewardship Award, the St. Hubert's School/Fifth Grade Class. So based on your final recommendations tonight, an award presentation is scheduled for the July 3rd Trade Fair. Any questions? Mayor Jansen: Thank you. And I'm assuming and I didn't call you today because I thought I understood this correctly. Each of these sub-categories receives an award, correct? Jill Sinclair: Correct. Mayor Jansen: So you just need us to approving your recommendation here this evening to move forward. Jill Sinclair: Yes. Mayor Jansen: These were exciting applications. Jill Sinclair: Yeah, they were great. Mayor Jansen: There are some great projects in here. And I hope that maybe in the course of our giving each of these individuals the recognition, that we're able to do something on a larger scale. I know we talked about maybe being able to let the community know where these locations are so they can do a tour and see what some of the projects were that were done by our businesses and our neighborhoods. This is really exciting. Council, any comments? Any discussion on this item? Councilman Peterson: Jill I've only got one question. I'm just curious if you have any thoughts as to why no builders or developers submitted anything. Jill Sinclair: My only guess is they didn't hear about it. Somehow we didn't get our word out to them. Councilman Peterson: Yeah. Jill Sinclair: Yeah, because I know there were worthy recipients. I just have to imagine that they just didn't hear about it. Mayor Jansen: And it's the first year of the award. And this program and maybe through the Chamber we can possibly get word out a little bit. City Council Meeting - June 11,2001 Jill Sinclair: That's right. Mayor Jansen: More extensively to their members and the businesses in town. Jill Sinclair: Yeah, I know the Chair of the Environmental Commission, Dottie Shay had made a presentation to them about the award and their partnership in all of this is to help promote it so hopefully this next year they can do some more work for us in that regard. Mayor Jansen: When they see the attention they miss at the Trade Fair, they'll want to get involved, right? Jill Sinclair: Right. Mayor Jansen: Wonderful. Any other comments from council? Okay, if I could have a motion please. Councilman Peterson: I make a motion that we approve the winners as recommended by staff. Mayor Jansen: And a second? Councilman Labatt: Second. Councilman Peterson moved, Councilman Labatt seconded to approve the Environmental Excellence Awards to the following: Category A (residential, community or educational groups): 1. Landscaping or Land Management: Mark and Kay Halla 2. Reduce, Reuse and Recycle: Marcus and Jennifer Zbinden 3. Stewardship: River Bluff Girl Scout Troop 1894 4. Other: Sunrise Hills Neighborhood Category B (business or commercial): 1. Landscaping or Land Management: Minnesota Landscape Arboretum 2. Reduce, Reuse and Recycle: Chanhassen Child Development Center 3. Stewardship: St. Hubert's School/Fifth Grade Class All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously 4 to 0. Mayor Jansen: Thank you for organizing this event and thanks to the Environmental Commission for pushing it forward and giving it the visibility that they did and to the Villager for doing the advertising for us that they did to give it attention. So wonderful. Good first year project. COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS: Mayor Jansen: Okay, that is everything on the agenda. Under Council Presentations I thought I would just mention that the City Manager search was begun. I did check on the League of Minnesota Cities web site. The page is up listing the position. We currently have 3 applications in house and the deadline is June 22nd so I know that that web site positioning did just occur so we should be getting some hits on that and then as City Council Meeting - June 11,2001 well from the International City Managers Association publication that will come out, will be the other broad exposure the position will receive. Councilman Peterson: That's not out yet? Mayor Jansen: I believe it is. In written form. Have you seen it Todd? Todd Gerhardt: Yep, I've seen it. And it's also in the League Bulletin and that came out today. Mayor Jansen: Okay. And then Mr. Gerhardt, would you like to discuss today's article in the Star Tribune with us. Todd Gerhardt: Well, sure. We're in the paper again, unfortunately. You know it's an article that Mr. Kzuba has contacted staff about a year ago I think is when he started writing the article and from interviews with Bruce, Don Ashworth, Scott, myself, Kate, and local developers, they were able to put that article together. I think it was kind of a spin-off of the Minneapolis article regarding the Target facility that they're proposing, or under construction in downtown Minneapolis. And the twist in the article was kind of how we gave subsidies to like Byerly's, Rosemount, Target, and it's kind of hind sight when you can take a look at it now. What we should have done 25 years ago. Or 15 years ago. It's a little easier to sit back and evaluate the situation as it is today. But kind of the key to the article was the shortfall that we've seen in the downtown tax increment district. Steve and Linda are aware of that. I think Craig and Bob are aware of it. I think they've sat in on a few meetings last fall when we were looking at scenarios to try to solve that. And it's been a problem, an ongoing problem probably for probably 6 years. We first tried to solve the problem internally by refinancing some bonds to solve the problem in-house. Unfortunately, us trying to solve that problem created a problem as we tried to access the grant monies this year so that counts against us because we refinanced bonds after a certain deadline so that just pushed our debt further back and made the problem kind of worst. So right now what we're up against is trying to figure out what the legislatures are going to do this year. And the legislatures are in special session as we speak tonight and we don't know what tax system we're going to have for next year. There's discussions at the legislation that they would look to funding schools through commercial and cabin tax. So that would create basically a 40% reduction in all our TIF districts. Not just our downtown. And there's been a couple of solutions to that issue to make a grant again where cities would have to apply for those monies. There's been numbers thrown around from anywhere from 180 to 240 million dollars that every city that had a tax increment district would access that money. There's been discussions that each city would be able to levy a special tax against businesses within their community that benefited from the TIF, and that you would, anybody that would have a private redevelopment agreement, you would levy a tax against those individuals to solve any shortfalls you might have in your TIF districts. So those are two solutions that I've read in League of Minnesota Bulletin. So right now I really can't give you an answer but as we start our 2002 budget process, we're really dependent upon what the legislatures do as a part of their special session before we can really sit down and discuss what revenues or expenditures we can have for next year. There's been discussions of us losing our HACA. I mean that's $800,000 right off the top that we would have to levy back against our community or try to find or eliminate programs to make up that shortfall. So until our state legislatures complete their session, there's really nothing else I can add but just to let you know that it's watch your League bulletins and read the paper to try to stay up with what's going on over in St. Paul. Mayor Jansen: Thank you for the update. Appreciate it. City Council Meeting - June 11,2001 Todd Gerhardt: Sure. Mayor Jansen: Mr. Gerhardt and Mr. DeJong and I were discussing last week the timing for getting our budget discussions started and as Mr. Gerhardt was just saying, until the legislature really gets done with their session, we're not going to know what our revenues are going to be or what situations we have to deal with but staff typically starts their preliminary budget discussions the end of this month. So our conversation was that in the next work session staff will begin reviewing with us the basics of our budgeting process so that we all at least get up to speed on municipal budgeting. Where we are currently so that as we're getting this information from the legislature and staff's getting up to speed on how it's going to affect our revenues, we can then get on board with what some of the changes are. So Bruce will be giving us the basics and then they'll try to get themselves up to speed on what all of the changes will be and how that impacts us. So over the next, I think we blocked out the next 3 work sessions were primarily budget and finance focus so that we can get up to speed and at least give staff some direction. It's going to be difficult until we really get our arms around what the legislature's doing. The other issue then to come up was in the community leaders meeting, which involves the county, the school district and each of the municipalities. That conversation was coming and generated from Carver, the Carver Administrator who was noting that these major increases in how our funding is going to be impacted is an issue that's going to impact all of us so if we can bring a consultant in to help with the guidance as to what the legislative impacts are going to be, we can all split those costs and get up to speed on school district and county and how it's going to really affect the entire picture for our taxpayers. But Mr. Gerhardt and Mr. DeJong are going to get together with Dave Porkorny who's actually organizing that and see what those discussions are and whether or not that makes sense for everyone to really be pulling together and figure out these financial impacts and what the affect's going to be. Todd Gerhardt: My only concern in that whole process is, I mean the school district's system is going to be just completely different than a county or a city and the county is going to be somewhat similar to a city but if their funding source is going to come from industrial and cabins, they're pretty much set. They have a per pupil revenue base is how they basically fund their's. Their biggest concern is how the market rate referendums will play as a part of this. And from what I've read, they are to stay in place. So those would be any facility fundings would continue to be referendums and be funded locally. And the per pupil funding would come from the state and the funding mechanism for that would come from industrial and cabins. Mayor Jansen: Yeah, and more the intent will be that we're able to at least provide some sort of joint communication out to our taxpayers because of all the major shifts that are going to be occurring. And so that communication can get out there as well doing our budgeting and the revenues are being affected so we'll keep you posted. I guess mainly we wanted to touch base and say obviously as a staff and as a council we're aware of the TIF issue. It's something that's been being tracked for a lengthy time now. And staff has several options that were already proposed a year ago, but at this point everything really has to stay at a standstill until we get that legislative direction from the state. And then we'll get back to the table and focus in on what all our options are. With that, that's all that's on the agenda. Does anyone have any other council discussion? Councilman Peterson: Todd, do you know how many council applications we've gotten so far? Todd Gerhardt: The last I heard there was one application. Councilman Peterson: That's a good sign. That will make our decision a lot easier, I'll tell you that. City Council Meeting - June 11,2001 Todd Gerhardt: But it just came out in the paper last Thursday. I know there's been several people that have received applications so if you remember they do take a time to fill out and school just ending and things like that. Mayor Jansen: I think of the 23 applications we got the last time, 14 of them came in afternoon on the last day to get applications in so we may see something similar but we'll see. Todd Gerhardt: And staff did send a letter to each of those applicants letting them know that we were re- applying or looking for applicants so. If I could update the council on the citizen survey. I did talk with Bill Morris from Decision Resources. He has 100 surveys, what he calls in the can. So that means completed surveys. They're taking approximately an hour apiece to go through the 140 questions. He has scheduled another 150 interviews with residents so that's roughly about 60% of the people will be interviewed here within the next 2 weeks. And he is expecting to be completed by July 11th is the date he gave me. It's going kind of slow. We have a busy group of people out here is what he said and so it's taking almost 2 weeks to schedule some of these people from when the first call is made. But they are very responsive to the survey. However they are taking almost an hour and that's longer. They were anticipating 40 minutes. But he was going to get back to me to confirm the 11th date but he felt very comfortable with that. I think that's a little longer than what the council had previously thought and the only thing he could come back to me with is, is that the surveys are taking a little longer and that he had to schedule them out farther into the future so. Mayor Jansen: Did he give you an idea when he said July 11th, was that for him to compile the surveys or to just complete getting them done because I thought he had said it would take another month to actually compile and then report back. Todd Gerhardt: I didn't ask. Mayor Jansen: If you'd confirm that with him. Just so we know when to anticipate those results. I had emphasized to Mr. Gerhardt that I know that there are council members who will very much appreciate having the survey results prior to going into budget discussions, or at least shortly after staff has begun the preliminaries so at least we can get some sort of resident feedback. That this is looking tricky with staff doing the preliminaries. Depending on the legislature. Todd Gerhardt: Right. I've got to believe he's just going to complete all the surveys. I mean he's going to be a little bit halfway done by the end of next week, and it's taking him this long. It's going to take him to July 11th to complete the surveys and I didn't even ask the question of when he would compile the information. I asked him if he would do a summary of what he had and he said no. He waits until they're all in because it won't mean anything to do a partial. Mayor Jansen: Let's see if we can't maybe pursue him to be ready for our council meeting on the 23rd of July. Maybe if we give him a deadline to try to get that compiled, since now it's at least a good month later than we had anticipated but they did get started a little bit later. Let's shoot for that if we could instead of pushing it into August. Thanks for the update. Todd Gerhardt: You bet. Mayor Jansen: Anything else? City Council Meeting - June 11,2001 Todd Gerhardt: Nope, that's it. I got a couple of complaints that I'll talk with the individual council members that they received e-mails on later. Mayor Jansen: Alright, great. Anything else council? Motion to adjourn. Councilman Peterson moved, Councilman Labatt seconded to adjourn the City Council meeting. voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously. The meeting was adjourned at 7:30 p.m. Submitted by Todd Gerhardt Acting City Manager Prepared by Nann Opheim All 10