CC Minutes 2002 03 11CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL
REGULAR MEETING
MARCH 11, 2002
Mayor Jansen called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. The meeting was opened with the Pledge to
the Flag.
COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT: Mayor Jansen, Councilman Boyle, Councilman Ayotte, and
Councilman Peterson. Councilman Labatt arrived during visitor presentations.
STAFF PRESENT: Todd Gerhardt, Roger Knutson, Kate Aanenson, Teresa Burgess, and Todd Hofknan
PUBLIC PRESENT FOR ALL ITEMS:
Robert Generous 3906 Aldrich Avenue No.
Aaron Watkins 3906 Aldrich Avenue No.
Deb Lloyd 7302 Laredo Drive
Janet Paulsen 7305 Laredo Drive
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: None.
CONSENT AGENDA: Councilman Peterson moved, Councilman Boyle seconded to approve the
following consent agenda items pursuant to the City Manager's recommendations:
a. Approve Amendment to Chapter 19 of City Code Concerning Water Meters and Establishing
Penalties for Non-Compliance.
c. Resolution #2002-27: Approval of Engineering Fee Adjustment - PW030A.
d. Approval of Public Gathering Permit, INT Waterski Tournament, June 1-2, Lake Susan Park.
e. Approval of Bills.
f. Approval of Minutes:
-City Council Work Session Minutes dated February 25, 2002
-City Council Minutes dated February 25, 2002
Receive Commission Minutes:
-Planning Commission Minutes dated February 19, 2002
g. Request for Variance Extension, 220 West 78th Street, Jack & Paula Atkins.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously 4 to 0.
VISITOR PRESENTATIONS:
Debbie Lloyd: Debbie Lloyd, 7302 Laredo Drive. Good evening. I'm not really prepared for this. I just
wanted to mention at a Planning Commission meeting, probably 2 meetings ago. You weren't there Kate.
The issue came up about private streets and there was a resident who voiced her opinion that the city does
City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
not go out and monitor compliance with building of private streets, and this really like alarmed me.
Because we have many specifications relative to private streets. What ton grade they must be built to, but
we don't have anyone enforcing that. And I'm wondering if the city is going to be looking at enforcement
of regulations such as private streets.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, thanks for bringing that up. I typically wouldn't put staff on the spot to have them
answer the question this evening. I don't know if you would be prepared to this evening Teresa.
Teresa Burgess: Certainly. It's an issue that unfortunately we've had to deal with quite a bit. Private
drives are treated like driveways in a lot of ways, except for they do have some additional requirements to
meet the 7 ton and width requirements. To ensure that without having to do an undue burden on staff time,
what we do is we require that they submit design to the city for review and approval. Those plans are
actually approved through the City Council process when they come through for planning but again they're
reviewed at the construction time by the engineering department to make sure that they meet those
standards that are laid out, both in the development contract and city ordinance. Then at the end of
construction the developer is required to submit as-built plans. As-built plans are documents of what was
actually constructed. They take the actual bid documents and make notes on them as they construct. Just
as the original plans are required to be certified by a licensed engineer, the as-built drawings are required to
be certified by an engineer. That is standard practice for all of our private drives. It is also the practice
that we use on a number of our public improvement projects where we have an engineer will certify the as-
built drawings and a city employee does not stand out and watch the entire construction. It is that
consultant engineer's responsibility. When they sign those plans they are putting their license on there
saying that to the best of their knowledge this is what was constructed and they are liable for that decision
and for that statement. In this case the developer feels that he did construct, I believe you're talking about
Mrs. Hegeman's driveway. In this case the developer contends that he did construct a 7 ton driveway and
that he did submit as-builts. The as-builts are, do show meeting a 7 ton driveway. The property owner
contends that it is not a 7 ton driveway and based on legal counsel we have brought it to the attention of the
developer and at this point it is now a civil matter between the developer and the property owner. The city
does try to stay out of those issues and allow the property owners to deal with them in a much less
complicated manner and bureaucratic manner.
Mayor Jansen: Okay so, without getting specific to that instance, you do find that the review process that
we have currently through the engineer doing the, evaluating the as-built plans, that that's proper
enforcement on that part of a project? Is that what I'm hearing you say?
Teresa Burgess: That is standard practice and it's what we do on our own projects. The engineer is
responsible for what they put down there and they are falsifying documents if they put down something that
is not correct and that is something that is punishable by removal of your license, which is removal of your
livelihood. So most engineers do take that very seriously.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. Does that answer your question Debbie?
Debbie Lloyd: It does and it doesn't. I guess I thought the city would monitor that like they do with other
housing construction. Like when I had a metal railing replaced in my house, they made sure that the wood
railing was x number of inches apart, and I would think, I would have thought that we would be looking at
road construction diligently as we do a railing in a home, so that surprised me when I heard it.
City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
Mayor Jansen: What I'm hearing is two different types of inspection. One, with a certified engineer that's
actually putting their license on the line. And one with an actual housing inspector, but if you have more
questions that you would like to pose to Teresa to get a better feel for that, certainly do.
Debbie Lloyd: Okay, thank you.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you. Is there anyone else with anything that you'd like to discuss with the council
this evening that's not on the agenda? Seeing no one, we'll close visitor presentations and go onto the
public hearings.
PUBLIC HEARING: FEASIBILITY STUDY FOR 2002 RESIDENTIAL STREET
IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS 01-10.
Public Present:
Name Address
Roger Johnson
Tom Steinkamp
Joe Schimmel
John Riley
Duane Anderson
Daniel Sissel
Bob Gunderson
Jim & Amber Bullington
Steve Lillehaug
Peter & Connie Ackman
Richard Saffrin
Bob Florek
Tom Furlong
Steve Slyce
Janet & Mark Prchal
1841 Wood Duck Lane
1771 Pheasant Circle
1751 Pheasant Circle
1750 Pheasant Circle
1750 Ringneck Drive
1710 Teal Circle
1690 Wood Duck Lane
6430 White Dove Drive
1441 Heron Drive
6431 White Dove Drive
1661 Wood Duck Lane
1641 Wood Duck Lane
1841 Ringneck Drive
6511 White Dove Circle
6410 White Dove Drive
Teresa Burgess: Thank you Madam Mayor. This evening is the time that has been set for the public
hearing for the 2002 Residential Street Improvement Project, City Project 01-10. This project considered
several neighborhoods. However Pheasant Hills is the one that is recommended for improvement. 15
streets in the Pheasant Hills neighborhood are proposed for improvement. Teal Circle, Wood Duck Lane,
Ringneck Drive, Pheasant Drive, White Dove Drive, Lake Lucy Lane, Melody Hill Road, Steller Circle,
Pintail Circle, Wood Duck Circle, Pheasant Circle, Partridge Circle, White Dove Circle, White Tail Ridge
Court and Moline Circle. All are proposed for rehabilitation work. Four other neighborhoods were
considered as part of this feasibility study. The feasibility study recommends continued maintenance on
those streets instead of rehabilitation at this time, mainly due to budgetary constraints. One of the
questions a lot of people ask is why, how are these streets selected for this project. This graph shows a
typical road deterioration. The curve is based on actual experience within the city of Chanhassen. This is
actually our MSA street curve. Our residential street curve is, because of the variation and ages on our
streets and the conditions under which they were constructed, we don't get a clear cut curve. This is more
of a classical deterioration curve for a roadway. PCI is the Pavement Condition Index. This number is
assigned by the computer based on a pavement survey by a field inspector. The city had all of the roads
City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
inspected in 2001 by a consultant so the information would be consistent throughout the city. The PCI's
used to rank and prioritize the road projects. The computer then recommends roads for improvements
based on the available data. A PCI of 75 is the typical point for recommending a rehabilitation project. A
typical rehabilitation project would include mill and overlay and minor sub-grade and/or curb and gutter
improvements in spot locations, storm drain improvements, manhole improvements. The rehabilitated road
would return to a PCI of 100 or brand new condition. A PCI of 55 is a typical point for recommending a
reconstruction project. However, a reconstruction project is usually not instigated at 55, seeing as the cost
for rehabilitation is the same regardless of whether that project is a 55 PCI or 35 PCI. So for that reason
most rehabilitation projects are allowed to go a little bit longer and squeeze every ounce of life we can out
of that project. Instead prioritization is given to 75 PCI's and above, keeping those roads in new or like
new condition since it is substantially less expensive. So why are we talking about it right now on these
streets? As streets age the cost to maintain them increases. The city's costs increase as well as the
taxpayers cost. At a certain point it becomes more cost effective to rehabilitate a reconstruct than to
continue to maintain the street. Rehabilitation is less expensive than reconstruction and less destructive to
the neighborhood. Since many of Chanhassen's streets are in relatively good condition and especially these
streets do fit the, almost stereotypical type of condition that you would be looking for. The city can do
rehabilitation projects and avoid reconstruction, except in the cases where the road does not meet city
standards. All of these roads do meet city standards except for the case where some of the roads do not
have curb and gutter. But that is within city standard. The sub-grade problems, similar to the ones that we
saw on Audubon Road when we considered the MSA improvements. A road that is left too long and sub-
grade deterioration begins, or utility work and cuts cause sub-grade damage. This project is proposed to be
funded through a combination of city funds and property owner funds. 60 percent of the funds are coming
from the general fund, 40 percent of the costs are coming from the abutting property owners, which is why
this project was limited in size. We originally considered the 5 neighborhoods which was in excess of a
couple million dollars and we do not have the funds to cover our share of the project. Alternatives that
were considered. The city did consider waiting on these projects further. Delaying the improvements would
only lead to a delay in the project and also may lead to increased costs both through increased inflation and
also through the increased cost because it would be a more intensive project and cause more disruption to
the neighborhood. The other alternative that was considered was to continue the city's current and past
practice of increased maintenance which leads to increased costs directly impacting the general fund levy
and eventually will become cost prohibitive. The assessments that are proposed on this project are
$1,939.17 per parcel. That is an estimate at this time, but that is based on cost estimates done by our
consultant engineer of the project costs. Spreading that out over 8 years at 6.5% interest, which is the
recommendation of staff to council as they consider this assessment roll. This chart shows what that
payment would be per year for those properties. You can see that it starts out at $368.44 tapering down to
$258.12 in the eighth year when it is fully paid off. Property owners do have the option of paying the entire
assessment at once, or coming in at any time and paying the remaining principle at any time during the
project. With that I do have a couple of pictures because I know it's a hard time of year to go out and look
at the streets and I'm not sure how well these will come across on the screen. Here's the neighborhood.
Pheasant Hills Park. And you can see, now I can reach. Okay. Picture number 3 which is the first one I'll
show you is at this point in the area facing to the north. And it comes out pretty good. And you can see
that there is some radial cracking. You can also see a little bit of settlement in those areas. There's some
seams there that are, that have been cracked sealed. As you can see this neighborhood in this section does
not have curb and gutter. The next picture is at this point right here facing to the east. And again you can
see the cracking in the roadway. As it goes around this area it does have the roll over curb. The next
picture is right here facing to the north. Again they have curb and gutter. It's a roll over type curb and you
can see that there's been, there's pooling happening right here. You can see that this catch basin needs a
little bit of clean-up around it. And then we also have this lip of asphalt. That would all be milled out
City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
along this edge so we don't end up with a big lip right at the curb line. Next picture is facing south from
this point and we're looking again at this little cul-de-sac. And here you can see that it has been sealcoated
recently, and that sealcoat is covering up a lot of that cracking that's underneath here and the patching
that's been done by the city crews. This is Teal Circle. That's the next one. And you can see some of that
around the edge of the cul-de-sac you see the cracking up in here. And then you can also see we're having
pooling right here where the water is standing long enough to drop out the dirt and the sand. Pintail Circle.
And again you can see cracking. Wood Duck Circle. And I know this gets a little tedious if it's not in
front of your house but I just want to show that we do have cracking out there. We do have patching. You
can see it coming through the sealcoat and again up in here. Right here at the intersection of Pheasant, and
you can see the sealcoat has run in. Here's, it looks like it's probably...but you can see that there's been
some problem areas in this area and that valley gutter is starting to break up. Keep in mind this is just
representative. This is not all of the pictures. We didn't just take the bad spots. This spot right here, and
again you can see the cracking. So it is fairly consistent throughout the neighborhood. It's not just one
spot or trying to look at only the bad spots. This picture right here and again you can see the cracking right
here. Some random cracking happening throughout. And final picture. I'm sorry, I've got two left. This
one's White Tail Ridge. White Tail Ridge does not have curb and gutter again. It has a manhole here that
has settled slightly. You can see cracking back in here. This is actually shadows that are falling that are
causing that but you can see some potholes that have happened in the back. And the final one, right here on
the curve, and you can see the patching showing through the sealcoat areas. So with that I'll answer any
questions before it opens up to the public hearing.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, thank you Teresa. Any questions council for staff?
Councilman Peterson: A couple Teresa. You talked about the PCI ratings. Do you rate an area like
Pheasant Hill Park or do you rate each road within that development?
Teresa Burgess: The roads are actually rated in segments so they're much shorter. Approximately one
block segments are rated so the width of the road and one block long. The city then takes those ratings.
The computer spits out at us a program. We group them together into projects and we wait until a
neighborhood has enough of those that fall into that rating that it's worth doing that neighborhood, so we
do have sections of street in town that are worst, but to have a contractor pop around town and do those
little pieces is cost prohibitive. They would charge us for every time they moved to a new site. And it is
one block segments.
Councilman Peterson: So does that mean that we have a PCI rating, just as kind of a gate? You know
what Pheasant Hill has for a rating and what Utica Lane has for a rating.
Teresa Burgess: We would be able to calculate that information, but it would be in one block segments
and so we would have to go through and pick that out. But the computer did spit out this neighborhood as
to be considered. That's just the first step. At that point then we initiate a feasibility study to decide if the
computer's right or not because the computer doesn't take into account some of the common sense things.
It only does what it's told. And the feasibility study is the one that actually came up with this
neighborhood being cost effective and appropriate.
Councilman Peterson: So, am I putting words in your mouth by saying that Area 1 is definitely get a lower
PCI rating than Area 2 or Area 4?
City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
Teresa Burgess: No. No, it's not. Pheasant Hills comes in as being cost effective, and some of the other
areas do have worst PCI's. Specific one that comes to mind first is the Koehnen's area. That area is a full
depth reconstruct though, and as I talked about, you know you can squeeze a couple extra years of life out
of it and because of budgetary constraints we are opting to do that and recommending that to the council.
We could not afford to do Koehnen's this year based on the budget we have available.
Councilman Peterson: So it's below 50 is what you're saying? That area.
Teresa Burgess: That area is very bad, and it has watermain problems.
Councilman Peterson: Yeah, okay. Thank you.
Mayor Jansen: Any other questions?
Councilman Ayotte: To play it back to you then. The feasibility study would validate the population
we've identified for repaired?
Teresa Burgess: Correct. The feasibility study goes through and determines if it's technically and
economically a good idea. The computer just gives us a place to start.
Councilman Ayotte: I understand. And so what we would be voting on this evening would simply be to
conduct the study to validate the population.
Teresa Burgess: The study is completed. This evening you are hearing the public hearing. We've
received it and following the public hearing you adopt the feasibility study.
Councilman Ayotte: So does the feasibility study validate all of these?
Teresa Burgess: Correct, it does.
Councilman Ayotte: Okay. And is the 8 years that you programmed on that chart. I didn't see that chart
in here but.
Teresa Burgess: It's not in there. That would be a staff recommendation for how we would spread out
the assessment.
Councilman Ayotte: Would you see any forgiveness on the 8 years to go to 9 or 7 or are there any pro's
and con's to affecting the period of performance?
Teresa Burgess: The period of performance is actually set by council. Staff recommendation is 8 years
based on the amount of time that we actually bond out these projects, and the 6.5% interest is to cover the
cost that the city incurs. We actually have to borrow the money in the time.
Councilman Ayotte: So we would be at risk on a ninth year?
Teresa Burgess: That is something that Bruce DeJong would have to answer. That's a financial issue
that he handles that and he would make the recommendation if we were to go with a longer or shorter
period, but 8 years if our pretty standard recommendation. And if you look at the dollar, and I realize you
City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
don't have it in front of you. The dollar amounts are very reasonable and so to go with a ninth year is
going to make a negligible difference in the payments that the property owners see.
Councilman Ayotte: And there probably would be risk.
Teresa Burgess: And there's definitely risk. 8 years causes risk but it seems like a reasonable risk. The
one thing that we can do, that we've done in the past is consider individual property owners situations. If
there is somebody that cannot afford the $200 and whatever a month, or year. I'm sorry, not month. We
would work with them to see what we can do, but we do have to stay within the guidelines of the state
statute regarding all of the assessment policies.
Councilman Ayotte: I'll use the term band-aid. That's the wrong word but I can't think of another one but
the sealcoating that we've done to extend life, could you react to that? I mean to me that probably was
more expensive than it needed to be in terms of, because part of that will probably be wasted because of the
fact that the roads are going further down or do you think.
Teresa Burgess: No. Sealcoat is a good analogy is paint on your house. Forget the paint and you can bet
the siding will go a lot faster. It won't protect your siding forever but sealcoat protects the pavement from
oxidation from the weather, from the sun. It's a protectant. It's like wearing sunscreen or putting paint on
your house. It's not going to protect it completely. It's not going to stop decay of the roadway surface but
it slows it down, and that's why we continue to do sealcoats. They are an effective manner. They only go
so far. They provide no structural stability to the roadway and we've reached that point we need to do that.
Councilman Ayotte: Another sealcoating wouldn't do us any good, correct?
Teresa Burgess: Another sealcoat is just going to cover up the problem areas. We're kidding ourselves if
we sealcoat it.
Councilman Ayotte: Thanks a lot.
Mayor Jansen: Anything else?
Councilman Ayotte: No ma'am.
Councilman Boyle: Teresa, just one. Would the property owner have the option of paying the assessment
up front rather than the 8 year?
Teresa Burgess: Yes. The property owner can pay the 100 percent up front. We usually allow a 30 to
60 days. In this case they will have longer because we're proposing to do the assessment hearing very early
in the year and they need to come in prior to it being certified to the tax roll in the fall, but they can pay it
off without interest. They can also come in at any time during the time it is on their income tax. Not their
income, their property taxes, and pay off the remaining principal so if 2-3 years from now they find that
they want to pay it off, they can do that.
Councilman Boyle: Thank you. No more.
Mayor Jansen: Anything else? Okay. With that I will open this up for the public hearing, and if we could
maybe follow a little bit of a structure. We do have a list of the different streets that are involved in this
City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
project and as you heard there's about 15 of them, so I will call off the name of the street and if you're here
to speak to that particular project, if you could come up at that time so that we can at least organize
everyone's comments together, we would appreciate it. And if you can hold your comments to 5 minutes a
piece as a maximum, we would appreciate it. Though definitely get your statements made. So with that if
we could start with Teal Circle. If there's anyone here who would like to speak to the Teal Circle project,
please come forward. And if you'll state your name and address for the record please.
Dan Sissel: My name is Dan Sissel, 1710 Teal Circle. I guess I have some questions first of all. Do you
actually have what the rating was at this point?
Teresa Burgess: I don't have it with me. We would be able to produce that from our computer system.
At this point we're, we've done the feasibility study and so the rating.
Dan Sissel: Goes out the window?
Teresa Burgess: Yeah.
Dan Sissel: Okay. From that standpoint, what is the age based upon what you showed on the graph, it
should be out 20 years, correct? For normal.
Teresa Burgess: What you expect is 15 to 20 years. The average life, the average age of these roads is
16 years. We have some that are 15, some that are 17. We are starting to experience cracking. We are
starting to experience potholes, and so they are a little bit earlier than we'd like to see them but it's not
unusual to see roads in this age.
Dan Sissel: Okay so, and then the assessment overall, it fits the budget plan is what we're really saying.
This was one of the few projects that fit the budget plan. The others were maybe more severe but this one,
they were more expensive as well and that didn't fit the budget, is that correct?
Teresa Burgess: This one, we had a certain amount available for our 60 percent, but in addition to that
we were looking to share 60/40. That was direction from council. Some of the other ones have much
higher assessments on them as well, as the city share being higher. And they didn't come out as being quite
as feasible when you looked at people paying $7,000 versus 2.
Dan Sissel: Okay. As far as the one, I just wanted some understanding from that perspective but the one
comment that I'd like to make, I'm a bike rider. I ride a lot of this area. Those roads are comparably very
good, compared to a lot of other areas. So I'm just kind of trying to get a feel for age. The deterioration
from that perspective. I don't find those roads, you know from a vehicle perspective you really can't tell
but from a bike and running and that, you can tell a lot. I'd just really like to question why that particular
area that when you compare it to others doesn't seem that bad in comparison. The pictures that you
showed, Teal Circle is one that you pointed out. Not a real issue I would say. The standing water that is
there is very minor compared to what you see in a lot of other areas so just trying to get a clarification for
that.
Teresa Burgess: Sure. If you catch roads when they're in the state that this neighborhood is in right now,
you can do what is termed a rehabilitation. A mill and overlay type project. We come in. We don't need
to take the road down full depth. We only take it down an inch or so. We do some repair work and we dig
out those problem areas and by doing that it's substantially cheaper. To do a full depth reconstruction
City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
where you go down about 2 or 3 feet and build back up from that point, it costs 2 to 3 times more. If you
have to do watermain, you're looking at substantially more than that. And by catching the roads now, you
only get about 30 years out of a reconstruct and that 30 years assumes that you're going to do every 20
years you're going to do this mill and overlay type project. You get a 20 year out of the mill and overlay
project. 15 to 20. So it's more cost effective over the life of the road to do these projects periodically. If
you wait until the road looks bad, it's too late. Very similar to what they'll tell you. You know doctors tell
you that about thirst. If you wait til you're thirsty, it's too late. If you wait til the road looks bad, it's too
late to do a rehabilitation. You're really into reconstruction and you let it go for a while.
Mayor Jansen: Okay.
Teresa Burgess: ...to the point where we will let them go until they are reconstruction. The other ones we
will try to catch and bring back through rehabilitation. We have a lot of roads that are in that classification
of rehabilitation.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. Is there anyone else who would like to speak to the Teal Circle project? Seeing no
one, I'll move on to the Wood Duck Lane.
Bob Gunderson: Good evening. My name is Bob Gunderson. I live at 1690 Wood Duck Lane and quite
frankly I think the roads that we are traveling on in fairly good repair. As my neighbor has expressed in
terms of bike riding, it's actually very smooth and very accommodating for the bike ride. In fact my
driveway is more of a disrepair and I'm not going to restructure my driveway because of that, but I would
also contend that there are roads that are in the neighboring area, on the intersection of Yosemite and 63rd
Avenue is in really dire repair for a road, massive road construction and that's, I would, in my estimation is
a lot more severe than what we're seeing on the Pheasant Hill area. Thanks.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you. Anyone else on the Wood Duck Lane project?
Rick Saffrin: My name is Rick Saffrin, 1661 Wood Duck Lane. Few comments. One, the, I have a
relative who's a civil engineer with the State of Wisconsin was visiting a few weeks ago when there was
nothing on, there wasn't any snow or ice, and was fairly shocked when I showed him the numbers and
expectation. Which he brought up the question of the amount of money and whether or not it made sense
considering the whole city and the various projects which got me thinking and I called a couple of people.
Long term residents of both Bloomington and Burnsville and one is 25 years, one is 27 years. Neither one
of them had ever had assessments. Total assessments of over $200. Wondering how in Chanhassen it
could be you know, 10 times that figure. $2,000 assessment. One of the areas, one of the neighborhoods
that has fairly small amount of seemingly construction work as compared to other areas. The 60/40 split,
I'm wondering how the council came up with that split. If I could ask that question.
Mayor Jansen: We were actually presented a survey of, how many communities did you actually pull
together?
Teresa Burgess: We actually presented 25 to the council. We've received a couple more since that and
we went with 60/40 based on a typical assessment. We took a couple of the projects that we were looking
at this year and looked at what the impact to property owners would be at a 60/40 split. We then had
prepared our proposed 60/40 to what other communities were doing. We are, there really isn't a good
standard across the community but looking at it, we fell about in the middle. We looked at assessments of
10, 15, 20, 25, all the way up to 70 percent and looking at that we came to a 60/40 split being the one that
City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
fit well with Chanhassen's desire to do the roads, share in the cost, take our fair share, but at the same time
try to keep our property taxes low. And this was the balancing point.
Rick Saffrin: It seems as though, as this has been described to us, that the 60 percent fits the amount of
budget that was available and this project fit the 60 percent that was available as compared to all the
projects. Pretty hard to understand the logic of spending this money on a neighborhood that has some slight
problems as compared to many neighborhoods within Chanhassen that have severe problems. Why aren't
we spending the money on those areas that have the severe problems? It would seem that that would make
more sense.
Teresa Burgess: As I stated earlier, those roads that are already in disrepair, that have reached that point.
Audubon is a perfect example south of Lake. That section of road has gotten bad enough. 63rd I think was
brought up. That one was considered in this project. It's gotten bad enough that it has to be fully
reconstructed. It will cost us the same to fully reconstruct that project this year as it will in 5 years. Now
we'll try to hold it together as long as possible and we'll full depth reconstruct it, but if we allow this street
to go for 5 or 10 years instead of that street, this street will require full depth reconstruction in 5 to 10
years. By doing this project we avoid that situation and when you look at it from a financial standpoint,
there's more bang for the buck in doing this project than there is in doing the other one because it is
something that has gone too far.
Rick Saffrin: Again, it's very difficult to follow that logic considering the projects that are obviously where
you've got streets that are falling apart. That we wouldn't spend the money there to do the full
reconstruction.
Mayor Jansen: And actually if I might interrupt for just a minute, and I'll also address that. I realize that
this is an emotional issue for everyone but it's also a meeting and I'm going to ask that in order for
everyone to feel comfortable stepping forward and being able to speak this evening, that if we can keep the
audience rumblings to minimal, if not non-existent, we would very much appreciate it. We want this to be
a comfortable environment for everyone to be able to get up and speak and certainly address us with your
questions. That's what we're here for is to try to explain. Now I think you're potentially misinterpreting
when staff is saying that it fits the budget. We do have a certain amount that was budgeted towards streets
and budgeted towards these types of projects. Your's wasn't selected specifically because, and the 60/40
split was not driven by that budget amount. There are projects here that we're not looking at because there
isn't the money to go forward with them. Staff in going forward with your project has said to all of us here
this evening that if we delay your's another 5 years, you're looking at 2 to 3 times the expense to do a full
reconstruction. So I'm hearing a little bit of pain now saves more pain if it's extended out and you do it
later. So we're walking a fine line trying to determine at what point we in fact do these projects. We're not
trying to do them prematurely because we obviously have a stake in it also as to the investment that we're
making, and we have a significant number of streets in the community that have to be addressed. It's
computerized at this point to try to help with the priorities on the streets to be sure that we are designating
the projects that it will be the most cost effective to do each year and that is where this particular project
has risen to the top. It was not driven by a budget amount. It was not the assessment amount was not
driven by a budget amount. It was a proposal that came from studying 30 communities and trying to come
up with what would be a good standard for us to try to work with. One way or another it does end up
impacting all of us as to what we do end up paying for our streets.
Rick Saffrin: Well it impacts Pheasant Hills residents $2,000 a piece. It doesn't impact the council
members or other residents within Chanhassen.
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
Mayor Jansen: It will in fact though impact all of us living on a residential street. Everyone will have that
same level of participation as we move forward on our projects. Your's is this year and other projects are
going to follow and if you took a look in the packet, there's neighborhoods where it's even more of a
burden on those residents and we looked at projects a couple of weeks ago where we're doing total
reconstruction. It's a burden so I mean we certainly understand and we're all looking at it from that
perspective. It's each and every one of our residents that are having to participate in the reconstruction and
maintenance of the roadways.
Rick Saffrin: Again my final point, and I do thank you for the opportunity to be able to speak here. But as
a number of residents as they read the feasibility study just struggled with finding enough logic to have this
make sense. Thank you.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. Well thank you. Anyone else who would like to speak to the Wood Duck Lane
project? Seeing no one, we'll move onto the Ringneck Drive.
Tom Furlong: Good evening.
Mayor Jansen: Good evening.
Tom Furlong: I'm Tom Furlong. I live at 1841 Ringneck Drive. I'm here to speak against the proposed
pavement reclamation and repavement. As a few of my neighbors have mentioned earlier, this work just
simply does not need to be done and in my opinion should not be a priority that it's been made. You heard
from a biker earlier this evening. There are no sidewalks in the neighborhood, which you saw from the
pictures so the streets serve for pedestrian and bicycle traffic. There's significant number of families and
children that walk and ride on the streets going to and from Pheasant Hills Park and it simply is not a
dangerous situation because of cracks or potholes. Speed of the cars, we can talk about that another night
but with regard to the quality of the road itself, there just simply isn't the visual problem. One of the things
that impressed me as I looked through the feasibility study was the descriptions of the problems in the 4
neighborhoods listed. It just didn't seem to measure up from a comparability standard. The Pheasant Hills
neighborhood was the only neighborhood listed in the feasibility study that actually had it's roads in
compliance with city standards with regard to width and strength. That wasn't the case for the Koehnen
Circle, West 63rd, or the Utica Lane group. Also the Koehnen Circle requires a watermain and sanitary
utility improvements that just simply isn't here. It also mentioned, which I thought was interesting, that
there was random cracking which we saw in some of those pictures that were put up here as well. What
was interesting is Pheasant Hills was described as random cracking. Koehnen Circle was described as
extensive cracking. Random cracking. And there was significant random cracking with Utica Lane. I
don't know what's the difference between extensive and significant but no adjective was used for Pheasant
Hills and so that tells me a little bit that this area probably doesn't have the need. It also talked about curb
and gutter replacement, and we saw a couple pictures there in this representative, and it mentioned that
there was 5 percent likely that would be replaced. To me when I think about problems I don't think 5
percent as being a problem level with something that needs to be addressed. It just doesn't reach the level
in my opinion of a problem. The case for urgency, the necessity of repairs, we've heard a little bit more
tonight than what was in the feasibility study which is helpful. I noticed that the feasibility plan did speak
to project areas as we heard tonight as opposed to problem areas, so I think as we think about how our tax
dollars are going to be spent, whether we happen to be residents in the specific neighborhood that's being
addressed or just plain city residents, where do we want our tax money spent? Do we want it addressing
problems or do we want it addressing projects? And I personally believe that problems should be there. It
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mentioned that the stated goal was to have the pavement last for 20 years with normal maintenance and
improvements to improve the appearance of the neighborhood and to reduce special maintenance costs.
With regard to the statement of the remaining life, we heard tonight for the first time the average age was in
the 15 to 17 year range. As I glanced at the chart that was put up earlier, it looks like a 10 to 20 years is
the time period that roads generally fall within that 75 percent level which tells me that there's a few years
left to go before that this might be necessary. And become to the point that at that point before it starts
falling off, then go through with the reclamation because then you've gained the most value out of the use
of that road prior to it falling off and you get the best use of your tax dollars invested back into city streets.
With regard to improving the appearance of the neighborhood, I'll speak personally. It sounds like from
some of my neighbors that they would agree. I don't believe that this improvement or this project would
improve the look of the neighborhood materially. It just wouldn't. 5 percent of the curbs would look
better, but I don't think overall it would make sense to do it from an appearance standpoint. I have not
heard and did not see in the feasibility study any requirements for special maintenance costs. It didn't
sound like ceiling and crack repair, even though we can discuss when that makes sense to do, when it
doesn't, that to me seems to be more of a normal maintenance process as opposed to a major project such
as being proposed here. So I didn't hear or see in the plan how this project will eliminate or save on some
special maintenance costs associated with Pheasant Hills. And I guess in regard to the plan too, it seemed
like Pheasant Hills was selected not because it was in the worst condition, but because, and I'll quote, it has
line in costs with the available budget, end quote. And that was interesting to me. We talk about the level
of assessment there. $2,000 is a lot of money, even when you spread it out in manageable payments over 8
years. That is a lot of money. What is interesting, and I think it was mentioned a little bit earlier tonight,
that part of the quote feasibility in terms of selecting Pheasant Hills as opposed to Koehnen Circle, with
West 63rd or Utica, was the level of assessments that would be involved in those neighborhoods. And so
that leads me to wonder if feasibility is also what sort of dollar amounts can we place on our neighbors.
How is Pheasant Hills this year if it's approved absorb a 40 percent cost if there might not be the
intentional fortitude to apply that 40 percent when it's 2 or 3 times that much with a reclamation project in
another neighborhood. It talks about the feasibility plan allocation of cost and again with regard to the
assessment, it's looking to extend the life of the road for 20 years. 20 years to me is a long time and with
regard to trying to fund an improvement that will last for 20 years out of an operating budget, seems to me
to be a little mismanagement in terms of matching the cost of the investment and the source of those funds
with the use of those funds. To me budgeting normal maintenance, that makes sense. Maintenance is
something that has to happen and it may happen throughout the city in any given year, but for something
that's going to last for 20 years, a bonding or some long term financing would be a more appropriate way
in my opinion to fund that. Again, when we look at any assessment level it would seem to me that the
value of the property should increase by the amount that is being assessed and I guess I sit back and I look
at our neighborhood and the neighborhoods, many neighbors nearby but specifically with our
neighborhood, I can't see somebody willing to pay more for my house if I were to choose to sell simply
because the roads have been improved. Yet because of the luck of the time or the bad luck of the time that
I happen to be living in the property I pay the burden for that. I think there were some questions answered
here tonight that I had coming in and I appreciate that. I guess we talk a little bit about problem areas and
if these 4 neighborhoods were brought out by the computer as being the ones that these are the ones to look
at, and Pheasant Hills was recommended as the one to improve, I would say are these the 4 worst
neighborhoods that we have in terms of their streets? If Pheasant Hills is the case, we really don't have a
problem with our streets in this city. If it's not, then I would ask why are we spending our money here?
Why shouldn't we as taxpayers spend the money where the problem areas are? I'm curious if the Pheasant
Hills neighborhood has been maintained consistent with the rest of the city. And if it has, again, I don't
think we have problems with our streets. If it hasn't, then I would ask what has that done to accelerate
maybe some of the deterioration in the larger scope of the project and then is that 40 percent fair? The
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
question was asked of Councilman Ayotte with regard to whether or not sealcoating would make sense or
not and whether that would buy us some time. I think that's something I'd like to hear a little bit more
about. Again, if we're along that age curve of about, average age of 15 to 17 years, it sounds like we have
a few more years to go before we start falling off and at that time we can do that. Would sealcoating now
make some sense or should we just wait for 3 or 4 years until we get to that point where the neighborhood
requires it and where it's the last possible moment to spend that money before it falls off the proverbial
cliff. I guess finally from a recommendation standpoint, I think that it would make sense to continue to
maintain this neighborhood streets on a normal basis and not proceed with this project as proposed. With
regard to the funds, and obviously budget constraints are an issue, my recommendation would be to reserve
those funds for one of these other projects that needs it. Let's spend our money and even if we can't do
something this year, let's reserve those funds and apply it towards some budgeted money next year.
Double up the money and get some of these projects done that are really problem areas. Reduce the debt.
Fund other general expenses but let's spend our money wisely. I don't think that proceeding with the
Pheasant Hills area, even though it is quote, in line with the available budget, makes prudent and fiscal
sense for the city. Thank you. Appreciate your time.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you. Sure. Teresa, on the other two projects that you've moved out and noted in
our report as a year's worth of preparation, Koehnen Circle and Utica Lane. It's not as though we're not
going to do those projects, correct? Could you speak to that a little bit.
Teresa Burgess: No. They've been moved out to give us more time to work with that neighborhood.
Koehnen Circle is a perfect example. That neighborhood does not meet standards so it will require some
significant work with the neighborhood. We're going to need to widen the street to bring it up to standard.
When we do the reconstruct we'll definitely bring it up to strength standard. It also requires watermain and
sanitary sewer. This type of project is very disruptive to the neighborhood. It's going to mean that we will
be ripping out the street. In this neighborhood we'll be actually going down approximately 7 feet down
which means that people have difficulty getting in and out of their homes. It's going to require that the
road gets widen which is going to mean it's going to be coming closer to their homes. With that type of
impact we really need to work with that neighborhood and get them prepared for that and also to start to
talk about why are we doing this project so that they're understanding and prepared for it. The projects
that we're proposing tonight are projects that are not going to have that type of impact to the neighborhood.
People will still be able to get in and out of their homes during the entire project. The project will last in
front of their individual homes. The entire project will take longer but in front of their homes, we'll be in
front of their homes maybe a week to 2 weeks. And that will be stretched out but that's the time that they'll
see disruption. There will be pavement in front of their homes during the construction versus the Koehnen
Circle. They will have periods where they'll be on a gravel road and that is something that we need to
prepare them for and get them ready for that idea. Utica Circle again does not meet standards. We're
going to have to rebuild that from 2 or 3 feet down. Bring it up. Widen it out. Move the curbs out so
we're getting closer to people's homes again and we need to work with that neighborhood so that they have
some time to understand. It also is much more design intensive. The project that is proposed tonight is
relatively simple. We're not changing the alignment of the road. We're not changing the width. It's pretty
easy to draw up plans. The ones in Koehnen Circle and in Utica are going to require a lot more detail in
the plans because once the road is gone there's nothing for the contractor to come back in and just put, and
know where to put it. We're going to have to tell him exactly where that road was and where to put it back
at on paper and that's not easy to do. That has to be surveyed out. It's going to take a lot of time to do
that and then show enough information on a piece of paper so somebody could go back and say where it
was once the road is gone.
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Mayor Jansen: Okay. You've mentioned to us a couple of times how the maintenance costs in fact
escalate on us as we delay doing these projects. Could you speak to that a little bit for us.
Teresa Burgess: The City of Chanhassen does crack sealing and pot-holing on an as-needed basis. The
more crack sealing and pot-holing we do, the more materials we buy. It also translates into more staff time
because we are getting to a point where the snowball has not started to roll down the hill but it's getting
close. We have a lot of streets that are in this age group. We have a lot of streets that are a little bit older,
but a lot in this condition that really are on that 2 or 3 years time window when we can really catch these
and start to get them done. If we allow these streets to go, we are going to get to a point where we have
more projects than we as a city can afford. And I understand where people are talking about where you're
going to bond for these costs so it's not like it's just out of the budget, but at the same time you have to
remember we're going to pay back those bonds using general levy funds and we are tied to how much we
can bond by how much we can pay back, and how fast we can pay it back. It also has impacts on what
else can we do with our money and what other options do we have. People have to keep in mind we just
bonded for a 6 million dollar library. That's a huge, a huge thing to come up and to top on that, we could
very easily do a 10 million dollar project this year on roads. We have, when the computer spit out it's
program, that's what it did to us. It spit out, I don't remember the exact amount but multi million dollar
project. We have since had to trim back to say no, we can't do that. First of all we don't have the staff.
And second of all we don't have the budget for our share of the project. We can't pay back those bonds for
all one year because next year the computer will again spit out a multi million dollar project. We need to
spread those projects out so that we're not seeing a spike in our levy to the property owners to pay for the
city share of the project, and also because we don't have staff to cover all the projects.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, thank you. And when you're referring to the levy of course that's the amount that
all of the taxpayers. It's not really the city, it's all of the taxpayers and their dollars that are going to
support that other 60 percent that we're having to bond for.
Teresa Burgess: Correct.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. What was I on? Were we on Ringneck Drive? Anyone else on Ringneck Drive?
Okay. Seeing no one, Pheasant Drive. Anyone who'd like to speak to the Pheasant Drive project. Seeing
no one, I'll move onto the White Dove Drive. White Dove Drive?
Jim Bullington: Hi, my name is Jim Bullington. I live at 6430 White Dove Drive and I'm sure a bunch of
you have talked to me already. I went around and handed out pamphlets because the information was not
presented very well in the web site. It was hidden. One of the things about it is that, one of the things we
were talking about is we're talking about more taxes. Assessment is basically another tax on us and right
now we are one of the most taxed cities in the state and I'm wondering why we aren't spending the money,
or why is our taxes, why do not have enough money to go for paying for roads from our taxes as they stand
now. The other thing is that structurally, again these roads are up to structural strength. The rest of the
areas aren't up to structural strength and we should look at how we take care of those neighbors. How can
we make it so that we can bring those up to code. So our neighborhood, we don't need these improvements
to improve our property values, because right now these streets are very nice. I've walked every one of
these streets in this project. Talking to people. Looking at the streets. And honestly there's not many
problems with the streets. There are some that, I think everybody in the neighborhood understands that as
you're coming up Pheasant Drive there's a manhole cover that's an inch down and needs to be fixed. Now
that's obviously some work that needs to be done. One of the things you showed me was Lake Lucy Lane.
That comer. I agree with that. There is a spot where there's a sink hole in there, but it's a matter of those
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
are two areas that I can see how the entire amount. Random cracking does not contribute as far as I know
to degradation of the roads. Potholes I understand do contribute to it. Let's see. There's recently our
neighbors in Blue Jay Circle just had a busted watermain that flooded one of our neighbor's houses. I think
we should look at how we can maintain those streets and bring those streets and fix them up instead of
working on streets that really are in decent condition. Thanks.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you. Anyone else?
Peter Ackman: My name is Peter Ackman. I live at 6431 White Dove Drive. I guess my only comment is
that if I lived on a street that was in bad disrepair, I'd be pretty upset if I came to this neighborhood and
looked at the good condition of the roads and streets in this neighborhood and the council decided to fix this
neighborhood rather than fix my road which was in bad disrepair. I think the roads are in very good
condition. They meet code. Are structurally sound. We do not have heavy construction traffic or any
other heavy equipment traffic on those roads and I see no reason why they can't last us a few more years.
Thank you.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you. Anyone else on White Dove Drive? How about Lake Lucy Lane?
Pat Johnson: Good evening. My name is Pat Johnson and I live at 1730 Lake Lucy Lane. I was here
about 3 weeks ago on the other, on the Lake Lucy Road project, if you may recall. And some of my
arguments are the same and what my neighbors have said are pretty much the same. I have, by the way, I
have the privilege of living on Lake Lucy Road and Lake Lucy Lane. My address is Lake Lucy Lane, but I
understand from Ms. Burgess that I'm going to be assessed on Lake Lucy Road as well on that project,
which of course my neighbors on Lake Lucy Road didn't think that project needed to be done either. Let
me read to you from a case called EHW Properties vs. The City of Eagan. And Mr. Knutson may be
familiar with this case. Minnesota Court of Appeals case. A municipality can levy a special assessment
when the following conditions are satisfied. First the land must receive a special benefit from the
improvement being constructed. Second, the assessment must be uniform upon the same class of property.
Third, the assessment may not exceed the special benefit. And a special benefit is measured, according to
our Court of Appeals, by the increase in market value of the land resulting from the improvement. The
increase in market value of the land resulting in the improvement. And that increase in the market value is
the difference between what a willing buyer would pay a willing seller for the property before the
improvement and then after the municipality completes the improvement. The problem with the City's
theory here that we're going to fix roads that don't need to be fixed at this time, because it's cheaper than
fixing roads that need to be fixed because they're more expensive runs contrary to our citizens fiscal
management. Certainly mine and those of my neighbors, but you have a second problem. The second
problem is, it doesn't confer a benefit on the homeowner. It doesn't increase the market value. And so I
ask you to look at that from a legal standpoint. Can you legally go ahead and are we all going to be faced
with the situation where we have to hire an appraiser to contest these individual assessments because of the
city's theory that we're going to pay for repairs that don't need to be made now, and assess each property
which confers no benefit. Does not increase our market value. As Mr. Furlong stated, those, anyone
coming out and looking at this area, looking at Lake Lucy Road would say well the roads look fine. So
repairing them, even if the map makes sense, doesn't confer any market benefit to the property owners. So
from a legal standpoint, it's my opinion, for whatever it's worth, my opinion that this project does not meet
the requirements of Article X, Section I, I believe of our Constitution.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you. I'm going to ask you to please refrain from clapping. We appreciate your
enthusiasm but we are in a business meeting. And as far as the statement about fixing roads that don't
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
need fix because it's cheaper than waiting until they need to be fixed is again not quite what we said. It's
fix doing a less expensive fix now versus a complete reconstruction if it were to be let go, and that was the
2 to 3 times as expensive. Mr. Knutson, I don't mean to put you on the spot but as far as the legality of
what it is we are looking at at this point, I don't know if that's something that you can speak to in general
terms for us this evening.
Roger Knutson: There's nothing new in what the last gentleman just said about what the Constitution said.
It hasn't been amended in a heck of a long time so those rules for as long as I've been practicing law. The
question is, is there benefit conferred. Does the market value of the home go up because of the project, and
generally it does and if there's an argument then you have to hire appraisers. But generally people will pay
more realizing, either I pay now or I pay later. I pay a little bit now or a whole lot more later and that gets
factored into home values and home sales. But again I'm not an appraiser. Maybe the last gentleman was,
but I'm not and on any individual case you would need an appraisal if there's an issue about it.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, thank you.
Pat Johnson: May I address that?
Mayor Jansen: Actually if you do have questions and you'd like to pose those to the City Attorney at
another time, that would be appreciated.
Pat Johnson: It's not a question of the City Attorney. It's just a comment.
Mayor Jansen: Certainly, come forward.
Pat Johnson: My point was that when the city's action in taking these and going ahead with these
improvements, the point I was making is that what it does is it's going to force each of us to hire an
appraiser if we want to individually contest these assessments.
Mayor Jansen: Correct.
Pat Johnson: And who's going to do that over $2,0007 I mean it's unlikely that's going to happen, but the
fact of the matter is, is that the city's action in increasing, really forcing the homeowners because there's a
lot of dissent on this project and on the Lake Lucy Road project. It's made a lot of controversy in that area
and a lot of... that each homeowner is going to have to go through to enforce what they consider to be their
rights with respect to this.
Mayor Jansen: Understood.
Pat Johnson: And that was my point.
Mayor Jansen: Certainly, thank you. Anyone else on the Lake Lucy Lane project?
Teresa Burgess: Madam Mayor, if I could clarify one item on the previous property owner.
Mayor Jansen: Sure.
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
Teresa Burgess: I would like to make it clear that that property owner does own 2 parcels. It is not the
same parcel being assessed for both streets. He's only being assessed for each parcel is being assessed for
a separate project.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, thank you. The Melody Hill Road project is the next one on the list. If there's
anyone here for the Melody Hill Road. Steller Circle. Pintail Circle. Wood Duck Circle. Pheasant Circle.
Tom Steinkamp: Hi, I'm Tom Steinkamp. I live at 1771 Pheasant Circle. I've lived at that address all 17
years of the streets in our neighborhood. As a matter of fact, I was real close to having to delay the closing
of my home because the city streets weren't done when my house was built. So I know first hand about the
streets in Pheasant Hills, at least I've driven on them for 17 years. I have a question relative to the graph
that you showed, in terms of the 75 percent threshold. What types of roads are those? Is that graph
derived from?
Teresa Burgess: That graph is, most roads do deteriorate in that type of a curve. Each road has it's own
curve. Those are based on the Municipal State Aid Streets in the city of Chanhassen, which are built to a 9
ton design. Our residential streets are built to a 7 ton design so they do deteriorate a little bit faster than the
graph that I showed, but it is generally about the same shape. The residential street one, I didn't bring that
one because it's a very messy graph. Because we have a lot of streets that were built that were not built to
the same standards and so they've deteriorated at a very odd type of curve. We have a number of streets
around the lake areas that were not constructed up to standard. They were built originally as private drives
and eventually taken over by the city.
Tom Steinkamp: I'm assuming that that graph comes from roads that were constructed under the codes
that were maybe in place at the time that our streets are built.
Teresa Burgess: They're a heavier ton design. They're a 9 ton design strength which means that per axle
a 9 ton vehicle.
Tom Steinkamp: And our's are 7 ton.
Teresa Burgess: Your's are 7 ton so they do deteriorate a little bit faster because they're not as heavy of
construction design.
Tom Steinkamp: Is there any consideration there in terms of the amount of traffic that are on those streets?
Teresa Burgess: That's the difference in the strengths. Why the more, the heavier streets. You heard the
gentleman talk about Lake Lucy. Lake Lucy is a 9 ton road because of the amount of traffic it carries
versus the Pheasant Hills neighborhood which carries mainly residential and occasional moving van or a
UPS truck and doesn't need that level of design.
Tom Steinkamp: I wonder if the council understands that over 50 percent of the roads in our neighborhood
are dead end, or 50 percent of the homes in our neighborhood are on dead end streets. Our streets are not
thoroughfare type streets. They are dead end streets. I drove through, I didn't count on Steller Circle and I
didn't count on Melody Hill because I consider our neighborhood Pheasant Hill from Galpin Lake Road to
West 63rd to Lake Lucy Lane and I drove through the neighborhood the other day and there are 95 homes,
properties there and 45 of those are on dead end streets. The point I'd like to make there is that our roads
get very, very little traffic. They are not thoroughfares by any means. In fact I would challenge maybe the
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
council to look at how we could reduce the wear and tear on our streets. I believe the wear and tear on our
streets are primarily incurred by garbage trucks driving every single day down our roads and maybe if we
had a uniform garbage collection service that reduce the amount of wear and tear on our streets, I'm here to
tell you that my car and everybody else's cars in here are not doing our streets any damage. So I would
like to see you look at that as maybe an alternative, or maybe a long term fix for the wear and tear on the
streets. I will tell you that our street, in my opinion our streets have been well maintained. I read in the
feasibility study that it says that it appears that some maintenance work including crack sealing and
sealcoating is done. There has been potholes in our streets and they have been fixed on a very timely
fashion as far as I'm concerned. And certainly over the next year or two or three at the worst, they even
look nice because they get sealcoated on a regular basis and you don't even have the discoloration from a
new blacktop on an old street. They get sealcoated regularly in our neighborhood. In regards to the
pictures that you showed. The one area that I saw at Lake Lucy Lane and the beginning of Wood Duck,
that was in my view a poor construction when those roads were built. It was the very end of our
neighborhood. Lake Lucy Lane, if anybody recalls at that time was a dirt road that was brought up to a, it
was being reconstructed as Lake Lucy Road took the curve south. And when Lake Lucy Lane was redone,
it's my belief that that intersection was never done quite well, and in fact for many years it was dirt in that
catch basin down there and it wasn't until probably 5 years ago that the city came out and added blacktop
to raise that catch basin there and that area today is much better than it was, but it probably was never
done right. You showed a picture of the intersection of Wood Duck and Pheasant Circle, the road that I
live, that intersection that I live on, and there was some sealcoating over the concrete there. I'm here to tell
you there's nothing wrong with the road there. I live on that intersection. They forgot to turn off the
sealcoat material when they went over the concrete and that's the problem in that area so I have issue with
some of the pictures even that I saw presented to the council. That's what I have, thank you.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you. We are in fact a cul-de-sac community though aren't we. I think the majority
of our residential streets end in cul-de-sacs. Anyone else on Pheasant Circle? Partridge Circle. White
Dove Circle. White Tail Ridge Court.
Julie Thorndycraft: I just have a question as to what.., are going to be done on White Tail.
Mayor Jansen: If you'll please step forward and state your name and address for the record, I would
appreciate it. Then we can catch your comments on the Minutes. Thank you.
Julie Thomdycraft: Julie Thomdycraft, 1940 White Tail Ridge Court and our street is different than the
rest of Pheasant Hill. We are not part of Pheasant Hill. Our street does not have curbs and basically has
drain ditches on each side of the street and I have not heard anything that would say what improvements are
going to be done to our street and if they are simply going to re-surface it, I believe that was done 2 years
ago. And I would question why it needs to be done, if in fact we are not going to benefit from an improved
appearance.
Teresa Burgess: What's proposed for White Tail, and I have had a conversations with a couple of people
out there. That they're interested in curb and gutter. Our experience with those type of streets in the past
has been they didn't want it. It didn't come forward in our open house but we'd certainly be still willing to
consider that, but at this time what we're proposing is some spot repairs of the pavement. Specifically the
intersection and a couple other places, and then milling and overlay. We were not anticipating putting in
curb and gutter and storm sewer at this time, keeping it very similar in nature to what it is right now and
also with the surrounding community is in that area. It's very similar to what Crestview was recently
reconstructed to. As far as when it was last overlayed, I don't know that but I do know that it was
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
physically inspected during last summer and that's where it came up to the top for consideration and it was
reviewed, again walked this summer and then again this fall as we started to look at these projects.
Julie Thorndycraft: If that be the case then I would say our street doesn't necessarily qualify, at least from
a visual. It appears to be fine and that's all I have to say.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, thank you. Anyone else on White Tail Ridge Court?
Gordon Stamp: I'm Gordon Stamp. I live at 1960 White Tail Ridge Court and as Julie was saying, the
street is in really nice condition at the present time and she mentioned, it was repaved 2 years ago when,
and it's hard to imagine that you'd want to go in and do all this work when as you told me this morning it's
going to take years for it to deteriorate to the point where there would be any actual physical erosion in the
street, and that's what you said to me this morning. There's 7 houses on this dead end and basically if we
get 50 cars a day on it, that's a lot and at 5 miles per hour, there just isn't the traffic to warrant this kind of
cost and inconvenience to the neighborhood. I've spoken with just about everybody on the block and
nobody's in favor of this because the street looks very nice and I think anybody, any resident in any
community in the Twin Cities would be happy to have a street like this in front of their home.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you. Anyone else on White Tail Ridge Court? Moline Circle. Okay. Seeing no
one, that was the last of the projects and streets. Is there anyone who missed their's as it went by that
would still like to speak before I close the public hearing? Seeing no one, I'm going to close the public
hearing and bring this back to council. Council, any questions for staff or anything that you heard this
evening that you'd like further clarification on.
Councilman Peterson: Teresa I've just got one, and I think Mr. Furlong was the one that kind of alluded to
it. What, on the Pheasant Hills Park project, I mean are we at the threshold for if we wait longer it will go
into total reconstruction or are we at the point where we, could we push this off 1 to 3 years without going
past the, because obviously we want to get the maximum out. We want to catch it right in this spot. Are
we catching this one at this spot or is it, can we move it I guess is the ultimate question?
Teresa Burgess: It's always a little bit of a gamble. When you look at these roads, you're taking a guess.
Does it have another year? Does it have another 5? And it all depends on what does the winter do? We
had a relatively light winter this year. What is next summer going to be like? Is it going to be hot and dry?
That has an impact on how quickly those roads deteriorate. We can only go based on what we see right
now and it comes to the top, it rises to the top as a project that's appropriate to do. We did cut some
projects that quite frankly we would have liked to have done. We would have included them if we had
enough budget to do them. This one came in as number one priority out of the 5 based on cost
effectiveness. The other thing to keep in mind is that if you push this off we start to get a whole bunch of
them grouped together that we can't do the projects then because we have too much all at once. We're
going to see a big bubble of them. Pushing them off, we've done that for years where we've pushed them
off a couple years at a time, and we've kind of hit that point now where, could we do it one more year?
Maybe. It's hard to tell what will happen next year. It depends how the winter goes.
Councilman Peterson: Okay, thank you.
Councilman Ayotte: I think one of the points that perked up my one good ear is the point about they being
dead end streets and possibly the life being a little bit more optimistic view of a dead end street than one
that's not dead end. With respect to the project schedule, where the bids would open 1 May, if we were to
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
stipulate in the terms of the bid that the period of performance for the construction would occur rather than
June, 2002, June, 2003, I know labor rates would not hold. There would have to be leeway for that, but is
that doable? Where actual period of performance for the construction would go out. We would begin to
collect the bond aspect of it early on. Can we do that or is there something?
Teresa Burgess: So let the contract in 2002 and construct in 2003, is that what you're asking me?
Councilman Ayotte: Correct. And how would that, you know with labor rates, how would that be
affected?
Teresa Burgess: Well it's not only labor rates but it's materials as well. Asphalt is directly related to the
oil market, and as anybody that's bought gas lately knows how that goes up and down. Contractor's lock
in their prices at the beginning of the year when they start to sign their contracts with asphalt producers. If
we were to see a change, they would be coming to us for a change order. The other thing is it's, by
delaying it a year, you'd want to wait for design for a year to see what additional damage comes up so that
could be taken into account into design. So if you're going to delay the project to 2003, you'd delay the
bidding to 2003 as well.
Councilman Ayotte: Just a couple other comments. Can I make a comment now or wait?
Mayor Jansen: Well, if we could get all the questions addressed first, that'd be great. Thanks.
Councilman Ayotte: Okay.
Mayor Jansen: Any other questions for staff?
Councilman Boyle: I don't have a question. I have some comments.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, Steve any questions?
Councilman Labatt: No questions, no.
Mayor Jansen: Teresa, maybe one that you might be able to speak to. We're all looking for visual signs of
the road needing to be fixed, and of course being that we're just not road people, what does it mean when
we start to be able to actually see and think that the road needs to be, once we've got all the potholes and
it's ripping up. Are we now beyond this stage as being able to repair?
Teresa Burgess: What you're seeing out there is disguised in part by the sealcoat. Sealcoat is an
important thing to put down to protect the road but at the same time it masks how many potholes there are.
How much crack sealant is on that roadway, because like one of the gentlemen stood up and said, it's all
one nice uniform color and it kind of covers it up. There are potholes there that have been repaired. At a
certain point you start to get enough of those. You start to get the break-up going so you don't have good
seal across the entire surface. What the asphalt is providing is structural but it's also protectant. It's
sealing that up so that the under part does not get wet. Doesn't get broken down. When you sealcoat it
you're covering up all that crack sealant, the potholes, and it sometimes is deceptive. You can look at that
road and it looks pretty decent, and in reality there's a lot going on underneath there that's not visible
unless you get out and walk it looking for cracks and looking for potholes. You can see that evidence but
you have to look for it. I know that people said that they walked it off and they rode their bikes on it. But
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
we hired someone that that's all they do is they look at pavement and rate it and he did go out there and
look for the cracks and the sinking and all those things. As you start to have random cracks, the more
random cracks you have the closer they get, the smaller the piece of asphalt between them and they start to
pop out. You start to get those type of things. Alligator cracking would be what we would consider severe
distress. That's something where we're going to dig that out a couple of feet and build it back up. The
random cracking is something that can be sealed up, milled over and overlay. And we're at that point right
now. The street is really a prime candidate for a mill and overlay type rehabilitation. How long will it be
til it's a recon? 5 to 10 years. But at that point there will be no turning back once we hit that point where
it crosses over that line, that's where it goes.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, thank you. Councilman Boyle.
Councilman Boyle: Teresa, as a layman, if I was to look at the street I wouldn't see what you just
described, is that what you're telling me?
Teresa Burgess: You'd have to go out looking for it and you'd have to know what you were looking at.
As an example, the first home my husband and I purchased. Beautiful house. We looked at it. It looked
great. Had brand new coat of paint on it. Sealcoat. About 6 months after we moved in, the siding started
to fall off the house. The siding wasn't any good, but the people who had sold us the house had painted it.
It looked fine. We had the house inspected. It looked fine. Same thing. There's a lot of potholes. There's
a lot of cracks out there. It's covered over with the sealcoat and unless you get down and start looking for
those cracks, you walk it looking at your feet looking for those cracks, you're not going to see it. The other
thing is just like deterioration anyplace else, if you see it every day, sometimes you don't realize that it's
catching up with you. The deterioration in the street. Our street crews do a great job and in some cases
that does come back to bite us. The sealcoat, the potholing, it's hard to sell a project like this because
everybody looks at it and says, what's the big deal? The bid deal is it's getting more expensive to maintain
it. We're spending a lot more time and a lot more materials to keep that road driveable. We can look at
this and we can do these projects, or we can hire a couple more street workers and we can buy more
materials and then in a couple years we'll hire a couple more street workers and buy more materials. So
it's a trade-off. You have to make a decision which way you want to go.
Councilman Boyle: Just out of curiosity, if the computer kicked this one out as number one project, what
was the second option?
Teresa Burgess: The computer kicked out, actually we looked at two projects. If you remember we
looked at just about 3 weeks ago, 01-08. We asked the computer to separate out the municipal state aid
streets because they are a different classification and we have different funding sources for that. Some of
those streets ranked higher. Koehnen Circle is number one. It falls off because we don't have the funding
to be able to pay for our share, which is if the council remembers we had that discussion with the 2 year
budget. We're starting to kick that budget up so that we can come up with our share of the project. As I
discussed earlier, the cost to reconstruct does not get higher. When you do a rehabilitation, if you don't do
the rehabilitation and you wait til it's reconstruct, it's 2 to 3 times as expensive as if you had rehabilitated.
So to do those projects is cost effective. Koehnen Circle will cost us the same plus inflation in a year as it
did this year and so squeezing another year of life out of it seems like the logical thing to do, rather than do
no project.
Mayor Jansen: And on that one you're looking at assessment rates of $5,700 a property, correct?
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
Teresa Burgess: Correct.
Councilman Boyle: That's currently though.
Mayor Jansen: Right.
Teresa Burgess: Right. And that does include sanitary sewer, water and also the widening of the street
and curb and gutter.
Mayor Jansen: Major project. Any other questions for staff? Then why don't we go ahead with
comments. Whoever would like to start.
Councilman Ayotte: 5 years ago, first of all thank you everyone for coming out. And I hope that you'll
show up for other things. Remember what today is, 9-11. And the reason why I mention that is because 5
years ago I made the fatal mistake of coming here to a council meeting to address the issue on a surface
water and then the budget, and then I opened my big mouth and I ended up on this side of the table. But
irrespective of where this ends up this evening, I'm hoping that a few folks, like Mr. Furlong and others
remember to come back and deal with the issues long and hard. One of the things that I talked towards
when I was knocking on doors is infrastructure. Now whether you believe it or not, our infrastructure is
terrible. Our roads are terrible. And I was one of the people that pushed for what she's doing with the
index program. That ticks up your roads and a few others. We studied long and hard on what would be
fair, and although I'm not in love with the feasibility study that was presented, I don't think it's worded
very well. I don't like some of the nuances and subtleties that come out of it, the fact still remains that the
roads need repair and it's pay a little now versus a lot later on. You can either believe it or not. You can
believe it more if you would participate in some of the council activities that we have walked through in the
last number of months associated with this and other projects. This is a triage. This is exactly what the
city engineer has gone through and she's done an excellent job. So the infrastructure is going, and the 55K
that we spent I think has come up with the right solution, but some of the comments that you made I'm
going to run down on because I think there are some traffic issues that we can go after. So right now my
mind has not changed in how this is structured, and I want you to know that but I want to have the chance
of telling you that some of the things that you've said I've written down and I will follow up on. So
whether you love me or hate me, I really don't care. The point is, you educated me a little bit more and I'm
going to work towards some of that resolution, especially with the traffic issues. But if you want to find
out more, don't come just when your assessment comes up. Participate a few months before the fact and
after the fact and you'll see that some of the things that the staff are doing is absolutely wonderful, and that
we are doing our best. Maybe not the best for you individually, but we are working towards we hope is the
best solution. We did assess what the other cities were doing. We did work long, hard hours in coming up
with the right algorithm so that's my two cents. Thank you mayor.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you.
Councilman Boyle: That was more like about 5 cents I think. The assessments are always very unpopular.
Nobody likes them. I wish there was a way that we could levy a small amount, build a fund, and never
have to pose any type of assessment. Nobody would feel it. It would be very popular and would make
Teresa's job a lot easier, right? Right. And we would shorten some of these meetings also. It's difficult
when you sit here and hear this many people object to what's happening and then say well, what do I do?
Do I go this route or do I listen to the people, the experts supposedly that we hire and ask to give us the
best possible information they can come up with. Again, as with Bob I'm not real happy with the
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feasibility report but we've got to base our decisions on something so, as unpopular as it might be, it's all
the information we have at this time. Linda.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you. Other comments?
Councilman Peterson: Yeah. It clearly is an issue that, I think all 5 of us will struggle with this tonight,
but yet at the end of the process we've got to make a decision that isn't necessarily popular, but
appropriate. And that's the fine line as I quizzed Teresa earlier. What can we do to push this off? What
impact is it going to be, because that's really what I heard tonight. It seems like a good road. It is a good
road. But we're saying we're going to make it better for a longer period of time with less financial pain
over the next 10 to 15 years. Make that pain now, and then not deal with it for another 15 years,
approximately, give or take a few I guess. So I see that we really don't have an alternative that's in the
best interest of the whole community than the one presented tonight. And I think that's really the key is
that it's in the best interest of everybody. Not just this neighborhood but the city is spending 60 percent of
it. That's everybody and this will continue throughout the whole rest of the city so it's a tough decision but
I think one that based upon what's been presented tonight and in previous nights, appropriate.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you. Councilman Labatt.
Councilman Labatt: As tough of a pill as it is to swallow, the more painful one is 3 to 5 years from now.
And I think Bob had comments that I would echo. I think that as we started the assessment rates and quite
frankly when we came up with the 60/40 1 was leaning much higher, more like Robbinsdale or Golden
Valley where it was 80 percent assessed to the homeowner, but then all you guys swayed me. So I you
know, frankly I look at this thing for $1,936 1 can get a new road and broken out over 8 years at a very
reasonable rate, that I can pay it off when I want to, I think it's a good deal. So that's mine.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, thank you. I would like to echo Councilman Ayotte's mention to all of you that we
do very much appreciate your coming here this evening and taking the time to share with us your
perspectives and your input on these projects. We know that it's a significant amount of time that you've
spent to come down here to do that and it's certainly probably out of a lot of your comfort zones to have
walked up and spoken at the podium, but thank you. This is an issue that we have gone back and forth
with staff on numerous times this year trying to figure out what the right thing is to do. And we are looking
community wide because of the impact that this will have on all of us. It's not that it's just your
neighborhoods. Unfortunately you're feeling it at this time because it is your neighborhood's turn if you
would. And putting it off we're delaying getting this project accomplished. We're compounding the issues
as we move forward so though again it's difficult after some of the numbers that we have looked at, though
it feels unreasonable and uncomfortable for you, we've been looking at other numbers that we fortunately
are not having to share with you this evening. We're trying to make sure that we're all looking at this from
the perspective of not wanting to over burden our residents. One way or the other it's taxes. One of your
mentioned that Chanhassen is the highest, one of the highest taxed communities and we're sensitive to that.
We are trying to be as conservative as we can be, without raising everyone's property taxes dramatically.
60 percent of this does end up as you heard on our levy. That does distribute it throughout the community
so yes, one way or the other it is a tax. Hopefully we are providing a benefit and giving you less of a
burden by addressing it now versus when it becomes that 2 to 3 times the cost of this level of project. So I
am going to echo what the other councilmen are feeling at this point, that though it's a difficult and not
popular decision to make, and assessments are not enjoyable to have to address, I have to say that staff has
worked very hard with us to try to come up with what's reasonable and what we can move forward with
responsibly to keep our infrastructure up to the standards that our community should expect without
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
escalating the prices and costs of all of those projects. So with that, council if I could have a motion
please.
Councilman Ayotte: Mayor, I so move to accept the feasibility study and authorize preparation of plans
and specifications for City Project #01-10 as recommended in the feasibility study.
Mayor Jansen: And could you move the second part of that motion.
Councilman Ayotte: I also so move to approve the consultant work order for the preparation of plans and
specs, constructing engineering in the amount of $55,000.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you. And a second?
Councilman Labatt: Second.
Councilman Ayotte moved, Councilman Labatt seconded to accept the feasibility study and authorize
preparation of plans and specifications for City Project #01-10 as recommended in the feasibility
study, and to approve the Consultant Work Order for the preparation of plans and specifications and
construction engineering in the amount of $55,000. All voted in favor and the motion carried
unanimously 5 to 0.
Mayor Jansen: I'll give everyone just a couple of minutes to get up and I'm sure you're going to be leaving
the room, and so we'll just pause for a second before we move onto the next agenda item. Thank you for
coming this evening. We do appreciate it.
HEARING ON INTOXICATING LIQUOR LICENSE VIOLATION, MGM LIQUOR
WAREHOUSE, 7856 MARKET BOULEVARD.
Public Present:
Name Address
Bob Pfaffinger
Brad H.
Michael Maglich
2235 Zanzibar Lane, Plymouth 55447
7856 Market Boulevard
7856 Market Boulevard
Todd Gerhardt: ...conditions are, payment of a civil sanction of $1,000 by May 11, 2002 in lieu ofa 3 day
suspension. No further violations of State law or Chanhassen ordinance relating to alcoholic beverages.
Payment of all real estate taxes. If a new violation occurs, the 3 day suspension will not be imposed until
MGM has been afforded the opportunity for a hearing before the City Council. If there are no violations of
these conditions, the 3 day suspension will be discharged on March 11, 2005. Staff recommends approval
of this stipulation agreement and also on determining the Findings of Fact.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, thank you. And I'm assuming we have someone from the applicant here this
evening. If you would like to address the council, please step forward and state your name and address for
the record.
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
Mike Maglich: My name is Mike Maglich. I'm one of the owners of the Chanhassen store. Good evening
Mayor, council members.
Mayor Jansen: Good evening.
Mike Maglich: I'm here this evening because on the evening of May 31,2001 a cashier employed at the
MGM in Chanhassen failed a compliance check and sold to an undercover compliance decoy. Failing a
compliance check is unacceptable to me as an owner, and to us as a company. I want to take this
opportunity to describe the changes that we have made at the Chanhassen store. But before I do that I'd
like to first sincerely apologize to this council, to the citizens of Chanhassen, to our valued customers. On
behalf of our company and our employees, I want to assure this council and the citizens of Chanhassen that
we are committed to the elimination of underage access in Chanhassen. As I said before, this was an
unacceptable and unfortunate incident. MGM has been a responsible corporate citizen of Chanhassen since
1983. And this is the first time an employee has failed a compliance check. How did this happen? The
circumstances are bizarre. The employee had decided to quit her job that very evening. When she came to
work she just didn't care. She made a mistake. Big mistake. This was a case of human error. She
violated our company policy, which at the time was that all customers must be asked for an ID. The timing
of the events were unusual. An employee's last shift on the job, a compliance check taking place at that
time, and an employee that violated our company policy. What has taken place since that evening? First,
the employee in question left the store right after the infraction. Never returned and is no longer employed
by MGM. Second. The manager of the store has been reprimanded, financially penalized, demoted,
retrained in several areas of responsibility, and transferred to a location that has a more sophisticated ID
checking program. Third, the sophisticated ID checking program I mentioned has been installed in the
Chanhassen store. This program which is based on new technology, that didn't exist 3 years ago, is a very
expensive proposition for us. It requires all customers to present an ID that must be scanned before a
transaction can continue. MGM has been the leader in the beverage alcohol industry in implementing this
program. We've lost considerable business due to the implementation, but we are committed to having it
installed in all of our stores by the end of the year. We would hope that eventually all communities would
see the value of the ID scanning program and make it actually a mandatory program. Fourth, a new
manager and a new assistant manager are now in charge of the Chanhassen store. Fifth, all employees are
now 21 years of age or older, and have been made aware of the severe penalties that can be imposed on the
store and on them as individuals. And they have all been required to go through a re-training of our TAM
program. I believe I've given you all copies of our training manuals and our training programs and our ID
checking policy. Let me speak for a moment about the TAM program and MGM's history of commitment
to elimination of youth access to beverage alcohol. We've been working on this for 32 years. MGM was
the first company to establish a formal education and training program for checking ID's. Many of our
programs have received recognition and awards of excellence from city and state agencies. As a matter of
fact I'll be in front of another city council in 2 weeks to accept an award for our participation as a leader in
their best practices program. That will be a little bit more happier occasion than this. MGM recently
received an award from the University of Minnesota as the number one company with the best training and
the most effective ID policy regarding youth access. We're very proud of that. I've supplied you all with
the training materials we use with our employees. The employee that failed this compliance check
completed this training program and signed a pledge of commitment to eliminating youth access. She
violated our company policy, her training, and her pledge. The human error factor. Finally, I want to
assure this council and the citizens of Chanhassen of MGM's continuing commitment of time, talent,
training and technology in the ongoing effort to eliminate youth access. I want the citizens of Chanhassen
to know that any person under the age of 21 has access to beverage alcohol, they didn't get it at MGM. I
ask this council to consider the circumstances of this infraction and penalize us accordingly. Thank you for
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
the opportunity to address this important issue and I'd be happy to answer any questions that you may
have.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you. Council, any questions for Mr. Maglich?
Councilman Ayotte: First off I'd like to thank him for his continued carding my wife when she comes in.
That's scored a lot of points in our. On a serious note, one of the concerns I have 4 children, 3 sons, a
daughter and unfortunately I know some of the pain you've gone through. What the kids do, if you have a
situation where you're really tight in the way you manage things, and they know that there's a weak link
down the road, they'll go to the weak link. And in Chanhassen I'm hoping that we eliminate all the weak
links so as you strengthen your situation and do all the things that you're doing, I'm just kind of curious
about what we may be able to do to effectively model the other liquor stores in the community so that we
have a Chanhassen standard that would be something of a premiere standard so they'll have to go
someplace else to another city to do their buying. And I'm not saying that facetiously so I'm just kind of
thinking out loud and I'm throwing that thought out and wondering whether or not there's a way that we
could export all the fine things you're doing in reaction to what you've experienced to other entities within
the city. And I really pose that question to our city manager and legal counsel rather than you sir.
Mayor Jansen: Anything you'd like to speak to that?
Todd Gerhardt: I'm not 100 percent sure if we can force people to buy $15,000 cash register machines or
not but we'll look into it.
Mayor Jansen: Thanks. Any other questions for Mr. Maglich?
Councilman Labatt: Yeah. How many MGM's are you involved in? How many MGM stores? Just the
one here in Chanhassen or are you?
Mike Maglich: We have 38 stores.
Councilman Labatt: Okay. And how many of your 38 stores have this same cash register?
Mike Maglich: Our corporate stores, we have 20 corporate stores which I have total control over and they
all have that system. Cash register system installed in them. They don't all have the ID scanning program
yet, but by the end of this year we will.
Councilman Labatt: Okay. So was it the violation that caused you to get the ID scanning system in here,
in Chanhassen? Is that what it took?
Mike Maglich: No. Chanhassen was scheduled to have that system installed eventually.
Councilman Labatt: And how many of the other stores are scheduled out here?
Mike Maglich: Pardon me?
Councilman Labatt: How many of the 20 corporate stores that don't have the ID check system are
scheduled right now on paper, and you can say well this store is schedule you know, and give me the dates.
Or does it take a violation to get MGM to get going?
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
Mike Maglich: No, it does not. We're installing the programs as it's fiscally appropriate for us to do it.
We can't install them all at one time simply because of cash situation, number one. Number two, the
training. And number three, the availability of the product so we're taking them one store at a time. It
takes a significant amount of training of the employees to use this system. Not only that, we found after the
first installation that it also required another type of training, and that was how to deal with the consumer
once we asked for the ID from everyone. That was very, very difficult on our employees because we got a
lot of negative feedback from the consumers, so we had to bring all of our employees in that were involved
in the first store and train them on how to deal with that negative impact of asking for an ID from everyone
regardless of how old you are. And so we've learned something by that. We don't implement the system
until everybody's totally trained and ready to go with that. About a third of our register systems prior to
the first of the year didn't have the capabilities of scanning so we had to go out and start purchasing new
equipment. Now we've just currently run into another kind of minor stumbling block but we were using
Compaq computer systems prior to this and they no longer are making the system that recognizes this
scanning procedure so we have to switch to another computer processing unit, the Dell system is what
we're going with now. And they're a little bit back ordered on our processors. Right now we have 14
systems on order and we're just waiting for them to arrive and then we'll install them as they arrive. Each
store has roughly 4 to 5 registers so it requires some significant upgrading. I guess maybe I didn't answer
your first part of the question. That all the stores had necessary equipment to do the scanning. They all
have these computerized cash registers but not all of them can do the scanning.
Councilman Labatt: Okay. Was this compliance check, this was one of the announced ones where they
send you the letter weeks before hand, before?
Mike Maglich: I believe so, yes.
Councilman Labatt: Okay. So your employees knew a timeframe when this compliance check would be
happening, correct?
Mike Maglich: Correct. Our employees are trained that the compliance check can take place at any time
regardless of whether the city sends a letter or not, depending on what community. Some communities
don't. We just have gone to the extent of saying, you know be prepared and if you're doing, if you're
executing our program and the stores that don't have the register system have our ID please program,
which I think I supplied in your packet. The blue card here that says, MGM in cooperation with State and
Local Officials efforts for zero tolerance to underage access, ask you to please be prepared to show ID
regardless of age. That was our policy prior to the scanning devices. Our success with the scanning has
just made it, the situation that we want to take the leadership position in. We're getting a lot of criticism
from it but I think as Councilmember Ayotte mentioned, it's necessary. Human error factor, we can't
eliminate that but we can help by adding the technology and that's what we intend to do. We've had
several cities by the way that have modeled their programs after our's. Municipal operations. But we were
the first ones to install it and I think they just basically wanted to see how well it would work with us and
now they're installing it. I know the city of Richfield I believe just installed it because 2 of their stores
failed their own compliance checks so they went to this system. And I believe that eventually this will be
the system in place for all retail package stores. It should be. We work very proactively in every
community that we're in in developing programs that are designed to eliminate youth access. Not our
intention to sell to people that are underage.
Councilman Labatt: Okay.
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
Mayor Jansen: Anything else?
Councilman Labatt: No.
Mayor Jansen: Any other questions for Mr. Maglich?
Councilman Labatt: No.
Mayor Jansen: Certainly appreciate your being here this evening and sharing with us the steps that you
have taken to correct the situation as far as implementing the technology and the significant changes that
you made in your staffing and addressing the changes in training so it certainly helps to build our
confidence as far as looking for the compliance going forward and we'd certainly love to be in the situation
of providing you with an award for your training programs as you're receiving in other areas.
Mike Maglich: I wish I was getting that award. It's very hard for me to stand up here and defend this
particular incident.
Mayor Jansen: I'm sure it is.
Mike Maglich: We recognize Mayor, it's a privilege to have a liquor license in the city of Chanhassen and
we take our business very seriously and again we'd be willing to work proactively with the city in
developing any new programs they'd like to involve with.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you. We appreciate that. Council, I'll close the public. Oh, if there's anyone else
present who would like to speak to this issue, this is a public hearing. Okay, otherwise I will close the
public hearing and bring this back to council. Any comments council?
Councilman Ayotte: I have a question. Are we limited to 1,0007 Can I move to have it higher?
Councilman Labatt: Yeah.
Councilman Ayotte: Okay. And then secondly, can I formulate a motion that would fence the money for a
program for Chanhassen to work towards age verification? A program using the money as seed stock
money for a program?
Roger Knutson: Mayor.
Mayor Jansen: Counsel.
Roger Knutson: The cap on a fine is $2,000.
Councilman Ayotte: The cap's $2,000?
Roger Knutson: Yes sir. But that's not, we have, just so you know, we have no stipulation on that. You
can impose it. That would be at your discretion. And how you want to use that fine money when it comes
to the city obviously is your, if you want to earmark that for a certain purposes, you can do that as long as
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
it's public purpose such as what you just suggested would be fine. That would be really an internal
decision for the city to make. How you spend your money is not up to the private business.
Councilman Ayotte: What I don't understand is you said there's a cap of $2,000 but we can go more, I
don't follow.
Roger Knutson: No, no.
Todd Gerhardt: No, $2,000 is the maximum. $2,000 is the maximum that you could fine for violation of
this sort.
Mayor Jansen: And this is, if you might explain. I know that you've drafted the stipulation. Maybe how
you've arrived at your recommendation.
Roger Knutson: What we did for your consideration is put together a stipulation which MGM has
previously agreed to. Again it was subject to your approval and you can approve it or not as you choose.
Or you can modify this if you want. But this is our recommendation and based upon what we've seen other
cities do... this is what we think is what is, would be kind of a typical penalty. But you are again free to
deviate from that if you think we got it wrong.
Mayor Jansen: And again it's a first time.
Roger Knutson: It's a first time offense and they have gone to some lengths to install, upgrade their
equipment to make sure this won't happen again. And they have a training program and they aren't just
ignoring what we're doing. They're cooperating with us so based upon all those factors we recommended
the $1,000 fine and the 3 days be imposed but then it's going to be our recommendation that it be
suspended. The suspension be suspended so to speak for a period of years and if they don't make any other
mistakes in that time period, then they won't have to serve that suspension. If they make another mistake
and they come back here and you find that they've made another mistake, then they will have to serve that 3
day suspension. In addition to already having paid the $1,000.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, thank you. And I think you made as one of the findings of fact, our ordinance does
state the council may deviate in an individual case where the council finds that there exists reasons making
it more appropriate to deviate such as, but not limited to, a licensee's efforts in combination with the State
or City to prevent the sale of alcohol to minors. So basically stating that we don't need to fine or close
them down for the maximum if they've taken actions as you've suggested that demonstrate that they're
trying to correct it.
Roger Knutson: Prevent further occurrences of this unfortunate incident. If you've concluded that they
have, and you think it's appropriate, then you can, you don't have to give them the maximum. You can do
something less. And you have our recommendation which is in front of you.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, thank you. Any other questions?
Councilman Labatt: Yeah. So this stipulation of facts is in essence is MGM is in here saying we were
guilty?
Mike Maglich: Yes sir.
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
Councilman Labatt: And I would go along with Mr. Ayotte in under 6(a), payment on a civil action of
$2,000. I'd like to see that instead of $1,000. (b) and (c), you know, god forbid I would hope they would
be willing to do those. Pay their taxes and not sell any alcohol to minors again. (d), I'd like to get a
clarification. If a new violation occurs, the 3 day suspension will not be imposed until MGM has been
afforded the opportunity for a hearing before the City Council. That is solely on that new violation and if.
Roger Knutson: Maybe I can explain. If there's a new violation, they'll be subject to a penalty separate
from this for that new violation. But in addition to what you want to do on the new violation, which hasn't
occurred yet and hopefully never will occur, you can, this 3 days will be imposed against them in addition
to having already paid the $2,000. They will serve 3 day suspension based on the first violation, not the
second violation. But it has to come back to you for you to determine that there's been a violation. We
can't automatically do it.
Councilman Labatt: For us to determine there has been a second violation.
Roger Knutson: Right, which results in... plus imposing these 3 days which has already been assessed. It's
just like in your, maybe when there's a pro-revocation, even though you know someone did something
wrong, the judge has got to decide that they did something wrong and revoke their parole. Well that's
what's happening here only you're the judge. It has to come back to you to impose that 3 days for the first
violation. If there's a subsequent violation.
Councilman Labatt: Okay. So can we add something in here, another one where if there's a new violation
the penalty for the first violation, the 3 days automatically kicks in?
Roger Knutson: That's what (d) does but it isn't quite automatic.
Councilman Labatt: but they have to come in for a hearing though.
Roger Knutson: That's the due process thing. You have to find that there was a violation. You have to
determine, you have to.
Mayor Jansen: And then it's automatic.
Roger Knutson: Yes. You have to decide that. Staff can't do that. It has to go to you.
Councilman Labatt: ... second violation occurs, they come in and are found guilty by this council.
Roger Knutson: Then the 3 days goes into effect and then you get a separate penalty for the second
violation.
Councilman Labatt: Okay. So they could in essence up to 9 days then?
Roger Knutson: Sure.
Councilman Labatt: 3 for the first, 6 for the second.
Roger Knutson: Yes.
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
Councilman Labatt: Okay. Okay.
Todd Gerhardt: And Roger, the only way the second violation would come back is after they've already
gone through the court process and been found guilty?
Roger Knutson: That is our current process, yes.
Todd Gerhardt: So if we bring this back with a second violation, it's already going to be in front of you
found guilty through the courts.
Councilman Labatt: Okay. Okay, that's all I have. I'd just change (a) then to $2,000.
Mayor Jansen: Other comments from council?
Councilman Peterson: I don't necessarily agree that moving it from 1 to 2,000 is appropriate. I think that
my sense is we're dealing with an atypical situation. It wasn't blatant. They responded appropriately and
timely. My, and part of, there's a balance between fining and is it undue hardship? Probably not, going
from 1 to 2, but to some degree I don't want to take their money away from investing in incremental units
for other cities and so that I want them to be putting in those systems at every one of their stores as soon as
possible, and as mentioned, financial constraints are certainly there and I don't want a fine to affect putting
one system in one store that can prevent this from happening again. So I think the fine is done to get their
attention, and I think $1,000 is attention getter.
Councilman Boyle: I agree with Councilman Peterson. $1,000 gets the job done. I'd rather see that other
thousand go into training or whatever to avoid future happenings. There was a training program in effect
at the time. You took corrective action. It was a bizarre incident. One individual, last day of work. I
think $1,000 is plenty.
Mayor Jansen: I'm going to echo those same comments. I think the penalty that staff and MGM have
drafted, the $1,000 is certainly reasonable and conveys our concern with the situation. I too would hope
that in maybe not making it a more extensive fine that it would more so be invested in prevention. I don't
know how much more you can actually do as a manager and owner of a liquor establishment like this to put
more prevention in place than you already have. A $15,000 investment in technology is certainly
significant and to have backed up and done the re-training and significant changes in staff, I think that
MGM has certainly demonstrated that they are a responsible business in our community and have taken
some significant steps to be a responsible citizen and I think that they've possibly lost enough face that an
additional $1,000 fine I don't think is necessary here to convey our extreme concern of the situation. I
would favor going with the recommendation that's been made to us.
Councilman Labatt: The only comments I have is, our ordinance spells out 3 days and granted we can
deviate but it took a violation to get them to get going and that's what upsets me about it. That it took a
violation. A compliance check that was told to them, we're coming between these dates. And there are
circumstances are circumstances and that's just you know, but I look at 3 days to suspend a liquor license
is a lot more money than $2,000. And $2,000, we take that and we earmark it towards something, whether
it's more compliance checks or something for crime prevention is wise. I think that the stipulations are
fairly lenient from what has happened up in the city of Plymouth with some of their first time offenders.
So, I'm sure Roger knows about them so that's all I'll just say my 4 ½ cents worth there.
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
Mayor Jansen: And I don't disagree with the city encouraging a more extensive training program or being
able to mirror what MGM has put into place as far as training of staff. Obviously we can't force the
technology issue but if they do have an award winning program for training, it might be something for us to
follow up on to encourage our other businesses to follow the same sort of a training program. That I would
agree with. I'll call for a motion.
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, Council members, the motion that you should be considering is approval of the
stipulation of facts of civil sanctions dated March 8th and the findings of facts and decision dated March 8th.
Councilman Peterson: So moved.
Councilman Boyle: Seconded.
Councilman Peterson moved, Councilman Boyle seconded that the City Council approve the
Stipulation of Facts of Civil Sanctions dated March 8, 2002, and approve the Findings of Facts and
Decision dated March 8, 2002. All voted in favor, except Councilman Ayotte and Councilman Labatt
who opposed, and the motion carried with a vote of 3 to 2.
LONG RANGE FACILITY OPTIONS, SCHOOL DISTRICT 112.
Mayor Jansen: Under new business we start with our District 112 presentation of the long range facility
options and we have our school superintendent here, Bev Stofferand. Thank you for joining us this
evening. Sorry it got a little later into the evening than we might have hoped.
Bev Stofferand: That's quite alright. Mayor Jansen, members of the council. It's a great pleasure for us
to be here. With me tonight is Betsy Chase our Director of Planning and Organizational Improvement and
School Board member Gayle Degler.
Mayor Jansen: Welcome.
Bev Stofferand: We've got a happier topic to talk about than either of the last 2 may have been for at least
some of the residents, in that we are here to share with you tonight some information regarding a major
initiative that is underway in District 112 right now, namely our attempt to create a master facility plan.
So we are all about planning schools for 2014, and the year will become obvious in a moment. As we, this
fall again updated our demographic study we also asked Dr. Barbara Lukerman, who has been the
demographic expert from the Humphrey Institute who's worked with the district for a number of years, to
meet with the case of the cities, and the managers and the developers and to try to get a real visual, or a real
picture of about when we would peak out in our K-12 enrollment and secondarily, about how large we
would get. The numbers are in front of you and they are arranged by the current grade configurations that
the district operates under and you can see that the peak enrollment is projected to be about 12 years out
and at over 11,000 students. Now to help that, put you in that context, right now we have a little over
7,400 students. Of those roughly 4,000 more to come in the next 12 years, half of them or 2,000 are
expected to be here in the next 5 years. So the explosive growth from eastern Carver County seems to be
continuing. So our task in the district is to create a master facilities plan that's designed to help all of our
learners achieve their very personal best by meeting their space needs, by meeting their educational needs
and I might add by meeting the needs of the taxpayers in that, have a plan that they are willing to pay for.
So to date I mentioned that we have done the demographic report. Simultaneously what we have done was
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
to engage in the services of the Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement out of the
University of Minnesota to take a look at the research done around the correlary, if you will, between
student achievement and whatever implications for facilities there may be, and there some. We have
received that report and then the Board and staff got together to design the parameters if you will of a
master plan. In other words, what are the limitations or what are the expectations? At that point your
mayor and 49 other people were involved in a long day and a half session where we had a microcosm of the
community in that we had high school students, staff, both of our teaching staff and our support staff. We
had a couple of administrators. We had parents. We had business people. People who were residents
without children in schools who came together and on one hand were given the enrollment projections. On
the other hand were given the carry report on the educational research and the parameters and suggested
that they go to work, and they did. They turned out 6 different possible models, pictures if you will, of how
this metaphorically speaking puzzle may be put together for, to help us get to our peak enrollment. We
aren't seeking a vote from you or from our taxpayers at this point on any one of the models, but we're
rather looking at those models which are listed in that newsletter. I'm not going to take your time to go
through them all tonight, to show really that there's a variety of ways the various components could be put
together and in so doing create a master plan. The final plan that is put together, and I'll speak about that
in a moment, and it's time line, may or may not look like any one of the 6 that are currently listed in the
community newsletter. Behind us all are these assumptions. That we need to be sure that we're planning
for all of our learners, but at the same time being careful that we aim at the right target and not overbuild.
We know that any great organizations can work and the key thing is the quality of the teacher that you put
with the child, not the facility that makes the difference in student achievement. Research is bearing that
out over and over again. As we look across districts in the State of Minnesota and we see very large ones
and very small ones. We see every kind of possibility and grade configuration that there is. Sometimes
driven by facilities, so we know that can work. We also believe that the buildings themselves should
enhance and support learning that is based on research, that we need to balance what the community wants
for it's children on one hand with what it can afford on the other. That's a key place to find that balance.
That we will collaborate with cities, with public and private partnerships whenever possible to get the very
best return for the taxpayer dollar, and that we want all of our facilities to be designed to support our
district's educational plan, our guiding principles, namely that of rigorous high quality educational
opportunities and high standards. As I said, we weren't looking for a vote on any one of these models but it
is these components that are critically important for us as residents to think about and to give the district
your feedback on. These are connected to the research, and again for time sake tonight I'm not going
through the research but on page 2 of that community newsletter you see that high points. We know for
example that there is correlation between the actual physical size of a building and student achievement.
Research bears that out. So what do we think as a community of district 112 is the appropriate size for our
schools? We also know for example that every time a child moves physically from one building to another
in his or her grade through 12 career, pre-K-12 career, there will be a drop in student achievement. It will
be temporary. It is recoverable but it is a drop. That has implications for transitions. Transitions has an
implication for grade level organization. Number of high schools. The very first slide that I showed you in
numbers projects that we will have just about 2,700 students in grades 10 through 12 when we peak in our
enrollment. Currently the high school will accommodate 1,500. It's holding more than that right now, and
it has the capability to have another wing put on it, another classroom addition that could take it to 2,000.
It has a limitation of core space after that. Gym, media center, cafeteria, and so on. Not easily enlarged.
So 2,000 is about the best, the maximum we can get in the current high school, yet the projected enrollment
is 2,700. So as a community what do we want? Do we want 2 high schools? Do we want 1 large one?
Do we want to figure something else out to get us through the peak years? All day kindergarten has been
fully researched and is certainly a very viable opportunity for young children in upping their ability to read
more effectively. They get about 6 months gain and it stays with them all through school. All through that
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
elementary and middle and high school career, if they've come from all day kindergarten classes. Class
size. Research is abundantly clear that we can drive that class size down to 18 to 1. That's an expensive
proposition however. We can significantly impact student achievement. Obviously that has implications
not only for our facility size and classrooms, but, and numbers of classrooms, but also for the size of the
operating budget that the state does not now fund. We're asking questions about the program choice and
equity. Right now for example if you go into any of our elementary schools, they all pretty much look alike
in terms of the program. We have heard from some residents that they would like to see choices available,
so what that usually looks like is a magnet school for example where a curricular theme such as science
and math or technology, is pulled all the way through the curriculum in multi grades. That's usually a
school of choice. Is that something this community wants for it's children? And finally the affordability,
the balance between what we can afford and what we, what is good for kids. So model 7. 6 models have
been put together. Model 7 will be put together after we've heard back from the community. Right now
we are in the stages of doing a lot of what I'm doing here tonight, gathering or trying to get on people's
radar screens. Get awareness up and ask for feedback. The feedback is either the back of the survey that
can be marked and sent in, or it can be access on our district's web site which is district112.org. The same
exact survey is there along with a full copy of both the demographic study and the research study, for
anyone who wants to go into that. So right now we are listening to the community, the staff and we are
gathering feedback and when we get all of that in we will put together what model 7 looks like. And using
that then as a springboard, we will come back to a representative group in late April with the research, or
I'm sorry, with the results of the survey on one hand saying here's what the community seems to be saying
and here's how it would translate, and get feedback again on that. Come back in May. Put a final tweaks
to it if we will and have it front of the school board either late May or early June, for their consideration.
So we're on an accelerated time line here. But we really feel that we as a community need to create the
future that we want for our kids rather than let it happen to us and be in a reactive mode. It would be far
easier for us to simply say well, you know. We're out of space at the high school. We know in 2 years
elementary's are full again and 3 years out the middle schools will be full again, even in spite of the fact
we're building a new one and opening in the fall. And think no further than that. That would be the easier,
not easy but easier thing to do. We think this is the right thing to do so that we get out there. Take a look
at our peak enrollment and decide as a community what we want. So we would welcome your thought as a
council and certainly your thoughts as individual residents of the city of Chanhassen. Thank you.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you. Appreciate your being here this evening. And Bev, I'm not sure if I missed
your mentioning it. Did you mention your Decision Resource survey that's being done?
Bev Stofferand: Thank you very much for that. I meant to mention that. Surveys will be coming, or can
come back to us from residents but we are also, in fact it's in the process right now of being called,
Decision Resources is also doing a survey for us on these same questions, plus a few other ones, but we
wanted to be very sure that we get scientifically accurate information that can be generalizable back to the
larger community.
Mayor Jansen: And that's a 400.
Bev Stofferand: 400 random sample.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, great. So similar to what we did for our community survey. How many surveys
have you gotten back? Are you keeping track as we go?
Bev Stofferand: Somewhere over 300 altogether.
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
Mayor Jansen: Over 300 altogether so far.
Bev Stofferand: They're coming into the web site and being mailed in every day.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. Well good. At least you're getting some response.
Bev Stofferand: We're getting some response.
Mayor Jansen: People are responding. Council, any questions for Bev?
Councilman Ayotte: Life cycle. In the discussions that you had with the young person getting onto the
bus, travel time, going to school, close curriculum activity, I would suspect that was addressed. I did a
quick cursory look but was there much discussion with respect to life cycle and the special distribution
between where children live today and as they grow older and how that would influence the flexibility of the
buildings?
Bev Stofferand: Not specifically in terms of the research but common sense tells us a number of things.
One, we're geographically a large district so as we get down the road further and need to build new
schools, we need to be cognizant of the siting of the schools from a number of perspectives, and one of
those is transportation. The more we can get children to be able to walk to a school, the easier it is for the
family, the child and the less cost in transportation, the less time on a bus. That may or may not be more
possible in some of the existing schools, just because of their location. That's one thing that's certainly in
our minds. Secondly, in terms of life cycle and flexibility of the buildings. We have taken some steps in
the two new buildings to make them interior much, how do I say this? To have fewer load bearing walls
than some of the existing structures so that when, and we know it is inevitable. This district will be
probably not like, unlike every other one in front of us, that it will peak in it's enrollment and then someday
not need all of the buildings that it will have, that those buildings will be more easily transformed into
something else.
Councilman Ayotte: Thank you.
Mayor Jansen: Any other questions or comments for Bev?
Councilman Boyle: Very interesting and educational presentation, thank you.
Bev Stofferand: Thank you for your time. Appreciate it very much and I would be interested in have you
take a look at that survey and think about it.
Councilman Boyle: Already have and it's been sent in already.
Bev Stofferand: Great, thank you.
Councilman Labatt: Thanks Bev.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you. And I have to say if you've never participated on a school district task force, it
is an experience. And one that I think everyone deserves to go through, and I say it's an experience in that,
it's gratifying to know that when we have an organization that so impacts our residents, the effect on our
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
children as well as if we're all thinking as taxpayers, it's a significant financial investment that we're all
making through our taxes. These folks put a great deal of effort into trying to make the right decisions and
making sure that they're contacting their residents. Getting our input. I don't know of how many other
ways they could be going about trying to communicate to us, that they're undergoing this significant task
and asking us to participate in it, and I do commend them for that and participating in this study. We
literally were exchanging ideas with the high school students. You could hear from them the impact of
some of these questions and decisions that are coming from a student perspective so it was really quite
enlightening and appreciate your being here this evening. We certainly will continue to try to spread the
word with our residents that you're conducting this survey, so thank you.
Bev Stofferand: Thank you.
Mayor Jansen: Gayle, was there anything you wanted to add? Should I put you on the spot since you're
here?
Gayle Degler: I think the biggest thing is any information, any input, please give us, give somebody a call
because we want as much input as we can get.
Mayor Jansen: Great, thanks Gayle. Appreciate it. Gayle Degler from our school board.
APPEAL PLANNING COMMISSION DECISION DENYING A VARIANCE FOR THE
CONSTRUCTION OF A GARAGE ADDITION, 1420 HERON DRIVE, STUART & TANYA
BROWN.
Kate Aanenson: Thank you. The applicants, the Brown's are located in Lake Susan Hills, the 3rd Addition.
It's zoned PUD. This is a picture of the home. They want to put the garage this way, which is shown on
this site plan. It needs a 7 foot variance. On February 19th the Planning Commission heard this request for
a variance and recommended denial. The applicant is appealing that decision. The Planning Commission
looked at the surrounding neighborhood and concurred with the staff report that felt that there wasn't a
hardship with a third stall garage so I'd be happy to answer any questions that you have.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, thank you. Any questions for staff? Is the applicant here this evening? Okay. We
don't typically hold another public hearing at our council meetings but we would open it up for, if you've
got 5 minutes that you'd like to add. We all have the minutes from the Planning Commission meeting, so
we do have your presentation that you had done to that group so if there's any new information that you
would like to add, certainly do that at this time.
Stuart Brown: Alright, you opened the window. I'll be brief. I'll be brief.
Mayor Jansen: If you'll state your name and address for the record for us please.
Stuart Brown: Stuart Brown at 1420 Heron Drive.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you.
Stuart Brown: Thank you. Just a, I didn't present, you know I want to change from what I've learned in
the last process, talking about hardship and now that I understood a little bit more of what you must
approve or... contrary to the public interest. I was going to quote, I have a paperclip here. From the
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
Planning Commission's own findings, that the granting of this variance would not be detrimental to the
public welfare or injurious to the land or other improvements in the neighborhood. I couldn't have said it
better. This variance, if granted, is in harmony with the spirit and the intent of all the zoning, and I list
them all but I won't go through them but you can't find a one that this violates harmony, spirit or intent of
keeping sight lines and property values and over crowded and all these things. It would not result in a
diminished value of the, my property or any surrounding properties. If approved will result in substantial
justice being done. Has full support of the neighborhood. That's redundant in what you've read. I did
bring more signatures tonight if needed can throw in the file. And correct me if I'm wrong but of all people
polled within 500 feet, there have been 0 people with any problems. If approved, 40 percent of the homes
on the cul-de-sac would have a third stall garage. Not a vast minority, so that'd be 4 out of 10. And you
can go through there's little graphs so I guess it's statistically a minority but it's not, it wouldn't be like oh
my gosh, look at this third stall garage would be almost half. It's 4 out of 10. It has no negative impact on
sight lines and I know that's important on comer lots. I will not go through, you know there's over
crowding.., but again none of the issues of the reasons why you have zoning variances that you list in, you
know for the reason for having zoning. You can't find one that this violates the biggest fear is precedence
which I'll get to in a minute. And the alternatives.., by people such as ourselves in this day and age, I
imagine, I bet 15 years ago a single car was probably a reasonable use of property and that probably crept
up to 2 but the alternatives, and I've seen it all over the neighborhood are oh, stuff on the outside of homes.
Cars in the street. Cars in the driveway. Cars on the side of the houses with blankets on them and that
kind of thing which I think violates, goes against the spirit and harmony of a few of those reasons of the
zoning ordinances, more than this. Is there a hardship? I absolutely, positively think so. We've got a
couple sets of maps that were done. Over, I have a comer lot with almost, it's .46 acres of land.
Calculations bear out that 13,000 some square foot of that is not, can't have any building on it. That's
because, I don't know ifI can go to this thing. Is this centered on there? From the center of the street here
got 42 feet approximately in from the curb you know, and 40 feet from the, here's my 2 setbacks. You're
left with here, this is about mathematically about 29 percent of the property is buildable, or can have
anything on it. The Planning Commission noted that while there's always that 10 foot setback or that right-
of-way, then it's really only 54 percent of the square footage that I really could, have ever actually had
anyone mow and water it and things that are something I could have dealt with. One exception to their
exception is they say that all lots are the same, that comer lots really don't have it worst. And that regular
lots have a 30 foot setback also two of them, on the front and the back. But if you talk about a rectangle,
I'd much rather have a 30 foot setback here and a 30 foot setback here. I would have, it's not, just saying
well they both have a standard lot, front and the back. I've got a short and a long side, anyone on a comer
lot. Most lots are deeper than they are wide. So you definitely, you lose a lot more square footage. This
lot for being .46 acres, I effectively, I can't improve or modernize my home. I want to stay here. Been
there 12 years. 11 years. 1990. We want to stay there. Great neighborhood. Great, we pay taxes and do
all those good things. Keep the yard clean. I think a picture's worth 1,000 words. I played with some
digital photography and went to another home just like mine that does have a third stall. This is the comer
we're talking about. Here's Ibis, and it extends this way. Heron Drive this way. Here's my home today. I
superimposed a garage of the same size I'm proposing on there and took great care to size it appropriately.
This is what we're talking about. This comer here would be 30, the city reports it 35 feet. Worst case, 32
to 33 feet from the street. This one would be even further. So this is about 7 feet over the city code. And
here it's about 3 feet away. So on one comer, you know both comers are out but the property angles. But
again all my neighbors, they're all in bed now, or not. But we definitely prefer, my options would become
things like sheds and those kinds of things and they all unanimously said, they'd much rather see a discreet
professional addition of a garage, and again I want to emphasize, I didn't emphasize enough at the Planning
Commission the hardship of this lot. It's a giant lot. 240 feet deep. I certainly moved here thinking I could
expand somewhere and I... tremendous amount of square footage with no again, nothing contrary to public
37
City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
interest and harmony with all the spirit of the ordinances will result in anyone losing any property value and
substantial justice will be done by improving it. That's, I'm open for questions.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, thank you. Any questions for the applicant?
Councilman Labatt: I've got one. Stuart, were you the original purchaser and sited the house on the lot as
it is?
Stuart Brown: Yes sir.
Councilman Labatt: And maybe Kate can answer, in looking at that buildable portion Kate, and the size of
the house, is there a different way he could have situated the house? To allow a third stall by turning the
house at an angle or anything?
Kate Aanenson: Possibly, yeah. Or the style of the house too.
Councilman Labatt: The what?
Kate Aanenson: Or the style of house. Or if it could have been oriented even the other way off of Ibis
Court. Having the driveway come in the other way too because that would have made it longer. If you
would have put the house this way...
Councilman Labatt: So the house would look east.
Kate Aanenson: Correct...this way and the driveway coming in this way...
Councilman Labatt: Okay.
Stuart Brown: It'd be a hardship to do that now.
Mayor Jansen: I would say. Any other questions for the applicant?
Councilman Labatt: No.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, thank you. Appreciate it. I'll bring this back to council. Comments, council.
Councilman Peterson: Yeah, I feel like I'm in a turn down mode tonight but I think historically I've always
looked for a quote, unquote, a compelling reason to give a variance and I just, I don't see a compelling
reason here. If we approve this one, there's nothing compelling about this one that says that we wouldn't,
that we shouldn't approve every one that comes in front of us then and that's what concerns me. Even
though the neighbors feel that way, I don't want, and I don't think it's appropriate that every variance we
get people survey their neighbors and is that okay then. That's not okay. There's a much more
encompassing reasoning that we're building in a statutes on in the variances so, I don't think it's
appropriate.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, thank you. Other comments?
38
City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
Councilman Ayotte: Well I agree with Councilman Peterson in one sense but as I think through this, I
don't see how it negates the neighborhood. The luck of the draw with the positioning of the home, and I
would feel comfortable with disapproving other requests if there was that rule being broken. That it has an
adverse affect to the neighborhood so I tend to think that, or I want to override the Planning Commission's
decision.
Councilman Boyle: I'm leaning that direction also. I think each request has to be measured on it's own
merit. One variance is different than another and I'm not so hung up on the precedent setting part of it. I
agree with Councilman Ayotte. I'm leaning that direction.
Mayor Jansen: One of the things that Councilman Peterson mentioned, the compelling is one of the
challenges that the Planning Commission actually has to apply every time they look at one of these variance
requests, is to try to find that compelling reason. Because one of the things that we look at as a policy
making body, is if we are consistently getting the same variance request, does it mean that we have an
ordinance that needs to be changed. This is a standard comer lot. You probably couldn't get more of a
standard location and it's a standard home. It fits what was created in this neighborhood so when I look for
compelling, I'm looking for, and variances, I look at Carver Beach. I mean there's where you end up with
the compelling. You've got odd shaped lots that are affecting homeowners that want to do minor things to
their homes, even add the second car garage. They only have one car garage, so maybe I've just seen too
many of these that scream we need to do something because of the hardship. When we talk about
precedence, it's in my mind, that's more referring to being fair and equal in how we apply our ordinances.
Because however we look at each one of our residents and their requests, we certainly shouldn't be showing
any bias or favoritism and the only way to really avoid doing that is to be consistent in the application of
our ordinances and how we apply them to each request. And I think that's where I've consistently heard
Planning Commissioners challenge themselves to look for that compelling reason for granting that, the
variances. And though it is a hardship on this particular homeowner, and we can certainly all feel the
discomfort of wanting to expand your home and certainly we appreciate that that third stall is something
that you feel is a necessity, it in fact violates the ordinance that is in place for a comer lot and I would not
be compelled to want to change that ordinance. Therefore I would stand with the ordinance and with the
Planning Commission's recommendation for denial. And looking at other opportunities on the lot, whether
it's expanding towards the back and heaven knows there are numerous of the pre-fab sheds that end up
being used for storing of equipment, and at least that is one option that is available, though may not be one
that's favored. But those are my comments. Councilman Labatt.
Councilman Labatt: Well tom. For years I've sat up here and I've always favored on the side of the
homeowner and you know I look at if we could all go back and change things we've done 5 years ago, a
year ago, 10 years ago and maybe Mr. Brown would position his house differently with future expansion. I
don't know. But I look where I live, and boy I have one of these standard comer lots and when I bought
my house from Lundgren Brothers, and I do, I think they got a variance on my house when they built it for
my garage. I don't know. Something's clicking in my mind that I had to sign something about,
acknowledge that there was a variance on there. So I've always, you know I agree with Mr. Boyle that
take these on a case by case basis and look at them and is this reasonable? I mean it's almost a half acre
lot and you know is Mr. Brown going to be penalized because he's looking at the way his house is
positioned and he can't get his third stall in there because his 30 foot rear yard is now being applied to his
side yard. And maybe he wasn't aware of that and all the things but I tend to take a good lean towards the
homeowner and let, have a reasonable use of their property so we'll leave it at that.
Mayor Jansen: With that I'll call for a motion.
39
City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
Councilman Boyle: I'll make a motion that the appeal be accepted and the request for a 7 foot variance
from the 30 foot front yard setback for the construction of a third stall garage addition be approved.
Councilman Ayotte: I second.
Councilman Boyle moved, Councilman Ayotte seconded that the City Council approve Variance
Request #02-1 for a 7 foot variance from the 30 foot front yard setback for the construction of a
garage addition. All voted in favor, except Mayor Jansen and Councilman Peterson who opposed,
and the motion carried with a vote of 3 to 2.
REQUEST FOR SUBDIVISION OF 5.584 ACRES INTO TWO LOTS; AND SITE PLAN
REVIEW WITH VARIANCES FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF AN 8,617 SQ. FT. BUILDING;
LOCATED ON THE SOUTHEAST CORNER OF HIGHWAY 5 AND GREAT PLAINS
BOULEVARD; PARK NICOLLET FIRST ADDITION, AMERICAN LEGION POST 580.
Public Present:
Name Address
Harold Lund
Daniel Dege
Gene Borg
Paul Differding
Pat Hallisey
Fred Bialczyk
Bob Meuwissen
Don Magee
Ken Wicklund
Tom Pzynski
1481 Scenic View, Chaska
2145 Ford Parkway #201, St. Paul 55116
15455 1 l0th Street, Young America
7228 Frontier Trail
1304 West Medicine Lake Drive, Plymouth
310 Sinnen Circle
201 West 77th Street
7995 Great Plains Boulevard
3970 Linden Circle
7340 Frontier Trail
Kate Aanenson: Thank you Mayor, as you mentioned there's two actions tonight. One is the subdivision
and the other is the site plan review. Just to get the bearings here, the Legion property is located on
Highway 5 and off of Great Plains. It also gets access via this strip mall and the gas station that's on this
property here and is adjacent to the Northcott and the daycare in that site area. The first action is the
subdivision. We looked at sharing parking, the use for the Legion is predominantly evenings and this which
would be a future clinic, Park Nicollet, which probably won't come in for a couple of years, is more
daytime. We requested a parking study done by Benshoof and Associates and the study came back that it
does work for shared parking arrangements so we think that's a win/win. This pond was oversized when
Northcott came in and there's agreements for the expanded use of this pond, again sharing the resources
there. The other part of the subdivision was access. There's two access points, one off of Lake Drive.
The other access point is off of Great Plains. Again when the Villages on the Pond came in, a traffic study
was done on Great Plains Boulevard. We looked at this. When this subdivision for the strip mall went in,
access was to be provided through this driveway here. In working with all the property owners in the area,
it was agreed to move the driveway to this location here providing an access point which we think works.
The other thing that will happen is it's a right-in/right-out only so the median will be moved down. At this
time with the Legion that will not take place until the Park Nicollet building goes in. At that point this
access drive will go in and the extension of Great Plains will come down. Currently with the Legion site,
40
City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
just this drive will be served and we did look at the traffic to see how that worked. So that's the
subdivision. Your first action. The site plan is the second issue before you tonight for the Legion itself.
Again this is a parking. They do need additional parking onto the Park Nicollet site to meet the minimums
required for them to open, so they've agreed with all those. Working that out with Park Nicollet. The
building itself is approximately 7,800 square feet and Sharmin A1-Jaff on our staff has worked with the
Legion. Got a beautiful design. The Legion has worked really well to come in with, they brought in 2 or 3
different designs. The first few we moved to make it lighter. It's adjacent to Highway 5. It has the
visibility and the compliment to Northcott which eventually will have a second building on the site. We
liked the pitched roof line. It's got a lot of movement. The one issue we had was some of the colors
seemed to blend a lot together, particularly some of the siding pieces. They've agreed to darken those up a
little bit so we get a little more contrast, but we think it's a very, very nice building and a compliment to
what we have along Highway 5. With that, we are recommending approval with the conditions in the staff
report for the subdivision and the site plan. Both have findings with them and I'd be happy to answer any
questions that you may have.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you. Any questions for staff? I know we have a representative from the Legion
here this evening, obviously. If there is anything that you would like to add to the staff presentation, you're
certainly welcome to. Otherwise we'll just go with the report.
Dan Dege: Be my guest.
Mayor Jansen: Yes. Do come forward and state your name and address for the record.
Harold Lund: Thank you. I'm Harold Lund. I'm one of the Housing Committee members. I'm also the
Champlin of the Legion, so you've got a little spiritual stuff here tonight. I know a few of the people on
these council. Good friends of mine. Couple things I'd like to say is, I'd like to comment, commend your
Planning Commission. They did a fine job for us. We had excellent results with them. One other question
I'd like to ask is, I approached Todd on the Park and Rec about the park and rec fee. The last 15 years I
would say we've let that land that we have there now be used by the kids in this community. We put up a
free standing out in the park here, pavilion, little stand that the Legion donated to and I guess I was
wondering if this council wouldn't take a look at a little bit that park and rec fee for us veterans. As we all
know there's a lot of stuff going on with the wars and that stuff, and I did a little research after talking to
Todd from the Park and Rec. There's no other, he talked to the attorney. Nobody's ever waived that but I
also know all the veterans organizations around here, because I'm well involved with them, and none of
them had the facilities like we had to let the kids use, so I'd just like this council to take consideration a
little bit maybe of giving us a little break on that park and rec fee. With that, that's it and I thank you.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you. Anyone else? If we could make this brief, I'd very much appreciate it.
Dan Dege: My name is Dan Dege. I am with Finn Daniels Architects, some of the architects for the
American Legion, and I will make this very short and it's all I wanted to say is that we've worked with a lot
of cities throughout Minnesota and other communities and this has been a very good experience for us.
Working with, especially Sharmin A1-Jaff was very positive and the planning council meeting that we had a
few weeks ago and so I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank them and the city for their help in
getting this project off the ground.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you. We appreciate your recognizing staff and the commission and working with
us. Appreciate it. Mr. Gerhardt, I realize Mr. Hoffman isn't here. I think he was earlier. I know before
41
City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
we make major changes to recommendation we do usually like to seek the staff recommendation and I
wonder, I don't know if you want to speak to the request as far as the park and trail fees, or if that's
something that we could ask staff to speak to and address when the final plat comes back to be approved at
the time of platting. Do we have another approval?
Kate Aanenson: Can I comment on that? You'll see the final plat and subdivision. You're reviewing the
preliminary plat tonight. Todd does have a recommendation in for at the time of the subdivision is when
you would extract the fees for the lots. You would collect some with the subdivision recording. We've
changed that to 2/3-1/3 and you'd collect the rest with the building permit. But it would come back before
you. Generally that's on consent for the final plat but that would be an opportunity to review the fees.
Mayor Jansen: Okay.
Todd Gerhardt: Yeah, I'm not 100 percent up on this issue but it would, I can't remember a time where
we've waived park and trail dedication fees in my time with the city. I would ask Todd to prepare a report
as the final plat comes through. But I cannot remember a time when we've done that.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. I guess I would appreciate getting a staff report and recommendation then at the
time that this comes through for platting so that we can address it at that time with all the information in
front of us to that request. Any other comments from council on the project?
Councilman Peterson: I think architecturally it's wonderful. It fits into the area and it will be as close as
that is to 5, probably one of our closest buildings, if not the closest, it will get a lot of sight lines from 5 and
I think it's just wonderful.
Mayor Jansen: Great. Anyone else?
Councilman Labatt: My only disappointment is it's not closer to my house.
Councilman Peterson: So you can walk back and forth?
Councilman Labatt: So I can walk. I was hoping 5 and Galpin property down there...but I think it's a
great building. I really do.
Councilman Ayotte: I don't want to address that because the 101 trail with me walking back and forth but,
but I will say it's the least our veterans deserve. Thank you very much.
Councilman Boyle: I think it's fantastic. So I can walk over there, maybe we can put another bridge over
5. I'm just kidding. This is a good example of when there's good cooperation and collaboration and two
entities working together, you get something done so I think it's just great all the way around.
Mayor Jansen: Great. I want to congratulate the Legion on getting this accomplished. I know this has
been a very long process for all of you as you've worked on getting a project for your site and it certainly is
a wonderful project that you've brought forward as your part of this. We certainly appreciate seeing you
ending up in a bright, sparkly new home. I think it's wonderful and thank you for working with staff as
closely as you have and bringing in such a wonderful project and being a part of our downtown area. We
appreciate having you be so visible and available to our central community. With that, I think we have an
obvious conclusion as to how the vote's going to go but could I have a motion.
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
Councilman Peterson: I'd make a motion that council recommend the approval of Subdivision 2002-3 for
the replat of 5.5 acres into 2 lots, Park Nicollet Addition as shown on plans dated January 15, 2002,
subject to conditions 1 through 18.
Mayor Jansen: And a second.
Councilman Boyle: I'll second.
Councilman Peterson moved, Councilman Boyle seconded that the City Council approve Subdivision
#2002-3 for the replat of 5.58 acres into 2 lots, Park Nicollet Addition, as shown on the plans dated
received January 15, 2002, subject to the following conditions:
Calculations shall demonstrate that all downstream facilities are adequate to
accommodate storm water from the proposed development.
The applicant shall demonstrate that the property owners to the east have granted
permission for grading to occur on their property and that they have agreed to
combine the storm water ponds for both sites.
Drainage and utility easements shall be provided over all storm water ponding
areas.
Silt fence shall be provided in areas where sediment may otherwise be carried off-
site.
5. Erosion control blanket shall be installed on all slopes greater than or equal to 3:1.
All upland areas disturbed as a result of construction activities shall be immediately
restored with seed and disc-mulched, covered with a wood-fiber blanket or sodded
within two weeks of completion of each activity in accordance with the City's Best
Management Practice Handbook.
Based on the proposed developed area of approximately 5.58 acres, the water quality fees
associated with this project are $32,972; the water quantity fees are approximately $24,329. The
applicant will be credited for water quality where NURP basins are provided to treat runoff from
the site. This will be determined upon review of the storm water calculations. At this time, the
estimated total SWMP fee, due payable to the City at the time of final plat recording, is $57,301.
The applicant shall apply for and obtain permits from the appropriate regulatory agencies (e.g. Riley-
Purgatory-Bluff Creek Watershed District, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Minnesota Department
of Natural Resources, Army Corps of Engineers) and comply with their conditions of approval.
Prior to final plat approval, a professional civil engineer registered in the state of Minnesota must
sign all plans.
10. The pond is required to be designed to National Urban Runoff Program (NURP) standards.
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
11.
Cross-access easements for the shared driveway accesses must be obtained and
recorded against the lots.
12.
Staff will work with the applicant's engineer to revise storm water calculations. Prior to final
platting, storm sewer design data will need to be submitted for staff review. The storm sewer will
have to be designed for a 1 O-year, 24-hour storm event. Drainage and utility easements will need
to be dedicated on the final plat over the public storm drainage system including ponds, and
drainage swales, up to the 100-year flood level. The minimum easement width shall be 20 feet
wide. Emergency overflows from all stormwater ponds will also be required on the construction
plans.
13. Minimum 20-foot wide easements will be required over the public portion of the utility lines.
14.
Each newly created lot will be subject to City sanitary sewer and water hook up charges at the time
of building permit issuance. The 2002 trunk utility hook up charges are $1,383 per unit for
sanitary sewer and $1,802 per unit for water.
15.
Public utility improvements will be required to be constructed in accordance with the City's latest
edition of Standard Specifications and Detail Plates. Detailed construction plans and specifications
will be required at the time of final platting. The applicant will also be required to enter into a
development contract with the City and supply the necessary financial security in the form of a
letter of credit or cash escrow to guarantee installation of the improvements and the conditions of
final plat approval. Permits from the appropriate regulatory agencies must be obtained, including
but not limited to the MPCA, Department of Health, Watershed District, Carver County, MnDOT,
etc.
16.
Park and Trail fees shall be paid at the rate in force upon application. The current fees are as
follows:
Legion Site (Lot 2): At the time of plat: Park Fee:
Trail Fee:
At the time of building permit: Park Fee:
Trail Fee:
$3,180
$1,060
$6,360
$2,120
Park Nicollet Site (Lot 1): At the time of plat: Park Fee:
Trail Fee:
At the time of building permit: Park Fee:
Trail Fee:
$5,310
$1,770
$10,620
$3,540
17.
The applicant shall enter into a development contract with the city and provide the necessary
financial securities as required.
18. Any retaining wall that exceeds 3 feet in height shall be designed by a Registered Engineer.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously 5 to 0.
Mayor Jansen: Next, go ahead.
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
Councilman Peterson: I'd make a motion that the Council recommend approval of Site Plan Review
#2002-2 for the American Legion Post 580 as shown on site plan dated January 15, 2002, subject to
conditions 1 through 35.
Mayor Jansen: And a second.
Councilman Boyle: Second.
Councilman Peterson moved, Councilman Boyle seconded that the City Council approve Site Plan
Review #2002-2 for the American Legion Post 580 as shown on the site plan received January 15,
2002, subject to the following conditions:
1. The applicant must obtain a sign permit prior to erecting any signage on site. Provide a detailed
sign plan for review and approval. The signage shall meet the following criteria:
a. Monument signage shall be subject to the monument standards in the sign ordinance.
b. Wall signs are permitted on the southwest elevation only. The sign area shall meet
standards set in the sign ordinance.
c. All signs require a separate permit.
d. The signage will have consistency throughout the development and add an architectural
accent to the building.
e. Consistency in signage shall relate to color, size, materials, and heights.
f. Back-lit individual letter signs are permitted.
g. Individual letters may not exceed 2 feet in height.
h. Only the name and logo of the business occupying the building will be permitted on the
sign.
2. All rooftop equipment shall be screened from views. Any kitchen vents shall be concealed or
painted the same color as the roof.
3. The applicant shall enter into a site plan agreement with the city and provide the necessary
financial securities.
4. Fire Marshal conditions:
a. Two additional fire hydrants will be required. Contact Chanhassen Fire Marshal for exact
location of hydrants.
b. A 10-foot clear space must be maintained around fire hydrants, i.e, street lamps, trees,
bushes, shrubs, Qwest, Xcel Energy, cable TV and transformer boxes. This is to ensure
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
that the hydrants can be quickly located and safely operated by firefighters. Pursuant to
Chanhassen City Ordinance #9-1.
c. When fire protection including fire apparatus access roads and water supplies for fire
protection is required to be installed, such protection shall be installed and made
serviceable prior to and during the time of construction. Pursuant to 1997 Uniform Fire
code Section 901.3.
d. Comply with the Chanhassen Fire Department/Fire Prevention Division regarding premise
identification. Pursuant to Chanhassen Fire Department/Fire Prevention Division Policy
#29-1992.
e. Comply with water service installation policy for commercial and industrial buildings.
Pursuant to Inspection Division Water Service Installation Policy #34-1993. Copy
enclosed.
f. Comply with the Chanhassen Fire Department/Fire Prevention Division Policy regarding
maximum allowed size of domestic water on a combination domestic/fire sprinkler supply
line. Pursuant to Chanhassen Fire Department/Fire Prevention Division Policy #36-1994.
Copy enclosed.
g. Comply with the Chanhassen Fire Department/Fire Prevention Division policy regarding
notes being included on all site plans. Pursuant to Chanhassen Fire Department/Fire
Prevention Division Policy #4-1991.
h. "No parking fire lane" signs and yellow curbing will be required. Contact Chanhassen fire
Marshal for exact location of signs and curbing to be painted yellow. Pursuant to
Chanhassen Fire Department/Fire Prevention Division Policy #6-1991 and Section 904-
1997 Uniform Fire Code.
The applicant shall change the color of the accent medallions to a more contrasting color.
Concurrent with the building permit, a detailed lighting plan including fixture styles, meeting city
standards shall be submitted.
Building Official's conditions:
a. The building is required to have an automatic fire extinguishing system.
b. The plans must be prepared and signed by design professionals licensed in the
State of Minnesota.
c. Demolition permits must be obtained form the Inspections Division before demolishing any
structures.
d. Detailed occupancy related code requirements will be reviewed when complete plans are
submitted. It is evident however that the assembly space in the basement must be of one-
hour fire-resistive construction and the exits as designed do not comply with the code.
e. The proposed building on Lot 1 was not reviewed for building code compliance.
f. The owner and or their representative shall meet with the Inspections Division as soon as
possible to discuss plan review and permit procedures.
Applicant shall increase the easterly buffer yard plantings to meet minimum requirements. Spruce
trees shall be added to the east of the trash enclosure and the loading area. A revised landscape
plan shall be submitted to the City prior to city council approval. All Colorado Blue Spruce trees
shall be replaced by Black Hills Spruce or other species as approved by the city.
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
11
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
All parking lot landscape islands must have a minimum width of 10 feet.
The applicant and/or contractor shall notify the City upon encountering any existing drain
tile on the site. The City will determine whether or not the drain tile can be abandoned or
relocated.
All construction vehicles shall access the site from Lake Drive North and not Great Plains
Boulevard. Rock construction entrances shall be installed and maintained until the site is
paved with a bituminous surface. Haul routes, if necessary, shall be pre-approved by the
City. The applicant will be required to maintain haul routes and clean the streets of any
dirt and mud accumulated from vehicles tracking. Any damage to City streets, curbs or
other public facilities will be the responsibility of the applicant.
Private utility easements will be required for the storm sewer line that runs from Lot 2 to
Lot 1.
Add the following City of Chanhassen Detail Plate Nos. 1002, 1004, 1006, 2101, 2109,
2201-2205, 3101, 3106-3108, 5204, 5207, 5214, 5234 and 5300.
Prior to final plat approval, a professional civil engineer registered in the state of
Minnesota must sign all plans.
The pond is required to be designed to National Urban Runoff Program (NURP)
standards.
Cross-access easements for the shared driveway accesses must be obtained and recorded
against the lots.
The minimum rock construction entrance must be 75 feet away.
The applicant must obtain a permit from MnDOT for grading in the right-of-way.
Staff will work with the applicant's engineer to revise storm water calculations. Prior to
final platting, storm sewer design data will need to be submitted for staff review. The
storm sewer will have to be designed for a 1 O-year, 24-hour storm event. Drainage and
utility easements will need to be dedicated on the final plat over the public storm drainage
system including ponds, and drainage swales, up to the 100-year flood level. The
minimum easement width shall be 20 feet wide. Emergency overflows from all
stormwater ponds will also be required on the construction plans.
A silt fence shall be added around the east side of storm water pond grading limits of the site. The
silt fence must be Type II. All of the proposed rock construction entrances must be lengthened to
75 feet as per City Detail Plate No. 5301. The silt fence shall be removed upon completion of the
project.
Any off-site grading will require easements from the appropriate property owner.
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
Minimum 20-foot wide easements will be required over the public portion of the utility lines.
Installation of the private utilities for the site will require permits and inspections through the
City's Building Department.
Each newly created lot will be subject to City sanitary sewer and water hook up charges at the time
of building permit issuance. The 2002 trunk utility hook up charges are $1,383 per unit for
sanitary sewer and $1,802 per unit for water.
Public utility improvements will be required to be constructed in accordance with the City's latest
edition of Standard Specifications and Detail Plates. Detailed construction plans and specifications
will be required at the time of final platting. The applicant will also be required to enter into a
development contract with the City and supply the necessary financial security in the form of a
letter of credit or cash escrow to guarantee installation of the improvements and the conditions of
final plat approval. Permits from the appropriate regulatory agencies must be obtained, including
but not limited to the MPCA, Department of Health, Watershed District, Carver County, MnDOT,
etc.
On the utility plan:
- Revise catch basin nos. 2, 3, 4, and 7 to catch basin manhole nos. 2, 3, 4, and 7.
- Revise sheet title to "Preliminary Utility Plan".
- Shift the watermain toward the southeast comer adjacent to the curb and call the fittings.
- Show the utilities easement.
- Add a storm sewer schedule.
- Change the type of public watermain from DIP to PVC C-900.
- Show the proposed pipe slope, class and length of the storm sewer.
- Under the Sewer and Water Notes, add, "All sanitary services shall be 6" PVC SDR26.
On the grading plan:
- Show all existing and proposed easements.
- Show the benchmark used for the site survey.
- Add a note "clean existing pond after pond enlargement grading is finished".
- Revise sheet title to "Preliminary Grading, Drainage & Erosion Control Plan".
- Add a note for removing existing bituminous and close off the existing (west) American
Legion access.
Access onto Great Plains Boulevard from Lot 1, Block 1 shall be restricted to a right-in/right-out only.
The connecting access drive between the two developments as shown on the plans should be
constructed along the south property line of the site concurrently with the construction of Phase II.
Obtain a liquor license from the City.
The existing Legion building shall be removed no later than 60 days after receipt of the
Certificate of Occupancy for the new building.
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
31.
The applicant will work with staff to explore the possibility of having a tree island on the
property line as well as placement options for a sidewalk.
32.
The applicant shall work with staff to minimize impact and save the significant stand of
trees located in the southwest corner of the site until future plans are developed.
33.
Park and Trail fees shall be paid at the rate in force upon application. The current fees are
as follows:
Legion Site (Lot 2): At the time of plat:
At the time of building permit:
Park Fee: $3,180
Trail Fee: $1,060
Park Fee: $6,360
Trail Fee: $2,120
Park Nicollet Site (Lot 1): At the time of plat:
At the time of building permit:
Park Fee: $5,310
Trail Fee: $1,770
Park Fee: $10,620
34.
The applicant shall be responsible for closing off the existing Citgo Gas Station (west)
access, removing the existing bituminous, extending the curb along Great Plains
Boulevard (east side) and extending the median located across from the existing Legion
curb cut to eliminate left turns.
35.
Recycling space shall be provided for all new buildings. The area of the recycling space
must be dedicated at the rate specified in Minnesota State Building Code (MSBC)
1300.4700 Subp. 5. The applicant should demonstrate the required area will be provided
in addition to the space required for other solid waste collection space. Recycling space
and other solid waste collection space should be contained within the same enclosure."
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously 5 to 0.
Kate Aanenson: Clarification on the motion. I'm assuming when it comes back for final plat is
when you want us to address the fees.
Mayor Jansen: Yes, if you would then have a report in there with a recommendation on the park
and trail fees, thank you. Appreciate it.
CONSENT AGENDA: ARBORETUM VILLAGE 2N~ ADDITION, FINAL PLAT
APPROVAL AND APPROVAL OF DEVELOPMENT CONTRACT.
Mayor Jansen: Actually we have the adjoining property owner, Ms. McAllister who has
requested to be able to speak to this issue and is present here with her attorney.
Hugh Bishop: That's right, I am Hugh Bishop. I represent Susan McAllister who is the owner of
the adjoining land which is known as Miss Rosie's Farm. The agenda item is for final plat
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
approval and approval of the development contract of Arboretum Village 2nd. Looking back, !
believe the date is March 12, 2001, the initial approval was given contingent with certain
conditions. One of those conditions was an Environmental Assessment Worksheet. Ms.
McAllister would like to present her belief that the Environmental Assessment Worksheet was not
completed and ask the questions, if it was not completed, what is the significance of that? And
how could it be completed? And if it is not completed, what is the significance? And particularly
focus on the historical preservation aspects. We have just a few minutes ! know. It might be
possible to accelerate if you would like to ask questions during her presentation in order to get to
the heart of the matter. There are two things that are possible in her request for action. One is
that the matter be tabled. But the other is, in this section right here. I'll move it up this way.
Point for me there and I'll stay with the microphone. If you can point out where the farm is,
where your property is .... and in this peninsula there on the existing plat proposal are these
buildings, just point again here. The twin homes. One possibility which would satisfy the
incompletion of the EAW and the incompletion of the historic assessment would be to approve
the plat as is, except to have that one area for the moment be an outlot so that these could be
completed before making a final decision about approving the buildings at that point. Ms.
McAllister would like to present.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, if we could maybe address what the issues are and why you believe the
EAW is incomplete so that we can have staff or the city attorney, whomever, address those issues
with us. That would be appreciated.
Susan McAllister: Sure. Okay, the Environmental Assessment Worksheet was done in July of
2000 and part of that EAW included part of the archeological assessment that was conducted on
Phase ! of the Pulte Development project. And it asks about the farm. It says here the project
team therefore recommends that the proposed project be allowed to proceed as planned with the
following qualifications. Number one, the study did not include a survey of a farmstead located
along the east side of Highway 41 on a, it says 3 acre property but really a 6, of land not being
developed by this project. The plot is shown on 3 sides by the development. Should the
development be subject to review under Section 106, which we found out it is, the farm would fall
within the area of potential effect in it's National Register potential should be evaluated. If it is
eligible the effect of the project on the farm should be ascertained. So far that, ! mean it says, it
did, the historical assessment came up saying that it would have an adverse affect on the
farmstead and so that's my concern right there. And then on, so it came up 2 times in the EAW.
On page 8 it talks about the Dennis Gimestad Government programs and compliance officer
Shippo to Teresa Defore Hedlund April 5, 2000. The present report only addresses the project's
affects on a fruit breeding farm. It does not examine the other property in the vicinity, including
an undeveloped, they say again 3 acre parcel along Highway 41, which is my farm which is 6
acres so that is well, my concern is because of the fact that if that was not taken into
consideration, and that's part of the EAW, how can the EAW be a completed document?
Mayor Jansen: Okay. ! don't know, Kate or Roger, whichever one of you is able to answer that
question about the EAW being complete.
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
Roger Knutson: Maybe we can both chime in. The EAW was completed in July of 2000. In July
of 2000 the City made a negative declaration declaring that there was not a need for preparation
of an ElS. That decision is final 30 days later. The time to appeal from that decision was some
time in August or early September of 2000.
Susan McAllister: No, it was September 4, 2000 to October 4, 2000. And that is correct, that
that was the time to make the comment on it.
Mayor Jansen: That was the appeal period you said?
Roger Knutson: That's the appeal period.
Mayor Jansen: Okay.
Roger Knutson: Once the EAW is done, anyone who thinks it's inadequately prepared has 30
days to appeal that decision.
Susan McAllister: Then ! have something ! want to include. ! would like to ask Kate, at which
date of the newspaper of the Villager newspaper did you publish the availability as a press release
of the EAW? For viewing.
Kate Aanenson: I don't have that in front of me.
Susan McAllister: Well do you know when you did because ! examined the entire year and !
didn't see anything like that.
Kate Aanenson: Well I'd have to go check the file.
Mayor Jansen: Okay so, are you suggesting that you did not know that the EAW had been done?
Susan McAllister: No.
Mayor Jansen: Because.
Susan McAllister: Because of the fact that when, in my, ! have a 7 page letter that I'll give all of
you but when ! did talk to Todd Gerhardt about you know, the fact that ! found out that my farm
was coming up in it, that was in, it might have been in December. ! have it listed as November,
but ! think it might have been in December so ! asked Todd, ! said well ! want to make a
comment because it asks you know for comments and he said no, you can't because it was done,
it was finished making comments in October. ! said well, ! didn't even know about it. ! mean !
did not know about it but it says in here that you have to, within 5 days of the date of submission
of the EAW to the EQB staff, the responsible government unit, which the city took, they took
that responsibility okay. They were the RGU, shall provide a press release containing notice of
the availability of the EAW for public review to at least one newspaper of general circulation
within the area where the project is proposed. The press release shall include the name and
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
location of the project, a brief description of the project, the location at which copies of the EAW
are available for review, the date the comment period expires, and the procedures for
commenting. So I'm asking which newspaper publication that was in.
Kate Aanenson: All that was given to the EQB, they do the publication. All that is recorded in
my minutes to the Planning Commission. All the dates and the comment period when it opened,
when it closes, all are part of the staff report which I've given you over a year and a half ago.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, so I don't know ifI can set that issue aside and come back to what, what
does it mean to even want to go back and to this project now and re-open that EAW.
Roger Knutson: We're 2 years late. Or a year and a half.
Susan McAllister: ! talked with John Larson from the EQB and ! asked him, ! said if the farm
was not taken into consideration, if that information was not taken into consideration about the
historic you know assessment was not being done because it was hidden, do you believe the EAW
is complete, and he said no. He doesn't believe it is. That was part of the EAW.
Roger Knutson: Anyone who didn't like the decision you had 30 days to appeal from that
decision after you made the decision. Based on August-September of 2000 was the time line.
Mayor Jansen: Okay.
Susan McAllister: ! need to say that ! could not appeal because ! did not know there was such a
thing. ! tried to appeal as soon as ! found out it was in the packet for the January 16th Planning
Commission meeting. And ! was told that it was over in October so that was like 3 months prior
to the time ! came rushing up to try to make a comment. And that's what I'm saying, that yes. !
need to find out exactly what newspaper date the press release was published in. ! looked the
entire year of 2000 in the newspaper, the Villager newspaper and ! did not find anything as a press
release being offered.
Mayor Jansen: Okay so, ! gather you're going to try and snag this on a technicality, which is
what I'm hearing loud and clear, and that's fine but we're 1 and lA years later and we now have
the project in front of us and what I'm trying to ascertain is what exactly it is we think will be
accomplished by now having the farm, even if it were then included in the EAW, what impact it
would have on this project. Because ! mean if we're talking about a historic preservation and the
site, is that not just impacting what happens on that site versus it reflecting into the Pulte project.
Roger Knutson: The purpose, the sole purpose of an EAW is to determine whether an EIS is
necessary.
Susan McAllister: Not necessarily, ! don't agree with that.
Mayor Jansen: Excuse me, please don't interrupt. ! appreciate it.
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
Roger Knutson: In my opinion, and what the rules say, the purpose of an EAW is to determine
whether an EIS should be prepared. A full blown Environmental Impact Statement. And you
made the decision that it should not be prepared, and I believe everyone knew the farm was there
but.
Mayor Jansen: Correct.
Roger Knutson: So you made that decision a year and a half ago, 2 years ago.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. And again, what I'm hearing is we're trying to snag this up on a
technicality when I think what we're coming back to is or isn't this a historic site. And that drives
whether or not there is issues around preservation on this site. Now, you and I spoke earlier
today and you've not as of today started that process, correct? As far as getting this on the
Historic Registration.
Susan McAllister: I have not started the process but I am finding you know different agencies
that can do it for a fair price. It costs $5,000. Can I read two definitions of the rules and
regulations of the Corp, Department of the Army Corp, Section 1067 It says for clarification we
added a definition of quote, historic property which includes both designated and undesignated
historic properties. It should be noted in this regard that the term quote, historic property, as
used in this appendix is broader that that term as used in the National Historic Preservation Act.
This is because our public interest decision requires us to consider impacts on all properties with
historic importance regardless of the degree of their historical importance and whether or not they
may be eligible for the inclusion on the National Register. Then we've got a definition of
designated historic property. As a historic property listed in the National Register of Historic
Places (National Register), or which has been determined eligible for listing in the National
Register pursuant to 36CFR, Part 63. A historic property that in both the opinion of the Shippo
and the district engineer, which I did get their opinion. They do believe this. They are in
agreement. Appears to meet the criteria for inclusion in the National Register will be treated as a
quote, designated historic property. And so that means that I am in the same category as if it
were already done. And the reason why they do that is because it takes so long to get a property
on the National Historic Registry that if you don't give them the same, what am I trying to say?
The same, what am I trying to say. I don't know. Designation. That that potential property that
could be eligible would be gone because of the fact that the development would take it out. Or
impact it negatively so, I clarified this with the shippo. I clarified this with the.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, and we all know that you've been in extensive conversations with staff and
our attorney's very familiar with this situation and I guess part of my question, bringing this back
to you Mr. Knutson. Knowing all of the steps that we have taken through this process and where
we're at today with Pulte, and our requirements with them as a developer, with everything that
we have already approved, are we at a point where we can even throw this kind of a delay, even if
it is just on those upper properties, is it reasonable for us to delay that part of the project for any
additional review that needs to be done by the Environmental Quality Board?
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
Roger Knutson: We have two constraints we're dealing with. First, ! believe we have a time
constraint. Within 60 days after someone files a properly completed final plat application, we
have to approve it or it's deemed approved. That's 60 days, and ! don't know when the dates run
but I'm sure it's, I'm not sure when the date runs so we have just 60 days or we lose control of
the project entirely. Second, this is not a preliminary plat approval. This is final plat approval.
You've already given preliminary plat approval. That's where you take into consideration the
policy issues. The purpose of final plat approval is simply to make sure all the I's are dotted and
t's are crossed and the conditions upon which you've approved the preliminary plat have been
executed. So for example in conjunction with preliminary plat you told them move a lot line,
change a street location, whatever you told them to do, they've done that. And the development
contract's been prepared and they're ready to execute it and provide a letter of credit. That's the
status you're at now. You're at the last hurdle. All the big, frankly heavy lifting has been done.
You've already approved the EAW and made a negative declaration on that a year and a half ago.
So you don't have a lot of choices here.
Mayor Jansen: No we don't. Were we to approve this this evening, would there be the potential
of attaching a condition that those units not be constructed until we get an opinion or some sort
of an, and ! don't know if we can put a time frame on it. We don't want to delay this thing out 3
months or 6 months or whatever it takes for the historic designation, but if the environmental
board needs to look at it.
Roger Knutson: ! don't think the environmental board is going to be looking at it. ! mean you
made the decision. You were the local government unit that made that decision. The EQB
doesn't make the decision. That's your decision, not their's to make and you've already made it.
Todd Gerhardt: We're the LGU.
Mayor Jansen: Pardon?
Todd Gerhardt: We're the local.
Roger Knutson: RGU.
Todd Gerhardt: RGU.
Roger Knutson: LGU is wetlands. If they've met the conditions of preliminary approval, of the
preliminary plat, unless you, ! know of no basis for just putting out some lots frankly.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, appreciate your opinion on that.
Susan McAllister: Can ! interject something?
Mayor Jansen: As long as it's toward the council, yes. Thanks.
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
Susan McAllister: Towards the council? Okay. Well, I'm just saying that Pulte withheld that
information until ! found it out. ! mean the historic significance in the historic assessment would
have been brought out last December, 2000 if it would have come forward. ! found that out on
my own.
Mayor Jansen: Well and again what ! keep coming back to Sue, and ! know you and ! have
talked about it, is in the comments that have been made and the documents, and maybe ! should
have started with acknowledging that you've put a great deal of effort into your, into this project
and really trying to research it and get your arms around all the different regulations and the
people that you've been in contact with is significant. You've done a lot to try and really
understand what's going on. In the letters, the only mitigation that they've spoken to is adding
trees along the one side of your property where they don't exist, and ! know you've said that you
think that that's more detrimental versus it being an asset. And then they questioned, what was it,
the road. And you've already had them out to take a look at the road access and where that
should be. So ! again question, for us to go against what is in front of us, that we've already
approved up to this point, isn't accomplishing stopping what you want to stop. You can still
mitigate what's going on around your project, and what goes beyond your property line. ! don't
see where you need to exercise control in order to maintain your historic importance. And the
preservation of it. That's ! guess my concern and that if you have issues with Pulte, that's
between yourself and Pulte as far as that information and how the information flowed. But the
EAW was to determine whether or not we needed an ElS, and there wasn't anything significant to
stop us or move us forward into producing that document. ! certainly encourage you to continue
to pursue that historic preservation designation and certainly get your concerns addressed, but !
don't know that this is the venue to be having those addressed.
Susan McAllister: I'm not trying to do that but ! believe that, and ! might be wrong, but I, Kate
believe did not have the archeological survey because when ! asked for it, ! got it in July of 2001,
and she said she didn't have it. So therefore if she were to see it, if she were to have seen the
archeological survey, the same pages were in there that asks about the farm. About the historic,
about the farm should be looked at as possibly historic. But so that ! would say is negligent on
your part. Because she didn't have it. She had it that day but she didn't have it, but she said but
got it for you when you asked for it. But ! go Kate, that's a year later.
Mayor Jansen: Well and again, we're here we're doing the he said, she said thing again and !
mean we had an EAW. We approved an EAW. You waived the flag and supported the proposal
as it came through and expedited things for Pulte. ! mean you recall your active support of it, and
maybe at that time.
Susan McAllister: ...I did not know my farm was...
Mayor Jansen: There should have been more focus on this particular issue on your part, but that
wasn't our responsibility. ! mean we put the EAW out there. We got the results back from the
organizations and we're at the point that we're at.
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
Councilman Peterson: Madam Mayor, ! think that this, just from listening to Roger and listening
to the conversation tonight, my sense is that we move ahead tonight, making a decision on what's
in front of us tonight. And then if there are technical issues and legal issues that need to be sorted
out, then so be it. That's not for us to decide tonight. Let's let Roger and whomever deal with
that on a go forward basis, but ! don't think we can dissect it any farther than we've got in front
of us tonight so ! think that's the appropriate way to move ahead.
Councilman Ayotte: ! like the idea of making Roger do it.
Mayor Jansen: ! appreciate that comment and that's definitely the sense and ! know there's been
a lot of conversation between both parties and maybe you need to have some additional
conversation, so at this point I'm going to bring this back to council and ask you to continue, if
you've got your concerns, to address them with the city attorney and see what we can't reach as
far as a resolution to your concerns.
Susan McAllister: Okay, that's fine.
Mayor Jansen: Thank you. Council, bringing this back. I don't know if there's any comments or
if ! can just call for a motion.
Councilman Ayotte: Madam Mayor, ! so move that the City Council approve the final plat for
Arboretum Village 2 Addition with 33 blocks and 142 dwelling units. This plat also includes
Outlot A and B, Lot 13, Block 1 and Lots 4 and 14, Block 2, which is a common space for the
units as shown on the plans prepared by Hedlund Planning, Engineering, Surveying dated
February 4, 2002, subject to conditions 1 through 21.
Mayor Jansen: And a second?
Councilman Labatt: Second.
Councilman Ayotte moved, Councilman Labatt seconded that the City Council approve
the final plat for Arboretum Village 2nd Addition with 33 blocks and 142 dwelling units.
This plat also includes: Outlot A and B, Lot 13, Block 1, and Lots 4 and 14, Block 2 which
is the common space for the units as shown on the plans prepared by Hedlund Planning,
Engineering, Surveying, dated February 4, 2002, subject to the following conditions:
Compliance with the Development Standards (site plan dated October 23, 2000, revised
February 7, 2001, and revised March 5, 2001.)
This resolution shall not entitle the owner of any land adjacent to the new development to
seek enforcement of any existing setback requirements in such a way as to prohibit the
development of the new planned unit development in accordance with it's approved
conditions. And (b) shall not entitle the owner of any land located in the new planned unit
developments to seek enforcement of any existing setback requirements in such a way as
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
to prohibit the construction, maintenance and use of any adjacent land of buildings and
structures that now are or would be currently allowed by the zoning code as it now exists.
Submit soil reports to the Inspections Division. This shall be done prior to issuance of any
building permits.
All utility and street improvements shall be constructed in accordance with the latest
edition of the City's Standard Specifications and Detail Plates. Detailed street and utility
plans and specifications shall be submitted for staff review and City Council approval. The
utility systems, upon completion, will be owned and maintained by the City. The private
streets shall be constructed to support 7-ton per axle design weight in accordance with the
City Code 20-1118 "design of parking stalls and drive aisles". The private streets shall be
located in a strip of property or easement 40 feet wide.
The applicant shall apply for and obtain permits from the appropriate regulatory agencies,
i.e. Watershed District, Metropolitan Environmental Service Commission, Health
Department, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Minnesota Department of Natural
Resources, and Minnesota Department of Transportation, and comply with their
conditions of approval.
No berming or landscaping will be allowed within the right-of-way except landscaping
along the frontage road in accordance with the Trunk Highway 5 Corridor Study.
If importing or exporting material for development site grading is necessary, the applicant
shall supply the City with detailed haul routes and traffic control plans for review and
approval. Also, any off-site grading will require temporary easements.
The applicant shall report to the City Engineer the location of any draintiles found during
construction and shall relocate or abandon the draintile as directed by the City Engineer.
Landscaped median islands may be permitted within the public streets contingent upon the
developer entering into an encroachment agreement with the city and the medians do not
pose a traffic safety issue.
10.
Accessibility shall be provided to all portions of the development and a percentage of the
units may also be required to be accessible or adaptable in accordance with Minnesota
State Building Code Chapter 1341. Further information is needed to determine these
requirements.
11
Walls and projections within 3 feet of property lines shall be one-hour fire resistive
construction.
12.
Any building classified as an R-1 occupancy (a building containing three or more dwelling
units on the same property) and with over 8500 gross square feet of floor area shall be
protected with an automatic sprinkler system.
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
The buildings will be required to be designed by an architect and engineer as determined
by the building official.
Landscaping and tree preservation:
Tree protection fencing shall be installed prior to construction around all areas
designated for preservation.
All evergreens used as overstory trees in buffer yard areas shall be increased to a
minimum height of 8 feet. The plant schedule on the landscape plan shall be
changed to reflect this requirement.
The minimum number of shrubs shall be required in buffer yard areas along
Highways 5 and 41. The applicant shall work with staff to meet minimum
requirements for shrubs along West 78th Street.
d. Boulevard trees along West 78th Street shall be spaced 55 feet apart.
All Colorado spruce specified in landscape plans shall be replaced by a new
selection of evergreen.
f. A revised landscape plan shall be submitted to the city for approval.
To ensure clear communication the applicant shall have all homebuyers sign a disclosure
statement that would be part of their restrictive covenants. The statement shall include
information about Miss Rosie's Petting Farm, Gateway Group Home and potential future
road extension. Signed statements shall be submitted to the City.
The applicant will be responsible (security) for a portion of the cost of the future traffic
signal at the intersection of Trunk Highway 41 and West 78th Street.
The main loop streets north and south of West 78th Street and the street accessing the city
park in the northeast corner shall be a public street. These shall be a 60 foot right-of-way
but the city will approve design standards (less than standard pavement width). A
standard asphalt width of 31 feet.
The developer shall work with the city to accomplish city goals for housing including the
provision of"affordable housing" a minimum of 30% of the ownership housing shall meet
the criteria established for affordability by the Metropolitan Council. The developer shall
also work with the City on affordability mechanisms for Income Qualifying and
Maintenance of Affordability.
The remaining park and trail dedication fees required to be collected prior to the city
signing the final plat are as follows:
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
14 twins = 28 units
Park fee 28x$1,500
Trail fee 28 x $500
Remaining 114 units
Park fee 114 x $1,250
Trail fee 114 x $417
Total
$42,000
$14,000
$142,500
$47,538
$246,038
20. Pulte Homes shall construct the north and east wetland trail as public amenities with
reimbursement from the city's trail dedication fund. All necessary public easements
required to accommodate these trail shall be dedicated to the city.
21. Sanitary sewer and water hookup charges shall be collected at the time of each building
permit issuance. The current hookup charges are $1,382 for sanitary sewer and $1,802
for water.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously 5 to 0.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, so I still need the development contract please. Item l(b)-2.
Councilman Labatt: I would move we approve the development contract.
Councilman Boyle: lb-2.
Councilman Labatt: Yeah, lb-2. For expediency sake.
Mayor Jansen: Yeah, I don't think there's anything specific. As designated in the staff report.
Teresa Burgess: That motion is sufficient.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. And a second please.
Councilman Boyle: Second.
Councilman Labatt moved, Councilman Boyle seconded that the City Council approve the
Development Contract dated March 11, 2002, and Construction Plans and Specifications
for Arboretum Village 2na Addition dated January 10, 2002, prepared by Hedlund
Engineer, conditioned upon the following:
1. The applicant shall enter into the development contract and supply the City with a cash
escrow or letter of credit in the amount of $863,004 and pay an administration fee of
$105,476.
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
2. The applicant's engineer shall work with the City staff in revising the construction plans to
meet city standards.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously 5 to 0.
Councilman Peterson: Just a point of clarification. There was 35 conditions instead of 21 as I'm
reading this. Just to, to Bob's earlier motion. Perhaps we should bring that back.
Councilman Ayotte: 1 through 35.
Mayor Jansen: To amend?
Councilman Peterson: ! just want to do this right.
Kate Aanenson: You're right, there's 35.
Todd Gerhardt: ! thought he just made the motion to approve the final plat.
Councilman Peterson: Roger, what should we do with that?
Mayor Jansen: Just a general motion to approve the final plat.
Kate Aanenson: The 35 are the conditions that were shown as we modified them and changed
them, so that's for your clarification. Just to show, the 21 are the final language and actually
those are all rolled into the development contract just to be clear.
Councilman Ayotte: So the 21 holds?
Kate Aanenson: Correct.
Mayor Jansen: So we're okay?
Roger Knutson: ! think so.
Kate Aanenson: Just for clarification.
Councilman Peterson: That's why we pay him the big bucks.
Roger Knutson: ...the 35.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, we carried through the conditions, the original conditions so you can track
which ones have been met with the first plat. Which ones have been modified so if they dropped
off, we try to explain to you why and then those...
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
Mayor Jansen: So there's 21 modified.
Kate Aanenson: Correct.
Mayor Jansen: Gotch ya.
Roger Knutson: And normally a development contract would be just approved so.
Councilman Peterson: So we have the bases covered.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, great.
COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS: COUNCIL/COMMISSION LIAISON UPDATE.
Mayor Jansen: And reports council?
Councilman Peterson: ! have none.
Councilman Ayotte: We had a meeting with staff and the water treatment to formulate the
approach to handle the source selection and how the committee will operate. Those
recommendations were forwarded to Teresa and she'll be responding and sending out to council
results of that meeting and discussions. Do you want to add to that Teresa?
Teresa Burgess: We're looking at our first interviews being set up in the next week or two.
Right now I'm still waiting to hear back from one final person on the pack what their
recommendation for interviews are but ! have heard back from 3 of the 4 and so ! just need that
final person to let me know what they want to do.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, great.
Councilman Ayotte: Thanks.
Mayor Jansen: Anything else? We had the public hearing on the park concept plan on Thursday
evening. Now we will meet again as a park committee with the Park and Rec Commission on
Tuesday evening to review that concept, public comments and take a look at some of initial
budget numbers. So we are continuing to work on that project. Council doesn't see it until April
8th'
Councilman Labatt: How many residents stopped by?
Mayor Jansen: Not many.
Councilman Peterson: 3?
Todd Gerhardt: 3.
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
Councilman Boyle: You're kidding? That's all.
Councilman Peterson: 3, trust us.
Councilman Boyle: ! believe you.
Todd Gerhardt: That was the night it was sleeting rain.
Councilman Ayotte: Well that's okay.
Todd Gerhardt: It was a pretty nasty night.
Councilman Peterson: And these people came in to get out of the rain.
Mayor Jansen: That's more the story.
Todd Gerhardt: They were here for the Johnson wedding.
Teresa Burgess: But to be honest, we had the open house for the assessment project that was
earlier this evening, and we had 6 and it was a beautiful night.
Mayor Jansen: Just difficult to get people to show up for things like that.
Todd Gerhardt: ! mean we can have additional meetings. The construction of this project
probably will not occur until 2003, so you have almost a year to continue your planning of this
facility so.
Mayor Jansen: That's what Todd and ! talked about earlier today. That certainly what we're
trying to accomplish is getting a feel for what we're going to be doing on this corner in case there
were things that we needed to take into consideration as they were starting to dig the footings for
the library. If we were going to need fill on this site, it certainly would have been prudent to just
move it over versus trucking it off and having to bring it back so, at least we're answering those
questions but there will be plenty of opportunities for people to get a look at the concept plan and
make comments and make adjustments. ! did attend the Southwest Metro Transit Commission
meeting. There wasn't anything of real big significance. They did present the 2001 report with a
2002 preview and I've had Mr. Gerhardt put Len Simich on our council agenda for ! believe it
was April 22nd, to come in and present council with that report and that information. So that
we're all up to speed on what's going on. We usually have Len in once, if not twice a year.
Todd Gerhardt: Yep.
Mayor Jansen: Usually budget period we bring Len in also to speak to the organization and
what's going on.
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
Todd Gerhardt: And they'll have their year end report completed by then too. So he thought that
was key.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, very good. Otherwise why don't we move onto Administrative
Presentations.
ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS: UPDATE ON TH 101, CITY ENGINEER.
Teresa Burgess: Thank you Madam Mayor. Based on our request for an update on Highway
101, real briefly the consultant is continuing to work on the design of the trail. Currently they're
focusing on preparing the cross sections. That is relatively far along in the design so that there
will be some work that's required to get to that point. The cross sections have been requested by
MnDot in their review of the Limited Use Permit. MnDot is continuing that review. At this time
it's unclear how long that process will take, and at the same time staff is continuing to work with
the other agencies to consider the possibility of a turnback project. At this point we had looked at
February 28th as being kind of our drop dead date for dual tracking. We have continued with the
dual tracking, however are now incurring additional expenses on both of those tracks that we had
not anticipated. But we feel that there is, that it is worth the extra effort to see if the two lane
with the shy distance is something that is a viable option. At this point we're waiting for
comments back from the other agencies and MnDot is attempting to set up a meeting later this
week to discuss those comment to see if that is a viable option and give us an answer. The LUP,
MnDot has not told us a timeframe, but they are telling us that they are working on it and trying
to expedite it through the system.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, very good. Any questions for staff?.
Councilman Peterson: Teresa, if February, as we said, February 28th was a drop dead date, do we
have a new one?
Teresa Burgess: No. At this point we will be waiting to see what the other agencies have to
say. Hopefully they will come back with their comments and at that time we'll make an
evaluation on whether it looks like negotiations are going to be fruitful or not and make a decision
at that time. We're not putting a date on it. We had our information out before the 28th and felt
that we could no longer wait and still meet our deadlines for the trail.
Councilman Peterson: So let me rephrase the question then. When do we have to make a
decision in order to get the trail in this year?
Teresa Burgess: We've already had to make that decision to start the design.
Councilman Peterson: Okay, so you're saying that there is no date. We can wait til November
and still get the trail in? ! mean I'm being unrealistic but.
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
Teresa Burgess: No, assuming we get our LUP at a reasonable timeframe, we'll need to
advertise that project this summer and start construction in late summer to be able to get the trail
done yet this year.
Councilman Peterson: So we're dealing with months instead of weeks or certainly days. I mean
weeks instead of days.
Teresa Burgess: Delay at this time, we've basically used up all our slufftime .... the design and
say well we'll just incur the cost and ! think from a staff standpoint we felt that it was a risk worth
taking. We may be out a few dollars on design, but if we were to be able to come back at the
next council meeting in April and say we've got a deal, we're going to go. Here's what we think
we can do, and ask for council approval, on a turnback project that would be wonderful but if we
can't, we haven't lost the time on the trail design and so we are moving forward with that at this
time. Hopefully within the next two weeks staff will have a good idea whether the turnback is a
viable option at this time or not. But until we have that meeting with the other agencies we
won't, we don't have any comments back from them yet.
Todd Gerhardt: Teresa, the design portion only cost estimate was not, it was just $60,000. It
wasn't the 150 which included some testing.
Teresa Burgess: The 150 includes all of the design construction engineering and the testing
work that will be necessary. The 60,000 is the actual design work being done by HTPO. We will
incur some testing costs as they get further down the road and we'll have to take a look at that,
but we won't incur that before the point where we'll know if the turnback is viable.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, and really that February 28th drop dead date was more in relation to how
long we could wait before you started that design so that we wouldn't start spending that 60,000
if we thought we were going to get an agreement on the road.
Teresa Burgess: Correct.
Mayor Jansen: And what you're saying is you've gone ahead as of that date and started into that
design phase to avoid the delay. It's now costing us 60,000, if in fact we end up coming back and
saying we can do it with the road. So that's where you're saying you thought it was worth the
risk as far as.
Teresa Burgess: It's worth the risk. At this point we feel that it's worth the risk. To delay
further on the design would mean delay in the construction. Having said that, I would like to
stress again, we cannot construct the trail without the Limited Use Permit regardless of what we
have in place or where our design is, and MnDot controls that process.
Mayor Jansen: So it wasn't as though, by February 28th we needed to do one or the other? We
didn't have to give up dual tracking?
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
Teresa Burgess: No. February 28th was where we started to incur additional expenses because
of dual tracking.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. I think that's the part that maybe some of the residents didn't understand.
That they were maybe expecting us to abandon one or the other and that wasn't the case. It was
whether or not we started to incur expenses on one, when we were still pursuing the other and
hadn't made that decision yet as to one or the other. Okay. I'm sorry, Steve.
Councilman Labatt: When did we start that application for the LUP? How long ago?
Teresa Burgess: We submitted the LUP, boy I don't have the date in my head. When we
adopted the feasibility study, council also authorized us to submit that LUP.
Mayor Jansen: January?
Todd Gerhardt: It was the end of January.
Teresa Burgess: End of January and there was a delay while we waited for the resolution, but
we started that process then. The last time ! spoke with MnDot it had not gone real far and we
have placed some political pressure on MnDot. Both by contacting some additional people within
MnDot to act on our behalf, and also with conversations with them on the road project. ! know
that Representative Workman has placed a well chosen words with MnDot to try and move that
process along. Their normal LUP process, the last time ! checked is taking 6 months. We have
been accelerated beyond the 6 months, but ! don't know how much that will actually, is that 4? Is
that 2? ! don't know where in there we are. ! know we will get done in quicker than 6 but that's
all they could tell me.
Councilman Labatt: ...but in the review process, what are they doing in the 6 months? Take us
to LUP school real quick.
Teresa Burgess: What they're reviewing is, because they own the right-of-way, they want to
make sure that whatever we do in that right-of-way does not cause liability to the State of
Minnesota. Specifically they're looking at number one criteria, are we actually in their right-of-
way. We have better records about the MnDot right-of-way than MnDot does so we are
supplying them information in that. When we approve plats, we have that information but MnDot
doesn't get it. The second thing they look at is drainage. One of the other things they look at is
any impacts to the road itself. Are we causing any damage to the road or will we be addressing
the longevity of that road. And then the biggest one for MnDot is liability for the traveling public.
By placing that trail in the right-of-way, are we causing a liability issue for either vehicular or
pedestrian traffic, and they will be looking at that to make sure that in approving this that they are
not opening themselves up to liability. And looking at those things, unfortunately the reason for
the delay is because of, it is reviewed by the MnDot right-of-way office, which is depending on
your point of view, either understaffed or overworked and they are seriously back logged. ! do
know it has been moved up because the first time ! called it was sitting on somebody's desk. The
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
second time ! called it had been routed and was in the process of being reviewed. And so in that
time period they had moved it up the priority list.
Mayor Jansen: Okay. Any other questions?
Councilman Labatt: No.
Mayor Jansen: Council? Thank you. Appreciate your report. Moving onto agenda item number
10.
RESOLUTION REGARDING SAFETY CONCERNS ON TRUNK HIGHWAY 7 FROM
MINNEWASHTA PARKWAY TO ONE MILE EAST OF TRUNK HIGHWAY 41.
Teresa Burgess: Thank you Madam Mayor. ! apologize that this was such a short notice. On
Friday afternoon about 4:00 ! received a phone call from the City of Shorewood asking if the City
of Chanhassen would be interesting in co-sponsoring some safety, a safety review of this section
of roadway. They originally had anticipated putting this on the March 25th agenda, but we're not
able to do that because the agenda has been cancelled. Specifically the Shorewood City concerns
were related to the most recent accident was ! guess basically the straw that broke the camel's
back. The City of Chanhassen has previously sent memo's to the MnDot field office as well as
the central office with concerns about traffic safety. The most recent being the construction that
took place this summer. We saw several accidents that occurred, and requested that MnDot take
a close look at the entire stretch of roadway. With the most recent fatal accident out there,
Shorewood felt that they would be interested in doing a cooperative project between Chanhassen
and Shorewood, and so that is the purpose of this resolution is to initiate that and to make the
direction to staff to start that partnership on this stretch of roadway. And also to show a
solidarity to the Minnesota Department of Transportation that both cities are willing to step up to
the plate and do our part if they will come and do their's, and so we are requesting tonight that
you approve this resolution and we'll be sending it onto MnDot and asking them to assist us in
addressing those safety concerns.
Mayor Jansen: Okay, thank you. Within the language of the resolution, are we committing the
city to any sort of a financial commitment at this point or just participating in supporting their
researching?
Teresa Burgess: There is some question of that. Both the City of Shorewood and Chanhassen,
I've talked with the City Engineer and the City Manager at Shorewood and there is some concern.
At this time it's our opinion that we are not committing financially any consultant work or
financial considerations would require council approval in the form of an agreement. We're just
trying to bring it to MnDot's attention at this time, and ! think in talking with the City
Administrator over at Shorewood, we both felt that it was appropriate, even if there were some
reasonable financial implications, but those would have to go through budgetary process to make
sure that we have the available funding.
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City Council Meeting - March 11, 2002
Mayor Jansen: Okay. I certainly think it's reasonable and responsible for us to step up and
maybe try and get MnDot's attention on addressing the issues. ! would of course just want to
see, as you said, what the financial implications would be, if any, before that were to move
forward. Council, any questions for staff?.
Councilman Boyle: No.
Mayor Jansen: Could ! have a motion please?
Councilman Boyle: ! make a motion we approve the resolution.
Mayor Jansen: Can ! have a second please.
Councilman Labatt: Second.
Resolution #2002-28: Councilman Boyle moved, Councilman Labatt seconded to approve
the Resolution concerning Safety Concerns on Trunk Highway 7 from Minnewashta
Parkway to One Mile East of Trunk Highway 41. All voted in favor and the motion carried
unanimously 5 to 0.
Mayor Jansen: Everybody is like one foot out the door. Any correspondence? Oh actually, still
under administrative presentations. Todd, anything to add?
Todd Gerhardt: Just the accounts payable packet will go out on the 21st of March, not having the
25th, so we'll send it out to you. If you have any comments, please review it. Get back to us. We
will send checks out on the 26th if we do not hear from you.
Okay, great.
! think that's the same policy we did when we cancelled our second meeting in
Mayor Jansen:
Todd Gerhardt:
December so.
Mayor Jansen:
Todd Gerhardt:
Mayor Jansen:
adjourn.
Okay, that's reasonable.
That's all ! have.
You heard the zippers going up on jackets.
Okay, if ! could have a motion to
Councilman Boyle moved, Councilman Peterson seconded to adjourn the meeting. All
voted in favor and the motion carried. The City Council meeting was adjourned at 10:42
p.m.
Submitted by Todd Gerhardt
City Manager
Prepared by Nann Opheim
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