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1m. Planning Commission Minutes Dated October 18, 1995/M, t u u 1 1 CHANHASSEN PLANNING COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING OCTOBER 18, 1995 Chairwoman Mancino called the meeting to order at 7:10 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Nancy Mancino, Bob Skubic, Jeff Farmakes, Don Mehl, and Craig Peterson MEMBERS ABSENT: Ladd Conrad and Mike Meyer STAFF PRESENT: Kate Aanenson, Planning Director; Bob Generous, Planner II; Dave Hempel, Asst. City Engineer; and Fred Hoisington, Planning Consultant. PUBLIC HEARING: CONCEPTUAL PLANNED UNIT DEVELOPMENT FOR A MIXED LAND USE DEVELOPMENT OF COMMERCIAL, OFFICE, SINGLE AND MULTI- FAMILY ON APPROXIMATELY 66 ACRES LOCATED SOUTH OF HWY 5 BETWEEN GREAT PLAINS BLVD. AND MARKET BOULEVARD, VILLAGES ON THE PONDS, LOTUS REALTY SERVICES. Public Present: Name Address Bruce Marengo 8150 Marsh Drive Walt Chapman 8140 Marsh Drive Steve Lundeen 8160 Marsh Drive Mary Berniee 8155 Grandview Road Steve Kokesh 8201 Grandview Road Al Sinnen 8150 Grandview Road Rick Hladky 8173 Marsh Drive Gloria and David Isackson 8183 Marsh Drive Rita Klauda 8130 Marsh Drive Dave Nickolay 8500 Tigua Circle Jack Lynch 1314 Marquette Gordy Nagel 514 Del Rio Drive Dick and Pat Hamblin 340 Sinnen Circle Jill and Randy Meyer 330 Sinnen Circle Mike R. 321 Sinnen Circle Cornelia & Mark Teel 8223 Marsh Drive Thomas & Jeanee Stronczer 8132 Dakota Lane Yagui Wei 8110 Marsh Drive Brian H. Burdick 684 Excelsior Blvd. 1 Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 Name Monte & Jan Eastvold John Ward W.J. Ward Dave Cummin Brian Johnson John Lund Alison Wokoviak Mary Hoffman Mark Meyers Jerry & Debra Disch Address 8180 Hidden Court 5916 Hansen Road 4510 Bruce 8152 Marsh Drive 8143 Marsh Drive 8140 Dakota Lane 8116 Erie Circle 8129 Dakota Lane 8131 Dakota Lane 8170 Marsh Drive Bob Generous presented the staff repoit on this item. Mancino: So you're saying if we say yes to concept plan and then they come in with a preliminary plat. Generous: And you don't like it you can always deny it. Mancino: And we don't like it, we can deny it and start over. Okay. Thank you. Does the applicant or their designee wish to address the Planning Commission? Please. Jack Lynch: Yes. My name is Jack Lynch ... BRW representing the Ward family. I think actually the staff has gone through the basic concept pretty well. As just an overview, we're embarking on a long and involved process. We're going to go through three different phases of approvals and in each phase we go through you're going to tie us down to more specifics. Your staff is already working very hard at doing that through this first phase. The site is a rather sensitive site. We have a number of fairly large stands of mature trees by the old farmstead, down along the slopes on the southern part of the property and along the east property line. We have a number of wetlands. There's a major wetland on the south. There's a couple of wetlands up on the northern part of the property and run along proposed TH 101. There are also some slope conditions, especially along and sloping and facing Lake Susan and the major wetlands area on the south. The idea was on the northern part of the property was to develop an extension of downtown Chanhassen with small, one and two story buildings all interconnected with a similar architectural theme. No flat roofs. Pitched roofs. The buildings basically brought right up to the right -of -way with a desire to do on street parking, both on the frontage road and the loop street to the south. So that we create a downtown pedestrian oriented retail complex. The parking would all be internal or on the sides. So this retail corridor basically would be a pedestrian oriented downtown. The areas that are 2 Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 u 1 C 1 0 r designated as office and residential for the most part of the most sensitive pieces of the property. The office components are on fairly steep slope terrain with fairly major stands of vegetation and the idea there is to create a small building pad. An office building maybe 2 or 3 stories tall which is going to force us to go to underground parking to save the terrain and the vegetation. So basically those orange pods would be developed... Actually on this pod we'd develop on the existing old TH 101 right there but the idea of those three parcels is to limit the development to a small pad. Doing mainly underground parking and two to three stories. The residential component is the same thing. It's fairly heavily terrained and heavily treed. The only real way of saving the terrain and the vegetation is to do small building pads. The most destructive development anybody could do would be either industrial or single family residential. The decision here is not to go to single family residential by multi - family attached product. Again it would be those two residential pods would be treated the same as the office components with one building pad. Small building pad and underground parking. The last southerly component of the open space, whether it's open space or residential is certainly a discussion item. Most likely it will probably all go with open space. That is basically an overview of the concept. The concept right now simply is a downtown extension of, the extension of downtown Chanhassen with a retail core. We are especially interested in developing some on street parking opportunities, an office component and a residential component so it is a mixed, multiple use project bringing in both retailing, office employment opportunities and a residential component and a major open space component. Access to all parcels would be mainly off of TH 101 but at already primarily designated intersections. Staff has asked us to do some traffic analysis to assure that. And I think with that we'd be glad, I guess I would be glad, well now I have a few compatriots. There's a few us now who would be glad to answer any questions. Mancino: Okay, thank you. Mr. Lynch, if we have questions a little later after the rest of the public hearing, we may ask then. Thank you. Is there anyone else who that would like to present as part of this? Brad Johnson: Madam Chairman, members of the Planning Commission, my name is Brad Johnson. I live at 7425 Frontier Trail. We're pleased to present this since we've only been involved with the downtown real estate development now for about 10 years and have looked at the Ward property off and on as an opportunity to develop something. We felt over the years that it should be delayed until about this time when the rest of the town is completed as we all had a lot of interest on the north side of the street. What you see here is a project that we, and I missed Jack's comments because we thought there was somebody before us this evening so, feel meets a lot of the criteria that a lot of people have said which would be pedestrian friendly, traffic, going ... more of a 50th and France. I have some photographs I can show later when I get them organized but basically we modeled our ideas out of ..Main, 50th and France, Excelsior, Wayzata. We've gone into those communities, along with Como 3 Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 Avenue and different places and tried to figure out what makes things pedestrian friendly. What makes retail work within that atmosphere and some of the key elements is parking on the streets. It's kind of interesting. Those types of things seem to be the key elements and we've gone ahead with that. Also met with the neighbors and there's a lot more here than we've met with but in general we've been concerned about their interests over here on the east side of the property. One of the key concerns as Jack may have said is the road. To provide the public with access. We're concerned about the buffering in this area and I think in general we're open to any good ideas relative to this neighborhood. It's just, we tried to design it with what they seemed to have said. One of our concerns is that this site has dropped off quickly and if we were to use it as R -1 or residential single family, commonly done, we would end up with pretty much destroying the site geographically, we believe topographically because the road system for either townhouses or single family system to make it economically viable, would destroy the site we think. Now we're open to any other good ideas but, so we went to more single pad orientation there. Again I'm at a loss. I don't know what Jack said so we probably want to listen. We're pretty much in agreement with the report that staff has. We've worked with them for quite a while on this. There's a couple of issues. This is a long process. You know we've got to come 6 public hearings before we complete this and I guess what we'd like to do is get a consensus that we should move along and then continue to meet with staff to try to come up with the final plan. It's going to take a long time. I believe part of the concept process is to listen and then try to meld this to your needs and the city needs and the neighborhood needs so we'll listen to that. Thank you. Mancino: Thank you. And Mr. Lynch did a good presentation. May I have a motion to open this for a public hearing? Peterson moved, Faimakes seconded to open the public healing. The public hewing was opened. Dave Cummin: My name is Dave Cummin. I live at 8152 Marsh Drive. First I'd like to say we understand that Lotus wasn't required to contact all the residents in the area. We contacted approximately 65 households that border the eastern and southeastern edge of the proposed development and of these households we called, less than 15 were contacted by Lotus or American Development in the rezoning... that this brings. This represents less than 25% of the neighbors in the immediate area. We have over 80 signatures of concerned citizens representing 100% of the households that border the proposed development. We asked the people three questions. First one was, were you aware of the proposed development? The second was, do you have concerns regarding this development? And third, would you like more information before the project moves forward? The answers to the first question, over 50% of the people were not aware that development was proposed. All but one person had concerns on the development and 100% of the people would like more 0 Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 1 information before the project goes forward. I guess in general we have a few questions that we'd like to propose for... With the existing Great Plains Boulevard as it stands right now, one of our questions is why couldn't that serve as a natural buffer to the area? We don't really feel that apartments are an appropriate buffer to our neighborhood. We're also concerned about the increased traffic flow in the Brookhill area. We were wondering about the numbers regarding the amount of traffic coming through. Also concerns along that are about the flow of truck traffic coming in with deliveries. Also waste removal. If this involves either late night traffic and was any consideration given to the neighborhood in this. I would also like to just point out one more question. If the area was actually planned as some extension of the downtown neighborhood, one of the questions that has come up is, why wasn't the existing pedestrian bridge moved over into that area to make it more pedestrian friendly is what we've been talking here. And I can submit to you a list of all these names if you'd like. Mancino: Thank you. Please give them to staff. Thank you. Mike Regnier: My name is Mike Regnier. I'm at 321 Sinnen Circle in Chanhassen. This is my son Chris. I wanted to just propose a couple of ideas for you guys to think about tonight if you would, and that is just the concepts of fairness and good faith. I think most of the neighbors here tonight are thinking along those lines in terms of there's a good many of us that called the planning department before we moved in to the neighborhood abutting this open land to find out what the city's plans were for it and we have been told now that it is zoned along the bordering property where we all are. We're all on the southeastern edge or the eastern edge, that it is zoned single family residential. That the master guide plan is single family residential and indeed that that master guide plan was re- examined this summer. The City Council went ahead again and said no, we'd like to keep that single family residential and I think with us, the people from the neighborhood, I think there's probably a lot of people that think some retail along Highway 5 makes some sense on that site. I don't think you'll find many people in the residential area around this that want to see a three story apartment building of any type going in along there. If nothing else, for the simple fact that it doesn't flow well with a residential neighborhood, which I think was the City Council's intent in keeping that single family. And we heard from the development side of this equation tonight that it's not economically feasible to make that single family. My suggestion, and I think the neighborhood would be then, leave that as part of the open space or what have you but I don't believe it's the city's or the citizens responsibility to make it economically feasible to develop any portion of that site. So I just wanted to go on record. Thank you. Mancino: Thank you. 6 � Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 Brian Johnson: My name is Brian Johnson and I live at 8143 Marsh Drive. I'm currently employed as the Assistant Treasurer and Director of Real Estate at the University of Minnesota and previously to that I did 10 years of real estate development. I worked for... corporation. First of all let me say that I understand that this property will be developed at some point and I'm not opposed to development. However I have some serious concerns with the development as it's proposed right now. First off, tax increment financing. This is a prime piece of commercial real estate and one of the fastest growing markets in the Twin Cities. I don't see any reason why we need to provide tax increment financing for this particular location. Tax increment financing, in my opinion, should be reserved for locations where there's either extreme soil problems. There's environmental problems and it's needed to make the property economically viable. In this case I think it's a very economic, it's a very viable piece of property as it is and I think the citizens of this city deserve to have new tax dollars generated from this development go into the tax plan. Just as a note. The taxes on my existing residence are $3,600.00 a year. I called the cities of Eden Prairie and Bloomington today. Based on my assessed value and came up with my taxes in the city of Eden Prairie would be about $2,900.00 a year and in Bloomington they would be about $2,800.00 a year and so again, on the tax increment financing piece, I don't see that there's anything that unusual about this particular piece of property that warrants tax increment financing for development of this piece. Mancino: Excuse me. Let me make a suggestion that you attend the HRA meetings. That's the Housing and Redevelopment Authority meetings and they are the people, they are the commission that decides about TIF dollars and who it goes to and who it doesn't so I'm sure they'd like to hear your point of view. Brian Johnson: Yes. Thank you for that. I understand that. I think it's an integral part of this particular proposal so I wanted to be on record with that at this point. My second point is I think this particular proposal provides inadequate buffering with the existing neighborhood. Again, the plan talked about single family residential. I think everybody expected single family residential or possibly even medium density of 4 to 8 units per acre. Not 16, 25, not 30. I think there's plenty of room either over in this area or further away from the residential area if there's a desire to do high density residential housing but I don't believe it needs to be back up to the existing residential housing. Second of all, the retail areas up in the northeast corner here, I'm very concerned that they back up right to existing residential housing. Just across a small pond. I don't want to be looking out my house and seeing the back end of a shopping center. In other communities such as Bloomington and Eden Prairie, the back ends of shopping centers are required to be all brick. They're required to have them at both loading docks. There are restrictions on the hours in which trucks can deliver. Again we're concerned that we don't have trucks delivering late at night. We don't have lots of trucks driving through our neighborhood. These are concerns of our's and we'd 0 ' Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 like to see a better job of buffering between the existing neighborhood and the proposed ' retail. The third concern that I have is Lotus Development is a rather small, under capitalized developer. There were some problems and some significant time delays in the Market Square project while Lotus was trying to put their financing together. And also there's a piece on Main Street now they've been trying to develop another office building and I think we all drove by the signs that said opening the Spring of '95 and there's still nothing there. Last point, I think a full blown EIS should be done on this site... A think a full traffic study needs ' to be done as part of a normal EIS. To look at the affect on the wetland and look at the affect on neighborhoods. In summary, I think the neighborhood has some very strong concerns about this proposal. I would request that you not approve this proposal as presented. I think ' the developer should go back and address some of the realty concerns and the environmental concerns before this body sends it on forward and I would strongly urge that no city funds be employed for this particular development. Thank you. ' Mancino: Thank you. Anyone else? ' John Lund: My name is John Lund. I live at 8140 Dakota Lane. I have a couple of issues of concern tonight. One, first and foremost is that we were not contacted by Lotus Realty at any point in their discussions with the neighbors at showing the proposed development. We own roughly 2 1/3 acres on the eastern edge of their proposed development. We were not contacted and we have direct concerns that the developer was trying to ram this through without adequate neighborhood input. The second concern that I have is the wetlands ' surrounding the proposed development. As some of my neighbors have indicated before me, I'm very concerned about the impact that this will have on the wetlands and for our residential neighborhood. I have copied I believe the appropriate individuals on a letter dated October 16th. I have copies for the commission. Also have copies for the City Council and I've provided Mr. Johnson a copy of my letter by fax. I would also move that the ' commission does not approve the plans as stated. That the developer address neighborhood issues and fully contact the residents that will be affected by this development. Thank you. ' Mancino: Thank you very much. Thank you. Anyone else wishing to address the commission? Please. Now is the time to give your opinions and enlighten us with some other viewpoints that you have. Steve Lundeen: I'm Steve Lundeen. I live at 8160 Marsh Drive. My concern is these developers come in and they make assumptions about what needs to be saved, what doesn't ' need to be saved. This tree needs to be saved. That tree doesn't need to be saved. That they can make a lot of money by plowing down all those trees. They would give you a study that said these trees are totally unnecessary and it will benefit everybody if we plowed them all ' down and put up what we're going to put up. Secondly, as far as the tree thing goes, like I 7 F, Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 said. ILA made more money for them so what benefit are they getting by not having the single family residential and what are the true reasons they don't want the single family residential. Is it because there's some big oak trees up on top of the hill or is it because they can make more money by stacking a bunch of people together... information that one of our neighbors passed out that said was, at the last meeting that was presented and one of the things was more tax dollars for the school funding and also in that packet it said that the TIF financing, so the taxes wouldn't go back to the year 2000. Well we're going to be voting soon on a new referendum for raising the taxes to pay for the schools. Our kids need the money now to pay for these schools and not 5 years down the road or 10 years or 20 years or whatever that ends up being. Mancino: Thank you. Randy Meyer: I'm Randy Meyer. I live at 330 Sinnen Circle. I have several issues. I'd like to echo some of the concerns of the people that have already spoke. Some issues such as environmental. I don't know that any study has been done to see what's going to happen with that area. I realize that Lotus would like to keep as many trees and wetlands as possible but I also know from experience in construction, that these sites usually get to be a sterile pond areas. They talk about pond areas. They are not like the regular natural ponds and wetlands that are currently there. I have problems with the fact that we weren't notified. That the neighborhood does not know what this is going to, how this is going to affect our taxes. How it's going to affect our property values. How it's going to affect a lot of the traffic areas. There's a lot of things that the neighborhood has not been informed on that's going to affect us in a very dramatic way that no one is coming and addressing that issue. Those two areas are our major issues in my mind and appreciate your time. Mancino: Thank you. Lois Savard: Hi. I'm Lois Savard and I live at 8080 Marsh Drive. Right here on the corner. I just want to confirm that, as it was explained retail will be directly in our back yard and we were not consulted so I just wanted to verify that the developers did not consult with property owners and we did not have any input into this plan. And I echo all the concerns of my neighbors and am very concerned about this. Thank you. Rita Klauda: Good evening. My name is Rita Klauda. I live at 8130 Marsh Drive. Down the street from Lois. I echo the concerns of my neighbors regarding the environment. The side to the neighborhood, the buffer between the residential and the apartment building. I think the traffic concern along Lake Drive right now, there's already quite a few cars that go quite fast along Lake Drive. There's already considerably traffic on Lake Drive. I really don't care to see that more traffic be on Lake Drive. Lois and I walk our children to the day 8 I Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 ' r r children ride their bikes. The cross the street to care that's across the street. Ou c y et to the g ' Total Mart. If we're to get out of our neighborhood and go for a walk, we need to cross Lake Drive. The sidewalks are on the other side of the street. How are we to escape from our neighborhood if the traffic goes up? We can't get out of our neighborhood. We can't get to ' the walk bridge that isn't even finished yet. The walk bridge to nowhere because we can't get to it if the traffic increases. So I see the traffic increase, I'd like to know what the increased traffic will be on Lake Drive. I'd like to see a traffic study. I'm concerned for my children. ' My children go to the daycare right there on Lake Drive. I don't want people in our neighborhood driving around and making it unsafe for our children. Thank you. ' Mancino: Thank you. Alison Wokoviak: Hello. I'm Alison Wokoviak and I live at 8116 Erie Circle, and I stepped ' in a little late tonight so I hope I don't duplicate any of your earlier comments but I do have a couple things. First I believe that the main point is the current zoning. It was kept by the City Council for a reason. I feel that single family is the area that should be kept adjacent to ' the Brookhill development. Secondly I'd like to know how do you define high density? How do you Mr. Johnson. Again, I don't know if anybody's talked about it a little bit earlier. How do you define high density in terms of what is proposed for that area. I believe that the single family is more consistent with the existing houses. I don't believe that the high density can act as an adequate buffer with the current setting. I really feel that we need to have single family there and so we're consistent with what is currently there and again with what ' people were told was going to be there. Secondly I do question the need for retail. Do we need additional retail across from downtown? We have areas in the downtown again, that people have pointed out, that are not fully developed. Would those be available for development or do we need just right across Highway 5 in a higher use commercial area. I do realize Chanhassen is growing and we are going to keep growing whether we like it or not. But my question is, do we need the retail right there? Will the growth that is projected, maybe drive the need for retail there or will it be an additional center that would be more conducive to the new development that's going to be happening. I'd like to know if we need ' to have that retail right there, or if we should just hold off a little bit to find out how development is going to happen and maybe do a new retail center a little further away from downtown. Thank you. ' Mary Hoffman: Hi. My name's Mary Hoffman. I live at 8129 Dakota Lane and my concern, I agree with everything that's been said here tonight and last spring a very nice... homes presented to the City Council I believe and it talked about Chanhassen. The 100 year anniversary being celebrated next year and how we didn't want to lose the identity of our beautiful downtown and I do believe that doing further retail on the other side of Highway 5 ...that identity. The old St. Hubert's at this end. The City Council here... presented in this 7 Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 booklet and I thought it was beautifully done. I think this is an about face from what was presented to us, each individual home last spring so I just want you to consider that. But I do think it's an about face from what we were told. Thank you. Mancino: Thank you. Mark Meyers: My name is Mark Meyers. I live at 8131 Dakota Lane. I also was not contacted about this development. I live right adjacent to the path that goes through this development. We're concerned of the environmental impact that this will have on this area. There's much, water drains through our neighborhood. Many of the houses up on the hill have problems with sump pumps. They have to run a lot. Especially with this development proposing underground parking. There's a good chance that there are underground streams in this area going into Rice Marsh Lake. And to Lake Susan. I'm also concerned about the effect that government assisted rental units built 3 stories would have right next to residential areas. Another item you should look at is the path. The existing path that is crossing TH 101. Every time I go down there I feel I'm taking my life in my hands with that traffic. I like using the trail system but it is very dangerous crossing TH 101 and this is going to make it worse. I just hope there's not an accident in that area. Thank you. Mancino: Thank you very much. Anyone else? Tom Stronczer: Hi. My name is Tom Stronczer. I live at 8132 Dakota Lane. I do agree with most of the other concerns that my fellow neighbors do have. My wife and I we moved here 3 years ago and one of the things that we moved to Chanhassen is because it does have a very open, a very country feeling to it and the concern I have is building this up is going to increase the density of the population of traffic which will have an adverse affect on the wetland and the natural resources. I do think that the increased traffic will cause more problems. Accidents. Kids. There's a lot of young kids there. I think having a retail area will increase their potential of being harmed. Thank you. Mancino: Thank you. Steve Kokesh: Hi. My name's Steve Kokesh. I live at 8201 Grandview Road which is right next door to where he wants to put the apartments and the thing of my concern is, the same with everybody else's but they say they only want to put one unit, 45 units in on that piece of parcel. Well anybody who buys a parcel like this and wants to put one apartment on it, over time it gets sold again. We will be back here for more city board meetings because they will want to put at least two more apartment buildings on it over time and I don't think that that kind of buffer is what people need in the area. I mean where most of the issues have been for what's going to happen right now but within 10 years they'll put at least 2 more apartment 10 I Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 ' f property. We'll be right back here discussing our issues with it at buildings on that piece r o pope ty g g ' the city board meetings to a different owner. Whoever buys that piece of property from them and that's the issue I wanted to address about it. ' Mancino: Thank you. Jerry Disch: My name is Jerry Disch, 8170 Marsh Drive. I'm kind of wondering why we're ' destroying a road that we've already got paid for and bringing in more roads that are going to take TIF financing. The TH 101 or the Great Plains Boulevard is already a natural buffer and the residential that is already zoned for it would be a buffer. I don't know why we're ' destroying all that and putting new roadways up and having to pay for them again. I'm real concerned about my taxes. I just looked at the school referendum that's coming. You another $330.00 coming next year if this goes through. I'm real concerned about that TIF financing. ' I realize you've got to go to another hearing for that. I just wanted to voice my concern. Mancino: Thank you. ' Pat Hamblin: Hi. I'm Pat Hamblin at 340 Sinnen Circle. I just wanted to say one thing. This is the impractical part of it. When we moved in 6 years ago the first thing I fell in love ' with was the drive down Great Plains Boulevard. The natural beauty, especially in the fall it's you know, speaking as an artist, it's awesome... I realize that this is valuable property and that it's going to get developed. I expected that. I expected it more on Highway 5 than down ' further. I guess I would like to see a little bit more of the natural drive. You know you talked about the... coming into Chanhassen you know it's not too much more beautiful than that. I'm also concerned about this apartment building. I haven't heard anything about it ' tonight and this is just a rumor that I've been hearing that it's possible that it is low income housing. Government assisted. If that is so, we definitely have very big concerns about that because that will definitely affect our property value. Right now we look out our back yard and we see a couple of the houses on Grandview and ... trees. Lots of deer. Lots of other woodland animals. Our concern is, you're right in line where this senior citizen complex is ' slated to be. That's what we're going, we're wondering, is that what we're going to see when we look out our window from now on? I think this is just, it's way too big of a scope for this property. I think it's too close to this residential area and I would really like to see a little bit ' more consideration for the neighbors, thank you. Mancino: Thank you. Is there anyone else? Brad Johnson: I just had three things I'd like to say. First of all, I apologize because we did not contact all the neighbors. We're only required to contact people within 500 feet, which we did. Well, we go through the process of, we go to an abstract company. They're asked to 11 Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 give us a list. The city asks us to give a list and we give out the list. Now that's how that happens and somebody has measured 500 feet. Audience: From what? Highway 5? Brad Johnson: From the nearest property line of our property. Audience: How do you explain the one on the corner? Brad Johnson: We didn't. We had. People from the audience were talking at the same time. Mancino: Brad, let's continue. Brad Johnson: I just apologize for that, that's all. Audience: We were never contacted. Brad Johnson: That's number one. Number two is that it appears that. Audience: Let's address this issue before you go on to number two. Mancino: Please. Brad Johnson: The proposal that I would have is, Madam Chairman is that I've written a lot of items here that take more interaction than we would have here in order to do it so if we could organize a more of an informal meeting with the neighbors and try to address the issues of taxes, income. How this affects their school. Mancino: I think that would be a good idea. Brad Johnson: Yeah, something like that because that's a very technical kind of business and I think we can do it better by answering more direct questions than we can here. We are concerned about the buffering of the neighborhood and so I think some of the concerns that they've addressed, we're open to discussion. This is a large parcel of property and it's not going to live or die on exactly what we do on this side of the property so we're more than happy to address those kind of issues. Mancino: Thank you. 12 I Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 Brad Johnson: Maybe that's the way we have to progress so that's what it will be, thanks. ' Mancino: Thank you. Anyone else? May I have a motion. ' Debra Disch: I am Debra Disch. I live at 8170 Marsh Drive and one of my concerns was some of the rumors. I wanted to know, is it true that they are considering a low income family apartment anywhere or another church in this area, that we do not need. You know ' we pay enough taxes. A church don't pay taxes. You know my concern is the low income. We don't need that either. I'm concerned of my property value and my taxes, you know. But I'd just like to address that. I don't know, are those rumors true? Low income family. Mancino: This is just conceptual at this time. It has been part of the conceptual. Not the church hasn't, was presented earlier and which we will discuss as a commission and answer many of the questions that have been brought up tonight. Debra Disch: You know another thing, when I moved out to Chanhassen, out in this area, we came out this way to get away from I guess the business of, I don't know. Just the crowded. Audience: The Edina. Debra Disch: Yeah, you know. And you know like they were saying before, now this is going to look like 50th and France or Carmel or Monterey. I can't see that. I've been to those places, Monterey and Carmel. I don't understand how those would look like this in the specific acres there. You know? So that was just one of my concerns. Mancino: Thank you. Dave Cummin: Dave Cummin, 8152 Marsh. I would like to readdress the distribution that Lotus ... very, very sporadic contact with people that remain out there. There were people on a cul -de -sac right outside of this area where one or two houses got it. Somebody across the street got it. People on closer than 500 feet if that was our tape measurer, did not receive it. So there wasn't neighborhood input on this and when I talked to Bob earlier on this, I told him that was our concern. Nobody really knew about this. Again, the figures that we gave you. 50% of the people, and actually if you add it up it's 55% of the people did not know. Mancino: Okay, thank you. Can I have a motion to close the public hearing? Faimakes moved, Peterson seconded to close the public hewing. The public healing was closed. 13 Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 Mancino: We do not attempt to try to answer all of your questions as you came up and asked them and now it's the commissioner's time to ask questions from or to the staff and to the applicant and then for us to have a discussion and we will be very much aware of what you said tonight and be asking, I'm sure, many of those same questions that you had about traffic. About environment. About buffering, etc. So please be patient and listen and please do not show any disrespect or rudeness by yelling out. We would appreciate that very much. Thank you. I think what we'll do since this is such a complex unit to look at, this mixed use, is to kind of start at the beginning talking about land use and what is in this concept plan for land use and how it differs from the comprehensive plan. Bob, from your staff report I am to take that we should use as our benchmark, as our guide mark, for what we are to look at as the comprehensive plan. The 1991 comprehensive plan. Not the amendment from the Highway 5 study? Generous: Not until the Met Council approves the revisions that were adopted. Aanenson: Well, that's not a true statement. What we're saying is that the Council has responded on the new one but technically, legally it doesn't have standing until the Metropolitan Council approves it so we're still saying that there's several different thoughts going around as the Highway 5 and then the Vision 2002 and the Comprehensive Plan. The legal standing to date is what's on the official comprehensive plan 1991. Until the Met Council approves it, it's just for your edification the direction that the Council is moving but until it's adopted legally it doesn't have standing. Mancino: So what if it gets adopted between the conceptual and the preliminary? Aanenson: Even if, but this doesn't match either one so they would still require a comp plan amendment. Okay? So I guess in either scenario we're giving you, showing the different options. It doesn't match the proposed or approved changes or. Mancino: But it matches the comprehensive plan a little bit more than it does the Highway 5, especially in that northern area. Aanenson: Yes. The retail, correct. But again we did say up to 25% retail. I think people envisioned retail and the Council envisioned retail in this area. They just didn't want to see large, big box was the issue. Mancino: Okay. Did you have a question? Farmakes: I was just wondering if they had an idea what month or what year the Met Council in their wisdom may vote on that? 14 Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 Mancino: Do you have an idea about that? Aanenson: It's been up there for a couple of weeks so. Mancino: It usually takes what, a month? Aanenson: Hopefully 60 days so unless they tell us it takes a major which could take longer. Mancino: What I'm seeing the differences, and I've got my kind of map out here, visual map, is that parcel 2, which is in the upper left hand corner, in the northern part, which is the pink area, which is 9.5 acres, is very much in keeping with the existing comprehensive plan. Aanenson: Correct. Mancino: As inland use. Aanenson: Correct. Mancino: Okay. And then I move over to parcel number 3, which is the 3.4 acre retail, which again is in keeping with the 1991 comp plan. Aanenson: Correct. Mancino: Okay. Then I move down past Lake Drive to the south, to that small retail which is 3.2 acres, which the comp plan has as medium density residential. So there we have a change on 3. Aanenson: Yes. Mancino: Okay. Then let me go down to Parcel 8 and Parcel 9, which is residential and this they're denoting as high density R -12. And that in the comprehensive plan is residential low density. Generous: For the southern part. Aanenson: Yeah, a portion of it. Mancino: For the southern part. Generous: ...this cul -de -sac. 15 Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 Mancino: Say that again please Bob. Generous: The split ... at the cul -de -sac. The current comprehensive plan has a multi - family up here and then low density to the south. Mancino: Okay. So parcel number 8, the northern part would still be medium density? Aanenson: Yes. Mancino: Okay, thank you. The 7.4 acres which is south of the cul -de -sac street is low density residential. Aanenson: Yes. Mancino: Okay. And then going over to the west of that. Parcel number 5, which I see is 4.4 acres, which is office, according to the comprehensive plan is residential low density. Generous: Yes. Mancino: Okay. And the piece that is the number 1, in the middle of it, which is currently conceptualized as retail in the comprehensive plan is office. Generous: Correct. Mancino: And then over west of TH 101, both of those offices were medium density residential. Generous: Correct. Mancino: Okay. And south of that medium density residential was, instead of residential was open space? And it was also the same on the east side of TH 101. Residential, or open space? Generous: Open space. Mancino: Okay. Well on these land use changes, can I hear some comments or some questions from different commissioners on how you feel about the changes that are in concept form at this time and I think that one of the major core issue is the retail. What percentage of retail and being on the south side of Highway 5, and then going into the property owners' 16 Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 I C n n n r 1 u concern about having high density adjacent to low density. Craig. Would you like to ask any questions? Give comments. Peterson: I think that a couple of the areas obviously when we talk about high density is the buffering. I'd like to get more information as to what types of buffering and really what kind of space is going to be between the two and better definition of the type of buffering and the row of that distances between the two. As we go through the retail aspects of it, on the surface the 9.5 and the 7.4 and 3.4 seem to more logically fit than the 3.2 in they're very close to residential area. I guess I'd like to hear from staff a little bit too, even though we talked about, I'd like to get a little bit more specific as to how many acres we are talking about changing from one zone to the other. Specifically. I think it's talked about in general, transferring from commercial to residential and vice versa. I'd like to get more specific as to what the exact acreages are moving from one to the other. So like the office space on the west side of TH 101. It seems like a nice transition from the current space that's already there. As is the office space of 4.08 acres. So on the surface I guess my thoughts are that there are some pieces that fit and I'm comfortable with. There are some pieces that I clearly need to explore a little bit more in depth as to how they actually are going to fit and what's going to go within them. It may be beneficial to those residents that are here too to hear from staff as to how, what is the exact definition for them as far as medium density and low density and high density. Just for their own edification. You may want to take a shot at that Bob. Generous: First of all how much would change. Currently there's 16 1/2 acres designated for commercial and so they're adding that, of approximately that 7.4 acre parcel. That would be the middle of this, which is currently designated for office use. Peterson: So 7.5 additional from commercial to office? Generous: Correct. I guess they're adding about 6 acres, maybe 7 acres of office space. I don't know, we've never done an exact calculation on the area but the residential component is actually about the size of what's designated. Maybe a little longer but it's shifted south and it's gone to the higher density. Mancino: I was going to say, we don't have any low density, 1 to 4 houses per acre in here, in the new revised concept plan. Do we have any? Generous: Yeah, down on the south. Peterson: On the lower side. 17 Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 Generous: That's the area we're suggesting that they leave as open space and transfer the density of it elsewhere on the site. Mancino: But prior to this we didn't have any high density at all? Generous: No. Mancino: Designated. Generous: The discussion of density, when we discussed low density residential, generally we're looking at 1 to 4 units per acre and that would be a standard single family detached housing, or it could be a planned unit development with smaller lot sizes, or possibly a twin home development with 10,000 square foot per unit. Our medium densities are generally our townhouse developments. They'll go from 4 to 8 units per acre. We've done some other studies. We're currently averaging about 6 units an acre on our multi - family development. And then high density is a top range in our comp plan. It goes from 8 to 16 units per acre. Mancino: Which is mostly apartment buildings? Generous: Yes. Generally you have to go up in stories to meet those types of densities. Aanenson: It doesn't have to be though. It could be owner occupied. Stacked. It doesn't have to be. Nobody said what. Generous: It could be townhomes. Mancino: Or it could be condominiums. Aanenson: Sure. Mancino: And to meet the R -12 or the R -16 in the yellow area which is high density over to the east, which is by the residents. How high up would those need to be to? Generous: I don't know if we looked at the exact parameters. You could probably do it in 3 stories. Mancino: Okay. I mean there's a big difference between 3 and 4 stories. Do we have an ordinance limitation at this point to just 3 stories in this area? 18 Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 Generous: Current residential zoning, yes. Within a PUD you'd establish what the standards for the district because it becomes it's own zoning in essence. Mancino: So a PUD opens it up to the height of the building? Generous: Yes. Mancino: We could establish it to be 2 stories? We could establish it to be 4 stories? Generous: Right. Make it a 20 story tower, if that's what the city decided it wanted there. Peterson: Dave, do you have your scale out? If you could give me a sense for where, on the 3.2 acres of retail, in the upper right side, where a logical building pad would be in there. How far would the closest home building pad that's currently there be in feet approximately? do you have your scale with you tonight? Hempel: My scale unfortunately probably can't be used. Aanenson: Really that's a question as part of the PUD and that's kind of where we can, as part of the PUD process, this is a concept level. What we're trying to do now is say, what sort of uses. You can't even go and measure yet. We've requested that they do an EAW but until you do, you have to know what you're measuring first. So part of this whole process is to try to decide what we should measure. What sort of things are we looking at and then develop the framework to say this should be the heights. This should be the setbacks. That's part of this process. Right now we're just trying to establishing what is the vision. What should those uses be and then try to establish the framework on how to make them acceptable or to make it work. So to say to meet the setback, we can make it greater or lesser, whatever we feel is appropriate. Maybe we say it's, that's not the appropriate land use. Right now we're just trying to say, what is the appropriate uses so then we can go forward and then evaluate. Do the environmental. Do the traffic. Do the buffering. Do those sort of analysis but first we have to decide what it should be and that's kind of what this process is about. Generous: To answer your question though, I did scale it off. It's about 200 feet from the property line over to the first house over on Lake Drive. Mancino: Jeff, any comments on land use? Farmakes: Yeah. I want to make, or ask staff to define once again because I'm not sure, based on the comments that I heard, that everybody understands exactly where the concept 19 Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 plan stands in order of review. And maybe you can go over that one more time as to where, basically this is a beginning of the process. If you can define that again. Aanenson: Sure. What the applicants are requesting is a PUD. They're asking for two things. One, to change the comprehensive plan. And even if the Council approves it, because it's inconsistent with both alternatives, the current comp plan and the one we've got in, it will have to go to the Met Council to get approved. So that's one process. And the second process is to come up with the PUD standards, as I explained, to decide what the appropriate land use is. And this is the concept level. As Brad indicated, there's a series of public hearings. This is the first hearing. That's where we notify everybody. Bring them into the process to try to decide what it should be. Nobody's made any of those decisions yet so we're trying to decide what it should be and that's just the first public hearing. Then it goes up to the City Council and they will also review this. After they've given some recommendations, that's all it is is a recommendation. That gives them some idea of what to go forward and measure. To do their environmental. We give them the marching orders that are on our conditions of approval to do the tree surveys. To do the wetland. Do the environmental. To do the traffic. Whatever other direction that you and the other Council give them to go forward. Then they come back through another public hearing. At that time if you are unhappy with any of the findings, you can say we recommend denial and the process stops there. If you want to add additional conditions or ask for more research, that is the appropriate step to go. Then it has to go back to the City Council for another hearing and then for final plat approval it goes to City Council so actually there's five hearing processes. So this is going to take a long time to go through those process. Mancino: So those that are here tonight are here at the beginning of the process. Farmakes: So if you think of this as an egg and chicken, this is the egg. What this is used for in the process is to define what the objections are. Define where it falls in the scope of the comprehensive plan and something has to start from somewhere and this is where it starts from. As plans often are, the objections usually occur to the surrounding properties and how they're affected by that development and this is a part of that process. If we approve something tonight, or if we table something tonight, it's extremely preliminary. I urge you to find out how that process works and to follow it through as an organized neighborhood situation and gets your points across because that's how the process works. I'll leave that at that. If, as I said, if something's approved tonight, remember that what's approved is a preliminary idea. Not a scope of plans and the plans that do come back eventually are very detailed and building materials and far more comprehensive and at any step and point of that process they can be tabled or denied. So there's a lot of room in there in the process for you to get your points across. 20 Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 Mancino: And different ways to communicate. I heard that Mr. Johnson from Lotus Realty ' will have another neighborhood meeting and you will read it in the paper when it's going to come up to City Council for the conceptual review after tonight and it will be published in the paper. Also, staff if you could also let people know, will they be getting notification? Everyone here, if they ask to be notified for the first, the preliminary plat. Aanenson: They certainly would notify all public hearings before the Planning Commission. ' Legally that's the requirement is the public hearing before the Planning Commission. We certainly ask them to track it through this process. We normally let them know the next time it will be on for City Council, but these things take so much time. To do the environmental ' and all that work is going to take months so you have to just, we hope that there's a spokesman or somebody, maybe a couple of neighborhood people that are tracking it because it's going to be a long time between meetings because, depending on what your action is, there's a lot of work done between meetings. Mancino: And please know that staff is busy so if you could have 1 or 2 people designated to kind of keep calling City Hall, Bob or Kate, and find out what's happening. Keep up on it. Farmakes: I have a couple other issues that I want to touch on briefly. Mancino: Are you going to talk about land use? Farmakes: Yes I am. Mancino: Thank you. Farmakes: But I did want to start out with that because I think it kind of p ermeates the beginning also for our discussion here. That they understand what it is we're discussing here tonight. 1 Mancino: Thank you. Farmakes: In the issue of land use, what I would like to try, in my own mind figure, when we determine how much property is going to be used in a comprehensive plan for our community for commercial and I hear the comments that we need more retail. Then we ask, well why do we need more retail? What does it provide the community? And we hear kind 1 of ambiguous comments about well, we get more taxes or it cuts taxes and people want the convenience of going down and getting this and those are far more intangible issues than dollars and cents. We have always used the ratio that, as long as I've been here that half a ' million square feet defines between 30,000 and 35,000 people. Now that was the previous 1 21 Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 planning director's comments to us because we do rely on professional staff for these comments. And I believe that roughly is about 2% of the property in Chanhassen. And we have in the staff report here a new report that tells us that well roughly it's 10% now. And the reason that it is increased from earlier thinking is because we need more parking and I'm wondering how that fits into this demand. Do we need more parking? How does that relate to the increased retail issues? I'm still confused on that regard as to why that demand for changing the land use would be. Also looking at these figures and looking at Chanhassen, our land use ratios, a population is showing at 13.3 using '90 census data. That's got to be at least 30% out of whack than current data. Maybe we can get an update on that. Aanenson: We have that now. Farmakes: I'm looking at the totals that we have here north of Highway 5 in there. I think we're at 450... Mancino: 450,000? Farmakes: That's pushing it pretty close and I'm not against additional retail in land use. I just want somebody to define why we need that and if it's parking, that's what I'm getting out of this report. If I'm wrong on that, that's fine but I would like to know why we get one direction as little as 5 years ago and now we're getting another direction that we need more of this. Aanenson: Can I comment on that? We're not, this was put in for your edification. Just as far as other trends are because the developer has, or the applicant has requested additional commercial. We've always taken the position if we want additional, if somebody wants additional commercial, they need to convince us why. Because we're not hitting a market nitch or something like that. We're not advocating one way or the other. We've asked Fred Hoisington to be a part of this team because he worked on the Vision 2002 plan and is very familiar with the downtown development. This is really for your edification. We've said to the developer all along that we want him to demonstrate to us why we should have additional retail space and what the implications are so we were just showing you some other trends. Yes, we're undersized but we don't see ourselves, I'm talking about national trends for cities our size. As came out of the Vision 2000, people like the concentrated downtown. But on the other hand there was concern that we are running out of commercial space, I'm telling you in general. Is it all filled up? No. Is this premature? That's a question you're going to have to ask. We struggle with that ourselves. We know the Legion property's going to be developed and there's other commercial property in the vicinity that will be developing shortly. So the residents ask a good question about the timing. Those are same issues that staff struggled with but, in the long term will we need more commercial and where should it 22 I Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 be? This Ci h' wa s 's al taken the position that we want to have a concentrated downtown. Y 1 We wanted commercial to be in a core area. That's, it's an appropriate question. Is this the right spot? Farmakes: Well it's not only the right spot but what I'm asking, and I'm not pro or con this. That's a question that needs to be answered thoroughly and for us to be consistent on how we treat that because every four corner spot in Chanhassen at some point in time is going to get ' somebody with the idea that it needs a strip mall. Aanenson: All the way up and down Highway 5, absolutely. Farmakes: It just goes without saying. I mean if you go east of here and you see other more mature communities, that's what happens. And I am somewhat worried that if we treat this inconsistently some larger developments, often different parts of town, may have other ideas for farm fields that are larger in scope and I am, I want to make sure that we come up with the rationale that's consistent here if we do that. Aanenson: Certainly, and that's one of the things we would recommend in your findings that you do have some reasons in there that it makes sense. That this location is more appropriate ' than another location to expand the commercial. Farmakes: But even that as a given, the term that we're going to run out of retail space, even ' if we develop it as proposed. When that's finished, the same comment could be made. We're running out of retail space. Mancino: Well we can say we're running out of residential space too. I mean people. Farmakes: Absolutely but what I want to look at is how much do we need to service 1 Chanhassen? And if we want to be a regional service area, how much more do we need to service that? What is our purpose here? And if we're going to be a shopping area for other surrounding communities, we need to define that and not just say well we need more. The question is why do we need more I think and we need to have that answered and I'm gladly agreeing with that. The other issue on land use that I wanted to dust touch on real briefly here, because I'm using up more time than I wanted to. The issue in regards to housing or multi type housing. You need to look on this on different tier levels. Besides the land use that is being proposed here. The city is a part of a county and the county is a part of a metro ' area. The metro area is sort of directed by the legislature and the legislature happens to be directed by the federal government. And all of these are players in this issue and I'm sure you've been following in the newspapers and so on the issue of dispersed housing and these ' issues that directly affect unpopulated suburbs or tier suburbs like Chanhassen. You need, if 23 Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 you're concerned about this issue you need to go beyond the city and municipal government because that's not where the directives come from. The directives come down from Mount High as to how this is going to be and currently this is an active topic in the legislature. So Mr. Workman and Mr. Oliver are your representatives here and State Senator. If you want to be up to speed on this and voice your opinion on these issues, please do so but remember where municipal government falls in this area. We're not always the decision makers of these processes as to defining who goes where and who pays for it. I'll leave it at that. Mancino: Thank you. Bob. Skubic: Craig and Jeff covered a lot of ground there. Land use. The comprehensive plan and the Highway 5 plan both direct some retail use of this land along Highway 5. I take that to mean that that's the direction, retail extension in that direction is where we want it to go. Probably I think the question here, how much, how far does it go here. If it's directed along Highway 5. If it goes per the current plan we of course need an amendment. Regarding the residential area, the applicant is aware of the transition area. He made a point that the units would be attempted to be located towards the street side, away from the current development. And this is certainly an issue, a big issue that needs the attention of staff and the applicant and the neighbors. Whether this is developed as a high density or the current zoning of medium density in that area with the potential of single family. Mancino: Don. Mehl: Yeah, I agree with Jeff here. We have to take a look at how much retail we have to have and why we need it. Who's going to use it. You know is it going to be Chanhassen people or are we going to draw from Fridley, Plymouth, Bloomington, wherever. In order to do that you have to have something that's really unique and is going to make them want to come here. It's going to be impossible to develop a huge shopping mall or shopping center in there that's going to be all inclusive. You can't have a Mall of America out there. A couple things I wanted to bring up here too. We were discussing area 4 which is that lower right pink section up on top. That 3.2 acres. One thing that was discussed here in the proposal and we really haven't talked about it is the architecture of the buildings. Mancino: We'll get to that. Mehl: Okay, and what I was going to say is that with the proper architecture I'd have no problem with retail in that section 4. It could look like houses you know in effect. And I'm wondering if there's been any consideration to say interchanging the two yellow areas with the two orange areas on the left. Again with architecture in mind, the office could look a lot different than an apartment complex. 24 Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 I] Mancino: Okay, thank you. Let me give a few of my comments. I'll first start with the core issue of retail and how much should there be. I certainly don't know what the magic number is either. I feel that the parcel 1, which is kind of the focal point, the village center, and I do understand that every village needs a center, is the one that I'm struggling with. I feel that those that were on the Highway 5 task force and the comprehensive plan that was passed, did a good job of looking at that northern half and wanting that to be extended retail. Going south of that, I'm not sure that I agree with the concept of taking it to the south down further. Staff or Mr. Hoisington, can you talk about critical mass at all? I mean what happens when we start taking away some retail? Should there be a critical mass to make the project successful? Feelings on that? Hoisington: That's a real good question Nancy, and not an easy one to answer. I don't happen to agree with the critical mass discussion here, but then Brad and I have disagreed on a number of things in the past so that's understandable. Mancino: So let me hear another viewpoint. Hoisington: I guess as we've indicated in the past, you will run out of retail space here, without question. You're drawing people to shop here from Eden Prairie because Eden Prairie has some of it's own deficiencies. So you I think need to ask the question, do you want to serve others beyond this community as you currently are. And maybe that's more critical than critical mass and I think Brad is using it more in the sense that he can augment what's already there and that's why I kind of disagree. I think we have some disadvantage on West 79th Street. Always have and probably always will, just because of the way the thing works. What we can do is we can look at some things for you but I can't give you an answer tonight regarding critical mass. And what it would take to create this viable center here. You have a very viable downtown, and we're not talking huge numbers. We're talking about something that I think would represent a very good interchange and a very good overall strengthening of this core that you've established that's pretty strong today. Remember what it used to be like. We had no critical mass. We're building toward that but you have limits and you can't go beyond those limits. This may be the only site you have where you can provide the support for the rest of downtown. There just isn't any, other than separated sites. TH 101 and 212 and further to the west on TH 41. There aren't any others. Mancino: Okay. Then I would have to say at this point, I don't have a real rationale, good reason to go beyond what the comprehensive plan has already designated as retail. Dealing with the neighbors concern about high density adjacent to single family. Gosh, I think that I'm speaking for everybody in this room, whether it be a developer who lives here, whether it be every other commissioner or staff, that that's the hardest one to deal with. I would like to see staff and the developer work on either moving that, flip flopping it. Possibly look at on 25 Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 the west side of TH 101. Also another option would be to look at, and I haven't actually gone there and walked that particular property line so I'd have to go over and look at the topography to look at a good sized buffering. And see if we can, what can happen there in the buffering area. Not only topography in that I think Bob you said that it's fairly high on the east side of that property line. There's some slopes there? Generous: In that northern section. Mancino: In the northern. Does it come down to the southern area too? Generous: It slopes down but so does the land to the east. Unfortunately they both tier down towards the wetlands. Mancino: Then I would like to see staff and the developer come back with some alternate plans. I don't feel comfortable with the high density next to the low density. I think those were my two concerns with the land use issue that I saw of the others, I don't have any concern with. I do agree with staff that those two small southern residential land use areas would, that whole area would be benefitted by adding more open space. Moving on past the land use issues, what about traffic and transportation and circulation. Any comments from commissioners on that. Now there's no question that there will be and it's one of our conditions, that the applicant is preparing a traffic study talking about access points and determining roadway improvements. May I have other comments and questions from the commissioners. Don. Mehl: Yeah, I think it's absolutely necessary to have a traffic study done. Is there any possibility that vans or buses or whatever could conceivably bring people from this area over to say the Country Suites hotel area or over to the Byerly's area. In other words we're going to have to provide some places where buses can let people off and you know, turn around. Maybe it's not a concern. I didn't see it anywhere in here but it's something I wanted to bring up. Mancino: There was, there is going to be some sort of a transit hub in the area for Southwest i Metro. Mehl: Okay. That's all. r Mancino: Okay, Jeff. I Farmakes: I would think, it's more egg and chicken again. That you need to know the alignment of the land use before you make a real determination or criticize any type of traffic ' 26 1 I Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 flow. I'm somewhat concerned about the issue of street parking and pedestrian, you said ' they'd cross the street and so on. Are they going to be going through between cars? That type of thing. And how that relates. If you have, it seems to me that somewhat has some built in dangers into it in regards to the pedestrian and traffic flow not only for the cars but ' also for the people. So I have nothing really to go on here to make any concrete criticisms but I would expect those kind of answers from staff and how those interplay between what types of use we actually come up with. Also issues of any type of movement between either ' office or residential and these open spaces. That if for passive uses they still I would expect have some sort of gathering use for people who either are in higher density and so on and how that would... Mancino: Well I know that staff is recommending that there be no parking on any of the streets. On either side. Correct? No parking on TH 101, on the loop street or Lake Drive? ' Hempel: That was our concern in the staff report, that's correct. Farmakes: Yeah, but I believe part of the proposal said street parking and they came before us tonight so I'm responding to that. If in fact the definition of percentage increase to retail from, I think our staff report there went back to 55 comparing it with a study that went up to ' recent times, or a decade or recent times but the reason for this increase in commercial property relationship to population is because of the parking that will be a consideration in evaluating this particular piece. And looking at parking trends throughout north of TH 5, how ' that relates to our population and a cap of population where, again what type of market are they going to? Are they going to 30,000- 35,000 or are they going beyond that and what type of length of stay, trip. How you want cars in the area for parking. Commercial area versus residential versus office. So again those types of things. It's all more into engineering and traffic issues. So I'm going to leave it at that. Mancino: Bob. ' Skubic: The Hoisington report brought up the issue of phasing timing of the Highway improvements with regards to the development and that strikes me as an issue we have the extension of Lake Drive East. We have Highway 101 and Great Plains Boulevard realignment and these are probably something that's tied up between the county and the state and the city. It seems like it could be a pretty messy, lengthy process to get these aligned. Does staff have, or Dave, do you have any insights on how this all might hook together? ' Hempel: Lake Drive East is in the comprehensive plan as a collector street. The city has listed it on the city's municipal state aid street system. The alignment shown in the concept here is fairly close to what's in the comprehensive plan. The intersection of Lake Drive and 1 27 Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 TH 101, median improvements are already there. It's all there with the upgrade of what I'll call Market Boulevard and TH 101 by Rosemount. The touch down points are established meandering through the parcel. It's somewhat open but we want to keep it more of a thoroughfare or a boulevard. Frontage road scenario... The upgrade of TH 101 and the traffic studies that would shed some light exactly what improvements are going to be needed and also determine the access point on the south loop street and the appropriate traffic control devices within the development itself will also be looked at. All those are things that come... Skubic: Thank you. Mancino: Craig. Peterson: As it relates to traffic, I think most of the major issues have been brought up. The only ancillary concern that I guess I would see, if the plan remains, let's assume a plan remains as it is. If you look at the trails that are marked with the dotted line. It looks as though the trails are clearly biased towards the residential without a clear trail into the major retail centers. They are on the outskirts of both. I guess on a conceptual basis would seem more logical to integrate the trails more within the retail areas also. Not just within the residential and office areas. That's it. Mancino: I just had a couple remarks. The residents brought up a little bit of Lake Drive and what's going to be happening with Lake Drive. Well Lake Drive is going to continue to have more traffic on it. No question. It's a collector. It has been in the comprehensive plan. It always was going to be there and it will be there and there will be traffic going west on Lake Drive. Will continue through this development and keep going west. It definitely will be there. As far as getting to the new pedestrian bridge and being able to cross Lake Drive as it becomes more congested, what are the options? Has the city looked into that and I'm just asking for options? Not what are we going to do or, but I think that's a real good concern and safety concern for adults and children. Hempel: Again I guess I'm going to fall back on what the traffic studies are going to reveal based on the land use. Location for crosswalks. Four way signalized intersections and how that will be explored as part of the traffic study. Mancino: Okay. So you will be looking at that issue, good. Not on the collector but on the loop street, and Dave I'm directing this towards you and on some of the small cul -de -sacs. Why wouldn't it work to have parking on one side? Hempel: I guess it would kind of depend on the actual use. We've had some discussions this afternoon, the applicant and the city engineer, regarding the parking on the south loop street 28 Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 and the residential street. There is room for parking on one side of the street to permit two directional flows of traffic as well. We're concerned about pedestrian traffic both crossing the street at appropriate locations. Mancino: Sure, because they have to go through the two park streets and look both ways. Hempel: That's correct. So again it kind of falls back on what's being proposed on that site. If it's a lower use, maybe on street parking would be permissible. Mancino: Yes Fred. Hoisington: I think in this case I can certainly appreciate where everybody is coming from. I think there may be an issue related to safety and so forth but I think this concept is one that rather demands parking on the street and I think I would not want to see you throw that possibility out too soon without at least giving it at a chance to work because the whole village concept, in our downtowns, with the exception of Chan's downtown where we're not able to accommodate that, and many resort centers and so forth have that and that's what gives them their quaint, unique character. In addition to pulling the buildings up to the street and so forth. All these things go together to make it a much more acceptable place for people to walk in rather than simply drive to and then go someplace else. And on street parking can be very helpful in that respect. All I'm saying is, hopefully we don't throw that away yet until we at least explore it very, very carefully because I think that's a very important part of what may occur here. Mancino: Okay. And maybe it's the concept of having pedestrian areas where cars can't park so you can cross the street there and work both ways. You know that. What else about traffic? My only other concern about the retail and a fair amount of, and it may even, yeah mostly retail, and being pedestrian friendly, is when we have retail and we have these big ' parking lots and we have small children getting out of the car, I think there needs to be in that particular parking lot some designated pedestrian walkway to the retail area. And I don't ' know if that's, if it's just painted on asphalt or if it's a little built up area. If there's an actual walkway that takes pedestrians from out in the middle of that big parking lot and invites you into the retail. So I would like to see that concept investigated. Anyone else have any other? ' Mehl: One other parking related item. I did talk a little, or I did see here where there was going to be some underground parking proposed. I guess I was curious as to how much and where that's going to take place and with the lake and the wetlands nearby, you know will the ground water table allow for underground parking without having a big problem? 1 29 Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 Mancino: I think that that's something you'll just have to deal with later on in the process. At the conceptual level, I think the underground parking is a good idea and will help keep the existing topography but I'm sure that you'll have to do tests. Soils tests to make sure that we can actually put the underground parking in. Moving on to environmental issues. Any concerns from commissioners on the wetland vegetation. Some of the old mature trees in that area. Slopes. Where do you want to conceptually what is important and how would you like to see those dealt with as far as the, I think the applicant said that they would very much like to keep the east /west slope that's in the upper part of the site. Is that important to us? And in other areas, what's of value? Jeff. Farmakes: Well, as proposed here obviously some of this development is beyond the wetlands. It's down to Lake Susan. We saw some photographs from some other developments that there was a river of mud going into Lake Susan. I think obviously the development that we have adjacent to large bodies of water in particular, we should be concerned about. But the city does have current ordinances in place. We have discussed briefly about strengthening those ordinances in regard to development that takes place adjacent to bodies of water. Sensitive bodies of water also Lake Susan is in no great help either. So that's an issue. As far as the ETA, that sort of thing, I have no objections to an ETA study. That's not an issue condition for this thing as far as killing it or approving it. So I have no other objections to that other than following existing ordinances, other than in regards to the runoff and grading issue next to a sensitive body of water. I would support us dealing with that I guess ASAP. Mancino: Bob. Skubic: The property received an environmental rating of .96. 1.0 requires an environmental impact statement. It seems like we're awfully close. I'd like to have some safety factor in there and being that we're early in the development here, is there a chance that, how far does that rating and is there a possibility that as we proceed, that may be re- assessed and an environmental impact statement will be required. I have a perception that environmental impact statements are a quite lengthy processes and how might that affect the proceedings? Aanenson: I guess the staffs position on that is that we would be the jurisdiction that would review it. The EIS and we believe that what we would flush out as part of the EAW is pretty thorough. I'm not sure we'd accomplish anything more based on, you know we're one of the few communities that take the storm water management plan to the level that we do as far as our review and the tree ordinances. The ordinances that we have in place. I'm not sure we'd really address any more issues. Certainly you have the opportunity, if there is something else that you want to address specifically beyond the scope of the EA document that you feel wasn't addressed, you certainly have the opportunity to make that a condition. 30 I Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 Mancino: What's the difference between the two Kate? ' Aanenson: It's really the level of scoping that you do. Additional data that you would provide, and I'm not sure that based on our ordinance, that you'd really be getting any ' additional information that you wouldn't in the environmental assessment. Mancino: Then why do they have a certain criteria for after a 1.0 you have to go to the next ' document? Hoisington: Well generally the purpose of the EAW is to determine whether you need an EIS. Mancino: Oh, okay. Hoisington: And what would likely happen in this case, Kate's exactly right. The likelihood is you will not need an EIS on this site because virtually all of the significant issues will have ' been addressed with the EAW and you won't be able to really find much more when you get right down to it so to order or to request an EIS at this point ... you're going to get a lot of material. More than you want from an EAW and you'll know just about everything there is ' to know about this site. Aanenson: If there's something missing, then we certainly would ask them to do it. ' Additional information. Mancino: Okay, thank you. Skubic: Thank Y ou. ' Mancino: Craig. ' Peterson: Part of my thought process is, and whenever you consider rezoning any area, is what is the compelling reason to do so. Clearly in this area that is sensitive, that has an ambience to it as defined with the trees and the sloping and the ridge lines, that part of the ' impedance behind I guess myself recommending a change in zoning would be that the ability to improve or at a minimum maintain some of those issues I just mentioned. Whether we, obviously this is premature but it's a matter of how much can we save of the topography and ' if we come in in the retail areas and flatten them out, which I don't think is the goal maybe mentioned here but it's a matter of how much we can save. The more we can save, the more the compelling reason to rezone I guess is one perspective I would have. That's about it. 31 Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 Mancino: One of the statements that the applicant made in the report that we got said it is the overall intent that the ponds development will retain the major hardwoods and steep slopes and ponds which give this site it's intrinsic value. And I take that to heart so I will be looking for, in detail, major hardwoods staying. Steep slopes. And ponds so that we do keep the, I think it was again in the applicant's report that 20% of this site is in wetlands or some sort of water and at the end of the development, I'd like to keep that figure at 20 %. Brad Johnson: It will be higher probably. Mancino: Or higher, thank you, The topography change, the rolliness to it is what makes it and I applaud the applicant for putting that in. Thank you. I think the next issue is architectural design and asking or talking a little bit about the vernacular. Of course we all had to go to our dictionaries to say what does vernacular mean. So I think there will be some talk about that. And a country village look. Again to us, what does that mean? Comparing Chanhassen here to Carmel and Monterey. Little stretch. So what does that really mean and I think that those are the things that we'll kind of talk about and want to know more about at this point. Craig, would you like to lead off on architectural and what you would like to see. Peterson: You pretty well paraphrased my whole comments right in your intro. It's a matter of the points that were listed by the developer early on, the areas, I close my eyes and try to picture 50th and France and Como area and other areas within the Minneapolis, St. Paul metro area and I'm having a hard time conceptualizing that. I can only offer a vision of almost a townhouse style of retail where it's multi level connected, that I've seen in other areas that would be somewhat small in nature and inter connected with the street system, walking system, excuse me that you had mentioned earlier Nancy that would seem to fit within the trees and certainly not the larger block development as far as retail. So I guess as I perceive it without listening to a great deal of feedback from the developer yet, I guess I perceive a much smaller retail area that, or in the few thousand square feet range each, interconnected with a walkway and with the underground parking. I think they're probably comparing the underground parking to 50th and France as maybe the parking in back of the retail as you walk down that, if you're familiar with that area, with no parking in the front and the parking in the back so. I guess I'm still searching to get a good idea what it is. I'm sitting here just guessing as, if retail ... what I would like to see. Something similar to what I mentioned I guess. Mancino: And conceptually in size? Peterson: Conceptually in size is smaller units versus the larger area. The more intimate. I look at Carmel and Monterey and I see those areas. If you try to compare those. Those are the smaller, boutique style retail shops that, again the viability of having those in Chanhassen 32 I Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 is beyond my level of knowledge but that's how I close my eyes and think of that. The developer will have to obviously present, and maybe staff has had discussions with them as to the different types of retail that has been presented as possibilities to go in here. I'd be interested to hear that, if any has been discussed. Mancino: Bob. Skubic: Okay ... imagine what this would be like but we certainly have a desire to have this compliment, supplement existing downtown area and the comp plan and the Highway 5 plan that directs smaller retail stores in this area. Time and time again the statement have been made that we are not seeking the big box stores here. I do wonder how this will supplement and compliment the existing downtown area, being that this is different. I like the village concept, even though I'm not really sure what it is but they're talking about on street parking and small specialty shops. That's different than what we have. Does that really compliment or not? That's beyond me. Mancino: How does that work? Having the village look and the concept right across from a central business district which doesn't have that, or at this point. Hoisington: But it has some of the same characteristics that they're intending here and if there's a concept that's really strong and important here, I think we need to give them the benefit of the doubt on it as to what they're proposing to do because they're trying to create something that's very much in keeping with what we were trying to do in the Vision 2002. But we had the existing buildings and so forth to live with here too and so we weren't able to, we aren't and we never will be able to accomplish everything that we'd like to see there. A walk around kind of downtown. Well, it's going to be difficult for people to walk across the highway into the present downtown or vice versa. But on the other hand, I think the integrity of this whole concept depends on them being able to do it. I'd say if you don't want them to do something of this nature, then I'm not sure what value there is in extending retail on the other side of the street. I'd like to press it even further. I'd like to encourage, and Kate and I talked about this and Bob, the possibility of even considering anyway some second level occupancies that might involve multi - family. Apartments and to do so with some really neat stuff so you've really got a nice village concept here. I would only like to stretch them as far as we can stretch them to get a truly urban space here. That's an interesting place to shop and interesting place to live and the people are more than interested to come to and that really truly becomes part of what we envisioned downtown to become. Mancino: How does the, if you did that concept of putting the multi- family over the retail in that northern, the most northern, how does that. 33 Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 Hoisington: It may not be the most northern because it's possible that some of it might occur there but that's where the hotel and restaurant might go and so there might still be some opportunities for some mixed use within that corner but the 7.4 acre retail area especially, I think there's the true core of this village where we could expect to have on street parking. We could have truly mixed use. Minimizing the parking areas by requiring tiered parking and that sort of thing. I think it could potentially work out. Mancino: And then go east for me. How do we resolve the high density next to single family. Hoisington: That's the harder part for me to deal with is the area that goes to the east and I guess we need to think about that a little bit more. I'm not ready to snap anything off over there so. Mancino: Okay. Jeff. Farmakes: I don't have any enlightenment on traditional architecture or vernacular character. That holds plenty of fog for me. I'll wait until the next phase when they actually bring something forward that I can look at. But I mean that's pretty typical when you try to describe something that isn't there, or if you can use, it's kind of like 50th and France. Well 50th and France is 1930's downtown facade that kind of survived. It got lost for a while and then there's little independent buildings connecting to one another and it gives it a certain kind of character. I'm a little dubious about whether or not we actually would wind up with that or if we would wind up with some sort of fake facade on that and in turn lose it's charm and kind of look like a facade on a fast food place or something. We're going to have a hard time finding a sardine factory to rehab here so I still, in reading all that, I'm not exactly sure what we're going to wind up with and I'll wait to see a drawing. Mancino: So there's no particular direction that you want to give? Farmakes: I would go back to the same thing. Anything that comes before here in development of this city, I would love to see the best quality materials used and with materials of permanence. Not something that chips, peels or falls apart. Mancino: Brick, glass? Farmakes: Brick, glass and other details. Mancino: Stone. 34 I Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 Farmakes: And I like small. I have no problem with small. I'm not exactly sure how that ' fits into the scope or the reality of retail and I still, since we're conceptual, I can gab about that for a few seconds but I'm not sure if we need an eighth video tape store or, I'd have to be convinced somehow that again the community is mix of ratio and it's not our job to be market ' directors but for instance there's a restaurant across the street that went out of business. Now that may be because of bad management decisions. The question is is that Chanhassen has an awful lot of sit down capability for restaurants. We can sit down pretty much half the ' population here for lunch. I'm not sure if what will come in as a service for our community is going to be an addition, rather than a duplication and that's at some point I think something that we need to address when we look at this scope of retail. That's the end of that. Mancino: Don. ' Mehl: Like some of you I also went to the dictionary to look up vernacular and it kind of told me that it's the common building style of a period or place. And I thought, or kind of what I thought it was but when you look at it it can involve dozens or maybe hundreds of possibilities. Somewhere along the line here we're all going to have to agree on what that is and is it going to be consistent throughout the entire development or is it going to change throughout the development. The other thing I think we have to look at architecturally too is ' the conceptually look at how the buildings on the north portion are going to be shaped and how they're going to be designed because Highway 5 is going to be a major viewing point into that whole development. And in effect that whole northern portion is going to be a big ' window looking into the development and I think whatever we do architecturally with those buildings, I think they have to look interesting and charming and whatever, all the way around the building. You know not only from the front, the street side, but also from the ' back and the side because along that northern portion they're going to be seen from all directions and they have to look friendly and it has to look inviting. I think some thought has to go into that. Mancino: Thank you. I don't have too much more to add. I will wait and see when this ' 20,000 square foot building looks like a country village setting. I don't understand that. Is that doable? ' Hoisington: They say it is. Mancino: Okay. So that is my question. I agree very much with Commissioner Peterson on ' the, I see smaller type buildings. Smaller footprints. 5,000 square foot. 2,000 to 5,000 square foot. I don't know if that makes it. And so the reality has to set in on us too. I know that the Highway 5 task force, the Vision 2002 talked about again, which is in the applicant's r 35 Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 report not wanting to see big boxes in this area. And yet that's what I think of when I think of high volume retailers. Hoisington: One of the things, when you look at 50th and France, I think the impression is that there are lots of small buildings up there and it has a very nice scale to it. Mancino: Yes. Hoisington: And yet there are some very large buildings. Lunds and some of these buildings actually the ones on the northwest corner of 50th and France are all kind of one building, but they give the impression of being small buildings so I think your direction that it should appear small is absolutely right on. I mean that's what this whole village concept is about. But I think again, we need to give them the benefit of the doubt that they can make a 20,000 square foot building look small. I guess I'm not really willing to set a limit on how big they can be but certainly I want the appearance to be that this is a small village. Not a large, bunch of large buildings. Farmakes: What comes to mind when you're thinking of 50th and France, it's not the Americana building and not the Lund's building but the little individual stores that go up and down and those are individual buildings. Hold overs from the depression years, many of them. Buildings built in the 20's and 30's with the little different facades and really almost unusable retail space. Those are the mind images that come into place but you're right, there are some larger buildings that I'm thinking of the retail strong that is now I think Chico's or whatever it is and the... and many of those buildings don't function terribly well as retail buildings. The typical retail is as big as you can get it. As convertible as you can get it because things change over the years and buildings don't necessarily, they're not built to last necessarily because the concept of retail changes so much. So unfortunately the community's not going anywhere so the question comes up, what makes sense for the foreseeable future. Mancino: And working downtown I can tell you, boy what a change. Whether it's Gavidae. Whether it's the whole downtown, there is so much that is vacant now in retail and everything's just closed up and there's nothing down there. It's all gone to Mall of America so I have some concerns about what will work here in longevity of time so. Any other issues or comments to make on any part of this concept? Staff is there anything that we haven't addressed that you would like to hear from us? Now we need to make a motion. And thank goodness the Chairwoman can't. Do I have a motion for this conceptual plan? Staff has made recommendations. I just have one question to ask people are looking to make a motion. Staff, you didn't put in your conditions anything about, are you just implying that the comprehensive plan changes? Does it say that in one of these conditions? 36 I Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 ' Generous: No. That would be at the next stage. ' Mancino: That would be at the next stage. When we see it a preliminary plat? ' Generous: Yes. And they would actually request the amendment. Mancino: So it's not at this stage, thank you. And is there a way at the next stage, when I ' read the Hoisington report, to phase in the comprehensive plan changes? Hoisington: Well I think there is and I think we just need a bit of attention to how that takes ' place. What we want to do, we want guarantees essentially that what they say they're going to do, they're going to do and so we just have to figure out a way to make sure that happens. ' Aanenson: Let me back up. You're saying, talk about phasing in the changes? Mancino: Well I think there's. ' Aanenson: There's phasing but I think they want to know what... ' Mancino: Phasing in.the comprehensive plan changes. Hoisington: How to address, how to amend the comprehensive plan and how it effects the ' zoning change. Mancino: And you had suggested in your report of phasing that in. Hoisington: Yes. Farmakes: I'll make a motion that we table this. Planning Commission table conceptual approval of PUD #92 -1 dated October 23, 1995 for the following reasons. I think some of ' the land issues. The land use issue is a fundamental issue of which all the rest is built upon. And I don't think I have in front of me a compelling demonstrated need for this and I'd like to see it. I think we should have that. We go with whichever one of the adoptions we have ' here because the real determination is the same issue that we've always argued with this piece of property from the beginning. How much of it should be retail? And I'm not sure that I've heard anything further on it other than this one report and addressing the issue of parking ' being the main culprit for the increase in percentage as to where we are with that. Mancino: So can you be more specific with your direction to staff if we do table it. What you want them to provide us with. 37 Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 Farmakes: Well I think Kate mentioned it. That they have additional information that they can provide us with in regards to calculating that. And I don't want to keep on going around and around in a circle but the issue, the fundamental issue is, seems to me is that whether it's appropriate amount of square footage for a defined central business district with that population between 30,000 and 35,000. Chanhassen filled up and if it extends beyond that, what is the purpose of being a regional draw. Is that what we want? Mancino: Okay. Is there a second to the motion? Peterson: I second that. Mancino: Any discussion? Peterson: To further Jeffs comments, part of my concerns are, I'm not yet comfortable with the transition from residential and the rezoning of those residential areas. I think as we mentioned earlier, I'd like to explore the possibility of relocating some of those residential areas or switching the office to residential, etc, etc. Clearly no one wants to have next to their home, single family home, necessarily a high density building. But yet somebody has to. It can't be in the middle of an island at Lake Susan. And unfortunately we're going to have to address that and we're going to be compelled to do so eventually as this project proceeds. And I think the residents to a certain degree have to understand that. Hopefully they will when the time comes. But what's presented I think this evening is not enough for me again to be comfortable that as it's presented conceptually even, that the relationship between the residential and the retail and the rezoning of the residential has adequately been addressed. Nor does it seem to have been adequately addressed with the residents to at least my satisfaction. Farmakes: The key point in the relationship also to the critical mass issue that you discussed. To what point is the commercial area not viable because it's been restricted and obviously that will define what the transitional issue is by simple matter of space and of course land use. This is a option in front of us. I believe we had four options over a period of time that we looked at, including this one, and correct me if I'm wrong but you've been here and you've heard this. Are you comfortable that that has been defined for you the need for retail? And we very well may need it but it sure hasn't in my mind been quantified by anybody. Other than the fact it talks about we'll run out of it and this will give us enough for 5 more years. What does that mean? I don't know. And if I say, I vote yes for this, I would want to know that. I would want to feel comfortable that I know that because we have in the past denied other types of developments outside of the central business district and that would tell me that we knew what that meant. That we knew where we were going with this. And I've always 38 ' Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 used that rationale simply because that's what our professional staff city recommended to us. ' Now if we're going to change that, I'd like to know why we're going to change that. Mancino: Any other discussion? ' Farmakes moved, Peterson seconded that the Planning Commission table the conceptual planned unit development review for Villages on the Ponds, PUD 995 -2. All voted in favor and the motion cared unanimously. Mancino: When will this come back, just so. Aanenson: It's really dependent upon the applicant. I'm assuming that he'd probably want to meet with the neighbors again so we'll go ahead and notify everybody again. ' Mancino: Okay, you will be notified when this will come back in front of the Planning Commission and again it will still be at the conceptual stage when you come back. Thank ' you for coming. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Skubic noted the Minutes of the Planning Commission meeting ' dated October 4, 1995 as presented. CITY COUNCIL UPDATE: ' Aanenson: On October 9th the City gave Council final plat approval roval to the Forest Meadows p subdivision subject to resolution of compensation for the park. They also gave final plat approval for Lake Susan Hills townhouses. Jasper Homes and they approved the site plan for the expansion of the Pillsbury facility. They also requested that they complete it by November 15th. They had requested December 1st. Since November 15th is the time that generally the asphalt plants close. They also requested that they give the next two City Council meetings, to give an update. So in other words, they're kind of progressing and ' keeping their feet to the fire so to speak to get this worked out. So hopefully the issue will be solved and we won't have trucks on Audubon Road anymore. Also I included in your packet the Livable Communities Act. Certainly a timely topic tonight. I have prepared for ' the City Council meeting Monday night some goals. Recommended goals. The last page of this report shows you where Chanhassen, the city index and I prepared those goals for the Council and given them some information. As I indicated earlier, we do now, based on the GAS we were able to combine or compile our different land uses into a little bit of a number crunching so we do have better information as far as actual acreage of different land uses so some of that information we can prepare for you as far as where we are in the development. This ties into the industrial study that we're working on and then ties to this commercial retail 39 Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 and there's some other broader issues that we'll have to look at so that ties into the Livable Communities Act. We were able to show exactly what our development trends are and it was very informative. So after the input from the City Council we'll certainly bring it back to you and show you what the direction is because a lot of this is contingent upon implementation. And that's going to be the work of the Planning Commission and the Council to decide what strategies they're going to take and a lot of it involves recommended land use changes or tools to provide opportunities for different types of densities and some of those things we've talked about here too. The PUD ordinance. Increasing density bonuses under the PUD and those sorts of things. So we will be coming back to you with those strategies. Mancino: Is this going to happen to land that has already been guided in the comprehensive plan and we're going to go in and change some of that land use? Aanenson: Well I think there's an opportunity and we've talked about lot sizes. We've talked about the PUD. We've talked about twin homes. You know that helps under our low density. Maybe there's appropriate places to do twin homes. Everybody gets nervous about it but there's places where we've done, the Chaparral neighborhood we've done twin homes, four plexes and those work well so there's opportunities I think to where we can push the densities. We've talked about this before. Ladd's kind of championed this cause and when people come in here and we try to push them down, instead of building to the limit and that's going to cause us some problems down the road because as Ladd's pointed out, where do we take that density that we've lost. There's not an opportunity to replace it somewhere else. So one of the strategies would be certainly to at least keep people to build to the density, the top end of that density because we're supposed to be at 10 to 11 and we've averaging 6 units an acre so we're way below what we should be. And it goes back to what the Met Council's... increasing our urban service area, we need to be intensifying within. And that doesn't mean that there's not an opportunity for larger lots. There certainly is. But what we're looking at is other opportunities to provide some more infill development, and that's what Fred was talking about and we certainly felt strongly with this previous development, that we think there's an opportunity to provide something as long as you've got the retail, there's some intensity and even building on top of those. Try to get a little bit more creative. And so I think hopefully this thing will evolve into an exciting opportunity to do some different land uses. Mancino: And that would be an increase because we hadn't planned on high density in that area? Aanenson: Right. And again it ties into the mass traffic component and proximity to the rest of the downtown, and services and work and that whole concept. Mancino: Okay. Any ongoing items? 40 Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 ONGOING ITEMS. Aanenson: Yeah, the industrial land use study, we were hoping to put that on at this time but actually I spent a lot of time working on this Livable Communities Act which I didn't have programmed in my work schedule so it's certainly an issue that Rottlund is concerned about. Our investigation of that but like I indicated earlier, we do now have an opportunity to look at where we are with our industrial property and we'll put that on the next agenda. There is quite a few items on the next agenda so it will be a lengthy one next time. Tires Plus is back on. Mancino: Whatever happened to them? I mean they really wanted to come back right away. Aanenson: The City's developing that so yeah, some wetland issues. Yeah. Mancino: On what property? Aanenson: The wetland was a little bit bigger so we're working through that issue. And then the other one I told you was the DataServ. The front of that was sold off to CFM. They'll becoming in with that. With two parcels. There will be four parcels. They're coming in ' with two. The northern portion there. There's a wetland issue there. A larger wetland than they thought so we're trying to resolve that. We don't want to do a site plan review and then find out that actually that wetland completely changes the design so that's where we're at right ' now. Tentatively it's on the agenda. We published it but it may come off if we can't resolve that. We don't want to go through the review process and then have to take it back again. Mancino: What kind of us and who's coming in? Aanenson: CFM. What it is is an industrial kind of spec space is what they're looking at. It can be carved up in a number of different ways. Office, warehouse components. They do have docking facilities. What it is and what you're seeing what we don't have a lot of in this ' community, they're filling a nitch that there's a lot of demand for and that's for people that kind of want the office /showroom type which is kind of quasi- retail. You have an office and you may have some retail component with it. What this means, it's not going to be one big user. You're going to have signs and, but the architecture looks very nice. I think it's something. ' Farmakes: Is it like ... as a showroom for manufacturing? Aanenson: No. It could be a lot of different things. It could be a carpet warehouse. It ' could be somebody that just needs a small space of their own to do, that they need shipping 1 41 Planning Commission Meeting - October 18, 1995 and receiving. Maybe they don't have any retail there but they need a shipping and receiving spot. It could be a wholesale dealer. It could be a lot of different things. It could be a lighting studio. It could be... Generous: NordicTrack. Aanenson: NordicTrack. It could be a lot of different things. So what we don't have is a lot of that opportunity in this city. In Chanhassen for a small proprietor. Somebody like that. Start up business to find that kind of space so it could be snapped into different size users. But they've got enough interest now to build two buildings. But again I think you'll be happy with the architecture on that one. And DataSery will be coming in shortly for the rest of their building on their property too. Mancino: Okay. Is there a motion to adjourn? Peterson moved, Farmakes seconded to adjourn the meeting. The meeting was adjourned at 9 :40 p.m. Submitted by Kate Aanenson Planning Director Prepared by Nann Opheim 42