Loading...
CC Minutes 2000 01 10CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING JANUARY 10, 2000 Mayor Mancino called the meeting to order at 6:30 p.m. The meeting was opened with the Pledge to the Flag. COUNCILMEMBERS PRESENT: Mayor Mancino, Councilman Senn, Councilman Engel, and Councilwoman Jansen COUNCILMEMBERS ABSENT: Councilman Labatt STAFF PRESENT: Roger Knutson, Scott Botcher, Todd Gerhardt. Anita Benson, and Sharmin A1-Jaff. APPROVAL OF AGENDA: Councilman Senn moved, Councilman Engel seconded to approve the agenda as presented. All voted in favor and the motion carried. PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: Mayor Mancino: I don't think there are any public announcements. Scott, are there any announcements about Y2K and how the City Hall is working and doing well and making that New Year's Eve leap for us. Scott Botcher: Oh I guess we're feeling good, looking good. Doing fine. Mayor Mancino: So everybody's going to get their water and sewer bills. Scott Botcher: Yeah, we've got Leap Year coming up. No, Mr. Rice did a great job and I know I received some correspondence from some of the councilmembers and he worked very hard and we did not have any glitches at all, except for some that were upgrades being scheduled for after the first of the year. They weren't really glitches. They were just known issues to postpone because they were not a priority. But we had no other difficulties. Mayor Mancino: Great, thank you. ORGANIZATIONAL ITEMS: Mayor Mancino: Let's discuss these as a council just all of the, (a) through (g) and then take, do one motion. The first on it is Rules of Procedure and we do have a memo from our City Manager suggesting that we pass Roberts Rules of Order and Roberts Parliamentary Law. That we also pass the Rules of Procedure which is in the memo and they name, or have about ten values here and these Rules of Procedure that he is suggesting that we use is, number one, to respect ourselves. Number two, to do your best at all times. Respect others. Treat others in a way that you want to be treated. Be a good listener. Use nice manners. Share with others. Take tums. Respect property. Be honest. Work as a team. Have fun and it is okay to make mistakes but we should also try and fix them. Any discussion on those? Okay. Scott Botcher: I think if you want to have Roberts Rules of Order serve as your guide book, you should direct us to draft an ordinance to incorporate that into the code. You should also give us some direction on whether or not you still want to maintain two readings on ordinances. That's fine. Roger has spoken the pros and cons of that. But if you want to do that you probably ought to just codify it and be done with it. City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 So that would require, I guess I would recommend that you just direct us to draft an ordinance and then that ordinance will be passed at a future date. In two weeks or something like that. Mayor Mancino: Okay. Scott Botcher: Can you waive the second reading on requiring two readings? Roger Knutson: Yes. Mayor Mancino: Okay. And the official newspaper, any discussion on? Chanhassen Villager. And City Attorney. The Knutson, Mr. Knutson. And the Acting Mayor, Councilman Mark Senn.. Weed Inspector, the Mayor with the Jackie Glaser as the Deputy Weed Inspector. The Fire Chief being John Wolff who was re-elected and the Health Officer, Dave McCollum. May I have a motion please? Unless there's any other discussion. Councilman Engel: No discussion, move approval. Mayor Mancino: Is there a second? Councilwoman Jansen: Second. Councilman Senn: Could we do a clarification on (a) though that it is directing staff then to prepare an ordinance and bring it back at a future meeting. Mayor Mancino: Okay. And one reading of the ordinance, to make that change. Councilman Engel: Yes. Councilman Engel moved, Councilwoman Jansen seconded to approve the following organizational items: f. g. Rules of Procedure. Directing staff to prepare an ordinance adopting Roberts Rules of Order and to change the ordinance so that adoption of ordinances takes just one reading instead of two. Official Newspaper. Chanhassen Villager City Attorney. Campbell-Knutson Law Firm. Acting Mayor. Councilman Mark Senn Weed Inspector. Mayor Nancy Mancino, Weed Inspector and Jackie Glaser, Deputy Weed Inspector. Fire Chief. John Wolff Health Officer. Dr. Dave McCollum All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously. CONSENT AGENDA: Councilwoman Jansen moved, Councilman Engel seconded to approve the following Consent Agenda items pursuant to the City Manager's recommendations: Approve Request for Public Gathering Permit for a Water-ski, Wake-Board, and Knee-Board Tournament on Lake Susan, June 3 & 4, 2000, International Novice Tour (INT). City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 Approve Temporary Beer License, February Festival, Chanhassen Lions Club. Resolution #2000-01: Accept Utility Improvements in Springfield 7th Addition - Project No. 99-18. Resolution #2000- 02: Accept Utility Improvements in The Woods at Longacres 5th and 6th Additions - Project Nos. 99-15 and 99-16. Resolution #2000-03: Accept Street and Storm Drainage Improvements in Springfield 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Additions, Project Nos. 97-20, 98-7 and 98-6. Resolution #2000-04: Receive Feasibility Study; Set Public Hearing Date for Grandview Road Area Utility Improvement - Project No. 97-11. Resolution #2000-05: Approve Temporary Permits to Construct for TH 5/West 78th Street Improvement Project No. 97-6 amended to add Parcel 215A. Approval of Bills. Approval of Minutes: - City Council Work Session Minutes dated December 13, 1999 - City Council Minutes dated December 13, 1999 Receive Commission Minutes: - Planning Commission Minutes dated December 1, 1999 Resolution #2000-06: Approve Resolution Establishing Procedures Relating to Compliance with Reimbursement Bond Regulations Under the Internal Revenue Code. Resolution #2000-07: Approve Resolution Designating Signers on City Bank Accounts. Resolution #2000-08: Approve Resolution Modifying Personnel Policy Regarding Comp Time for Exempt Employees. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: None. SITE PLAN REVIEW TO ALLOW A 16~680 SQUARE FOOT CLASSROOM AND A 2~000 SQUARE FOOT LIBRARY ADDITION TO AN EXISTING BUILDING AND A VARIANCE TO ALLOW A 30 FOOT FRONT YARD SETBACK~ CHAPEL HILL ACADEMY. Public Present: Name Address Dan Blake Steve Barnett Dan Plowman Kathy & Larry Schroeder 306 West 78th Street 8709 Chanhassen Hills 6490 White Dove Drive 7720 Frontier Trail City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 Sherry & Bob Ayotte 6213 Cascade Pass Sharmin A1-Jaff: Just a brief background of the application. In June of 1998 the City Council approved an application for temporary classrooms. It was an Interim Use Permit format and as a condition of approval was that one year after the Certificate of Occupancy has been issued for the modular classrooms, the applicant for Chapel Hill Academy needed to submit a complete site plan application. And five years after Certificate of Occupancy the modular units would need to be removed or when the expansion has taken place, whichever comes first. So the site plan is before the City Council. The applicant is requesting a site plan review application approval for the construction of a 16,680 square foot classroom units and a 2,000 square foot library addition. And a 5 foot front yard setback variance to allow the addition to be located 30 feet from public right-of-way. This is the first phase of a 77,260 square foot expansion. This addition is proposed to be located, Phase I, located to the south of the site and facing West 78th Street. The site contains an existing church, temporary modular classroom buildings, two houses, two garages and a playground. There has been numerous studies done on this site and this area of the city. It is within the area that is referred to as Old Town. It is within the 2002 Vision for the city so again there has been a lot of concepts and studies done in this area. The existing building was built in phases and as each phase was constructed, a different building material was introduced to this site. That was one of the challenges that we had to deal with as we started working on this expansion. Materials that you can find on the existing building include brick, wood, fluted block, and glass block. The goal of the expansion was to give the building a new image, improve the appearance and build an addition that blends in with the area. The applicant prepared a master plan to reflect the ultimate expansion and the final appearance of the building and site layout. The overall plan is proposed to be completed in three phases. It is possible for this project to take 5 or 10 years but at this present time the intent is to complete the classrooms over the next 2 years. The proposed addition is proposed to utility rock face block and I can pass these around for the City Council to look at. The colors include same shades of red brick that can be found on the existing building. Specifically on the base of the western elevation of the existing building. The color combination will blend in with the existing building. Especially when the area located west of the site is, this is the area we're talking about. Right now this area is mainly glass. Therefore it will blend in. Councilman Senn: Just a point of, these are the rock face block, right? Sharmin A1-Jaff: Correct. That is the material that the applicant is proposing to utilize. Councilman Senn: These are? Sharmin A1-Jaff: These are. What you're holding. Councilman Senn: Okay, so these are the rock face block. Sharmin A1-Jaff: Correct. Councilman Senn: Okay, and this is basically the roof color and the flashing color. Sharmin A1-Jaff: Correct. Councilman Senn: Okay, and what's this? Sharmin A1-Jaff: Nothing. Decoration for. One of the issues regarding the materials that we need to bring up deals with the size of the block. This is an established area of Chanhassen. The applicant is City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 proposing to use block that is 8 x 16 inches, and this is the size of an 8 x 16 inch block. Typically you'll find those on warehouses. This is the size of a typical brick that you might find in the surrounding area. The church across the street utilizes this size brick. What we're suggesting to the applicant is maybe they can utilize what we call a utility size brick. It is pretty much the height of a siding that you might find within that neighborhood. It is also twice the size of a brick that you would find in that neighborhood as well. Councilwoman Jansen: Do you know what the actual dimensions are of your jumbo, your utility brick? Sharmin A1-Jaff: Yes. They are, with the mortar it would be 4 inches by 12 inches. Councilwoman Jansen: That one's 4 by 127 Sharmin A1-Jaff: Yes. Mayor Mancino: I think that's one of, that's on condition 19. Councilwoman Jansen: Okay, thank you. Sharmin A1-Jaff: So this is the only issue that we really have with the materials on the building. The size, it needs to be a smoother face. It needs to be compatible with the surrounding areas. Entrances into the building are well defined. There is a projecting pitched element on them. Another issue that required quite a bit of discussion deals with the gymnasium. Overall this building is a one story building. It is in a residential neighborhood. As you get to the gymnasium portion, you're going to a two story box basically and there isn't any other word to describe it. What we agreed upon was to locate it, locate the gym to the northwest comer of the site. This area is 8 feet lower than the existing residences to the north. There will be quite a bit of vegetation. There are some mature trees in this area and that will create that building. As far as location on the site, it is probably the best location for a gymnasium. One of the questions that was raised at the Planning Commission meeting was the parking. To date there are 132 parking spaces. With this plan the building will pretty much double in size, yet they will lose half of their existing parking. Remember that this site used to be used as a church. Now it is a school. We calculated the number of parking spaces that they would need with their ultimate expansion and as per figures that were provided by the applicant they would need 72 parking spaces. They are providing 84 parking spaces. So they have more than they need as far as parking. One issue that might become a problem would be special activities. If there were concerts, then there are parking spaces, public parking spaces around that area that the school could utilize. Final issue we'd like to touch upon deals with the setback variance. The ordinance requires a 35 foot front yard setback. This site is located within an established neighborhood with buildings that maintain substantially reduced setbacks. We wanted to reinforce and reflect the setback of the existing building and reinforce the established character of the neighborhood. The setback would be 30 feet from West 78th Street. 32 feet from Frontier Trail. There isn't a hardship. We're not going to try and justify one. It's purely an aesthetic reason. And with that staff is recommending approval with conditions outlined in the staff report. Thank you. Mayor Mancino: Thank you very much Sharmin. A couple questions that I have, and if other council members have questions. Could you go over our review tonight is on the addition of Phase I, but you want us to also review the entire kind of site plan and give general comments to it? Sharmin A1-Jaff: Yes, please. City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 Mayor Mancino: Could you review with us the Planning Commission's general review of it? What, did they have any concerns? Again, not just on Phase I but of the master plan. So that we don't need to be redundant if the Planning Commission has already given some. Sharmin A1-Jaff: They liked Phase I. They liked how close it's going to be to West 78th. It will provide a pleasant, which is something that they have been looking at, and wanting to see with this application. Parking was an issue in their mind. They couldn't understand, well they questioned the reason why they are doubling the size of the building and reducing the parking in half and I explained that earlier. The size of the brick was extremely important to them. They unanimously agreed that this is a large size block that does not belong in the residential neighborhood. They indicated that it is preferred. However, this is a compromise that will blend in well within that neighborhood. Mainly as staff mentioned earlier, it is the same width as the siding. They were extremely concerned with the elevation facing the residential area. As far as future phases go. As well as the gymnasium. They wanted to see more relief and more architectural features on the elevations facing the residential neighborhood. Mayor Mancino: So they weren't so concerned with location and what was going on there, but they just wanted more architectural interest on that north elevation and on the gym? Is that, I don't want to put words in your mouth. Sharmin A1-Jaff: That's an accurate statement. They thought overall the layout of the site plan was very good. Commissioner Conrad raised the question of the location of the music room and when the kids practiced they might disturb the neighbors, but the neighbors that were at the meeting thought it amusing. Mayor Mancino: Wait until they practice and they're out of tune. Just kidding. Okay. I just want to make sure that we understand their concerns. Sharmin A1-Jaff: One of the things that the applicant did a good job with was they tried to leave the area that faces Frontier Trail neighborhood in it's present condition to the extent possible. There's minimum tree removal in that area. One of the original thoughts we had was to push the building in this direction towards Great Plains Boulevard. Basically that will result in screening in the parking. However, they would be short of parking and would need to locate some in the area facing Frontier Trail and we didn't think that would be a good option. Planning Commission agreed that the current layout is the best. Mayor Mancino: Okay, thank you. Is the applicant here and would you like to address the council? I'm sorry. Excuse me Dan. Were there any other questions for staff at this point? From council members. Councilwoman Jansen: Not right now. I can wait with mine. Mayor Mancino: Okay. Dan. Dan Blake: Thank you Mayor Mancino and Council members. My name is Dan Blake with Chapel Hill Academy. I also brought with me a couple other parents who happen to be on the Board of Directors and city of Chanhassen residents here tonight. If you have any questions regarding our school in general, we'll be glad to try to address those and obviously specifics of this plan when we get to it. Chapel Hill Academy is a non-denominational Christian school that has been operating for I think 28 years now in the southwest metro area. We moved to Chanhassen a couple of years ago in the old St. Hubert's school and church building. We currently have 323 students in kindergarten through 8th grade. 53 of those students are Chanhassen residents so we're generally Chanhassen, Chaska, Eden Prairie, Minnetonka kind of areas where our students come from. We are planning a building to accommodate 450 students, and that would City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 equate to two classes per grade from kindergarten through 8th grade. I'm going to review from our perspective this whole master site plan and then I've got two issues that I'd like to focus in on. Obviously you're all, well it's reasonable to assume that you're all familiar with the location of this site on the east end of downtown. What we are proposing, minor correction to the staff comment as far as the building size. The property is about 4 ½ acres. We're proposing a total expansion that gets the total building to about that 77,000 square foot number. It's roughly 38,000 square feet now and we're coming close to doubling it to 77,000 total square feet. I think you all have a picture like this. I like this better than the site plan. I don't know if it works good on the overhead. How far can we zoom in on that? I'd just like to review the existing building. This is the existing classroom building that was actually built first on this property. The church addition generally sits down in this end. Our plan is for a classroom wing, one story addition along West78th Street. A gym building fronted by a one story locker room, office area. And administrative addition in front of the existing church building and some expanded and reconfigured classrooms along the back side. When this master plan is completed, nearly every bit of the old building will be covered up or rebuilt. This area is the area that most remains in it's existing condition with the existing roof but the outside walls are proposed to be reconstructed to match the existing building. As Sharmin mentioned, we have not identified exactly what our time frame is to make all this happen.., the modular classroom buildings. The gym is somewhat substandard and we'd like to see that improved and that's why a new gym addition is desired. I'd like to point out some of the, how we envision the site plan in this master building working is that facing diagonal across the street from the old, I don't know what you'd call it. The Village Square and Town Hall and the Dinner Theater, we've got what will be our kind of a main entrance. Highlighted with a peaked roof, canopy. We've got a secondary classroom entrance into the classroom wing. We've got an activity entrance into the gym building. Included in this master site plan in our mind but nothing that you're reviewing today is our desire eventually to acquire the rest of the properties on that block for additional open space. We designed a plan that fit on the land we own, but have been working with the neighbors to acquire on a longer term basis some of those additional properties that would eventually expand the open space on the property for just recess and you know when we talk about transition to the residential, at some point space will be quite a bit of the transition. The first of the two issues that I want to talk about is clarification on the master plan versus Phase I. When we submitted this application it was my intent that it was for the master plan and Phase I. And really all the phases. There are some details in the phasing that made it difficult for staff to review it and we, our answer to that was that we weren't prepared to tell you exactly how each phase was going to work. You talked a little bit some general comments. I guess I need as specific as we can be because this plan is what we'll now go to with contractors and architects to figure out costs and figure out how we can go about building it. You know some of the details are potentially minor and not cost issues but if they're much more than that, it is a significant issue so as much direction on the overall plan as we can get, and if that's difficult, I guess I would ask what additional information do we need and I'd rather extend this process if we had to to get clarity on what's acceptable and not acceptable on those future phases. Second item, and appears to be the issue of the day is the exterior materials. The existing facility, as Sharmin mentioned, I counted seven different materials, including wood siding. Including glass block. Translucent glass panels. Painted metal panels and two different types of brick on that building. One of the criteria laid for us in the ordinance would be to be consistent or compatible with the existing building. I don't know how you do that when there's so much variety other than it's all kind of a dated, dark brown color. That's the only thing that's a little bit consistent. We have proposed two different colors plus accent of rock face block on this building. And architectural detailing in the form of some roof elements and some columns that stick out. Things like that. Those architectural details I guess where I attempt to comply with what we understood to be the city's vision for their Highway 5 corridor and pitched roof elements and things like that. Serves very little function for us but something that we showed in an effort to comply with what we believed to be the regulations. The property is zoned office institutional. It's zoned, this is a school is an allowed use in that zoning. The zoning district is not specific with regard to material types or anything like that. It does City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 require an additional setback adjacent to residential and I believe that would be the attempt in the zoning ordinance to deal with the transition issue is a greater setback adjacent to residential than office institutional against another type of use. The property is also within the highway corridor overlay district which I believe all of downtown Chanhassen is. My understanding is that the standard in the code that we're expected to comply with, and I'm going to read it and you've probably all read it but, is the creation of functional and harmonious design for structures and site features with special attention to the following: materials, textures, colors and details of construction as an expression of the design concept and the compatibility of the same with adjacent and neighboring structures and uses. The word I pull out of all that is compatibility. Obviously a very subjective term because it's different than consistent. The surrounding materials range from very old, detailed brick work in the old church building. There's also a garage on that church property that has siding. The old Town Hall has siding. The Medical Arts buildings to the west had rock face block at the base and siding above. The existing Kenny's strip mall center, whatever you call that has some brick but mostly siding. The Country Clean building has siding. As you get to the south, excuse me, northwest part of the site we get into the residential and there's an apartment building. That's a stucco building with a brick on the comers. At the north edge we have three single family properties that are all wood siding. Most of the siding in this area is 8 inch siding and not the, maybe the more charming, smaller lap siding. As you go around to the east, again the entire single family neighborhood is primarily siding. Some stucco houses. Some have brick or stone trim accents on the houses. The highway AC 1 or Highway Corridor District speaks about high quality design. Things like that. It also states that specifically that major exterior surfaces of all walls shall be face brick, stone, glass, stucco, architecturally textured concrete, cast in place or pre-cast panels, decorative block, or approved equivalent. The code then goes on to say the following may not be used in any visible exterior application and provides a list of materials that are not allowed. It specifically does not not allow a decorative block. Or rock face block or any other term for block and materials of those sizes. Why do we care? Well it's mostly because of cost. We are a parent run, volunteer, primarily based organization. Like most of those kinds of organizations, certainly don't have any extra money to deal with. We're trying to provide a quality education at as reasonable price as possible and cost is a big issue. And I think one of the things that we're able to instill in our students is that, while the facility isn't totally unimportant, it's not the most important thing, or not even close. We spent many years in a building over in Eden Prairie that at first glance people might have said, well this is barely suitable for a school. How does it work? Yet I don't think the students ever noticed that they were in a building like that. And I don't, also don't fault the city for wanting to see as good looking of a product as they can in their downtown or any area of town. But I would ask that the city consider very seriously what the ordinances say and how we comply or don't comply and not just what the city would like to see down there. If the city would like to see something more than we're required to build, and can figure out a way to help us do that, well we'd love to do that. We have no problem with any kind of upgrades, but we need to be fiscally responsible to our people. One of the biggest issues in the cost of a block construction versus a brick construction is how the building gets built. A block constructed building is basically laid up blocks with decorative face on the outside and a finished face on the inside. And you've got an integral masonry wall. Typically one single wall construction. If you build, if you put brick on a building, you build a wall either out or wood or metal with sheathing or masonry, and you lay up a brick wall next to that. And you basically are building a double wall. In the case of a taller wall like a gym, you'd build a block wall and you'd build a brick wall attached to it so it's not just the difference of attaching a big square versus a little square. It's building one wall versus two walls. I'd also like you to consider seriously that there, to my knowledge, is no neighborhood opposition to the block type of material. I believe that the Schroeders are here today and may, if given the opportunity, speak. They've told me that they're not opposed to the block material. Actually Mr. Schroeder said well that's really what's next to our house right now. The back half of that building is an 8 x 16 block. It's fluted. It breaks up that size a bit but that's what's there, rough face block. The city has approved rock face block all over the place. Certainly this site is unique but every site in Chanhassen is unique for one reason or another. I prepared a City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 handout. I don't know if you have it. I don't want to read through it but if you all tell me you have at least have this sheet that talks about, gives some examples of existing materials. I'm going to focus on a couple. To me the most obvious is the CSM office warehouse that's under construction right now. That building is between 24, it's about 24 feet high, 27 feet high at the comers, 100% rock face block. It's adjacent to single family. Fairly high priced single family. Happens to be across the city line but I don't think the city would ignore those people just because it's across a city line. There is berming inbetween. There's about 70 feet to the property line and berming between the parking lot and the property line. The berming shields the lower third of the building roughly, but standing on the ground most people can see the upper two- thirds. I'm sure from their deck or second floor building window they can see just about all of that building. And they're comparable distances to residential as we are. The town square, Oasis Market center, the rear of that building is 25 feet or less I would guess from the property line of single family homes. There they put up a fence and some bushes or some old bushes that existed for a long time as the buffer so to speak but that's an uncolored rock face block base with some siding at the top. The St. Hubert's gym, comparable size to wall heights as we'd be building for our gym. Those are pre-cast concrete panels with 16 inch squares. They're also right next to single family. The same kind of distance as we are. So I think the City needs to treat us the way they've looked at other applications in the past. We believe that we meet the standards called out for in the ordinance. This is clearly not a PUD and therefore additional negotiations on these kind of items is maybe less appropriate than it might be under a PUD situation. The staff did recommend a 4 inch by 12 inch brick alternative. I guess I think that that's kind of the normal size brick used in most buildings these days other than a single family house with brick trim and a fireplace in the inside and the wall right behind you there. But that jumbo brick is pretty common place and I don't think if you looked at the Byerly's center you'd ever say oh that's where that really big brick. Those kind of buildings typically have that size brick and again that's spelled out on that little handout. Some of the areas around town. I guess I'd like to summarize by saying, I think it's unfair and a bit punitive to ask Chapel Hill Academy to establish a trend or a set of standards for that end of the redevelopment of that end of downtown. At our expense at least and that's a burden that we're not sure we can handle. Given all that, you know we ask for your approval as submitted tonight and if not, we would ask for the opportunity to re-look at this with some other alternative material such as siding, which clearly would be the most similar and compatible but I don't think is really what makes the most sense. And the second alternative would be some kind of a stucco exterior, which is also quite common in the city and could reasonably be considered compatible with some of the adjacent uses. We have stucco buildings on a couple of sides of us. Given that long and winded spiel, I'm open for any questions. I hope you'll look at this as fairly as you can. Mayor Mancino: Any questions for Dan? Councilwoman Jansen: Mayor, I do have one if I could. Dan, when you were speaking to the Planning Commission within the Minutes, going again over building materials. At one point you had proposed an alternative that you could potentially look at as far as doing the big blocks along the lower portions of the building and alternating that with the smaller blocks then above. Is that something that you're still open to looking at as far as an alternative? Dan Blake: Certainly if you told me that, if that or all brick, absolutely. That wouldn't be our preference but I think that the gym wall is the highest concern for us because of the way that construction works there. It's also quite a bit back from the main street. A couple of scenarios that I could think about that would work, if we want the rock face block band along the bottom, the dark red all the way around, and then the one story building with a brick material and the two story building, part of the building that half of it's shielded, is with all block, I think a scenario like that would, I guess to me that's a reasonable compromise. I have trouble quantifying the cost of that I think from a construction standpoint. A scenario like that City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 makes sense so would we consider it? Yes. It's not again our first choice. What we proposed is our first choice but sometimes you... Mayor Mancino: Sometimes you don't get that. Councilwoman Jansen: Thank you. Mayor Mancino: So you would look at other alternatives. I'm concerned more about you. Not the materials tonight but what you said at the very first, your first point. And that is about the master plan. The master site plan. That really has me concerned right now because the Planning Commission did not go into any sort of real look at the master site plan and I'm just wondering if this should go back to them because when I read here, and I'll just read you a couple comments that Ladd Conrad made about the gymnasium and Matt Burton made about not feeling comfortable with the north elevation, etc so what I would hate to have us do is to go ahead here and give a few general comments as a council, and then when you come in to bring in your site plan for another phase, let's say it's the gym and they're going to want windows added and they're going to want articulation against that north elevation. That concerns me because that goes right to your bottom line. So I'm, my inclination, and talking about it with council but you also need to tell Dan is that, you know reading the Minutes, the Planning Commission did not really take a real good look at the site plan. And in fact said they didn't feel comfortable with it, the master site plan, especially that north elevation. So I don't want you being ed in the wrong direction and then coming back and you know having all these changes. So I'm wondering, what's your feeling first? Dan Blake: Well I think to some degree you're absolutely correct. That the Planning Commission. Mayor Mancino: There are very few comments. Dan Blake: They looked at it. Certainly when we talk about things like parking, which obviously is a master plan issue. And they did make some comments like I'm uncomfortable with, or I'm comfortable with the sides I can see but I'm uncomfortable with the back side. And if you look at, you know what's in your packet, this kind of elevation, it's very difficult to tell what that building's going to look like. There's a lot of relief that you can see on this little three dimensional rendering that you can't tell on that picture. Mayor Mancino: So what I'm asking is, if you bring in those site plans and they say we want you to add windows, like I know Ladd was talking about the windows on Bluff Creek Elementary that are higher there. They were also talking about, I mean Matt Burton says I'm not very high on the other parts that aren't before us tonight. So you know I read comments like that and again, we don't want to mislead you. Dan Blake: Well, as much as I never want to delay anything, timing is not the most critical item to us right now. We were hoping to get a building under construction this spring/summer. It all depends on our financing. Whether we will or not anyway. You know when they make those kind of comments, and at the Planning Commission meeting there's not a lot of time, sometimes there's not a lot of interaction. The Planning Commission is just discussing things. You know I guess I would ask the follow-up question. Well what kind of additional architectural detailing do you expect on a back side that's up against mostly trees and who are we trying to protect? If my neighbors don't care, you know that it looks any better than what we're showing, does the city really care and things like that? So. Mayor Mancino: Well, obviously neighbors move and we as you know have to think of long term and we have to think about the community and the neighbors that are here now or are going to move, etc. So Scott, do you have anything? 10 City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 Scott Botcher: I agree with the Mayor. I think there's some concerns from the members of the Planning Commission as to the long term plan and you know I'd hate for it to come back and kick you in the rear, quite honestly. And so would you. Dan Blake: Right. Scott Botcher: I mean you've got a financial plan you're trying to put together. And I think what you said is probably very true. I mean you're more financially driven than calendar driven. The thing that I would say, and Sharmin has heard this many times, and it's premature but I'll say it now so I can say that I said it. Especially in a residential neighborhood, and that is an attractive drive there from, well I believe it to be, from 101 to the clock, you know towards the Dinner Theater. We need to make sure that we ratch it up instead of set our standards to what's there. I respect the economics of it but you know we want to constantly work to raise the bar, and unfortunately that does involve everybody, including the school. But I guess to get back to my point, I don't want to see any HVAC as I drive by. I just noticed on the rendering there and on this stuff here, there's none of that contemplated and I know we're a little premature but when you're doing your calculations and you're doing your planning, have a parapet roof. Have them hidden. Have them somewhere. Keep that in the back of your head. Dan Blake: For the record, that's what we're showing on our one story building is, I don't know what that top height is. 15 feet or something. So we're showing a parapet all the way around it as opposed to a specific rooftop screening. Scott Botcher: Again, because that's the kind of stuff that's really simple and it's pretty basic for any city and if you guys haven't planned for it, that can be another economic hit. Mayor Mancino: Dan, do you think you could give more specifics to the planning department to bring it in front of the Planning Commission in some of those areas where they felt uncomfortable, etc? Can there be some more specifics that you can deal with? And have this go back in front of them as a real master site plan review. And they can review at that time materials and maybe you can show them alternatives to those materials also. Dan Blake: I can do that. I'm willing to do that. However, I don't think we would show them, I think the specifics are there. It may be hard to visualize on a plan view elevation, or a elevation view what those elevations look like. We felt it was a need to dress up the side you see from main street. I guess I don't think adding some of these decorative roofs and things like that on the back sides of the building, you know it's not a service drive kind of back of the building like your Oasis Market center. It's just windows and a couple emergency doors and probably some sidewalk connections. We do have a service drive back there to get to just a back side of the building but it's not like a loading dock. Mayor Mancino: Dan, I don't know what all their concerns are and that's what I'm trying to say. Dan Blake: I understand. Mayor Mancino: That I don't want to assume they're just thinking of one or two things, when we don't know as a council. And again, we're just trying to be proactive so that you don't come in front of them on each site plan and say, now wait a minute. And they can come back to the minutes and say but we told you we didn't feel comfortable about it. Any suggestion from council members? 11 City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 Dan Blake: Okay. We're willing to do that. Mayor Mancino: Do you feel comfortable with that direction? Dan Blake: Well I think, I guess I can agree that it's a good way to bring it back in from of the Planning Commission and further discuss that issue. I think that the size of the brick took up the entire discussion and therefore it didn't, there was no focus on those other issues. Maybe now that you've had that discussion, now we can talk about what is the issue of the back side and what exactly would they expect to see on any other elevation. That's fine. Mayor Mancino: And a general. Councilman Senn: I think that really makes sense. One of the very difficult parts of looking at this is when you start trying to compare what you're approving with the first addition with the whole, it's very, very difficult. Whether it be landscaping and trees. Whether it be building materials. Whether it be hard surface coverage. I mean all those issues. I mean a lot of them really aren't spelled out here as to where we are and where we end up. So it's real difficult to sit here within creating I'm going to say an endless number of surprises... Mayor Mancino: Councilwoman Jansen. Councilwoman Jansen: It does seem like the prudent thing to do and I know that they did speak to a considerable number of issues that more so addressed the master plan, just in general to give you a feel for it but realizing that you really do need the specifics. If it is windows, work that through with them and so forth. So I certainly appreciate your patience with the thought of needing to go back through the system but I do think it might be best. Mayor Mancino: And I also think at that time you can address some of the materials in more detail with them. If there are other suggestions that you have. Okay. Councilman Engel, anything? Okay, thank you. Sharmin A1-Jaff: We need an extension on the time line to process this application. Mayor Mancino: Dan, could we have an extension? Dan Blake: Hereby grant you whatever it takes. Mayor Mancino: Thank you. Thank you very much and thanks for everyone who came tonight. And so it will go back and be reviewed by the Planning Commission in a little more detail for the master plan. Appreciate that. Roger, do we need to do anything more formally? As a council. Roger Knutson: Not on that other than postponing, you'd be postponing or tabling action. Mayor Mancino: Okay. So we need a motion to table? Roger Knutson: Yeah, I think a motion to table and refer it back to the Planning Commission would be in order. Mayor Mancino: Okay, may I please have a motion. 12 City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 Councilwoman Jansen: Motion to table and move it back to the Planning Commission. Mayor Mancino: Is there a second? Councilman Senn: Second. Councilwoman Jansen moved, Councilman Senn seconded to table the site plan review to allow a 16,680 square foot classroom and a 2,000 square foot library addition to an existing building and a variance to allow a 30 foot front yard setback for Chapel Hill Academy and to review the item back to the Planning Commission for master site plan review. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously. CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT AND SITE PLAN TO ALLOW A FREE STANDING, 105 FOOT MONOPOLE TOWER WIRELESS COMMUNICATION FACILITY FOR U S WEST WIRELESS TO BE LOCATED ON A CHURCH SITE. Public Present: Name Address Steven Mangold Pat Conlin Mike Reyer Eugene Sigal Mike Dalton Pete Keller 426 No. Fairview, St. Paul 416 No. Fairview, St. Paul 426 No. Fairview, St. Paul 426 No. Fairview, St. Paul 4153 Hallgren Lane 6760 Country Oaks Road Sharmin A1-Jaff: Thank you. Madam Mayor, members of the City Council. First thing I would like to do if I may is outline the ordinances that govern this application. The ordinance states that in residentially zoned districts the maximum height of a tower may not exceed 80 feet. Whenever there are multiple users on a tower within a residential district, then we have an exception and that exception basically states that the limitation of the height may be increased by 25 feet. The third section that governs this application deals with locations of towers within residentially zoned districts and it specifically points out that it may be placed on church sites when camouflaged as an architectural feature such as... the applicant is requesting a conditional use permit and a site plan approval for the construction of a 105 foot cross designed monopole communication tower. The tower is proposed to be situation south of Holy Cross Lutheran Church. This is the church site. It is proposed to be located south of the church site and west of Highway 7. The actual pole height is 93 feet and is proposed to have two 6 foot tall tubes. These tubes will be vertically stacked and inside them the antennas will be located. The overall height of the tube again is 105 feet. When we looked at this site we looked at the surrounding area and the setbacks of the residentially zoned units in this area. What you see highlighted in green is existing vegetation. It's a natural buffer. This is the proposed location of the tower. The setback is proposed to be 105 feet from the neighborhood to the south, and it exceeds 380 feet from the neighborhood to the east. Our first, there isn't any buffer within this area. It's really wide open. When we looked at this site overall, we thought the best location would be immediately behind the church. What happens as you go behind the church is the grades begin to drop substantially. Two things that the ordinance highlights. Number one, you cannot have a structure between a main building and a right-of-way. So that would have required a variance. Second of all, as you move the tower down the hill you're going to need a height variance. So that's two variances that you would need to grant for this application. And what this location would have done would have been 13 City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 to screen the base of the tower. With the proposed plans they're not proposing to remove any of the existing vegetation. And they are proposing a landscape plan. Staff is recommending that the trees be 10 feet in height at a minimum at the time of installation. You can't screen a structure such as that with landscaping. It's just not doable so with that staff is recommending approval of this application with conditions outlined in the report. Thank you. Mayor Mancino: Thank you very much. Any questions for staff at this point from councilmembers? Councilman Senn. Councilman Senn: Sharmin. While the tower is basically being proposed to be built to accommodate two users. Sharmin A1-Jaff: Yep. Councilman Senn: Essentially what's there right now with the application is one user? Sharmin A1-Jaff: Correct. And if there was a second user, we would do that administratively. Mayor Mancino: That's it? Okay. Councilwoman Jansen: I have one Mayor. Mayor Mancino: Sure. Councilwoman Jansen: The buffer along the east side by the residential homes that you referred to as there really isn't a buffer. From what I could tell, the landscaping appears to be a part of the single family construction. Was there a requirement of the church to provide a buffer along that segment of their property when they built? I don't know what the timing was between the two projects. Mayor Mancino: I think the church is older. Sharmin A1-Jaff: Yes. I know the church is at least 20 years old. There is very little information, plans. Very few plans in the file because I did some research on that site. Councilwoman Jansen: Would it be unrealistic at this point for us to go back and review that buffer that is supposed to exist between the church property and the residential to see if it does meet code? As we're going to be adding the structure to that property. Sharmin A1-Jaff: May I refer this question to Roger please. Mayor Mancino: Roger, question. Roger Knutson: First, let me answer in two parts. As to what the ordinances looked like 20 years ago, I can only speculate but it wouldn't surprise me at all if there were no buffer requirements in this situation 20 years ago. But that's speculation on my part. If you think it's appropriate to plant some trees for a screening, I don't know how it would screen but if you find that it would screen, I suppose you could require them just to do some plantings. Some additional plantings and I don't know whether that makes sense or not. 14 City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 Councilwoman Jansen: Staff is recommending it around the actual base of the tower but just looking at the lack of the buffer in between the two properties, it just would seem to make sense to have something along that border there and we just don't build that way any longer but I didn't know when the church actually went in. Roger Knutson: If it was 20 years ago, in all probability there was no such requirement 20 years ago. Mayor Mancino: In fact I think our buffer yard ordinance was just done 4 or 5 years ago actually. Councilwoman Jansen: Alright. Thanks. Mayor Mancino: Is that right Councilman Senn? On the buffer yard ordinance. Councilman Senn: Yeah. Mayor Mancino: 4 or 5 years ago. Councilwoman Jansen: Okay. Mayor Mancino: Any other questions? Is the applicant here and would you like to address the council? Steve Mangold: Good evening Mayor and Council. My name is Steve Mangold. I'm the Regional Real Estate Manager for the US West Wireless. Our address is 426 North Fairview, St. Paul. I want to thank you for the opportunity to talk to you tonight. We are here to request approval of our revised site plan and our conditional use permit. This is an interesting case that we have here. We have been working for a number of months with not only the city but also with the community to devise a way to put this project forward and I believe that through the various discussions and changes in our site plan and negotiations, I believe that we've come up with something that is appealing to the city and to the business and to the community. At least I hope so. Our last meeting with the City Council we were dealing with two variances as staff has indicated. The one variance was for the placement of the pole in between the right-of-way and the church. And the other variance was that we didn't quite comply with Section 20-1506 of the ordinance. As you will see we have corrected through our revised site plan both of those and now we are going forward on our application without regard to the variances. I am here with our lead RF engineer to answer any questions that you may have, and again we are requesting that you consider this application and approve it as it is. Thank you. Mayor Mancino: Thank you. Any questions for Steve from councilmembers? No? Okay. Thank you. Not at this time. But you do have your engineering here? Thank you. Okay. Is there anyone here tonight, neighbor, etc, that would like to come up and address the council? If you have a few words. We certainly have read the Minutes so is there anyone here tonight wanting to address the council on this issue? Please state your name and address. Pete Keller: Sure, thank you. Appreciate your time. My name's Pete Keller and I live at 6760 Country Oaks Road. I live directly to the east. We're right here...buffered field. In addition I'm a stay at home dad. I'm home all the time so I'll be afforded this view every daylight hour of every day so we're more than concerned. I appreciate that you've read the Minutes and there is an exceptional, of great detail that I'd like to add except the Planning Commission has very carefully looked at the application. Denied it on October 20th. Looked at the variance application and denied that as well. There's a lot of issues that are involved. I didn't see them all addressed in Sharmin's report but some of them have been addressed 15 City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 previously and I hope that within the past two Planning Commission meetings that you've had a chance to look at all of that information. About the only thing that is new is the cost. And as we were, as some of us were thinking about what, is it reasonable to look at this piece of property and see a 105 foot tower, which is about 3 times taller than the trees that are there. And we all pretty much agreed that it wasn't. Would it be reasonable to look at a church property and see a cross? I think for a very small, old church like this it wouldn't be something that you would expect to see on that piece of property but it might not be unreasonable. When I initially heard the cross idea I thought that that might be an interesting way of solving the problem. However, what I see in the diagram and some of the specifics and the dimensions and all, I don't really see, I mean without a doubt it's a cross but I don't think that it is something that would be reasonably recognized as a religious cross. What I think it's going to look like is a tower with two hangers sticking on it for the next, third, fourth and fifth user that are going to get things to hang on and just be exceptionally decadent in the backyard. Which made me think of how do you decide what really is a cross or not so I looked around in our home and drew a couple crosses that are to scale. This is one that I bought at a Christian store this weekend and here's it's dimensions. This is one that our family made as a Sunday School project, and that's, there's it's dimensions to scale. And these are the dimensions of the cross that they're proposing. Considerably different. About the only thing that I can come up with as I looked at these, because they all did, and the other one that I did draw is this one. This third one. This is a cross, and or course I did not climb the roof at Holy Cross Church. I did go over and have a pretty good look at the one that they have mounted on the cupola to get it's approximate dimensions. About the only thing that they all have in common is this top portion. This top portion is usually about a third. If you take this vertical piece and divide it up into thirds, it's usually about one third down and one third up and one third out. About. Sometimes it's a quarter. And this is 50% of the vertical. It varies quite a bit. The one that they're proposing tonight isn't going to look anything like that at all .... kind of tacky. There are definitely other things that can be done. As lots of the testimony previously is in the Planning Commission meetings and in the narratives and all, they keep looking at this site as being the only site in the area that they can work on. However, they've also testified that they have service right now. They are offering and selling service in the area. They've also testified that there are other pieces of property that could work. While they wouldn't work as optimally as this site, they could work. What this site is is they feel is the optimal site. What the only other research that I've been able to come up with on the situation is that while it may be optimal for their radio frequency technical terms and mumbo jumbo of that sort, none of us are really experts in that. We need to, if we're going to honestly look at it, I think, and believe it and base, make a precedent setting decision on it, we really need to get some outside expert independent opinion. Before we sort of take their kind of their slanted view on it. But I very much appreciate your time. I've done a fair amount of research on this and.., stuff will be helpful, I'd be happy to share it or answer any questions. Mayor Mancino: Any questions? Councilwoman Jansen: No, thank you. Mayor Mancino: Pete, you realize that our job tonight is just to make sure that they do meet the ordinance and that's about what we can do. Pete Keller: I do. Mayor Mancino: Okay, thank you. Anyone else? Mike Dalton: Good evening. My name is Mike Dalton. I live at 4153 Hallgren Lane. Luckily enough I live right here. So the 105 foot pole, I've kind of come to accept the fact that in one way, shape or form this ominous piece of metal is going to end up somewhere within sight line of my home that I've lived in a 16 City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 very short amount of time but I think some of the talk that I've heard earlier that I got to hear from the gentleman trying to expand his school or what, you know there's a real concern among the council to make sure that things are up to standard and then that the integrity of the area is not compromised. And I guess the only solution that I can see to this thing is, I don't understand, with the exception of having to grant two variances, why it has to be so close to that tree line. And not only does it worry me if the thing were to blow down and hit my house, but more importantly I would see a better idea, out by the church has a sign there. Why couldn't it go out towards the front of the building, not interrupting anything that they have for future expansion. But to incorporate it more and shift the burden on the church and US West rather than the neighborhood, why doesn't the back into the neighborhood. Whether it's my house or Peter's house isn't the issue. The issue should be that if it's the church who's benefiting from the cross and US West, and if they need their tower, then so be it. If it's going to go there, then so be it but let's find a location that's suitable and this may be too late and I'm just venting but to back it into the comer is really no different than the proposal that came across this council months ago, other than they've attached a 10 foot horizontal pole. So in a way I don't know that we've gained any ground and we may have passed up some variances but it's really the same project that was in front of you several months ago. So I guess I would look for somebody to interrupt this process and say you know, is it feasible to shift this thing forward and is there a burden on anybody else, which I don't think that there is. The church wants to expand and whether or not that's even feasible I would doubt. But I would just look to or ask that somebody look at this and try to shift this thing closer to the road and make it a part of, if somebody comes driving down Highway 7, that they see that it is a church and incorporate it that way so obviously I don't want it in my, I don't want it where it's supposed to be or where their proposal is, but if it is going to go there, I would just look to being somewhat reasonable. Look to move it further away from the neighborhood. I guess if I were trying to develop this thing, that's what I would try to do is to minimize the burden on anybody. And by backing it into the homes on this road, whether it's my house or any of my neighbors, I don't know meets those objectives. And if US West wants to work with the community, wants to have a little opposition to this deal, then I would guess that they would look to do whatever they could. This looks to me like we're back to square one other than we've called it something different so it's in your hands and you people are the experts at it but that's what I think so I appreciate your time. Mayor Mancino: Thank you Mike. I think I'll wait to see if anyone else has questions and then maybe Sharmin, or US, or Steve could go over some of the other locations that you've looked at. Because it's gone in front of Planning Commission twice and this is the first time it's been at City Council. Anyone else? Could you go, take just a few minutes and let us know the other locations that you have looked at through the Planning Commission. Sharmin A1-Jaff: US West has always requested this specific location. Same as what is being proposed right now. It was staff's recommendation that they push the tower behind the church. And that was one of staff's recommendations at the time. Again, it will require a variance. Mayor Mancino: And how much would the variance be Sharmin? Do you remember? Sharmin A1-Jaff: We calculated approximately a drop of 5 feet so that would require an additional 5 foot variance. Now visually you're not going to notice that because it's dropping down. Therefore the base is going into the ground and if you're standing here, visually it's going to appear at the same height, whether it's located here or there. Mayor Mancino: You just won't see the portion of the pole? Sharmin A1-Jaff: Correct. 17 City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 Mayor Mancino: Okay. So would require about a 5 foot variance, so it would be, are you saying it would be instead of 105 it would be 1107 Sharmin A1-Jaff: Approximately. Mayor Mancino: Okay. 5 feet more. And right now it's 105. That means it would go to 110. But our ordinance only allows it to go to 105. The 80 feet plus the 25 feet. Sharmin A1-Jaff: Correct. Mayor Mancino: Okay. In a manner of speaking, okay. Thank you. Bring this back to council for discussion. Councilman Senn, are you ready? Councilman Senn: Sure. The, I don't know, I kind of looked at basically two different elements of this. One was basically the height issue with the variance. I have a little bit of a hard time with subscribing to a variance with one user. You know, we don't have an application in front of us with two users on it. What guarantees are there that we're effectively solving anything by increasing the height and there's nothing in the deal, at least that I can find, that forces that action effectively. You know so I somewhat kind of view it as a situation where you need a certain height so you get that height that way by saying there's the ability to put a second user on it. So I don't know, I have a little trouble with that part of it. But I guess that's really kind of immaterial because in reading the ordinance, you know in my mind this plain and simply doesn't meet our ordinance requirements. We were very clear when we made this ordinance up. We were very clear on intent and we were very clear on handling this type of situation and this doesn't meet it so I can't really see you know proceeding with it or giving a conditional use permit for it to proceed. Mayor Mancino: Okay, and what part of the ordinance doesn't it meet? Councilman Senn: Well, Sharmin can read it again if she wants to. Essentially the ordinance as it was written is very specific about how it's supposed to basically be an architectural element. I don't consider what is being proposed to be an architectural element. It is also to be incorporated into bell towers, steeples. I don't see, especially when it's encased in two residential areas, I don't see either of those conditions existing here. I would propose to deny the application and let our attorney draft the findings of fact for denial. Mayor Mancino: Okay. Councilwoman Jansen. Councilwoman Jansen: I would echo what Councilman Senn just said about not meeting our zoning ordinance, and very specifically what I don't grasp is how this is camouflaged. Specifically our ordinance requires that it be camouflaged as an architectural feature. And when I think of an architectural feature I think of something that someone actually took some time to apply some creativity to. And if this church building could hold the weight of this structure, technically in my mind it would meet that criteria of being an architectural feature if you could pick it up and put it on the building. That it literally looks as if someone designed it to be a part of the existing architecture that's on the site. And by no means would I ever foresee someone having designed this as an attractive feature on that building. It's simply a huge pole that's being used for telecommunications with, put a cross arm on it. And because it has a 90 degree angle we're calling it a cross feature so I'm having a great deal of trouble conceptually having this meet the zoning ordinance. And then when I read through the conditional uses, and the different points that it needs to meet, you can certainly justify parts and pieces but, and again I would follow Senn in wanting someone 18 City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 else to draft this, but I don't think that it's in keeping with this neighborhood. Point number 4 talks about will it be disturbing to the existing or planned neighboring uses. Well, of course it will be. Is it designed and constructed to be compatible in appearance with the existing or intended character of the general vicinity? I don't think so. But there we're getting into my translation of the different points, but it's certainly what's being echoed out of the neighborhood. Looking at the site, and I've walked it. And everyone knows that I will give about just about anything to save a tree, but if you walk the property and you go in the direction of Highway 7. So if you head west and north into the trees that they're trying to preserve, it's shrubs. It's large trees that have fallen over, and it's definitely an area where I wouldn't be first of all looking for maximum preservation. If by moving this pole farther to the north and farther to the west we can, if we have to put it in looking like this, if we can move it farther from the neighborhood and into that area, impacting, there aren't even very large trees. Again, it's mostly shrubs. I question the location and whether we have actually placed this in the optimum position to meet what we're saying the conditional use permit should meet, as far as not impacting the neighborhood. And I guess, those are my comments but mainly going back to the zoning ordinance and again it's our ordinance from what I gather, that's taking this from 80 feet to 25 feet. That we are suggesting that this needs to be a two user tower. And maybe because this isn't the type of location that is entirely compatible with the surrounding area, I don't know what kind of guidelines we can use to say this is only a one user site. It will only be an 80 foot pole because we can't accommodate meeting the conditional use permit guideline. Someone would have to address that. But it does seem like we have put the 25 feet onto this pole by requiring that second user position. Mayor Mancino: And just so I, or maybe Sharmin wants to answer the rationale behind that was if there was another company, telecommunications company that needed a PCS site, that we didn't have more poles in that area. We had less. So the intention was to reduce the amount of antennas needed so that there can only be one versus going to another pole in the same neighborhood, etc. So that was the rationale. Scott Botcher: Let me ask a question though. Councilman Senn: How do you do that there? Scott Botcher: US West, if they were by themselves, would they want 1057 They want a 105 foot pole anyway, right? So the idea is that they want to have a co-locate so they can get the height high enough to meet their own needs. Is that correct? Sharmin A1-Jaff: That's correct. Councilman Senn: So even if there is a co-locater in the future, you still can end up with more poles. It doesn't make any difference. Mayor Mancino: Well no. No. If there is one in the area, they have to co-locate. Councilman Senn: But it only accommodates two people. Scott Botcher: But the issue that US West is using the co-locate clause in the ordinance to get 105 foot pole when there actually isn't a co-locate partner right now. Is that correct? Sharmin A1-Jaff: Correct. 19 City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 Scott Botcher: I'll defer to staff on this one but it appears to me that US West is using the co-locate clause in the ordinance to get a pole of sufficient height to meet their requirements when in fact there is no co- locate party on the horizon, and may not ever be one. Councilman Senn: So we are requiring them to allow co-location on their pole as a condition of going up to the 105 feet. Scott Botcher: But we don't need to allow them to go to 105 feet until the co-locate opportunity presents itself. Councilwoman Jansen: So for now we could stay at 80 because there's only one? Scott Botcher: Well if that was the only issue, yeah. Mayor Mancino: Can you add a second antenna at any time? Can you add a second locate? Roger Knutson: Yes. Mayor Mancino: The extra 25 feet, you can add that later? Roger Knutson: No. It won't work for them, I'm sorry. I misunderstood you. Councilman Engel: Can you run two on an 80 foot tower? Roger Knutson: According to them it won't work. That won't satisfy their needs. Mayor Mancino: So you could co-locate on an 80 foot tower though? Scott Botcher: So shoot, you can co-locate on a 20 foot tower. It's just whether or not it's going to work. Mayor Mancino: Councilman Engel. Councilman Engel: I'm looking at this picture and when I've got the three applicable regulations here in the staff report. As far as camouflage, it just doesn't make it. I mean there's camouflaged involved there. It's just a big, tall pole. If it sits on top of a church with any kind of elevation to it, and can be supported a slightly lower height, then I could go for the camouflage stipulation but this doesn't seem to make that guideline based on the pictures I'm seeing. So just based on that alone, the height is really another circumstance as well but it just doesn't make it from a camouflage standpoint at all so I'm not liking it too much. Mayor Mancino: Okay. I don't need to, I'm not really adding anything new. I do have concerns with Section 20-1506 of the ordinance about church sites and camouflages and architectural feature. And again, this is a monopole. It's the same monopole that was introduced at the first Planning Commission meeting and just has the cross bars added to make it a cross so I have some concerns with that too. Scott Botcher: Can I take a shot at? Mayor Mancino: You bet. 20 City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 Scott Botcher: What the heck, I'm in the batters box. Couple things. What is the diameter of the monopole versus the diameter of the cross pole? Is the diameter of the cross been increased to support the cross member on the top? Sharmin A1-Jaff: You mean from the previous application? Not to my knowledge. I believe that it's still the same. Scott Botcher: Okay. One of the issues that I think is out there, and there's a couple and I'll get back to Linda's question about the ordinance in a bit. RF and as you guys at least know I've had the fun of going to the appellate court on this one, so we know the Telecom Act really, really well. And the telecommunications industry has a very nice lobby. They make many contributions. But the reality is that the federal government, the Telecommunications Act to some extent doesn't necessarily care what your local ordinances say. There's a balancing act there. And you know aesthetics are certainly part of the puzzle, but the federal government is also not going to let you use aesthetics as the sole determining factor and I guess I want to just caution you as we go into this that the applicant does have certain legal opportunities before it that the federal government has granted it. Not that I disagree with anything anybody said but I think I owe it to everyone to say that. Secondly though, RF engineers are sort of like engineers who build streets. They want it to be perfect. They want it to be exact. And I guess I just question, because there is technology out there, and this is one of the things that really bugs me, and it's not US West because I don't know these guys so I don't have anything against these guys. They're always serving the community they're in and somehow they're always around highways. They're not serving Chanhassen with this. They're serving Highway 7, and that's cool. That's great, but don't come and tell me you're serving the city of Chanhassen. That being said, there is technology out there, because I looked at it last year, and maybe I should go back and find it. That the mini cells. The hub cells. If you go to, and if you go to Milwaukee, drive 1-94 and Highway 83. Two big four lanes. It crosses in Delafield, Wisconsin. There's a huge bowl there. It's a kettle marine topography. There's a big bowl there. We stuck little cells with Ameritech and Cell One through a pattern that their RF engineer said had gaps in it. It wasn't perfect. Now I think Pete said geez, you get service now. Is there really a gap? That's always a fair question. Is it as nice as the RF engineers and the companies would like? No. They probably get complaints for dropped calls and they are trying to respond to their customers, and they should. But there are other technologies available besides just sticking up a big pole and covering everything between Tonka Bay and what is it, Minnetrista? Something like that. That I don't know if we've looked at. And I mean in my own personal experience I've hid these things in flag poles at Burger King. And then the next one was a flag pole at Target. Which wasn't that far away but you know it was Interstate 94. It wasn't Highway 7. And we just worked out way from one end of the bowl to the other and back and forth. Those technologies are there and I don't know if they were looked at. But you know, it certainly is, to some extent easier for the company just to do this. I tend to agree. I don't consider it an architectural feature. I think they're using the ordinance and the co-location thing just to get a pole high enough for their own use and we may never see, and I think that's what Mark said. We may never see a second user. Probably will just given the competition but we may not. They're going to own the pole. They may not be able to reach a suitable lease arrangement with Company ABC to the satisfaction of both parties and just say too bad, so sad, we couldn't do a deal. And those are just some concerns that I have. Roger Knutson: Without opening up the whole seminar on Telecommunications Act and the zoning laws. Just to briefly over cap a couple things. First, they initially, I shouldn't say initially. At one point they had an application for a variance before the city because they weren't going to be an architectural feature. And a suggestion was made to try to make it architectural feature and I believe the suggestion was, how about a cross? Because of that we just felt that a variance was not needed if they complied with that requirement, ordinance requirement. If they do not comply with that ordinance requirement, which they can of course 21 City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 apply for a variance or continue their variance application forward to get a variance from that requirement. And so then you'd be facing a situation, are they entitled to a variance. So just because the one issue is decided, the other one wouldn't be, i.e. do they get a variance or not from that requirement. And second, just so we understand the Telecommunications Act. Just a little bit, and I know I'll be very brief on this. Regardless of what your ordinances say, your ordinances are trumped by the Telecommunications Act if the denial of this location prevents, has the affect of prohibiting wireless service. Creating substantial gaps I'll say. If that is the case, then regardless of what your zoning ordinance says, your zoning ordinance has to make way for the Telecommunications Act and you're required to approve it. So the question becomes, is there that gap? Do they need this? Is there a less intrusive way of accomplishing that? The City has not hired a radio engineer. We've discussed that initially and that's rather expensive and the decision was made not to do that, which I thought was appropriate. But that's where we're at. Scott Botcher: Did we receive the RF engineer's analysis? I don't see it in here but, where they went to the different sites. They referenced conflicts at the fire station and all these different sites and. Sharmin A1-Jaff: Correct...memo. Scott Botcher: But I don't see the study. Sharmin A1-Jaff: No. We don't have a study. Mayor Mancino: And they also said, when you also put in the application you said that you needed 150 foot monopole. That that would give you optimum coverage and all of a sudden it's down to 105. So Steve, do you want to respond to a couple of the questions about alternative technology, etc and move the mic around to you. Steve Mangold: I think that, I am the Real Estate Manager. I don't know if I am the best person to talk about the new technology. Eugene Sigal is here from our office. He is the lead RF engineer. But before we get into that, and we certainly can get into that if you wish. This tower siting issue is not an easy issue. Tonight we have five different meetings going on throughout the Twin Cities. You may or may not realize it but there's over 130 jurisdictions just within the Twin Cities. Now the reality is that US West and the telecommunications carriers do not write the ordinances. The cities write the ordinances. The city is what's putting up the game plan here. And the city also through the ordinances is basically stating that if we comply with the ordinances, then a conditional use permit should be granted. We are not asking for any variances tonight. We can go down the list, we can go down the ordinances and we can show that we are complying with every instance of the ordinance. We're talking about co-location. The ordinance says design to accommodate a co-locater. We don't have another co-locater right now, but it's not to say that it won't happen. And I think that the Mayor correctly pointed out that the reason why you have put this in is to eliminate additional towers in the vicinity of this search area. We have the issue with the tower design. We did talk with the church. We did have a structural engineer look at the church and see if we could build something to that church that would accommodate the height that we need, and I think in your packet you will see that there is a letter from Dale Thom, our engineer, structural engineer stating that it just isn't feasible. It's not structurally feasible considering the height and weight of the additional bell tower. Now again, you look at Section 20-1506, Section 2(a), it says church sites are approved when it's camouflaged as an architectural feature such as steeples or bell towers. I mean this to us when we read this, we're saying that we're reading that this is indicating examples. It doesn't say architectural features being steeples or bell towers. We didn't write the ordinance. We're just trying to comply with it. We have worked with staff now for approximately eight months on this issue. We have met the setback requirements. We've worked with the staff as far as moving the site around the parcel a number of 22 City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 different times as to how it would fit best with the community. We have complied with every section of this ordinance. We are not looking for any variance. This is the ordinance that you, that the city wrote and we're just complying with it and we are requesting approval of this. Mayor Mancino: Thank you very much. Thanks Steve. Any other discussion from council members? Then may I have a motion please. Scott Botcher: So does US West have an interest in considering other technology? Just for the record. Steve Mangold: Yes, I think that I will refer this question to Eugene Sigal, our RF engineer. Councilman Engel: Does the fire station out there have a flag pole? Is there anything else out there with one? Eugene Sigal: My name is Eugene Sigal and I'm the lead RF engineer for US West Wireless in the Twin Cities and I will be happy to address any questions that you may have regarding the RF engineering questions or problems. Mayor Mancino: Okay Eugene, Scott had a question about alternative technologies. If you've looked at those. Eugene Sigal: It's very difficult, if not impossible for me to give you an evaluation of a different technology that a different company in a different city is using without knowing who they are, what they do and what kind of a system they have and what objectives they have for the system. To the extent a to whether US West has a different technologies, by all means we look at the latest technology that is available to us. In fact, the examples of the sites in this case and other cases as well, US West Wireless makes as great of an attempt as we can to minimize the visual impact of our sites. As an example, the kind of a design being proposed, even with the initial monopole, instead of proposing an array of antennas at the top of the pole, a proposal we made was for a slender design so there are no protruding antennas from the pole. We're using what is called ... polarization antennas to accomplish that. The other example of the latest technology is for the base of equipment that we use, as large as it may seem to those who have not seen the equipment used by some of the other carriers, in our case our equipment is far smaller than some of the other installations that some of you may or may have not seen. As an example for cellular companies to install sites, they actually have to build a building to house all of their electronics. Whereas in the case of US West, we house all of our equipment in an outdoor cabinet. So with that said I can assure you that if we can use the latest technology, we will do that. Mayor Mancino: Okay, thank you very much Eugene. Okay, Steve we're going to bring this back to council now. Steve Mangold: Yes Mayor and council members. I would like to just point out one thing and this is relevant to what that last question was. I would like to bring a couple pictures to the Mayor if I could. Mayor Mancino: Okay. Steve Mangold: I think that this will pretty well point out the degree that US West has gone in developing technology that will show a more advanced siting for these antennas. What this photograph is here is it's a photograph of a tower in Chanhassen that was permitted through a conditional use permit process in a residential area. As you can see, if you compare this particular tower to the tower that we have, you will 23 City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 see a considerable difference and an extreme advance in technology of design. I think that that's a good indication of how US West has tried to do the best that they can to promote a more aesthetically appealing design, and again I wanted to, I do want to point out that this is in Chanhassen and is in a residential area. And it was approved through a conditional use permit. Mayor Mancino: Okay. Thank you very much. Scott Botcher: I guess my question is though, because it wasn't really answered. This technology is still stuff that's up in the air. And it's just pretty simple. It's just up in the air. There are technologies and you can go to the APA Journal, and this is not beating on Sharmin but where they attach them to bridges. They attach them to flag poles. They attach them to all sorts of stuff. I'm assuming then that you guys didn't consider any of that technology for this site. You just considered, regardless if it's this one or monopole or a cross, you considered a tower. Steve Mangold: There was no existing verticality in the area that we were looking which means if there was nothing existing to attach these to. US West has about 300 sites in the Twin Cities. And out of those 300 sites I believe that we have about 85 monopoles and about 215 of the locations are located on something like monopoles. Mayor Mancino: Okay, thank you. Bringing it back to council, may I have a motion please. Councilman Senn: I'll make the motion to move denial of this application as submitted to authorize the conditional use permit to allow a free standing cross design monopole tower to be located on a church and site plan to construct a 105 tall monopole tower wireless communication facility for US West Wireless. And that Findings of Fact... Mayor Mancino: Okay, is there a second? Councilwoman Jansen: Second. Councilman Senn moved, Councilwoman Jansen seconded that the City Council deny Conditional Use Permit #99-3 and Site Plan to construct a 105 foot tall "cross designed" monopole tower wireless communication facility for US West Wireless and direct the City Attorney's office to prepare Findings of Fact for denial. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously. CONSIDER MODIFYING THE DEVELOPMENT CONTRACT WITH LAKE SUSAN APARTMENT HOMES IN VILLAGE SON THE PONDS~ THE SHELARD GROUP. Public Present: Name Address Barbara Jacoby Wayne Holtmeier Jim Jacoby Jim Amundson Sherry & Bob Ayotte Lynne Wyffels 8516 Great Plains Blvd. 8506 Great Plains Blvd. 8410 Great Plains Blvd. 8500 Great Plains Blvd. 6213 Cascade Pass 11455 Viking Drive 24 City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 Shel Wert Vernelle Clayton Peter Coyle 11455 Viking Drive 422 Santa Fe Drive 7900 Xerxes Scott Botcher: You have in your packet a memo, and I won't read it to you because you guys can all read. Summarizing some of the options that you have, and as was said at the work session, there are probably an infinite number of options as you put this deal together. Just to give a little bit of a background information. The city staff, Shel and the AUSMAR group has worked extremely diligently over the summer to secure additional funding to make affordable go. And I know we have been to several meetings at Met Council and at one of the meetings where we left and I know Todd was at the same meeting I was, we all left there. We being sort of the City of Chanhassen side, and the developer and AUSMAR left the table all thinking we had one thing in mind, and Met Council for whatever reason when they approved the second blast of funding, either had a different understanding or changed their understanding. And instead of being partially at the 30% level and then the balance at the 50% level, which is what my notes say and what Todd's notes say and maybe Shel and Lynne's notes say. They turned around and said no. All 33 units need to be at the 30% income level. The Section 8 level. That was not acceptable to the applicant. Candidly was not acceptable to the staff. We do not believe it would be acceptable to the council given their position on concentrations of 30% and all the other things that we had talked about. So today we have yet to execute any documents accepting the money and probably will not. That being the case, Mr. Wert has asked to be on the agenda this evening and is requesting that the affordability component of his approval be removed. And since I was able to fix the copier upstairs, which has nothing to do with the Telecommunications Act. Mayor Mancino: Nor Y2K. Scott Botcher: Nor Y2K. If you turn to page SP-5, sub item V as in Victor. 20% of the housing units shall meet the criteria established for affordability, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This is in the draft development contract between the City of Chanhassen and the Shelard Group, which Roger drew and I'm sure he drew this up in consultation with their attorneys. It is this component that the Shelard Group is seeking this evening to have removed. To that end I drafted a memo dated January 5, 2000 and as I said I'm not going to read it to you. But that is the request this evening. Additionally you should have received today, either by fax or hand delivered, a copy of a memo from the attorney for the AUSMAR Group indicating their responses to the memo and to the different options indicated therein. Beyond that Roger and I stand ready to take questions. Mayor Mancino: Okay, thank you. Any questions for Scott at this time? Councilwoman Jansen: I have a question, and I realize that this is really going back to our conversation on Villages on the Pond but I would like to make sure that we're all clear on exactly where we stand once we do take affordable off this side of the project. In the '97 grant agreement with the Met Council it very specifically spelled out that the development would contain 168 owner occupied units, 50% of which will be affordable. It then goes on to say that the site will contain, or the project will contain 154 rental units, 35% that will be affordable. And in a conversation that we had last week on the Villages project, the question came up as to on the east side of 101, is there any additional free standing housing development planned. Otherwise, of the 160 remaining units, if we're just looking at what the total is supposed to be, I'm assuming from what I've seen of the project, that the entire project is about to become rental. Because I don't see within the Villages plan where that ownership is designated. It was originally designated for this property as condominiums and now it will be apartments, and it was designated as apartments on the other side within the total concept plan, so I wondered if you had a chance to take a look at that. And if we will 25 City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 even be able to meet the ownership part of that agreement because the whole TIF issue came up with the green acres. Or are we already altering that agreement? Mayor Mancino: But that agreement is not part of the design standards that we have between the City and AUSMAR and it is not part of the PUD development agreement that we also have with AUSMAR. That may be with the Met Council but that is not in the. Councilwoman Jansen: It's stated here, as indicated in the development contract for the project, the project will contain 168 owner occupied units. Mayor Mancino: And where in the development contract? Councilwoman Jansen: I pulled the statement. Mayor Mancino: Well, in the development contract that I have it says, SP-7, the developer shall work with the City to accomplish city goals for housing including the provision of affordable housing. 35% of the housing, rental housing and 50% of the ownership housing shall meet the criteria established for affordability by the Metropolitan Council. I don't have anything else in here, the development, the overall development contract that I have in front of me that has those numbers. Councilwoman Jansen: Well you just aid the 50% of the owner occupied, correct? Mayor Mancino: But it doesn't say how many. If there are owner occupied, it doesn't say how many units had to be owner occupied. You see what I'm saying? It doesn't say in here, in the. Councilwoman Jansen: So you're saying that whatever Met Council used to draft our grant agreement that we signed, they used the wrong numbers? Mayor Mancino: I don't know who used wrong numbers. I'm just saying that I can't find that language in the PUD development contract, nor could I find it, because I looked for it too. Nor could I find it in the development design standards. It does say this on the development design standards. It says residential. Residential units shall be provided as upper level units above the office commercial uses within the village core and as stand alone units. A minimum of 50% of the residential units shall be rental units. Of the rental units, the City has adopted a goal of 35% of the units meeting the Metropolitan Council's affordable criteria. For the ownership housing, and it doesn't say how many again, the City has adopted the goal of 50% of the units meeting the Metropolitan Council's affordable criteria. But again in both of these documents.., how many had to be rental and how many had to be ownership. Councilman Engel: It seems to be talking to percentages all the time. Mayor Mancino: So you know, and I don't know if that's something that Roger you have looked through. Just trying to answer Linda, because I looked for that too. Roger Knutson: In the PUD Mayor, I agree with, I found the same thing you found. The PUD does not have numbers on the number of units that will be rental and the number of units that will be owner occupied. The grant agreement with Met Council does. Scott Botcher: The documents indicate different relationships. 26 City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 Mayor Mancino: I know. Scott Botcher: And that's the goofy part. And it's been the goofy part to me from the beginning. Is that we have two different standards of performance for two different relationships. My opinion, and I don't have the number to put after my name. The Bar number. But I think that, you know the PUD agreement with the developer is softer, is my term. More flexible, than the City's agreement with Met Council. And when the documents were executed, there are two different standards, two different levels of performance for two different relationships. The City's on, to my opinion, is on a stiffer hook in it's relationship with Met Council than the applicant may be in the PUD agreement with the City. Roger Knutson: I would agree with that. I'll just point out that the applicant did sign off on the grant agreement. He agreed to be bound by it essentially. But looking at it strictly from a zoning perspective, and the requirements in the PUD, those numbers aren't there. The percentages are there but not the numbers. The 168. Councilman Engel: Are you talking about the PUD or are you talking about the agreement with the grant agreement? Roger Knutson: The grant agreement had the numbers in it. The hard numbers. 168 and 154. The PUD doesn't have those numbers. Councilwoman Jansen: So I guess where we're back to is then in our agreement to the Met Council, is it even achievable then at this point for us to meet owner occupied units within this project because from what I understand the residential units above the commercial buildings would be rental. Mayor Mancino: They could come in as condominiums, couldn't they? Roger Knutson: Certainly. Councilwoman Jansen: What makes those more buildable than this having been condominiums? Mayor Mancino: I don't know. Councilman Senn: We can't second guess that. Mayor Mancino: Yeah, we can't second guess that now. Roger Knutson: I believe in talking to staff, it is possible. Maybe not in the real world but possible to build all these units required by the sub-grant agreement, or the grant agreement, in other locations in Villages on the Pond. It is in theory can be done. There are enough units still to be built. I mean any unit that can be rented can be owner occupied. You can do a condo. Whether that's practical or not is the question. Councilwoman Jansen: So at this point then, by now moving forward with this particular project being rental, we are in essence now saying that on the other side it will be owner occupied or we will not meet our grant agreement with the Met Council. I mean this action is going to cause a reaction on the other side. Just so we're all going forward with the same understanding that now we need to look at achieving the owner occupied units, if we have now achieved the rental units within the affordability. 27 City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 Roger Knutson: Correct. Or I'll just say the obvious. Go to the Met Council and say we want out. Mayor Mancino: Well, I mean there is in the agreement with the Met Council it says, under 4.03 it says amendments and it does say the Council and the grantee may amend this agreement by mutual agreement. Amendments, changes or modifications of this agreement shall be effective only on the execution of the written amendments. I mean we can go back and ask for an amendment also. And of course the council has to agree with that so. Councilman Engel: Just to be clear Roger, when we were reading the PUD agreement and the grant agreement, what I heard was that of the overhead, above the retail space, those units, the only requirement I heard was that 50% had to be rental. It doesn't again speak to owner. So again, they could be 100% rental. Councilwoman Jansen: Within the Met Council agreement it is very specific. Councilman Engel: What is that one? We've got a lot of... Mayor Mancino: That's the one that says exactly how many. Councilwoman Jansen: The one that has us on the hook. It says that 50% of the owner occupied will be affordable and of the 154 rental, it would be 35 %. So our agreement right now is 84 units of affordable ownership and 54 affordable rental. Roger Knutson: I would just point out, I'm not disagreeing with anything that was said. Just to add. AUSMAR is also bound by that agreement and has agreed to defend and hold us harmless the consequences of not abiding by it. So they're also on the hook in that agreement. Councilwoman Jansen: Okay. Mayor Mancino: And that is one of the reasons probably for your option of a letter of credit. Scott Botcher: Yeah, to the extent that they have the financial ability to perform, and we don't know if they will once, and if we ever get it there. Councilwoman Jansen: So as we take this action tonight, if we take the action we're being asked to, we're then anticipating that as we move forward with AUSMAR on the other side of the balance of the residential, that we will be seeing 168 owner occupied with 50% of those being affordable. Are we anticipating that we would be picking up any of the rental now? Are we adding to the number of units in order, and I guess where I'm going with that question is wanting to know what we're agreeing to tonight. Because if we're looking at having 50% affordable, and I realize that members of the council consider this one big project, but any time we've had a major road cutting through an area, whether it's Highway 5. We even looked at Lake Drive as dividing neighborhood from commercial. In my mind once you put 101 through and you put these apartments on one side, they're free standing. No one's really going to look at that and say oh well, that's part of Villages. We would be putting either 50% affordable next to the residents who are living next to the east side, and they turned out in droves originally to move apartments away from where they were. But it would be 50% affordable on that side. If we're going to go above that to try to make up for the affordable that we're giving up on this side, I have a problem with that. Because we are giving it up on this side and I don't see adding to the burden or adding to the intensification on the other side of the property. I would simply want to hold that to the 50% agreed to of the owner occupied 28 City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 units. But that's just my opinion. I don't know if we're looking at increasing the number of housing units on the other side to make up for the rental. Because you'd also then need to increase the number of residential units if you're looking to then also make up for the balance of what we're losing on this side. Mayor Mancino: Okay. Any other questions at this time? Is the applicant here and would you like to come in front of the council? Lynne Wyffels: Thank you. My name is Lynne Wyffels. I represent the Shelard Group along with Shel Wert and as Scott mentioned we are here tonight to request a modification to the development contract. I don't need to spend a lot of time talking about the history of how many times we've been here and the things that we've requested. We all know that. But I would like to reiterate that we've all spent a tremendous amount of time working with staff, the council. We've worked with the Met Council, the MHFA. We've looked at a lot of different options to try to make this project work. We've always been willing to provide an affordable component. That was the City's goal. We understood that when we came in here and we were willing to work with that. Unfortunately, with the I guess last go around that we had with the Met Council and the MHFA, our expectations and their expectations were different. I think what they want and the reasons they were willing to provide money, we weren't willing to adhere to those hooks or standards that they were going to attach to it. To at that point in time we put together a memo to Scott requesting that the development contract be modified. The memo that Scott put together with the four options, I'd like to say that Options 2, 3, and 4 really are any options that we'd be willing to consider. Option 2 is the providing of the tax increment financing, the differential between the affordable and the market rents, the $1,353,000 1 believe the number is. If that's the direction the council would like to go, we're prepared to go back in front of the EDA and ask for that request. As it relate to Option 3, allowing us to go forward and do this market rate, we said from day one we'd be willing to do this as a market rate unit. What we're concerned about with Option 3 is any contingencies or attachments that might adhere to us or might be attached to our project because that again is more delays and it makes it difficult. We'd like to see the council act separately. If they've got issues with AUSMAR or the other side, we appreciate that and we understand that but we would like to move forward tonight with our approval on market rate or Option 3 and hopefully get this approved and more forward. Tabling this for us is like killing the project. We're that far behind. We have obligations and people who have made obligations to us that they're getting to the point that they're not going to be able to hold those obligations so that's increased cost. Both in terms of financing. In terms of construction. Everything so we're really getting down to the wire here. Our risk is getting greater and greater every day that this goes on. So again we'd like to request that you make a decision tonight and move forward. And with that if you have any questions. Mayor Mancino: Any questions for Lynne? Councilwoman Jansen: I don't know if my question Scott would be for Lynne or yourself but as far as the numbers that we discussed this afternoon, and the difference that we found in the second page of the numbers. Lynne Wyffels: There is a difference and we did find that too and we talked a little bit about that initially. And I guess our feelings, our thoughts on that are, that differential, if we were to do all 33 units Section 8, and I think it was decided early on that that was not an option for us at all. That's not something that we want to do. I don't think it's something that the City wants to do. So even though it's showing a greater differential, that's not an option for us. Councilwoman Jansen: Okay. So you then wouldn't have worked down the numbers as to what the total TIF request would end up being rather than the $2.6 million versus the $1.3 million. 29 City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 Lynne Wyffels: Yeah, our request would be for the $1.3 million. You know we'd be willing to provide the 20% of the units at 50% of median income and we would be looking for the differential between those market and affordable rents, the $1.3 million. Councilwoman Jansen: Okay. Scott and I also had the conversation this afternoon that council had really voiced also, a hesitation about the number of Section 8 housing units that were being requested by Met Council so I echo your concern. More so I wanted the other members to at least know what the real numbers were that we were looking at, because it was significantly different. If you go to the last page of Lynne's memo, under the all Section 833, if you get down to that bottom line. The total affordable rents. It only increases, and this is where I didn't work it beyond this point. I just pointed out the difference. It only increases by $12,000 annually. I say only but it's not a significant of number as was thought, so if you go over to the annual rent differential, it would be 108,360, not the 219,744. I didn't recalculate anything beyond that point because again it would be introducing 33 Section 8 units into the apartments but for the members who are interested in that affordable component, it only seemed fair that you be aware of the real numbers. Mayor Mancino: What a decrease. Councilwoman Jansen: It's a huge decrease. Mayor Mancino: From 219 to 108. Councilwoman Jansen: Correct. It only goes up 12,000. To get to the 33 all Section 8 units. To maintain the affordability. And everybody knows what my feeling is on using TIF but I thought you should at least be aware of the real numbers. Mayor Mancino: Okay, thank you. Any other questions for Lynne? Okay, thanks. Anyone in the audience have any comments? Okay, bringing this back to council. Who would like to start the discussion? Councilwoman Jansen: I've been doing all the talking. Councilman Engel: Alright I will. I've looked at the numbers. I wasn't excited earlier about the amount of units we were going to get for the amount of TIF we would have to provide, and I haven't changed my opinion on that at all, so I think Option 4 looks like the one that we're left with that. Or some sort of a mixture of Option 3. I'd like to talk about that that Lynne just referred to now. You don't want to mix any requirements of AUSMAR in with Shel's project. And to be honest, the concerns I have, I don't think I saw in the report at all. My concerns are just the aesthetics of the place are starting to get a little shabby on the south. I'm referring to the main pond and the roads. I would like to see the roads quality brought up a little bit. I think they need a second lift of asphalt and I think that pond could use cleaning up just south of TH 5, the main one on the north side. But that's not, again it doesn't affect you guys. I realize that. But we've got a real three way circus going here and those are my only concerns. I'm in favor of 3 or 4 and I don't have a real opinion on the amount of money for letter of credit right now. If someone could justify that, I'd be willing to listen to it but I don't have any preconceived notions that it should be one amount or another. But I am concerned about the aesthetics down there. Making it difficult to market the rest of the property. I'll stop there for now. Mayor Mancino: Okay. Councilman Senn. Or Councilwoman Jansen. 30 City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 Councilman Senn: I would favor Option 3. Mayor Mancino: Okay. And can you give a little bit of, any discussion about Option 3. Councilman Senn: No. I mean I've already talked to Scott in length about the issues of the letter of credit and performance bond and I think those are points well taken so. Given the history of the project I think the agreement should have to keep those in the forefront. Councilman Engel: What's the amount we're talking about there again? 700? Scott Botcher: Well that's just what I put. I mean you could make it... Councilwoman Jansen: The amount of the grant. Mayor Mancino: The grant is approximately 697. Councilman Senn: So what were the outer parameters on the... Scott Botcher: Well there are two grants. One is 505 and the other one is 190. Councilman Engel: 199. Scott Botcher: And you know there can be an argument made that the 190 is for transportation and the 505 is for something else. You could make that... 505. Certainly the AUSMAR Group would argue that it should be zero. Councilman Senn: And what were the outer parameters on the remaining street and utility work? Scott Botcher: I don't know that number. You mean to fix up what Mark talked about? Councilman Senn: Yeah. Scott Botcher: I don't know that. Mayor Mancino: So how do we come to conclusion on a performance bond if no one knows the number? How do you, talk a little bit about the performance bond. Scott Botcher: I think you can receive an engineer's estimate on it in pretty short order. Councilman Senn: Yeah. I mean what we could pass tonight would be consistent with... Scott Botcher: ...number is. Councilman Senn: Yeah, I think what we could pass tonight could be consistent with an engineer's estimate of what those costs would be and then that could be done administratively. Mayor Mancino: Thank you. Linda. 31 City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 Councilwoman Jansen: I agree with Councilman Senn, and then also would want to see as Option 3 the condition that Scott mentioned later into memo of the Minnesota Crime Free Multi-Housing Program. Also made a part of this project. However, whether that's adding it to the development contract or however we execute that, I think would be real positive. Mayor Mancino: Okay. I tend to agree. I won't go into it at length but I do, excuse me. Yes Shel. Shel Wert: Of course you know that I don't agree with item 3 and I'm just sitting here thinking and I don't really understand how item 3 can work here tonight because one of the conditions, the only condition left that we're talking about taking out of this project is the condition of the affordable housing. And so the request is to take the affordable housing out of it and that is one of the conditions is to agree with the council relative to the affordable housing aspect of the project. Now we agree with whatever you want to do. If you want affordable housing, you can have it. If you don't want affordable housing, you can have it. But where does it say in our agreement, and under those conditions that we're going to, that you've got the, I don't want to call it the right but that you can take this condition and then add a condition to it. That somebody else do something else. I think it's unfair. Mayor Mancino: Okay, thank you. Roger Knutson: Mayor. At the possibility of being called dead wrong, let me try to summarize where we're at and I'm just trying to summarize it. Not to change anything. Mayor Mancino: Thank you. Roger Knutson: We have signed an agreement with the Metropolitan Council and AUSMAR is a guarantor on that. That has certain requirements for affordable housing. The concern is that if this phase of the development goes forward without meeting those requirements, that the terms of the grant agreements with the Metropolitan Council cannot be met. And if they cannot be met the Metropolitan Council may not be forgiving, or it may be forgiving. If they are forgiving, so be it. If they are not forgiving, someone's going to have to pony up because the requirements were not met and we don't want that to be the taxpayers of the City of Chanhassen. So, if they want to go forward and we don't think they can meet the requirements, or it isn't apparent that they can meet the requirements, if they're not done on this addition. It's not apparent that they can meet them on the other ones so there's a great risk by going forward without it here, that the grant agreement will not be met. What's required of it. Mayor Mancino: Understand. Roger Knutson: And so you're saying, post letters of credit to guarantee that the grant agreement requirements will be met. Or that the Metropolitan Council will release in whole or in part the requirements from the grant agreement so there is no possibility of someone coming back and biting the City of Chanhassen. Mayor Mancino: Only at that time when the Metropolitan Council does release us, if we aren't able to meet it, then we can release the letter of credit. Roger Knutson: Sure. So if the Metropolitan Council comes forward and says, we understand the situation or whatever they say, and you are now released from these requirements, or what you are proposing to do or have done satisfies, is good enough. Satisfied the requirements, then we no longer need the letter of credit and they can go back to the developer and be released. Is my understanding correct? 32 City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 Mayor Mancino: Yes, and thank you for clarifying that. Okay. Shel Wert: Just a final point would be that in order to accomplish what you want to accomplish it's possible to possibly look at number 4 and add something. I mean you have a lot of different ways to get back at AUSMAR. Let's be frank. I mean you don't really need to strangle this project in order to keep AUSMAR'S attention. You have a myriad of ways that you can cause to happen what happens on the other side. The way it goes through all the rest of the planning stages and all of that. You have many ways to do that. I'm suggesting that you take that effort, rather than according to the letter that you got this afternoon which we received a copy also. Number 3 is not going to happen. So it's in essence voting for number 1. Roger Knutson: I would also suggest another possibility. Mayor Mancino: Thank you Shel. Roger Knutson: If they don't want to provide a letter of credit that would accomplish the same thing. Go forward to the Metropolitan Council tomorrow morning, or whenever. Get the release then you wouldn't need to post the letters of credit because that condition has been taken, our concern would have been taken care of. So there's no need to give us a letter of credit and the condition can still come out of the contract if Metropolitan Council releases those... Mayor Mancino: Well then we would not be making a decision tonight. We would be tabling it until we go to the Metropolitan Council and get their release. Councilman Engel: Or we could make it conditional. Councilman Senn: You could put that as part of the condition. Roger Knutson: You can do 1 or 2. Satisfy the condition. Get a release from the condition. Mayor Mancino: Got it. Roger Knutson: Or the letter of credit to guarantee if we don't get paid. Mayor Mancino: Okay. Councilman Senn: Let me, maybe I should try. Mayor Mancino: Okay, you should try. The only other thing I want to say is that I just absolutely want to make sure that it's very clear in my point of view on the affordability that has been put in this PUD contract. The 35% of the rental and the 50% of ownership stay in place. That you keep it there. That this is part of the whole philosophy of Villages on the Pond, and it was the main reason that we received the grants from the Metropolitan Council was the affordability component. So I just want to make clear of that. Councilman Senn: I think it's important to follow on that and say though Mayor that effectively neither a letter of credit nor relaxing the rules have to change the City's position on that. 33 City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 Mayor Mancino: No. Councilman Senn: Okay. That just simply relates to the grant funds which is a liability we need to protect the taxpayers from, is the easiest way to put that. Mayor Mancino: Okay. Thank you for making that clear. Appreciate it. Councilman Senn: Let me try my hand at a motion here, and Roger feel free to help me out. Would make a motion to grant the applicant's request and remove the provision in the Village on the Pond 6th Addition PUD development contract relating to the requirement for affordability provision. Roger Knutson: That's paragraph, you'd be eliminating paragraph 9(v). V as in Victor. Councilman Senn: 9(v) as in Victor. Roger Knutson: On the draft development. Mayor Mancino: On SP-5. Councilman Senn: And substitute in it's place that there is a contingent condition upon AUSMAR providing. Roger Knutson: I wouldn't say AUSMAR. I'd say anyone. We don't care who it comes from. Councilman Senn: Okay. Against or let's see. So conditioned upon providing a $700,000 letter of credit as surety for the indemnify obligation in the Villages on the Pond PUD in the development agreement. Councilman Engel: Or. Councilman Senn: Or relaxing by the Metropolitan Council of it's. Roger Knutson: Grant requirements. Councilman Senn: Grant requirements relating to the $700,000. Roger Knutson: That would be a finding by the Metropolitan Council either releasing or saying whatever satisfies it. That they've already accomplished the goals. Councilman Senn: Correct. And secondly that, should I say AUSMAR here or that somebody provide a performance bond to complete public improvements and utility work as required, private/public improvements and utility work as provided for in the Village on the Ponds PUD and development agreement. And that this project be submit to and shall incorporate the Minnesota Crime Free Housing Program. And one more and then stop me here if you don't think this one should be in there. And that this action no way relaxes overall affordable provisions for the entire Village on the Ponds project PUD development agreement. From the city's perspective. Roger Knutson: That's fine. Just editorializing that what you're saying is that is not before us tonight. Councilman Senn: Correct. It's just a clarification as part of the motion. 34 City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 Roger Knutson: So, right. You can't deal with that tonight. Scott Botcher: You also I think Roger need to seek and receive permission from the developer to do work on the private streets with the performance bond should you get to that point. I don't know how you would write that up. But those are private streets. We don't just have the ability to go onto their private property. Roger Knutson: The development contract would address that. Mayor Mancino: Okay. Councilman Senn: End of motion. Mayor Mancino: Is there a second to the motion? Councilman Engel: Second. Mayor Mancino: Okay, all those in favor. Roger Knutson: Mayor. Mayor Mancino: Oh okay, Peter. Peter Coyle: Members of the council and Mayor Mancino, Peter Coyle representing AUSMAR, 7900 Xerxes Avenue South, Bloomington, Minnesota. I wanted to make sure that I heard the motion accurately. Councilmember Senn included a number of... Roger Knutson: I'll try to summarize it. Mayor Mancino: We'll do lawyer to lawyer. Roger Knutson: Whatever the record of the motion is is, I can't amend it. Peter Coyle: Well let me try what I've got and then if I'm off track, someone correct me. Roger Knutson: What the council has done is saying they will release or agree to delete paragraph 9(v) of the development contract for Villages on the Pond 6th Addition conditioned on the following: (a). A letter of credit in the amount of $700,000 be posted to guarantee the indemnity provisions in the draft agreements. Or, in lieu of that, an agreement from the Metropolitan Council stating, releasing the City from the affordable housing components of those grant agreements or finding that what is done to date satisfies those requirements. Providing an additional letter of credit to guarantee completion of the uncompleted items in the Villages of the Pond, I don't know which addition that would be. The second lift of asphalt and the utilities in the Pond in an amount determined by our City Engineer as a reasonable amount. To guarantee completion of that work. Another provision, we have the authority to go in and complete the work and draw down on the letter of credit if the work is not done. And second. Not second. Whatever the number, next number is. That a provision be put in for a Crime Free Housing. Mayor Mancino: And then clarifying the PUD, the affordable housing. 35 City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 Roger Knutson: We're not addressing, amending or addressing the issue of the requirement in the PUD on housing requirements. The basic PUD is not before us. We can't amend that tonight. Just acknowledging that. Peter Coyle: Madam Mayor, might I inquire just with one question? Mayor Mancino: Yes you may. Peter Coyle: I know you're prepared to vote and I don't want to delay the proceedings, and in the event that either the $700,000 LC or the Met Council waiver is not provided, what comes next? Roger Knutson: The development contract does not get amended. Peter Coyle: And then the project fails. Is that what I'm understanding. Roger Knutson: I don't know if it will fail. We're not, other decisions. The development contract does not get amended. That provision stays in. Scott Botcher: Do we need a date certain for the completion of the improvements in the Villages on the Ponds? Roger Knutson: You mean the second lift of asphalt? Scott Botcher: So we can say that we have the performance bond or letter of credit or some other surety but I think generally you need to have a date certain by which you expect performance before you move to draw down that. Councilman Senn: I'd say by the end of the next construction season. Roger Knutson: I usually pick November 1st, November 1, 2000. Mayor Mancino: Okay. I can't remember. That has been seconded. Roger Knutson: Yes. Councilman Senn moved, Councilman Engel seconded that the City Council modify the Development Contract with Lake Susan Apartment Homes in Villages on the Ponds 6th Addition by deleting item 9(v) on SP-5 contingent on the following conditions: A letter of credit in the amount of $700,000 be posted to guarantee the indemnity provisions in the draft agreements. Or, in lieu of that, an agreement from the Metropolitan Council stating, releasing the City from the affordable housing components of those grant agreements or finding that what is done to date satisfies those requirements. Providing an additional letter of credit to guarantee completion of the uncompleted items in the Villages of the Pond, i.e. the second lift of asphalt and the utilities in the Pond in an amount determined by our City Engineer as a reasonable amount to guarantee completion of that work. If the work is not completed by November 1, 2000, the City has the authority to go in and complete the work and draw down on the letter of credit. 36 City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 3. The project shall comply with the Minnesota Crime Free Multi-Housing Program. All voted in favor, except Councilwoman Jansen who opposed, and the motion carried with a vote of 3to 1. COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS. None. ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS. Scott Botcher: I just have a couple quick ones, is that okay? Mayor Mancino: You bet. Scott Botcher: Couple things here, if I can find them. You received Anita's minutes at the work session. You received Kate's building permit and housing data. It looks like this. That little chart on it. Okay, great. I received today in the mail, Celebrating Public Service. It is a League of Minnesota Cities deal. It will be on Thursday, February 3rd from 1:00 p.m. and it runs through about 6:00 p.m. with a reception, cookies and coffee and all that. Did you guys, if you guys didn't get this, ask me for it. I guess it's first come, first serve on the tickets because it's a limited seating. They limit seating to about 200 to 300 Minnesota cities because I guess it's tight. Deadline's January 21st. If you want to do that, that's great. Mayor Mancino: Anybody here tonight know if they want to go on February 3rd? Councilman Senn: What is it again? Scott Botcher: We're celebrating public service Mark. Mayor Mancino: Going down to the legislature and listening and meeting with your legislators. Scott Botcher: You get to press the flesh. Councilman Senn: Oh this is a feely goody deal. Scott Botcher: Touchy, feeling Mark. Okay, but you get cookies with it. No chili. Councilman Senn: Sorry, I have to work. Scott Botcher: Finally we received, I received. Councilman Senn: I have two lives. A public service life and a work life unfortunately. Scott Botcher: Campbell Knutson. City of Chanhassen v. John Bernard Pryzmus. He apparently has agreed to remove the stuff from his property. That's 41 and, or Galpin. Sorry. So he has a date certain where he has to have it off and he's got our next court date if he doesn't. I think I assume that if he does, they're going to drop the charges and whatever so if you need .... Mayor Mancino: Swings. 37 City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 Councilwoman Jansen: That's Swings? Okay. Mayor Mancino: Where they had the auction. Scott Botcher: Thank you very much. Mayor Mancino: Okay, going to correspondence. Just to follow up to what Scott said. In the paper on Sunday on January 18th from noon to 1:30 at the Radisson Plaza Hotel, put on by the Center of American Experiment is a debate with Ted Mondale, Chair of the Metropolitan Council and Steven Hayward on sprawl. So it should be an interesting debate, and actually Steven Hayward wrote a very long piece in the American Experiment Magazine, someone told me so anyway. Again, that's noon to 1:30 on January 18th at the Radisson Plaza Hotel. Scott Botcher: I do have one other thing that I forgot. Mark Littfin, Littfin sent me an e-mail today. If you or any of the Council get done early tonight you are more than welcome to watch a live burn training at the two houses by the new water tower. We'll be there from 7:30 til about 9:30 or 10:00. That's on 41, right? Councilman Senn: Oh, both those houses are being burned? Councilman Engel: They're going to burn them? I thought they were moving. Councilman Senn: But both houses are both being burnt? Scott Botcher: Partially. No, practice. They're just setting them in rooms and then they go and put them out. Mayor Mancino: Yeah, but the houses are going to be mined. Scott Botcher: I just read the memo. Mayor Mancino: Okay, should we go to correspondence? Councilman Senn: Then they go back later for a total burn? CORRESPONDENCE DISCUSSION. Mayor Mancino: First let's go over correspondence and then let's go back to the 101 neighborhood meeting. Okay. Anything in the correspondence? I had a couple questions. Councilman Senn: I already asked the one on insurance so I'm good. Mayor Mancino: My question was on the, it was interesting again this Metropolitan Council Awards Affordable Housing Grants for Multi-family Rental Housing. And it says Chanhassen family housing. Who applied for this? I mean we didn't as a city did we? Councilman Senn: Oh no, remember approved that guy to go in and apply for a loan some time ago. 38 City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 Mayor Mancino: Jim Deanovic? Councilwoman Jansen: Yes. Councilman Senn: Is that his name? Scott Botcher: Yeah. Councilwoman Jansen: It's for his project. Councilman Senn: But it was a different guy's name I thought. Scott Botcher: Well he might have a corporate name but, yeah. As we continue to push people, when they come in and they say the TIF word and we say go find other people's money first. He has gone and done this. Now Met Council, and when I saw Tom last he said of course you realize that all this is contingent. He goes absolutely. It's not like any pre-commitment or anything else. They are trying, I guess they're being as sophisticated as possible in trying to actually come, when they come into us saying, see we have this money and we can apply this and so that's fine. Councilman Senn: And just so you don't forget, there was a second one that we approved too to go in and apply to the superfund or whatever that was for that project closer down to Galpin there. That the guy came in on and said that. Mayor Mancino: We never approved any. Councilman Senn: Yes we did. Mayor Mancino: No. Councilman Senn: Yes we did. I can tell you we did. Mayor Mancino: Okay. Councilman Senn: We approved a deal to let him go so he could go apply to the superfund for affordable housing. Scott Botcher: Candidly I don't know where we have any right to approve anyone going. I mean I think what they ask you for is just a letter that you know that it's going on. And most the letters that I've done, I think I did this Deanovic one. Yes, we're aware of it. We haven't agreed to any densities. We haven't agreed to any site plans but if they want to go for the money, go for it is about what it says. And that's as far as it goes. Councilman Senn: Well except the application process requires municipal, kind of requires that municipal okey dokey or whatever it was. Scott Botcher: Yeah, to the extent that that is. Councilman Senn: Yeah. 39 City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 Scott Botcher: But I don't remember it coming to the council. But it may have. Mayor Mancino: No. We did not vote on the Deanovic one. Councilman Senn: No, but the other one we did. Mayor Mancino: A couple other things in correspondence. I thought it was really interesting from Brian Grogan. Do we need to write a letter, and how do the other council members feel about the comments on open access? Scott, is that something that you could write on our behalf and how do council members feel in the open access for ISP? Scott Botcher: I mean these guys, I would never pay them to do that. I mean Moss and Barnett or any other firm. Mayor Mancino: No, I'm just saying us. Scott Botcher: Yeah, if you want to write to the FCC or anybody, we can do that. Just you guys decide that you want to do it, and we'll write it. Mayor Mancino: Yeah. I don't think anything needs to go through Brian. Scott Botcher: But it's good information. Mayor Mancino: Yep. That that's going on. Any other questions or comments? Scott Botcher: You also had the AOL thing today. $166 billion, they want to buy Time Warner. And it's all funny money. It's all stock. Roger Knutson: Incredible. Councilman Engel: Yeah, I saw that. Scott Botcher: AOL. Councilman Senn: Boy, Ted's really in trouble with his divorce now. Scott Botcher: They're just getting some space. Mayor Mancino: Okay, tell me on Saturday morning on the 101 neighborhood meeting. Saturday morning, this coming Saturday morning is the 101 neighborhood meeting. Would we like that posted? Scott Botcher: If three of you are going to be there, it's easy to post. But if three of you are there, it'd better be posted. Mayor Mancino: Okay, why don't we go ahead and post it just to be covered. Scott Botcher: Just forward the e-mail and I'll pick it up. 40 City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 Councilman Senn: Well I mean it's my neighborhood, I'm going to be there so. I'm the only one who gets to vote. You guys can't vote so. Because I paid my dues. Mayor Mancino: Well let's just be covered and be posted... Councilwoman Jansen: I'm assuming though that since it is a neighborhood meeting and the engineers will be there, that if we are present we're more so there for listening rather than interaction at this point. Scott Botcher: I would tend to agree with that. It's not necessarily the council's forum. You let the, I mean there's a balance when you start going to neighborhood meetings. You've got to be careful that you're not having like an off site council meeting. I know you post it and all but I think in fairness to people who expect council meetings to occur on Mondays here in this room, we need to be careful about that. Councilwoman Jansen: And if we're making comments in a neighborhood meeting, they're not being recorded as minutes so they could be misconstrued or, I don't know that we want to be committing ourselves to things. Scott Botcher: Certainly you are always able to comment to your constituents. It's a cautionary note. Just you know, I guess it's a fair question. If you post it and you have a quorum, do you have to have minutes of it. I guess if it's an open meeting, you're probably supposed to. Roger Knutson: Basic minutes that there was a meeting and here's the topic of discussion. And any motions which wouldn't take place. Councilman Senn: So you'd better bring somebody with you to take minutes. Mayor Mancino: It's the person who pays the bills. That's you. Councilman Senn: No. That's the neighbors responsibility so. Scott Botcher: I don't ever expect you guys to go and say nothing because you're going to be asked questions. You're the public figures but. Councilwoman Jansen: But then we also in this instance change the nature of the meeting. It's now the neighbors trying to pump us for our opinions becomes the focus instead of Anita's intention of being the one is conducting the meeting. Mayor Mancino: Because they will talk to us, regardless of whether we go there and say we won't talk. The comments will be made, even if it's kind of, you know not even asking a question. It may even you know just be making statements to make sure that we've heard it. Councilwoman Jansen: I guess that's my hesitation in going. Mayor Mancino: Going. Councilwoman Jansen: Is actually changing the nature of the intention Anita had for the meeting. Mayor Mancino: Meeting. I think that's very wise. 41 City Council Meeting - January 10, 2000 Councilwoman Jansen: And what we had spoken about. I would just as soon not be there. Mayor Mancino: Well, I mean I. Councilwoman Jansen: But I think we almost need to make that statement as a group now that they seemed to have invited us as a group that we've made. Mayor Mancino: Or else if somebody goes, and somebody doesn't go then they'll feel. Scott Botcher: And you can certainly just come up with a consensual written statement where Anita could even read it and say on behalf of the council I'd like to read this statement. And you don't count because obviously you're going to have your neighborhood hat on but just say everything you said I think is very true. Believe me, you're going to have more than enough opportunity to talk to these people. Mayor Mancino: And I agree with that too. In fact talking to another Mayor, she also said the same thing. That once a council person goes to these neighborhood meetings, that it kind of changes the atmosphere so I would suggest that we have Anita talk on, say that on all our behalf. Mark Engel, do you feel comfortable with that? Not going? I feel comfortable. Linda? And we'll let you go. Thank you, that's what we'd like to do. Mayor Mancino adjourned the City Council meeting at 9:15 p.m. Submitted by Scott Botcher City Manager Prepared by Nann Opheim 42