Loading...
CC 2011 08 08 CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING AUGUST 8, 2011 Mayor Furlong called the meeting to order at 7:05 p.m. The meeting was opened with the Pledge to the Flag. COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT: Mayor Furlong, Councilwoman Ernst, Councilman Laufenburger, and Councilwoman Tjornhom COUNCIL MEMBERS ABSENT: Councilman McDonald STAFF PRESENT: Todd Gerhardt, Laurie Hokkanen, Paul Oehme, Kate Aanenson, Todd Hoffman, Greg Sticha, and City Attorney, Tom Scott Mayor Furlong: Thank you and welcome to those here in our council chambers and those watching at home. We’re glad that you joined us this evening. At this time I’d ask members of the council if there are any changes or modifications requested of the agenda. If not, without objection we’ll proceed with the agenda as published. Councilman Laufenburger: Did you have? Mayor Furlong: Yeah, let me add a couple items here on our consent agenda. We will add one, thank you Councilman Laufenburger. On consent agenda we will add item (d) which is a resolution providing for the sale of general obligation bonds. This is a call for a sale to occur. That sale will be considered at the council September 12, 2011 meeting and that relates to our enterprise fund for water. And then also for item 1(b)(2). Staff has provided an amended, is that correct Ms. Aanenson? Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. On page SP-2. Mayor Furlong: SP-2 that’s been amended. I think that’s been distributed to the council. A request for the change to that development contract. So those are the two changes on the agenda with, is there any objection to making those changes? If not then we’ll proceed appropriately. With that let’s move ahead into the consent agenda. This will include items 1(a) through (d). CONSENT AGENDA:Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilman Laufenburger seconded to approve the following consent agenda items pursuant to the City Manager’s recommendations: a. Approval of Minutes: -City Council Work Session Minutes dated July 11, 2011 -City Council Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated July 11, 2011 Receive Commission Minute: Chanhassen City Council - August 8, 2011 -Planning Commission Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated July 19, 2011 -Park and Recreation Commission Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated June 28, 2011 -Park and Recreation Commission Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated July 26, 2011 th b. The Preserve at Bluff Creek 4 Addition: 1) Final Plat Approval 2) Approval of Plans and Specifications and Development Contract as amended by staff c. Confirm Appointment of John Wolff as Fire Chief Resolution#2011-49: d. Approve Resolution Providing for the Sale of Approximately $5,920,000 General Obligation Bonds, Series 2011A. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: None. LAW ENFORCEMENT/FIRE DEPARTMENT UPDATE. Lt. Jeff Enevold: Good evening Mr. Mayor, council. Three quick items for you tonight. Looks nd like we’ve got a full house here so I’ll try to make it quick. Last week, Tuesday, August 2 was National Night Out and the Mayor and I visited some neighborhoods. Over 40 neighborhoods participated in that and we had a great time. We talked to a lot of terrific people out there and I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who helped make that event a great success so thank you all and I’m looking forward to next year and coming out and meeting some more of our citizens so thank you. We continue to receive calls for service on thefts from vehicles. I just want to remind our citizens to please help us reduce that. Take away the opportunity. Take valuables out of your cars. Lock your cars. Close your garage doors. That would be very helpful for us. Just one success that we’ve had. We received a tip on some of these thefts and our investigator did some follow-up on that and we were able to identify a suspect and get a confession from him and return a lot of the stolen property to our citizens so kudos to our investigator for getting that done. The last thing I would like to do is introduce the new corporal that started here in st Chanhassen. He started August 1. John Bramwell. He has experience in our detention facility. He’s been an investigator for us. Most recently he was the liaison corporal out at Norwood- Young America. When this opening became available in Chanhassen John raised his hand and said I want to come to Chanhassen and I personally am excited to have John here. I think he’s going to be a great asset for us and a great team player for us so just have him come up and say a few words if I might. Cpl. John Bramwell: Thank you Lieutenant Enevold. Good evening ladies and gentlemen. I’ve started in the sheriff’s office going on 24 years and serving a lot of different areas, including the jail, investigations, patrol and a little bit of everything inbetween so hopefully I can bring some experience to the city of Chanhassen and look forward to working with everybody in the City as well as the City Council. So if you have any questions for me, feel free to ask away. 2 Chanhassen City Council - August 8, 2011 Mayor Furlong: Any questions? Welcome Corporal. We appreciate it and look forward to your service. Cpl. John Bramwell: Great, thank you. Mayor Furlong: Any questions for the Lieutenant this evening on the statistic report or anything else? Todd Gerhardt: Could you give a little bit of an update on the Tour of the Tonka race, or ride that went through Chanhassen. Lt. Jeff Enevold: Well yeah, we had the Tour de Tonka race which was Saturday. It went off without a hitch. No problems. It was a great event for the community and we coordinated it well and there was no issues to it. Todd Gerhardt: No feedback or traffic delays or anything like that? Lt. Jeff Enevold: I haven’t heard anything, no. Todd Gerhardt: Okay, great. Lt. Jeff Enevold: Very good Mr. Mayor, council. Thank you. Mayor Furlong: Thank you Lieutenant. We also would receive normally a monthly update from the Chanhassen Fire Department this evening. One of the items in our consent agenda was to approve the appointment of John Wolff as the new fire chief. He’s unable to be here tonight. We do have a report in our packet so I would ask if any members of the council have questions regarding that report, we can direct them to Mr. Gerhardt and either he’ll have the answer or he can get it. So looks like we have a full compliment of fire fighters on the staff and with a new chief I’m sure we’ll hear from Chief Wolff now probably as part of the budget discussions coming up in the next few weeks as well as at future meetings. Anything else Mr. Gerhardt? Todd Gerhardt: Fire department participated in the National Night Out. They did a great job. We appreciate them taking that time, along with all our department heads this year got out to meet the public also. What a great event. It’s key to have neighbors watching out for neighbors and what a great event and they do a fantastic job. I had a rootbeer float that was great so. Mayor Furlong: Very good, thank you. Let’s move on to the next item on our agenda. PUBLIC HEARING: TH 101 IMPROVEMENTS, LYMAN BOULEVARD TO PIONEER TRAIL, EA/EAW PUBLIC HEARING, CITY PROJECT P267F4a. Public Present: Name Address 3 Chanhassen City Council - August 8, 2011 Stephanie & Jamie Heilicher 9280 Kiowa Trail Doug & Becky Duchon 9630 Foxford Road Bev & Jack Bell 9371 Kiowa Trail Dan & Kathy Horsfall 9610 Foxford Road Tim Erhart 9611 Meadowlark Lane Mike Domke 9361 Kiowa Trail Hallie Bershow 9271 Kiowa Trail David Blanski 9350 Great Plains Boulevard Paul Paulson 9250 Great Plains Boulevard Kari & Mark Nettesheim 9201 and 9151 Great Plains Boulevard Dave Wondra 9590 Foxford Road th Carol Dunsmore 730 West 96 Street th Leslie O’Halloran 710 West 96 Street Bob Haak 770 Pioneer Trail Rose Novotny 560 Pineview Court Sharon Gatto 9631 Foxford Road Roselee Wondra 9590 Foxford Road Bill Munig 6850 Stratford Boulevard Mayor Furlong: The purpose tonight is for the council to receive comments, is that correct? Paul Oehme: That’s correct. Mayor Furlong: There will be no action taken this evening, is that correct? Paul Oehme: That’s correct. Just hold the public hearing. Mayor Furlong: Great. Let’s start with the staff report please and background on the project and other information Mr. Oehme. Paul Oehme: Sure, we have a power point presentation drafted for you tonight for your review and the public too but again staff would like to hold a public hearing for basically the environmental aspect issues surrounding the 101 project. Staff has been working on this project for almost 9 years, or 9 months now and this is kind of the culmination of the project. What you’re going to see tonight is basically the preliminary layout of the project. Final design is not anticipated to start until the end of the year or maybe even next year if the project moves forward so with that I’d like to have Jon Horn with Kimley-Horn and Associates give a brief presentation on the project and then also Beth Kunkel, the environmental person with Kimley-Horn to update us on their findings so. Jon Horn: Good evening Mayor, members of the City Council. As Mr. Oehme mentioned my name is Jon Horn. I’m with Kimley-Horn and Associates. I’m the project manager that’s been working with city staff as well as MnDOT and Carver County to lead some of your design efforts for the 101 project. A brief presentation we wanted to run through tonight, again as Mr. Oehme stated the purpose for the meeting tonight is a public hearing specifically related to the environmental document, environmental assessment, environmental assessment worksheet or 4 Chanhassen City Council - August 8, 2011 EA/EAW that’s been prepared for the project. Power point that we have tonight gives you a little project background on the project. I’ll turn it over to Beth Kunkel from my office who will go through the specifics of the environmental review document and will walk you through kind of the next steps in how the process goes from here on out. Project background, this section is a section of 101 between Lyman Boulevard on the north and Pioneer Trail on the south. Currently today it’s a two lane undivided rural section roadway. No curb and gutter. A lot of very steep grades. Sharp curves. A number of sight distance issues along the corridor all leading to crash rates that are higher than similar roadways of this nature. More than 50% higher along this specific segment of 101 and similar two lane roadways around the metro area. So the purpose of this project is to improve traffic safety, capacity and connectivity issues on 101, again specifically between Lyman Boulevard and Pioneer Trail. Some of the goals for the project. Need to address those safety deficiencies to reduce the crashes. Add turn lanes at the intersection to provide for safer intersection movements. Improve sight distance. We’re taking some of those sharp curves out and dips and drops in the alignment of the roadway. Also working to improve capacity. As the area grows additional traffic volumes are on this piece of roadway. The goal is to provide for those traffic volumes. And then while we’re doing that you really need to look for ways to minimize environmental impacts associated with the improvements so as we’ve gone through the process and as Beth will talk about here in a minute in the environmental document we’ve been looking for ways to avoid and minimize or mitigate those environmental documents. And then also the project will require the acquisition of some right-of-way so we’re looking for ways to try to minimize those right-of-way takings as well. Want to talk a little bit about the public and agency involvement process. This has really been a partnership between Chanhassen, Carver County and MnDOT. We’ve had a project management team or PMT that we’ve been working with here since last November I think was our first meeting and generally monthly meetings to talk about the project and to try to come up with design solutions. We’ve also tried to get the public involved in the process. We’ve got a couple of printed newsletters that have gone out. One back in November of 2010 and then one in June of 2011 followed up by some open house meetings. Generally I think we got 15 to 20 people in attendance at both of those open house meetings with the primary purpose of just informing people about the project and really trying to understand what some of the concerns are. We did have some properties along the corridor that we wanted to talk to and we did not get representation at the public meetings. We’ve had a few, a handful of on site individual property owner meetings just to again reach out to the people in the corridor and try to understand what the concerns are. And we have utilized the City’s website as a mechanism to try to share information to the public as well, so we’ve been trying to do our best to try to get information out and get comments as much as possible. Tonight is really the next step in terms of understanding what those comments and concerns are from the people in the project area. Some of the things we’ve heard to date, there’s some pretty majestic trees and a lot of trees in the corridor, so what can we do to try to minimize impact to those. A number of people have expressed concern about sight distances and what can we do to improve some of those intersections. Buffering, screening. Is there some way, since we are widening the roadway, the roadway in some locations is getting closer to properties. Is there some things we can do to provide some buffering, screening, berming of those properties? And then construction phasing, staging. How’s that going to work and how do we minimize impacts to properties during the construction process. In terms of project schedule, Mr. Oehme touched on this briefly but we’re really looking to try to get the preliminary design process and the environmental process done here in 2011 with the goal of 5 Chanhassen City Council - August 8, 2011 moving forward with the final design in late 2011 or early 2012. Right-of-way acquisition process would be in 2012 and then construction the majority which would occur in 2013. Possibly some in 2014 or maybe very late 2012. We’re still working through the details on that. On the environmental document, like I said Beth’s going to go through the details on this but the purpose of the environmental document is to look at all the environmental issues along the corridor and then to look at the preferred design alternative and understand what the impacts on those environmental entities are as a part of the design process, and as I said Beth will go through the details on that. Environmental document looks at two alternatives. The first alternative, do nothing. Basically leave the roadway the way it is today. And then the preferred alternative which sees the two lane undivided roadway go to a four lane divided roadway with a center median that adds 10 foot wide pedestrian trails along both sides of the roadway. Would have curb and gutter as we go from a rural section of roadway to an urban section roadway so curb and gutter, storm sewer and we’re proposing 3 stormwater ponds. It’s also proposing for a pedestrian safety perspective a tunnel under 101 generally in the vicinity of Bandimere Park to provide for that pedestrian movement east to west without having an at grade crossing of the roadway. So a very big picture perspective. This shows the proposed design. On the left hand side of this exhibit is Pioneer Trail. On the right hand side is Lyman Boulevard. You can see we’re stopping just short of Lyman Boulevard on the north end. Basically tying into the segment of 101 that was built as a part of the Trunk Highway 212 project here recently. So that’s the project and kind of narrowed it down in a little more detail. I just want to go through some specifics moving along the corridor from south to north so this is a blow-up of the southerly most part of the corridor right at Pioneer Trail. Shows that we are doing some construction on Pioneer Trail east and west of 101 as well as south on 101. That intersection today, there’s actually a pretty steep grade across Pioneer Trail. The purpose of these improvements is to get rid of that steep grade. Flatten it out. Also to help prepare 101 for the future extension to the south at some day when that would occur. Really trying to plan ahead and look at the design for what 101 may be south of Pioneer Trail at a future date. Again moving to the north, I’m not in the vicinity of thth 96 Street. A number of comments from residents along 96 Street about sight distance challenges at that intersection so we’ve been working to try to figure out the best design for that. It also shows a couple of stormwater ponds, and I don’t know if Paul you can maybe highlight those? Paul Oehme: Sure. th Jon Horn: One along the west side of 101, north of 96 Street as well as one on the south side of th 96 Street on the east side of the roadway. Those ponds will be the purpose of detaining storm water. Reducing runoff to it’s current rates as well as treatment for that storm water prior to discharge in some of the wetlands in the area. Another comment I guess in this particular area, a number of concerns from property owners along the east side of the roadway in terms of the proximity of the roadway to the backs of their properties and the concern for screening. Is there some ability to do some berming, buffering, landscaping in this area? Things that we’ll be looking for, looking at closely as the project moves forward so how best to provide some of that berming and buffering through that area. Moving to the north, the third stormwater pond, as I mentioned the three, is actually at that location which is kind of tucked in between a couple of wetlands. That again is on the west side of 101 and now we’re getting closer to the vicinity of Bandimere Park. The existing fields for Bandimere Park just to the east side of the corridor. A 6 Chanhassen City Council - August 8, 2011 lot of effort through the design process to try to minimize or eliminate any impacts to the active parts of the park. We do have a retaining wall that’s proposed to be constructed, as Paul points out there along the east side of the roadway to help minimize those impacts to Bandimere Park. And then moving to the north, you were approaching the Lyman Boulevard. A significant part of the project is the realignment of the access to Bandimere Park. A lot of concerns about that access and safety issues and sight distance issues there. This basically shows the sliding of that access driveway further to the north, aligned generally with the Wilson’s Landscaping access on the west side of the roadway. Re configuration of the access back around. It actually required the acquisition of a parcel of property of a residence actually at that location to allow that to occur. The underpass, following the cursor around at that location and that’s one that provides that pedestrian connection across 101 without an at grade crossing. Some concerns about that in particular, the west side of that underpass crossing, there’s a number of trees in that location and the possibility of reconfiguring that design to try to minimize tree impacts and again as the project moves forward that’s a concern that we would look at further as we go through the process. With that we’ll go through the details of the environmental document. Beth Kunkel: As Jon pointed out we’ve completed an EA and an EAW, combined document for the project. Because the project has federally, federal funds intended to be used we have to follow the federal process as well as the state process. This list of impacts or issue areas is the list that is addressed in both the state and the federal environmental review process. So each of these areas are covered in that document. The areas highlighted in red are the ones that we’ve identified potential impacts as a result of the project, as well as potential mitigation measures that would minimize those impacts so I’ll run through each of those. We’ll start with the water resources and wetlands. As Jon mentioned there are a number of wetlands along the corridor. Two of those wetlands are DNR protected waters, which means the DNR has jurisdiction over those and has permitting authority for any fill or activity within those wetlands. The other wetlands as well as these, the Army Corps of Engineers has jurisdiction over and require separate permits as well through their process. The amount of impact we try to minimize as part of the preliminary design process by narrowing the roadway through those major wetland areas to minimize the amount of fill within those wetlands. The amount of fill for the overall project is 2.2 acres. To put that in perspective the total right-of-way area through the corridor is roughly 29 acres. The roadway portion of the project alone has about 1 ½ acres of impact. The trail th adjacent to the roadway on both sides would roughly end up with about 7/10’s of an acre of wetland impact. The replacement plan for those wetland impacts has not been nailed down yet. That will be part of the permit process through both the City and the Army Corps and the DNR but the replacement ratios are set via State statutes and Federal law which is basically a 2 to 1 replacement ratio if you’re replacing on site or within the city or 2 ½ to 1 ration if you’re outside of basically the general wetland bank service area. So we’re anticipating potentially the State providing replacement for the roadways as it is eligible for safety improvements for the City to pick up the cost and the credits for the wetland. Impacts due to the roadway. The trail impacts would likely be picked up, or the mitigation prepared or created by the City. Another impact area, erosion control and sedimentation. This is a issue when areas are graded and you expose the soil so unvegetated areas, again the total right-of-way area is about 29 acres. We don’t anticipate the full roadway being exposed at the same time so there would be a mitigation plan through a stormwater permit and a stormwater pollution prevention plan put in place. Erosion control measures to minimize the impacts during construction. As a result of the additional 7 Chanhassen City Council - August 8, 2011 travel lanes, two additional lanes of traffic, one in each direction being added to the roadway as well as the impervious surface for the construction of the trail will result in an additional roughly 7 acres of new impervious surface to the area which will need to be treated for stormwater runoff as well as water quality. As Jon pointed out there are 3 stormwater ponds being constructed as part of the project that would meet that legal requirement through that permitting process to provide that storage and treatment requirement through that NPDES permit process. Noise I’m sure is a very top concern of the neighbors in this area so we looked at a noise analysis of what the change in the roadway would change as far as noise levels along the roadway corridor. We looked at 29 receptor sites which essentially included all the residents directly adjacent to the th roadway as well as some along 96. There’s actually a graphic here that shows the receptor locations. Each of those dots was one of the receptors identified during the, or for the noise study. These were plugged into a model to determine how that noise would carry from the reconfigured road as well as the widened road section. There’s a couple of tables here which you may not be able to read up close but they are included in the noise report which I believe is linked to the website that you can take a look at in more detail but the conclusion is basically 70 decibels is the federal threshold for noise. Most of the existing homes under existing conditions have a threshold less than 50. The increase due to the road project is less than a, in most cases less than a 5 decibel difference which is well under that 70 decibel limit. This basically says that the future noise levels will not exceed that federal threshold. Obviously that doesn’t mean that there is no noise in the corridor or there isn’t a change in noise but it’s under that threshold and therefore under federal requirements no specific noise wall or other abatement requirements are required. Jon pointed out that there will be some impacts to Bandimere Park. Again we’ve minimized to the extent possible through the use of retaining walls in the preliminary design to minimize the impact. The highest priority in looking at the impacts here was to not result in any change in the ballfield areas. The active uses within the park because those are harder to mitigate and replace someplace else. The impact areas are primarily open space, steep slopes that will be minimized through putting retaining walls along the inside of that curve. One of the things required due to the federal process is under the Section 4F requirements, that any parkland that is impacted must be replaced at a 1 to 1 ratio. The City has in it’s long term plan to add to the park two parcels, Paul you might want to point out those two parcels on the north side, that are in the long term plan to be added to the park. Part of this project would actually add one of those parcels which is needed to try to provide the access realignment as well as part of the mitigation replacement for the area in blue along the west side of the park that will be impacted by the project. So that’s the impact area and then the replacement area would be the new parcel on the north side. Obviously with widening the roadway there’s additional right-of-way that’s going to be needed for the project. Roughly 7 acres of new permanent right-of-way will be required in various strips along each side of the corridor. That affects 10 separate parcels. Drainage easements due to the need for stormwater ponds and some of the drainageways also is required. Another roughly 5 acres affecting 3 separate parcels. And then temporary construction easements during construction to get in the retaining walls and some of the other grading activities. Another 3 ½ acres affecting 11 parcels, and then the one full total of parcel purchase for the new parcel for the addition to the park. So that’s a quick overview of the actual impacts of the project of the various areas that are required to be evaluated through the State and Federal process. The purpose of tonight’s meeting is really to gain input from the public on the adequacy and the completeness of the environmental documentation. The comment period for this th environmental document last is extends through August 24. I want to make sure everybody’s 8 Chanhassen City Council - August 8, 2011 thnd aware of the 24 date. I think there was a misprint in the EQB Monitor that said the 22 but the th date is ends on a Wednesday which is August 24. The next step after the EAW comment period closes is to prepare both the Federal and the State findings documents. The Findings of Fact would be presented back to City Council for their approval of that document and the findings and approval of the environmental document. It’s not an approval of the project as a whole but just that the document is complete. The Federal process is basically would be submitted to MnDOT and FHWA as a request for a finding of no significant impact and that would be their official document and approval process and that also would come back to council. The timeline for both of those will be to be completed this fall with an anticipated approval by the end of the year. And that basically concludes our presentation. This then provides the opportunity for people to provide their comments through the public hearing so if there are any questions. Mayor Furlong: Any questions at this point? Councilman Laufenburger: I do have a question Mr. Mayor. Mayor Furlong: Councilman Laufenburger. Councilman Laufenburger: Can you, is it Beth? Beth Kunkel: Yes. Councilman Laufenburger: Can you speak to the three stormwater ponds? First of all is there current ponding occurring in that area right now? And if not, why are you selecting those particular sites and why not one larger stormwater pond? Just educate me a little bit on that if you wouldn’t mind. Beth Kunkel: I will take first shot at it and Jon you want to add a few things from an engineering standpoint but currently all three locations I believe are in upland areas. They’re not currently wetlands so there isn’t wet or water in those locations. The one pond is located between two wetlands. There’s a little bit of an upland saddle on that location. Councilman Laufenburger: Yep. That’s right adjacent to Bandimere right? On the west side of Bandimere Park? Beth Kunkel: Yes, on the west side. The other one on the west side is also adjacent to the existing wetland but it’s on an upland location so we’re not proposing any of these ponds within wetland areas. And the one on the east side is in a low depressional area but it’s not typically saturated or has standing water. There is an existing storm pipe I believe in that location that crosses the road at that location. Councilman Laufenburger: Okay. So these are stormwater ponds that will be created specifically for the purpose of allowing stormwater runoff to be temperature readied and sediment. 9 Chanhassen City Council - August 8, 2011 Paul Oehme: Rate control and water quality issues before it ends up in the discharge wetlands or in Lake Riley. Councilman Laufenburger: Okay. So the stormwater ponds are only temporary location for the water until they naturally move to either the wetlands or across 101 to Lake Riley, am I saying that correctly? Paul Oehme: Correct. Yeah, I mean it’s always our intent to treat the water. We have to treat the water if it runs off an impervious surface into water quality bodies. Stormwater ponds per se before it ends up in wetlands or lakes or streams. Those type of things. Natural features. Councilman Laufenburger: And you plan the size of these stormwater ponds to accommodate 100 year floods or something like that, is that correct? Paul Oehme: Correct. Yeah each of the ponds are designed for overflow capabilities to, then that we have a large rain event that cannot handle these type of ponds so there is overland flow associated with each of those ponds and so it doesn’t back up into structures basically. Councilman Laufenburger: Okay. Is part of the treatment also the introduction of barriers to mosquito reproduction? Paul Oehme: Not under this. Councilman Laufenburger: Alright. Mayor Furlong: That’s what the helicopters. Councilman Laufenburger: Yeah I was thinking are we going to see helicopters drop pellets into these stormwater ponds. Paul Oehme: We could. Councilman Laufenburger: Okay. That answers my question. Thank you Beth. Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council members, just to add a comment to that. Currently 101 is what we call a rural section road. There’s no curb or gutter. There may be some isolated spots for drainage purposes but this we would be introducing curb from basically just past Lyman all the way down to Pioneer and that water will then go into the different manholes and then ultimately into the ponds. Councilman Laufenburger: Okay. Mayor Furlong: And this may be a question for Ms. Aanenson and Mr. Oehme both but are the ponds being sized strictly for the roadway or are they being oversized for future development in the area or will the ponds have, will future development require them to provide their own ponding? 10 Chanhassen City Council - August 8, 2011 Paul Oehme: Future development in the area will have to require their own ponds. We don’t, we can’t anticipate what type of those developments could occur in this area. We have looked th at, especially Pond 2 here for anticipated improvements to 96 Street so future reconstruction potentially of that street. Most of that water potentially can be directed into this pond. th Mayor Furlong: And 96 is currently a rural section? th Paul Oehme: I’m sorry, yeah 96 is a rural section so we’re anticipating that that pond will be sized to accommodate those improvements along with Kiowa Trail as well. There is a portion of Kiowa Trail that drains onto 101 right now. The design that we’re looking at it calls for making those improvements to 101 to accommodate future improvements on Kiowa to take that drainage and treat that water into this pond here if and when that project would take place. Mayor Furlong: So what I’m hearing is they’re going to be sized in anticipation of future public right-of-way street improvements that are currently rural and would be, would include those, those local streets would include curb and gutter. Paul Oehme: That’s correct. Mayor Furlong: But they’re not going to be sized over that for any other private development. Paul Oehme: Not any private development. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Other questions at this point? Just a quick question on, and maybe this will come up and if we can pull up Mr. Oehme the Pioneer Trail/101 proposed intersection. It’s hard to see but it looks like there’s plans, that includes a, for southbound traffic it includes a left turn, a straight through and a right turn lane currently. Am I looking at it correctly that when improvements are made south of Pioneer Trail there’s room for right turn lanes so that we can have two through lanes? Is that, am I looking at it correctly? Paul Oehme: That’s correct. Right, yeah we’re trying to set up the intersection at this time for future improvements to the south where we don’t have to get into the intersection grades per se or move that signal system again to accommodate the improvements south on 101 so what we’re trying to do is anticipate what the future leg south of 101 would be so we don’t have to make improvements north of Pioneer Trail. Mayor Furlong: That’s why the trail kind of kicks out a little bit there on the west side? Paul Oehme: Yep. Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Any other questions at this point of staff? Let me then do a couple things. First of all we’ll open up the public hearing. To the extent there are questions raised I would ask that staff and representatives from Kimley-Horn try to respond to them as they can. I think too Ms. Hokkanen do we have a tablet of paper over on the table there? If we can get that passed out so if everybody that’s making comments here can sign up so we make sure, 11 Chanhassen City Council - August 8, 2011 do we have a pen? Is there one going around already? I don’t know sometimes it’s on that table over there. Is it? If somebody could just grab it and make sure that gets around the room please. If you haven’t signed up as being here in attendance we’d appreciate if you’d sign up. And we have on the table up here, Ms. Aanenson we have the aerial view of the project so people can point to their property or the issue and such like that. Let’s go ahead and open up the public hearing then and invite interested parties to come forward and ask questions or address the council on matters of interest. Thank you. Good evening sir. If you could state your name and address for the record as well, we’d appreciate it. Dave Wondra: My name’s Dave Wondra and I live at 9590 Foxford Road and want to comment on three subjects. The first, the additional right-of-way and temporary easement that affects our property. Then tree removal and then berming is the third thing. If you could, for the sake of us. Kate Aanenson: We’re not getting this camera to work. Dave Wondra: Okay. You want me to. Paul Oehme: Why don’t we just use the power point. Mayor Furlong: That’s fine. Sometimes it’s just helpful for us to understand where your property is, I’m sorry to interrupt. Okay. Dave Wondra: Good to go? Okay. Well we’ve worked really hard to take good care of our land and from the start we wanted to be, use a real sustainable environmentally friendly approach so what we did is we installed prairie and we did it 19 years ago and we have about 2 acres of prairie on our property and then 2 of our neighbors also joined in and so we have about 5 acres that goes across all of our combined properties and it took substantial investment in terms of effort and funding over a lot of years to get it established and up and going and our efforts have paid off. Our prairie’s an early example of how to successfully incorporate prairie restoration to the landscape. It’s been photographed by Nature Conservancy. Featured in two books on native landscaping. Been in numerous newspaper, magazine articles and the U of M stops out from time to time to do research on how it’s coming along. Due to this project approximately 25% of the prairie will be destroyed and it’s because of the, mostly because of the temporary easement. And while the easement is temporary, the impact has a very long term effect. It will take many years and a substantial investment of both time and money to essentially restore the restoration. So I know the City supports prairie restoration and appreciates the environmental benefit of this approach to landscaping and my request is that the City consider other approaches to still do what’s needed for temporary easement, that we find a way that that doesn’t take the prairie out. Second subject, trees. Judging by the plans we’ve seen, there’s literally hundreds of trees that will be removed from our neighborhood. In our case there are over 100 trees on our property alone, and besides the natural beauty they also serve as a visual screen for us against 101. It’s our understanding that the City will be replacing some number of trees and we look forward to learning how many, what kind and what size. And the last is on the berming. Due to changes in elevation along the proposed road, and anticipated increases in traffic, there will be substantially more noise generated by the highway and while I appreciate that the study says that noise will be under acceptable levels, that’s the same of saying, same thing as saying it’s okay to raise 12 Chanhassen City Council - August 8, 2011 pollution up to legal levels. Right now it’s relatively quiet in our neighborhood. This will no doubt unequivocally raise noise so while we appreciate that it’s legal, it will have a substantial change and have substantial significant impact to us. In talking with Paul he said the City is open to discussing a berm through that area and our request is that we have an agreement on berming prior to the project being bid so that we have some assurance that, that noise will be an acceptable level. Thank you. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Do you want to address any of those items as we move along here or? Paul Oehme: Sure. Just. Mayor Furlong: And can we get up the power point at least so we can see about where along the corridor his property is located. Paul Oehme: The Wondra’s property I believe is right here. Mayor Furlong: Is that correct? Dave Wondra: Yep. Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Paul Oehme: So the specifically with respect to the berm that he had talked about, the City staff is open to evaluating and looking at potential construction of a berm to alleviate some of the potential noise impacts and headlight issues that potentially can take place, especially on the curved portion of 101 so we’re looking at address, trying to address that upfront. I think the time to start talking about that and working through that process is when the right-of-way acquisitions are necessary and trying to incorporate that into the temporary easements that would potentially be needed for the, for those improvements to take place. In terms of the prairie issue, that’s kind of a new one to me. That’s the first I’ve heard of that. There is you know prairie restoration contractors that we can talk to to try to either restore what the impacts are out there, or you know try to, I mean we can talk to our contractor who’s out there to try to mitigate as much of the impacts as possible when the construction’s taking place so I think we can work with the property owners in trying to address both of those issues. In terms of tree replacement, you know we have been talking to MnDOT and Carver County about doing some sort of tree replacement package with this project. Our anticipation is to have somewhat of a reforestation component to the project. At this time we do not have a plan at this time. That typically comes through in the final design stage of the process so that’s our goal. That’s the, what we’re trying to work towards. Mayor Furlong: Couple questions that come to mind. I know having driven this corridor in th terms of topography, you know there’s a hill there and 96 you come down below around. We’re going to be, as a part of this project it will be seeking to level and straighten the road. Paul Oehme: Yep. 13 Chanhassen City Council - August 8, 2011 Mayor Furlong: As a part of that. Paul Oehme: Absolutely. Mayor Furlong: Where is the alignment of the road going to be relative to the homes on the east side? Is it going to be above? Below? About the same? Paul Oehme: On the east side. Jon can you help me. Mayor Furlong: Maybe it’s a question of topography there as we’re looking at. Paul Oehme: It kind of moves around in this area so. Mayor Furlong: Right. Okay. And maybe that’s the answer. Jon Horn: Some it will, some it won’t. th Paul Oehme: Yeah it’s kind of, this area it’s high at the intersection of 96 Street and then it kind of comes down. Mayor Furlong: As you go north? Paul Oehme: As you go north there so in terms of where it’s higher than the property, existing properties to the east and lower, I think we can try to address that and try to get back to you. Mayor Furlong: As you look at some of these suggestions or ideas in terms of noise or, especially noise. I mean it seems to me that the relationship between the road and the homes would really suggest whether or not a berm would be effective at all or not, right? Paul Oehme: Right. Mayor Furlong: So is that something you’re going to look at and whether. Paul Oehme: Yep. Mayor Furlong: Proposed improvement or action might be effective. Paul Oehme: Yeah, in this particular case and I know we had looked at cross sections earlier on and I do believe that a berm in this area will help alleviate some of those concerns. Mayor Furlong: And that’s fine. If we can look at those as options in the areas where they allow but I hate to think that we’re just to throw berms everywhere because. Paul Oehme: No. 14 Chanhassen City Council - August 8, 2011 Mayor Furlong: …noise they’re not going to do any good. Paul Oehme: Exactly and in this particular instance, in this part of the project it does seem to make sense that we can take a look at adding that type of future. Mayor Furlong: Alright, thank you. Others who would like to address the council this evening. We have time for everybody. Good evening. Jamie Heilicher: My name is Jamie Heilicher, 9280 Kiowa Trail. Mainly we’re looking at a situation, we’ve been living there for 25 years and obviously the added traffic on 101 is, has become an issue and always has been. We’re more concerned about the concept that the City Council looks at which is widening Kiowa Trail and creating a through street for Kiowa to 101 from the development of Springfield and properties to the north of Springfield. The concern obviously is that opening up Kiowa Trail, which is now a dead end street and always has been, to a through street will create a significant amount of additional traffic for all of those people looking to go south on 101 and rather than go up to Lyman and to 101 and south, they’ll come through our neighborhood and ultimately end up on 101 with a short cut so it’s a concern that we have as residents of Kiowa Trail. The consideration would be, if we’re looking at trying to mitigate the wetlands and what’s being taken as a alternative to widening Kiowa Trail and creating a through street would be to dead end Kiowa Trail at 101 giving you the opportunity to narrow 101 down to only two lanes without having to create turn lanes and everything else and moving Kiowa Trail, which only has 20 homes through Springfield to Lyman which you know I mean obviously we’d rather keep it the way it is and keep it a dead end street, but given the fact that it’s likely that if 101 is modified, they will end up creating a through street on Kiowa, thus creating a lot of traffic so it’s a consideration to you know look at because then you’re taking a lot less wetlands as you make that turn a lot less work. A much less expensive alternative to creating a larger intersection at the end of Kiowa Trail. Obviously you know there’s 20 homes that would have to drive through Springfield but you know from both standpoints it protects us from having a through street and possibly saves the City some money and some wetland areas. Thank you. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Excuse me sir, if you could come to the podium. State your name and address if you would. I just want to see if there’s any comments at this point on that or should we continue the public hearing? Paul Oehme: Yeah, under this project we’re not anticipating, we’re not looking at connecting Kiowa Trail to Springfield to the north there. That’s a completely separate item at this time. The City does in our ordinance try to limit the length of cul-de-sacs to a specific length so that’s, that’s for a future decision I think. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright, thank you. Others that would like to discuss. Sir. If you’d like to or anyone else. If you could come to the podium please. Jack Bell: I’m Jack Bell. I live on Kiowa Trail. Just with the safety issue and Kiowa Trail with the cars coming off onto the highway…you block that off, open up the other end I tell you it’s 15 Chanhassen City Council - August 8, 2011 bad now getting on and if you’re directing traffic left and right off of Kiowa Trail, a bad, I think that would be really trouble there. Mayor Furlong: Thank you for your comments. Mr. Bell your address on Kiowa Trail? Jack Bell: 9371 Kiowa. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Dan Horsfall: Good evening. My name Dan Horsfall and I live next door to Dave. 9610 Foxford. On one of the maps that has all the property parcels identified, I’m number 12. I hope my comments are not out of place at this point. This is the first opportunity that I’ve been aware of for public comment on the design as well. Not only the environmental worksheet. I mean there have been open houses but that hasn’t been the same thing as coming before you with design questions as well. And my first question is actually you know with design issues, since the State and the Federal governments are providing most of the money here, does the City effect have any authority to mandate design changes? Mayor Furlong: Mr. Oehme. Or Mr. Horn. Paul Oehme: Since we are on the parties involved with the, in the improvements and we do have some authority in terms of design criteria’s and other aspects of the project. In terms of you know MnDOT requirements for site distances and pavement sections that the County’s going to require, you know those type of things we don’t have too much jurisdiction over. We do have jurisdiction over stormwater quality and quantity components but in terms of design criteria’s, alignments and you know how those things are laid out, you know we have limited, limited recourse I guess. Mayor Furlong: And I guess to add to the confusion, while the City is the organization that’s leading this project, it’s currently a State road that will become a County road and it’s being funded by Federal and State dollars. Is that correct? Jon Horn: Correct. Mayor Furlong: So okay, so other than the school district I think we’ve got you covered…so if you’ve got some questions let’s get them out and we can try to figure out what we can do. Dan Horsfall: Well thank you very much. I wanted to make sure that this wasn’t, you know wasn’t a done deal already and we’re just here for the exercise. I think it’s a wonderful idea that, you know I understand the benefit of moving the Bandimere Park access. I think there’s a great benefit to straightening the road. I think there’s a great benefit to leveling the road. There’s an awful lot of accidents where people simply fall off the edge of the road down there at the bottom of that curve. That’s a good idea if we can fix that. What I would like to challenge is the benefit of widening the road from 3 lanes, or to 5 lanes particularly when you consider all of the assorted costs. We’re not sure that that’s been done yet in terms of costs, not just in dollars and cents for developing the road itself but dollars, but costs to the adjacent property owners. You know 16 Chanhassen City Council - August 8, 2011 we’re going to have increased noise. Increased traffic. You know all of these things. You’ve considered them. Substantial tree loss and consequent loss of property value and things like that and so with respect to the last point we see great incremental cost and almost no benefit to the extra lanes. The 5 lane freeway just really isn’t justifiable you know. Straightening the road, yes. Leveling the road, yes. Widening the road, not necessary I don’t think. At least not yet. Not in my opinion. Besides that I have an additional point. Along with all the other problems that we’re trying to solve, I have a problem with this road. It takes me too long to get from the top to the bottom. If you imagine driving from Lyman Boulevard to downtown Shakopee, you’ve got to wind down the hill and wait for the light at Pioneer Trail and you’ve got to wind down 101 and wait for 2 or 3 lights to get through at Tri-Y. Okay and adding another lane doesn’t solve that. Adding another lane doesn’t solve the end to end travel time so there’s a problem in my opinion that hasn’t even been looked at or hasn’t even been considered. Or maybe has been considered and was dismissed. I’ll give you that. But to me it’s a problem that another argument that the 5 lane design adds additional cost and no benefit. So I would request from the City another alternative. This is not the preferred alternative for me. There’s not only two. Where it said no build versus 5 lane freeway, those are not the only two alternatives. You know there has to be another alternative somewhere in the middle. I’m willing to compromise. I think a 3 lane road with turn lanes accomplishes nearly all that you want to accomplish at far less cost. I’d like to consider other alternatives or I’d like to at least hear some of them discussed you know. Perhaps if the road was narrower it could even be straighter. You know take a little bit more out of the inside of the S curves. Do we really need a 10 foot bike lane on both sides of the road? Could the project be done in multiple phases? My understanding that the follow-up project going southbound from Pioneer Trail down to Shakopee is so far out in the future as to be completely invisible. Can we phase this? Can we have phase I be a 3 lane road and hold off on adding the other 2 lanes until the rest of the project is ready to build? Yes I know we want a major connection from 212 to Shakopee or from Chanhassen to Shakopee but until the last section is complete there’s no point on them working on this section and making this section a 5 lane freeway. So open end questions. They’re not have to be answered tonight but those are my concerns. I’d really like to work with you on a mutually agreeable design that doesn’t necessarily involve turning this road into a freeway at this point. Thank you. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council, if I may. Paul or Jon, could you talk a little bit about the schedule. This is the public hearing for the environmental review portion of it but we will be having citizen input on the design aspect also down the line. Can you give, the public a little update on the schedule. Jon Horn: Yeah correct. What’s been done to date Mayor and Council is the development of a preliminary alignment for the purposes of looking at the environmental impacts associated with that. That’s the process we’re going through tonight. The purpose of tonight’s meeting is really to get comment and feedback from the residents and property owners in the area to better understand what those concerns are. Ultimately over the next few months we’ll be working to try to address those comments and ultimately be back to the council to make a decision on the environmental impacts associated with the project. If the project then moves forward from there we would be going through a preliminary design process which would allow for additional 17 Chanhassen City Council - August 8, 2011 public involvement process there as well and then that final design process really wouldn’t be done until close to the end of 2012 so we really have you know a year and a quarter, year and a half still of work ahead of us still ultimately before we come up with the final design and start construction. Todd Gerhardt: As a part of the environmental assessment portion of this we want to hear everybody’s feedback, even on the design but right now we have looked at the ultimate so it would give us the impact environmentally to the area. Jon Horn: Correct. And the environmental document does include a traffic analysis so in terms of some additional background information on how we got to a 4 lane roadway versus a 2 lane roadway, there’s some documentation information in the environmental document on that. A lot of conversations tonight about the fact that MnDOT and Carver County are involved as well so this is something that the City needs to work with as partners as well to try to come up with the design that’s currently a trunk highway, ultimately a turn back to Carver County and will be their roadway as well so those are all issues in terms of responding to Mr. Horsfall’s comments, those are things we’re going to have to look into. But again that’s what we’re here for tonight. Get comments. We’ll be addressing those comments as a part of the EAW document process. Mayor Furlong: Other comments. Sure. Tim Erhart: I’m Tim Erhart, 9611 Meadowlark Lane in Chanhassen. Honorable Mayor and council people. Persons. Thanks for the opportunity to speak. I’ve lived in this area 30 years. 31 years now. Very familiar with the area. Jon I give you credit. You hit all the negative points on your first power point slide. I think all of us in the area know and agree with you on that but you missed one major point in this area. It’s probably one of the most beautiful and interesting one mile section of roadway in Chanhassen and I think it’s one of the reasons that we enjoy living in this area so much and not to take away the need to improve it’s performance as a road. We don’t want to be left with essentially a, just a construction site when we’re all done and I’m concerned that you use the word mitigate on one of your following slides but I don’t, I’m not sure what this is going to look like when it’s done. Could I ask you to kind of you know what we all live with in 101 is a wall of trees on both sides from Bandimere Park to Pioneer Trail. Could you explain or what the tree removal is? When I talk about the wall of trees on both sides, what is the tree removal plan and what’s going to be left in your mind today? Jon Horn: Yeah in terms of specifics, the layout that shows on the power point, if we could get the overhead to work, actually shows what’s been identified as the preliminary construction limits. I don’t know Paul if you can kind of point that out. It shows that kind of red in there. Through the preliminary design process we’ve looked for ways to try to minimize those impacts in terms of what the limits are of construction. As it has been mentioned earlier tonight there will be tree impacts associated with that as preliminary design process moves forward. We want to identify the specifics on all those tree impacts and removals as well as to try to come up with plans to mitigate that. A long corridor, I know a very wide corridor in terms of trying to get into all the specifics tonight. If you have a specific area in particular? I mean it’s hard to say. 18 Chanhassen City Council - August 8, 2011 Tim Erhart: Oh specifically I’m thinking of the west side there through the whole curve, between the curve and the pond. I mean there’s hundreds of oaks on that hill that I believe are all going to be gone or not? Jon Horn: Yeah Paul can you maybe go to the next. Yeah, there you go. Maybe highlight or circle, follow the construction limit line. Paul Oehme: On the west side here so it’s this. Todd Gerhardt: Jon so you’re saying anything inside that red line. Jon Horn: Inside of that will be the limits of construction. Todd Gerhardt: Will be grubbed out and graded for slopes and ponds like any roadway. Jon Horn: Yeah and I think maybe Mr. Erhart, correct me if I’m wrong, your specific question is relative to where that stormwater pond is proposed. Tim Erhart: Yeah and south. South. Jon Horn: South of there. th Tim Erhart: Yeah that’s all wooded from there all the way to West 96 or. th Paul Oehme: Yeah, West 96. Tim Erhart: Yeah so that’s all wooded today. That’s all oaks in that area. Steep hill. I gather those are all being removed? Jon Horn: A number of those will be. Tim Erhart: Is the east? Okay so let’s finish that area. That area is all being removed I believe, correct? Jon Horn: Inside that dashed, inside that dashed line. Tim Erhart: All the mature trees. Well even north of that. Paul Oehme: Even north of there? Tim Erhart: Yeah. That’s well then, that stretch, that’s all being removed correct? Jon Horn: That’s generally pretty close. There’s a wetland in there and that’s generally very close to the edge of that existing wetland. 19 Chanhassen City Council - August 8, 2011 Tim Erhart: No but it’s a wall of trees and from there to the south to your proposed wetland, that’s all mature oaks. Todd Gerhardt: Jon, is that the existing right-of-way line? The red line. Is there any additional easements that need to be purchased in that area? Jon Horn: There is correct. Tim Erhart: Yeah I know and again it’s not an issue. So then let’s go on the east side. Right now you start with Bandimere Park. There’s trees that were planted there when the park was built going all the way south. There’s a stand of mature trees along the hill where your pointer is and then into your neighborhood. Are those trees going? Staying? Audience: Yeah. All going. Tim Erhart: Everything’s gone so we’re taking this beautiful one mile section and flattening it like a tornado. Like a tornado going through there and it begs another question is that’s bothered me more recently and I’ve talked to Paul about it is, as I started thinking about that I wonder why we have, we have one retail, commercial entrance on 212 into Chanhassen. It’s on 212 and 101. It’s kind of where people get off if they want to go into town from the east certainly and there’s no, there’s been no replanting since 101 was done there either from approximately Lake Susan all the way down to Lyman and you know I think we all hoped that there would be some construction going on in that area and maybe that would bring some replanting of trees but with the economy today who knows. You know I guess what I’m asking Jon your group and the City Council and the County if they’re listening is that you know we need to think about what we’re taking away and putting in a plan to try to truly mitigate what we’re taking away from this area. And moreover to look at our entranceway into Chanhassen from the east and that whole 101/212 intersection here. You know we’ve got areas that are nearly invisible to the public. Audubon and some of the streets that go past General Mills over there where we put beautiful boulevard trees in those areas when those streets were constructed and I think this area certainly deserves as much consideration as those streets. So I’m just asking for you know let’s give this consideration that I think this area deserves for making it beautiful. I’d like to see in 30 years that this looks like Dell Road and with that is they have a wall of trees there. It’s a 4 lane road with a median and bike, 10 foot bike trails on either side I believe and I’d like to see us start moving forward on that. Mayor Furlong: I guess Mr. Horn a question I’d have is, the current plan for mitigation and tree removal, what is in the plan? I don’t know if you’ve seen that or not. Jon Horn: Yeah, and Mayor based upon Mr. Erhart’s comments it sounds like you know again the purpose for tonight is to gather comments. Based upon the comments it sounds like we needed to do a better job for the neighbors identifying what those tree impacts would be in a little more detail as well as provide a response in terms of what the mitigation measures are in response to that and that’s something as a part of our comments to the comments tonight we will address as a part of that environmental document. 20 Chanhassen City Council - August 8, 2011 Mayor Furlong: Okay. Tim Erhart: Okay, thank you. Doug Duchon: Mr. Mayor, council members. Mayor Furlong: Good evening. Doug Duchon: My name is Doug Duchon. I’m at 9630 Foxford Road. I can show it up here on the overhead. I’m one of those on the east side. I’m at that property right there and I think a lot of people have stated a lot of the things that I had prepared and have gone through it so I’m going to go through the same issues but I do voice the same concerns. With my property I will be impacted what I consider significantly. You ask the question about what trees are being removed. If you walk along that path that goes along the back side of my property there are spruce trees there that are 30-40 feet tall. They would be specimen trees. I could see them being on the Capitol lawn for a Christmas tree and that’s probably where they’ll end up. I’m not sure but if it goes through. Basically the back side of my property when I moved in there 22 years ago was very limited vegetation and as part of, one of the things I did to beautify my property in conjunction with the people that put in prairie, I worked on that as well, I put in trees and a lot of those trees were planted back 22 years ago. Moved in there to protect myself from the road and to take and beautify that section of it and the with the way it is right now and the alignment of the road, all those trees, my entire back property and I went back there and measured and my wife went back there and actually measured girth on the trees to identify what those trees were and we’ll lose in excess of 75 trees. So that back side. I will also lose approximately a third of an acre of property for that, and that’s just on my property. The next adjacent property, which has a direct impact on me as well, has the settling pond in it, and somebody asked the question what’s a settling pond for? What does it do? And right now it does drain off. That’s a dry area down there. In fact I mow grass down there for my neighbor and my neighbors are having some problems. They’re not going to be here to speak so I’ll try to speak on their behalf. In that property basically gets cut in half. They lose half of their property for a settling pond to be in that condition or in that location, and this is an area that’s drained and it drains on it’s own. It’s dry continuously. That pond, if you imagine it, you say what do these ponds look like? All you have to do is drive down 212. Look off to the sides on 101. You see those little algae and the scum on the top. You can imagine going out there and walking the back of that prairie or even walking on that trail and having the mosquitoes eat you alive or carry you off. So that area for it I would ask consideration for finding other ways to drain that water or move that water. It’s moving right now. There was a culvert that was put in. We haven’t had any problems. The other area or the other concern is, is the safety that’s involved with that as well. That’s right next to a trail. There’s water there. There’s kids that go by that trail all the time. We have kids in our back yard. We have a swing set that’s out there very close and I’d be concerned about those kids getting into that pond or having problems with that pond. So I think the questions that were asked, I think Dan asked a very good question. I come from an engineering background and typically when I do projects I get asked what are all the options? How do you know what the best option is? I know there’s other options that have been looked at but from this one we haven’t seen anything smaller and looking at it, 5 lanes of highway in one of the most beautiful areas that I know of. This is one of the things that I come home at night. I drive through that 21 Chanhassen City Council - August 8, 2011 section. After seeing this I sit down and imagine what it looks like. You can imagine it next time you drive down there. Take the left hand, or I’m sorry. The west side of the road. Clean th that off. You will look across that pond. You will see the houses on 96 Street. There’ll be nothing across that marshland. That will extend up into my property on the other side and it will be just a prairie grassland that exists so once you clean out that entire corridor of the trees, you’ve basically lost the character of a section, a piece of Chanhassen that I think is extremely important. And I feel that we should take and at least discuss how we can make that safer. I understand that but also to accommodate the other people, the beauty of our city. When you look at it, it’s an extremely wide street. I think the width of it will also encourage, you say I will build it they will come. As you build that, there’s going to be more and more traffic. And there’s going to be significantly more traffic. Another concern that I have on it is, that road right now is posted or is intended to be a 40 miles an hour road. I would expect that through the lifetime of that road that it’s maintained at 40 miles an hour, and I’m going to guess that with widening that road and just knowing that section, that the speeds will increase and continue to increase. We’ll also get a lot more truck traffic so I would ask that you go back and look at it. Right now we’ve got two bike lanes on there. I walk out on the bike path. I talk to people on my bike path. I’ve never seen a congested area on there where they’ve had to go and pass or say I’ve got to move to the other side of the road. A 10 foot wide bike path on one side would be sufficient. At least preserve a little bit of the area. So I guess in concluding I’d like to ask a couple things. One, that you consider re-evaluate. Go back and look at preserving the beauty of Chanhassen. That little stretch of road. It’s a one mile section and I consider it paradise on my way home from work. Being able to look at it. Being able to say I go into this little reserve. Hop back out again and hopefully we can preserve a section of that. That when you look at it and considering it, you look at the sight lines. You say it’s not just about putting in a road. Creating some more concrete. More asphalt and saying yeah, we can pump a lot more people through there but you preserve the character of it. I would ask that the City, and this is one of the things that I felt very strongly about within Chanhassen is that you have the desire to have an environment that’s very good. Very impactful to the people that are around it. You have ordinances there looking at trees saying that if you take trees out, you’d better put them back. What we’re seeing within this project is literally taking out thousands of trees, and some of these are mature oaks. There’s a mature spruce in there. It’s a beautiful place and you’re just taking those away and saying hey, you know what. Concrete, asphalt, they rule. I would also like to see the bike path removed on it. On one side. I understand about the noise. We’ve talked about that. Focus on safety and in that safety making sure that we maintain that 40 miles an hour. It’s an important thing and I know that coming across the freeway over on this side, it’s up to 45 and I can see that as the State looks at it again they say hey, you know what? That corridor’s worth a 50 or 55. Each one of those creates more safety issues as well in that you have a path next to it. So with that I would like you all, I thank you all for taking the time to listen to me. I am kind of choked up about it. I apologize but. Becky Duchon: We appreciate you as city officials listening to us and we appreciate you representing us and our concerns. Doug Duchon: Thank you. Mayor Furlong: Very good, thank you. 22 Chanhassen City Council - August 8, 2011 David Blanski: I’m David Blanski. I live at 9350 Great Plains Boulevard. I’ve been there for 30 plus years. Getting kind of elderly. My hearing is failing a little bit. The young lady when you gave your presentation did you say the decibels were going to increase by 5? Beth Kunkel: Less than 5 in most cases. David Blanski: Okay, and what is the baseline now? Beth Kunkel: In the 45 to 50 decibel right now. David Blanski: Okay. It’s been a long time since I was in high school but a 5 decibel increase is not a simple arithmetic percentage increase is it? It is an algebraic increase. How much of an increase is that really? And I know there are charts like a railroad train or different things or birds, what difference will there really be in the noise? Audience: Just from a…point of physics there’s a pressure level…I’m sorry. Mayor Furlong: It may be the same answer but let’s let the consultants respond to the question. Beth Kunkel: Decibels are on a logarithmic scale. Generally a 3 decibel increase is considered a doubling of the noise at the same distance. So a 5 decibel increase, actually up to 3 decibels is not considered perceptible according to federal guidelines. Anything above and beyond 3 decibels is considered a perceptible noise change. Put it in perspective again 70 decibels for daytime noise is considered the threshold at the federal level. The table shows that most of the existing residences along the corridor in that 45 and some into the 55 decibel categories at their specific, the distance from their, the road to their home. So that’s, I don’t know does that answer your question? David Blanski: Did I understand you to say that at 3 decibel increase was a double of the noise? Beth Kunkel: I want to correct that. I believe it’s a 10 decibel increase is a doubling of the noise. 3 decibel is where it’s perceptible. 3 decibel increase is where it’s perceptible. David Blanski: Thank you. I just wanted to be sure that people understood that it wasn’t simple to figure. I’ve had quite a bit of experience with berms over the years because I permitted a number of mining sites and people were always interested in noise and I hope people understand that simply building a berm does not eliminate the noise. It may protect their home if they’re directly behind the berm, but the people in the next block may have considerably increased noise. We had locations where people couldn’t hear our rock crushers until we put in the berms and then they heard them 2 ½ miles away so the berm or wall is not necessarily the solution. On my side I’ve been watering some old oaks. I think 3 of them would be gone. I’m sure they’re all over 100 years old. Number of elms in there too. I hate to see those go. Actually the traffic since the roadway was improved the last time has been reduced because the people that were coming down that now take Powers to get on, and I don’t know if you’ve done any traffic counts. I know from going to the mailbox a couple times a day, it’s a lot easier to get across the street. 23 Chanhassen City Council - August 8, 2011 Another gentleman commented on the speed. I agree with that 100% because most the people going by are going 50 miles an hour and if you want safety, get the sheriff to enforce the speed limits there. I don’t know if it’s an environmental issue or not but I question the need for the tunnel. I don’t think I hardly ever see anybody walking to the Bandimere Park and I live right across the street. Do you folks in the audience see the need for the tunnel? Is someone in favor of it? Mayor Furlong: Sir, if you can address your comments and questions here. David Blanski: Okay, well would you gentlemen look into the need for the tunnel. Mayor Furlong: To the extent you’ve mentioned it, I’m sure it will be a part of the report. David Blanski: Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Appreciate your comments. Sharon Gatto: Good evening. I’m Sharon Gatto at 9631 Foxford. Mayor Furlong: Good evening. Sharon Gatto: So I’m in the neighborhood that’s east of the 101 but I’m not adjacent to 101, so the impact to me is I’m worried why we moved into this area. We moved in because we were still rural. We have trees. You drive your motorcycle up and down 101 and it’s just beautiful. Whether you’re going south or you’re going north. It’s beautiful. And I understand development because our development, we have 2 ½ acres. We were developed 20 years ago so we ruined some farmland because of our development but it seems like every city wants to tear down everything that’s beautiful and put in development. I don’t know if it’s tax money but they want to develop every little corner of the beautiful country we have here in Chanhassen and I wanted to know, now that Powers is done why do we even need this? I drive 101 minimum of twice a day. To and from work and weekends all day long. I don’t see a problem with one lane going each direction. I don’t see a problem. What I see a problem with some of the curves. People can take Powers if that bothers them in the winter, let them take Powers. We finished Powers off. Why do we have to look like Powers? That’s what it’s going to look like. It’s pretty naked and on both sides. Thank you. Mayor Furlong: Anyone else who would like to provide public comment. Good evening sir. Bob Haak: My name is Bob Haak. I live 770 Pioneer Trail. Could we see the picture of the plat. I live a ways off 101 but it affects me directly and the reason it does, it’s the photograph. Do you mind if I point out where I live? Mayor Furlong: Sure. Bob Haak: I live I believe it’s right here. Okay when I look in my, when I look from my back yard to the east, to the north or to the south across Pioneer Trail, all the water that’s generated in 24 Chanhassen City Council - August 8, 2011 that area comes through my property. Every bit of it. It comes from the other side of 101. Fox whatever, Gagne’s old property. My concern is adding a roadway will add to that water. Right now when I get, when we get 2 or 3 inches of rain, 60% of my property and my neighbor’s properties to the east are under water. And so I certainly like the idea of a holding pond. My question is though how much water goes into the holding pond before it overflows and then come, finds it way through my property? I really think something needs to be looked at with regard to that. I do like the idea of upgrading 101 but, and I do think some of the points that were made this evening were very valid with regard to trees, properties. I’m a bicyclist and I would like to see bike paths on both sides but the water’s my main concern. It has gotten worst over the years. I was at council meetings in the late 90’s. The City said we need to do something and it just kind of stopped there so anyway, do we have a specific idea how much rain it would take for the holding pond to overflow? Any idea? I don’t need an answer tonight. Mayor Furlong: Mr. Horn? Jon Horn: Yeah, Mayor and council those are good comments. We weren’t aware of that. Those are things we can look into further but generally we mentioned the 3 stormwater ponds. The purpose for those 3 stormwater ponds is they basically take all runoff from the new roadway. Route it into a stormwater pond at which point it would be stored or attenuated so that the discharge would be less than or equal to the pre-rates before the construction. So the stormwater ponds, basically one of the purposes of those is to make sure we’re discharging a rate that’s less than it is today. Mayor Furlong: Okay so right now when it rains, anything that hits the road or anywhere else just runs off. Jon Horn: Goes through ditches and then ultimately into the wetland system. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Jon Horn: After construction everything would be picked up by a pipe system. Routed to ponds where it would be stored, attenuated and then ultimately discharged to the similar locations. Mayor Furlong: Okay. At a rate that’s equal to or less than. Jon Horn: Or less than, yep. Mayor Furlong: The current flow. Okay. Bob Haak: Thank you. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Todd Gerhardt: Jon, Mayor. Mayor Furlong: Yes. 25 Chanhassen City Council - August 8, 2011 Todd Gerhardt: Jon, you can put a graph together to show the drainage of this area. Where the water’s going to flow. Where the emergency overflow from the pond, where that water will go. So as we get more detail on this plan we can put a graph together to show that. Jon Horn: Right and correct and there is also information within the current environmental document that provides additional details on that so if anybody wants to understand that better they can certainly go look at the document and it provides additional background information. Mayor Furlong: And if they have questions on what’s in the document, direct them to Mr. Oehme first and then if you can answer them you will, otherwise we’ll get others involved. Paul Oehme: Absolutely. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Thank you. Todd Gerhardt: Maybe we can bring Bob’s daughter back and she can educate everybody on water flowage. Kathy Horsfall: I’m Kathy Horsfall, 9610 Foxford Road. I think everyone has eloquently said most of what I wanted to say already but I did have one specific question aside from the fact that, do we really need a 5 lane freeway with bike paths on both sides for the foreseeable future that will only lead to Halla? So that’s my question first. But secondly I would like to know on the noise measurements, were those made at ground level or at house level? Beth Kunkel: I don’t remember the exact height but noise levels essentially I think it’s 4 ½ feet, which is roughly 4 or 5 ½ feet roughly ear level in the front yard of all the residences. Kathy Horsfall: In the front yard. Beth Kunkel: Well, the side of the yard closest to the road. Kathy Horsfall: Okay because my concern is that of course 101 and most of our homes are up on a hill and we’re you know 2 ½ stories above that on our bedroom and in the winter we notice a definite increase in noise as the trees lose their leaves so if the trees are totally gone, it’s going to be even more dramatic and I would like to know if there’s a way to measure that affect at the level at which we actually live, not where we mow the lawn. Beth Kunkel: The details of the noise analysis are in a noise report which might answer a lot of those questions if you want to look at the details. Kathy Horsfall: Because I appreciated the comment about them being logarithmic. We notice right in the winter. Other than that I think everybody’s said everything I wanted to say. Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. 26 Chanhassen City Council - August 8, 2011 thth Carol Dunsmore: Carol Dunsmore, 730 West 96 Street. West 96 Street and 101 is probably the most dangerous, one of the most dangerous intersections in the city, if anybody’s familiar. If th anybody’s coming northbound on 101, trying to take a left turn onto West 96 Street. I have a F250 truck and if I wasn’t up that high in that truck there’s no way I would make a left on that street. I would go all the way north, up to Bandimere and go through Bandimere and come back th south and take a right on West 96. I refuse to even take my horse trailer empty with no horses th in it and go north on 101 and take a left on West 96 so I think this project is fantastic that they’re trying to straighten out that curve a little bit there. Trying to shave down a hill. I can’t th wait. It’s just you know we’ve been so fortunate of all the people on West 96 Street and I’ve been there 31 years also, that no one’s been killed and so I’m really looking forward to that. Making it 4 lanes, I don’t understand that at all. I would like to know if a 3 lane was ever looked th at. We definitely need a left turn lane and a right turn lane onto West 96 and the other streets also on 101, but 4 lanes and with a concrete divider is just like way too much. I agree, like the gal had said about Powers Boulevard. Do we want another Powers Boulevard? I mean I know they’re not going to be able to straighten it that much but the beauty of 101 with it’s curves and it’s hills is so astonishing and Mr. Erhart’s comments on the loss of those trees along there, I hope all of you get a chance to drive down there a couple times. The mass of trees that have been there like 30, 40, 50 years and the bike trail along the east side of 101 as you get closer to Pioneer, the most beautiful, majestic pines that are so huge. It’s like you’re biking up north through the pines. It is just awesome so the loss of trees, that needs to be seriously, seriously looked at. It’s the noise and then it’s quiet. It’s just so quiet biking through those trees. It’s just awesome so I would like to find out you know why the 3 lane road wouldn’t work where you’ve got the center lane for your turns. It’s just like yeah, we don’t want another Powers Boulevard coming down there. It’s just stark. It’s bare. It’s ugly as sin so anyway, that’s my comments. Thank you. Mayor Furlong: Other comments. Any other comments or questions. Tonight at the public hearing. As I understood it, and let me make sure I’ve got the dates right. The public comment period, even after tonight, we’ll close out the public hearing when everybody’s done but public comments can still be made in written form, is that correct Mr. Horn? th Jon Horn: Correct. Up until August 24. Mayor Furlong: And those should be submitted to Mr. Oehme I think was the address with the information here. Jon Horn: Correct. Mayor Furlong: So if people have questions or if they have other comments or if they want to reinforce their comments tonight with written comments they’re welcome to do that as well. Is that correct? Paul Oehme: That’s correct. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Anybody else wish to speak this evening at the public hearing? If not, is there a motion to close the public hearing. 27 Chanhassen City Council - August 8, 2011 Councilwoman Ernst: So moved. Mayor Furlong: Motion’s been made to close the public hearing. Is there a second? Councilwoman Tjornhom: Second. Mayor Furlong: Motion’s been seconded. Any discussion? Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilwoman Tjornhom seconded to close the public hearing. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0. The public hearing was closed. Mayor Furlong: Thank you everybody for your comments. We appreciate it. I know that staff and our consultants will take those under advisement and work with you as well on those questions. As we continue on now with the next item on our agenda. We’re going to keep moving here so if you have conversations you want to take them out to the hallway, we’d appreciate it so we can keep moving. We have consideration of amendments to Chapter 20 of our zoning codes. CITY CODE AMENDMENT: CONSIDER AMENDMENT TO CHAPTER 20, ZONING CONCERNING PAINTBALL COURSES AND SHOOTING RANGES; INCLUDING APPROVAL OF SUMMARY ORDINANCE FOR PUBLICATION PURPOSES. Kate Aanenson: Thank you Mayor, members of the City Council. This is actually two items before you tonight. Two code amendments to accomplish the goal that we have here. The City is amending the code to allow for paintball courses and gun ranges in the community so in order to have those two uses permitted it would require two code amendments. One code amendment would be in Chapter 11 which would permit the discharge of firearms in the city in these approved paintball or gun facilities. And the second one in Chapter 20 would provide those standards for the paintball courses and for the gun ranges. Mayor Furlong: Gentlemen, I’m sorry. If you’d like to continue your conversation outside or if you could listen, thank you. Kate Aanenson: I’m sorry, thank you. Mayor Furlong: No, Ms. Aanenson. th Kate Aanenson: So the Planning Commission did hear this item on July 19. They reviewed the two code amendments and they discussed some of the things that I’ll talk about in a little bit more detail. They did recommend on a 7 to 0 approval of the amendments but they just had a couple concerns and the more specifically regarding the conditional use standards and the interim use itself. So the first ordinance amendment would allow for indoor gun ranges and as established with the two zoning districts that we created and the standards would be that one, they could be permitted in the, in the industrial office park and then they’d also have, could be 28 Chanhassen City Council - August 8, 2011 permitted in another zoning district but only under a conditional use. So in this, the indoor gun ranges and paintball courses, these are the sites that they could be located shown in green in the city. But more specifically then for the gun ranges we established conditional use standards which were put forth in the one of the code amendments under Chapter 20 so that would be where they would be the permitted. And then under conditional use it would be permitted in the industrial office park district. And then only in the community commercial district as an accessory use with a sporting goods store. You remember that we talked about potentially in that new community commercial district, which you just see on the other side of Powers Boulevard, that a sporting goods store might be a potential use so if it was ancillary to that we would allow it in that district but not as a free standing use. So within the districts that we would have standards and those are, have been reviewed by our sheriff’s office to review to make sure that would be consistent because again we do have areas in the city that does permit both archery and then some shooting areas but this would be for the gun ranges only would be interior. There’d be no outdoor gun ranges which we used to have down at the Moon Valley site so these are the only in buildings. Again those standards would say how the noise attenuation. How we’d mitigate all that and then the licensing itself so there’s a lot of detail on that. If you had specific questions I’d be happy to share that with you so that’s, that’s a lot of that would be Chapter 11 and Chapter 20. So then the paintball courses itself, this would be one that you could have outdoor or indoor so there’s two, and on both of these requests we’ve had some discussion with developers that might be interested in that so that’s where this rec proposal came from. So this would be indoors or outdoors. So someone could have a recreation facility that provided indoors or you could do it outside, and we have acreages large enough in the city to provide for the outdoor. So the proposed amendment would add a conditional use permit standard. So we permit outdoor courses as an interim use and this is where the Planning Commission spent a little bit of time on. An interim use typically as we have spelled out in our city code would define period of time or some triggering mechanism. For example you could say if, unless so many houses or development came within so many feet of the project. It might be once an area, sewer and water becomes available in that area. Or what different standards that would feel appropriate for the outdoor use. And then the indoor use would be again in a commercial and an office industrial park, indoor only. And again those same standards would apply as to how you’d run the facility again recreation wise. So the two zoning ordinances that we have put in place accommodates that so then these would be sites that meet the outdoor facilities, and we have had some requests in the past. As you know we don’t allow any outdoor shooting of the sporting type guns. The pellet guns or paintball guns which unless you had a permit so we have had some requests and there are some appropriately zoned sites that could accommodate those. Again they would come back because they are conditional use or an interim use for those facilities. Either the shooting range or the other would mean that they would have to come back before the Planning Commission for a public hearing and back before you so you could review those standards. So with that again we’re amending the two ordinances so in your packet or in your packet that was delivered to you would be the two ordinance amendments and then also the standards for the conditional use and then there’s summary ordinances in that so what we are requesting is that you recommend approval of those two ordinances and with that I’d be happy to answer any questions that you have. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Questions for staff. 29 Chanhassen City Council - August 8, 2011 Councilwoman Tjornhom: I guess I just. Mayor Furlong: Councilwoman Tjornhom. Councilwoman Tjornhom: And it was probably in the packet and I apologize. Did we have standards before for this? Kate Aanenson: No, we did not. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Okay. Kate Aanenson: So it really kind of, we had a couple work sessions with the Planning Commission to see first if they wanted to do it and then we had some I think that were maybe a little over reaching and kind of found the middle ground working with the sheriff’s office to see what would be the appropriate, and modeled after some other cities who have indoor shooting paintball kind of those sporting kind of things and kind of modeled after that so this is new. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Okay. That was my next question. Is it typical to have this type of ordinance in a city? Kate Aanenson: Yes. We did look at some other cities that have the, have indoor and outdoor for, especially for the paintball. There are places, typically they’re a little bit further out. I think Burnsville, Lakeville may have the outdoor ones. Prior Lake a little bit further out from the core of the city that would maybe have bigger parcels but we do also have bigger parcels that could accommodate this use and if we have them, even if it’s just obviously outdoors would probably be seasonal. You aren’t going to have it in the winter but it provides an opportunity for them to use their property and provide that. Mayor Furlong: Other questions? I have a couple. So for clarification the, on the gun ranges, those would be indoor only. Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. Mayor Furlong: And it would be a conditional use. Kate Aanenson: Correct. Mayor Furlong: Which would go with the property. There’d be no sunset date on that conditional use generally, is that correct? Kate Aanenson: You are correct. And also under conditional use you cannot deny a conditional use. You can only attach conditions to mitigate those so we spent a lot of time with the Planning Commission making sure that we felt those conditions were reasonable and to mitigate any negative impacts on how those would be, because someone may not, another user may not want 30 Chanhassen City Council - August 8, 2011 them right next to them so that, you know so those are some of the things we tried to address where they would be located. Mayor Furlong: And that’s part of the question I can see especially in a multi-tenant building, if someone wants to establish a gun range in an area that’s zoned for it. This conditional use… Kate Aanenson: Yeah typically on those, we did have that discussion too. Typically on those when you have lease agreement, sometimes there’s an agreement when you signed your lease of what type of uses would be acceptable and not acceptable and it could get you out of your lease or that sort of thing. Or prohibit that from going in based on those lease agreements. Mayor Furlong: Would that be part of the conditional use permit process if neighboring property owners have concern about, not that they could prevent it, it sounds like but would have concern about noise or. Kate Aanenson: Right, and I think those are the things you can revoke a conditional use if they’re failure to meet the conditions. We haven’t done that too much but we can. Certainly with the interim use permit that we would put in there, that’s something that we discussed with the Planning Commission too. If there’s a certain number of complaints and we’re out there policing it a lot, you know whether it’s after hours or not following the requirements, I think that’s a lot easier to put in the interim use and then that seize it because they’re failing to comply. We may want to ask Mr. Scott his opinion on that particular issue. You’ve got a conditional use and indoor shooting range and trying to do a revocation of a conditional use. Tom Scott: Mayor, members of the council. You can revoke a conditional use permit obviously for violating conditions and there’s a process to go through and a hearing before the council and it can be revoked. It’s not the easiest thing to do. Once they’re in place, as is indicated it runs with the land and it’s intended to be permanent but yes, you can revoke them if it gets to that point. Mayor Furlong: On the paintball portion of the ordinance then, the indoor paintball ranges would also be a conditional use permit. Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. Mayor Furlong: And the outdoor would be interim with the expectation that there would be a sunset on that use at some point in time. Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Has the sheriff department been involved with these ordinances? Have they reviewed them? Kate Aanenson: Yes they have. 31 Chanhassen City Council - August 8, 2011 Mayor Furlong: Are they in concurrence with the requirements being set up by the ordinances being fair and provide for safety? Kate Aanenson: Yes. I think the one you know, the one element may be is some of the larger industrial park areas if we wanted to try to talk to them at all, but we have had some requests, which I think the ones that we’ve seen seem to be in an appropriate locations that would work. Mayor Furlong: And by doing this ordinance are we opening up some of the area that’s zoned or would be zoned and available for conditional use too? Areas that would not work as well or would cause problems. Kate Aanenson: That would be the challenge and so if you want. Mayor Furlong: How much have you looked at that? Kate Aanenson: Well you know we put together that map and looked through that, kind of looked at those specific areas. I think the challenge is always unintended consequences. Some of that may not be able to put that in place. I think what works, the corollary to that would be, it’s a bit rigorous to try to get one. There’s a large investment in putting the use together. Getting all the licensing so it’s not going to be someone that’s just going to come in I don’t think and just kind of do a quick set up shop. It’s a lot more rigorous as far as getting licensing. I don’t know Mr. Scott if you have any comments on the licensing requirements or if you have any knowledge on that. Tom Scott: No I don’t have any specifics. Kate Aanenson: So from my understanding within the sheriff’s office it’s a little bit more investment to put the cost in for the noise and that sort of thing to set it up and get all your licensing so it’s a commitment. Because you have to go through the compliance and all that to be an operator so I think it’s. Mayor Furlong: Are there, excuse me for interrupting. Other state requirements for licensing or is this strictly. Kate Aanenson: Yes. Yes. Mayor Furlong: Local. Kate Aanenson: There is. We presented those to Planning Commission. As I said when we put all that, the Planning Commission thought it was kind of arduous. Seemed like a lot to go through but there is state requirements and if you look in our, I think in the narrative that we put together too, that you have to meet all those state requirements too. So on Chapter 11, number 8 it says any person approved consistent with city ordinance, state and federal government laws and regulations so there’s requirements there. Mayor Furlong: And I didn’t know to what extent there were. 32 Chanhassen City Council - August 8, 2011 Kate Aanenson: Yeah there’s licensing requirements and then how you manage and operate the use itself. There’s a pretty detailed list of how you, as an operator how you make sure that anybody that comes in to shoot at the range and those sort of things so there’s operator requirements too. Mayor Furlong: And I guess my question, I’m generally in favor of these. I don’t want to get into comments but my question is have we tried to think of everything? Kate Aanenson: Well there’s no rush on this so if you would like to spend a little bit more time you know then maybe. Mayor Furlong: And I don’t know necessarily I’d come up with anything. Kate Aanenson: Well maybe just even for your own comfort, just maybe putting together some of the state regulations and some of that sort of thing. What exactly you need to get. Mayor Furlong: I’d be interested in what they have to go through, if the rest of the council. Todd Gerhardt: Kate do we have a pending application? Kate Aanenson: No, that’s as I say there’s no rush. We do not have a pending application. Todd Gerhardt: So I would suggest tabling it. Kate Aanenson: Sure. Todd Gerhardt: And kind of review it for at least that first application. Mayor Furlong: Well do we want to have something in place though before an application comes in? At this point they’re prohibited, right? Todd Gerhardt: Right. Mayor Furlong: I mean, and again I don’t want to go from questions into comments here but maybe that’s what I’m doing. Are there any other specific questions at this point before we go to council comments? I guess my question is, and I’d be interested in the council’s thoughts on this is, again I’m generally in favor of doing this if this gives us an opportunity and there’s demand for it and it can be done safely. I’m glad that the sheriff’s office was involved with the process and I know the Planning Commission was deliberate in their discussions. I like the balance between conditional use indoors and the interim use outdoors. I guess I just want to, you know if the council comfortable doing this from the neighboring property owners I guess and what, and maybe that’s kind of a question. Can we make sure that there’s safety and that it doesn’t become a nuisance to a neighbor who’s conducting their business with quiet enjoyment, and I’m not sure how that… 33 Chanhassen City Council - August 8, 2011 Kate Aanenson: Well as your Community Development Director and the one who’s got the ordinance, I’d like to, if there’s no rush, let’s slow down and do a little bit more. You know if there’s a little bit uncomfort I think it’s best that we just take our time. There’s no pending application, and get everybody’s education on this issue. You know maybe we can even have someone from the sheriff’s office at a work session and just talk about them a little bit. Some of the pros and cons and just have a good discussion about. There’s no rush to get it passed. Councilman Laufenburger: Mr. Mayor. Mayor Furlong: Yes. Councilman Laufenburger: I’m not exactly sure what your hesitance or your angst is but I share a little bit of that. However, we are not the safety authority. You know City of Chanhassen City Council I believe Director Aanenson is we are only the people who govern the use of the land and like you, like your question I was happy to hear that there was involvement with the sheriff’s department to know you know that things like this would be done safely. In addition to hearing from the sheriff’s department it might be worthwhile to hear from, did you say Burnsville, Lakeville? Kate Aanenson: Yeah, there’s a couple other cities, yeah. Councilman Laufenburger: Yeah, I’d like to hear what are the results of them? You know is there, are there activities associated with indoor gun ranges and paintball that bleed over into other activities in the community, whatever those might be and should we be prepared for those? I don’t think, I don’t think a court of law, Mr. Scott, I don’t think a court of law would hold the City of Chanhassen liable for activities inside a gun range or inside a paintball course but the media wouldn’t care. They would consider it a City of Chanhassen activity so maybe it’s worthwhile for us to just give this some consideration. Kate Aanenson: I guess I think I’m tracking what the mayor wanted. I think the consequence we’re worried about is, if you’re in a neighboring use, commercial, industrial use next to it and maybe it affects your parking. Affects your you know so some of those other operational kind of issues that we hadn’t anticipated. Mayor Furlong: And again I’m in favor of doing this so the question’s not let’s find problems and reasons why we shouldn’t do it. Let’s make sure we’re going in with our eyes wide open and considering all we can, if that’s information from other cities that have. Councilman Laufenburger: Experiences. Mayor Furlong: …activities and experiences, let’s understand so we can make our’s better and try to avoid those problems would be my suggestion. Kate Aanenson: Right and because we said all IOP districts, that’s wide open. We might want to say specifically in office park district that has certain size building or certain amount of parking or some of those standards. 34 Chanhassen City Council - August 8, 2011 Mayor Furlong: And again, as long as we’re doing it with the idea of moving forward with this is my thought. If there are businesses that want to locate here and they can be done safely and they can expand employment and business opportunities in our city, I think we should look to do that. So let’s take the time and let’s ask some more questions but with the idea of how can we, how can we provide this opportunity for those businesses who might want to, or business owners, entrepreneurs who might want to do it. As long as it can be done safely and with as minimized impact and nuisance. I don’t want to say nuisance. As minimized impact and or effect on the neighboring property owners. Does that seem reasonable to people? Councilwoman Tjornhom: No harm in double checking, dotting our I’s and crossing our T’s. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright. Todd Gerhardt: Yeah and Mayor, council members. The big issue is that you know it runs with the property so you know you could have different operators. Some may just operate it for entertainment for their own entertainment. Some operate it as a business and so you know those are the things that you should really take a strong look at and not opening up every office and industrial area that we have in the community. So you know you should take into account when it, is it a multi-tenant building or not a multi-tenant? It’s got to be a single tenant building maybe. You know things like that. Mayor Furlong: Yeah, let’s look at those and I think to Councilman Laufenburger’s point, let’s ask some questions of other cities that have been through it and see where the successes have been there. If there have been issues. But I, again I will close by saying I’m glad to see this before us. I’m glad to see the support of the Planning Commission. These are, you know when our ordinances restrict businesses from locating and operating here, I think it’s worthwhile so thank you for bringing this up and rather than just saying no and somebody inquired at City Hall about doing it, we say how can we do it. How can we get this done and get it done right so appreciate your efforts on that. We should probably take a motion to formally table this to bring it back to a future agenda item. Whether a work session. Perhaps a work session at a council meeting. Okay. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Mr. Mayor I want to make the motion that we table City Code Amendment Chapters 11 and 20 regarding paintball courses and gun ranges. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there a second? Councilman Laufenburger: Second. Mayor Furlong: Question’s been made and seconded to table. We’ll proceed with the vote. Councilwoman Tjornhom moved, Councilman Laufenburger seconded that the City Council table Code Amendment Chapters 11 and 20 regarding paintball courses and gun ranges. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0. 35 Chanhassen City Council - August 8, 2011 COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS: Councilman Laufenburger: Mr. Mayor? Mayor Furlong: Yes, Councilman Laufenburger. Councilman Laufenburger: Chanhassen and it’s town baseball team is one victory away from state tournament and I’m here to tell you that these young boys that have played for the Chanhassen Red Birds are just exciting and fun to watch and it’s just wonderful to have a town ball team back in Chanhassen. And we play on Friday night. I think it’s in Minnesota. It’s in Fairfax. Is that in Minnesota? Yeah, okay. So we play Friday night at Fairfax at 8:00 p.m. and if we win that game then we have another game with our fierce rivals south of the river, Belle Plaine Tigers and that game would be on Saturday afternoon but first things first. Friday night at Fairfax. If we win then the Red Birds go to the state tournament. Mayor Furlong: Excellent. Thank you. Other council presentations. We mentioned National Night Out earlier. I would like to just mention that quickly. I know a number of us participated. I want to especially thank, talk to the sheriff’s office. The fire department was mentioned earlier tonight. City staff participated very strongly this year. Thank you Mr. Gerhardt and others that are here and that participated. I think that was very good opportunity to reach out and talk to people and listen to ideas. There were over 40 parties involved. We had a number of fire fighters. Volunteer fire fighters participate. The Carver County Posse participated in great numbers again. Always a fun group there so a special thank you to Beth Hoiseth for organizing that. Our Crime Prevention Specialist and also to all the residents who hosted the parties and organized the parties. I know that takes a lot of work and I know it’s fun but it’s still time and effort and just want to say thank you to all of them. Also this last Friday we had Arbor Day. Chanhassen Day and Carver County Day out at the Arboretum. Not Arbor Day, I’m sorry. Arboretum Day and great event. Good turnout and it didn’t rain this year so that was nice. A lot of people were out there. I heard a lot of great comments and I know people enjoy that. Just want to thank the Arboretum staff and all the people that opened up their doors and invite all Chanhassen residents and Carver County residents out for you to enjoy all that they have to offer out there. They’ve got some good plans going down there for some more improvements so we’ll probably see some of those take place. We mentioned Tour de Tonka. Coming up is Miracles th for Mitch I believe before our next meeting out at Lake Ann. That will be on the 20. Nearly 1,000 children will be out there. Kids running for kids who can’t. Raising money for families who’s children have cancer so if you get a chance to get out there and cheer the children on, either through their swimming, biking or running, please do that. It’s a great event. Just masses of children and each of them run with the name of a child on their leg and that’s a child with cancer that they’re running for and biking for so it’s a great event and I know it’s a Chanhassen based organization, Miracles for Mitch that does that every year. Largest children’s triathlon in the country as I understand it, right here in Chanhassen. So that’s before our next meeting as well. So a lot of good events going on in Chanhassen this time of year. Any other comments or questions? Mr. Gerhardt. ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS: 36 Chanhassen City Council - August 8, 2011 Todd Gerhardt: Roads. Timberwood has their final wear course put down so there still needs to be a little more shoulder work and establishment of driveways with landscaping, sod, fiber blanket. Downtown, we’re in the process of putting the first lift of the mill down and should be completed here tomorrow with again some of the landscaping occurring after that final lift goes down. Same thing with the Santa Vera area. They’re still doing a little bit of sidewalk and curb repair there but may start later this week, early next week in getting blacktop down there. And then the Red Cedar Point area is moving along nicely. You probably, if you were to go out there later this week you’ll start seeing curb work towards the end of this week into next week. And nd then the week of the 22 you should start seeing blacktop go down there so it’d be nice to get th this all wrapped up before school starts and not have to worry about that November 15 deadline this year so. You know it’s been a good. th Mayor Furlong: You were picking on the 13 last year weren’t you? th Todd Gerhardt: Could have been the 13. But keep those hot mix plants going as long as we can. Mayor Furlong: That’s right. Todd Gerhardt: But it’s been a busy summer and you know thank all the residents for being flexible. I was over at the Red Cedar Point construction site last week and I just turned right around and didn’t even try to drive through there. They were establishing final grades and the last thing they needed was me driving through there so. They’re working hard and it’s looking nice so far. That’s all I have. Mayor Furlong: Great, thank you. Any questions for Mr. Gerhardt or his staff? CORRESPONDENCE DISCUSSION. None. Councilman Laufenburger moved, Councilwoman Ernst seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0. The City Council meeting was adjourned at 8:55 p.m. Submitted by Todd Gerhardt City Manager Prepared by Nann Opheim 37