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1d. Park & Rec minutes /d CHANHASSEN PARK AND RECREATION COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING SEPTEMBER 28, 1993 Chairman Schroers called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Larry Schroers, Jan Lash, Jane Meger, Fred Berg, Ron Roeser, and Jim Manders MEMBERS ABSENT: Jim Andrews STAFF PRESENT: Todd Hoffman, Park and Recreation Coordinator; Jerry Ruegemer, Recreation Supervisor; and Dawn Lemme, Program Specialist APPROVAL OF MINUTES: 1 Hoffman: You only have August 24th. August 10th is not completed as of yet. I would like to make an additional note. You will see a change in your Minutes. Nann will no longer be dictating staff's presentation and I wanted to alert the Commission to that. If you have a problem with that. Typically that's done staff's reports are not dictated either at the Planning Commission level and it makes the process much more efficient. You can read through looking for your comments and the motions much more quickly. If I do not hear any...you will see that come through on the Minutes. Schroers: Okay, so then we will ask for approval for the Minutes of August 24th. Berg moved, Manders seconded to approve the Minutes of the Park and Recreation Commission meeting dated August 24, 1993 as presented. All voted in favor and the motion carried. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: None. PRESENTATION OF PARK/TRAIL CONCEPTS FOR OPUS/PEMTOM (CENTEX) TANDEM SITE, HOISINGTON - KOEGLER GROUP, INC. Bruce Chamberlain: The reason we're looking at this property tonight is because we've had three separate land owners who have come into the city for a preliminary plat, or at least concept stage approval for their developments. Opus and Gateway project owns, or Gateway Group owns this large square parcel right here. Centex Homes owns this parcel right here 1 over to Galpin Blvd. This is County Road 41 right here and Highway 5 to the north. So we're looking at the southeast quadrant of that intersection. We have a third single family development, is that right Todd? 1 1 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 1 Hoffman: Correct. Bruce Chamberlain: To the south in this area. Which also has come in recently. So that's kind of the parameters of the site. It's an extremely beautiful site but because it's so beautiful, it's very difficult to both develop any commercial development or residential development as well as park development. So again you can see the outline basically of the site. Within it we have some severe soil limitations in this area outlined in green. All of 1 those soils are either wetland or peat and this problem I found on a site visit this past week. They're extremely wet, especially this year and could pose some serious problems with park development. So something to keep in mind. We've got two concepts to look at tonight and one of them takes a look at putting the park kind of within the wetland area and the feasibility of that is highly questionable, especially after our site visit last week. The second one takes a look at putting the park site a little bit to the west of... You have both concepts in your packet and we'll take a look at Concept 1 first and of course Concept 2 second. There are really two park components or two components of this park facility. One is about a 15 acre active clay park facility with softball fields, tennis courts, volleyball and so on and so on. Multi-use facility. And also a trail head in that...park which leads into the second park component which is more of a passive component. A trail system. Possibly a future interpretive trail and nature trail system going through the site...the areas that are outlined including the park areas that are about 100 acres. The active plan area is about 15 acres of that. Just trying to give you a general overview. Schroers: I have one question. Is the wetland under any kind of designation at all from the Department of Natural Resources? The classification of what you can do with it. 1 Bruce Chamberlain: Yeah. If you look on your concept plans you'll see areas that are shaded and those areas are roughly the areas of the wetlands that the DNR has designated. I After our site visit I kind of question that. I'm wondering if there aren't actually more areas that need to be designated once a site survey was done by the DNR. But basically that shows, your concept drawing shows where the designated wetlands are. And from the aerial photos and our best judgment, that's fairly accurate but I'm sure not completely. On the overhead the area that I showed as having fairly severe limitations due to the soil issues is basically what you see in green here. This is the underlay to the concept plans that you all 1 have. Highway 5 is on the north side of the property right here and Highway 41 is on the west side right here and Galpin Blvd is on the east in this location. The City of Chanhassen and the City of Crystal limits fall on the south side of the property that we're looking at. So it's basically in that quadrant. Schroers: Chanhassen and Chaska. 1 2 1 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 1 1 Bruce Chamberlain: What did I say? Schroers: Crystal. 1 Bruce Chamberlain: Oh, I'm sorry. Too many communities on my mind. Concept 1, as I mentioned earlier takes a look at locating the park, the active play facility centrally between the upper wetland and the southern wetland. You can see that most of the area that I have colored on this concept plan is wetland. Except for, and maybe including the area that we have shown as active playfield and active play area. What this concept plan shows are the road locations, the access boulevard locations proposed by the developer. Gateway properties fall to this point and you can see on your concept plan, their property boundary. And this is their parcel. Centex Homes is to the east of that and a third, what is that again. Todd? Hoffman: Tandem. 1 Bruce Chamberlain: Tandem is to the south in this location. The passive play areas and what we're proposing as the park boundaries collide or abut all three of those property 1 owners. And the park is really centrally located between the three. And the active play field takes a look at taking access off of the boulevard proposed by the developer coming in southerly and then centrally locating approximately a 100 car parking lot within the park. And then surrounding that parking lot with active play facilities such as softball fields, tennis courts and what not. As we found on our site visit, this area right now is not being farmed, although in 1989 when the aerial photographs were taken for Chanhassen, the area was under cultivation but because of the dry, few dry years in there, that would indicate why. Right now it's very wet. It's peat soil and we were out with Dave Hempel and Dave took a jump and you could feel it. It resonated on the ground so it's very wet. So it's something to consider when I'm trying to develop a park on it. Whether or not it's feasible. We have a couple ponds shown on each concept and those ponds were proposed by the developer assumingly as storm water retention ponds. The passive play area consists again of about 100 acres and has trails that wind around and through that entire area consisting of boardwalks, overlooks, both upland and rolling trail corridors and it really could be a fantastic and gorgeous amenity for the city, as well as the people who live and work in this particular area. Schroers: Are we proposing that these be turf trails or some sort of an aggregate or bituminous? Bruce Chamberlain: I would think there'd be different types of trails throughout the entire 1 park. You may want to designate a loop or two loops or whatever as an asphalt trail. Some others maybe as turf trails and maybe some others as crushed rock or wood chip trails. So there's a variety of possibilities as far as what people can use and enjoy within the park. 3 1 1 1 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 1 There's some great vistas if you get onto the site in the area to the southern end of the park 1 area. It's fairly wooded but it's a very high point in the area and some great opportunities to capture some really nice vistas over the site over the community. As well as down in the low areas. To get out on, actually on the wetlands through boardwalks and floating overlooks and what not. There's some real opportunities to do that in this park. Any other questions? About Concept 1. Schroers: Is this using the full dedication from all three property owners then? Hoffman: It exceeds that. It would exceed the dedication. At least on the Centex site it would on this proposal. Opus would be close to their maximum dedication. And this property was already acquired through the dedication. 1 Schroers: Okay, and the other concern I have is when you say that the active use area is questionable. Okay, how do we answer that question? Bruce Chamberlain: Well I think we've got the information out to answer it before you. We have a soils report from SDS. Hoffman: They have that in their possession. Bruce Chamberlain: That's in the packet? It was a handout? Hoffman: This report is a result of...soils consultant Friday afternoon. Essentially what it says is, it would be very difficult to develop this area. The three hand borings which were done were taken in this location. The first one, I can read through what the results were for those. That hand probe 1 encountered 3 1/2 feet of very soft, black to brown peat with I ground water at 1 foot. Hand auger probe #2 was in the vicinity of the proposed home plate for this ballfield. Encountered 3 1/2 feet of ...soft black organic clay with ground water at 2 feet. Then the third probe was taken at the highest point of this location in the site. Or rather this knoll, this small hill and that had 6 inches of top soil above a foot and a half of mottled gray with brown clay. Mottled soil color is an indication of high ground water table but no water was observed directly in that location. You read through to the closure of the report is that the opinion, or excuse me, the summary. It is our opinion that the site is unsuitable for the planned park improvements unless the city undertakes extensive programming, an extensive program of soil stabilization and site drainage. In addition, any soil stabilization or drainage may require a wetland...mitigation since most of the site may be wetland. Wetland mitigation however was not part of that site survey that we did that day...any questions on the soil samples which were taken last Friday. You have in your possession also the aerial photo of this site. You've seen that before and that will show you 1 4 1 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 1 1 the agricultural...directly on top of this location. Last Thursday and Friday we were walking around this site and we encountered numerous spots of standing water down in that location. It was very rich organic soils. I would venture to say that if it would be let to go another year or two in this type of condition, we would see it revert back to wetland... Bruce Chamberlain: Just an added note. That's the active play area that we're talking about in this concept...residential property. Schroers: Well we certainly wouldn't be doing ourselves any favors to build ballfields on an area where they would be flooded and under water and a constant problem for maintenance and that sort of thing. 1 Bruce Chamberlain: The second concept takes a look at locating the active play area using the same trail system and basically the same property values...A little bit further to the west 1 ...concept plan and what it does is try to take advantage of a proposed access drive that the developer is proposing off of Highway 41. And then gaining park entry directly off of that intersection. It's a fairly prominent location because it's a high point on the site. There's 1 some fairly good views and vistas afforded on that site as well. There also would be some fairly extensive grading that would be necessary to accommodate the ballfields and maybe a few other of the park facilities as well. But if we're looking at locating a park anywhere on this parcel, on this quadrant of the city, it's probably going to take something more than a typical flat site in order to develop. But what this concept does is again take entry off of that three way intersection proposed by the developer and then circles parking up around to the north and of the active play area and then locates the play facilities kind of around a semi circle with the tennis and volleyball and play areas towards the northeast corner of the site and then the softball fields towards the southern end of the site. What this allows us to do is have a multi-use building as kind of the center of activity right at the backstops of the ballfields, as well as being close to the tennis and volleyball and other active play facilities in the park. And then again we've got the trail head located in this case close to a proposed storm water retention pond and then gaining access to the rest of the passive play park at that point. And again I think it really has some really nice features to it. This one as opposed to the other one again, because of the location and the prominence of this particular site, affords some more views out across the site and gives the park more prominence within the entire development. The other concept 1 did provide a little bit more of a buffer between the residential and commercial developments that are being proposed. Whereas this one is wholly within the commercial development corner of the site. What this, what these property boundaries show is actually locating the park on two parcels that are being proposed by the commercial developer, Gateway. And it would require the acquisition or acquiring those two parcels by the city from the developer. s 1 1 1 Park and Rec ec Comirussion Meeting - September 28, 1993 1 Schroers: Has the developer seen these plans? Bruce Chamberlain: I n' don't believe so. Hoffman: Opus? Schroers: Yeah. Hoffman: Yes they have. 1 Schroers: Did they respond favorably? Hoffman: No. Bruce Chamberlain: I talked to Todd today about what other possibilities we have anywhere 1 on the site. Anywhere on this entire parcel. And it seems like we really have possibly one and maybe two other areas where a park facility could go. One of them is at the southwest corner of Galpin Blvd and Highway 5. Although we're fairly constrictive because we do have a wetland that encroaches, a small wetland that encroaches in this area. And again we've got some fairly severe grade limitations as well. The other possibility would be somewhere along the western edge along Highway 41 of the site, which are fairly prime 1 industrial development areas and may be more difficult to secure from the development so, those are the possibilities and the opportunities and does anyone have questions about Concept 2? Manders: I had a couple questions. The school site is right next to there, right? Bruce Chamberlain: Yeah. The future elementary school site is just to the east of Galpin Blvd. 1 Manders: What's the distance between Galpin and TH 41? Bruce Chamberlain: Oh, let's see. I would say a mile? Hoffman: 3/4, yeah. 1 Manders: That's about as centrally located as you're going to get it. You know I wouldn't think you'd want it up in that corner right next to the school because there's a park there already. 6 1 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 Lash: What about to the south beyond the dashed line where it says residential development. Is that something that's coming in? Hoffman: It's platted and being built. Lash: It is already? And we've already addressed that one? ■ Hoffman: Correct. We inquired, this area for park. The wetlands here was dedicated to the city and then the developer will be constructing this segment of trail through this area... Lash: Is that the one that we were planning on having to be pretty much nature oriented? They didn't really have a lot of active things planned there, did we? Hoffman: No. That land was acquired just to become part of this passive park area. 1 Schroers: Well I anticipate that that would be a problem with the developer but we're so limited to what we can do here that Concept 2 seems to be the most reasonable from where we're sitting. Bruce Chamberlain: I'll sit down. If you have any more questions... Schroers: Staff has not made a recommendation. Are you looking for some kind of a motion from us or an approval of a site plan? 1 Hoffman: Not this evening. The presentation was developed under the assumption, at least initially that both of these sites were selected to be useable, beautiful sites. Now we have at least halfway concluded that Option A, Alternative 1 is probably not a good option. Would not be a wise investment of city park dollars in the development of park on that site. So before making a recommendation, we do, we would like to investigate further some additional locations throughout the city but we would also wish to make the commission aware that it is going to be a difficult issue to tackle and I need to know that this active component of this overall park system is very important to you. If it is not, that component is not highly desirable from the commission's standpoint, then I need to be aware of that. Obviously the passive areas, it just presents itself. When all three of those sites came in, they just jumped right off the page at you and just said, you need to take advantage of this wooded wetland and preserve that in public ownership so people can enjoy it. The wildlife can remain there and that can be an attribute to the city for a long time to come. The added active component is always a nice option to add onto these passive areas because it is a joint use and it really works out nicely. Obviously Opus is in a position where I believe they would be compensated by the city for the property but we've faced this before where it's certainly their 1 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 belief that they can benefit...use their land, that property for commercial and industrial development. But it's the commission's call in that regard. So I need to hear your opinion in that regard. Obviously Mr. Chamberlain would like to hear your comments in the same area. As he has stated, the options are limited. We're all the way west in the community. You can't go any farther. Chaska's to the south. School property is to the east and your fronted by Highway 5 so if you want active park in this quadrant of the city, this is the area to do it. ...the land is the driving force behind where it's going to end up. Schroers: Okay, thanks Todd. I'll open it up to commission member's thoughts. Y P P g Berg: It's been my understanding as we've been going around and around talking about this that we wanted this to be an active park. Particular for better to address our needs concerning softball. Particularly the adult softball. We've looked at this as a favorable place for that simply because we're not too close to residential and we were going to be able to light it with a minimum amount of distraction for neighborhoods. I guess I don't see any reason at this point to abandon that. That's been my understanding all along. I'd like to see us continue to pursue it actively. Schroers: Jim, do you have any thoughts on it? Manders: I think our limits are, the boundaries, there isn't much other choice. I mean really going any further west is not going to serve much purpose and going back east doesn't allow it in terms of the soils and then you're getting up by the school, which really isn't the optimum. So I think our choices are fairly limited. Schroers: I agree. Any other thoughts or comments from anyone? Roeser: I think what Fred says about making this into more of an adult oriented park, because you've got the school property just across Galpin there which is close. And open it up to use for adults more than children. Rather than those fields should be and the tennis courts should be for adults rather than kids. Don't make it a kids park. Make it a park that will be used mostly by adults. 1 Schroers: Well being that it's going to be a commercial and industrial area, it should help to benefit the people who work there as well as the residents in the city. I mean for noon hour and for after lunch or when it's nice in the summer, outdoor meetings or whatever. I think that it has a lot of positive things about it. I also, I guess I'm trying to understand the developer's point of view and of course everybody wants to make the best use of the resources they have available and there's no doubt in anyone's mind that this is the prime 1 commercial development site in Chanhassen and I feel that to acquire that it's going to come 1 8 1 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 1 with a price and I think that we should ask for park dedication and develop our park there and require the developer to do the grading along with the developing and that would be the avenue that I would prefer to pursue. Manders: I guess the one question I have is this idea of it being an adult facility. Is that to say that we're looking for additional space beyond Lake Ann? That's really our adult facility right at the moment. Schroers: It is. I think what these ballfields the intention was to help accommodate some of • the industrial league play and that development of this size certainly is going to generate additional industrial teams and that these ballfields would help absorb some of the demand that that development itself is going to put on the city for recreational opportunities. I mean I don't see it as a developer just giving us something that they're not going to be able to utilize and make use of. The people who are going to be utilizing the property are the people who live in the city so. Berg: This could potentially even serve another purpose and that's relieve some of the pressure at Lake Ann so we can get more youth involved back there too. That's been a discussion too. Lash: That was more my thought actually. I originally went along with it thinking it would be for industrial leagues but later on tonight I'll share a conversation I had with Jack Jensen the other night at Septemberfest. But there seems to be some concern about the age bracket. Not the kids who are playing here at City Center and not the age bracket that will be at the new elementary but the kids who will be a little bit older than that. That we really aren't getting ballfields. We've got one Babe Ruth field over at Lake Susan for that league but we're beginning to fall a little bit behind the growth of the kids that are in the 12 to, or 11 to 16 or whatever it is, age bracket. So it could possibly be developed, and also I heard girls softball is being neglected so maybe we need to be open to the idea that with Bandimere not, probably not coming on line for a while but maybe it would be the relief valve for kids as they're getting older and we could have new things there which would still help out at Lake Ann...that there's lights. If there's lights, adults can use it later. I mean we can probably get a lot of bang for the buck over there if we didn't try to label it too much what it's going to be used for. 1 Schroers: So when you put all this together, the need is obviously there and another thing I like about, apart from the active use is the trail system and that is something that we could utilize in the winter time for cross country skiing. We are short of recreational opportunities in the city in the winter and I wouldn't maybe recommend a full blown, groomed, highly maintained trail but just a designated area where people can go and break their own trail in a 9 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 1 cleared area that they would be able to ski through and that would add a winter time use as well. So I think that it's probably going to, we're going to have to be pretty strong and decide uniformly that this is what we want to pursue and hope that we can successfully work out the details with the developer. 1 Lash: I have one question that shouldn't be ignored. Todd, you said that you thought we would end up having to pay the developer a portion of this. Do you have any ballpark idea of how much that would be? Hoffman: A year and a half ago I had a very good idea. There was a bid on the table for not it's 2 years. An additional factor which will play into this is that the property approximately 40 acres west of Highway 41 where prior to the current negotiations which are taking place with the Arboretum and the Planning department, we would have had that land available for assigning park fees and/or giving those credit for park fees for additional land. That did not look like that will be...the 40 acres right in this location. That's going to be wrapped up in some type of deal over here with the Arboretum. So this is what you have left. And now we're talking approximately 30 acres of passive, another 10 -15 acres here so it's going to become expensive. It may be prohibited in fact so we have to work through some of those numbers. We will be working with Opus on an economic development district so you'll have opportunity to tax increment financing. Obviously that's a carrot for them so we do have some flexibility in that regard. • Lash: If the bulk of the property there is, it's always a hard word to get out. Undevelopable anyway, then is that something that we would actually have to purchase that. If they can't do anything with it anyway so can't it just be. Hoffman: Correct. They're going to, the wetland is always...for credit. You could allow them to attempt to utilize them or put them into private ownership and many of the areas have such deep grades that are just not accessible that they may not be used but they certainly will be under public ownership. Lash: So what did you think a year and a half ago of the ballpark? 1 Hoffman: Of the ballpark? Lash: Of the price. Hoffman: Of the price. Well, we were very close at that time. As you recall, the line came through here and then went up and then cut over and then we started creeping this. This is where we started looking for park and we kept asking them to move it this way. And at that 1 10 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 1 1 time we were very close but obviously a park like that is much more of a liability to the city. Lash: But in dollars and cents. Hoffman: Dollars and cents? I wouldn't want to venture a guess at this time. Lash: Oh okay. And a year and a half ago you didn't have any idea what it would have been? 1 Hoffman: In dollars, no. I mean we were at 20 some thousand dollars and you had 10 acres. Schroers: Well the dedication was supposed to be 30 acres right? Hoffman: That was what was labeled on their original concept plan, about 28 some acres. 1 Schroers: And a portion of what they wanted us to accept for dedication was the wetland. Hoffman: They had it split out between the high property and the wetland. They had those calculations there and the high property which they were offering the city at that time did consume the park fees to a great extent. Lash: And how much was it total? Acreage. Hoffman: The site? Lash: Yeah. 1 Hoffman: Opus. Lash: No, I mean what we would be looking for. Hoffman: On their property now? Lash: Yes. 1 Hoffman: 15 plus 25 so you're looking at about 40. Schroers: And you think that we would have to pay for 10 acres. 1 11 1 1 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 Hoffman: In excess of 10 is the most likely but again at the time...I've not had the opportunity to move forward on that...this concept plan just arrived last week so. Schroers: You know in terms of value to us, the trail system is a nice amenity to have but in Y t3' total value it's a small portion of what we need and would like to have from the park in that area. I think that the active use has a lot more value to us in that part of the city and we're accepting a lot of undevelopable property and trying to label it passive park and of that property very little, just a trail corridor is going to be used so we're accepting quite a bit of unusable space actually. And I guess that I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for 15 acres of useable. 1 Lash: And what is the total site? Hoffman: Opus? Lash: Yeah. Schroers: 160 I think it was. 1 Hoffman: But again we've included the opposite side. Lash: So what would we be able to ask for, for dedication on a 160 acre site? Hoffman: Approximately 10 %, 16 acres. Lash: Okay. So we'd be right on. If it was about 15 acres of usable, and the rest of it nobody can use for anything anyway so. I think it sounds good. Bruce Chamberlain: One thing I just want to add that the area I think that Todd is looking at additional property down in this area is, even though it's not available and maybe suitable to active play, it's got some fantastic mature vegetation on it and from a park standpoint, I think it may be a loss to the city if that were to be developed in any way. That's the only comment that I had. 1 Berg: As long as you're up there, what kind of acreage are we talking about for a softball field? Bruce Chamberlain: Oh let's see. Approximately, per field, 2 acres. I mean that's just the field. 1 12 1 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 1 Berg: Just talking off the top of my head, if you eliminated all the other stuff that you have on there and added 2 more softball fields to make a circle, you'd have then about 8 acres? Bruce Chamberlain: Actually on that site we couldn't get 4 fields on it. _ Berg: You couldn't. Could you add anymore than 2? Bruce Chamberlain: We may be able to add a third, although our parking demands go up fairly significantly with each field we add. Berg: Okay, so 2's about as realistically as far as we can go with that? 1 Bruce Chamberlain: I think it is, yeah. Schroers: Also, as far as developing a mature wooded area for an active park, the City now 1 has a Tree Board and I'm pretty sure that would be a no sale. They were working on developing ordinances last evening and I think that we would be hypocritical to what we're R all about to attempt to do something like that. We just wouldn't consider that. So do we have a general consensus then what we would, what the commission would like to do here is to proceed with the plan similar to Concept 2 and hopefully be able to work out something acceptable with the developers and continue to try and get an active use facility developed in this area rather than, I mean we know what's going to happen. They're going to come in and want us to take the money or want us to take the property next door and we know that when we do that with everybody that comes in, we end up not getting anything that would accommodate our needs. Lash: We just looked at the property next door and we can't do anything with the property next door. We looked at all the surrounding property. it doesn't look like anything will work except for the upper quadrant which is, like Jim said earlier, that's dumb. It's right across the street from the new school site. So there's no point in even, we have no way that we can even get into that discussion with them that we can fmd another site in that location. We've already investigated it. It doesn't look like there is. Berg: And it even becomes more ludicrous if they in fact flip the school site and the park. Then they are literally going to be right next to each other. Lash: One problem I have though on there, I hate to start this whole thing going and then somehow if we can work it out with the developer and come up with the property and then we don't have the money, then where are we? We might have to be realistic here. If we have to compensate him, that property is expensive and we all know that. So how far can we 13 1 1 I , Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 go with this before we know that we don't really have the funding. g a y e e . d g 1 Manders: So what I'm hearing is that just the passive park space, that alone would be enough to satisfy their dedication. . 1 Hoffman: It's real close, depending on where you draw the line. Which segments of the property which they assign as park... 1 Roeser: So according to the ordinances, they're coming awfully to close by giving us the wetlands. 1 Hoffman: Yeah, pretty darn close. Things have been changing and developing fairly rapidly so they were in for a meeting with staff last week and I believe that was a...for that meeting 1 is they have a person who's looking at one of the lots. They kind of want to get things moving and utilities would be available to the site next summer. So they have the opportunity to... Questions or answers to your questions concerning the fmancing and how I much money would be available.. just a little bit farther down the line. The development of that economic development district is somewhat complicated. There's a lot of changes... I Lash: So you don't think we need to worry about that at this point? Hoffman: Well I will be working on it closely with the buyers and the administrator and 1 taking.. Schroers: I guess what I would like to see is for us to pursue the dedication of that 15 acre 1 active use along with requiring the grading of the site as well. And what they want to do with the wetland I guess, that's up to them but I don't think that we should have to eat an unusable wetland and get no active space out of the whole development. They're getting the prime commercial development area in the city and giving us a wetland that's no good for anything. I don't see that as equitable at all. 1 Lash: Aren't some of them wetland areas that will be covered by the Planning Commission's ordinances regarding wetlands, or the city ordinances? Hoffman: Oh sure. I Lash: Okay. And then how about the Tree Board. If you guys are coming up with ordinances, would that be something that would affect some of the mature vegetation areas there? 1 1 14 1 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 1 Schroers: It would. There are some formulas that say only 30% of hardwoods can be removed per acre and that is something that is still in the process of being developed and worded and all that. It is not policy as of yet but it's getting very close. Lash: So we could look for some protection from the Tree Board on this too? 1 Schroers: Yeah. I think that there's going to be an ordinance in place that govems what anyone can do with mature, what they're being called specimen trees and specimen trees is not necessarily just your 50 year old, 30 inch oak tree. It could be trees with a diameter as small as 4 inches if it's the right kind of tree and the right area. It all gets pretty complicated and I guess that until we have the policy in place, it's kind of speculative at this point but 1 there will be ordinances governing what anyone can do with the trees in the city. So yeah, we could look for some protections and probably some joint work between both groups in order to save some of the natural amenities. 1 Lash: So you don't need a motion on this Todd? Hoffman: No. Lash: You don't? 1 Schroers: Okay. Have we anything further to say on this? • • Meger: No, I was just going to say what it sounds like to me is that we'd like go ahead and pursue passive, or active parklands in that area. It sounds like we need a little bit more information and it also sounds like we need to provide the Opus folks some more information about what we're wanting to do and also hope that they realize that there will definitely be some benefits to them with an active area in there also for the employees because there's nothing better than being able to, at your lunchtime or after work, easily pop over here and go for a run or a pick up game of basketball or tennis. So I mean there's some definite advantage to them as well. 1 Schroers: The hard sell there is that the developer is not necessarily the owners of the property and it's not going to be their employees and that sort of thing so for them to stay in business, they've got to do the best that they can and we have to attempt to do the same thing. But that's going to be a tough road to hoe there. Hoffman: I did speak with Michele Foster a little bit today and explained the situation that unfortunately we had probably on the Centex...but they're no longer considering that land...and they really don't want to consider the dedication or the sale of any more property 1 15 1 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 for park but that is probably our desire...and she was asking me, is there any other property you can take a look at. Is there anything north of Highway 5. That came through once again. Schroers: Okay. Well, did you get the consensus from us that you're looking for? Hoffman: You bet. 1 LAND DEVELOPMENT PROPOSAL, CONCEPTUAL PLANNED UNIT DEVELOPMENT TO REZONE 89.59 ACRES OF PROPERTY ZONED A2, AGRICULTURAL ESTATES TO PUD FOR A 232 UNIT RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT ON SOUTHWEST CORNER OF HIGHWAY 5 AND GALPIN BLVD, CENTEX HOMES AND WESTWOOD PROFESSIONAL SERVICES. 1 Todd Hoffman presented the staff report on this item. Dan Blake: Good evening Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission. I don't really have a whole lot, as Todd pointed out. We've kind of, we submitted a plan. Put something down on paper really to get some action going. There's been a lot of discussions over where or 1 what this site, if any is park and we felt the only way was to really bring it, was to draw up a plan. We're still not, I think a week ago it was just about decided that this is what the staff was going to recommend and not the way we thought we were going and it has since 1 changed... Obviously now it's probably for sure changed the other direction and so I wasn't expecting much more discussion tonight. I certainly would be able to answer any questions that you might have regarding our plan but again we're trying to work with staff direction on exactly what they see as a park use. Schroers: Okay, thank you. So basically what we're going to be doing here is we're going to be looking at trail dedication and then probably dedication fees in lieu of property for the park dedication? Hoffman: There is a parcel of this site...which is in the southwest comer. This knoll is a part of this entire...which is on the property. The property which Centex is working on and I this, the city will need to give park credit for and that would then be in addition to the property to the north that would be so this will require...portion of the property. Schroers: Okay, and is 89.59 acres so our park dedication would be approximately 9 acres there. And how much does that knoll? i Hoffman: The park calculations for credit change and the residential is based on the number 1 16 1 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 of persons and I have not...calculation as yet. Schroers: Oh, we're not going on the 10 %? 1 Hoffman: It's typically...than 10 %. We're basing it on residential properties so you have 250 units. I don't know how many bedrooms will be there but it's based on 1 person per bedroom so they want have 500 people divided by your 75 persons per acre so that's how you arrive at your calculation on high density. Lash: When this comes back to us, I guess I'm going to need this to be a little bit bigger picture of that whole area from Galpin to TH 41 on the plan here because I know there's 1 been, I think there have been several other developments like Timberwood is down there and there's a couple other new ones coming in and what we've required where and what we had...passive or active so that we can kind of look at this whole...that whole section is coming 1 in now all at the same time and we want to make sure that we're covering all our bases without any over kill in there too. Hoffman: That was the comment I was considerin g earlier. If you turn around and look at the city's base map, essentially that whole quadrant sandwiched between Audubon. Can you find Audubon there Jan? Lash: No. Hoffman: Then it goes all the way out. That's the road right there. Audubon and then to the left would be Galpin. And that entire quadrant south of Lyman is, the majority of it has come in for development so all the sites that have come before you. You've made your decision so if the opportunity to acquire parkland as a part of Opus passed up, you don't have another opportunity...or cross Highway 5. Lash: So I want to just clear myself up here and not make, others could be confused too. Here's Timberwood. Here's the new school site. We've got a development coming in down here, right? Hoffman: Correct. Lash: And another right over here, right? Hoffman: Yes. �. Lash: See that's the one I was talking about earlier. I was on the wrong side of the road. 1 17 1 1 1 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 I And now this is what we're talkie about g a out 1 Hoffman: Yep. Lash: And nothing down here has come in yet? Residential wise. Or what's this PUD right I down here? I Hoffman: That's the residential piece which is, that's Tandem. Trotters Ridge. So this piece is left and then this piece here would be left but this is the new park right there in that quadrant. And this is coming in for development now so. II Lash: And this is Chaska down here right? Hoffman: Yep. So this entire piece now has just essentially been developed and obviously this piece is, you're looking down south or else north for additional property. 1 Schroers: And right above that PUD is where Centex is right? Right in there. Hoffman: Yep. Right there. 1 Lash: Okay. 1 Schroers: Okay, so what would you like from us this evening further on this? Hoffman: No further action is necessary. I think everyone is interested in future soil studies. 1 Obviously Centex would be. The city is in the perspective of having to construct a road in there at a future time so somebody will be conducting additional soil and... I Schroers: And is the rezoning basically just a formality? A process that a developer needs to go through or is it an application procedure and may or may not be rezoned? I guess I'm not I sure how the rezoning procedure works. Hoffman: Again, developed out of the planning department and they're reviewed by the I Planning Commission... Schroers: Well okay. Then at this point we'll wait...with the continued plans to develop this i property and see what happens in the future. Okay, thanks for coming by. I 1 18 1 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 1 1 LAND DEVELOPMENT PROPOSAL, PRELIMINARY PLAT TO SUBDIVIDE A 36,023 SO FT LOT TO CREATE ONE SINGLE FAMILY LOT AND AN OUTLOT TO BE COMBINED WITH A LOT LOCATED IN SHOREWOOD, 6200 CHASKA ROAD, JEAN ADDITION, FRANK REESE. Todd Hoffman presented a brief staff report on this item. Schroers: So it's pretty cut and dry. Any questions? Lash: I'm just curious why somebody's doing this? I mean are they then going to be able to build on Outlot A if it's combined with this property in Shorewood? Hoffman: Correct. I believe it's developed there already. What they are doing is...have 1 somebody to developer Lot 1. Lash: I move that we accept, or that we require current park and trail fees which are not 1 $600.00 and $200.00 at the rate in force at the time of the application. Schroers: Is there a second? 1 Manders: Second. Lash moved, Manders seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission recommend to accept full park and trail fees for Jean Addition. These fees are to be collected at a rate in force upon building permit application. All voted in favor and the motion carried. 1 LAND DEVELOPMENT PROPOSAL, SUBDIVISION OF 80.8 ACRES INTO 133 SINGLE FAMILY LOTS, ROGERS/DOLEJSI PROPERTY, SOUTHEAST CORNER OF LYMAN BOULEVARD AND HIGHWAY 101 SOUTH, LUNDGREN BROTHERS CONSTRUCTION. Todd Hoffman presented the staff report on this item. Lash: Can I ask you a question first Todd, before we move on? I'm looking, if I'm looking at this plan, which is the one that you have on the screen. And then I'm looking at my big drawing. Where would Kiowa Trail fit in on the big screen there? 19 1 1 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 Hoffman: This one? The one you have? Lash: Yeah. Is that going to connect to any of those streets or does it just. Hoffman: They're proposed to connect, yeah. Kiowa Trail is proposed to connect at this location. This is the terminus of Kiowa Trail at the current time. So Kiowa then drops out to TH 101. Kiowa terminates there. There's one access boulevard. I believe it's Mr. Dolejsi's home at that site. And then this would be a proposed connection. Schroers: Where is. 1 Lash: Excuse me Larry, so there would be a connection for people on Kiowa Trail and the people in the Lundgren Bros development to come down through the street to Kiowa Trail? Hoffman: Correct. Lash: Okay. But not Lake Riley Blvd. Okay. Schroers: Where is Bandimere's neighborhood park? Hoffman: On this plan? You're just beginning to see the border of it right here. Bandimere's neighborhood park. And you can see that is Bandimere. This orientation. Schroers: Okay. So there would be no practical, it wouldn't be practical to make a trail Y P P connection from there to the rest of the park? Coming out of the Bandimere neighborhood park. Hoffman: The commission has talked about that in the past and what the consensus has been is that Bandimere Heights Park, the neighborhood park, is going to remain it's own little entity. If there was a future trail connection, that certainly could be accomplished. Schroers: But it wouldn't accomplish what we would like to accomplish? Hoffman: No. If you want to access the neighborhood park, you would simply just continue to walk on the road... Schroers: Okay. And one other dumb question. Why do we want to develop the trail later along TH 101 and Lyman? Hoffman: The upgrade of those road systems, as you can see on the overhead. You can 1 20 1 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 1 1 probably just take 212 right out of your mind. I mean I don't know when that's going to, we all don't know when that's going to happen. But that is the, unfortunately if you take it out of your head, that is the assigned north/south trail corridor. Coming down TH 101 in this configuration. So if we run this trail out to a point here, we would have to then do a temporary trail and temporary meaning, 5 years at least. 10 years. 15. I'm not sure when 3 that would be. So that may not be so• temporary but to get people to the west you're going to have to continue along Lyman and then go north along old TH 101 which will be taken out when 212 comes through. So what happens in this segment with trails and what you would gain by putting this segment in is questionable. Now you may, you could gain something if you took it to this point and then traveled south into the other access on the park but these folks already have an internal connection so they're not going to, most likely they're not 1 going to choose that. It would make a circular pattern for them but I don't see the immediate need such that we did on the Hans Hagen, Stone Creek development. You wanted that to go in out at Galpin because the school was going to be developed by '95. We wanted to get 1 people up to the school. What do we want to accomplish? Where do we want to get the folks who are going to go out on that trail? Where can they go? Who are they trying to reach? What are they trying to get to? 1 Schroers: I see your point. The reason that I brought it up was because we had sort of made it an unofficial policy to get trails in along with development because it is cheaper and when we have to come back and do it later, after the fact, it always costs, is more expensive and we never have the money. • Hoffman: I can't argue with that. Schroers: So I guess to re -ask the question. Would it be reasonable or practical for us to 1 preclude the trail going south from Lyman down TH 101 on the south? Hoffman: The additional right -of -way. 1 Schroers: Or at least to grade it. 1 Hoffman: Those questions I immediately go back and sit down with our engineers because obviously when you're talking road upgrade and change the elevations of the roads and change an alignment at Lyman Blvd because there's a wetland down somewhere in this area which affects the road alignment, that's the reason...so unless there's a strong desire to have that trail there, which in order to get it there and make some sense out of it is going to take a lot of investigation into what the future road alignment will be. How the road will look. What elevation it will take in it's present alignment versus it's present alignment and those type of things. So it's kind of a complicated issue. 1 21 1 1 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 Lash: How far in the future do you expect the road realignment to be? ► Hoffman: The TH 101 realignment? Lash: Either one. Hoffman: I couldn't speculate. Lash: How about Lyman? ( Hoffman: This road realignment...to Lyman? Again the engineering department tracks that but just in driving that road today, do you know Terry when they're going to upgrade...this development? Terry Forbord: Neither road is on any type of improvement program in the city. There are no plans to upgrade either one of those roads. Lash: Well I just can't imagine with 133 homes going in there, and that's going to be their main access in and out of that development is going to Lyman. Isn't that still dirt? Schroers: It's not dirt but it's, the pavement is in poor condition. Lash: It might as well be. I just can't imagine that they're going to be able to hold off after the homes are in too much longer after that. Schroers: Okay. Does Mr. Forbord wish to address the commission this evening? Terry Forbord: Mr. Chair, I have no presentation. I'll be happy to answer any questions. Schroers: Okay. Discussion from commission members. Do they have any particular 1 thoughts or feelings regarding the recommendation or the development here? Lash: I guess I would agree with Todd's recommendation. The only question I would have 1' is if it looks like Lyman Blvd were to come on line fairly soon, it would make sense to do the trail work at that time. If it looks like it's not going to be for years and years, I would maybe be inclined to want to have the trail construction along Lyman. That is going to help, well actually along TH 101 too. Because we know that's not going to be for a long time. That would help a lot of people to make a circle here up Lake Riley o Lyman. y yman. Lyman over to TH 101. Have some short safe passage along TH 101 to the park and then back around would make a nice big loop and boy, from reading that survey this weekend, people down on 22 1 E Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 t connections as part of this proposal, they easily can get there very quickly. If you live way down here and you got onto your bike, you could get to this facility at best on a bike within 5 minutes. I mean at the longest. It is not very far away to go. And to put an economic and negative impact on all these lots, 6 lots, plus the Dolejsi homestead, because they're going to retain that. So there's 3 lots. You've got 9 -10 lots plus all of these people who already have homes here. I can assure you they're all going to be...so you're going to have at least 14 -15 potential, maybe even more, I'd have to count them up. Homeowners that would be very upset about having a trail there and if those people, like I say, if they want to get to the park, they'll get to the park. They're not going to say well...trail connection since there's not...They'll still go to the park. They'll just go on the street. So we're really opposed to that because we know it will negatively impact the value of those lots. And we know that those people who live there right now aren't going to want that trail. And just like most people if you said we're going to put a trail in your yard, most people, maybe some of you. Maybe some of you feel differently and say yeah, I'd like a trail but I don't want it my back yard either and I'm just not convinced that that trail is really that important and there's probably other trails in the city that are. Lash: Mr. Forbord? Terry Forbord: Yes. Lash: Can I just clear up what I had in mind, because I don't think you're understanding what I had in mind. I wasn't necessarily suggesting that this trail connection needed to go along the back of all those yards. My idea was actually that it would just be a side yard connection from the cul -de -sac down in the quadrant over to Lake Riley Blvd because those people then would be able to access the cul -de -sac out to the street and up to the park. Hoffman: There's alignment to the north that would even allow more buffering. This would be a side yard. This would be a rear yard. 1 Lash: I really didn't intend that it would have to be along the back yard of a whole bunch of lots and existing lots. Terry Forbord: Well that's certainly a lot better than what I thought it was but needless to say we'd be opposed to it because neither one of those home owners are going to want it either. 1 Lash: Right, and I can understand that. 1 Terry Forbord: Again, I don't think anybody's going to say well I would have gone to the 25 1 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 park ' paz but there's not a connection...Plus if you look at the topography map there, I m not sure 1 if the topography between those two lot lines. From Lake Riley Blvd to here there's a rise. And there's vegetation along there. Those are the comments that I had. Thank you. Hoffman: Chairman Schroers, members of the commission. Mr. David Stockdale is out in the audience this evening. He has scheduled an administrative...stepped out for a minute. I would just suggest when he steps back in we'll just pick up with that item. SELECTION OF VENDORS: A. CARVER BEACH PLAYGROUND. Todd Hoffman presented the staff report on this item. Berg: Jan, I'd defer to you. If there two were sitting right next to each other, which would the kids use more? Lash: Well it really depends a lot on the ages of the kids and that was, I just wrote down that question. Do we have any clue as to, how this neighborhood is sitting. And I realize there will be more than neighborhood kids there because of the beach but you know, double wide slide. What's the height of that? Hoffman: 40 inches. Lash: Well, I'd hate to use the b word here but, kind of boring. The tube slide is much 1 more popular with kids. But, you have a problem then with bigger kids because bigger kids have trouble fitting in the tube slide without having to hunch over. The bigger kids aren't going to want to go on a 40 inch, little double wide slide either. Hoffman: The money that we're spending here just does not allow us to get up to those Y P g just g P higher deck heights. Schroers: Carver Beach is one of the older neighborhoods in the city and the people that I know that go to Carver Beach, the youngest kids that I know of that go there are 9 and 10 years old. The majority of them would be young teens so I wonder, I'm wondering if we should install anything like this. Or if we should take the $3,000.00 and improve the park in 1 another way. Lash: Or if you want something that's going to fill a wider age gap for a little big of money, 1 I'd put in a couple of swings and a tire swing or something like that. Or some, a bay with a 1 26 1 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 1 couple of swings and some monkey bars. Climbing. Something like that. You know the slides, they're so, if you have them big enough where older kids like them, they're too dangerous for little kids. And if you have them good for little kids, anybody over 4 isn't going to be interested in using them. We're so limited with what we can spend, I think we ought to just take that money and see how we can make it fill the biggest age bracket we can and I think the swings are popular with even teenagers. 12 -13 year olds will go down and swing if a swing is there. Hoffman: Again this was a capital improvement item allocated in... previous meeting and we g P P P g talked about...so that's why the proposal comes before you. Putting swings in there, you may be able to do that but we are very limited in space. You've got the lake on one side and a hill on the other and over story trees. Lash: Well there was a, wasn't there, I can remember being down there years ago, like 13 years ago and there was some kind of a swing thing because I know I was on it. Hoffman: There was a tire swing connected to the structure which is no longer used. The safety zone on the swing is 2 1/2 times the height of the beam so if you go 8 feet high, you need 20 feet. We can make that...A letter went out this spring to the neighborhood that a play structure would be coming down because of safety concerns and that a new structure would be going up. The way you define a structure as swings or play components such as the ones you're looking at, you would have to... Schroers: Was there a time frame put on this? Hoffman: Time frame...'92 -93 item carried over from 1992. 1 Schroers: You know I guess what would make me feel a lot more comfortable with this. I wouldn't mind putting something like this in there at all if I knew that was going to get used and I would think that it would have been a good idea to have someone ask a commission member or a staff person to go down there on a Saturday or a Sunday during a peak use time and see what kind of kids are down there. But I guess I know the neighbors and some of the people that go down there and their kids are 8, 9, 10 years old and up. Manders: And I've been down there a couple times this summer and there was a variety. I mean they were there using the lake. Picnicking type thing. I think probably one of them had a boat or something down there but. 1 Schroers: Did you notice a bunch of real small kids? 27 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 Manders: I don't recall. 1 Hoffman: The park is almost regional in nature. Manders: It's kind of a secluded area. I mean unless you know it's there, you're not going to go there. Lash: Well and if we're going to invest money in some play equipment, I mean this looks to me like a phase, .25. You know it's not even a phase 1 if we were going to do play equipment somewhere. It's just a little portion of a phase 1. And with the limited space we have there and what's the potential that we're ever going to be able to have anything there besides just that. 1 Hoffman: This is it. Lash: Yeah, so I guess I'm not really in favor of either one of them. Roeser: Yeah if I was to put it in, I think I would be considering the other park. Whatever that's more Carver Beach. The playground area is really a more accessible park that the 1 neighborhood kids would use it more without going down to the lake because how many parents want their kids down there by the lake unless they're supervised. Lash: Well I can see that it maybe would be kind of fun if you went down there and you were going to picnic and... 1 Roeser: Yeah, but if you were there. Lash: ...run over and have something else to play on. But with the limited space. Schroers: Well probably what we were thinldng and that point of view I think is valid as well. The water area is the play area for the older kids and the adults but not so much attracted to really young kids unless you're right in there with them supervising them so this would be something and it's not a lot of money for families or whatever that are going down to the beach to picnic and play and if there are some young kids around, I guess that's my question. I don't know how many young kids go down there but. Berg: What I've observed at Meadow Green is the young kids will go to the play area but the young kids and all the other kids will eventually go to the swings. That's something they can all use and that's, as Jan said, that's almost age unlimited. That's something that I know, or that we know, looking at the other parks, that they will all use the swings but when you 1 28 1 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 1 1 put in a small little thing like this, you are really limiting it to a small group of people. If we put anything, I'd like to see a swing. 1 Roeser: Don't swings take up too much room? Is that what Todd is saying? It's really a small beach, right? Hoffman: Yeah. It's a very small location. You can put two swings in there. One be...and one be an adult swing and that would be it. Roeser: See I think this is a good thing too. I think little double slides, I know people that take little kids down there. As a matter of fact prefer that beach down there. Lash: ...my destination because you know how long a little kid would be interested in that 1 small of a play structure? Roeser: Ah, I don't know. I don't necessarily agree with you. 1 Lash: If I was going to take my kid to a play structure I'd go somewhere where there was a lot bigger things to do. 1 Roeser: Okay, but if you're taking little kids that are 4 or 5 or 3 years old down to the beach, they eventually also get a little bored with the water and want to go crawl around on something else. And there are people that do take little kids down there that get bored with the swimming and want to run around and I think that kind of structure is a good one. The double slide one. Meger: My concern is too that we were talking about even not putting anything down there due to the size and I guess I would be concerned that we've already made a commitment to several people via a letter saying something's coming down and we're going to put something up. I don't know, I would guess that there would be some folks in here if we don't put something up. Lash: Do we have anything, I know in years past we've had some things in storage that just never got installed. We don't have anything around? Okay. Meger: How many people did we send some type of letter to? 1 Hoffman: Approximately 40. The entire neighborhood which is down in that area. 40 -45. 29 1 1 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 1 Meger: Kind of piggy backing off of Larry's idea of having somebody going down there for instance on a Saturday. Would it be feasible to send something out to those same 40 people saying we can put a small structure. We can put something with swings. Or something with a double slide. Would you please respond back to us as to what would be more feasible or what you would prefer to see there. Or is that something that kind of sets us up too that well, I said I wanted this they went the opposite way. Hoffman: It depends on how much of your time and staff time you want...come up with a consensus on this $3,500.00 structure. Schroers: That's the problem that I'm having right here is that we're kind of doing a number on staff here. We told them that we wanted this and they went ahead and did the work and got the bids and all that and now we're saying, well. Maybe we don't want this. But I think that both the commission and staff want to do the right thing and I would think that maybe the optimum would be if we could put in a small structure like this and a swing. Is there room for that? Hoffman: Not... 1 Berg: Todd, is there enough room for a couple, for the swings and a couple of those steam shovel things that they dig around in the sand with? 1 Lash: That would be a good solution. Berg: So the little kids could dig in the sand and build a hole. Lash: That would be a good idea Fred. 1 Roeser: Those things are fine except 2 kids are using and 6 kids are waiting to get on and kids are pushing either off of them. I don't agree with that at all. These are better structures. Lash: Well you're assuming there's going to be 8 kids down there at a time. 1 Roeser: Oh there are. There very often there are 8 kids down there. Hoffman: The park lays out, you have Lotus Trail coming down which dead ends and goes up on Fox Path. There's the small parking lot in this location and then there's the timber stairs coming down to the beach. There's two small beach areas. One being over here and then the larger one being over here... The tree line is just about like that. So you'd have this 1 path coming down and the location of the play structure is right here. There's a trail and 1 30 1 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 1 1 bench and then the beach fronts about there. So if you want to go any larger, you really cross this traffic pattern and start mixing up the parks configuration. This is just a small corner. It has over hanging foliage which comes down onto it. It's really just a little nook. The structure that was there before was one platform with a very steep, if you recall a stainless steel slide onto this side. It had then the tire swing coming off of this side. And it had then an access ladder here and a hoop...coming off that end. So that's what you had down there and that's what's being replaced. You do lose the swing because now as part of CPSC you have to remove that and put it in elsewhere and then you have your separation distances which you need to meet. Lash: So if we had a, if we put in a bay with two swings we wouldn't be able to have two swings and a tire swing either because of the separation problem? Hoffman: You could connect all three of those. I'd have to take a look at the layout to see what would fit on the site. Lash: I would rather see that and then maybe a couple of diggers too. You're going to have a couple of kids on swings. You could have a baby swing and a regular swing. The tire swing will hold 3 or 4 kids at a time and then a couple diggers. That would really, I don't know if we'd have enough money for that but that would really cover a pretty wide age 1 range. How much would that cost? Tire swings are pretty expensive. Hoffman: You could do that with this budget. 1 Lash: Could you do a couple of diggers for that too? Hoffman: Maybe. And then put the, I'm not sure how it would lay out. Lash: Tire swings are really popular. Kids really like those a lot. 1 Hoffman: That's an option and I think you could do that within the, depending on what type of swings you go with. If you want metal posts. Landscape structures. A lot of the wood posts are in. A lot of the wood beams are in but they really change that all to metal...catalog you can look at. You have two options for swings. Obviously you have just...or you have that much more rounded approach where they give you the big beams on either end and big round 5" beams. This is more expensive and obviously looks much nicer but if you go with this route, you could not connect this type of swing. This big tubular swing with this so these need to be two separate issues and then we come into a separation issue. As the commission is aware, the CPSC guidelines have really started to play mix up with these park designs. They're really expanding the area which you need. It's costing us a lot of money 1 31 1 1 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 1 too. 1 Lash: Well you know if we, I'm assuming that the reason that you went ahead with this plan. Yeah, it was in the budget and all of that but the reason that the bids came in with this type of layout is because it was replacing basically what was there with something very similar, 1 right? Hoffman: Yes. 1 Lash: So we didn't actually say this is what we wanted to start with. 1 Hoffman: No. Lash: Okay. We don't have to feel too guilty. But we didn't give any direction. I mean it was an obvious assumption to just replace it with something comparable so. Schroers: I like the idea of being able to accommodate different age groups. I do think that, 1 I like the looks of the Landscape Structures. A little double slide and that component but I think that's very restrictive of kids and how long, maybe a 3 or 4 year age span will use that and no one else. Whereas if we could get a swing and a digger component, we can 1 accommodate an adult or an infant and that's probably a better use of the money. Manders: I would add one comment that, just looking around the neighborhood you almost see neighborhood equipments with this here kind of set up in some of the back yards and you tend not to see a swing set -up like this as much so I mean there's that variety as well. 1 Schroers: Yeah, good point. Lash: Can we make direction to staff in the form of a recommendation that they just put something like that together and it doesn't really even have to come back to us again? Or would it have to, because we'd have more than one bid. I supposed we'd have to. 1 Hoffman: We would have more than one bid and it's also, well we might be able to get it in before the end of the season. We wanted to get it in before the end of the season so the department can come in afterwards and put up the bordering and all the pea gravel across the ice. Across the frozen Lotus Lake... 1 Schroers: I guess we all understand that predicament but I guess I wouldn't want to see 32 1 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 1 1 something in there just so that we can meet an obligation and time frame and not try to do the best we could. I really feel that we would be accommodating just a very select age group with that little play apparatus and it wouldn't be doing as much good as it could. Hoffman: Again, I appreciate those comments. If that's the direction that the commission is here to give. Anytime you change a use, you do open yourself up to criticism so I'm not sure if we want to cover that base. Replacing the old structure with something like this. Everybody would go, well that's what there was there before minus the tire swing...then you're changing the use and you're opening yourself up for discussion. I can send a letter to those same folks explaining then what your viewpoint is and what we're proposing to put back in there and ask them to call if they have other questions in that regard. 1 Schroers: I realize that that's more work but I think that the final results will be better. Job security. That's what they always tell me every time I get a do over. 1 Lash: I guess I would move that we direct staff to come up with alternative bids for the Carver Beach playground equipment that would include a swing apparatus, tire swing and a belt swing and what's the other one called? Infant swing or something. Schroers: A bucket. 1 Lash: Yeah, a bucket. And a couple of diggers. And to bring that back to review...and also to extend a letter to the residents informing them of the change of equipment. Schroers: Is there a second? Berg: Second. Lash moved, Berg seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission direct staff to get 1 alternative bids for the Carver Beach Playground equipment that would include a swings, and diggers, and to inform the residents of the area of the change of equipment. All voted in favor and the motion carried. Meger: Todd, as we move on to the bleachers, you probably can answer this. I noticed that two of the bids that came out for the bleachers are two of the same people that we looked at for the play structures and probably would look at if we go forward on the swings. Is there a negotiation there if we decided to, for instance, use the same vendor for both that we might 1 get a reduction? No. Hoffman: Well, I don't usually cross those lines... 1 33 1 1 1 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 1 B. BLEACHERS. 1 Todd Hoffman presented the staff report on this item. 1 Lash: And the bleachers at Meadow Green are going in by the backstop? Hoffman: Yes. Berg: Do we have any idea with FSI or Flanagan they've got things spelled out pretty clearly. The 6 rail or 7 rail system on the back. Do we know what numbers we're talking 1 about with the other one? With Anderson? Hoffman: With the rail system, 7 on the back, 6 on the side is exactly what we've got. 1 We've got those... Schroers: Well Fred, this is your neighborhood. How do you feel about that? Berg: Tell what the difference is between the two in terms of what we're g etting? 1 Hoffman: You can't differentiate between the two. Berg: Okay. We're not thinking at all of not having the handrails are we? Hoffman: No. 1 Berg: Okay, good. Schroers: I can offer a little bit of input and that is that I've had considerably experience with Earl F. Anderson and their equipment has been very good and they have been a good company to work with. 1 Lash: Are you talking about personally in Hennepin County Parks? Schroers: Yes. And the city. I think that Landscape Structures seems to be very appealing and we have several of their components in Hennepin Parks and we have some here in the city of Chanhassen and I would assume that staff would agree that their products are good 1 and that they stand behind it pretty well. Berg: Well based on that recommendation, plus the difference in cost, I would think we'd 1 want to go with Anderson. 1 34 1 • Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 1 1 Lash: Would you like to put that in the form of a motion? Berg: I move that we accept the bid of Earl F. Anderson incorporated to construct the I bleachers at Meadow Green Park. Manders: Second. I Lash: It's also Carver Beach. 1 Berg: Is it? And Carver Beach. Ber g moved, Manders seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission to accept the I bid from Earl F. Anderson for two sets of bleachers to be assembled and placed at Meadow Green Park and Carver Beach Playground. All voted in favor and the motion 1 carried. PROGRAM REPORTS: 1 A. SEPTEMBERFEST EVALUATION. Jerry Ruegemer gave an evaluation of the Septemberfest festival to the Commission. Lash: Our biggest problem was there was no caramel apples. Write that down. Make sure 1 somebody sells those next year. Ruegemer: How did you think the prize board went? 1 Lash: I thought it was great. I did play once. I thought it was great...Yeah, a Festival certificate and I won $25.00 at Bingo. I thought Todd was bringing treats too. He won twice. Hoffman: Let me explain that. When I cash in one of those certificates at Festival. I Lash: I thought it was great and you know I was the one who said that after the 4th of July about having the prize board go longer because people seemed to go home when the prize board was over. And then it was like shooting ourselves in the foot and I was one of the biggest people who said, 11:30. I can't stay here until 11:30 to claim my prize so I'm not 1 going to buy tickets and I did hear people saying that. So maybe that wasn't a good idea on my part at all, and we're getting a lot of people who just don't have that staying power anymore. 1 35 1 • 1 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 1 Roeser: Well it's dark earlier too. I mean you're not going to stay out that late. 1 Lash: Yeah that's true. And then having to be there to claim the prize so then you think, gee do I really want to have to hang around until 11:30 just to. 1 Roeser: How late did it go? 1 Ruegemer: 11:30. Roeser: Were there a lot of people there or was it pretty thinned out by then? Hoffman: There were a few...Jane you were there when, during the afternoon? 1 Meger: Afternoon and part of the evening. I thought it was great. Certainly the pony rides and the line up there and the petting zoo. I heard one person make a comment walking away that gee, they wished they didn't have to pay to get into the petting zoo but then he said, well 1 I suppose the people who brought the animals they have to make some money somehow too. So I don't know. 1 Lash: ...my feelings about that little kiddie ride. People don't like to have to pay for all those. 1 Hoffman: I made the suggestion that half the people sponged off the petting zoo on the outside. I said next year we put a secondary fence around it... 1 Lash: Hey, and there were great hot dogs too. Berg: They weren't turkey this time? Lash: No turkey hot dogs. I don't think, were they? I didn't have one. I had a hamburger but. Hoffman: They weren't that good. The hamburgers were better. Ruegemer: But I think overall the thing went really well. I think the key was that they had a beautiful day and people were just happy to come out and enjoy and see everybody again. Lash: You know Jane and I did have quite a few people appearing to be interested in buying the shirts and the hats and saying, are there long sleeve ones and we had some of those kind 1 of comments so, especially the Lake Ann which isn't, it doesn't advertise the 4th of July. It's 1 36 1 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 1 1 just more of a generic thing. Hoffman: Those are on sale all summer at the building. 1 Lash: But eo le don't go down there and do that. They see them on display and then they I P P g Y P Y Y thought they were neat. Hoffman: We can sell them. , Berg: Jim and I had the same comments. Questions about buying them. I would just add 1 too, being raised in the city and then moving out to an area like this, it's really fun to see people having a good time. I mean they're just really out there having a great time. They're kidding us at the board and they're just walking around and talking to their neighbors and all that. You just don't see that in the city and I think it's really refreshing to see them having such a wonderful time. Hoffman: Any suggestions here in the evening. We didn't max out our crowd by any stretch of the imagination. Roeser: That's what I was wondering in terms of the focus or timing. If going that way should be brought forward a little bit, particularly at this time of year. Hoffman: Should we condense it all from 3:00 to 9:00 p.m. Would people come out for that long a period of time? II Lash: You could break it up kind of like Jerry had it. Have 3:00 to 6:00 some of the kids stuff and then 6:00 to 9:00 have that phase out and then there'd be an overlap period there of food. So if you came with your kids you could do the kids stuff and still eat and go home or if you wanted to come at 6:00 and eat and then do the more adult entertainment. Hoffman: We might want to go at least until 10:00. I Lash: Well you wouldn't even be able to get a band to come and just play for that. 1 Berg: Phase out the line dancing instructions and actually get to the meat of the evening. I guess I'm speaking for myself. 1 Lash: Just because you already know how to do it. 37 I 1 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 1 Meger: Plus there was talk of next year possibly adding a run or a bike and that would cause 1 us to start earlier too. You might want to look at, or starting even earlier... Lash: For sure people will be tired out then. Roeser: Are you thinking like a 5K run or something or what are you talking? Meger: We discussed many things. A short and a long bike ride or a short and a long run. Giving people an option to do a fun family thing or more intense challenge. 1 Schroers: An Iron Man Triathalon. Berg: Alright. Finally we get a chance. Meger: I was up in Walker, Minnesota a couple weekends ago and they have a 10K and you can walk or run and then they also have a marathon so you could probably do something like a 5K walk or run and then if somebody wanted to do a 10K. Something like that. Maybe forego the marathon. 1 Manders: They could gear up for the Twin Cities Marathon. Schroers: They have a deal up in Carlton that's really unique and it attracts a lot of people. They have a dog run and people can run with their dogs for like, I don't know if it's a 2K or a 3K or a 5K run but that, people drive from all over to go and see that. I'm not suggesting ' that we have a dog run but it's a novelty. It's something different that no one else has and anytime you come up with something a little bit off the beaten path, that tends to attract attention and bring people in. 1 Meger: Laderhosen Run. Berg: Could we, to deal with the ticket problem and people not having to stick around. Could we post something saying that we're going to publish the numbers of the winning lottery tickets or whatever in the Herald for the next week, or the Villager for the next week. 1 Then they wouldn't have to feel like they could stick around. Hoffman: That's what we wanted was for them to stick around. Lash: Because before you used to have to write your name on it and then you, I can see where contacting all those people would be a major hassle for you guys. 1 38 1 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 1 1 Lemme: We had softball trophies sitting...for all the teams. People don't come and get that stuff usually. 1 Audience: How much money did you pull down? Lemme: On all the different events? 1 Audience: Sure. Lemme: On the prize board I think we got about $170.00. On the petting zoo and pony rides though we earned about $1,100.00, which just about broke even for what we paid for the petting zoo and pony rides. And what other events did we have? Oh, the farmers market and the senior citizens area. They made a profit of over $500.00 between the bake sale and the produce that they sold. They were really pleased about that. 1 Roeser: What did they have? I didn't get to that. Lemme: Everything went in the first 2 hours. Meger: I was wondering, I thought I read that that was to start at 3:00 and. 1 Lemme: We had a controversy... The men wanted to sell at noon. If we have buyers, let them buy it. Let's sell it. The women said, it says 3:00, we can't sell until 3:00. Obviously we know who won because everything was gone by 3:00. Hoffman: Sounds like a male- female dispute. 1 Schroers: Well that was that previous generation when men were still the boss. Things have changed. Lemme: ...are happy because they got rid of everything. Hoffman: Other input to help us in planning for next year? We may have to throw out that Lederhosen band. They were a good band. We really want to amend this thing and if we shorten the time frame up. Lash: So you think that will break people's heart if there wasn't a polka band at all? 1 Hoffman: Yeah. 1 39 1 1 1 J Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 1 Roeser: That's what September is all about. 1 Lemme: Well it's the harvest. It depends if you go with the harvest theme or the German theme. 1 Hoffman: Well a western band isn't either. 1 Berg: Germans are nice too. I think we should leave the Germans. Hoffman: Keep the beer coming. I Manders: It sounds to me like they were struggling to keep it rolling that late so condensing it wouldn't seem to me to be a problem. I Lash: Well they were plenty loud. I could hear them after I got home and I was in bed. 1 Hoffman: I'm sure you could, yeah. Lemme: People I know said that they live several blocks away and had their windows open 1 and could hear it. Lash: I live almost 2 miles away and I had my windows shut and I could still hear them... I Hoffman: We're ready We r eady to roll. 1 Schroers: Let's roll. Let's continue. I B. FALL SENIOR CENTER ACTIVITY UPDATE. Dawn Lemme gave an activity update for the Senior Center for the fall. 1 Schroers: That's good news. It's nice to see that that program is successful and we appreciate all the hard work and dedication that staff has put into that. 1 C. GATE ATTENDANT PROGRAM. 1 Jerry Ruegemer gave the presentation on the Gate Attendant Program. Schroers: No questions? Keep up the good work and onto Teen Night Out. I 1 40 I 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 1 1 D. TEEN NIGHT OUT. Jerry Ruegemer gave an update on this item. 1 Meger: What age groups, I know it says teen. 1 Ruegemer: 6th, 7th and 8th grade. Schroers: Good program. Give them something to do. I Berg: Oh yeah, it's great. Can you keep a handle on a little bit and see, in terms of numbers 1 if it might not be a good idea to break it apart by grades a little bit in the future. Those are going to get very astronomical numbers. Lash: Yeah, the enrollment this year, there are 1,007. 111 Ruegemer: At the Middle School? 1 Lash: Yep. I Ruegemer: What was it last year, like 850 or something? Lash: I don't know and I think that doesn't probably include all the 6th graders that are at Jonathan and so there's so many classes over there right now. Like 4 or 6 or something. Berg: At least 4. 1 Lash: That's a lot of kids in that age group. If even half of them showed up, you guys I would lose your minds. Berg: Well there's a safety factor. 1 Lash: But you know I did hear a concern last year from somebody who had a 6th grader and of course people who have 6th graders, and now I'm one of them this year too. They're a II whole different breed because this whole Middle School thing makes them so nervous and they're so worried about them interacting with these older 8th graders and the kind of things they're going to learn and all that. And the 6th grade class is of course the biggest. So if 1 you do think you're going to lean towards doing a grade level split, I guess I would think of having the 6th graders separate and then lumping the 7th and 8th graders together. I 41 1 1 1 ill Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 1 Berg: Particularly because they're separated all day too. They do a nice job of keeping the I 6th graders away from the 7th and 8th graders during the day. Lash: Right. And there's a reason that they do that. 1 Berg: Oh yeah. 1 Lash: You know that's a well founded. Berg: To all of a sudden throw them into the social mix together is real potential problems. I Hoffman: Could you split that this year Jerry? 1 Ruegemer: Potentially. Probably not for the October 15th dance. Lash: Because the school dances are split that way too I believe, aren't they? I Berg: Yes. . 1 Lash: 6th grade separate and then 7th and 8th graders together. Berg: I believe so. I Ruegemer: We can take a look at that. 1 E. PICNIC RESERVATION REVENUE. I Jerry Ruegemer gave a brief report on the picnic reservation revenue for 1993. Schroers: When the word gets out, it's absolutely incredible. We start taking reservations for I reservation areas on January 2nd and by January 10th the entire system is booked every weekend of the season. There may be some weekdays available but I mean in a matter of 8 to 10 days we're booked for the season. I Lash: What kind of feedback have you gotten regarding the fees from people? III Ruegemer: The fees really haven't been that much of a problem. It's if there's carryover like there might be a picnic on a Saturday and then right away on a Sunday again. Just the information I've been getting back. Throughout the summer we did have somebody there on 1 Sunday mornings but there seems to be, evaluations are coming back and there seems to be II 42 1 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 1 1 some debris left at the sites which I understand it hasn't been cleaned but that's something that we need to take a look at. The fees really haven't been that much of a problem. And I then the pavilion shelter for non - residents at $185.00 and I haven't had really anybody squawk at that. Lash: And that's the half day fee or the whole day fee? 1 Ruegemer: There isn't anything split... 1 Lash: We decided we were going to review that again before next season weren't we? Ruegemer: I think there had been talk about it. I Lash: So say we operated like Hennepin Parks where you started accepting reservations in January, we probably would have to review that before then so that we would know if we need to change the fees or the hours. Ruegemer: Just for your information. I really haven't had a whole lot of double up on...that might be because a lot of groups might book throughout the day. A lot of them are only I there for 4 to 5 hours anyway which still would, had that available if somebody else would choose to come in but that really wasn't a problem this year. At Lake Susan I had a couple on a Sunday come in on the same day but there really isn't that much of a problem at this I time. Schroers: But the biggest user complaint you had was that they didn't think the facilities were clean enough when they got there? Yeah, that's something. People don't mind paying the money but when they get there, they say. We paid for it, we didn't pay for a mess. Berg: And they're right. 1 Schroers: Yep. 1 Roeser: What type of a usage are you noticing? Is it resident or non - resident primarily for like the picnic shelter? 1 Ruegemer: It's about half and half. I had a lot of odd out of town companies coming in. I had a lot of Chaska people come up. A lot of Minnetonka people come over. But it's been I about half and half right now. With maybe the edge going to the non - residents. Schroers: Private parties or corporate groups like company picnics and that sort of thing? 1 43 1 1 3 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 1 Ruegemer: More company picnics in the probably 100 to 150 people range. I did have a big corporate...out there had about 500 people in August but that was the biggest by far. I had a couple trickle in there at about that size, or 400 range possibly but other than that it's been really the 100 to 150 range. 1 Lash: And then I forget what we decided on this. Did everybody who was coming to the picnic then have to have a parking permit? Or pay to get in? Ruegemer: ...didn't have a parking permit. The total, grand total for the revenues collected 1 for 1993, to this day has been $4,680.88. Lash: And that money just goes into the general fund for like maintenance or what kind of budget? Berg: Do you anticipate a day when we're going to have to start distinguishing whether or 1 not we're going to give priority to residents over non - residents? Or do we even want to do that? Ruegemer: I guess I don't foresee that to be a problem...elect to establish some type of policy. 1 Schroers: I think the best policy is a first come, first serve and we shouldn't bring that issue up unless it's brought up to us. You know if we have residents that they come and complain 1 that it's their facility and they're paying the taxes for it and they can never get it when they want it, then at that point I think it would be appropriate to address it but until then it's first come, first serve is fair and most people don't have a problem with that procedure. 1 Lash: How would you do that anyway Fred? Berg: I have no idea. I was just trying to anticipate if it ever would be a problem. I don't know how you'd do it. Schroers: We had something of that nature with softball and it gets to be a real can of worms. 1 Lash: Which is one that needs to be opened anyway. Schroers: Yeah. Well moving along. 111 1 44 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 1 F. LEISURE LINE REPORT. Jerry Ruegemer gave the staff report on this item. Schroers: It's good news. 1 G. HALLOWEEN PARTY UPDATE. Jerry Ruegemer gave Rue emer the update on the Halloween Party on Saturday, October 30th. Berg: Didn't the National Honor Society at the High School used to get involved in this one? 1 Ruegemer: More so with the Easter Egg Hunt. It's hard to get them, the National Honor Society I think it was too early in the year for them to establish their group from what I understand. Berg: Okay. That makes sense. 1 Schroers: Do we have any volunteers for the Halloween party? What day of the week is that? Ruegemer: Actual Halloween is on Sunday the 31st and the Halloween party is Saturday night the 30th. ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS: 1 A. STOCKDALE PROPERTY UPDATE. Todd Hoffman gave a staff report on this item. Lash: Will that be able to be done within the time frame that we have to work with? 1 Hoffman: Sure. Lash: Because we don't meet again until the end of October. Hoffman: We're right on line to purchase this property... 1 Lash: Hasn't it been 30 days already? 45 1 1 J Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 1 Hoffman: 45 was... 1 Lash: No, but it's already been 30 days hasn't it...so if we don't meet again for another month, that would be over the 45 days. 1 Hoffman: The commission, at that time you gave authority to Council, the authority to go 1 ahead and purchase it Lash: Oh, okay. I thought you meant that before, okay. Never mind. 1 B. LIGHT RAIL TRANSIT REPORT. Todd Hoffman gave the staff presentation on this item. There were no questions or comments from the Commission. C. PHEASANT HILL PARK AND POWER HILL GRADING AND SEEDING REPORT. 1 Todd Hoffman gave the staff presentation on this item. Lash: Well they moved here and we didn't have a community center and we didn't have the ' trails in their neighborhood and we didn't have a park in their neighborhood, so I mean I cat' see if they came here and then things were missing but to come in and get upset because 1 they're not there, when they weren't there to start with. They chose to move there and there was none of those facilities. I don't sound very compassionate but I guess I'm not. Schroers: In certain cases people led buyers to believe that the city was going to be providing this or that or that because they were paying this park dedication fee as a part of purchasing their house, you know. 1 Hoffman: We're taking steps to correct this. I mean I wrote a memorandum today to the... proposing that we allow that $30,000.00 to park maintenance and next year $60,000.00. The ' following year $90,000.00...We really need to address what our park maintenance division can realistically accomplish...Chanhassen's going to be in development for quite a long period of time. We need to put a person on staff there that is really a development person. They ' spend their entire time from day one opening up in the spring until fall, they're installing playground equipment, grading, seeding, installing fencing, they're doing capital improvements and... 1 1 46 1 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 1 1 Schroers: They've got how many? Hoffman: Three full time staff members. Dale Gregory... Schroers: I don't want to say anything but that falls right in line. That's what we've got, 3. ■ Hoffman: That's for the one park. Schroers: Yes. 1 Hoffman: Probably the acreage is the same but I don't think. 1 Schroers: 320 acres but the use I don't think is the same. Hoffman: Workin g at 26 sites versus 1. Schroers: Well yeah, there's a lot of travel time and loading and unloading and different 1 equipment for different places, yeah. But you know we talked about that and we had invited Dale in and on a couple of different occasions and we said, we're developing all these parks. We think you're going to need more help. He told us you know at that point that he didn't think that he needed additional employees or whatever so I guess, you know, I agree. I don't think you continue to add and add and add and expect to maintain the same level of quality maintenance care with the same number of people when you keep on dumping a heavier load on them all the time. I mean that doesn't even make sense. But I don't want to back track or get into a big thing here but I think with that new picnic shelter that we have at Lake Ann, it would definitely behoove us to take whatever measures we need to ensure that that place is being looked after properly and to ensure that people are not disappointed when they come to use it. That it is clean and in good shape and that may be, there may be a number of ways to accomplish that. With an attendant working down at the building or whatever part of their assigned duties is to police that area. Or if it's given to the maintenance staff or whatever but that can turn into a really positive or a really negative thing just depending on how it's maintained. Lash: And if people, if we've been promising people. If they've come in and seen a plan and in '93 this is going in or '92 this is going in and it's not there yet, I can understand them calling and having this campaign. But if it's things that we have that are long range planning that we don't even have budgeted to do until '95 or '96 or after, I mean the best we can tell 1 them is this is when it's budgeted and this is the soonest we can get at it and like Larry said, they are being promised these things by people other than us. Is there some way that we can address that to diffuse that before it even happens? Do they have to, I know they have to 1 47 1 1 1 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 I l that's y for a building permit but that s the developer, right? 1 Hoffman: It's a contractor. 1 Lash: Okay, but it's not the homeowner. Hoffman: No, the homeowners, typically if they're interested... 1 Lash: But do they get a copy? Do we get their mailing address. Is there some kind of a letter that can be sent out everytime there's a building permit or occupancy permit that's I granted or however that works that just says, this is, there's a park slated for that neighborhood. This is the ballpark plan for this and don't call us about it. No, but you know I mean at least they know, they've heard from the city and they're not then just hearing a big I line from their developer about things that we haven't promised. I mean they're not going to go back to the developer and complain. They're going to be coming to us and if we can approach them in a way before that even happens, maybe they'd at least be a little more 1 educated in what to expect and not have their hopes unrealistic. Hoffman: I agree with your comment you made earlier. I mean I rely on the individuals to 1 have enough responsibility to understand what's realistic and what's not and legitimate gripes...you just have to be realistic. But you also have to listen. That's what they're there. I D. MEADOW GREEN PARK. Todd Hoffman presented the staff report on this item. I Roeser: So where is the, Pontiac is? 1 Hoffman: Pontiac's at the top of the page. This is the parking lot right here. The people drive past the parking lot. Turn left on Pontiac and come down and either park on street or I park in the driveways of these units. Roeser: I thought Pontiac was next to the one along the side. Isn't that Pontiac as well? 1 Hoffman: They're both called Pontiac. And then through here, these people have called as well. They have folks who have cut... 1 Lash: That's what I thought you were talking about was the southerly portion and they were cutting through that to the ballfield. I just couldn't even believe that people would do that. 1 1 48 1 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 1 1 Roeser: So there's just not enough parking space in that parking lot so they end up parking... Hoffman: That's why option number 3, it solves both of those. It shows the impression to 1 the property owner that the intent is delineated if you're a parent with your kids, you either have to shimmy under or crawl over a fence... 1 Schroers: Todd, are you looking for a recommendation this evening or do you want us to...in our '94 budget plan? 1 Hoffman: Your budget plan has been forwarded to the City Council so this is not a part of it. The Cimarron Homeowners Association is expecting a response following this meeting. If you do go ahead and approve this, it would mean I think, what $9,000.00 or $10,000.00 is allocated in miscellaneous... However, if the $30,000.00 transfer is approved, that opens up and give you some leeway. If that's approved that transfer of funds, we will go back in and 1 adjust the 1994 CIP so that's something else. Schroers: Would another option be signing? 1 Hoffman: Sure. Highway, or Street Department put up no parking signs Have the g ay, o p p p p g g ns and then another informational sign saying this is private property, not park access. Parking is provided 1 wherever. That would probably. Roeser: That's getting pretty complicated. Schroers: That would probably cost a lot less money and be a little more aesthetic than building a big fence there. I guess I don't know if the neighbors would like signs better or a fence better but. Hoffman: It was their opinion that a fence would be more pleasing. The signs...no parking. Then you also enter into the issue of well they have limited parking. When they have parties... Lash: So it'd have to be completely no parking. That means the residents can't park there ■ either and that's a hassle if you can't park in front of your own house. Hoffman: Signage is just not as clear cut. We could put private property. We could put no trespassing. We could do all those things but you can walk right past signs. But I'm open to signage or fence. 1 49 1 1 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 I Lash: Which one do ou think would solve best? y ou d so ve the problem best. Is there a problem also from I this other, or do you think if the one is blocked off, then people will go up to the next street and cut through that way? I Hoffman: Yeah, we may want to do one or the other. There's a problem from both. The people on the south, they actually have people who warm up throwing in their yards because you can't distinguish between park and yard. 1 Lash: So maybe the L shaped one is the. I Hoffman: That's the one which I recommended you approve. And again this would be an item at $5,000.00 or $5,500.00 or whatever the case...in tapering it out of that $30,000.00 which goes into improvements, maintenance improvements to the park. It's an ongoing 1 maintenance, park improvement item. Lash: This goes right back to the Lundgren thing tonight. You know people have to have I some way of getting, a convenient way of getting into the park or they're going to just start cutting through people's yards. I Schroers: It is pretty ironic. I mean you go to the park to get exercise but you don't want to walk across the field to get there. 1 Berg: I'd like to move that we accept, or that we authorize an expenditure of $4,500.00 in 1994 to complete the fencing and drainage corrections necessary at Meadow Green and that we authorize that for Alternative No. 3. I Schroers: I'1l second it. 1 Berg moved, Schroers seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission authorize an expenditure of $4,500.00 in 1994 to complete the fencing and drainage corrections 1 necessary at Meadow Green and that we authorize that for Alternative No. 3. All voted in favor and the motion carried. I COMMISSION MEMBER PRESENTATIONS: Schroers: Does anyone have anything? 1 Lash: I do have one and I'll try to make it brief. It was the discussion I had Saturday night with Jack Jensen, President of the CAA. I believe he was in attendance at the Task Force 1 meetings for the new elementary site and I was not so he was telling me his concerns at that 1 50 1 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 1 meeting and as I referred to earlier, he does seem to have a concern that with the new elementary school coming on line, those baseball fields sounded to him like they'll be identified for the same age group children as City Center Park. Thus leaving a gap in the ballfields for the older aged ball players and also the girls. I know he's had a concern about the girls softball and he's approached us about that before. We also had a discussion about the use of neighborhood parks and he; of course is supporting that and I told him my feeling on that. But I guess I do share his concern that as this age is going to continue, and there is a bulge starting at about grade 6. And you can see that in the enrollment at the elementary 1 and the middle school. So that group of kids is going to start requiring more and more ball space and we need to come up with a way to provide it. I really don't want them to have to go to Chaska to play ball. I want them to be able to play in Chan if they can. So maybe this Opus thing is going to be a relief for that or maybe we need to come up with some way or earmarking it. His suggestion, one of his suggestions is that we light more fields and he said the CAA would be willing to help with that. They've met and discussed it and he said that they have volunteers, electricians and contractors with equipment and everything else who would be willing to volunteer their time to install it, the lighting if we would just purchase the lighting. And he said that he, to the best of his knowledge, the lighting alone would be around $22,000.00. I don't know how accurate that is. So if we could light 1 or 2 more fields for under $50,000.00, that really opens it up a lot to the older kids and to the adults where I guess we can have adults playing more night games, the late night games. We could have kids play the first shift, which a lot of adults have trouble getting there by 6:00 anyway. Have the kids play first and then have 2 adult games after that. If you .want to run later. But it would provide some more flexibility. I agreed with some of his concerns. I think it's something we need to think about at least. Maybe investigate this volunteer proposal. That's it. 1 Schroers: Anything else? Hoffman: Any response from any commission members? Schroers: On what Jan has said? I can respond to that. What we identified as a need was in the 12 to 14 year old age group and that was what was discussed at the Task Force and not to go on with this any longer. The bottom line was that we asked the architects to give us the best utilization of the space available. The biggest ballfields that we could get in accordance 1 with what they have to work with and they are coming back with a concept or a plan for us to review or approve or whatever but the bottom line was that it's just, what we're all about here. We need a lot of what we don't have. The demand is there and the facilities is not so what we're looking for is the best utilization of the space available and that's what the architects are going to try to put in the plan. 51 1 1 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 Lash: So there was no consensus a as to the age range that would be? 1 Berg: I think there was. Schroers: It was identified that that's where the need is. But you know when they're talking if they're 14 years old now, by the time they're playing on the fields, they're going to be 16. They're going to be out of that and there's going to be others coming up and I forget what the dimensions were. If they were the 200 foot fields or if they were the 275 foot fields but that's what it's going to be so whatever will accommodate, whatever age a 200 foot field will accommodate, that's pretty much what we're going to be locked into. And I think that were ' they all going to be the same? They were going to come back with 2 or 3 different plans. We asked them for the fields all the same size or one field larger. One field a premiere field that would be for a tournament or something. And so they're going to come back with 2 or 3 or 4 or whatever different plans and we'll be reviewing it all again. We know the need is there. ' Manders: My observation on that discussion that night was that, although I kind of empathize with where he's coming from in terms of demand, but it seemed to me that he was suggesting that resources be focused more exclusively towards the demands for field space ' and lighting to the detriment of some of the other activities such as soccer or lighting or tennis courts or any of these other areas that he was asking for those resources in that area and I have a hard time accepting that. • Berg: My perception of the meeting was I think somewhat different in that I felt that we were allocating or talking about providing as many parks as we could for the smaller kids and 1 recognizing that there was a very large need for those kids right now and sort of turning our back on the need when they get a little bit older hoping that something would develop by the time they got there. Lash: That was your perception? 1 Berg: That was my perception. Lash: Which is what Jack's perception was. I think. He felt that it was all being earmarked for rag ball, t -ball. Little League. The same age as the kids that are now at City Center so we'd have, we would double that facility space basically. 1 Berg: I thought when you went up Todd and you listed all the things on the board and we broke the ages down of what was using, I thought that came through that that where's the 1 greatest need was today. 1 52 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 1 1 Schroers: I think that that was in the earlier or middle part of the task force meeting and the bottom line was that they were going to try to develop a plan that would maximum the use of I the space available up to whatever the 200 foot fields would accommodate. Berg: I agree. I got that same conclusion but my understanding was that's what the little kids were going to be the ones that were going to be using it. Is I think the only spot where we're interpreting differently. Lash: So if it's 200 feet, Todd says that will accommodate 15 year olds. 1 Manders: It's the maximum you can get. I don't know what else you can do. Hoffman: I don't recall what Gary...quoted but it covers most of girls softball and what it came down to, they wanted four multi- purpose fields that could be used for everything. The maximum distance we could get to make 4 fields was 200 feet. And they're going to be used I for a lot of different things depending on where the numbers are... Lash: So we'll be able to be flexible on the usage right? ' Hoffman: Absolutely... Berg: Based on the fact, the limitation of the numbers. I mean the smaller numbers probably I aren't going to go down either. Lash: No. I understand that but you can double book that stuff too. You can have the, Y , depending on where the numbers are, you have rag ball and then you have, what's after Little League? No, pee wees. You can have Little League after that. 1 Berg: You can go from 2 games on a field a night to 3 with lights for example. I Lash: Right. Schroers: That's a good point but Jim's point was also good that these people come in here 1 with a mission. They're focused on their one thing and they're pushing hard and they're digging and they're twisting and they're saying, why do we need a hockey rink...specific their own want, need and desire and when it all shakes out, you've got to try to accommodate the spectrum. Lash: Well I understand that and I think that's what we're doing but I guess I was concerned that it was already being earmarked for only a certain, and it was being planned size wise for only younger children so it would never be able to accommodate older children and I didn't 1 53 1 1 1 1 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - September 28, 1993 1 think that was a good idea. 1 Hoffman: ...totally thrown out the window so you'll see a brand new one. The school has now gone to the west side of the site and the park... 1 Schroers: Okay, that's it. That should take care of the Commission member presentations. The last item is the Administrative Packet. Any? 1 Hoffman: We're proud of that...to Council. Schroers: Well if no one has anything on the Administrative packet. I Roeser moved, Lash seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried. The meeting was adjourned. I Submitted by Todd Hoffman Park and Recreation Coordinator I Prepared by Nann Opheim . P Y P 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 54 • 1