CC 2012 09 24
CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL
REGULAR MEETING
SEPTEMBER 24, 2012
Mayor Furlong called the meeting to order at 7:05 p.m. The meeting was opened with the Pledge to
the Flag.
COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT:
Mayor Furlong, Councilman McDonald, Councilwoman
Tjornhom, Councilwoman Ernst, and Councilman Laufenburger
STAFF PRESENT:
Todd Gerhardt, Laurie Hokkanen, Paul Oehme, Kate Aanenson, Todd Hoffman,
and Roger Knutson
PUBLIC PRESENT:
Todd Phillips Ferguson Waterworks
Ian Coburn Neptune Technology Group
Brian Moens Ferguson Waterworks
Mayor Furlong: Thank you and welcome to everybody here in the council chambers and those watching
at home as well. We’re glad that you all joined us this evening. At this time, prior to approving an
agenda this evening I would like to add one item. Item number 6 under new business and that would be
for the council to consider an appointment to the Senior Commission. Without objection we’ll add that
item. Are there any other, again without objection we’ll adopt the amended agenda as proposed. I move
now to the first items on our agenda this evening.
CONSENT AGENDA: Councilman Laufenburger moved, Councilwoman Ernst seconded to
approve the following consent agenda items pursuant to the City Manager’s recommendations:
a. Approval of Minutes:
-City Council Work Session Minutes dated September 10, 2012
-City Council Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated September 10, 2012
Receive Commission Minutes:
-Planning Commission Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated September 4, 2012
-Park and Recreation Commission Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated August 28, 2012
Resolution #2012-48:
b. Approve Resolution Adopting the County Hazard Mitigation Plan.
Resolution #2012-49:
c. 2013 Street Improvement Project 13-01: Authorize Preparation of
Feasibility Report.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
VISITOR PRESENTATIONS.
Laurie Susla: Good evening. My name’s Laurie Susla.
Mayor Furlong: Good evening.
Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
Laurie Susla: I am with the Lotus Lake Conservation Alliance. Wanted to pop in again and thank you
guys once again for what you’re doing this year, 2012 towards AIS prevention in Chanhassen lakes. I
think we all think it’s quite important to keep our lakes as wonderful as we can so thank you for the
discussion that happened at the working session. Thank you for the funding that went on in 2012. We’d
like to say thanks to the watershed too. They were obviously huge partners in 2012 and we hope that that
will happen again for 2013. Thanks to Todd for administering the whole program this summer and for
writing up this great summary of what went on. We appreciate that. There were a couple of clarifications
I wanted to make. The Lotus Lake, and Todd didn’t have all this information so that’s, this is not
anything that he’s done incorrectly but the Lotus Lake Conservation Alliance by the end of this year will
have spent $12,000 on inspections. We gave, have written checks for $7,050 to the City and we have
about another $5,000 that we are doing with our own inspection program. The purpose of that is to
supplement what the City is doing. The City is doing or did this summer Monday through Thursday from
4:00 to 8:00 and we took that from 6:00 in the morning until 4:00 in the afternoon when that was picked
up by you guys, just because we feel it’s important to take a look at every boat before it goes in the lake to
try to keep zebra mussels and other AIS out. One of the things that Denny pointed out, that it’s important
to have one set of data and Todd we should get together and get our numbers together on that. One of the
things that you’ll see that’s different between the report from LLCA and the report from Todd was the
data on the boats that were arriving in violation. We, there were two different sets of data that was being
collected. One was whether the plug was in the boat when the inspector took a look at the boat. Another
question was whether the plug was in when the boat arrived so if the inspector went up to the boat and
saw that the plug was in, he would, the inspector would ask the boat owner was that in when you came
and give the owner an opportunity to answer that question. The data that Todd pulled was from the,
asking the question of the boat owner. The data that I pulled was from whether the plug was physically in
so there’s just a few little differences on how the data was looked at but we certainly can get together,
work out those differences. Another clarification I’d like to make is the LLCA did not say that we would
not be willing to contribute next year. What we said was that continuing to contribute year after year at a
$12,000 level is going to be very difficult. That’s going to be hard to sustain so we’re hoping that the
City will start to look at lakes the way we look at parks and that people who currently live next to a park
are not expected to mow the lawn. They’re not expected to empty the trash cans and so we’re hoping that
the people who live next to lakes, although we’re happy to contribute, it will start to become more of a
function of things that the City does and the watershed does so we do want to continue to work. I just
wanted to clarify that. It’s not that we don’t foresee helping with this program for years to come but we
do, we’d like to see a transition into something that the City could caretake. Trailers in the lot before 6:00
a.m. That was another question and what we’ve just antidotally gotten some information, we did ask
Todd if he could ask VOLT to collect that information. There was, he didn’t want to alter the contract
with them so that wasn’t collected but from people who live in that neighborhood, weekend mornings
there are a lot of trailers in the lot before 6:00. Weekend day mornings fewer but most every morning
there are trailers in the lot before 6:00. I think one of the things that the LLCA is proposing is that we just
take a look at how we’re spending money in the city. We’ve spent in 2012 over $3 million dollars on
parks. The City spent $10,000 on the three lakes. We need to start taking a look at how are we going to
protect the lakes. How that becomes part of a long term plan. My husband works for a company where
one of the sayings, he’s a sales manager. One of the sayings that they have is that hope is not a strategy
and if we continue to just hope that people are going to obey the law, that people aren’t going to go into
parks when they’re not supposed to, we’re going to end up with an issue. Last summer the parks and rec
commission passed a motion, and I’m going to, I have to read this because I don’t have it memorized but
it said that the City Council move forward with a very aggressive approach in terms of timing and
developing of an AIS policy with the input of citizens, city advisory committees, and local, county, state
and regional governing bodies to adopt an aquatic invasive species policy. This carried 5 to 0 in the parks
and rec commission and it would be great as we go through the planning this year to see that become part
of what the City decides to do. It’s hard to make a plan without a policy so we’re hoping that that’s
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
something that will happen. We very much look forward to working with you and we thank you for all
the efforts that went on this year. Thanks.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. And we appreciate the efforts by the association as well. The alliance and
their financial contribution. This was a program as we said in our work session that was a cooperative
program among various government units. The City, as much was a facilitator and spent a significant
amount of time, staff time in helping coordinate the program and really leveraged the funding that was
available from the DNR, the watershed district, our local residents as well as city contribution so I think it
was successful in many regards and something that as part of the actions that we were looking at last
spring when we put this in place was to get an update. Review that review happened, or started this
evening at our work session and we’ll be working on this over the coming weeks and months as we look
to the next season so I appreciate the comments. Anyone else for visitor presentations this evening?
Very good, thank you.
LAW ENFORCEMENT/FIRE DEPARTMENT UPDATES.
Mayor Furlong: We’ll move now to our first item. Or excuse me, we have updates from our law
enforcement and fire department this evening so Lieutenant Enevold is here. You thought you’d get out
of it tonight. I was just going to skip by you. Good evening Lieutenant.
Lt. Jeff Enevold: Mr. Mayor, council, good evening. Two quick items for you tonight. The first one is I
want to share a recent success story from our investigator. We recently had a call of a cell phone theft
from a local business here in town. The deputies responded. Took the initial call for service. Detective
Ryan Thiele followed up on a call. Identified the suspect and set up an interview. Was able to get a
confession from him and was able to get 3 phones back and return those to the owners. The owners were
obviously very grateful for the follow up and the return of their phones because these phones nowadays
can be, you know they’re miniature computers. $400-$500 so very happy with us and you know this
story is not unique to the policing mission here in Chanhassen. This stuff goes on every day and I share
this story to emphasize the importance of having an investigator assigned to the City of Chanhassen to
provide that prompt follow up and work closely with the deputies. This investigator is really a great asset
to help us meet our public safety goals here in the city of Chanhassen. And those of you that know Ryan
Thiele he does an excellent job for us so you know kudos to him. The second call for service I wanted to
share with you, I need to share a quick story here to kind of set it up so bear with me a little bit. When I
was new to this career I’d respond to a strange or unique call for service and I’d shake my head and I’d
say, what in the world just happened. You know what’s going on here? And I’d drive home when I was
off duty at night and I’d say boy I’ve seen it all. You know there can’t be anything you know worst than
this and well I learned pretty quickly that that’s not true because I’d come to work the next day, the next
week and I’d shake my head again and say holy cow. You know how could this happen? Well over the
last month we’ve had 5 incidents in the Longacres neighborhood that I’ve never seen before in my law
enforcement career. Deputies responded to damage to garage doors. One homeowner heard a loud bang
at about 2:30 in the morning. Call our office. We responded and the suspects were gone. We couldn’t
find them. While the deputies were photographing and examining the garage doors they found big dents
in the garage doors and they looked closely at it and they couldn’t see any you know scuff marks or
footprints or anything that would identify a baseball bat or any other item that was used to do it. Well,
what we’ve concluded is that these kids I’m assuming are taking a run at it, running up to the garage door
and slamming into the garage door with their shoulder. Their head. Their knee. Whatever they’re using
and you know that’s what we believe that they’re doing so after reading these 5 reports you know I shook
my head, I said why in the world would somebody do this, you know and I couldn’t come up with an
answer for it but I tell you when we find these vandals that’s the first question I’m going to ask them is
why in the world are you doing this so. You know this is a great example of why we ask the citizens and
folks who see people out late at night or see suspicious activity, call us right away. Don’t be afraid to call
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
911 so we can get there and take care of this stuff so I would ask anybody who’s watching and if you
have any information related to these crimes in the Longacres neighborhood, call our office. We have an
anonymous tip line if you don’t want to share your name, you’re certainly welcome to do that so. Those
are the two items I have for you Mr. Mayor.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you.
Lt. Jeff Enevold: Questions, comments.
Mayor Furlong: Any questions for the Lieutenant this evening? Questions on the report? No? Always
fun to hear successes in the new but strange ways that people cause damage, thank you.
Lt. Jeff Enevold: Very good, thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Chief Wolff is here this evening. Good evening Chief. Chanhassen Fire Department.
Chief John Wolff: Good evening Mr. Mayor, council. Staff. Couple things for tonight’s report and it’s
been a few months I think since I’ve been here. Got a reprieve last month and the month before I was out
of town. We’re still down on calls about 15%. A lot of that was driven in the first quarter. We were
down a lot then and I’d say we’ve down about 5% in the last 2 quarters just to give you a sense. Most of
that’s driven by medical. Just a lower medical request and I think it’s primarily because Jeff’s team is
handling more of that. More of those calls for service. They call us if they need us. In August we
participated in National Night Out. We had about a dozen members with 4 of our units and actually some
of you folks were with us and some of the staff were with us along with I know the sheriff had folks out
there too. Each unit visited 4 neighborhoods so like 16 different neighborhoods and I kind of was making
a run between the different units that were out there to try to get to as many of the neighborhoods as
possible but a real positive community event, as it always is and people really appreciate that. Very dry
fire conditions right now. The state’s actually in a no open burning status right now and it’s obvious our
lakes are way down and the rain’s way down so it’s, we’re vulnerable til we get snow coverage but there
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have not been any major brush fires or outdoor fires. This Sunday, on September 30 Chanhassen
firefighters will be escorting the Wiborg and Windschitl family to St. Paul. Mick Wiborg and Mel
Windschitl were line of duty deaths and they’re going to be honored along with 206 other fire fighters in
the state of Minnesota since 1881 that have died in the line of duty. This was a fundraising event. Totally
private money that put, that came together. It was fire fighters either giving of their own treasure or their
time. The City of Chanhassen uniquely led the entire state in terms of fundraising. We raised another
$2,500 this fall for a total of almost $14,500. Really an incredible effort for our community and our
citizens towards a $680,000 bill to fund this memorial so everything’s kind of coming together and in
place. The families I think are really appreciative of the efforts of the state and also of the local
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community to honor the fallen. Want to close with an invitation. Our open house is October 14 and we
would love to see our City Council and staff, Mayor and obviously the community attend. It’s always a
great event. We usually get great weather and it’s just a real fun day. It starts at 1:00 and it goes til 4:00
so if you can stop by we would love to have you stop by. Fire Prevention Week is the week before
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leading into that from the 8 to the 14 and we have about 30 fire fighters that volunteer their time. It’s
about 1,500 man hours between that week and actually next week and then even some of it trickles into
the week after to hit all the schools that we go to or that we bring in so it’s a real big effort that’s
coordinated by Mark Litfin, our Fire Marshal and Ed Coppersmith, our Deputy Fire Marshal. I’ll take
any questions if there are any.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you Chief. Appreciate the update.
Chief John Wolff: Sure.
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
Mayor Furlong: Any questions for Chief Wolff this evening.
Councilman McDonald: Yes.
Mayor Furlong: Councilman McDonald.
Councilman McDonald: The only comment I wanted to make is you know I really appreciate you
continuing to include these comment cards because it really helps give us a good feedback from what the
community is really thinking about the calls. I know I was one of the ones that went out on National
Night Out on one of your fire trucks and I got a lot of good comments about what the fire department
does so this really helps us I think in really kind of looking at the service you provide to the community
so thanks.
Chief John Wolff: Thanks Jerry.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Appreciate the update.
Chief John Wolff: Thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Welcome back.
TH
LAKESIDE 7 ADDITION, LOCATED BETWEEN LAKE RILEY DRIVE AND HIGHWAY
212, ALONG WITH PART OF OUTLOT A, LAKESIDE AND PART OF OUTLOT A,
ND
LAKESIDE 2 ADDITION; APPLICANT RON CLARK CONSTRUCTION:
A. REQUEST FOR A PLANNED UNIT DEVELOPMENT (PUD) AMENDMENT;
PRELIMINARY PLAT OF 17 LOTS; SITE PLAN REVIEW FOR 17 TOWNHOUSE
UNITS; AND VARIANCES.
B. PUBLIC HEARING: CONSIDER VACATION OF DRAINAGE AND UTILITY
EASEMENT.
Mayor Furlong: There are various aspects associated with this. Again I said there was a public hearing
associated with the drainage and utility easement. I believe a public hearing was held at the Planning
Commission but in any event let’s start with the staff report. We’ll hear from the applicant and take it
from there.
Kate Aanenson: Thank you Mayor, members of the City Council. As you stated there is a public hearing
for the drainage and utility easement. We’ve kind of encumbered that in the whole presentation so you
can see how that works but there was a public hearing at the Planning Commission regarding the
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application itself and that did occur on September 4 and there was approximately 12 residents from the
neighborhood who supported the project and the Planning Commission did vote unanimously to
recommend approval to you for this project. This is where I have problems. Can somebody, sorry. I’m
having problems on this side moving the slide forward. The location of the project then is, this is on the
north, excuse me. Just south of 212 on the eastern side of the city limits so it abuts the Eden Prairie side.
The area shown in red here is the location of the subject site. When this project originally came in the
developer was proposing condominium in this location and now they’re reposing to put the 17 townhouse
units there instead so this project does include actually 5 elements as shown in the original survey. I
mean the original slide, if you can go back to that one for a second. Thank you. So we’re going to have a
PUD amendment, a preliminary plat of the 17 lots, site plan for approval for those 17 townhouses,
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
variances with that, and also as you stated Mayor the public hearing. So this northerly piece then would
be the last piece of this project. As I stated that moving away from the condominiums. Reducing the
density. Going to the 17 units instead so originally we looked at the 231 units in this project so this will
include the 15 twin homes and 6-3 unit and 4 unit townhouses. It also includes some outlots. Thank you.
So this is the subject area here. This would complete this project. You can see how the units are laid out
in this area here. So this is the PUD amendment. We put the entire PUD amendment into your packet but
the main elements of the PUD are found in Section B, where it states in there that the uses, under
permitted use it states that there be twin houses, townhouses and one condominium so we’re striking out
one condominium. Obviously that will no longer be in there. And also there was in the original
permitted uses a term that would state if there’s any question of whether something met, that the Planning
Director would have the authority to make the interpretation of whether that should go through the
process of the Planning Commission to be the overseer of that and then ultimately the City Council, so
that will be the, under the permitted uses one change in the PUD. Then the second one refers to setbacks
and that would be the 50 foot setback from the perimeter of 212, and I’ll show you how that would work
here. This is the, these are again are the lots within that area that we’re talking about and if you look at
the site plan here, the wall, the sound wall, the MnDOT wall on the south side there of 212 is substantially
away from the backs of those lots so by creating a PUD of 50%, of 50 feet which is a typical in our PUD
requirement, it seems onerous and excessive because you’ve got already that substantial buffer there and
the travel lanes are quite a ways north of that so.
Mayor Furlong: Ms. Aanenson, excuse me.
Kate Aanenson: Yep.
Mayor Furlong: Just to confirm, the sound wall is existing, is that correct?
Kate Aanenson: That is correct.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah. So this, so in putting those perimeter buffers, that’s the standard language that we
would use, but it seemed in this circumstance that the ability to, because we changed the product type and
not going vertical, trying to make those units fit in there, not lose that number of units and make it work.
Feasibility, you’re pinched by the wetland on the one side there, to make that work the staff did support
actually moving those closer to that, not having that perimeter because really you’re not buffering from
somebody there on that side. So we are recommending that change so those are the two changes on that.
So on the grading plan itself, as you can see there are, the retaining wall. The MnDOT wall here and
working with the landscaping, creating that buffer. Creating this edge too. This would be that’s existing
there along Bearpath. There’s the dip there. Also looking at the circulation through the site itself. So on
the variances again looking at that buffer setback we are changing and making recommendations on that
because based on again the location of that, we think that it makes some sense. There’s a request of the
variance to let the docks encroach. One would be on the wetland side and then to encroach an additional
1.5 feet and on the east side of the development to permit the decks to encroach 8.7 foot into the wetland
setback there. Again those are the elevated decks themselves. Again an amenity feature that when you’re
up against that wall, providing that open space we think was important so the staff and the Planning
Commission did support that. So these are the products, some of the products that are out there. Again
they include 3 lookout and 14 walkout units. There are 10 twin homes, one villa home and the 3, two 3
unit buildings. Again they range from 1,800 square feet to 2,500 square feet and they’re 34 to 38 in
width. So again compatible with the architecture that’s out there already. So one of the other actions then
tonight would be the final action. I went through the PUD changes. The plat. The site plan approval and
then this would be the public hearing portion which would be the vacation of the existing easements. So
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
you can see there was an easement there. In order to make this work, try to make this road circulation.
Vacating those easements along the end of the, what would have been the parking lot. That’s what this
was put in place for, for the condominium project. Reshaping that and then finally the trail easement, as
you can see here on yellow. That trail easement. Providing access to the trail on the Eden Prairie golf
course side. There’ll still be an access point but would not be through this easement because that
becomes part of the plat itself. So with that again there’s kind of 5 actions there. We’ve tried to combine
it into a straight forward motion but with that I’d be happy to answer any questions you have. I know the
development team is here if you have questions with them too.
Mayor Furlong: Alright, let’s start with any questions for staff first. Councilman Laufenburger.
Councilman Laufenburger: Kate, the 20 feet versus 50. This really comes into play primarily along the
east and west but also on the north away from the wall, is that correct?
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. When you looked at this access here for the parking, and then looking at
this, where we’re looking at the decks on this side, but this would be that property line but the property
line, there’s nothing behind that property line. The sound wall’s quite a ways out there.
Councilman Laufenburger: What’s the distance from the sound wall to the property line, do you have
that? Is that shown here?
Kate Aanenson: I don’t have that in front of me. I’m sure it’s at least 50 feet.
Mike Waldo: Between 50 and 75.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah.
Councilman Laufenburger: Okay. And just, so the landscape plan is for trees, as you show along there
trees. What about the wall itself? Is the maintenance of the wall the responsibility of MnDOT?
Kate Aanenson: Yes.
Councilman Laufenburger: It is, okay.
Kate Aanenson: And actually there was an original concept that was voted by the applicant to try to work
through, do some landscaping on this. Originally MnDOT wanted the City to be the, have the
responsibility of the ownership of that. We’d be the pass through. We didn’t want to take that
responsibility on but we found another way to accomplish some of that so when you see the final plat, the
developer should be able to actually provide some additional landscaping in that area because it’s so far
from the travel lane behind the wall. Not adjacent to the wall but it again provides some additional nicer
amenities in this area here.
Councilman Laufenburger: Okay. The discretion that you have as planning director Kate to convert from
what was originally going to be, how many condominium units in this area?
Kate Aanenson: A couple hundred.
Councilman Laufenburger: So, a couple.
Kate Aanenson: And this, there was 3 condominium buildings contemplated. The two we’ve already
taken off the front of the project.
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
Councilman Laufenburger: So this is in place of a single condominium unit, is that correct?
Kate Aanenson: Correct. In the back.
Mayor Furlong: And I’m sorry, how many units were with this single, approximately? 77?
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, and I just want to make sure that on that discretion. They’re asking for an
amendment so that’s really your discretion. We did support it. This was really kind of a battle you know
between trying to keep the density up and working with the neighbors and trying to make something that
is also can bring to market. They worked really hard to try to find something higher density than this.
Some of the complication comes in when it’s long term financing when you have to have so many pre-
sales when there’s so many apartments but to their credit we worked probably almost a year trying to get
another type of project on this site with different iterations and at the end of the day couldn’t make that
work so we found the next best thing.
Councilman Laufenburger: I guess my next question is for the applicant. Thank you Kate. Thank you
Mr. Mayor.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Other questions for staff at this time? Ms. Aanenson, parking. With the,
where do you see parking other than, or how deep are the driveways for each of the units and how many
cars will be able to fit between the unit and the street and then on the streets themselves?
Kate Aanenson: That was one of the challenges when we got down to this design because they lost units.
They want to maximize that number of units so we worked really hard on actually getting these streets to
our standard widths and not getting variances and that would be these internal streets which have a
minimum 24 feet. 24-25 so we worked to get that. This is the extra guest parking. There are some spots
at the very end but the driveways do meet all the standards.
Mayor Furlong: What is the standard? Is it deep enough for a single car?
Kate Aanenson: Yes. Yes.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. And the parking on the.
Kate Aanenson: This area here.
Mayor Furlong: Curve there, thank you. That exists today or that will be a part of the plan?
Kate Aanenson: Yes. That was always contemplated for guest parking with the condominium project.
Mayor Furlong: And so approximately how many spots on the street are available with this plan?
Kate Aanenson: I don’t know if I have that number right in front of me but it does meet all the
requirements for guest parking.
Mayor Furlong: For?
Kate Aanenson: For all these units and then for some of the additional units on the rest of the project too.
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
Mayor Furlong: And would the density here be effectively medium density across the PUD? Is that what
this is?
Kate Aanenson: Yeah. Yeah. This was one piece that.
Mayor Furlong: …would be medium density or low density.
Kate Aanenson: Probably bring it back closer to medium density for the overall project. Again this was a
piece of property that was guided for higher density, yeah.
Mayor Furlong: Understand. So we’re moving away from a high density to effectively a medium
density?
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct.
Mayor Furlong: With this. Okay. And then the other question I had on the trail access. I think you
mentioned an existing trail access easement is being vacated as a part of this but that’s being replaced
with a trail access on another part, is that what I’m seeing?
Kate Aanenson: Yes. Yes, yes.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. So that will go in as part of this or does that already exist?
Kate Aanenson: It has to go in with this. The other one’s being vacated.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, so that trail doesn’t exist yet?
Kate Aanenson: No.
Mayor Furlong: But that will go in, and that’s being approved and required as part of this plan?
Kate Aanenson: Yeah. And working with the City of Eden Prairie and making that connection. There’s
some grade changes that we’re trying to work through to make that a good design.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright, and the City of Eden Prairie is open to having that access?
Kate Aanenson: Yep. And we definitely see it as a benefit too to continue that Rice Marsh loop to come
around. To go underneath.
Mayor Furlong: Yep, exactly. Well and we also have the homes to the North Bay.
Kate Aanenson: North Bay, correct.
Mayor Furlong: And they would have public access through these streets as well.
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright, thank you. Any other questions for staff? Representatives from the
applicant here? Good evening.
Mike Waldo: Mr. Mayor, members of the council, staff. Mike Waldo with Ron Clark Construction.
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
Mayor Furlong: Good evening.
Mike Waldo: Along with Mike Roebuck and Sarah Evans from our office and…our planning consultant
if we get questions along the way here for them. I think from the overall standpoint the staff’s report is
very thorough. I think it covers everything that we looked at. The market conditions of going from the
apartment to the condo to the townhouses is something we’ve worked a lot time on trying to make it work
with the higher density. It really just doesn’t in today’s market and we’re not sure when that’s going to
come back. Is it 3 years? Is it 5 years? Is it 10 years? So I think that’s the direction we’ve gone here.
The neighborhood has been very, very positive to the conversion of these to townhomes. We had a
neighborhood meeting there before we brought the submittal to the City and got very positive feedback
from them. There was about 5 different HOA approvals that need to happen as a part of this with each
member of the community got to vote on and all of those have been approved and voted upon so those are
all ready to go, assuming we get a positive vote from you tonight. The trail again is something we’re
working on. I think the staff has probably 8 or 10 items in the report that we need to finish up with and I
think we actually have a revised drawing for them right now that solves all those issues and hopefully will
resolve that. If not we’re confident we can. As far as the deck encroachments, I think like we said from
what’s allowed today we’re encroaching a foot and a half on the east side and 1.7 feet on the west side is
a maximum encroachment in addition to the 7 feet that’s allowed and in order to maintain the 24 foot
streets, which staff was very strong wanting to have, and also then to make sure we had 25 foot average
driveways to make sure we had enough parking in front of them, it was important to kind of be able to
just slide that extra foot and a half each direction. I think, and one of the questions you currently had, the
parking below on the circle is 22 stalls currently and then there was another, I think it was approximately
24 stalls that was to be created to the north when you had a higher density condo unit needing more
parking, and in this case with the townhomes it’s not necessary. In fact currently very few of those stalls
get used by the current residents and they’re part of the parking allowed for the whole neighborhood so. I
think other than that we’re just open for whatever questions you have.
Mayor Furlong: Alright. Any questions of the applicant? Councilman Laufenburger.
Councilman Laufenburger: Thank you Mr. Mayor. You addressed, Mr. Waldo, thank you. You
addressed the market situation that causes you to change this. Obviously this, you’re bringing this
forward for future development. When do you anticipate that the need based on market conditions, when
do you anticipate that you will commence the sale and the building in this area because I think you still
have some lots that are open, is that correct?
Mike Waldo: Currently of the 22 homes that we had on the very front end, we have 5 that are not sold at
this point.
Councilman Laufenburger: Okay, so you have 5.
Mike Waldo: We’re actually planning to start construction this fall on the development itself with the
grading work and the utilities. Not sure if we’ll get blacktop this year but our expectation is to start a
model in the spring but if we don’t get a lot of work done this fall, all of a sudden we’re you know three
quarters the way through next year before we can deliver a completed home. The units on both side, the
east and the west, those are the very same Winfield Home that we’re currently building on the golf course
along the front.
Councilman Laufenburger: Yep. Yep.
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
Mike Waldo: And we have one of those sold. A couple interest in a couple more and we only have
originally 6 of those available on the course so we’re feeling very strongly that we’ll have units, people
moving into this yet next year.
Councilman Laufenburger: And you used the term a villa home. I’m assuming that’s the single home
that would be adjacent to the trail, is that right?
Mike Waldo: Correct. Yeah, the twin homes and the villa home is the exact same product.
Councilman Laufenburger: It’s only half.
Mike Waldo: Just a half.
Councilman Laufenburger: Okay. Are you concerned at all about the sound of the highway, 212 coming
over the barrier or what do you hear from residents right now?
Mike Waldo: We’ve heard nothing from the residents. We’ve been out there multiple times. In fact we
took a lift up and went up to the various levels of the floors when we looked at the condo and the
apartment and it’s amazing how minimal that effect is really when you start putting it you know almost
100 feet back from the homes and I think the wall’s probably 16 to 18 feet tall in most areas. We’re
looking as part of the MnDOT proposal we have for them is doing some additional berming which would
even reduce the look of the wall, and again the lanes are actually somewhat lower even than the wall on
the other side so you’re really not getting anything coming across.
Councilman Laufenburger: Okay. Thank you. It’ll be a great addition to the community. Thanks Mr.
Waldo. Thank you Mayor.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Other questions of the applicant? Councilman McDonald.
Councilman McDonald: I believe when we were talking about the way the property is set up, who takes
care of the space between, I guess where the trees are and the wall? Is that part of the association or is
that part of the homeowners? There’s about 50 to what, 100 feet there from where I guess that tree line is
to where the wall’s at, is that correct?
Mike Waldo: Yes. Currently, unless we can strike a deal with MnDOT it will remain as it is today.
Natural and untouched. Our goal is to allow us to do some additional grading in there. Do some
probably some wild flower seed mixtures along with some trees and shrubs and then we would look at the
maintaining of it but probably only like 4 times a year mowing it just to keep it down to a more natural,
unless we can get enough fescue and other grasses in to where we aren’t required to mow at all. That
would be our goal.
Councilman McDonald: Okay, then on the east side there, is that property line between Chan and Eden
Prairie so where the trail’s at, I take it that that’s on Eden Prairie.
Mike Waldo: That’s correct.
Councilman McDonald: Okay. No further questions, thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any other questions for the applicant? Okay, thank you. Ms. Aanenson,
question on the PUD. This is a PUD and the PUD’s covering not just this portion of the site but basically
the, there you go. When we first started looking at the PUD for this development, what was the purpose
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
for going forward with the PUD and the intent? The balance that we do that with zoning because this
was, as you mentioned before, was in the zoning prior to redevelopment of this site as a high density
residential use so maybe back up. Help us understand what the purpose and intent of the PUD was.
Kate Aanenson: Yes, thank you. When we did the PUD at this time there was actually going to be 3
types of uses in there. You had two builders that went in initially and then the condominium project so
there was going to be, you know it’s actually complex. You have a master development plan and then
within that there’s also specific associations underneath all that so the master development plan is for the
amenities of the site. There is a pool and club house and then they have a beachlot and then as part of
beachlot they also have the docks and the boating rights which was permitted with the original because
they meet the criteria with the original PUD so that’s part of the master agreement. So everybody, no
matter which association you lived in or which development benefitted from those master amenities. So
within that then we had the condominium projects that were to take advantage of the views of the lake
and then one on the back side and that helped us meet some of the goals for this project. So as time went
on the two projects had two different developers moved forward and then the condominiums failed to
come to the market so we changed those first two and that’s where we’re seeing kind of the continuation
of that same theme after we worked really hard on the back side to try to get something there. So that was
the purpose really so you could have different types of product but still have the benefit of it being a part
of a larger association.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, and in the end by going forward with this are we still accomplishing some of
those goals?
Kate Aanenson: I believe so. You know I think the main goal is to keep the project intact and we were
concerned about that. Making sure that, people that already bought into that neighborhood and that
association would still be able to benefit from that because there was a threat of some of those amenities
going away so I think that’s one goal to accomplish, to try to keep that intact and provide some other
housing opportunities. I think we have some other mixes in there with a little bit smaller units and they’re
providing another opportunity for some people to get in there but as they’ve stated it’s the permits are
going through. It’s moving, which is good. It’s been a little bit longer coming to get it all the way
through to the market so that’s a positive.
Mayor Furlong: And so by starting with the master development plan and then peeling back at each stage
different aspects of this project went forward at different times but you still have that master plan that
we’re working with.
Kate Aanenson: Correct.
Mayor Furlong: And while the plan was to have, if I’m understanding this correctly, higher, some
different potentially some different densities within the whole unit, still it fits within the guidance from a
density standpoint. This proposed amendment would still. Is lessens what the overall perhaps master
plan originally intended but.
Kate Aanenson: And I think too, I think the vision too was to provide some other housing opportunities
and we didn’t have a lot of condominiums. Kind of that you know that took advantage of the golf course
view and the lake view. We didn’t have those types of housing and when we look at a project like this we
always say is there, is there an opportunity to get a product we don’t have a lot of in this city. At that time
it was very viable. Shortly thereafter the market changed and so , then you have to kind of go back and
say well, let’s see if we can, how long this is going to stay that way. Like I said we really worked hard
and the developer worked really hard to try to make something happen on all the parcels to make it work
and bring it to market but ultimately you have to balance that with the market forces and what’s going to
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
be received and how long do you want to sit it there and part of the issue too is you have people here that
are into the master development that are paying those that would like to see other residents come in and
finish out their project that they’re living in. Finish out their neighborhood so.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. There is an element with regard to a vacation of drainage and utility
easement. Mr. Oehme, do you have any staff report on that aspect or did we cover it?
Kate Aanenson: Yeah I think so.
Mayor Furlong: I mean basically it’s just, it’s the area that.
Kate Aanenson: It’s this area here. Yeah, it’s the vacation kind of where we talked about here where we
actually yep, and then so it’s those two drainage utility easements and then the trail easement.
Mayor Furlong: And will those, all those easements will be vacated and replaced as appropriate with the
new plat?
Kate Aanenson: Correct.
Paul Oehme: Yeah, there’s private utilities Mayor that they will also have to be relocated potentially with
the project so.
Mayor Furlong: And so generally when we do these, we vacate it subject to receiving the…
(Due to technical difficulties there was a short break in the taping of the meeting at this point.)
Mayor Furlong: Any other questions?
Councilman Laufenburger: By the way it’s a good birdie hole.
Kate Aanenson: So excuse me Mayor, we do need to open a public hearing for this then.
Mayor Furlong: So let’s go ahead then and open the public hearing with regard to a vacation, the request
to vacate the drainage and utility easements. I’d invite all interested parties to come forward to the
podium and state your name and address for the record. No one? Without objection then we’ll close the
public hearing. Again a public hearing was held at the Planning Commission with regard to this project
and so with that let’s bring it back to the council for comments and discussion. I’ll tell you, I like the
project. I am very hesitant to approve changes because of market conditions. We’ve seen that over time.
This is a change within a PUD as opposed to a zoning change. We’ve had different requests where
changes to either existing zoning, because of densities or land that was guided for a certain zoning to be
changed. I know those have gone through the Planning Commission which many council members have
served and on the council so I’m always hesitant where the reason is market conditions. That’s why we
have to make a change and I know that others have expressed that in the past too. I think here, because
it’s a portion of a PUD and that current PUD permitted uses already includes this type of use. It’s more of
an expansion of an approved use within there as opposed to a specific change so I’m comfortable with
this because of the specific circumstances here but I did want to just mention for the record that market
conditions in and of itself to me rarely justify a change for a zoning. Here again I’m comfortable with it
because it’s already a permitted use and it’s a portion and again what helped me gain some comfort was
Ms. Aanenson’s comments about originally there was a master plan in place. Within that master plan
there were different uses and different, it was a way to look at the entire site rather than just a portion of it
and this is a continuation of that development so. Sometimes when you do a master plan everything
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
doesn’t fall into place and we realize that and I think this might be one of those situations where a change
along the way similar to earlier changes were justified. But I did just want to mention that personally and
I think for a variety of reasons that we’ve discussed before market conditions in and of itself really don’t
provide justification when we’re dealing with changing in zonings and guidance and such like that. But
overall I would support this for reasons stated and I think that it’s going to be a good addition to an
already good development plan, neighborhood in that area. If there are other comments, I’d be happy to
entertain those or certainly a motion. We have, we can, without objection let’s do all the motions in a
single motion. Any comments or would somebody like to make a motion?
Councilwoman Ernst: I’ll make a motion.
Mayor Furlong: Councilwoman Ernst, thank you.
Councilwoman Ernst: So I can make these in a single motion right?
Mayor Furlong: Without objection I encourage you to, yes. Thanks.
Councilwoman Ernst: I make a motion that we approve the ordinance amending the PUD zoning
th
standards for Lakeside as well as the preliminary plat for Lakeside 7 Addition creating 17 lots and 7
outlots subject to conditions in the staff report as well as the site plan #2012-11 for a 17 unit townhouse
project in the Lakeside development with setback variances to permit decks to encroach into setback
subject to the conditions in the staff report and adoption of the Planning Commission Findings of Fact.
Mayor Furlong: Is there a second?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Second.
Mayor Furlong: Question’s been made and seconded.
Councilman Laufenburger: Do we need an amendment to include the vacation of the utility?
Mayor Furlong: Alright.
Councilman Laufenburger: Yeah, if you look at the screen.
Mayor Furlong: And adoption. I don’t think that was included with your motion.
Councilwoman Ernst: Oh, okay. And adoption of the resolution to vacate the drainage and utility
easements in Outlots A and D and vacate the trail easement in Outlot C and D.
Mayor Furlong: And again subject to conditions in the staff report.
Councilwoman Ernst: Yes.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Still a second? Thank you. Motion’s been made and seconded. Any
discussion on the motion? Hearing none let’s proceed with the vote.
Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilwoman Tjornhom seconded that the City Council approve the
ordinance amending the PUD Zoning Standards for Lakeside subject to the following conditions
and adoption of the attached Findings of Fact and Recommendation.
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
A. Planned Unit Development – Residential Amendment
revising sections b and c of the zoning
:
standards as follows
b. Permitted Uses
The permitted uses in this zone shall be twin homes, townhouses, and condominium buildings and
their ancillary uses. The type of uses to be provided on common areas shall be low-intensity
neighborhood-oriented accessory structures to meet daily needs of residents. Such uses may
include a bus shelter, community building, development signage, fountain, garden, gazebo,
maintenance shed, picnic shelter, pool, playground equipment or tennis courts.
c.Setbacks
The PUD ordinance requires setbacks from roadways and exterior property lines. The following table
displays those setbacks.
Setback Standards
Highway 212 20 feet
East(Perimeter) Lot Line 50 feet - townhouses;
-
30 feet twin homes;
Building Height of the
Condominiums with a
minimum of 30 feet
Lyman Boulevard 30 feet
West(Perimeter) Lot Line 50 feet
Twin Home separation between buildings 15 feet
Townhouse separation between buildings 15 feet
Minimum Driveway length (to back of curb, trail or sidewalk) 25 feet
Hard Surface Coverage 50 % *
Wetland: Buffer and buffer setback 20 feet and 30 feet
Lake Riley 75 feet
# Decks, patios, porches, and stoops may project up to seven (7) feet in to the required yard.
* The entire development, including the public and private streets and Outlots, may not exceed 50
percent hard coverage. Individual lots will exceed the 50 percent site coverage.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilwoman Tjornhom seconded that the City Council approves
th
the preliminary plat for Lakeside 7 Addition creating 17 lots and 7 outlots, plans prepared by
Pioneer Engineering, dated 08-03-12, subject to the following conditions:
Engineering Conditions:
1. The developer must provide staff with the estimated amount of material that will be hauled off of and
onto the site, the schedule for the hauling, and the haul route.
2. The grading plan must be revised such that the grades do not exceed 3:1.
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
3. The grading for the proposed sidewalk connection from Lake Riley Drive to the regional trail in Eden
Prairie must be revised to reduce/eliminate the retaining wall and eliminate the drainage directed to
the side of the unit on Lot 7, Block 4.
4. The lowest openings for Lots 1 through 3, Block 3 must be a minimum of 18 inches above the
emergency overflow.
5. If retaining walls are necessary along the sidewalk, fencing may be required.
6. Building permits are required for all retaining walls four feet tall or higher and must be designed by a
Structural Engineer registered in the State of Minnesota.
7. The watermain within Driveway A and Driveway B shall be extended to the north end of these
private streets with hydrants installed at the end.
8. Each new lot is subject to the sanitary sewer and water hookup charges in effect at the time of final
plat approval.
9. All of the utility improvements are required to be constructed in accordance with the City's latest
edition of Standard Specifications and Detail Plates.
10. The applicant is also required to enter into a development contract with the City and supply the
necessary financial security in the form of a letter of credit or cash escrow to guarantee installation of
the improvements and the conditions of final plat approval.
11. Permits from the appropriate regulatory agencies will be required, including the MPCA, Dept. of
Health, Carver County and Watershed District.
12. The developer must provide an exhibit showing the location of the utilities and the proposed drainage
and utility easements in order to determine if the easements can be vacated. If there are any conflicts
with the small utilities location, the developer will be responsible for any relocation costs.
13. This development is adjacent to Lyman Boulevard; therefore, the Collector and Arterial Roadway
Improvement Charge shall be collected with the final plat.
Park & Recreation Conditions:
th
1. The developer shall pay $78,600 in park dedication fees for Lakeside 7 Addition concurrent with or
prior to recording the final plat in lieu of parkland dedication or donation.
2. The sidewalk south of Lot 7, Block 4 connecting the Lakeside area to the newly-installed Eden Prairie
trail, as depicted in the applicant’s plans, shall be installed concurrent with development of Lot 4 units
and a 15 foot-wide public walkway easement centered on the newly installed sidewalk be dedicated to
the city.
Planning Conditions:
1. The developer shall designate Lots and Blocks on the final plat.
Water Resources Specialist Conditions:
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
1. The developer shall obtain an NPDES Construction Permit.
2. The city shall be provided with a copy of the SWPPP for review and comment.
3. The erosion and sediment control plan shall be amended to be consistent with Chapter 19, Section
145 and the NPDES Construction Permit including Appendix A and Appendix C.
4. The site shall meet the water quality requirements of the NPDES Construction Permit.
5. The design of the rain gardens should be consistent with the Minnesota Stormwater Manual and in
particular Chapter 12-6 including;
a. The underdrain should be 8-inches in diameter.
b. The underdrain should not be wrapped in a sock.
c. The underdrain should be in a minimum of one-foot of double washed, 1-½ inches in size. This
should be wrapped in high permeativity blanket or a choker course of washed pea gravel.
d. The timing of construction shall be clearly spelled out on the plans and specification manual and
shall be consistent with the Minnesota Stormwater Manual. This means that the impervious
surfaces shall be constructed and the pervious surfaces covered with dense vegetation prior to
introduction of water to the system.
e. Minimum depth of the prepared soils shall be 30-inches.
f. Provide water quality volume (W) calculations. Include new impervious surface calculations
qv
used to calculate W.
qv
6. The model should be run with an assumed infiltration rate no higher than 0.2 inches per hour unless
data from an infiltrometer or other suitable field data is provided confirming the higher infiltration
rate.
7. The drainage map should show drainage areas for both rain garden A and rain garden B.
8. The developer shall enter into a maintenance agreement with the City making the developer or their
proxy responsible for maintenance of the rain garden areas.
9. The outfall for the drain tile shall be pulled back away from the wetland such that it discharges at the
edge of the buffer rather than in the wetland. Energy dissipation shall be provided and shown on the
plan. The profile of the underdrain needs to be shown on the utility plan.
10. Energy dissipation shall be provided at the outfalls into the rain gardens. A forebay is highly
recommended to minimize future maintenance needs.
11. Surface Water Management fees due at the time of final plat are estimated to be$33,137.35. The
applicant shall provide a breakdown of the necessary areas.
12. The wetland and the required buffer shall be placed into a outlot separate from Outlot C. This outlot
shall be dedicated to the city.
13. Indicate the date of the delineation and the entity responsible for the delineation on the drawing.
14. City staff must review the site to determine that the delineated wetland boundary still accurately
reflects the jurisdictional boundary.
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
15. City staff must review the wetland buffer to assure that at least 50% of the remaining vegetation is
native. If not, the applicant must develop a management plan to accomplish this goal.
16. Wetland buffer monuments are required. The location of these shall be indicated on a plan sheet and
surety funds shall be provided at the time of final plat to ensure that these monuments are installed.
17. Permits from the appropriate regulatory agencies will be required, including the MPCA, NPDES,
Dept. of Health, Carver County, MnDOT and Watershed District.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilwoman Tjornhom seconded that the City Council approve
Site Plan #2012-11 for a 17-unit townhouse development consisting of 10 twinhomes, 1 detached
townhouse (Villa) and 6 three-unit townhouses, plans prepared by Pioneer Engineering, dated 08-
03-12, with a 1.5-foot variance to permit the decks to project 8.5 feet into the required yard along
the eastern project boundary (21.5-foot setback), and a 8.7-foot variance to permit decks to be set
back 21.3 feet from the wetland buffer edge subject to the following:
Building Officials Comments:
1.
Buildings over 9,250 square feet in area (floor area to include all floors, basements and garages) must
be protected with an automatic fire protection system.
2.
A final grading plan and soils report must be submitted to the Inspections Division before permits can
be issued.
3.
Retaining walls over four feet high require a design by a professional engineer, a building permit,
inspections and final approval.
4.
Walls and projections within 5 feet of property lines are required to be of one-hour fire-resistive
construction.
5.
Buildings are required to be designed by an architect and engineer (licensed in the State of
Minnesota) as determined by the Building Official.
6.
The developer and/or their agent shall meet with the Inspections Division as early as possible to
discuss plan review and permit procedures.
Environmental Resource Specialist Conditions:
1. The applicant shall provide 7 overstory, 11 understory and 19 shrubs along the north property line; at
least 7 overstory, 14 understory and 21 shrubs along the east property line of outlot C or landscaping
consistent with the existing buffer to the south.
2. A revised landscape plan that meets minimum requirements must be submitted to the city before final
approval.
3. Provide screening for proposed homes adjacent to Lake Riley Drive. Locations include south of the
homes in Block 3, on outlot E as well as south of the homes in Block 1.
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
Fire Marshall Conditions:
1. A three-foot clear space shall be maintained around the circumference of the fire hydrants per MSFC
Section 508.5.5.
2. Nothing shall be placed in a manner that would prevent or hinder operation of the fire hydrant by
firefighters per MSFC Section 508.5.4.
3. Submit proposed street name(s) to Chanhassen Building Official and Chanhassen Fire Marshal for
review and approval. Note: duplicate street names will not be accepted.
4. Prior to building construction, approved temporary street signs must be installed.
Planning Conditions:
1. The developer shall enter into a site plan permit with the City and provide the financial security
required by it.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilwoman Tjornhom seconded that the City Council adopt the
Planning Commission Findings of Fact. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously
with a vote of 5 to 0.
Resolution #2012-50: Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilwoman Tjornhom seconded that the
City Council adopt a resolution to vacate the drainage and utility easements in Outlots A and D,
Lakeside, and vacate the trail easement on Outlots C and D, Lakeside, as shown on the attached
surveys prepared by Pioneer Engineering. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously
with a vote of 5 to 0.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you everyone. Appreciate all your efforts.
REQUEST FOR METES AND BOUNDS SUBDIVISION CREATING TWO LOTS ON
PROPERTY ZONED AGRICULTURAL (A2) AND CONSIDER APPROVAL OF
DEVELOPMENT CONTRACT, 1551 LYMAN BOULEVARD; APPLICANT/OWNER: RICK
DORSEY, PPB HOLDINGS, LP.
Mayor Furlong: Is there a development contract with this?
Kate Aanenson: No.
Mayor Furlong: No, so strike that last aspect. It’s simply a request for metes and bounds subdivision.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, it is with a resolution.
Mayor Furlong: Let’s go to a staff report and you can tell us what we’re going to do. I’ve done the
appropriate introduction. Everybody knows where we are.
Kate Aanenson: Sorry, thank you. Lost my staff report. I’m sorry. Thank you. This is a metes and
bounds subdivision as stated creating first there’s a metes and, excuse me. Administrative subdivision
prior to that that’s creating two 20 acre parcels from that. There’s an application to split that. The subject
19
Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
property is located on 1551 Lyman Boulevard so this is the entire 40 acre parcel. Included in the staff
report the applicable regulations on this. One, the City Council can do a metes and bounds subdivision if
it meets all the requirements of the zoning district. This property is still zoned A2 so there is a minimum
lot size of 2 1/2 acres. So there are restrictions on the 18-4 talks about restrictions on filing of
conveyances. Chapter 18-37, Exemptions. Chapter 20, Article 9 and then the comprehensive plan and
I’m going to go through those in a little bit more detail when we’re looking at the plat. So if you have a
40 acre parcel you can administratively split that, which we review here in the, and approve before it goes
down to the County. The County won’t record it but it’s technically exempt from subdivision so the first
split to do that was this two 20 acres. In order to do that we want to make sure that access is available to
all the parcels, which I’ll go through in a minute. Again there’s no building being contemplated with this
first split but because it is exempt you can do the two 20 acre splits. Then the second split would be of
the northerly 20 acres, creating two lots. Again because the minimum lot size is 2 1/2 acres, both parcels
do meet that. There’s a compliance table in the staff report and I’ll show you that in a minute so
illustratively I think this is kind of helpful to see. You cannot create a landlocked piece of property so the
southerly piece, 20 acres has access via Mills Drive.
Mayor Furlong: Do you have this on the screen by any chance?
Kate Aanenson: Oh I’m sorry. Okay, let’s go back here. Go back to this one. I’m sorry. So this is the
first split right here. The two 20 acres. So this is the first, this parcel right here is the entire 40 acres
being split into the two 20 acre parcels. Then from the 20 acres is the metes and bounds, again meeting
the 2 1/2 acre requirements. Both those parcels meet that but there’s other, when the ordinance says it has
to meet all the standards of the district, that would be the access points. So the southerly parcel has access
via, this would be the property to the east. Excuse me, to the west, The Preserve. Mills Drive provides
access to that southerly piece. There’s an existing access to this property here and what we’re
recommending is that there be a cross access agreement because this property at the current time has no
access. I’ve provided you, the applicant has gotten a letter from the County, if you want to pass that.
What the County regulations are and the applicant has stated that the County is proposing to upgrade
Lyman Boulevard, which we are aware of but we’re saying that until that is actually put on the books,
that’s an ordinance that the County has, that the staff believes that, that we need a cross access agreement
to make sure because once a property is subdivided it can be conveyed through a lot of different ways and
so this property would not have an access piece to it and sometimes, if a property gets conveyed in a
manner that may not be willful, that sometimes people can block other people from getting access to their
property so we want to make sure that this property does have legitimate access, and once another access
is provided we would take the condition off that says that they must provide a cross access agreement but
then that would go away. The other thing I wanted to point out in this property, it’s a little bit unusual
when you do a metes and bounds like this inside an urban service area where there’s utilities available
when you do not have proposed development. So we wanted to put in here for the record, and the reason
we’re recommending that we approve the resolution is at this time, while it’s zoned A2 through the
comprehensive plan update, which we’ve included in here, we guided it for either regional commercial or
office park. In the regional commercial we said it has to come in as a master plan. The only way you
could do housing on this site is if you came in and asked for that regional commercial zoning and that
regional commercial zoning again has to be consistent with a master plan which also would require that
we update the area wide review. And the staff report does discuss that. The test that you have. If 5 years
have gone past without any activity in this area so the area wide review would need to be updated. So no
activity could occur on that property until that process is put forward so at this time there is no
contemplation of any development occurring on this property without those things happening. Again
here’s the compliance table with the minimum 2 1/2 acres. The standards are on the top and then Lots C
and D are enumerated so you have a 4 acre parcel and a 16 parcel so they meet all the standards. We
recognize that Carver County is proposing to upgrade but again we’re saying that Lot D does not have
access via a public street at this time and while it’s in the County’s plan, just like the City has ordinance,
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
until the street’s constructed it’s just that. It’s just standards in your plan which could be changed at any
time. The other thing I want to point out is that this is a little hard to see but this is the connection for the
Bluff Creek Boulevard. It’s illustrative but we’re saying that Bluff Creek Boulevard needs to tie into the
connection where it terminates is at the Preserve over to the access point over on Powers Boulevard at the
interchange of 212. And then again we have a connection somewhere between Lyman Boulevard and
that, wherever that connection on Bluff Creek Boulevard occurs. Again that’s in the comprehensive plan
so when we go back and evaluate the AUAR we’d look at how all those street functionalities would
occur, and that’s kind of some of our issue too with determining right now where that access point would
be going back to this slide. When there’s a wetland here, just evaluating all that and looking at it
comprehensively, like we as planners and engineers like to do, look at that in it’s entirety and how these
pieces go together so this would be the extension of that Bluff Creek Boulevard. Wherever that ends up
through here but ultimately has to touch down at this point and then somewhere in here that we have
another connection tying back through into that so that would be the concern that we would have with
that. So staff did put together a resolution that we think it’s important to carry forward so there’s a paper
history on this that would get recorded of what the City’s desires and statements are regarding that. That
there’s no development on this property in the current zoning as it is and with that I’d be happy to answer
any questions you have and we are recommending approval based on that with the adoption of the
resolution for the metes and bounds.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any questions for staff? Councilman McDonald.
Councilman McDonald: Okay, within the past year we were shown plans for Lyman. You talk about this
access off Lyman. We were shown plans with an access down there and now you’re saying that that may
not happen. I don’t understand. I mean the plans we saw that came from, or that Paul provided us, that
the County had talked about showed an access point. That there was going to be one there. Why are we
having such a difficulty with this?
Kate Aanenson: Because the project hasn’t been approved and it’s not there and there’s a wetland there
and we still need to work through those issues so. If the County goes forward with it in a couple years
and they put it in place and it’s agreeable through the process then the cross access agreement would go
away.
Councilman McDonald: Okay, on the cross access agreement, why does the City need to be involved in
it? If they put an easement on there you cannot do anything with that easement without both property
owners agreeing to it. You can’t erase it.
Kate Aanenson: Well the property owners is one person so the one person that benefits from both parcels
could take it off. Record it and then take it off.
Councilman McDonald: But then at that point he’s not going to be able to sell a land locked piece of
land.
Kate Aanenson: It does happen. People, if it’s a recorded lot, it does happen.
Councilman McDonald: Okay, I guess I’m at a loss to understand why the City would even care because
at this point if he does something such as that, if someone comes in and buys that, that’s between the
seller and the buyer.
Kate Aanenson: Well I think a couple of things on that issue is I think we have to be careful that there’s
no development rights on this property so someone might be led to believe that they, if for some reason it
changed hands through whatever ways that may happen, that this is, with a resolution that we’ve put
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
forward that there is no development rights because it’s zoned, it’s currently zoned A2 which is
inconsistent with the comprehensive plan so no one has development rights on there yet and our plan says
that you need to complete the AUAR where at that point we would review where those connections can
be so I think it’s putting everybody on notice. We’re not trying to control. That we need to be in control
of that access point. We’re saying we want to make sure that that other piece has access to it.
Councilman McDonald: Well okay, I agree with all those parts up to that piece but any land that’s sold
there is due diligence that goes through that and part of that is pulling all the easements so anyone who
buys that land or finances that land, that is going to be a requirement that that easement either stays or
there’s another easement for that parcel. My only point is, that’s not part of what the City should be
involved in. That’s between the seller and the buyer.
Kate Aanenson: But your assumption is that it’s going to get through being sold. Sometimes property
changes hands through maybe somebody is unhappy and there’s litigation or someone has to take it back
for some other reason. It may not necessarily mean that someone’s going to buy it.
Councilman McDonald: But there’s all kind of case law involving landlocked pieces of land. What you
can and cannot do so as the owner of that piece of land, if there is an easement, he can’t remove that
without permission of the buyer and if he removes it before then and tries to sell that as landlocked, no
one’s going to buy it because you can’t do anything with it. My only point is, I don’t understand why the
City needs to be involved in that easement as to control of that easement.
Kate Aanenson: Well I’ll just say this, as your professional planning consultant and staff member here I
strongly advise that the City provide a mechanism to make sure that there’s access to that property and
that would be my recommendation would be.
Mayor Furlong: Mr. Gerhardt, Mr. Knutson, comments. Thoughts on his question.
Roger Knutson: Mayor, members of the council. If the easement goes away, if an easement’s been
created and it goes away then you have a potentially landlocked piece and as part of the zoning we don’t,
ordinance requirements, you don’t, aren’t supposed to create landlocked pieces. That’s why it’s a city
issue. We don’t, under our zoning ordinance we’re not supposed to create a landlocked piece. It’s not a
matter of protecting the buyer versus the seller or any of that. It’s just following our ordinance
requirement to make sure it’s not landlocked. And there are many ways, things can happen. If they’re in
separate ownership but that’s really not the issue. The issue is really to me of following the ordinance not
to create a landlocked parcel.
Councilman McDonald: But if we’re requiring the easement so that it’s between the two pieces you’re
not creating a landlocked piece of property. There is access via the easement that he has to put together to
subdivide these two parcels.
Roger Knutson: Correct.
Councilman McDonald: So that’s my point. That’s not a city issue at this point. If he tries to develop it
or he tries to sell it he’s going to have problems if there is no access and again anyone that buys it will go
through a due diligence and will see that there is either an easement there or there is not and then
accordingly that will create a problem one way or the other but it’s not our problem at this point.
Roger Knutson: Creating an easement up front I think.
Councilman McDonald: Right.
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
Roger Knutson: But then can it go away? And it’s a concern that it not go away so we don’t have
someone beating on us to create a street we wouldn’t want to create or what have you. If the County
changes it’s plans and there’s no improvement to the county road or there’s no access. They change the
spacing requirements or whatever they might do, there’s no access there now from the County road and
it’s just, I mean it’s your decision to make and if that’s what you want to do, so be it.
Councilman McDonald: Well I guess as I understand it, if the County doesn’t put an access down there
then that access becomes permanent. It can never go away because otherwise we couldn’t take it away
and the County can’t take it away or else they just created a landlocked piece of property and they can’t
do that. So if they’re not going to give you another access point down there where it showed up on the
plans earlier, then at that point that access is now permanent and it will not go away.
Roger Knutson: There’s no access there today as I understand it.
Councilman McDonald: Well there’s a gravel road there. A driveway but there is access.
Mayor Furlong: For the existing.
Councilman McDonald: For the existing but that’s where the cross easement comes in because that
driveway follows that property line so that now you would have to give access to that other piece of
property down that driveway. It’s no longer a private driveway. It’s a shared driveway which is the same
as what we do in a lot of other developments when you know things are put in.
Todd Gerhardt: Yeah.
Councilman McDonald: My only point is we’re becoming a third party in a piece of property that right
now has no development plans whatsoever. It’s a piece of property. What the owner does with it is his
problem. He still has to come back to us and meet the requirements for how all that’s currently zoned but
right now why would we want to get involved as a third party and that’s what we’re doing is we’re
becoming a third party in all of this.
Roger Knutson: All the easement would say is, is there’s a cross access easement and the cross access
easement stays in place until the other, the parcel has direct access. That’s all it basically will say.
Councilman McDonald: Okay, so it doesn’t say anything about the City has to be a party to agreeing to
eliminate that access easement?
Roger Knutson: No.
Councilman McDonald: It’s strictly a cross access easement with nothing to do with the City?
Roger Knutson: With one exception. As you know since one property owner now owns both parcels, if
we just placed the easement of record, they could get rid of it because they own both parcels.
Councilman McDonald: Right.
Roger Knutson: So to prevent that from happening we’re saying you can’t eliminate that cross access
easement until the other parcel has direct access someplace else.
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
Councilman McDonald: Okay, well I guess I’m confused because I agreed with you up to a point where
you’re saying that yeah, it’s a cross access and the City has nothing to do with it. That’s pretty standard
on parcels of land where you have one access point that’s shared between two pieces of property. That’s
very common in easements but now where you say the City has rights to make sure it doesn’t go away so
once it’s there we can now veto taking it away.
Roger Knutson: Sign off if you will. Some mechanism to make sure the easement stays in place. All we
would, our only veto authority if you would call it would be, if they approached us a week from today,
after this is recorded and said we want the easement to go away the answer would be no. But as soon as
there is a direct access, direct access then it goes away and.
Councilman Laufenburger: The cross access goes away.
Roger Knutson: Yes, cross access.
Councilman Laufenburger: It still remains an easement and access for Parcel C.
Roger Knutson: The cross access easement would go away.
Mayor Furlong: It could either be rescinded or modified.
Roger Knutson: Yeah, or whatever they want.
Mayor Furlong: Once there’s some other access.
Roger Knutson: They could leave it there too but we just wanted to make sure it stays in place until there
is another direct access for that parcel.
Councilman McDonald: Okay, and just doing a cross access easement you feel will not accomplish that
point?
Roger Knutson: Not since he owns both parcels right now. Is the fee owner of both parcels. Maybe you
could write it in such a way that it wouldn’t go away. That’s the whole purpose and we left it wide open,
they said just prepare an easement so we make sure it doesn’t, make sure there’s a mechanism there that it
doesn’t go away until there’s direct access.
Councilman McDonald: But wouldn’t you agree if he took it away now he’s got a piece of land with no
value because there’s no access?
Todd Gerhardt: If he owns it.
Councilman McDonald: If it owned it but that’s the only way right now that he could take it away if he
owns both parcels and he took it away, now he’s created a piece of land with no access and no value
because there’s nothing that says we have to give him access off of Lyman Boulevard.
Todd Gerhardt: But if he doesn’t own it then that individual doesn’t have access.
Councilman McDonald: But then if he tried to sell it to an individual with no access that’s going to show
up when you do your due diligence and no bank will finance that piece of land that’s landlocked.
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
Todd Gerhardt: Well you’re talking about if somebody gets a loan. If it happens to go back to a bank
that has it, or whoever it may be, now they don’t have access.
Councilman McDonald: Okay, so you’re talking about in case of a foreclosure or a bank taking the
property back.
Kate Aanenson: Right, and we see these and that’s why we’re putting it in place. It does happen so.
Todd Gerhardt: Just the last project we had is what created that mess is the foreclosures that went
through that. Messed up a variety of different things.
Councilman McDonald: Okay.
Mayor Furlong: Other questions for staff?
Councilwoman Ernst: I don’t have a question but I too, I also concur.
Mayor Furlong: Well let’s hold comments then because I think the applicant’s here too, if that’s okay
Councilwoman Ernst.
Councilwoman Ernst: If what?
Mayor Furlong: Can we hold our comments?
Councilwoman Ernst: That’s fine.
Mayor Furlong: Let’s get questions and then I think the applicant’s here so, other questions for staff at
this time. Thanks.
Councilman Laufenburger: Yeah, Kate I’m wondering why, I understand that you say that there is no
access on, from Parcel D. From Lyman into Parcel D. You’re saying there’s no access there, correct?
Yet what Mr. Dorsey presented is a letter from Lyndon Robjent that says Dear Rick. I received your
request for an access on County State Aid Highway 18. Your request is consistent with the discussion we
have been having during the last year or so. The County will allow an access point between your west
property line and Sunset Trail under the following conditions. So does the County have the authority to
grant an access in that, along that frontage of County Road 18? Does the County have the authority to
grant that?
Kate Aanenson: I’ll let the City Engineer answer that.
Councilman Laufenburger: Mr. Oehme?
Paul Oehme: ...jurisdiction of Carver County so they would grant or deny access along their corridor.
Councilman Laufenburger: Okay and unless I read this letter incorrectly Lyndon Robjent, speaking on
behalf of the County is saying the County will allow an access point so why are we suggesting that there’s
no access point there?
Paul Oehme: Because it’s not constructed at this time.
Councilman Laufenburger: Where is it not constructed?
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
Paul Oehme: The, can you point that out?
Councilman Laufenburger: So Parcel D has nothing.
Paul Oehme: Has nothing there right now. The letter that we received from the County, from Lyndon
Robjent states they would allow granting an access to Parcel D but right now it is not, it is not
constructed.
Councilman Laufenburger: So there’s nothing on Parcel D to connect to 18?
Paul Oehme: Not currently that I’m aware of.
Councilman Laufenburger: Okay. Let’s go down to Mills Drive. You say that Mills Drive is an access
point for Parcel A, is that correct? Where is there anything constructed on Parcel A that connects with
Mills Drive?
Kate Aanenson: The road stubs right into that and it’s a public street that we have jurisdiction on and it’s
provided in the development contract that that road could be connected.
Councilman Laufenburger: So Chanhassen has stipulated that Mills Drive will continue into Parcel A.
Kate Aanenson: Correct.
Councilman Laufenburger: But nothing’s there right now.
Kate Aanenson: But it’s stubbed to, built to.
Councilman Laufenburger: Okay, so there’s nothing, but there’s nothing on the Parcel A property that’s a
road of any sort?
Kate Aanenson: No. But it’s a publicly approved point of access. I think if you read the County’s letter
it says additional access or right-of-way may be required at no cost and also you need to get a permanent
access so it’s not, this permit is, whoops. Is actually, this has already been approved and has rights to it.
Councilman Laufenburger: Mills Drive is?
Kate Aanenson: Right. The other one is conceptual. You still have to go through the permitting process.
Where are you going to go through? Is it a wetland? Does it wetland alteration permits? It’s more
encumbered than the other piece. The other piece is there and a viable access. The other one there’s, a
little more hurdle to get to the point of getting an access. The construction of it. The location of it.
Working through the County’s plans. Does it fit with their upgrade for Lyman? Are they going ahead
with the Lyman project so it’s a little bit more encumbered.
Councilman Laufenburger: Is there anything that would suggest Kate that if in fact the County does
improve Lyman along that Parcel D frontage, if they do take steps to improve that in what is it, Mr.
Oehme is that 2014?
Paul Oehme: 14 currently, correct.
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
Councilman Laufenburger: Okay. If they do that is there any reason for the City of Chanhassen to deny
the building of an access road in that area?
Kate Aanenson: Well I think we showed on the comprehensive plan we expect some connection on that
north side on Lyman Boulevard. We expect that to be a connection for this property. Somewhere on this
segment. That’s what we showed in the comprehensive plan. Somewhere through here we expect a
connection.
Councilman Laufenburger: So our expectation is that there will be access between Sunset Trail on the
western border of Parcel D?
Kate Aanenson: (Yes).
Councilman Laufenburger: How far does the access that is right across from Sunset Trail, how far does
that access easement go into what is the new Parcel C? How far in a southerly direction would it extend?
Kate Aanenson: Let’s see if that’s on one of the other.
Todd Gerhardt: This is the southerly property line of C.
Kate Aanenson: It’s about 80 feet.
Councilman Laufenburger: So 80 feet for the full, the full north/south length of that Parcel C, is that
correct?
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct.
Councilman Laufenburger: And is that in an easement that exists today? Or would it be created as a
result of the subdivision?
Kate Aanenson: It would be created.
Councilman Laufenburger: Okay. Okay, thank you Mr. Mayor.
Mayor Furlong: Any other questions for staff?
Councilman Laufenburger: Oh I have one more, sorry. When does the zoning from A2 change to
something else?
Kate Aanenson: When the applicant proposes that and again to go back over that, the current zoning A2
is inconsistent with the comprehensive plan so the applicant would have to bring forward a plan that
would be consistent with either the office park or the regional commercial and the environmental
document, the area wide review would have to be updated.
Councilman Laufenburger: So it could not be developed as an A2? It would have to be changed to a
different zoning?
Kate Aanenson: Well I believe it’s a lot of record if you’re creating that and because it does meet the 2
1/2 minimum acreage you could put one house on there because it is zoned A2 and that one house on that
acreage could be considered compatible with the current zoning because it is A2 and you wouldn’t have
to request a change.
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
Councilman Laufenburger: But if the intent, consistent with the comprehensive plan is for commercial
office, that could not be developed on an A2 zoned property?
Kate Aanenson: Correct, that would have to be changed.
Councilman Laufenburger: Okay, thanks Mayor.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Any other questions for staff at this time? Mr. Dorsey, comments
you’d like to make?
Rick Dorsey: My name is Rick Dorsey, 1551 Lyman Boulevard. I am looking to simply subdivide the
house off from the rest of the property for personal reasons. I appreciate the concerns of the city staff,
although I question item number 2 which is talking about what’s been talked about here, is the easement
issue. I put forth the easement that’s showing on the drawings for my own benefit initially just to make
sure that there weren’t any issues doing my own due diligence on the property. The only concern that I
have is related to the requirement where the City has a right to in the future take it, or not take it away or
whatever until such time as Lot D has an access point. In this process I did go to the County, actually
have been working with the County with respect to an access point coming off of Lyman Boulevard in the
area that’s being discussed at the northwest corner of my property. I’ve been trying to work with that to
tie it into the redevelopment of Lyman Boulevard in that it’s very likely the future development of this
property will require an additional access point. In doing so I thought this was going to be a very simple
process. I have provided I guess what I would be asking of the council is that item number is the only
item that I’m concerned with and just from the standpoint of it’s requiring me to create something, an
encumbrant on the property that is not necessary and that the County has provided an access point. Now
my understanding of the access point, I’m not looking to build a road. I don’t have to build a road but
I’ve acquired access to the property and with that access to the property, whether it be a bridge built over
a wetland or whatever, the County has authorized or has allowed within their guidelines and ordinance
that such an access is there. No different than the access point currently coming into my home. There is
nothing there. I’ve put a gravel on the dirt and come into the property. Could it be taken away if the one
down at the end if it’s given to me, could be. So could that. My point would be is that in granting and
approving that without this easement the County can’t take that away. They cannot land lock that
property because that would become the sole access point should anything ever happen to that easement
where I would take it off. I have the easement there predominantly because there’s an out building that’s
there and it’s outside the road and I would have to get to it. That was the intent of doing it. The easement
was again for my own purpose. I don’t have the intent of developing it and putting any buildings on it as
part of this process. This is strictly dealing with personal family division issues and you know again my
point there is dealing with the access being said that it’s not there on D is concerning to me because we’ve
been working towards that as part of a future development plan for the property and representing that to
developers as being available because we were under the impression with the documentation provided by
the County and their preliminary designs that that access was there. So we’ve been presenting that
information to third parties and certainly if that’s not the case we need to discuss that so that false
information isn’t being delivered to parties and hurting the credibility of myself, the Fox family and the
City itself so I ask the council to approve this. I have no problem putting the easement there. I do believe
I have an access point on Parcel D. The County has authorized that and said that they have no intention in
a secondary letter, which I don’t know if you received, but Lyndon Robjent sent that this afternoon and
said that the attached, let’s see here. It says Rick Dorsey called me this morning and last week and asked
me to reaffirm the County’s position on access to Lyman Boulevard between Degler’s property line and
th
Sunset Trail or the Dorsey driveway. The attached letter that I sent to Rick on July 26 and carbon
copied Paul still applies as do the conditions. A right-in/right-out access. No closer that 660 feet from
Sunset Trail. Meets the access spacing standards in our comprehensive plan. The County has no
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
intention of changing these access standards. So based on that I really feel that the access is there. I’m
certainly not looking to land lock a property as has been mentioned. It would take away the value of that
property totally and I think it’d be very foolish for me to do that. The concerns of somebody else getting
control of the property, you know there are means to deal with it if this is considered an access point. The
County can’t take it away. It is there. I also have access from the south that I could create an access point
with the other 20 acre parcel that would come in from Mills Drive. If that was warranted so I feel very
comfortable myself and I think that this is my issue internally. As far as precedence of the City I went
through and pulled up examples of past metes and bounds subdivisions in the city and found none that,
where there’s a street involved like this that, where there’s joint driveway agreements, that kind of thing
that required the City to be a part of that easement so I would like to be treated the same way. And any
questions for me?
Mayor Furlong: Any questions for Mr. Dorsey?
Councilwoman Ernst: I have one question.
Mayor Furlong: Councilwoman Ernst.
Councilwoman Ernst: Mr. Dorsey, you made reference a couple different times to item number 2. Did
you mean item number 2 or item number 3?
Rick Dorsey: I think it’s item number 2 in the resolution. It’s got different numbers so in the resolution
it’s item number 2 and in the staff report it’s item number 3.
Councilwoman Ernst: Got it, thank you.
Rick Dorsey: Okay. Any other questions?
Mayor Furlong: Any other questions for Mr. Dorsey? Mr. McDonald.
Councilman McDonald: Okay, my concern has been if you put the cross easement into effect that you
know that pretty much locks you in but as you know the City Attorney and the City Manager has pointed
out that their fear is that you could take that away and then somehow you lose that property back to the
bank or something such as that, we’ve now created a landlocked piece of property. Asking you to put an
easement in there, a cross easement that you know could not be removed without the City, what burden
does that really place upon you?
Rick Dorsey: In that there’s financing involved in the property that does make it, I have to have this
signed off by a bank and the bank has let me know that that could in fact change the relationship of the
loan agreement that we have. That it allows a third party to have some say in the rights of the property so
in a sense giving up property rights so that certainly is an issue for me. And what those property rights
are is that in granting an easement that property has value and the value of that area could be lost to a
third party who is a party to that easement.
Councilman McDonald: Okay, and is the bank you’re dealing with KleinBank which is the letter we’ve
got in our packet?
Rick Dorsey: (Yes).
Councilman McDonald: So KleinBank seems to be in support of this subdivision with the cross access
and no other guarantees for I guess Parcel D at this point.
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
Rick Dorsey: Correct.
Councilman McDonald: Is that your understanding in talking with the bank?
Rick Dorsey: Correct, and I can’t sell this or give it away or do anything because there’s debt on the
property without the bank’s approval so there’s no way that I’m going to be able to give it to anybody or
have somebody else have it. They will have the last say over anything that happens because they have a
lien on the property and that lien would have to be paid off in full by a person and the due diligence
would go on in that process.
Councilman McDonald: So at this point then KleinBank has got a lien on the full, on all three of these
parcels?
Rick Dorsey: Correct.
Councilman McDonald: If it’s subdivided that’s part of what their whole…
Rick Dorsey: They will cross mortgage to all the parcels, right.
Councilman McDonald: Okay. And again what I’m just trying to understand, you say it’s like taking
property rights away. How is that going to affect your ability by having the City, what are you afraid that
the City would do? Use that as leverage in the development of all three of these parcels or you know
what’s your concern there?
Rick Dorsey: Well it’s, like I say it’s got multiple concerns. One is just the ability to finance it and
refinance it as you go along. If you want to do that. Banks are very strict in what they will do and won’t
do. It’s difficult to get financing on land to start with and putting extra obstacles makes it even more
difficult. It’s something that I guess the point I would make is it puts somewhat of a burden on me in that
it makes it more difficult for me to deal with financing and I’m suggesting it’s unnecessarily being done
because other examples are in the city where that’s not been done so it doesn’t have to be done that way.
I’d also like to address the point that I’m the party who owns it. There’s more than one party involved.
Not just me personally, individually. It’s in a Limited Partnership right now and with this split there will
be a different name on the house portion of it so once this is all done it will be different. I will still be
involved in all the parties but it will be a different entity and from a standpoint of multiple people in an
entity, there’s other who have a say so there’s nobody who’s going to let it go and be at the bank or
another individual is going to let it go and lose it’s value.
Mayor Furlong: Mr. Dorsey, I guess with regard to the Limited Partnerships, are you the general partner?
Rick Dorsey: I am.
Mayor Furlong: And are there other general partners as well?
Rick Dorsey: No, not at this time. But that could change.
Mayor Furlong: Understand, it could change. Okay, and with regard to the new ownership of the Parcel
C, would the general limited partners be similar to the current?
Rick Dorsey: It cannot be refinanced as a limited partnership.
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
Mayor Furlong: So what type of entity do you anticipate holding that property then? An LLC or.
Rick Dorsey: Well I don’t know. It will be as, I don’t know the answer to that.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright. Thank you.
Rick Dorsey: First steps were to get the subdivision taken care of.
Mayor Furlong: Understand. That’s fine.
Rick Dorsey: Okay.
Mayor Furlong: Any other questions?
Councilman Laufenburger: Yeah, please Mr. Mayor. Mr. Dorsey, the easement that you created, that 80
foot wide, is that what it is? 80 foot wide for the length.
Rick Dorsey: It’s 80 foot wide for the width. The length is 400 feet.
Councilman Laufenburger: So it’s 400 feet by 80 so that’s simple math.
Rick Dorsey: Almost an acre of land.
Councilman Laufenburger: Okay, acre of land. Who has control over that easement right now?
Rick Dorsey: There is no easement there right now.
Councilman Laufenburger: Okay. And when, and you intend to create that easement but you want to
control it yourself?
Rick Dorsey: Correct.
Councilman Laufenburger: So what restrictions do you want to put on that easement?
Rick Dorsey: The way I’ve got it drafted is similar to just a driveway easement. That both parties have
equal access to it. That neither party.
Councilman Laufenburger: Both parties meaning D and C?
Rick Dorsey: Both D and C.
Councilman Laufenburger: Okay.
Rick Dorsey: Have the rights to cross utilize that road to access it. That neither party could take it away
from the other without approval. You know I’d be willing to put in there that I’m not going to remove it
because I’m not going to. I’m putting it in there for my own purpose. There’s no incentive for me to take
it off so if another person came in to a party to part of it there’s still no incentive for me to take it off
because I’d have one parcel or the other.
Councilman Laufenburger: So what you’re doing here, this easement is entirely in Parcel C?
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
Rick Dorsey: Correct.
Councilman Laufenburger: Okay. Could it have been your option to put part of it into Parcel D?
Rick Dorsey: Could have been. It just wasn’t discussed at the beginning that this would have been an
issue.
Councilman Laufenburger: Okay. So you want to, you want to create this easement which essentially
gives access for Parcel D and Parcel C for that 400 foot length.
Rick Dorsey: Well predominantly it was done to get access to the building there. The barn.
Councilman Laufenburger: Gotch ya. Which is in Parcel D?
Rick Dorsey: Correct, and it went the whole length of that, of Parcel C only because that was the easiest
thing for the surveyor to do and they just drew a straight line down it. Whether that could be a road or not
all the way down, there never was any intention for it to be that way. It provides me access if I needed it
for any reason. There is access there and like I said, I mean I have no intentions of trying to leave a
property landlocked and in going to the County and because we had been working with them for well
over a year in the design of Lyman Boulevard, they’ve said that that will be an access point as long as it’s
665 feet if we request it, and we requested it and I told them where we wanted to have it and so they were
fine with that. And from the standpoint, my understanding of property being landlocked is if you have
access to the property it’s not landlocked so by putting this there and creating a, you know there’s not a
need even for the other easement yet I would keep it in place but I just would like the freedom to have my
own, you know not have another party have to be involved in it. Have to get approvals and hire lawyers
and whatever has to be done to go forward in the future just to refinance it or whatever I might want to
do. I guess the other concern I would have is, is in placing that crossing, you know I’m looking that there
will be development on the property. We don’t know how it will happen. You know there’s going to be
the need we feel for an access point there.
Councilman Laufenburger: There meaning on the western end of your Parcel D?
Rick Dorsey: Well it has to be at least 667, 660 feet from the other driveway which has been established
as a touch point within the comprehensive plan is my understanding.
Councilman Laufenburger: Right.
Rick Dorsey: And so we’re trying to create the same thing is to create that touch point because right now
there’s northing more than that touch point where my driveway currently is and it might not even line up
exactly because it doesn’t line up with Sunset Trail either, but you know I’m simply trying to do this for
my own personal reasons and I guess like I say, I appreciate the concern that’s there. I think it’s
unwanted and because I think that there’s access available to the property. I’m not going to take it away.
I have no reason to do that and as well the access point on Parcel D which I’m submitting is this is an
access point. That’s how I got the other one is going to the County and they said here’s what you can do.
It’s your access point. That’s how I got the one there. There’s nothing more than that that I had to do.
You know as far as it being a built road, it’s just, all it is is dirt covered with some gravel.
Councilman Laufenburger: Okay, and this easement, when it becomes an easement, 80 feet wide, 400
feet long, it cannot, as long as that easement is in place, development can’t take place on that easement, is
that correct? Could at.
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
Rick Dorsey: I don’t know the answer. I’m not sure, do you mean like a road or what do you mean? Or
a building do you mean?
Councilman Laufenburger: Road or building or landscaping or anything like that.
Rick Dorsey: Well nothing could go on in there without approval of both parties and now it would
involve the City as well in some way. You know it depends on how it was written.
Councilman Laufenburger: Alright, thank you Mr. Dorsey.
Rick Dorsey: Okay.
Mayor Furlong: Yeah, Councilwoman Tjornhom.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: And this is probably to Kate. Mr. Dorsey made the comment that he feels
he’s the exception with this project of what’s being expected for this easement. Are there other properties
and other deals where this has been done?
Kate Aanenson: Not to this examples. We’ve done metes and bounds but typically when you o a metes
and bounds you’re creating a lot that has access to a public street. A local street that you would maybe do
a metes and bounds because someone has enough frontage that they want to create another lot. They’re
pretty straight forward. They meet all the requirements of the zoning district. There’s sewer and water
available. In my 20 years here the first time we’ve done one like this when you’re inside urban service
area subdividing, doing the administrative subdivision and then doing another metes and bounds with no
intent to develop, I guess that’s why we felt strongly about creating this, kind of some of this paper trail.
We’ve done metes and bounds but we haven’t done one for quite a while but this is the first time of this
type that I’ve done.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: And then Mr. Dorsey has I’ve heard a couple times he’s very concerned about
the complications of having the City involved in whatever he’s doing and so maybe this is a legal
question. I mean what really is our authority for preventing him from having free will to do what he
wants with his property?
Roger Knutson: Our ordinances.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: What does that mean exactly?
Roger Knutson: It means here what is being recommended is have that cross access easement and when
you say the City doesn’t have any ownership interest in the easement, the City can’t go in there and use it
for driving whatever, anything it wants. It’s not, we have no right to use the easements. It’s just saying to
make sure that the easement doesn’t go away. It doesn’t go away until those other access are in and then
to make sure it isn’t changed to get rid of the easement that the City has to sign off.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: And we wouldn’t have any authority to per se decide who he can and can’t
sell his land to?
Roger Knutson: Oh no, of course not.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Or anything like that.
Roger Knutson: No.
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Because I think that’s what I’m hearing. That he has concerns.
Roger Knutson: No, we’d have no authority to do that. All we’re saying is the concern is, if he has a
cross access easement and the owners of the two lots concur, that easement goes away. So you know you
could be established on Monday and Tuesday it could go away. All we’re saying is we want it there until
there is actual, physical access and when that happens it goes away and we want to sign off to make sure
it doesn’t go away prematurely.
Rick Dorsey: I again want to just restate, this is you know a driveway coming into a parcel I own. The
whole parcel for being subdivided and I can bring up, like I say a couple of examples that the City has
created metes and bounds subdivisions for, to have a common driveway. They have an easement. They
don’t have the City involved in it and that’s my only point is why is there the need to have the City
involved in it. I’m willing to create the easement. I don’t have a problem with that until such time as
another access point is there, the easement is there. I guess I have a problem with why I’m being treated
differently with respect to the need for the City to be involved in making the determination when and if
that easement can go away. No different than these other ones where they have a driveway easement.
Any one of them, in one of them, I don’t know if it’s been built. I don’t know if either of them have been
built. You’d have to go and look at them and see but I don’t know that that’s the case and with, you know
with respect to this, I’m not trying to make a big deal out of it but it does have an impact from the
standpoint of the personal needs that I need to take care of and I do believe that I’ve been given an access
point with respect to Lyman Boulevard by the County. It’s their jurisdiction and if they’ve given me
access to that road to my property then I in fact have it. As far as how a road is built in the future, that’s a
separate issue. Where it goes within the property and how it’s constructed but there is the right to access
the property. That would be the point that I would make. You know from the standpoint of doing this, if
there’s no other way to do it, you know I guess I have to look at other alternatives but you know I just,
that’s my point and please consider it. Thank you.
Councilman Laufenburger: Mr. Dorsey, are you saying that if this resolution only passes with item 2 in
it, are you saying that you will withdraw your application for subdivision?
Rick Dorsey: No, I didn’t say that. I don’t know if.
Councilman Laufenburger: Okay, that’s what I thought I heard you say.
Rick Dorsey: I don’t know where I’ll be at. I have to find out what the implications are for me
personally.
Councilman Laufenburger: Okay.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Any other follow up questions for staff? Alright. Let’s go to council
for comments then. Thoughts and comments.
Councilwoman Ernst: I have some comments Mayor.
Mayor Furlong: Sure, Councilwoman Ernst.
Councilwoman Ernst: You know it seems to me that the applicant has been trying to work with us on this
project for I don’t know, a couple years and from what I’ve seen, I mean the County doesn’t seem to have
any issues with it and it seems that we the City are trying to control this access, and it doesn’t seem like it
should be a City issue and that we’re almost, that we’re infringing on property rights. And the applicant
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
from, again from what I’ve seen has provided us with all the documentation we’ve asked for and if the
access goes away it’s the property owner’s problem to really worry about. So with these things being said
I would support the recommendation with the elimination of item number 2.
Councilman McDonald: 2 and 3 or just 2?
Councilwoman Ernst: 2 and 3.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, well let’s provide clarification.
Councilwoman Ernst: 2 of the staff report or 3 of the staff report?
Rick Dorsey: 3 in the staff report, 2 in the resolution.
Councilwoman Ernst: 3 in the staff report.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Other thoughts and comments. Mr. McDonald.
Councilman McDonald: Yeah, I kind of feel the same way. That we’re getting involved in something
here that we really don’t need to get involved in. We have plenty of control over this entire section
through what we’ve guided it for and through what we’ve determined is going to happen down there.
You bring up the issue, which is a legitimate issue of what would happen if he did it one day. Took it
away the next and then lost the property. The thing that’s going to stop that from happening is all that
property is mortgaged by KleinBank. He can’t do anything like that or else he’s now in default of his
mortgage agreement and KleinBank can call the mortgage which is a very heavy financial penalty so
doing that creates even more problems for the property owner. There’s no incentive for him to do that.
And if he tries to sell it again as I said that easement becomes part of the property so anybody, any bank
going in there, anyone doing any due diligence on buying any of that property, that’s the first thing you
look at is what are the easements? What are active? What are inactive? What am I actually buying?
What access do I have? There are plenty of controls in there to protect any buyer. However that’s not the
City’s problem. That is his problem. Our only problem is worrying about the zoning. What is built
down there and how it is accomplished. Transactions between individual owners are not the City’s
problems and I think we’re making it our problem by getting in there and saying we have a right to sign
off on taking away that cross access so I too would support a resolution that takes out, I guess it’s number
2 in the recommendation, or 3. Whichever one it is, that the City not have to sign off on that cross
easement but yeah, I agree. A cross easement needs to be part of this and the applicant is willing to do
that. What happens beyond that, there are other powers at checks and balances that would keep him from
creating a landlocked piece of land.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Mr. Knutson, question. Mr. Gerhardt. Ms. Aanenson. The
contention seems to be on the words and the talk about without City approval and I guess my question is,
in terms of modifying this condition, and I, as I look at this letter from the County. They agree, or they
will allow an access point but then it’s subject to conditions and there are 7 conditions on here which may
or may not end up occurring. Some of which deal with cost. Some of which deal with right-of-way being
provided at no cost and such. I guess my question is, in terms of addressing the concerns which I think
are valid of the staff, if on that number 2 in the resolution, if the key here is not just, the key here is to
have another physical access. An actual access on item D and at which point we would be, the City
would approve modifications or rescinding of that cross access easement, is that correct? Did I hear
correctly on that? But not just a letter from an engineer but a physical approved access.
Roger Knutson: That’s correct.
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
Mayor Furlong: And would the term physical be a good way to describe it? An actual access or what is
the?
Roger Knutson: An actual access. A physical access.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Physical access. So I guess my question would be, and it’s a question just to try
to move this forward, if the second sentence in that 2, which currently reads an agreement must provide
that the agreement cannot be rescinded or modified without city approval to ensure that the access
easement remain intact until some other access is provided to Lot D. If we were to strike the words, after
the word modify. So we’d strike the words without city approval to ensure the access easement remained
intact and then we’d keep the word until. We’d insert after until, or excuse me. We’d say until some
other, and then between the words other and access say physical access is provided. Would that address
the concerns? Or is there some other way we can address this without the city approval or is the city
approval required to meet the concerns?
Roger Knutson: The concern is that if he owns both parcels, he has the right to change it unilaterally or to
drop it the next day.
Mayor Furlong: So it’s still just, so the.
Roger Knutson: You can say anything.
Mayor Furlong: The agreement can say anything we want upon approval but at that point the day after
the city seems it and approves it, it could change?
Roger Knutson: Yes.
Mayor Furlong: So having that city approval in there for purposes of ensuring that doesn’t change is
what’s the critical component.
Roger Knutson: Right. But again if you’re not concerned with that issue, then that’s your decision.
Mayor Furlong: I understand. I’m just trying to understand what the critical points are. Let’s continue
with comments then. Councilwoman Tjornhom.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I have comments but can I ask one more question?
Mayor Furlong: Absolutely.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: This is directed to anybody who dares answer it I guess in city staff but we’ve
been talking about this all night you know and that we’re doing this to protect this piece of land or we’re
doing this for, so what does happen? I mean why is the City so concerned? I mean what is our ownership
in all this if for some reason it would be landlocked? Why do we care? It’s not our problem, or how is it
our problem? If I’m making myself clear.
Roger Knutson: Let’s assume that happens and now we have a landlocked parcel. Someone you can be
assured will be coming in here, and I don’t know how they acquired it. Maybe they didn’t do their due
diligence. Maybe they bought it with money out of hand. Maybe a bank screwed up. You know
something happens. Probably wouldn’t happen but if it did happen they’ll be in here saying you’ve
created a mess. We want you to put in a public street to our property because it’s no use right now and
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
we have all sorts of great ideas for it so bring in a public street. That kind of pressure would be put upon
you. Again if you don’t, you can say no and that’s fine.
Councilman McDonald: Wait a minute, I’m at loss. How can someone come in here and say we created
a mess? We didn’t create a mess. He is allowed under law to subdivide his property.
Roger Knutson: Yes.
Councilman McDonald: He meets all the requirements for doing that. Anyone that again, he takes that
away, he just dropped the value of that land to zero. Okay, why would he do that? I mean you’re right,
anything could happen but the probability of it happening is very low in this case and I can understand
from the standpoint of trying to get something from a bank, they want it as simple and as clean as possible
and yeah, they probably would have a problem that we now have some control over this as a third party
over and above what we already have as far as zoning and ordinance restrictions and all those types of
things. My only point in all of this is that yeah, we’re getting close to what I would call a taking because
now you do have, no. You do have some influence and control over Lot D by having that there. If we
wanted to say we don’t like what’s going in there. You can’t take that away. We could do that and yeah,
he could take us to court and we can fight through it and all such as that. Why do we even want to get
involved in that? You know again he meets the rules and regulations. He meets the letter of the law. He
should be granted an easement based upon that. Anything he does over and above that, that’s his problem
and a buyer’s problem. Not our problem unless they come in and they want to put something in there
that’s not allowed by zoning, then it becomes our problem and we can stop it. So I guess it’s just, I don’t
understand either why do we need to be involved?
Councilman Laufenburger: Mr. McDonald, or Mr. Mayor, if I just make a comment. I’m learning a lot
about terms here and easement, access. It seems to me that if in fact that easement disappeared, and you
know I agree with Mr. McDonald, there’s no motivation for that to happen but if that did, we’ve already
learned that the County has the authority to grant access along that frontage road on Lyman so it’s
possible that if in fact that easement were to disappear, and Mr. Dorsey could go to the County, assuming
that this letter doesn’t happen, for whatever reason but he could go to the County and say, you’ve chosen
not to develop Lyman Boulevard or resurface Lyman Boulevard but I would like to have access, an access
point within the guidelines that you previously stated, why would the County not grant that access? Who
could answer that one? Mr. Oehme? Why would the County not grant that access?
Paul Oehme: I think under their guidelines they have to grant that access because it meets their
guidelines. I don’t think there’s any stipulation there that would.
Councilman Laufenburger: And that would be beneficial for the development of the Parcel D, C and A.
Or B, correct? Assuming it would. Well, that’s a rhetorical question. Yeah, I’m with Mr. McDonald
here. I don’t understand why the City has to have any say in what happens with that easement. My
comment.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Councilwoman Tjornhom, comments.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I think the pivotal question Councilman McDonald asked Mr. Dorsey was
what’s at risk for you in this whole thing. You know how will you be hurt by having the City having an
easement, or some say in that easement and I don’t know what, I don’t know if his answers were that
strong to me. I understand that things happen in life that we have no control over and we can’t predict the
future and what will happen with this. I’m happy that you’re moving along obviously with it and doing
something for the future but I just feel that this is, this is I think covering everyone’s butt right now.
We’re you know taking care of any complications that could arise at city hall…
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
(Due to technical difficulties there was a short break in the taping of the meeting at this point.)
Councilwoman Tjornhom: …anything that wasn’t within the comprehensive plan. This is just access to a
road and it’s making sure that it stays secure until the County or another access can be attained and I think
the one line in this letter that gets me, also I think the Mayor said something about it because we all know
like I said, life changes. People change. Commissioners change. Ordinances changes and it says an
access permit will be required and you know that’s just a whole whatever. I mean who knows what those
requirements could be 5 years from now. We don’t know but this at least I think protects Mr. Dorsey and
the City from having something that could be a huge potential problem down the road so I am in favor of
actually carrying on with the motion the way it states.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. I think the issue and why I was trying to recommend some different
language or removing City approval and putting in the agreement issues of a physical access point I think
are critical. I think to the extent that the properties are controlled by common ownership that intentions
change and thoughts change and that can create problems down the road. While I think County Engineer
was trying to be helpful here, there are many conditions on this letter that would need to be satisfied and I
don’t know if those would be able to be satisfied or not. I don’t like the City being involved with these
types of agreements but I think in this situation it is a unique situation where it makes sense and I would
certainly support the language as it’s currently written. I think everything else, I mean what perhaps is
being lost here is, and Mr. Dorsey and the property owners have every right to go through this subdivision
and I think we need to support that, the rights that they have in terms of property rights. I’m certainly not
going to suggest that we take those away but ultimately we were talking about earlier tonight you know
that these parcels don’t meet the current guiding from our comprehensive plan. There are other aspects
involved here besides just the simpleness of this but with regard to moving forward with the subdivision I
certainly support it. I would recommend that we keep the language in there that’s been recommended by
staff relying on their experiences, their expertise and the recommendations. Again if we can’t modify it
to take out the city approval because of concerns of our city attorney and staff, I wish we could. If there’s
some way we could and I’ll throw that out again. Whether it’s a physical access or somehow the, you
know there are ways from a legal issue to make sure that happens. If that’s not then unfortunately I think
we need to move forward with the language that’s been recommended or something similar to it. So any
other thoughts or comments or alternatives? Options?
Councilman Laufenburger: Mr. Mayor, this is not a singular check point on the development of this
property. This is.
Mayor Furlong: Well there’s no, it’s been described as no intention to develop.
Councilman Laufenburger: Yeah, at this time.
Mayor Furlong: Yeah, right.
Councilman Laufenburger: Right. A lot of our discussions relate to ensuring that there’s access for
Parcel D. I’m assuming that the assumption is that access to Parcel D is required in the event of future
development. Could it be?
Mayor Furlong: Well that depends, I’ll defer to staff but certainly multiple parcels could be developed in
a single plan.
Kate Aanenson: What we said is if it came in as a regional commercial it had to be master planned. It
could be subdivided into an office park and that wouldn’t need the master plan zoning. We pointed that
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
out in the staff report too is when we went through the comprehensive plan and tried to update the, to go
to that regional commercial zoning district, we spent a lot of time talking about keeping these properties
intact and that was one of the issues that we certainly are sympathetic to the needs that the owner has of
trying to subdivide that but the concern that we had is, you know you’re moving away from the ability to
master plan this when you have multiple property owners with maybe in different partners and that sort of
thing so that was some of our concern that we brought up in the staff report and certainly understand that
that needs to occur. Again we’re just trying to make sure that, you know if it does become an office park
that you would apply for the comprehensive plan amendment which would be consistent for an office
park and then a site could come in and try to move forward on that.
Councilman Laufenburger: So what development Kate, what development, assuming this subdivision
occurs, what development could occur that would not require coming back to the City for approval?
Kate Aanenson: A house. A single family home.
Councilman Laufenburger: On Parcel D?
Kate Aanenson: Yes.
Councilman Laufenburger: Anywhere on Parcel D?
Kate Aanenson: Correct. It is agriculturally zoned. It meets the, it’s larger than 2 1/2 acres and a single
family home is permitted on agricultural zoning district.
Councilman Laufenburger: Okay.
Mayor Furlong: I guess to follow up on Councilman Laufenburger’s question, a single house on the
Parcel D. Could Parcel D be subdivided further?
Kate Aanenson: Well again there’s no, that’s I guess that would be a question then back to whether or not
there’s a controlled access. There’s an improved driveway on that typically when we have more than two
parcels on a lot then we look at doing a private street. Whether that would be improved or not so. Our
ordinance does allow up to 4 homes off of a private street.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright. I guess then, if there are other comments or if someone would like to
make a motion.
Councilwoman Ernst: I’ll make a motion.
Mayor Furlong: Make a recommendation. Councilwoman Ernst.
Councilwoman Ernst: I make a motion that we approve the metes and bounds subdivision creating two
lots and adopt resolution excluding item number 2 from the resolution.
Mayor Furlong: I’ll ask for a second?
Councilman McDonald: Where’s that at?
Councilwoman Ernst: Item number 2?
Councilman Laufenburger: Page 237 on your…
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
Councilman McDonald: 237.
Mayor Furlong: Is approving the resolution, just for clarification purposes, if you’ll permit me, is
approving the resolution is enough or does the motion also have to include approval of the metes and
bounds subdivision?
Kate Aanenson: Thank you Mayor. I think what the staff would propose that you approve the resolution
for the metes and bounds creating the two lots but you should also, if you wanted to change the.
Mayor Furlong: And adopt the.
Kate Aanenson: And adopt the Findings of Fact, yeah.
Mayor Furlong: Resolution and the Findings of Fact.
Councilwoman Ernst: Right but I don’t want to say to the conditions of approval.
Councilman McDonald: Well if I could, could I propose a friendly amendment?
Councilwoman Ernst: Sure.
Councilman McDonald: That 2 be, say record a cross access agreement to Lot C and D period and then
the rest of it you could strike.
Councilwoman Ernst: I accept that amendment.
Mayor Furlong: So for clarification your motion was to, which hasn’t been seconded yet, your motion
was to simply adopt the resolution and I was asking for clarification because I think we need to take.
Kate Aanenson: You could approve the subdivision with the conditions in the staff report and that would
also be item number 3 that you would want to modify, and then adopt the resolution and the Findings of
Fact.
Councilwoman Ernst: Okay, so I’ve got that one up right here. Which is the one that I just?
Mayor Furlong: And perhaps I missed it. Did you include approval of the metes and bounds subdivision
or were you just approving the resolution?
Councilwoman Ernst: No I didn’t say.
Todd Gerhardt: Kate, why do you want to do the staff report also?
Kate Aanenson: That’s what, you don’t have to. That’s what the Mayor is asking for.
Todd Gerhardt: Okay, I just wondered if there was something in the staff report that wasn’t in the
resolution.
Kate Aanenson: No.
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
Roger Knutson: I think what the motion is, as I understood it would be approve the resolution as
presented in the packet with the exception of paragraph 2 which would be revised to read, record a cross
access agreement for Lot C and D period.
Councilwoman Ernst: Excluding that item.
Roger Knutson: No.
Mayor Furlong: And I think I’ve got the answer to my question because the resolution does include the
approval of the metes and bounds subdivision.
Roger Knutson: Yes.
Mayor Furlong: Which was my question, so that answers my question. So the motion then, as I
understand it has been to adopt the resolution striking out the entire number 2, is that correct?
Councilwoman Ernst: Correct.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, so that I will ask for a second.
Councilman McDonald: Now but wait a minute.
Mayor Furlong: I will ask for a second on that. Let’s just try to stay organized here. Stay organized.
Okay.
Councilwoman Ernst: Okay.
Mayor Furlong: So that motion dies for lack of a second.
Councilman Laufenburger: Mr. Mayor?
Mayor Furlong: Yes.
Councilman Laufenburger: I’d like to make a motion.
Mayor Furlong: Yes, Councilman Laufenburger.
Councilman Laufenburger: That the City Council approves the resolution for a metes and bounds
subdivision creating two lots subject to the conditions of approval and adoption of the Findings of Fact
and Decision with the exception of item number 2 on the resolution. That it should read, record a cross
access agreement for Lots C and D period. Striking all the remaining wording of item number 2.
Councilwoman Ernst: Second.
Mayor Furlong: Motion’s been made and seconded. Discussion on the motion.
Councilman McDonald: Well I guess the only thing is I do want to explain my position because I am
going against the city staff here and only because again the example you point out of putting a house on
that property. You can’t put a house on that property without access. No one will finance it so that’s not
a concern and that’s why I would vote in favor of this amendment and again I just feel very strongly we
as the city do not need to be involved at this point. That’s my comment.
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
Mayor Furlong: I guess my thought is, and as much as I believe the staff’s made an appropriate
recommendation I’m willing to go forward with the resolution and approve it. I think it’s, the property
rights are clear here in their ability to move forward with the metes and bounds subdivision. I think the
concerns have been raised which certainly have been vetted. While I agree with staff, for me I think
ultimately we need to move forward with this and recognize the property owner’s rights to subdivide so
I’m going to be supporting this as well.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I concur with the Mayor.
Mayor Furlong: Yeah, okay. Thank you.
Councilman Laufenburger: Call the question please.
Mayor Furlong: Yeah. If there’s no other discussion let’s just proceed with the vote.
Resolution #2012-51: Councilman Laufenburger moved, Councilwoman Ernst seconded that the
City Council approves the resolution for a metes and bounds subdivision, Planning Case 2012-08,
creating two lots subject to the conditions of approval and adoption of the Findings of Fact and
Decision with the amendment to item number 2 of the Resolution that will read, Record a cross
access agreement for Lots C and D. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a
vote of 5 to 0.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Given the time, we’re just after 9:00. Let’s take a short recess subject to the
call of the Chair. Let’s make it about 5 minutes if that’s okay. Thank you.
The City Council took a short recess at this point in the meeting.
WATER METER RADIO READ REPLACEMENT PROJECT PW02401:
A. CONSIDER ACCEPTING BID AND AWARDING CONTRACT.
B. APPROVE RESOLUTION PROVIDING FOR THE SALE OF $1,245,000 G.O. IN
WATER & SEWER REVENUE BONDS, SERIES 2012A.
Paul Oehme: Thank you Mayor, City Council members. I just have little background that I’d like to run
through real quick. This is proposed water meter radio replacement. It’s not the actual meter itself. It’s
the radios that we use to record the usage on the meters so I just wanted to make that clear. The current
system that we have right now is, it’s considered a drive by system so the city utility department drives
around the streets as need be to pick up the usage of water meters and basically on a quarterly basis or as
needed so this, the current system was installed a little over 11 years ago. At that time the batteries that
th
were state of the art were anticipated to last about 10 years. Right now we’re in the 11 year of these
batteries and they are starting to fail. The current drive by system basically is really no longer supported
by the current manufacturer. The actual unit has been discontinued where we pick up the radio, or the
usage from these meters so we don’t have the ability to replace that unit if it were to break or fail on us.
Currently there are 77, a little over 7,700 water accounts that are currently read by this system. Staff has
been working on this project for several years and just this year we did approach the City Council to
consider what should be done with the radios and the batteries. Back in February, March and May we did
have a work session discussions with the council regarding this issue. As you recall and then what was
translated to the city staff was to look at a fixed base network system which would eliminate the use of
our utility department to pick up the radio reads or the usage from the system. From the meters. So
42
Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
basically I just wanted to reiterate some of the benefits for the fixed based system. Basically the system
that’s being proposed is, has a, apparently does have a battery in the unit. However it is upwards of a 20
year life expectancy battery. Basically in order to do this project the city would have to enter residents
and businesses houses once to replace the radio box connected to the meter as opposed to if we just
replaced the batteries, we have to enter on an as needed basis so every more or less 10 years we’d have to
upgrade the system or replace those batteries. Staff time spent on re-reading would essentially be
eliminated. The re-reads would be handled at the finance basically that’s with a few key strokes. The
final reads going forward as well for properties that are in the sale process. Instead of taking 3 to 4 days,
there is much better customer service or again the finance department would be able to look up those
reads within 10 to 15 minutes and get an answer. Lead detection is also a feature that this new system
offers. Residents, if the system would to be implemented could call the finance department and look at
their usage on an hourly basis to, and over the night hours to look at if there’s a leak in their house or in
their system. It also gives us some ideas of meter usage as well. The possibility of human error for final
reads or re-reads would also be eliminated. This is all again electronically handled now instead of utility
staff writing those usages down. And going forward again that frees up staff time at the utility level to
perform other tasks within our system. The option, it also provides the city leak detection again because
it can, the system reads can read on an hourly basis and we can pick up usages within our watermains,
especially during the night hours that would help us determine if there are leaks in our system. We did
rd
receive bids for the project. On August 23 two bids had been received. The lowest responsible bidder
was Ferguson Waterworks in the amount of just over $1.19 million dollars. The City did originally bid
th
this project out back in June 18 of this year but at that time the bids were rejected considering the
installation contractor didn’t seem to be a good fit for our project. However by rebidding the low bidder,
the low bid of the project was actually a little over $51,000 less than the bid that we received, the low
th
bidder that we received back in June 18 so substantial savings there. Moving forward, if the project
were to be approved tonight and awarded, the hardware installations that would be necessary for the city
would be installed in October to late November. The radio installations would then go in after that,
sometime in November and then moving forward and the anticipated project completion would be
September of next year so there is a lot of coordination that would still have to go on between the installer
and the City in notifications with the property owners and businesses that if you like we can go into that
discussion as well so with that we are proposing to award a contract to Ferguson Waterworks and approve
the contract with them for the hardware, software and meter radios as shown in your screen here so. With
that if council would have any questions. Tom Phillips with Ferguson Waterworks is here tonight and
then Ian Coburn with Neptune Systems is also here tonight with the supplier of the and manufacturer of
the system is here tonight to answer any questions that you may have as well.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Questions for staff at this point. Questions? Councilwoman Ernst.
Councilwoman Ernst: Paul I don’t know if you can answer this question but recently I’ve read some
articles about basically invasion of privacy with radios reading the water meters and what basically what
they’re saying is that they can get information from these readings that gives them private data about
when the residents are in their homes. When they’re leaving their homes as well as other, breaking, I
mean major security problems so I’m interested in knowing what the risks of that are.
Paul Oehme: Okay. Maybe that, I can direct that question to the Neptune representative with the
encryption.
Councilwoman Ernst: Okay.
Ian Coburn: Good evening.
Councilwoman Ernst: Good evening.
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
Ian Coburn: Mr. Mayor, City Council. My name is Ian Coburn from Neptune Technology Group. The
system’s encrypted. All we’re going to get is an actual meter reading that’s transferred right directly back
to the City. It’s encrypted information through the MIU to the RF. To the tower. Back to the City so
there’s no real information that we can gather of who’s, if the resident’s home, gone or whatever. It’s all
stored back at the city information was just private reading information so.
Councilwoman Ernst: But from what I’m understanding other people can break into that encryption.
And I guess that’s more of what I’m asking.
Ian Coburn: The information is encrypted and it cannot be broken into. Into the, and right to the city so.
Councilwoman Ernst: So there are security risks at all?
Ian Coburn: No, no security.
Councilwoman Ernst: You can guarantee me that?
Ian Coburn: I can guarantee that, no security risks at all by the information that’s coming through.
Councilwoman Ernst: Okay.
Todd Gerhardt: And worst case scenario, if somebody did break into that, they’re only going to get the
data from that water meter.
Ian Coburn: They have to be able to, actually Mr. City Manager, they have to actually be able to interpret
the data as you’re just getting a digit, a number of digits. Whether it be what the water usage is so they
have no really way to interpret what that data is. It’s all done on the city software here.
Todd Gerhardt: Because their water meter will not be connected to their home computer or the city
access so.
Councilwoman Ernst: Right. But the meters basically are tied to that home. To that home residence,
whether it’s an address or.
Ian Coburn: It’s tied through a specific MIU, what we call a meter interface unit number that’s on that
which is stored, it’s actually stored on the city’s CIS system so they would have to physically go into,
which the city’s security of the CIS system is secured. Have to really go get that MIU number to tie that
to the homeowner’s address to get and the only I information like I said would just be a number. A
number of water usage of where they used their water.
Councilman Laufenburger: Mr. Coburn, does that meter connect to, is there any physical connection
between that meter and anything other than the flow of water?
Ian Coburn: No.
Councilman Laufenburger: So it doesn’t connect to the furnace?
Ian Coburn: No.
Councilman Laufenburger: It doesn’t connect to the air conditioning?
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
Ian Coburn: No sir.
Councilman Laufenburger: It doesn’t connect to the alarm system?
Ian Coburn: No sir.
Councilman Laufenburger: All of which could be indicate movement in the house.
Ian Coburn: Exactly.
Todd Gerhardt: And it’s all radio frequency.
Ian Coburn: It’s all radio through using a 450 megahertz system.
Councilman Laufenburger: It’s not powered by the electricity in the house?
Ian Coburn: No sir.
Councilwoman Ernst: But it has an address.
Ian Coburn: Which is, there’s no address, physically no address in the MIU. All, if you go back to the
picture for a second, the original slide you had an actual picture of the slide. On the gray box there’s an
ID. Identification number and that’s all that’s on that box and that identification number is tied back to
the city’s CIS system. So there’s no customer address information. No customer name information on
any of the MIU’s or any of the boxes or any information that’s transmitted from what we call our RF unit
to the collector to the city hall. There’s no customer name. No customer address. Nothing of that
information.
Mayor Furlong: So is the radio units send an identification number of who it is and a.
Ian Coburn: Sends it here on city…
Mayor Furlong: And a static number.
Ian Coburn: Meter read, yeah.
Mayor Furlong: And a number but it doesn’t show rate or usage? Does it show rate or usage? Does it
show…
Ian Coburn: It just shows how many gallons were used at that time period.
Mayor Furlong: At that point that it sends a reading or is requested for a reading. It’s just a number of
gallons.
Ian Coburn: Number of gallons.
Mayor Furlong: And then the software system at the city hall will compare that to earlier readings to
determine.
Ian Coburn: Exactly right, yes.
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Was there, have there been any situations, to follow up on Councilwoman Ernst’s
question with regard to security breaches?
Ian Coburn: We have not. We have over 3 million of these RF units installed in North America and we
have not had an issue so we currently have two systems. The same system in the metro. Twin Cities
metro area. The City of Roseville, Minnesota has about 2,000 systems and we’re just about to start the
implementation of Maple Grove project of this exact same system.
Mayor Furlong: And how long has this system been?
Ian Coburn: The 450 system’s been on the market for about 5 years now.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. And were there any security issues? Was this system replacing an earlier system
that your company?
Ian Coburn: It was, we always had the mobile system. What you currently have it’s a new fixed base
system that we’ve designed for it.
Mayor Furlong: The mobile system that we have now, is that by the same manufacturer?
Paul Oehme: No, it’s a different manufacturer.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. So did you ever have any problems with security for your mobile system?
Ian Coburn: Not at all. We have, in the metro, Twin Cities metro area we probably have over 300,000
points of this, of Neptune mobile system in the Twin Cities metro area.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. I mean security’s a very…
Ian Coburn: Very understandable. Very important to us.
Mayor Furlong: Not to defeat the question at all. I’m trying to make sure that there aren’t any issues.
Ian Coburn: Very sir.
Mayor Furlong: Paul, have we had any issues with our mobile units over the last 10-11 years?
Paul Oehme: Not with the breach of information like, no. That I’m aware of.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. That’s a good question I guess.
Ian Coburn: It’s one we’ve had before council members so I’ve had that question before so.
Councilwoman Ernst: Okay, thank you. One other question I had and I was looking at you know how
we’re going to be paying for this in terms, and I’m sorry this question wasn’t for you.
Ian Coburn: Okay, thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you.
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
Councilwoman Ernst: It’s probably to Mr. Gerhardt. So when we’re looking at paying for these it looks
like we’re looking at the sale of bonds?
Todd Gerhardt: That’s correct.
Councilwoman Ernst: As a recommendation.
Todd Gerhardt: Yep. General obligation water and sewer revenue bonds.
Councilwoman Ernst: And then as part of the background I noticed in here that it’s not of course going to
impact any of the rates in 2012 but it’s sounding in here like it could impact the rates in 2013 that we’re
going to be reviewing in October.
Todd Gerhardt: It will not impact the rates other than what we had estimated for those increases last year.
You know based on our rate history. So we’re not proposing an increase over last year’s proposed rate
increase.
Councilwoman Ernst: Oh, so okay. So not over last year’s proposed for 2013?
Todd Gerhardt: Correct.
Councilwoman Ernst: Okay.
Todd Gerhardt: And how we were able to incur you know basically $1.3 million dollars in new cost is
that we deferred other capital projects. Of course the west treatment plant is probably the biggest one.
Pushed that back several years to take on this project.
Councilwoman Ernst: So is the sale of the bonds then going to cover the cost?
Todd Gerhardt: Yes.
Councilwoman Ernst: Okay.
Todd Gerhardt: Plus interest.
Mayor Furlong: And that was one of the issues that we raised when we talked about this in the work
session. Is this is a major capital expenditure associated with our water system, similar to watermains
being added. Water towers. Water reservoirs. Pumps. Wells. I mean this is, if we’re in the business of
providing municipal water, being able to accurately obtain a reading for the usage to make sure we can
bill fairly and appropriately is critical and this is a major capital investment so what we’re really doing is
we’re reprioritizing our capital investments so that this one can go through and what I’m hearing from
staff is that this is as high or higher priority than the other capital investments into our water system that
we had previously anticipated. Is that correct?
Todd Gerhardt: Yeah, priority and need. Right now the west water treatment plant isn’t needed. We’re
still producing high quality water in the westerly area and right now we kind of explain the need that the
existing water meters that we have, or the batteries are going dead on them and we either have to go in to
each individual home and crack open those meters and replace the batteries or replace the entire water
meter with the new system. New technology. More efficient. More effective service back to the
customers.
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Other questions for staff?
Councilman McDonald: Mr. Mayor?
Mayor Furlong: Mr. McDonald.
Councilman McDonald: You know about the time we started looking at this I actually found an article
the City of Edina is doing this. As a matter of fact they went with Ferguson and they have twice as many
meters as we do. They’re looking at spending $3.6 million but there’s a couple things that they have also
done that I guess gets to my question. They’re going to require all Ferguson employees who actually go
into everyone’s home, there’ll be a background check. They’ll wear ID badges. You know the City of
Edina is going to be putting out notification for all of this. Do we have similar plans in place to do the
same things?
Paul Oehme: Yep, absolutely. Notification would go out first in the billing envelopes. Let property
owners 2-3 months in advance that the project would be coming. The specifications have been written to
make sure that we have background checks on all the employees that would be entering and working on
this project. They would have to be wearing vests or ID badges as well. Just not for Ferguson but for the
City of Chanhassen. Their trucks would have to be labeled as such and there’s, so a lot of those bases are
covered and basically we looked at, basically I did receive Edina’s specifications and a bunch of other
specifications around the metro area and most of those items are included in our specifications as well.
Councilman McDonald: Okay. Well there was one other thing that I learned from going to Edina. One
of the other things that made them go with this is that starting next year you evidently cannot replace
meters containing lead and as I understand it that was a problem with some of our meters so we didn’t
know this at the time but it looks like we probably made the right decision.
Paul Oehme: Yep. There is. There’s new federal guidelines for water meters that they have to be built to
a higher standard of lead. Basically lead free. That was not the standard back you know 20 years ago.
Councilman McDonald: Okay. Well I just wanted to say that you know based upon this article I think
you did an excellent job because again you followed through on just about everything that they’ve done
and they will complete their project in roughly a year and like I say it’s twice as many meters as what we
have so this should be a project that quickly put together and implemented so thanks.
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor and City Council members. The city attorney just advised me that it will not cost
that much to modify the Edina contract that he wrote for the City of Chanhassen so, we just got to change
the dollar amount.
Roger Knutson: And the name and county. It wasn’t that simple.
Mayor Furlong: Other questions?
Councilman Laufenburger: Yeah Mr. Mayor.
Mayor Furlong: Yes.
Councilman Laufenburger: Paul you might have mentioned this but how close does the $1,194,726, how
close does that come to your earliest estimates? Or your earlier estimates.
Paul Oehme: You know our earlier estimates, as I recall, were right at $1.2 million.
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
Councilman Laufenburger: Pretty close.
Paul Oehme: Pretty close.
Councilman Laufenburger: Thanks. I echo Mr. McDonald’s sentiments. But I’m wondering why you
didn’t bid it a third time.
Paul Oehme: I knew I was going to get that question.
Councilman Laufenburger: I didn’t disappoint you.
Todd Gerhardt: It doesn’t always work that way.
Mayor Furlong: Question for, is it Mr. Phillips with Ferguson? Yeah, if I could. Especially following up
on Mr. McDonald’s comments. First of all, congratulations on getting the Edina project as well.
Tom Phillips: Thank you.
Mayor Furlong: But now I’m going to ask the question about capacity for your firm to handle their
project within, all at the same time period as our project is and I assume there are other cities. Maple
Grove was mentioned and Roseville.
Tom Phillips: Yes. Actually the City of Roseville is actually doing that in-house.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Tom Phillips: They’re going to do that over a period of 3 to 5 years. They wanted to save some money
and still get the project taken care of so they figured that they can use their staff to implement their
project.
Mayor Furlong: Alright. But with regard to you.
Tom Phillips: Yeah.
Mayor Furlong: And your ability to perform.
Tom Phillips: Our ability. We’re currently under contract with the City of St. Paul changing out 95,000
st
meters in St. Paul as it goes. We are finishing that project up at the end of this year. December 31 of
2012. That’s going to provide us more labor. Our installers to do that as well. Edina, Maple Grove,
Chanhassen, it’s not going to be an issue. The nice thing about the city of Chanhassen, for you folks is
that we’re not changing out the meter. We’re just changing out the radio device so the installation time is
going to be pretty much cut in half. We’ll be able to get access. The hardest part of doing any installation
project is gaining access into people’s houses. Once we do that we’ll just disconnect the radio. Hook up
our radio device to it. Program it into a nice area of the basement where we’re getting the best reception,
and then we leave the premises.
Mayor Furlong: Is the scope of the work to remove the old radio then as well?
Paul Oehme: That’s correct. That’s part of their contract.
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
Mayor Furlong: Oh, okay. Approximately how many installers do you think you’ll have operating at any
one time or within a reasonable range?
Tom Phillips: About 2 for the city of this size.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. So we’re looking really at 2 installers over a period of about 12 months?
Tom Phillips: It’ll be less than 12 months. We should have this project wrapped up by the end of next
summer. At the latest.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. And the installers have done this before or have worked under supervision and
are properly trained?
Tom Phillips: Yeah. Within the Ferguson group we have a meter division and in our meter division we
have 45 members on our staff. Of that we’ve got one installation manager, 3 project managers, 6 project
supervisors, 6 people doing the call center back at our office in Blaine so those are the people that actually
take care of all of your customers calling in to schedule appointments and then we have 20 installers
ballpark.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright. Thank you. Thank you sir.
Tom Phillips: You’re welcome.
Mayor Furlong: Appreciate it. Any other questions for staff or for?
Councilwoman Ernst: I do. I have one other question.
Mayor Furlong: Councilwoman Ernst.
Councilwoman Ernst: Just a quick question. What impact is this going to have on our homeowners? Do
they need to be home when you make these visits?
Tom Phillips: Yes.
Councilwoman Ernst: So it sounds like we probably need to get some kind of notification out to our
residents.
Paul Oehme: Absolutely, and that’s in the works right now with the billings that will be going out.
There’ll be a flyer included in the billings. There’ll be also get the notifications out in the mail and then
prior to installation or into a zone that we’ll be working in, we’ll send out a letter probably a month ahead
of time notifying the residents about that and to try to make appointments with the installers. The
installers are fairly flexible in terms of installations. They can work on weekends too or after hours if
need be too so the installers we wrote in the specifications they have to be as flexible as they can to
accommodate the needs of the residents and the businesses.
Councilwoman Ernst: And how long does it take to change one out?
Paul Oehme: You know it’s 15-20 minutes if they can locate it easily so it’s a very easy installation. Just
remove, remove the existing radio. Reconnect the new radio. Program it and then make sure we’ve got a
signal. Signal strength and then just you know install it in the basement and that’s basically all the project
entails.
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
Councilwoman Ernst: Okay, thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Mr. Laufenburger.
Councilman Laufenburger: Mr. Phillips, who initiates the scheduling call? Does the homeowner or does
your call center?
Tom Phillips: I’d like to bring Brian Moens up. He’s actually our installation manager for the company
so he takes care of all that.
Councilman Laufenburger: Closer to the customer right?
Brian Moens: Yes. How we doing?
Councilman Laufenburger: Good.
Brian Moens: So what was the question again sir?
Councilman Laufenburger: Who initiates the scheduling call?
Brian Moens: Well we will send out a series of three notifications. We have the first notification. That is
an introductory letter to the customer that will have our 800 number to our call center in Blaine and also
have an online scheduling option so we initiate the letters going out to the customer but then they’re
requested to call back or schedule online.
Councilman Laufenburger: So the customer schedules based on time availability. I’d like it at 4:00 on
Saturday afternoon.
Brian Moens: Correct.
Councilman Laufenburger: Once that’s activated or once that’s in place, is there any follow up
notification from the installer? I’m 20 minutes away. I’ll be there.
Brian Moens: What our call center is directed to do is write down special notes like that. I mean it’s
pretty common practice to call customers 20 minutes in advance. You know hey, I just work a few
minutes away. Give me a call or knock on the side door. There are a lot of those notes that get put in.
The installer’s got an electronic hand held equipment that they come out to each install with that, that has
the address. What they’re going to be doing at that address and specialized notes.
Councilman Laufenburger: Then I assume, this goes back to Mr. Oehme or Mr. Sticha that once a zone is
picked there will be you know floods of calls saying I want that radio right now you know and then there
will also be some laggers and then you initiate those calls to those laggers, is that right?
Paul Oehme: Yeah, absolutely. After they go through their process, if they can’t schedule a radio change
out then the City gets involved and takes it from there.
Councilman Laufenburger: And is there a point in time where new construction meters begin?
Paul Oehme: Absolutely. Yep, absolutely. After the hardware is installed and after the software is
installed.
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
Councilman Laufenburger: Here?
Paul Oehme: Here, yeah at city hall and then also there’s the.
Councilman Laufenburger: The antennas.
Paul Oehme: The antennas. Have approximately 5 of them at our water towers…
Councilman Laufenburger: So once you’re ready to receive those meter readings then new construction
has it.
Paul Oehme: Absolutely. That’s right.
Councilman Laufenburger: Alright, thank you Brian.
Brian Moens: Thank you.
Councilman Laufenburger: Welcome to Chanhassen.
Mayor Furlong: If I could. Question for you. When you or your installers go in, you make the
installation and you leave. Do you leave behind any information or documentation or just?
Brian Moens: That’s a good question. We will leave every customer with an 800 number that goes to our
project manager’s cell phone for 24 hour issues that may arise after our install. You know since we’re not
touching really any of the plumbing, that’s where most of those calls are derived from is you know they
might have a leak afterwards but since we’re just hooking a wire up to a box from the meter, you know I
don’t foresee a lot of issues but if there are they would have a number to call.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. And I guess the thought or question I have, and I don’t know if this is something
that you’ve done in the past or not but it was mentioned earlier tonight…
(Due to technical difficulties there was a short break in the taping of the meeting at this point.)
Brian Moens: …they go out to everybody’s that’s on there so you know whether that’s Paul or whoever,
those go out.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. I’ll leave it to you to figure out the best way to do it but I think it’s key not only
that you get the information but we get the information directly so that our staff can respond to that and I
guess the other question I have, thank you and I think this will now go to you Paul. In terms of the
notification, I can anticipate people saying why are we doing this? Why is the city, why does the city
have to send somebody into my home so I think when we do those notifications we should make sure that
we explain you know why this is going on. The benefit to the city. The impact on water rates as was
mentioned. You know explain what’s going on. Perhaps directing them, if there’s brief information on
the notice but directing them to the website if they have more questions where we can be more detailed. I
think getting information out there about why we’re doing this. We have the benefit of multiple work
sessions and staff reports and most residents don’t so that would be a recommendation.
Councilman McDonald: Mr. Mayor?
Mayor Furlong: Mr. McDonald.
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Councilman McDonald: I will gladly donate my thing from the City of Edina because that’s what they
did. They go into a lot of those exact same things as to why are we doing this. How long it’s going to
take. They introduce Ferguson Waterworks and it’s employees. They give phone numbers and they talk
about what it’s going to cost and all like that so I’ll gladly donate this to Mr. Gerhardt to use as he will…
Mayor Furlong: Any other questions with regards to the installation of the radios? Otherwise what I
would suggest is let’s move on then to the second part of this item which is the resolution regarding the
financing to see if there’s any staff discussion or questions for staff.
Councilwoman Ernst: Mayor, I’m sorry. I do have a couple more questions.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Councilwoman Ernst: You had just mentioned something about in your system and my question is, does
any of that data go into Ferguson Waterworks? Any of our information or does that go directly to our,
and there’s no interfacing there at all?
Paul Oehme: Sure. Yeah, once the project is completed Ferguson Waterworks does not get any data. I
mean all the data is sent to city hall and stored in our computers. That data is privately held.
Councilwoman Ernst: Okay. And then the other thing, and we had actually talked about this in one of
our work sessions I thought and I didn’t ever see the information in terms of what this payback looks like.
The timing. You know is it 3 years? Is it 4 years and that was in reference to the labor costs and the
equipment costs? What was that? I mean what was the end result of that and I think that that would be
important to know.
Todd Gerhardt: We did a payback cost benefit.
Mayor Furlong: Yeah, wasn’t it about 7-8 years?
Paul Oehme: 7-8 years, yeah.
Councilwoman Ernst: 7-8 years.
Mayor Furlong: Over a 20 year life cycle.
Councilwoman Ernst: And that included equipment and labor?
Todd Gerhardt: Yeah.
Councilwoman Ernst: Okay. Thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Other questions?
Todd Gerhardt: We can send that report back out if you’d like to see that.
Mayor Furlong: Yeah. Any questions with regards to the resolution regarding the financing? Okay. If
there are no other questions, any comments? On what’s before us.
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council. Just want to make a couple of points here.
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
Mayor Furlong: Mr. Gerhardt.
Todd Gerhardt: In the pre-sale report from Ehlers, they talk about purpose and funding source in there
and originally we talked about a 70/30 split between the sewer and water utilities. After discussions with
Ehlers it was decided to use a 50/50 split. Our staff report references that but I just want to make the
point that in the pre-sale report it talks about a 70/30 and it’s, and staff and Ehlers are proposing 50/50.
And the total interest over this period is $127,550.83 with a grand sale cost of interest and principle of
$1,372,550.83.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any questions on that? Or anything else related to the sales report. Bond
sales report. Okay. Very good. The timing and schedule of that Mr. Gerhardt too. That’s on page 3 of
the report. That’s kind of pushed off a couple weeks.
Todd Gerhardt: Yeah. City Council.
Mayor Furlong: Obviously the pre-approval is this evening. Not last.
th
Todd Gerhardt: Yep, we will bring back award of bid on the bonds at our October 8 meeting.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Thank you. Any discussion on this item? On either of these two items? If not
is there a motion? I’ll recognize you all at once. Mr. McDonald.
Councilman McDonald: Yeah. Now wait a minute. Now I’ve got to get to it.
Mayor Furlong: Oh sorry. Councilwoman Ernst, are you ready? Okay.
Councilman McDonald: Okay, I make the following motion that the City Council approves the bid in the
amount of $1,194,726.45 and awards contracts to Ferguson Waterworks for the replacement of water
meter radios, hardware and software.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. And do you want to do the second motion as well?
Councilman McDonald: Also the second one.
Mayor Furlong: Do you have that up?
Councilman McDonald: The second one is the City Council approves a resolution providing for the sale
of $1,245,000 in general obligation water and sewer revenue bonds to finance meter reading equipment in
the city.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Councilwoman Ernst seconded since I stole the motion from her she gets
the second.
Councilwoman Ernst: That’s alright.
Mayor Furlong: Alright. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none we’ll proceed with the vote.
Resolution #2012-52: Councilman McDonald moved, Councilwoman Ernst seconded that the City
Council approves the bid in the amount of $1,194,726.45 to Ferguson Waterworks for the
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replacement of water meter radios, hardware and software. All voted in favor and the motion
carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
Resolution #2012-53: Councilman McDonald moved, Councilwoman Ernst seconded that the City
Council approves a resolution providing for the sale of $1,245,000 General Obligation Water and
Sewer Revenue Bonds to finance meter reading equipment in the city. All voted in favor and the
motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
Mayor Furlong: Alright, thank you everyone. We appreciate your efforts to date and thank you in
advance for your good work going forward.
APPOINTMENT TO THE SENIOR COMMISSION.
Mayor Furlong: Move now to the next item on our agenda which is consideration of appointment to the
Planning Commission. Or excuse me, to the Senior Commission. It is getting late. Earlier this evening
Ms. Jackie Engel interviewed with the City Council. She has applied for the open position on the
Chanhassen Senior Commission and I would certainly put her name into nomination and recommend her
approval for that position and ask for a second.
Councilwoman Ernst: Second.
Councilman McDonald: I’ll second.
Mayor Furlong: I think Councilwoman Ernst beat you Mr. McDonald so she gets the second on that one
as well. Any discussion on this? Seeing none, let’s proceed with the vote.
Mayor Furlong moved, Councilwoman Ernst seconded to appoint Jackie Engel to the Senior
Commission. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you and congratulations to her.
COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS.
Mayor Furlong: Any council presentations?
Councilman Laufenburger: Are you going to speak about 41?
Todd Gerhardt: Yes.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, yep. Tomorrow evening at the Chanhassen Library will be a, from 5:00 to 7:00
the Met Council is having one of it’s listening sessions with regard to it’s framework. It’s Thrive 2040
proposal so the public is invited and welcome to attend that. That was on our work session item and Mr.
Gerhardt’s probably going to talk a little bit about that under his presentations but I just wanted to
mention it for any residents or other, or business owners or others that might be listening. If they’re
interested in that they can check out the Met Council website and certainly come to the Chanhassen
Library tomorrow evening at 5:00 to listen to presentations and comments as well.
Mayor Furlong: Mayor if I may add, you can go to the Met Council website and add any comments that
you may have as a part of this project also. A lot of people are weighing in. Giving comments and they
vary. They’re kind of entertaining to read some of them and some you wouldn’t even think of and so it’s
a very open process and they’re looking for a cross section of comments and feedback so it’s really nice
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
and I know Len Simich from Southwest Transit is going to be attending. They feel strongly to express
their concerns on the future of opt out’s and the benefits of those. I think Mayor Furlong is going to
participate in that. So you know tomorrow night isn’t the drop all of meetings. We can add at any time
so I know we had this on our work session tonight so any thoughts or ideas that you may have that you
would like me to submit on behalf of the City, let me know and we can do it at any time. It’s open, like
the Mayor said, for you to attend tomorrow. We published that as a gathering of 3 or more council
members so you’re more than welcome to attend.
Councilman McDonald: Could I ask a question? Are we going to discuss this later on? Are we going
back into work session to talk about this or?
Todd Gerhardt: That’s why I kind of went lengthy there. We don’t need to.
Mayor Furlong: We can if you want to or we can just have a general discussion.
Councilman McDonald: Well the only thing I was going to say was we’ve held a special meeting of
Southwest Transit last week to discuss this very issue and you know I did get some talking points today to
discuss it. They do have different issues than what the City does over and above being an opt out and I
was going to share that with the rest of the council but yeah I do intend to attend tomorrow speaking
mainly as a member on the Southwest Transit board because there are some significant issues facing
transit in the southwest corridor.
Mayor Furlong: And I’ve seen those. I’m glad you’re going to be there. I think a lot of those issues are
similar issues or concerns that I’ve had and I’m on the, I serve on the Water Advisory Committee. That
committee actually for the Metropolitan Council had a meeting last week and this came up and one of the,
when you look at, one of the concerns that I’ve had and I’ve heard other people express as well, is that the
Met Council generally from a planning standpoint seems to be focusing in on the core cities. Everything
within the 494/694 beltway and we saw that with the transportation policy plan last time. We are seeing
some really amazing strides especially with the 101 river crossing that wasn’t there when that plan was
approved and so fortunately there are some things happening but when we look at the transportation
policy plan, when you look at what’s happening with transit and where the transit dollars are going,
they’re basically going to the inner, the core cities and there are some real concerns that we have you
know in the suburbs and a strong region needs, the entire region strong. Not just certain segments and so
I think that is a concern, and we’ve got a benefit in this region that most major metropolitan regions don’t
have and that is, our major core cities. One there’s, first of all there’s two of them instead of just one.
And second, they don’t represent the majority of the population. In Denver, the city of Denver represents
a majority geographically as well as by population of that metropolitan area. I think there’s a strength
and there’s an asset to this region to have multiple cities all moving forward and doing their best and I
think that’s something that this framework needs to consider and still focus on. It’s not a central one size
fits all policy focusing on the core cities but a, the opportunities for all cities to thrive and develop their
own definition for their residents of what the quality of life and growth is.
Councilman McDonald: And I guess that’s a big concern because the Met Council is making noise about
one size fits all.
Mayor Furlong: Absolutely and I think that’s the message that needs to come out and the more often that
they hear it from elected officials as well as from residents and businesses and from different
organizations, the better chance we have of them listening.
Councilman Laufenburger: Is there any, Mr. Mayor, is there any discussion or Mr. Gerhardt, is there any
discussion about beyond just a 2040 vision but also a vision that the Met Council might be or could do a
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better job if it had staggered terms of the council members and also elected members versus appointed
members? Is there any discussion of that in this context?
Todd Gerhardt: It can be suggested and but it’s, does the legislation establish that or I know the Governor
makes the appointments.
Roger Knutson: It’s by legislation.
Todd Gerhardt: Yeah.
Councilman McDonald: But politically it’s pretty much died. 2 years ago there was a lot of emphasis for
doing that but it’s gone nowhere.
Councilman Laufenburger: Disappeared.
Councilman McDonald: Now it’s not on anyone’s agenda.
Councilman Laufenburger: Anyone on Met Council’s agenda.
Councilman McDonald: No, it never was on her agenda. On the House agenda.
Mayor Furlong: I don’t know that, and while there’s a meeting in Chanhassen, there are meetings across
the metropolitan area over the, some have already occurred and some are going to occur. I think the
purpose of these meetings is to look at long term vision for the region and talk about those aspects. I
don’t know that it’s necessarily a governance discussion but I think those can be raised and I think there
are some improvements clearly that can be made that would be beneficial to the region from a governance
standpoint but my sense is that these meetings are more for long term vision and a little bit higher level
than the mechanics of the governance.
Councilman Laufenburger: Thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Anything else on that or any other comments you want to make? Okay. Any other
council presentations?
ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS.
Mayor Furlong: Mr. Gerhardt, any other administrative presentations? Status on various projects?
Todd Gerhardt: Yep, update on the road. State Highway 41 opened this morning and traffic is flowing
and people are becoming aware that it’s open again so that’s nice. We’re trying to get out of this fifth
season that we have which is called construction season and so that’s always nice. People can get to
Victoria now so, as we opened up Highway 5 and 41 being open now. Second thing is the Minnewashta
Heights neighborhood. Curb is all in place. Back filling is occurring and we should have blacktop down
in the next couple weeks is what Paul’s telling me so that project is wrapping up here also. And then first
coat of paint has gone on the water tower so if you drive by and say is that the final coat? No, it’s not and
so it’s, there’s a little bit.
Councilman Laufenburger: Has the swizzle stick been removed?
Todd Gerhardt: No. No. Not yet so, but so it’s, but that should be painted here in the next couple weeks
also.
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
Mayor Furlong: When is that going up? When it’s going to be raised?
Paul Oehme: Shortly after it’s painted Mayor. It’s in the next 2 or 3 weeks.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Paul Oehme: Mobilizing a new crew in.
Mayor Furlong: How long will it take to raise it?
Paul Oehme: A day. So once they get all the jacking equipment and the cables in place.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Councilman Laufenburger: Is there room for the Mayor to initiate that raising process?
Paul Oehme: I sure will ask.
Councilman Laufenburger: You know turn the key on the crane or something like that. I’d be there to
witness that.
Mayor Furlong: What if I turn it the wrong way?
Councilman Laufenburger: Qualification is necessary.
Mayor Furlong: Some training.
Todd Gerhardt: Training with swizzle sticks I guess. Couple other projects that we completed. Skate
park. We had the grand opening for the renovation of the skate park occurred this last Saturday. Thanks
to Jimmy John’s. They donated sandwiches and brought them over for those people that participated in
the re-opening. We also had the Red Bull car here and they were handing out free Red Bull, which is a
drink of favorites for skate parkers I guess. And so it was a fun event. We provided cake and there was
definitely a pent up demand there of trying to keep them out before Saturday. Kept hopping the fence on
us and so they’re glad it’s open. Probably still out there skate boarding right now. And the last one is
thanks to the Americore group for helping us paint the railroad depot and what a great project and fun
project to be involved with there and the depot looks nice on the outside and the next phase is to work on
the inside so thank you to that group and Mayor for coming and giving us the start and motivated the
crew. We had at least 60 there and so they did a great job. That’s all I have.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Gerhardt or his staff? No?
CORRESPONDENCE DISCUSSION.
None.
Mayor Furlong: We’ve discussed our last item for the work session so without objection we’ll be, we
will be adjourned from our work session and adjourned for our meeting as well. If there’s nothing else to
come before the council is there a motion to adjourn?
Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilwoman Tjornhom seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted
in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. The City Council meeting was
adjourned at 10:00 p.m.
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Chanhassen City Council – September 24, 2012
Submitted by Todd Gerhardt
City Manager Prepared by Nann Opheim
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