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CC 2013 02 11 CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING FEBRUARY 11, 2013 Mayor Furlong called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. The meeting was opened with the Pledge to the Flag. COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT: Mayor Furlong, Councilman McDonald, Councilwoman Tjornhom, and Councilwoman Ernst COUNCIL MEMBERS ABSENT: Councilman Laufenburger STAFF PRESENT: Todd Gerhardt, Paul Oehme, Todd Hoffman, and Roger Knutson PUBLIC PRESENT: Vicki Handler & Eric Newton 500 Indian Hill Road Bruce Olson 2432 Lake Lucy Road Steve Wanek 6615 Horseshoe Curve Drew Vohs 31 Sandy Hook Road John & Carri Hammett 6697 Horseshoe Curve Ingrid & Jon Steele 6941 Highover Court Julie & Rick Kolbow 7015 Sandy Hook Circle Chris Engel 7016 Sandy Hook Circle Ben Paulson 7013 Dakota Avenue Bruce Nord 551 Indian Hill Road Tom & Pat Peterson 7020 Sandy Hook Circle Mayor Furlong: Thank you and welcome to everybody here in the council chambers as well as those watching at home. We’re glad that you joined us this evening. At this time I would ask members of the council if there are any changes or modifications to the agenda. If not, without objection we’ll proceed with the agenda as published. CONSENT AGENDA: Councilwoman Tjornhom 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 January 28, 2013 -City Council Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated January 28, 2013 Receive Commission Minutes: -Park and Recreation Commission Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated January 22, 2013 Resolution #2013-08: b. 2013 Inflow/Infiltration (I/I): Approve Resolution Applying for and Executing a Grant with the Metropolitan Council. c. TH 101 Improvement Project, Lyman Boulevard to Pioneer Trail: Approve Wetland Alteration Permit (WAP) and Wetland Conservation Act (WCA) Mitigation. Resolution #2013-09: d. Approval of Clean Water Fund Grant. Chanhassen City Council – February 11, 2013 f. Wynsong, 7042 Galpin Boulevard: 1) Final Plat Approval 2) Approval of Development Contract g. Approval of 2013 Key Financial Strategies. Resolution #2013-10: h. Approve 2013 Vehicle and Equipment Purchases: 1) Public Works Equipment 2) Fire Department Command Vehicle i. Approve City Consent to Assignment, Limited Revenue Tax Increment Note, as related to Rottlund Homes/Northbay. j. Authorization for Agency Distribution, Knoblauch Land Use Amendment. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: Mayor Furlong: If you’d like to address the council under visitor presentations I’d invite you to come forward to the podium at this time. Very good, thank you. We’ll move onto our first item of business this evening which will include a public hearing and that will be consideration of. Todd Gerhardt: Mayor? Mayor Furlong: Oh, I’m sorry. Bruce Olson: Sorry, is this where the public to present topics, the visitor presentation? Mayor Furlong: For something that’s not on our agenda this evening? Bruce Olson: Correct. Mayor Furlong: Yes, it would be. Did you want to do that tonight? Bruce Olson: Yes. Mayor Furlong: Why don’t you come forward to the. If you could state your name and address for the record. Bruce Olson: Thank you. My name is Bruce Olson and I’m a resident of Chanhassen. I live at 2432 Lake Lucy Road and I’ve been a resident there for about 7 years. Actually I had some. Mayor Furlong: And the other gentleman, just for the record please. Jon Steele: My name is Jon Steele. My wife Ingrid and I are here tonight. We live at 6941 Highover Court North. We’ve lived there for 14 years, if I do my math quick. Mayor Furlong: Thank you Mr. Steele. 2 Chanhassen City Council – February 11, 2013 Bruce Olson: I’ve I think reached out to a few of you. The topic is the Xcel Energy transmission tower, the high voltage line that they’re proposing and I think many of you know a lot about it and the purpose for us being here is really just to simply raise awareness of the council of this high voltage transmission tower expansion project and if need be answer any questions that any of you may have about that because as Jon said we are impacted neighbors by this proposal. If I can just step back a half a step. There was an earlier proposal studied by Xcel that would go through many of the neighborhoods of Chanhassen, including I think Woodridge, Pinehurst, Longacres, Lake Lucy and Highover and the present route being studied by Xcel is essentially along Highway 5 and several of the communities have supported that Highway 5 route simple because they elect not to have these transmission towers go through their respective neighborhoods and I’m talking about Excelsior, Deephaven, Shorewood and Eden Prairie so all those communities have decided they don’t want these high voltage transmission towers going through their back yards and so now that Highway 5 is being studied by Xcel I would ask that the council and the City of Chanhassen also review that and I would ask them to support that Highway 5 route rather than running these transmission towers through neighborhoods and back yards in Chanhassen and Jon and I can answer any questions that you may have about that. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. I know that is an issue that we’re aware of. Do you live near the existing line? Bruce Olson: It runs through my back yard. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Bruce Olson: And it also runs through Jon’s. Jon Steele: It’s behind our house relatively close to our back yard. About 60 feet from the back of my house. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Jon Steele: So very impacted and we’re concerned about not only property values but also the safety and I know there’s mixed feelings on that but the threats are real from what we read and we’re concerned that it’s, you know if there is a viable option outside of neighborhoods and effecting people in our neighborhoods and others in the surrounding area, that we would certainly be in support of that. Mayor Furlong: Well there are alternatives being explored. In fact Mr. Gerhardt you were at a meeting just last week with some of the other cities in the area and I mean if you want to give a quick update of what was presented. There are, there have been different alternatives that have been brought up through this process. I think the original plan was to upgrade was existing, to upgrade the existing line and over time different ideas come up and proposed alternatives. Todd Gerhardt: Yeah. The existing line is an 69 kV and they’re proposing to upgrade it to 115 kV and they’ve looked at a variety of different alternatives. Alternatives along 41. Now Highway 5 and you know the Highway 5 one would request an additional substation be built at the corner of Audubon and Lyman Boulevard and really within the city limits of Chaska but very visible to those residents or people that use Lyman and Lake Lucy. The reason I believe the lake communities really support the Highway 5 is that you know, that would eliminate one of the substations that would need to be built up in their area but they’re still needed to make some improvements to the existing substations in their area but the 69 kV could stay in place. Staying on the existing corridor, the substation at Lyman and Audubon wouldn’t be needed but the lines would have to be upgraded from a 69 kV to the 115 kV but I do not know what 3 Chanhassen City Council – February 11, 2013 health concerns may be as a part of that. They would be staying within their existing right-of-way. The Highway 5 alternative would not eliminate the existing corridor in that it would stay a 69 kV. Bruce Olson: I’ve met with Xcel and your comment about the right-of-way is not completely accurate because Xcel has told me that if they would build these high transmission tower lines today they would not use a 50 foot wide easement which is the easement going through these neighborhood back yards right now. It would not be wide enough and so you know it kind of smacks of trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. Todd Gerhardt: Yeah, I’m just going off the comments they made to me saying they wouldn’t need any existing right-of-way and I don’t know how they could buy any additional right-of-way from anybody that exists. Bruce Olson: I think it would be very difficult and I think in this exact same project was undertaken in the Hiawatha neighborhood. I think it’s over in Minneapolis and they decided because it otherwise was placing, the ruling was it was going to place an undue burden on the neighborhood and they decided to underground those lines and part of what they looked at was safety. I mean you can go back in history. History is replete with examples of things that people thought were a good idea at one point and then later not so good idea. You know DDT. Lead paint. Asbestos insulation. There’s a lot of things written about the health dangers of high voltage lines running through people’s back yards and I think I find it, I find it perhaps surprising if this is something that the City of Chanhassen can’t fully support. That being a Highway 5 route. Jon Steele: And I think we can all agree that I don’t think any of us want high power lines in our back yards and there are a variety of reasons, health being one but certainly we talk to realtors in the area and they said property values will definitely be effected greatly, not only in our back yard but in the entire neighborhood having them that close. Bruce Olson: You’ve got 100 plus homes, if you follow this pathway, you’ve got 100 plus homes in Chanhassen going through the neighborhoods that I cited. I can’t believe that putting steel transmission towers that are embedded in 8 foot diameter concrete foundations is going to be helpful to property values and therefore the tax base of the city. Mayor Furlong: Well this is something as I said that we’ve been aware of. I know there’s an existing power line there, correct? Bruce Olson: Right, yeah. Mayor Furlong: Along this corridor so it’s not as if they’re putting a new one in. Now they’re certainly upgrading it and I’m not sure you know what sort of improvements are necessary for them to do that and that’s certainly something we can find out about. Bruce Olson: Well I decided, I’ve talked with Xcel and they’ve explained the improvements. They would have to replace existing wooden poles with steel poles that are significantly higher. Bulkier because the wires are much thicker to carry the heavier voltage. Therefore the wires are heavier. The steel towers need to be much bulkier and there’s just a lot of health concerns in the neighborhood about these things. Jon Steele: And the health risks really come about from a 69 to a 115. That’s a significant increase in current traveling through those wires, and there’s been research done all over the world and obviously that research is being fought by the people who are putting them in and who are making money off of it. I 4 Chanhassen City Council – February 11, 2013 mean there is a genuine concern. The power poles are going to have to be different. There’s not enough space and you know I don’t remember who told me this but when we moved in, or when we built our house and I believe we were the fourth house in Highover 14 years ago and they said, and we asked specifically because they’re in our back yard or adjacent to our back yard, could they ever be upgraded and they said no. The easement’s not big enough and you know again I don’t know who said that. That’s a long time ago but you know that’s something that we believed all these years until this came up in the last year so. Bruce Olson: It just seems that there’s a perfectly acceptable alternative on Highway 5 and all the other neighborhoods and communities around Chanhassen seem to be supporting it and it’s, you know we’re just for Chanhassen to equally support this Highway 5 route rather than push these things through people’s back yards. Mayor Furlong: Well we’ll continue to look at it, and as I said it’s something that we’ve looked at and I know Mr. Gerhardt has been meeting with Xcel and others and we’ll continue to gather information and we’ll see. See which way it goes. Bruce Olson: Thank you. Jon Steele: Thank you all. Bruce Olson: Appreciate your time. Mayor Furlong: Anyone else for visitor presentations then? Sorry I moved forward so quickly and wasn’t clear with the directions. Let’s then move on to item number 2 on our agenda. 2013 STREET IMPROVEMENT PROJECT 13-01-3 AND 13-01-4: PUBLIC HEARING ON FEASIBILITY STUDY; AUTHORIZE PREPARATION OF PLANS & SPECIFICATIONS FOR THE HORSESHOE CURVE/INDIAN HILLS AND SANDY HOOK NEIGHBORHOODS. Mayor Furlong: Let’s start with a staff report please. We’ll get some information. We’ll open up the public hearing. If council has some questions for staff before the public hearing we may ask those questions as well and then the purpose of the public hearing obviously is to get your questions answered and also for the council to understand your opinions on the proposed project so Mr. Oehme, why don’t you start with a staff report please. Paul Oehme: Thank you Mayor and City Council members. I have just a brief presentation I’d like to show before the, open the public hearing. Just a housekeeping item. We, staff has received just one additional written comment since the packet was published and I did hand out to your prior to the meeting so I just wanted to make sure that item was included in the record so. Like the Mayor had indicated we’d like to hold the public hearing tonight for the improvements proposed for Horseshoe Curve and Indian Hills, Sandy Hook area. These streets are proposed based upon the City’s pavement management software scores that we see the age of the streets, the visual inspections that have been observed, the deterioration of the road in these neighborhoods. The streets proposed for rehabilitation can no longer be maintained we feel cost effectively with minor maintenance such as a sealcoating or normal patching. The streets have come to a condition where something additional should be considered at this time. If the streets weren’t improved at this time, streets would be deferred for future maintenance and we estimate that the streets would deteriorate quicker just based upon the pavement conditions at this time and cost. Cost for the future improvements would be greater in the future. Staff would also incur more patching costs through trying to maintain the conditions of the streets to a somewhat acceptable level. So the 2013 street projects does include the Indian Curve and, Horseshoe Curve, Indian Hills Road, Sandy Hook that 5 Chanhassen City Council – February 11, 2013 th we’d like to talk about tonight. Back in January 14 we did discuss the Greenwood Shores area and then th on January 28 we did discuss at a public hearing the proposed Melody Hills improvements. Total for this year’s street improvements are just right around 4.6 miles of streets. So I’d like to just talk briefly about each of these neighborhoods. Horseshoe Curve, Indian Hills area is about .7 miles of streets. The streets are about 35 years old in this area. They have been sealcoated several times to maintain their condition. However they are showing significant signs of deterioration at this time. The proposed improvements to bring the streets back up to a somewhat acceptable level is to mill the streets approximately 3 inches and repave the streets. This would, we do anticipate the life expectancy of these improvements maybe 25 years with normal maintenance as well moving forward. A neighborhood th meeting was held back last year on November 14 with this neighborhood. In conjunction with the street improvement projects staff has looked at city utilities in the area. If there is any necessary improvements that we feel are, would be important to incorporate into this project at this time. The watermain is ductile iron pipe and the watermain is in fairly good condition. We are recommending that however some hydrants be replaced at this time and the bolts at the gate valves also be replaced. Age of gate valve bolts and like this in this neighborhood tend to, or have a tendency to break and cause problems at this age so we are proposing to make some minor improvements to the watermains. The sanitary sewer in the Horseshoe Curve area and then down by Merry Place is AVS pipe and we have televised basically all the sanitary sewer pipes in this area. These two areas in particular have shown, are cracked and are leaking and potentially will be causing problems in the future so we’d like to replace those two sections of pipe in conjunction with this project. With the street project if it moves forward so utilities again are not proposed to be assessed. Those are paid through by the utility funds. So moving onto Sandy Hook area. Streets in this area are about 1.2 miles long. Sandy Hook Circle is about 32 years old and the remaining streets are about 38 years old. Sandy Hook and Sandy Hook Circle again were sealcoated back in 2001 and have recently been heavily patched too in subsequent years. Dakota Avenue, Dakota Circle, Cheyenne Trail, these streets also were sealcoated back in ’95, ’01 and 2011. Sandy Hook Circle, back at the neighborhood meeting back in November, we did not have a complete soil investigation report by our consultant at that time. We had made some assumptions at that point in time. We are now proposing that this street be milled to a depth of 2 inches, edge milled and then repaved. There is curb and gutter on this section of roadway and we feel that the improvements will have the expected life expectancy for the other improvements that we’re proposing at Sandy Hook and the surrounding streets in this area so. Sandy Hook Road, Dakota Circle, Cheyenne, these streets are to the level where additional improvements are necessary. We are proposing a full depth mill in these areas and then repaving the streets with 3 1/2 th inches of asphalt. Again neighborhood meeting in this area was held in November 14 of last year. The utilities in this area are in fairly good condition. However there is some drainage improvements that the City would like to make in conjunction with this project, especially in Sandy Hook Road here there is some drainage that runs off the road into some people’s driveways and down the lot lines and we would like to try to, try to fix that as much as we can. Also while we’re on Cheyenne there is some standing water down by 101. We want to try to get that water to drain off the pavement better than it is currently today. There’s no curb and gutter improvements proposed for this neighborhood. Additional curb and gutter so no additional storm sewer systems or such are proposed with this project. The existing other utilities, the watermain is again ductile iron pipe which is fairly in good condition. The City does not have any records of any significant watermain breaks in this area, however again we’d like to look at replacing some of the bolts, all the bolts and the watermain valves and there’s some hydrants out here that are maintenance issues that we’d like to also address. The sanitary sewer in this area have been televised and they appear to be in good condition. We’ll be putting some I and I barriers in some manholes but a majority of the sanitary sewer is in acceptable condition. So the project itself, the proposed improvements costs are shown here with the estimated budgets shown so Horseshoe Curve, Indian Hills estimated cost is about $250,000. Sandy Hook area is about $527,000. Again the storm sewer utility, all the utilities, watermain, sanitary sewer, those improvements are proposed to be paid through the associated utility fund. Those aren’t proposed to be assessed through the street improvement project. The assessments for Horseshoe and Indian Hills are shown here. The assessment practice that the City currently has is to 6 Chanhassen City Council – February 11, 2013 assess 40% of the cost of the street, only the street improvements back to the benefiting property owners. Using the estimated costs at this time, with the amount of assessable units, the estimated cost for this area is $1,346.78 and again this estimated cost. The actual assessment amounts, if this project were to move forward would be based on actual bids that the City receives and again the estimated cost has gone down a little bit based upon additional soil investigation work that the City has made since the feasibility study was originally drafted back in November. The assessments for Sandy Hook Circle are shown here. Again that’s the assessment was lowered based upon the new soils investigation that we received and then also Sandy Hook assessments are shown here, $2,700 per unit. Each of the assessments would be assessed over an 8 year period with an estimated 6% interest. The interest is, would be changed based upon the prime rate at the time of the award of the contracts so the City does incur some cost associated with bonding for these projects so there’s a 2% cost associated with that interest rate. There is an 8% contingency that is included in the cost estimate and then also 5% indirect cost based for soil investigation and some other staff work time. So with that if the project were to move forward the approval of the th plans and specs are proposed to be authorized on February 25. Assessment hearing would be proposed nd on April 22 and the project would start in June and then substantial completion would be in August before school starts. The construction start and substantial completion date would change a little bit because there are two other areas that we will be working and staff would propose that these streets would not be opened up for this long a time. There’d be some additional completion dates in the contract that would require the contractor to pave, work on these neighborhoods in a reasonable time to finish them up as quickly as we can. So with that if there are any questions associated with the proposed improvements I’d be more than happy to try to answer them and again I’d like to propose, request that a public hearing be opened as well. Mayor Furlong: Thank you Mr. Oehme. Questions by members of the council at this time? Mr. Oehme, with regard to, you said that there was soil work done and that changed the scope of work on Sandy Hook Circle. What was the nature of the soil conditions that resulted in that and is the 2 inch mill and overlay, is that a more typical overlay versus a full depth that we see in other projects? Paul Oehme: That’s correct. Those streets are a little bit newer than some of the other neighborhoods. When the soil investigation report was completed we found out there was actually more asphalt out there than we had anticipated. More base material out there. More structural strength than we had originally anticipated that was shown on some of the as-built drawings that we had so. So with that in mind we are little bit more confident. Mayor Furlong: You don’t need to do as much as what you thought you had to do. Paul Oehme: Exactly. Councilwoman Ernst: Mayor? Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright, thank you. That’s fine, Councilwoman Ernst. Questions. Councilwoman Ernst: Paul I did have a question. You’re saying the PCI’s for the Sandy Hook and Sandy Hook Circle is between 13 and 34. That’s a pretty large range. Can you clarify? I mean is it really that much of a range out there in those areas between 13 and 34? Paul Oehme: We see that, that’s typical for different neighborhoods based upon soil conditions. How much ground water we see in the area. How much the road is being used. How much traffic we see out there so yeah it, in each neighborhood these PCI numbers are going to change substantially depending upon several different factors. 7 Chanhassen City Council – February 11, 2013 Councilwoman Ernst: Okay. Mayor Furlong: And in terms of storm water management improvements, what’s being planned? In both these neighborhoods they’re near a lake. Paul Oehme: Right. Mayor Furlong: What is available to be done or what are some of the things that you are looking at doing? Paul Oehme: Yeah, the city staff did look at alternatives for improving the water quality and quantity ending up in the lake and these areas are very difficult based upon the amount of density that development in this area. There’s no room typically for storm water ponds and typical storm water catch basin systems in this area. We are, again the City’s not proposing a complete reconstruction of this area so we’re not looking at putting in additional higher end storm water features in this neighborhood. Again for example Sandy Hook we are looking at trying to eliminate some drainage issues, runoff from the streets. Trying to get the water off of Cheyenne a little bit better than it currently is. Sandy Hook Circle up here, there’s a catch basin we’re looking at replacing that maybe with a sump manhole to try to capture some of the sediment that discharges off the street. Terry Jeffery I think has met with a couple property owners out on Sandy Hook Road talking about what we can do out there to try to improve the drainage in this area as well too so we’re trying to work with some of the property owners on some of those improvements as well. There is a little bit of bituminous curb out here. Wherever there is bituminous curb we’re going to replace it in kind so our drainage patterns are more or less going to remain the same. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright, thank you. Any other questions at this time? If not, let’s go ahead and open up the public hearing, and just for purposes of trying to deal with the same issues at the same time, let’s start with public comments in the Horseshoe Curve/Indian Hill project area first and then once we receive those comments we’ll move onto the Sandy Hook/Sandy Hook Circle project area, if that’s okay with everybody. So we will open up the public hearing and I would invite anyone that’s interested in providing comments or asking questions right now in the Horseshoe Curve/Indian Hill project area to please come forward to the podium and state your name and address for the record please. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Excuse me. Mayor Furlong: Oh, I’m sorry. Councilwoman Tjornhom. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Mayor, I’m sorry. In the past I think we’ve had residents also give us their opinion on whether or not they think the road does need to be improved. Mayor Furlong: Yes, thank you. Councilwoman Tjornhom: I would like that, to get that feedback. Mayor Furlong: Yes, thank you. Good clarification. Vicki Handler: I’ll go first. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Vicki Handler: My name is Vicki Handler and this is my husband Eric Newton and we live right on Indian Hill Road and we bought the land in 1994. 8 Chanhassen City Council – February 11, 2013 Mayor Furlong: Excuse me. Could you state your address. Vicki Handler: Oh I’m sorry. Mayor Furlong: That’s fine. Vicki Handler: 500 Indian Hill Road. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Vicki Handler: Bought the land in 1994 so we’ve been residents for almost 19 years now and thank you Bethany, Miss, is it, how do you pronounce your last name? Councilwoman Tjornhom: Tjornhom. Vicki Handler: Tjornhom. Thank you for bringing that up because that was my first reaction. My philosophy in life has always been, if it’s not fixed, you know if it’s not broken don’t fix it and we go up and down that hill 10 times a day. We have 4 people in our family, 3 vehicles, we’re up and down that hill. I’ve never once thought to myself, boy this road is you know, needs to be fixed. I’ve seen other roads in the neighborhood that need to be fixed but never felt that way about our’s. I don’t think we have drainage issues because we’re on a hill so everything goes down. We’ve been able to tolerate some commercial traffic going up and down that hill for 15, you know 16, 17 years and that hasn’t seem to have increased the rate of degradation, at least that I can see. When they come out and patch it, they do it quickly. They do a good job. The patches stay. I mean I don’t see them chunking away. Secondly, the timeframe is really scary to me. We have graduation in June. There is no place to park on that road. My daughter’s graduating in June. I can’t even imagine how construction is going to impact our life. We’ve got that gate up at the top of the hill. You can’t go through it so we’re going to be trapped. Oh, have you heard of anybody who actually supports the improvements because our entire neighborhood is, from everybody I’ve talked to, is not at all happy and there’s only about 12 families on Indian Hill Road that are impacted. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Vicki Handle: Eric? Eric Newton: So again my name is Eric Newton and we live at 500 Indian Hill Road and outside of living there I’m an engineer and also a fire fighter in Minnetonka so I get a chance to drive on a lot of streets, see a lot of things. I get a chance to install curb and gutter streets and typically you know you talked about your, the study that you did about cracks in the street. Some formula to figure it out and I know our neighbor Mr. Pieper talked about that too and when I look at that street I can’t quite figure out where these cracks are at in relation to the number that was supposedly given to us. So as an engineer I look at the road and the road looks sound to me right now and I know there have been over the past 19 years we’ve been there, some repairs but not a lot so at this time in the economic times we’re in, I struggle with why would the City want to spend the money much less put it back on the taxpayers. So I don’t know if there’s a better time. I don’t know if there’s grants that you’re getting right now but it seems like this is the wrong time to replace the road for me and the unscientific study I’ve done with my neighbors and they tend to agree. Thank you. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Mr. Oehme, in terms of the patching that’s been done, what patching has been done to the road and why? 9 Chanhassen City Council – February 11, 2013 Paul Oehme: You know it’s patched as need be. I know the corner at Indian Hills Road right here, that typically washes out almost annually because of the water that’s coming down the hill I think based upon talking to the maintenance staff. You know we do patch the cracks so you know some of the cracks may not be evident at this time because there are so many patches out there so, you know the road is old and the paving condition indicates that it should be looked at and work be done at this time. Mayor Furlong: Well and I guess that’s the question. When I see a pavement condition index of 34, that means that it’s you know one-third of a new road in terms of pavement quality is one way to look at that. Paul Oehme: Right. Mayor Furlong: What is, are the patches making it look good or is it in good condition? I mean what’s generating that pavement index? Paul Oehme: Yeah, the pavement condition index or the PCI is based upon visual inspections. Typically when you go in and sealcoat a road or heavily patch a road, you know you’re not going to be able to see a lot of those imperfections but those improvements, those minor maintenance improvements that we have been doing over the years, those are not, you know they’re a little more temporary. I mean they do a good job of extending the life of the road but there comes to a point where it’s really not as cost benefit. You don’t get the same bang for the buck if the road was newer. A lot of those cracks are going to show through with those patches. The sealcoat’s going to peel off. The road is somewhat uneven so when you sealcoat roads like this you’re going to start scraping off some of that sealcoat in the wintertime as well so the sealcoat’s not going to last as long either and that’s why we’re saying that you know we sealcoated the road already 3 times and typically that’s amount of life, amount of sealcoats that you typically would like to see on a street before you know you’re just going to have problems. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Mr. Mayor? Mayor Furlong: Yes, Councilwoman Tjornhom. Councilwoman Tjornhom: May I ask a question with Mr. Oehme? As I’m looking at the map and the streets that have been chosen to be reconstructed, how come Pleasant View wasn’t part of this? Paul Oehme: Pleasant View is a little bit, I think that was sealcoated earlier. I mean it’s a different structural strength I believe. It’s, that road is an MSA road so it has a lot more, it’s a collector roadway so it has a lot more traffic on it. You know that one hasn’t, I can’t remember exactly when that one is due for improvements but it’s down the line the next 10 years I believe. Mayor Furlong: Please. Bruce Nord: Hi. My name is Bruce Nord. I live at 551 Indian Hill Road. There’s a couple things I’d like to speak to and much of it has been addressed by our neighbor that Eric referred to, Kevin Pieper who did, he worked for the County for 30 years and he’s very familiar with the PCI and your data management software and from what he has said, and from what I have read it seems to be quite flawed. Basically what they do is get somebody to drive up the road and count cracks in the road. They feed the data into a software program and it spits out a numerical value and our’s is 34 right now. One of the things it doesn’t take into consideration is traffic so Indian Hill Road is compared similarly with Powers Boulevard. With Pleasant View Road and it doesn’t take into consideration what our road exactly. We have 11 neighbors that live on the road and we have very limited amount of traffic and so it doesn’t take, and when was this PCI done? 2 years ago? 10 Chanhassen City Council – February 11, 2013 Paul Oehme: I believe it was, yeah something like that. Bruce Nord: Yeah, so what happens is, my understanding is, it’s accelerated with a certain amount of traffic, okay. Taking into consideration that the traffic on Indian Hill Road is going to be the same as the traffic on Powers Boulevard and that’s not so so if, and what was the original data 2 years ago when it was given? It was in the 50’s wasn’t it? It was 56 or I remember coming to the meeting before. Paul Oehme: Yeah, I don’t remember. Bruce Nord: And it had a higher rating but during that 2 years we suddenly we fell to a 34 which but traffic is really isn’t taken into consideration in it at all. Paul Oehme: And it’s not. Bruce Nord: Right. Paul Oehme: Traffic is not considered in these streets, you’re right. Bruce Nord: Okay. Paul Oehme: There is a standard degradation curve that we use and it’s typically you know a couple percentages every year if you’re not inspecting the roadway. It did, as I recall, the Indian Hills has dropped off more than a normal degradation you would see over a couple years because the patches are failing. Cracks are showing up more than they had in the past because over that 2 year period because you know they had been sealcoated and patched heavily so when that last inspection was done, you weren’t seeing those imperfections. 2 years later those cracks, those potholes are showing up more prevalent. That’s why that significant decrease in the pavement condition index. Bruce Nord: Mr. Oehme, is that how you pronounce your name? Paul Oehme: Yep. Bruce Nord: I’ve lived on Indian Hill Road since 1984. That’s 29 years and there’s never been a pothole in that road. It’s, we’ve always had patches and they’ve always held. We’ve never had any major structural damage on that road and so all the patches, all the repairs have always worked and it’s never been an issue. As Vicki and Eric stated, we haven’t had a big problem where you drove up the road and thought boy this is a mess you know. It’s just, all the patches have always worked. And you know speaking to the timing of, as Vicki did and Eric did to everything, you’re timing’s just terribly poor at this time. To stick everybody with a, you know at the time it was $1,600. Now it’s $1,300 bill. You know you guys know what the economy’s like. You know nobody wants to get stuck with a $1,300 bill right now and we have quite a few retirees on our block right now and it’s going to hurt everybody. And I have a question Mr. Oehme. As far as additional costs, fire hydrants and everything, or what will those upgrades cost? What are the unforeseen hidden costs in this project? Paul Oehme: Well I mean we identify it to the greatest extent possible the costs associated with these projects. The utility costs, the hydrants repair, the sanitary sewer improvements that we’re proposing over in Horseshoe Curve, those aren’t being assessed. Bruce Nord: Okay. 11 Chanhassen City Council – February 11, 2013 Paul Oehme: Those are paid through the utility fees, enterprise funds that the City budgets for. Saves up for, for these type of improvements so. Bruce Nord: Okay, great. Great. So as far as additional costs, they could run into more where we’ll be assessed? Paul Oehme: No. I mean the, typically the way it works is, at the time of the assessment hearing if the project would to move forward, there’s an assessment hearing. We base the final assessment amount on the bid that we receive from the contractor based upon the formula that we use for assessments of just the street costs. Bruce Nord: Okay. Paul Oehme: Any overages for, you know if there were to be some unforeseen costs, additional, I don’t know. In this case I don’t know, additional bituminous or something. We hit a really soft spot and we want to dig it out. You know those are the costs that the City would incur. There wouldn’t be additional costs to the property owners. The final assessment amount that you would receive in April, if the project would move forward, would be the final and that would not change. Bruce Nord: Okay. And the curb you’re planning on replacing, is that going to be bituminous? Paul Oehme: Yeah I mean if there’s, I think there’s a little bit of bituminous curb out there. Bruce Nord: Right. Paul Oehme: We’d just replace it in kind. Bruce Nord: And you talked about it getting washed out. It doesn’t get washed out. It’s basically that the plow comes by and hits it and that’s why it gets knocked out all the time. Again council members, I feel this is the, it’s the wrong time to do this repair because it’s going to hit everybody really hard and Indian Hill Road just really isn’t in that bad a shape. Again patches and everything have always worked so thank you. Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Carri Hammett: My name is Carri Hammett and I live at 6697 Horseshoe Curve and may I point something out on this large map over here? Mayor Furlong: Sure, do we have a map that we could actually. Paul Oehme: Actually I have one right here. Mayor Furlong: Could we set one up and. Carri Hammett: Great, thanks. Mayor Furlong: Oh no, I’m sorry. If you could leave it there then the camera above it will see it and come up on the screen. Carri Hammett: Oh, technology. 12 Chanhassen City Council – February 11, 2013 Mayor Furlong: Flip it 90 degrees if you would. Carri Hammett: This way? Mayor Furlong: That’d be fine. No that’s fine. If that works for you. Thank you. Carri Hammett: Okay, this is where I live right here, if you can see this, and I wish we had an elevation map because you would see that on Pleasant View Road from between here and here, what would you think? It’s 100 feet at least? Paul Oehme: Oh, I don’t know if it that’s much but it’s significant. Carri Hammett: And then quite some time ago the City issued a permit for a home to be built in this triangle here and they put curbs on Pleasant View Road and the result was that my driveway was practically washed out. It required that the City, if you see this pond here in my neighbor’s house, the City had to put in that settling pond. They had to put in all these trees. They had to do extensive amount of work because we literally were having our yard washed out so my concern is if you do this work on Horseshoe Curve, if you put curbs and gutters in there, are you only going to increase the problem, and in my opinion the problem has never quite been fixed up to my satisfaction. We still have problems with our driveway being eroded. Paul Oehme: Okay, that’s a great point. I’m not aware of the drainage issues that you have so we definitely can take a look at that. We are not proposing any concrete curb and gutter in your neighborhood so there is I think a little bit of bituminous curb that’s out there. We’re not planning to change the drainage patterns in this area so where the water goes right now is proposed to go but we will definitely, we can take a look at your driveway and your yard and see if there is any improvements that we can get to make to try to get that water back into the pond as much as we can. Carri Hammett: Okay, that would be great. And then I do have a question in terms of how the financing works. So it’s $1,300 and it’s 6% interest rate, am I correct on that? Paul Oehme: That’s, again the 6% is an estimate assessment rate, or interest rate. That’s based upon prime rate plus 2% so it’s I think right now if we were to move forward with the project I think the interest rate was like 5 1/4. Carri Hammett: So does it work as if I’m, it’s an installment plan? So every year you’re paying interest amount on a smaller principle? Paul Oehme: I believe that’s how it is. Simple interest, yep. Carri Hammett: If we pre-pay it can we avoid the interest? Paul Oehme: Absolutely. There’s always that option of pre-paying the assessment amount by the end of the year. Carri Hammett: Okay, and I guess my final point is, if in fact it’s more economical to replace the road now, before it becomes too degraded, then I don’t have a problem with the $1,300. It seems like a fair amount of money but I agree with my Indian Hill neighbors, these are not roads that are traveled extensively. There’s 25 houses or so in this neighborhood and we go in and out a couple times a day so I would just ask the council to really think about whether these are repairs that are truly necessary. Thank you. 13 Chanhassen City Council – February 11, 2013 Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Steve Wanek: Hi. I’m Steve Wanek. I live at 6615 Horseshoe Curve. Just a question on the sewer and hydrant work. Is all that work, without getting into great detail here, is that work that’s being proposed to do that in the roadway or are you going to be excavating a lot? Paul Oehme: The excavation work on Merry Place and Horseshoe Curve, that’s all under the roadway so the sanitary sewer in that area is fairly shallow as I recall so we’re not anticipating additional tree loss or vegetation in the area. We’re just digging the street up and replacing the pipe and putting it back in it’s original condition so. Steve Wanek: Okay. And just down in the Merry Place area? Paul Oehme: Yeah, Merry Place. Let me try to get back on the computer here. Steve Wanek: Outbound. Paul Oehme: So it’s Merry Place down here. There’s a section of pipe that’s cracked and leaking and then also on Horseshoe Curve right in this area too. There’s another section of AVS pipe that we’d like to replace at this time. Steve Wanek: Okay. And the other question, somewhat related to the intersection of Horseshoe and Pleasant View on the west end. Those intersections, and I’m not proposing to expand this greatly but is there anything, is there any thought going forward into here, where the pond is and previous, a little bit on the previous discussion, that intersection is got a very tough grade on it and stuff and I’m just thinking if you repair this road, then you’re coming to Pleasant View, I know it’s a difficult issue but is there any plan or any thought to maybe helping that area out. Maybe the drainage as well at that point. Paul Oehme: Right, yeah we looked at trying to improve you know that situation. Those two access points are you know in real close proximity. We typically like to have access points along a collector roadway farther spread apart. I mean we looked at potentially looking at options and make some changes out there. Nothing really was an easy fix we found and in order to make some grade changes out here you have to do some real extensive grading and some other work which we felt would just be too impactful to the neighborhood so that’s why we’re just looking at replacing it. Steve Wanek: I don’t have a suggestion either. Paul Oehme: Okay, but that’s a good point. We did look at trying to improve the situation out there because that was I think one of the comments that we received at the neighborhood meeting but unfortunately it’s a difficult situation. Steve Wanek: Okay. Thanks. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Anyone else for this neighborhood. Mr. Oehme before we go, Ms. Handler raised an issue about the construction schedule, specifically with regard to some, because some plans. Graduation in June, and I can fully understand that. I know we’ve dealt with that before in other neighborhoods where we’ve done street projects. The Red Cedar Point area for example was one that there was a concern about the time of the schedule with activities. What is available, so if the project went forward, how do we try to accommodate those requests, and obviously we can’t accommodate 14 Chanhassen City Council – February 11, 2013 everybody’s personal schedule but June is a big time for graduations. There may be others in these other neighborhoods that we’re talking about as well. How do we work with those? Paul Oehme: Yep, absolutely and you bring up a good point. Red Cedar Point was a good example of that and then last year Minnewashta Heights too there was a couple graduations in that neighborhood too and what we like to do is phase these projects as much as we can so if we know that there’s a graduation or there’s some other activity going on in the neighborhood where it’s going to bring in a lot of traffic or a lot of, a lot of activity, we try to shy away from those areas as much as we can so and try to work those areas into the schedule to have as least impact to the neighborhood as we can so you know if there’s graduations in June in Indian Hills for example, we would like to know that information and schedule Indian Hills maybe for July or August. Some other time than in June because Indian Hills is a pretty straight forward project if that section of roadway would move forward, it’s going to take you know 1 or 2 weeks to get the job done so you know it’s, it can be worked around those type of activities. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright. Paul Oehme: All we need to know is when those are taking place and try to work them into the schedule as much as we can. Mayor Furlong: The key there is you’ve dealt with it before with other residents but you need to know about it so. Carri Hammett: Question Mr. Mayor. Mayor Furlong: Yeah. If you could come back to the podium please. Thank you. Just so people at home can hear. Carri Hammett: Sure, Carri Hammett, 6697 Horseshoe Curve. Will we have access to our properties while the work is being completed? Paul Oehme: Absolutely. Yep. Well there is, you know there, will be milling operations going on and paving operations for short lengths of time but you’ll always have access to your driveway and get into your driveway on a daily basis. You know if it’s milled down to a certain depth, 3 or 4 inches we typically would, we’ll typically ramp that up to your driveway on a temporary basis. Carri Hammett: Okay, and I do have a comment. To follow up on what my neighbor said on the visibility of that intersection at the west side of Horseshoe Curve, if we can do something about the vegetation there on an ongoing basis that would really help. Paul Oehme: Okay. Thank you. Carri Hammett: Thank you. Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council members? Mayor Furlong: Yes. Todd Gerhardt: Paul, can you just give kind of a summary of you know we have preventative maintenance for our automobiles and our homes and our finances and things like that, can you tell us kind of a preventative maintenance program that we use in Chanhassen for our roads so kind of from the start. You know you’ve got a brand new road. How long before you decide to kind of sealcoat that road and 15 Chanhassen City Council – February 11, 2013 then after the sealcoating there’s probably some occasional patching that goes on and then kind of talk about the next step is probably a mill and overlay. When should that occur and then you kind of get towards the end of that life of that road you kind of go into the total reconstruction so the point I’m making is there is a life expectancy of roads and if you can kind of give us the evolution of a road and it’s life, I think that would be helpful. Paul Oehme: Sure, yeah. Good point. So you know our goal at the city level is to try to extend these roads as far as we can to prolong the life of the roads at the cheapest cost so what the City has worked on and what a lot of other communities work on is trying to fit in a preventative maintenance program so, and an improvement program so you’re not just constructing a roadway and letting it go for say 20 years and all of a sudden it completely falls apart. You want to have points inbetween that point. That life cycle basically where you want to try to make improvements to the road to extend the life out as much as you can and one of the greatest or the biggest detriments to roadways is runoff and water and then freezing and thawing cycle so you know anything you can do to try to have, keep the water from getting into the sub-grade, it’s always helpful. So what we’ve tried to do when a new road comes into the city, you know typically it takes between say 7 to 8, 7 to 9 years before you start seeing some oxidation on the roadway. That top level of asphalt starting to chip away. Starting to get a bit little more brittle. You start seeing some cracks so at that point in time what the City likes to do is fill in those cracks with some mastic crack filler material. Route them out. Try to get that crack sealed as best as you can and then come in with a sealcoat like I said you know probably you got 7 to 8 years out depending on what the condition of the roadway is so that typically would last another 8 to 10 years with that sealcoat and you come in maybe 1 or 2 other times down the road with another sealcoat and keep, try to fill the cracks as best as you can. Try to prolong that life of the roadway. Once the roadway hits a certain 25-30 year life cycle, you’re starting to see some major, the road needs some major, more major improvements. Starting to see some alligator cracking. Some potholes forming. Some wider cracks happening. At that point in time you’d like to see maybe an overlay or more of a structural overlay. In these cases, some of these roads in Indian Hills and roads that we’re talking about tonight didn’t have curb and gutter. They have you know come to a point where we feel that there’s additional maintenance that’s needed besides sealcoating, patching. The problem with just patching and sealcoating is that you know it does get expensive. There’s decrease in value as time goes on with making those improvements. Patches don’t last forever. Sealcoats are going to be marginal at best when the roads get to this age so to try to extend the life as much as you can with sealcoats and sealing the cracking is our first line of defense and then looking at overlays you know 20-30 years out after that and then 50 years typically, 40 to 50 years you know the road integrity, depending upon traffic again, the road integrity is, can be compromised where you almost, and some of the utilities in that area too life expectancy has reached it’s life expectancy age so at that point in time you almost want to look at a total reconstruction so that’s kind of the life cycle of the roads that we’ve seen in Chanhassen. That’s kind of the synopsis of the program that we have been working with so. Todd Gerhardt: Thanks. Bruce Nord: Excuse me. Mayor Furlong: Councilwoman Tjornhom, do you have a question? Councilwoman Tjornhom: Regrettably I going to have to step out and do some mom duties right now so I hope everyone understands so thank you. Mayor Furlong: Alright, thank you. Sir. 16 Chanhassen City Council – February 11, 2013 Bruce Nord: Hi, it’s Bruce Nord from Indian Hill Road. 551 Indian Hill Road again. Mr. Gerhardt, whether you’re replacing your furnace or your car, we all do regular maintenance on that as you brought up but doesn’t a lot of that depend upon the use? If you have an older car that you do maintenance on that isn’t used much, you probably don’t have to replace it as frequently as the one that you drive every day and I’m going back to how much Indian Hill Road is used. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Bruce Nord: Whether it’s your furnace that runs every day or if your furnace runs you know, you know if you lived in the warmer climates you probably never have to replace your furnace so I don’t know that that’s a terribly great example but yes, what you’re getting at is yes. Everything has a life expectancy but a lot of it has to do with use and again Indian Hill Road doesn’t get a lot of use, and to be honest with you I don’t think Horseshoe Curve gets a lot of use either but thanks very much. Mayor Furlong: And this will be the last. What we want to do is keep it moving and everybody coming up 2 or 3 times is not going to help us. Eric Newton: Alright, I’ll be quick. Eric Newton again, 500 Indian Hill Road. I’d like to point out one great thing about Indian Hill Road is that it has natural drainage compared to most streets. In a rain storm there’s no water that ever sits on it. That’s why that road is probably in very good shape as was pointed out by Mr. Oehme, the problem lies in the sharp corner we have occasionally but with that natural drainage there’s never water. There’s never been a puddle. That’s probably why we don’t ever see potholes. I’d like to include with one thing that Mr. Pieper talked about, the gate at the top of the hill does need help. It was pointed out a couple times that it’s broken. As of right now there’s a snow pile sitting in front of it. People can’t walk through that gate so it should be addressed. Thank you. Mayor Furlong: Anyone else who would like to comment about the Indian Hill or the Horseshoe Curve neighborhoods? Alright, thank you. Let’s move ahead with our public hearing and move to the Sandy Hook, Sandy Hook Circle project area and invite people to come up to address the council or ask questions on that project. Drew Vohs: My name is Drew Vohs. Live at 31 Sandy Hook Road. I live at the corner of Sandy Hook Road and Circle on the far east side. Mayor Furlong: Do we have, excuse me. Drew Vohs: Yeah. Mayor Furlong: Sorry to interrupt. Let’s put a map of there of the new neighborhood so you’re not trying to find your home on Horseshoe Curve. Drew Vohs: That would be difficult. Right here. Mayor Furlong: Perfect, thank you. Drew Vohs: Yep, and so my driveway’s on the road side, the Sandy Hook Road side so I assume that’s why I’m being assessed more than the Sandy Hook Circle part but my road is actually more quality wise like the Circle part so people who don’t know this, as you go down more towards the lake, I think the road deteriorate simply probably because of the water but, so I guess there’s no way to sort of segment the road work, meaning the, you can replace the part that needs it towards the lake versus where I am. There’s a hill there. There’s a grade so that’s my first question is it possible to do that? 17 Chanhassen City Council – February 11, 2013 Paul Oehme: You know the improvements that we’re talking about here it would be very difficult to transition from one type of improvement to another. I think the pavement condition in general supports the major full depth mill in that area. I mean there are segments I think in some other areas in Cheyenne that may be a little bit better than others but in average I think the improvements should be consistent because they’re going to, if you do a little bit of overlay here and a major overlay in some other areas, you know you’re not going to have the consistency I think in the pavement network and things will deteriorate at different, at different rates than they would if you try to make it more homogenous. Drew Vohs: Okay. Can you give your best guess on if you were to, how long you expect that to last? I mean you mentioned 9 or 10 years before repaving or whatever but just ballpark this. Paul Oehme: You know the roads are 38 years old. I mean what we’re talking about tonight, and again this area doesn’t get that much traffic either. You know 25 years, 30 years again. Drew Vohs: But it’s already 38 years so I’m sort of confused by it. Paul Oehme: Right now, basically what we are proposing is to you know improve the structural strength of the roadway. You know try to get as much life out of that roadway as we can so what we’re proposing here tonight, we’re trying to get at least another you know 25 years, maybe even 30 years out of it. We would still go in that same cycle that I talked about before with the sealcoating and the crack sealing and patching and try to extend the life as much as we can so you know with those type of improvements made over the years I think we can extend the life to that 25 year life expectancy. Drew Vohs: Okay. My last concern is, as you can see where I live, I will be affected the whole time that the road is being done. I have 3 small children. I get concerned about large trucks and speed and such so th I don’t know how long, if you can even project the use of that road. I mean June to August 30 is a fair amount of time. Paul Oehme: Right, and like I said again we’re not, we haven’t decided on or really thought about when we’re going to start each of these projects yet but for this area we’re thinking maybe it’s about a 6 week timeframe so you know if we start in June in this area we’d be done by you know middle of July so we’re try to get in and out of these neighborhoods as quickly as we can. There is another access on the south side, on Cheyenne so we can try to balance out that traffic as much as we can. Drew Vohs: Yeah. Is there going to be some potential speed regulations put down for those trucks or work because like I said that seems like a lot of traffic for 6 weeks to 3 months. Paul Oehme: Right, it is. I mean there’s a lot of dump trucks that have to come in and deliver their loads. You know typically those type of vehicles are going a lot slower than your average vehicle, car just based upon the working conditions. There will be equipment along the roadway which will slow the traffic down as well too so on occasion so we have not seen on other projects a speeding issue in terms of, with construction vehicles. Drew Vohs: Okay, well I just for the record I guess I’d like to make sure that that’s sort of recommended from a safety perspective. Paul Oehme: Okay, sure. Drew Vohs: Yeah, and I guess have you had anyone say that they really want the road repaired to this th level of extent or that really hasn’t been stated? I wasn’t here on the November 14 meeting 18 Chanhassen City Council – February 11, 2013 unfortunately so I mean are people for this exercise, people in the neighborhood because I guess the people I talk to, which are a bunch of the Sandy Hook Circle, they’re in my opinion of the road isn’t really, it’s not in a deteriorated state to do that level of work but again. Paul Oehme: Yeah, and I think the comments that we received from the Sandy Hook Circle property owners was you know the level of improvements that were originally proposed on that section of street. I think they were concerned with maybe a little bit of over kill and based upon the soil investigation that we did, that was reinforced or supported to kind of back off on what we were originally proposing so you know for the other areas you know we’ve had comments going both ways. You know support for the project and some concerns with the level of improvements being proposed as well too but that’s typical for all these projects. Drew Vohs: Yeah, I suppose it is. Okay, well thank you. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Mr. Oehme a follow up question and I appreciate his question about how long these improvements are expected to last. You estimated about 25 to 30 years. Is that your expectation for the prior neighborhood too in Horseshoe Curve and Indian Hill Road? Paul Oehme: I think so. I mean you know this area doesn’t get very much traffic. We’re not seeing, it’s not a collector roadway. There is good base material that’s out here. The biggest problem with these neighborhoods is just trying to get the drainage off of the roadway as quickly as you can trying to seal up the cracks and making sure that, try to reduce the amount of water getting into the subgrade because that’s what loosens up or weakens the subgrade of the roadway and that’s what you typically see a lot more structural problems occurring. Mayor Furlong: And I guess following up, maybe on the life cycle of roads that you talked through before, with these neighborhoods with the age of the road and 30, 35 years, 38 years, they’re past that 25 to 30 year point where you talk about. Maybe they’ve lasted a little bit longer because as we’ve heard here traffic is lower but if the improvements don’t go forward, what would you expect in terms of the condition of the road? Would they continue to last for the 25-30 years that you’re estimating that the improvements would put in. Paul Oehme: That’s a good comment. Typically when the typical degradation occurs that we see for these type of roadways, you know when the streets get into the 25, the 30 to 25 PCI range you see a significant drop off in the quality of the pavement. You’re going to see more cracking. Typically you’re going to see more alligator cracking. More potholes, those type of things so you know it’s our estimate that at this level you’re going to see a higher drop off in the condition of the roadway which we’re, at the City we’re trying to make sure that we’re meeting the expectations of the neighborhood so we’re going to be out there patching more and having a lot more time and resources devoted to these type of neighborhoods, which is not the typically best use of resources in my opinion. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright, thank you. I mean eventually can you keep patching patches? I mean would you get to a reconstruction point sooner than you would with these improvements I guess is one of my questions. Paul Oehme: Right and that’s our concern too is if you leave the roads go to completely you know potholed areas, you’re talking about typically replacing the sub-grade at that time of a total reconstruction which is a lot more expensive. Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Other public comments from Sandy Hook, Sandy Hook Circle project area. 19 Chanhassen City Council – February 11, 2013 Ben Paulson: My name is Ben Paulson and I’ve lived in our neighborhood since ’68. Mayor Furlong: And Mr. Paulson your address. Ben Paulson: 7013 Dakota Avenue. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Ben Paulson: And sure would like to have the streets nice and pretty but to do a complete overhaul in our neighborhood I think is a bit much. I don’t think, there are certain areas that absolutely needs to be done but there’s other areas in there that are in very good shape as far as I can see and I’ve been in every nook and cranny in our neighborhood. That’s one thing. I’m also surprised that we’re getting an assessment on this. Since we have moved in in ’68 we had an assessment on sewer and water, and that’s all I can really remember as far as assessments are concerned so I don’t know why I should, why that’s happening now. It has never happened before in all the years. Paul Oehme: So the assessment practice that the City has is we don’t assess for patching and sealcoating. That minor maintenance that I talked about. It’s when we get into the level of the higher improvements, the overlays and the reconstructions, that’s where the City typically would goes through their assessment practice of assessing streets so the streets start to the level, the age and the condition where staff feels that some higher level or more improvements, more intense improvements are necessary. Ben Paulson: So you feel that that’s, that has to be done on all, all the streets in our neighborhood? Paul Oehme: Well yeah that’s, typically when we get in and do a street improvement project, you know we like to get in there, make the improvements and then get out and not kind of piecemeal the neighborhood together. It’s just more impactful like we feel to the neighborhoods, it’s going to cost more in the long run and you’re not going to get as good of a product if you do the whole entire neighborhood at one time. Ben Paulson: Yeah. And why are you calling it the Sandy Hook Road area? Mayor Furlong: We could put Dakota in there. Paul Oehme: Yeah, we can call it anything but that’s the first street that we saw so. Ben Paulson: Well because I know now we can’t even remember my own neighborhood’s name because it’s to Sandy Hook. Paul Oehme: Okay. Ben Paulson: Okay, thank you. Paul Oehme: Thank you. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Other comments for this neighborhood? Good evening. Tom Peterson: Good evening. My name’s Tom Peterson and I live on 7020 Sandy Hook Circle. We attended the November meeting. There was some discussion and talking about separating out Sandy Hook Circle from the rest of the development because of the nature of the construction on that road. As a 20 Chanhassen City Council – February 11, 2013 follow up we asked for a, requested a copy of the test reports and received an email dated December 10, 2012 and indicated there’d be for, the recommendation for Sandy Hook Circle is an edge mill and 2 inch overlay versus a full depth replacement. Had an assessment, let’s see. The 40% assessment was thth approximately $1,000 per household and then we received a letter on January 30, or dated January 30 indicating the assessment would be $1,500. Is the nature of the work changed there? Was the estimate flawed? The initial estimate flawed? Can you give us any insight there? Paul Oehme: I’m not aware of the original. th Tom Peterson: The December 10? Paul Oehme: The December one. Tom Peterson: It was a, well what it was, it was an email we received which is a copy of a memo sent from Alyson, forgive me for the pronunciation here, Fauske I believe to Paul Oehme. Is that? Paul Oehme: Yep. Tom Peterson: Yeah, and if somebody could take a look at that and I understand it’s early on and things go quickly but it’s about a 50% increase and there’s likely a good reason for it but be interested to find out why. Paul Oehme: Yeah, I can look into that. You know I think in December as I recall we did look at just going with a 2 inch overlay so. Tom Peterson: Oh, and right now is it different than the 2 inch? Paul Oehme: No, that’s still the 2 inch so we’re still looking at that and then I’d have to look at it again why the discrepancy in the two estimates. Tom Peterson: Okay, than you. Mayor Furlong: Thank you Mr. Peterson. Pat Peterson: I’m Pat Peterson, 7020 Sandy Hook Circle. Paul if you do look into that, how will we know what you find? Paul Oehme: I think Alyson has your email I believe and so. Pat Peterson: Okay, so she would email the response. Paul Oehme: Yeah, we can contact you, absolutely. Pat Peterson: Okay. Would everyone in the neighborhood get that response or just me? Paul Oehme: If you’d like, yeah that’s fine. Pat Peterson: Okay, alright. I would appreciate that. My second question is, just as a Chanhassen resident, I know that you make decisions on what should be done certain times. You know every single year you make decisions on what road construction should be done and I’m concerned just as a resident because in 2011, if you have a 10 year plan, it was my understanding that you do have a 10 year plan. In 21 Chanhassen City Council – February 11, 2013 2011 we got complete repaving and you know 6 months to a year later we’re looking now at something huge in the Sandy Hook Circle area and I’m a little concerned that you know we’re over spending a lot of money without looking at a 10 year plan so just a comment. Mayor Furlong: Fair question. Mr. Oehme, can you explain the history there? Paul Oehme: Sure. In 2000 and 2011 the City staff or public works staff did come in and heavily patch this area because of the condition of the roadway so it wasn’t a complete overlay. It was just patching the cracks and the potholes and some other areas I believe that were improved at that time so that was just basically to, and I think at that time it was, we did receive some complaints about the condition of the roadway so we did get in there and patch this area more extensively than maybe we have in other areas just based upon the condition of the roadway so. Mayor Furlong: Mr. Oehme also, last year as we looked at one of the discussions that you brought to our work session was the overall condition of streets in the city and the trends that we had been seeing over the last few years versus the expected trends going forward with the number of neighborhoods and roads that were developed in the late 70’s early 80’s and so that’s part of the change is new information that we’ve been receiving. The council’s been, or the staff has been recognizing in terms of our history so maybe you could talk a little bit about that. Paul Oehme: Yep, absolutely. We did go through and every so many years we do evaluate the total street network system and as the mayor indicated there is kind of a glut of streets that we’re, a lot of streets that were built in the 70 to 80 year timeframe that are coming due. That are looking at needing additional improvements here in the next couple years so we did meet with the City Council I believe last year and discuss you know what we see as our trends. Downward trend in our overall pavement condition index for the city street network system. At that time there were some additional funds allocated to help make improvements to the neighborhoods. Working through with the City Council and we identified streets that were we felt in need of help now and that weren’t on the 10 year pavement improvement list at that time so we did try to advance some of these projects earlier based upon you know where we see projections for the roadways. You know what the conditions of the roadway currently are and we’re seeing in the field so try to get the streets in overall in the city to a level that we feel, our goal is to keep the streets at a level about a 70 PCI so that’s with the improvements that we’re talking about here we are making those improvements and I think we are going a long way to helping the street system maintain a good condition for a long time. Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. So hopefully that answers the question about some of the changes there in the last couple years. Other comments? Anyone else that would like to provide public comments on Sandy Hook, Dakota, Cheyenne, Sandy Hook Circle? Any of the neighborhoods? Trying to get everybody in there. With that, any other comments that we haven’t heard today or any other interested party that would like to address the council on this? Okay. Then without objection we’ll close the public hearing and bring it back to council for questions and discussion. Any follow up questions for staff at this time? Mr. McDonald. Councilman McDonald: Yes, Mr. Oehme. I understand the thing about the ratings and everything of the roads but one of the things that was brought up that I think is a good point is the usage of that road. When we look at Indian Hills, yeah the slope of deterioration is going to be greater with more traffic and also weather and water on the roads and there’s a lot of things that determine how quickly a road would deteriorate but, and I think you talked to the gentleman, you said that we don’t take into account traffic. Isn’t that, wouldn’t that be important especially on a road such as Indian Hills where again there’s 11 people living on that street. It’s a dead end. Probably the only people going in and out are the residents and we aren’t looking at that many trips. Wouldn’t that have an affect that if say we were to delay that, 22 Chanhassen City Council – February 11, 2013 and I think right now it was at a 35 or 37, that before it really gets to the point of no return that could be another couple years in the future. Is that a possibility? Paul Oehme: That’s always a possibility. To defer maintenance. You know we don’t look at specifically in our pavement condition index traffic because you know typically when you have a higher volume street, those street sections, those pavement sections are a little bit larger structurally than some of these residential streets. You know we are evaluating all of our streets once every 3 years so you know inbetween the two ratings we do have that degradation curve you know that we estimate where the pavement condition is at but in that third year when we have a solid number of what the rating is, the actual rating is for those streets so in terms of traffic you know, the traffic I would say is kind of a function of what the pavement condition is. It’d be very difficult and challenging to rate streets with the volume of traffic for those streets because there’s, like you said there are so many different factors associated with how quickly streets deteriorate. Traffic being one of them but it’s probably the hardest to really quantify and to try to plug into that equation. Councilman McDonald: So if I were to ask you to give me more detail on that equation, we would have to apply that across the city as a whole because now we’re changing standards. I mean at the point you’re looking at now we make a determination for all roads within the city independent of all these other factors and basically look at okay, what does the road look like? Can you grade it based upon that and then based upon experience you know that over a certain period of time it is going to deteriorate to a point where now we’re doing major work so to be able to go out there and do each road individually would just take a lot of time and effort because you have set up counters for how much traffic’s going on. Probably need to determine how much weight. Probably need to start looking at all kinds of other factors such as weather and pooling and water and all of this and then come up with something and that could take a long time. Paul Oehme: It does and you bring up a good point too. Normal traffic in these neighborhoods aren’t going to be the overlying or the main source of deterioration. It’s some of those other factors. You know garbage trucks are going to be a higher factor of deterioration than just a normal vehicle so I don’t know how many garbage trucks are going down each of these roadways too so it’s just, it’s a difficult proposition to put that type of information in the equation to really rate the streets. Councilman McDonald: Okay, so while the standard isn’t perfect it is the standard and that’s what we’ve used consistently throughout the city to make determinations of when a road needs to be fixed. Paul Oehme: Correct. I mean that’s one of the main components that we use to evaluate when streets are necessary to be upgraded. You know utilities is another issue that we always look at and visual observations as well. What we see in the field just from a staff’s perspective. Councilman McDonald: So if we, and again the question was asked about you know our 10 year plan and we actually do look at all this and try to divide the city up and work in certain areas each year. If we go and were to say skip Indian Hills, when could we probably realistically look at having an opportunity to go back out there? I mean you talked about Pleasant View’s been upgraded so that’s probably good for another you know few years. There’s no other roads in that area because again all the other neighborhoods are up on the hill or over and around so it doesn’t fit in good, in order for us to get a good price from a contractor. When would be a, in your estimate, how could you fit this into a package in the future and when would that future be? Paul Oehme: Sure, yeah. The staff does have a 10 year, we actually have a 20 year projection of when streets are going to be needing additional improvements besides just a sealcoat or patching so we do look out 20 years but our next, or our 10 year window is fairly well established we feel and we are looking at budgeting. We do budget, try to budget out about 10 years for those neighborhoods so those, those 23 Chanhassen City Council – February 11, 2013 streets, those 10 year, that 10 year plan that we’re looking at, you know those are fairly well established and when we start trying to add in additional streets to that program, I mean we’re probably going to go over budget so in my estimation we’d like to try to keep our 10 year plan fairly well consistent. What we’re looking at and then you know after 10 years we probably could fit something in down the road but with the level of needs that are, we feel that are out there over the next 10 years we’d like to try to have a consistent project or consistent plan going forward so we do allow the neighbors, neighborhoods to identify okay, or ask you know when is my street going to be re-done or improved upon so they have a good idea of when they can expect improvements to take place. Councilman McDonald: So really what you’re telling me is a lot of what you look at is what’s the most cost effective way for the City to keep it’s roads up. Paul Oehme: That’s our goal is to try to get the most bang for the buck with our streets. Councilman McDonald: Okay, and then the other issue again looking at if we were to skip it, I mean I heard a lot of, well I heard testimony about the fact that right now we’ve got cracks and you know you obviously do a good job of sealing those cracks and everything and keeping the roads up to a point whereas I know other cities, they don’t do quite so well and especially in the winter. You do see a lot of potholes but before we have potholes, again you’ve got a crack all the way through the pavement and get water underneath and then it’s the freeze thaw cycle that pops up a piece of pavement so as long as we stay ahead of the curve. I guess my point is, a street can look better than what it actually is. Paul Oehme: That’s correct and that’s, I think that’s indicative of what we’re seeing in some of these streets. Councilman McDonald: Okay. Just one more question. I know, and you know kind of correct me if I’m wrong but I know that sometimes what we use is a method where we’ll go in there. It’s not, we don’t strip the pavement or anything but we put a you know gravel down and then tar on top of that to try to extend the life. Is that not an option in this case? Paul Oehme: Yep those sealcoats, for example I think Indian Hills was already sealcoated what you’re referring to, 3 times already. Councilman McDonald: Okay. Paul Oehme: So you know once you build up a sealcoat to that extent, it can undermine itself and start deteriorating itself from underneath and then you start getting some potholes. Also the problem is too then the roadway gets a little bit uneven and so your plow trucks are hitting some of the higher areas and ripping off some of the sealcoat aggregate more than other areas so you’re not getting a true cost or a best bang for your buck. You’re kind of almost wasting money in some respects because you’re not getting the full benefit of that sealcoat when you go to 3, 4, 5, 5 times of sealcoating the same roadway. Councilman McDonald: Okay. That’s all I have Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Mayor Furlong: For questions, thank you. Any questions? Councilwoman Ernst: Yeah I do. Mayor Furlong: Councilwoman Ernst. 24 Chanhassen City Council – February 11, 2013 Councilwoman Ernst: So I, my comments and questions were kind of along the same lines. We heard it mentioned several times tonight that there is minimal traffic in these areas and I’m wondering if that really does justify the minimal traffic in these areas, if that really does justify the scope of work, and it didn’t sound like there was a huge drainage problem particularly in the Indian Hills area. And another thing that I mentioned is we’ve been hearing consistently with these road projects, is the state of the economy and the financing involved in it and so I’m wondering if we waited 2 to 3 years what the impact. So say for example we did sealcoating again in these areas or one of the areas, whichever direction we decide to go with this. If we did sealcoating say for example Indian Hills and in 2 to 3 years we went back and evaluate. Re-evaluated the roads. What would be the impact? In 2 to 3 years. Paul Oehme: Well yeah for example Indian Hills was last sealcoated in 2007 and a lot of that sealcoat’s already been either scraped off by the plow trucks because it’s uneven or been patched over by our crews patching the cracks or some of the other defects in that area so you know the sealcoating really is not doing it’s designed job in these type of situations so you know if we were going in there again and sealcoating say for example Indian Hills Road, I would anticipate there would still be additional cracking that you would see. You’d still see some potholes coming through. We’d be patching those areas again and you’re really kind of losing the benefit of the sealcoat at that point in time. Councilwoman Ernst: So if we just went in and patched versus sealcoating, would that last 2 years? Paul Oehme: Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah I think we do a pretty good job of patching our streets so it will last but is it a long term solution? You know typically what we’ve been trying to work towards is trying to make these streets last as long as we can and try to limit the amount of pothole patching in these neighborhoods as much as we can as well because it is, it’s not, you’re not getting a good product I guess you know in the streets. It’s not a good presentation. It’s something that we try to avoid is patching as much as we can. Councilwoman Ernst: And I know Paul you mentioned in the past too when we come to really looking at these road projects, what we’re trying to avoid is doing these major reconstruction projects on these roads. We want to avoid that because in the end that does cost more money but I’m just wondering you know if we could get 2 to 3 more years out of some of these projects that we’re talking about. If that would, if that’s really going to have that kind of an impact. Paul Oehme: Well you can always defer projects. You can delay all your projects 2 years but eventually it’s going to catch up with you. You’re just going to be deferring, deferring, deferring and then all of a sudden all of your roads are going to be you know needing reconstruction so that’s why we try to do these interim projects where we’re not completely reconstructing streets you know when they get to that level of need. Councilwoman Ernst: Right, and I understand that but again that kind of goes back to degradation you know in terms of what the roads are and I haven’t been out there to look at these roads but I’ve been kind of evaluating what you’re saying and what the residents are saying and what makes the most sense so. Paul Oehme: Sure. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Councilman McDonald: Mr. Mayor if I could just follow up. Mayor Furlong: Mr. McDonald. 25 Chanhassen City Council – February 11, 2013 Councilman McDonald: Okay so if we go and sealcoat and it’s only good for 2 years, residents aren’t assessed for sealcoating but the City basically picks up that cost out of everybody’s property taxes. So we would probably look, and I think I’ve asked this question before a couple of times but what’s the cost of doing that and I think you’ve always told me that well it’s going to go up so we actually end up spending more money to fix a problem in the future than what we would if we spent it now. Paul Oehme: Correct. You know oil prices, commodities are rising so you’re always going to be leasing some interest in these commodities going up every year so you know since I’ve been here 8 years you know asphalt prices have gone up 20%, 30% almost so sealcoat, sealcoat oil has gone up from a buck 50 to 3 bucks a gallon since the last 6 or 7 years so that’s been going up as well too so it’s just the nature of construction is you know costs for these commodities tend to rise. Councilman McDonald: Okay, thank you. Councilwoman Ernst: Just a clarifying question Mayor? Mayor Furlong: Councilwoman Ernst. Councilwoman Ernst: So, but we’ve already budgeted for our upcoming projects and that goes in our revolving assessment fund, correct? Isn’t that what that’s coming out of? Paul Oehme: Correct. Councilwoman Ernst: So we’ve already budgeted for that money. That doesn’t, why would, why would that money go up to our residents? Why would we increase our taxes to our residents if we already have that money in there? I guess I’m confused on that. Mayor Furlong: Help me understand your question. You’re saying if we do the. Councilwoman Ernst: Well I’m kind of going back. Mayor Furlong: If we did the project in the future? Councilwoman Ernst: No. If we did the sealcoating project now. In the future I can understand if it’s a major project but it doesn’t sound to me like that would positively be the situation where we’re going to spend more money and it would cost our taxpayers more money if we did this say for example sealcoating for 2 to 3 years. I mean had it lasted 2 to 3 years. Paul Oehme: Yeah and again sealcoating you want to try to get 7-8 years out of the sealcoat and that’s the problem is, you know the last time it was sealcoated was in ’07 and we feel that a sealcoat is not doing it’s job anymore. It’s ineffective. Mayor Furlong: And I guess for clarification, Mr. Oehme what I heard you say is that construction costs tend to increase annually, correct? Paul Oehme: Correct, yep. Mayor Furlong: So whether you sealcoat now and then 2 or 3 years from now, you did the project, the project would likely cost more is what I’m hearing, even if you did the exact same project. 26 Chanhassen City Council – February 11, 2013 Councilwoman Ernst: In the future. Right. And I was with the, and that’s why I asked a clarifying question because it wouldn’t be going back. It wouldn’t be an increase to our taxpayers for next year. It would be, if we did it 2 to 3 years from now. Not now to last for 2 to 3 years. Mayor Furlong: Through inflation or other factors, doing this project in the future would cost more for the taxpayers. Councilwoman Ernst: Potentially. Mayor Furlong: Potentially for the taxpayers and for the residents. Councilwoman Ernst: Right. Mayor Furlong: Just because of the cost of the project. Paul Oehme: Correct. Councilwoman Ernst: Thank you. Mayor Furlong: Mr. McDonald. Councilman McDonald: If I could, the point I was trying to make there was the fact that you’ve got to add the cost of the sealcoating to the cost in 2 years and the project costs are more than what it is today to do it. Inflation is part of that but the sealcoating that we do now is also part of the total project cost so it is more. That’s the only point I was trying to make. Paul Oehme: Okay. Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council, just to make it even more confusing. Indian Hill isn’t included in our sealcoating projects this year so we’d have to increase our sealcoating budget for this year to include Indian Hills. Or push off another road project to include Indian Hills. Because we have a scheduled maintenance for sealcoating also. Mayor Furlong: Across the city? Todd Gerhardt: Across the city. Mayor Furlong: Different neighborhoods. Councilwoman Ernst: But why would. Mayor Furlong: Councilwoman Ernst. Councilwoman Ernst: But why would our sealcoating project cost more to our taxpayers than if we did this more major reconstruction project? Todd Gerhardt: Because you’re doing more roads than what you originally budgeted. Councilwoman Ernst: Okay, let’s not go to all taxpayers. Let’s go to our residents that it’s being impacted. 27 Chanhassen City Council – February 11, 2013 Todd Gerhardt: Okay. Councilwoman Ernst: They would be paying the assessment if we did this road project. Todd Gerhardt: Correct. Councilwoman Ernst: They would be, if we didn’t do this road project and we did a sealcoating project potentially, not positively but potentially there may be a tax increase to them. Is that correct? Based on what. Todd Gerhardt: We don’t assess for sealcoating. Councilman McDonald: Right but the tax increase comes to residents of the city. Councilwoman Ernst: Correct. Councilman McDonald: Because sealcoating is part of what we pay as a city. Councilwoman Ernst: Correct. Councilman McDonald: So indirectly they are paying more for the sealcoating because of their taxes. Granted it’s a much smaller amount but you’ve got to look at the total project costs to the city. Not necessarily to the residents but it’s all residents. Councilwoman Ernst: And I’m just asking clarifying questions. Mayor Furlong: Yeah. Councilwoman Ernst: Thank you. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Councilwoman Ernst: Now you’re all confused. Mayor Furlong: Thoughts and comments with regard to direction you think the council should take here. Councilman McDonald: And I’ll say the same thing I always does, do. This is like getting a root canal and I really don’t care for this part of the job but I understand that it’s a necessity and it’s part of you know the hard decisions that we have to make as being part of the council up here. I feel your pain. I understand what you’re talking about but we can’t look at individual roads and say well we’re going to make this exception for this road or we’re going to do this for that road or it would be chaos throughout the city trying to figure out how in the world do we keep the streets maintained. So all I can go on is basically we have a standard that we’ve been using for a number of years to make these determinations and you know based upon that and what I’m told and the history that we have going through these projects and the impacts that they’ve had on communities, both before and after, at this point I would be inclined to go along with these projects. I understand you know the economy’s in bas shape and all like that but you know I constantly am told how proud people are of the fact that we were a number 2 city of places to live. One of the reasons for that is because we maintain the infrastructure and I know that this is not very good solace but it’s a cost of living in this city. If we’re going to maintain certain standards so that this community is above all the others, we have to do something along these lines and that’s why you know I look to the engineering department to give me criteria for their recommendations and I haven’t 28 Chanhassen City Council – February 11, 2013 seen anything over the years that would say that that criteria is wrong so the only thing I have to go upon is again my past experience and based upon that I would be in favor of moving forward. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Councilwoman Ernst. Councilwoman Ernst: Well I’m struggling with this one because I’ve heard the testimonials tonight and I’m still struggling with the fact as to why you know if we wanted 2 years why would that not be a good decision to wait 2 years. I’m hearing that it would increase costs but in the end, it wouldn’t be as much but in the end does it make more sense to do that. And I’m leaning more towards the Indian Hills area just because that’s the one that I’ve heard more, I’ve gained more information knowledge on tonight versus the other one. What’s it called? Todd Gerhardt: Dakota or Sandy Hook project area. Councilwoman Ernst: Sandy Hook, yes thank you. Mayor Furlong: Cheyenne. Councilwoman Ernst: Sandy Hook project area. And so with that I would be more inclined to probably support the Sandy Hook Circle area but looking at maybe doing possibly sealcoating or some kind of patching in the Indian Hills area. Mayor Furlong: Okay. I think you know these discussions and it’s, I very much appreciate everybody that came up and talked this evening. I know it’s not easy to do and I appreciate all of you doing that and really the public policy standpoint here is how do we want to manage our streets and roads in this town and to recognize that everything has a life cycle. Some, depending on usage may extend longer than typical. Others may not. In this case I think what we heard tonight is these streets generally don’t get the same traffic that a through street would. That a collector road would. Powers Boulevard was mentioned and clearly the traffic on these streets are not the same as a major road like that. It’s probably a factor that has contributed to us talking about these neighborhoods now when they’re 35-38 years old rather than typically as Mr. Oehme said where we’d be talking about them at 25 to 30 years old so my take a little bit on that is that, because we’re here today rather than 5, 6, 7, 8 years earlier than today is because of some of the reasons that were raised tonight so I fully understand those factors. I think as we look at managing life cycle of streets and roads we have to recognize that what’s worked in the past is not going to keep working just based upon expectation and expectation based upon history of streets and roads not only in our city but in this region and across the country. I think to continue to sealcoat, it looks good after you sealcoat. No question about it. You’ve got a nice, you know the rocks are there as soon as they sweep them off. All the ones that fall off. It looks nice for a while but it’s the underlying base. An example that was used many years ago that I heard was you’re putting paint on wood. Well if the wood underneath isn’t in good condition, if it’s rotten, yeah it looks good right after you do it but the wood’s still a problem underneath and that’s what we’re hearing from our city engineer. I think deferring these types of projects only push and create a bigger bubble down the road. It’s something that, and we hear often at other levels of government, kicking the can down the road or kicking it down for a ways. You can keep doing that but eventually you’re going to have bigger problems down the road and I think we’re seeing that elsewhere currently. To go forward with a sealcoat on any of these neighborhoods now and then 2 to 3 years come back with the project I think that will increase overall costs to taxpayers directly and either by reallocating some funds away from a neighborhood that needs sealcoating now based upon the life cycle of those streets. Now we’re going to have problems there. Or just increasing the budget. Well we’re increasing costs that way to all taxpayers. I think what it really gets down to is, it’s time for these neighborhoods and when we see some of these conditions, you know and it’s not the same. The paving condition’s not the same along a single street. The gentleman raised the question about Sandy Hook Road and that the 29 Chanhassen City Council – February 11, 2013 condition is different along that road and even the pavement conditions are different but some of these numbers are really low. Lower than some of the other projects that we’ve seen and some reconstruction projects that we’ve done in the past. Now often times the reconstructions are also a function of the utilities underneath the road and here we don’t have those problems fortunately. Even though the utilities are, they’re 35-38 years old too, we’ve been fortunate. Residents and the City has been fortunate that we haven’t seen the problems there that we’ve seen in some other neighborhoods that are of the same age or even younger age that have gone through a full reconstruction so I think trying to be prudent and recognizing that what’s worked in the past is probably not going to work in the future, or be the best use of taxpayer’s funds going forward. I think it does make sense to move these projects forward. The, what we’re seeing and the information that we have is that some of these neighborhoods you know, perhaps they would have been earlier if we had more funding but they weren’t needed and we didn’t have the problems with the utilities and so they, we put money, prioritized money in other neighborhoods but I think it is appropriate to move forward with these neighborhoods now and I do appreciate everyone’s comments. Not that I disagree or don’t believe what I’ve heard but I think what we’re hearing and seeing is really representative of where we are and that’s we’re dealing with roads that are almost 40 years old that by going forward with these projects we can get an additional estimated 20-25 plus years on these streets before we’re looking at a full reconstruction. If we don’t do something now or you know delay it again for another couple three years we’re going to be just creating a bigger bubble 2-3 years from now or put in a situation that maybe we’re going to have to do some much more work sooner than we would otherwise, which again would be cost to not only taxpayers but to the residents as well so, to the policy so in my mind I think it does make sense to move forward with these neighborhoods. Any other comments or thoughts? One of the things that Mr. Knutson from a, in order to, while the motion in the packet speaks of ordering plans and specifications for these areas. Accepting the feasibility project. The resolution actually talks about ordering the improvements and I understand we need 4 members of the council to do that? Is that correct? Roger Knutson: Mayor that is correct. It takes 4 affirmative votes to order the project so without 4 you can’t do that. Mayor Furlong: We can’t order the project. What could we do tonight? Roger Knutson: You could order the preparation of plans and specifications. Mayor Furlong: Okay. And by not being able to order the plans tonight Mr. Oehme, does that delay this at all? This was planning to come back with the, at our next meeting. Paul Oehme: Correct… Mayor Furlong: To authorize and I expect we’ll have a full council at that time. Paul Oehme: Correct. That wouldn’t be any delay. Mayor Furlong: Okay, so there’s no delay but just for clarification to the council. If we want to move forward tonight we would be simply authorizing the preparation of plans and specifications as part of the resolution. Councilman McDonald: So the resolution would change to say authorize the preparation of plans? Roger Knutson: We have a draft. 30 Chanhassen City Council – February 11, 2013 Mayor Furlong: The resolution if Vicki, where you are if you want to make a motion or. Let me find it here. I’m sorry. Mr. Knutson. Roger Knutson: You have a resolution in your packet. The changes would be, in the caption it says Ordering Improvements. That would be deleted and after the Now Therefore, Be It Resolved, paragraph 2 would be deleted. Mayor Furlong: And those would be brought back at the next council meeting. Roger Knutson: Yes. Mayor Furlong: Where we’d capture all of it at that time. If there was support for that. Roger Knutson: Table ordering the project to your next meeting. Mayor Furlong: So that might be the easiest thing to do. Just move to. Todd Gerhardt: Authorize preparation of plans and specs and table the ordering of the project to the next meeting. Mayor Furlong: Alright. Mr. McDonald, would you like to make a motion? Councilman McDonald: I’ll try. Okay, I’ll make a motion that the City Council authorize the preparation of plans and specifications for the 2013 Street Improvement Projects #13-01-3 and #13-01-4, Horseshoe, Indian Hill, and the Sandy Hook areas and that we table any order or resolution until our next meeting adopting those plans. Mayor Furlong: Authorizing the project. Right. Good, okay. Is there a second for that? Do you want to second it? Councilwoman Ernst: No. Mayor Furlong: That’s fine. I’ll second it for discussion purposes. Any discussion on the motion? Any discussion? With none we’ll proceed with the vote. Resolution #2013-11: Councilman McDonald moved, Mayor Furlong seconded that the City Council authorize the preparation of plans and specifications for the 2013 Street Improvement Project Nos. 13-01-3 and 13-01-4, Horseshoe Curve-Indian Hill and Sandy Hook areas and table ordering the improvements . Councilman McDonald and Mayor Furlong voted in favor. Councilwoman Ernst voted against. The motion carried with a vote of 2 to 1. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. So that will come back at the next meeting as well as the other projects then is that correct? Okay. Very good. th Todd Gerhardt: At the September 25 meeting the council will consider ordering the project. Also consider. th Councilman McDonald: Well wait a minute. Not September 25. th Todd Gerhardt: Or February 25. And consider ordering the project and approving plans and specs and authorizing staff to take bids and then April. 31 Chanhassen City Council – February 11, 2013 nd Paul Oehme: 22. nd Todd Gerhardt: 22 is when we’ll have the assessment hearing and that’s when council can decide to definitely move ahead with the project or not and based on the bids that you receive. Mayor Furlong: And then we’d have actual dollar amounts. Paul Oehme: Absolutely. Todd Gerhardt: Yep. Mayor Furlong: For the City’s costs, for the homeowner’s cost and for the scope of the project. Paul Oehme: And the final assessment amount, if it comes to that. Mayor Furlong: Okay. And there’ll be notices sent out I assume. Paul Oehme: Absolutely. Mayor Furlong: For that hearing to all affected property owners. Paul Oehme: Yep. Mayor Furlong: Very good, thank you. Alright thank you everyone. COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS. None. ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS. None. CORRESPONDENCE DISCUSSION. Mayor Furlong: Any discussion on the correspondence packet? Mr. McDonald. Councilman McDonald: Okay, this goes along with what we’ve been talking about today and I guess my question is why this letter is in the correspondence package and what I’m referring to is the one that deals with the Melody Hill project. I thought that was going to come back before council because I was unaware that we had made a final decision on that pending information. th Todd Gerhardt: Yeah, that item is going to come back to you at your February 25 meeting and we just wanted to let the neighborhood know. It also got sent to the neighbors on Crestview but get you that information as soon as possible on our further analysis of the road so this information will be included in th your 25 meeting also. Councilman McDonald: Okay. I just wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do with this because it didn’t seem to make any recommendations one way or the other. th Todd Gerhardt: Yeah, there was no action on the item tonight. We’ll take it under at our February 25 meeting and we just wanted to get you and the neighborhood plenty of time to review it and call us if you have any questions. 32 Chanhassen City Council – February 11, 2013 Councilman McDonald: Okay, thank you. Mayor Furlong: Any other discussion on the correspondence packet? Alright, if there’s nothing else to come before the council this evening, is there a motion to adjourn? Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilman McDonald seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 3 to 0. The City Council meeting was adjourned at 8:55 p.m. Submitted by Todd Gerhardt City Manager Prepared by Nann Opheim 33