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1c. Zoning Ordinance Amending Section 20-41 regarding amendments to be consistant with the Comp Plan 1 / C.).00 C I TY OF ---- 1 0,1 , 690 COULTER DRIVE • P.O. BOX 147 • CHANHASSEN, MINNESOTA 55317 I (612) 937-1900 • FAX (612) 937-5739,,. t., -, ' = IMEMORANDUM TO: Don Ashworth, City Manager IFROM: Paul Krauss, Planning Director pKik„,„ DATE: February 21, 1991 ` ., _I SUBJ: Amendments to Section 20-41 of the Zonin g Ordinance Pertaining to Consistency of Zoning Actions with the IIComprehensive Plan PROPOSAL/SUMMARY IIn light of the City Council 's recent approval of the Comprehensive Plan, staff undertook a review of Zoning Ordinance requirements I relative to the Plan. In many communities, there is language that requires zoning actions to have consistency with the Comprehensive Plan. Thus, in these communities it would state that a rezoning must pass a requirement of having consistency with the Comprehensive Plan or the Comprehensive Plan should first be revised. Chanhassen Zoning Ordinance currently has no such tie-in. Therefore, I have asked the City Attorney to draft a zoning II ordinance amendment that would make this connection clear. He has proposed revised language which would be placed in Section 20-41 of Division 2, which deals with amendments to the ordinance. The II revised language states that amendments shall not be adopted that are inconsistent with the City's Comprehensive Plan unless the Council expresses it's intent to amend the Comprehensive Plan. Staff believes that by adopting this section, the connection II between the Zoning Ordinance and the Comprehensive Plan will be clarified which will lend additional creditability to the Plan itself. The Planning Commission should be aware that the Zoning Ordinance does not provide guidelines and procedures for revisions to the Comprehensive Plan itself. These are contained within state II legislation commonly referred to the Metropolitan Land Planning Act. IIPLANNING COMMISSION UPDATE The Planning Commission discussed the proposed ordinance amendment IIat their meeting of February 6, 1991. The Commission was generally II I Don Ashworth February 21, 1991 ' Page 2 very supportive of the proposed amendment believing that it serves to reinforce the validity of the Comprehensive Plan. Commissioner Conrad raised some questions about the potential of this ordinance amendment to limit the City's ability to make changes in the Comprehensive Plan. It was explained that the ordinance amendment ' in no way limits the ability to change the Comprehensive Plan but it does require that the Comprehensive Plan must be changed before the property can be rezoned to a zoning district that is incompatible with the Plan. In point of fact, this procedure is ' required by the Metropolitan Land Planning Act in any event. The Commission voted unanimously to recommend approval of the amendment. ' STAFF RECOMMENDATION ' Staff recommends that the City Council approve first reading of the amendments to Section 20-41, pertaining to consistency with the Comprehensive Plan. 1 CAMPBELL KNUTSON SCOTT & FUCHS PA 111 Attorneys at Law Thomas J. Campbell Roger N. Knutson (612)456-9539 Thomas M. Scott Fax(612)456-9542 Gary G. Fuchs James R. Walston Elliott B. Knetsch Gregory D. Lewis ' Dennis J. Unger January 14, 1991 Mr. Paul Krauss Chanhassen City Hall 690 Coulter Drive, Box 147 Chanhassen, Minnesota 55317 RE: Criteria for Amending the Zoning Ordinance , Dear Paul: - - Enclosed please find the ordinance you requested concerning ' criteria for amending the City's zoning ordinance. Very tlegy yours, ' CAMPBELL, KNUTSON, SCOTT f .FU , P.A °oger N. Knutson , RNK:srn Enclosure JAN 1 5 1991 utl.Y Ur �t inovr- r c N Yankee Square Office III • Suite 202 • 3460 Washington Drive • Eagan, MN 55122 1 I CITY OF CHANHASSEN CARVER AND HENNEPIN COUNTIES, MINNESOTA ' ORDINANCE NO. ' AN ORDINANCE AMENDING CHAPTER 20 OF THE CHANHASSEN CITY CODE, THE ZONING ORDINANCE, CONCERNING CRITERIA FOR AMENDING THE ZONING ORDINANCE The City Council of the City of Chanhassen ordains: ' Section 1. Section 20-41 of the Chanhassen City Code is amended to read: Sec. 20-41. Generally. The Council may from time to time by a four-fifths (4/5) vote of the entire Council adopt amendments to this chapter, including the zoning map. Amendments shall not be adopted that are inconsistent with the City's comprehensive plan unless the Council express its intent to amend the comprehensive plan. ISection 2. This ordinance shall be effective immediately upon its passage and publication. PASSED AND ADOPTED by the Chanhassen City Council this day of , 1991. ATTEST: Don Ashworth, Clerk/Manager Donald J. Chmiel, Mayor (Published in the Chanhassen Villager on , 1991. ) I Planning Commission Meeting February 6 , 1991 - Page 29 Emmings: I 've got a question . I think it 's a good thing but I 'm curious about mobile homes. On the back side it says, under Section 20-576 , I Interim Use and it says mobile homes are okay interim use in the A-2 . I 'm wondering if the same rationale that we're using here wouldn 't apply to mobile homes . If we're worried about contractor 's yards within the new area within the MUSA , would we want mobile homes in there either? Krauss: I 'm not certain what the derivation of that is but I know that we. have at least one farm , operating farm in the city where there 's a mobile • home on the property for farm help and it may have stemmed back to be allowing those operations to continue . Conceiveably it allows the placement of a new mobile home on an interim basis. I don't know exactly II where that would lead us . Emmings: Well okay, that 's off the subject anyway but it seemed to me that" I was kind of surprised to see that down there. Does someone want to make a motion on this? Erhart moved, Ellson seconded that the Planning Commission recommend that II contractor 's yards be deleted from Section 20-576(3) regulating interim uses in the A2 District. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously. ' (Brian Batzli left the meeting at this point and was not present to vote on any further items . ) ZONING ORDINANCE AMENDMENT TO AMEND SECTION 20-41 , BY ADDING LANGUAGE STATING THAT AMENDMENTS SHALL NOT BE ADOPTED THAT ARE INCONSISTENT WITH THE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN. I Emmings: Again , I think this is very straight forward. I won't ask for a staff report . This also is a public hearing . Is there anybody here that wants to comment on this? • Conrad moved, Ellson seconded to close the public hearing. All voted in favor and the motion carried. The public hearing was closed. Emmings: Discussion anybody? Conrad: Yeah, I don't understand. What are we trying to do? The Comprehensive Plan is a guideline that tells us where we're going so now what we 're going to do is once we decided that we're not going that way , that we 're going to go back and put it in the plan that said that 's the way we were going to go . Krauss: Well , sort of , yes. ' Conrad: So what 's the point? Krauss: We have spent , you spent quite a bit more time than I have but a I number of years in developing a new comprehensive plan. The intent of the comprehensive plan , or the land use portion of the comprehensive plan is that it 's a guide for future land use decisions. The theory is that you should, if you 're going to make land use decisions that are contrary to the land use plan , before you do that you ought to go back in and examine the I Planning Commission Meeting February 6 , 1991 - Page 30 ' land use plan and if it warrants changing , you should do it . Conrad: So okay , so change the comp plan before we allow the zoning? 1 Krauss: Uh huh . And that that should be examined in the context . Ellson: It 's like a check and balance. ' Krauss: A little bit . Ellson: It 's like you know that you 're going against what you planned a few years ago and maybe rethink it I suppose . Krauss: It doesn 't say you can't do it. It 's just that you have to re-examine the motivations on what the plan said and if it does warrant changing ,, go ahead. ' Emmings: You know what struck me is a good reason to do this is that in there we 've got our goals and policies and it lets us , when we 're looking at a specific plan , reach back to those and say, sometimes maybe this isn 't consistent with our goals and give us something to , a touch stone to go back to on some of these things that sometimes don't feel quite right but we don 't have a specific standard that addresses it . We can go back to the more general principles . Conrad: Yeah , that 's the benefit . You go back and look at a broader picture rather than just an isolated example . That 's why I would feel ' comfortable with it . Yet on the other hand, there 's nothing magic with the boundaries on the comprehensive plan . You know they 're best guess right now looking 10-20 years out . Things are going to change so , and my guess is that the things that changes , are things that we just haven't examined and their adjacencies . They 're right at that line and why didn 't we follow the curvature over here versus following it there so what we 're going to do is , so the negative is going back and doing a lot of busy work , paperwork , ' screwing around with the comp plan to absolutely accomplish nothing . Krauss: Well I guess I would disagree . I mean I 've worked under that kind of context for many years and basically what you do is if somebody opposes a rezoning that 's inconsistent with the Comprehensive Plan at the same time you 're considering that rezoning , you consider revising the Comprehensive Plan . It 's not another step but it does make you step back and examine ' what the motivations were . Why the Comprehensive Plan was developed the way it was and justify changing it. For example , I know in a community where I 've worked where there was an issue that the City wanted very strongly set a goal for itself to preserve non-single family residential sites . That they wanted to promote a mix of housing and at one point during the economic cycle there was a lot of desire to change all of it to single family and we were asked to change the zoning from multi-family , which this property had , down to single family . Well we went back in and we examined the issues in the comprehensive plan and we said , you know you set this goal in the comprehensive plan , you can do this if you want to but ' you 're not going to achieve the goal of mixed housing if you do that . And the City in that case decided that they would keep the comprehensive plan and not go with the rezoning . Nobody 's saying that you can't change the comprehensive plan as warranted and the Land Planning Act provides I Planning Commission Meeting • February 6 , 1991 - Page 31 mechanism for doing that . We 've done it here already . Conrad: So what 's the process of changing the comprehensive plan Paul? Just really outline it briefly . Krauss: There 's an application that we file concurrently with the other II requests where we would ask the applicant to make a case for why the City should . And then what we would do as staff is we would evaluate what 's in the comprehensive plan . Why it's there and why this is or is not a better I idea . Ellson: One other benefit I thought was you could have new people on Council and new people on the Planning Commission and it helps them go back . Krauss: Yeah , Jo Ann just pointed out something too . When you adopt a comprehensive plan , if we get the Metro Council to buy into it , you 're not allowed to then rezone something completely different than what was in the comprehenisve plan . You just can't decide that this single family subdivision should be 300 acres of residential . That is under law a comprehensive plan amendment that the Metro Council has authority to review . ' Conrad: So a zoning that overrides the comprehensive plan has to go to Met Council? Krauss: No . An existing zoning, and we 'll have a few cases like this . Existing zoning that 's contrary to the comprehensive plan , the law says quite clearly that the zoning takes precedent . But when somebody is asking you to change zoning to a manner that 's inconsistent with the Comprehensive Plan , you 've got to change the plan first. Emmings: It kind of has an effect of keeping your comprehensive plan up toll date with what you're doing as well instead of starting over the way we did . At least to some extent . Ellson: Make you feel any better? Conrad: Well I just don't want us doing something that there's a very II definite pro side to doing this. I just want to make sure we're not doing something that . Erhart: You say there's no law that says you can't rezone something to something that 's different than in your Comp Plan? Krauss: Well it 's been a while since I 've read the Metropolitan Land Planning Act but you cannot make significant changes in the plan unless they 're approved by the Metro Council . That 's the mechanism , the administrative mechanism we operate under . So if we ignored , totally II ignored our comprehenisve plan. Went through a massive rezoning that 's a significant change in our comprehensive plan and didn't give the Metro Council and other communities a chance to interact , we would be breaching our reponsibilities in the law . Now what happens then , I don 't know because I 've never tried that but it just doesn't seem like it 's good policy even though it's also against the law . I Planning Commission Meeting February 6 , 1991 - Page 32 Conrad: So you 're telling me Paul that every time we change a zoning , right now most of it 's agricultural . So if we don 't zone it the way our compreheniive plan has indicated to Met Council , we have to submit an amendment to the Met Council? Over what barrier or boundary or what ' guideline? Krauss: Well they have minor and major plan amendments and they have definitions for each and I don 't recall exactly what they are. There 's an ' acreage break and a lot of these things the Metro Council doesn't care and they tell you right away . They give you a letter back saying fine and dandy . Go do it . Minor amendments . If you have an area that 's zoned or ' that 's guided residential and you decide that a corner should accommodate a 7-11 , you 'd be obligated to tell the Metro Council about that as a minor plan amendment but they 're not going to comment on it. They send you back - 11 a letter saying we reviewed it . It has no regional significance and as far as we 're concerned , you can go do it . Conrad: So you 're basically telling us to do something that 's required by law anyway? - Krauss: Yeah , it is but I think it also gives credibility to the plan . I think that we 're in a better position. The plan has more credibility in the eyes of people , you know a developer comes into town looking at the zoning ordinance and no where does the zoning ordinance recognize the fact ' that we have a comprehensive plan. And it really needs to . I mean we 've changed some of the definitions of districts so that the district is tied into what the comprehensive plan .-definitions are . For example , when we wrote the R-16 district last year , it says that this district is to be ' utilized only in areas that are guided for high density residential use in the comprehensive plan . . .linkage there and tying it together the way we 're proposing , I don 't think is inconsistent with the way we've handled ' things in the past and I think it gives more credibility . Emmings: Any other discussion? Let 's see. This is a public hearing. ' Ellson: We closed it . Emmings: Okay , if there 's not any more discussion, is there a motion? ' Ellson: Yeah , I 'll move the Planning Commission approve amendments to Section 20-41 pertaining to consistency with the Comprehensive Plan . ' Emmings: Is there a second? Erhart: Second. ' Emmings: Any discussion? Conrad: Yeah , let me just bring up one other point . Emmings: Boy you 're a troublemaker . Conrad: I just want to make sure we 're really on on this one . It takes away the City 's flexibility and puts it in Met Council 's . I Planning Commission Meeting February 6 , 1991 - Page 33 Krauss: No . That was done in 1971 . Erhart: Now let 's just take a second. Up at the intersection of TH 7 and II TH 41 . If I remember that right , that was always zoned residential . Emmings: No . • Erhart: Someone came in . Ellson: It was IOP. Wasn't it office? Emmings: It wasn't always . It went from, no I think when I came on here 1 it was , you were here , it was office . Ellson: It was office on the corner . . . Erhart: Okay , alright and then we changed. We went from office . Emmings: The neighbors wanted it residential . ' Erhart: The neighbors , that 's right . Now is that a zoning change? Olsen: There was a rezoning . ' Erhart: Did we make a comp plan change? Olsen: No , the underlying comp plan. . .was for commercial . Conrad: No , what I 'm saying is , we have , the City has the ability to zone 1 something the way it wants and let 's say we , let's just take an example of a high density district and then somebody comes in and says I want it to be a quality low density district and we as a city think that that's great . Now based on this , now maybe we 're forced to, if we're forced to send this II to the Met Council anyway , and I don 't know what the parameters are . You know I can 't believe we 've sent everything over to Met Council for approvals but again , based on those threshholds , we 're taking away our ability to make-small changes without their approval . Emmings: Well , but let's ask . In that example , what if Met Council said I no . We 're not going to let you have low density in this area you guided for high density? Is that it? We have no , then our hands are tied? Krauss: You know I had a question for the attorney and I haven't gotten the answer back yet . What the appeals procedure is because I had the same question of a bigger scale for you know , where we're all hoping and have the expectation that the Metro Council 's going to buy into our comprehensive plan and I think we all believe that it 's a valid plan and itil is based on good concepts . Should the Metro Council reject it and we want to fight that because we think they 're wrong , what forum do we have to do I that in , and I 'm sure not . I would assume that the Land Planning Act does provide it. I can tell you that in 15 years of doing these things , the Metro Council has never rejected a minor plan amendment that I 've ever heard of . I mean we 're talking about a group of people that debated getting involved in the Mega Mall issue so they take that responsibility fairly seriously and they don't normally get involved in local affairs but I Planning Commission Meeting February 6 , 1991 - Page 34 the Land Planning Act , which has been in place for I don't know how many years but over 15 , has always required that . I mean the basic premise behind this is that cities should not act unilaterally without taking into ' account the concerns of the region and adjoining municipalities and school districts and other governmental units . And to the extent that they have an interest in what you're doing , they have the opportunity to comment . Emmings: But Ladd seems to be saying that by doing this , we 're losing some flexibility but in fact we 're required to do this whether . ' Conrad: On certain level things we 're required to doing what you 're saying and I 'm just saying for those that we 're not required to do it , which I don 't know what that threshhold is , we 're giving away the City 's flexibility to react to minor changes in borders between a residential ' district and a multi-family district based on some lines that we just drew right now . • Ahrens: But I thought the City didn't have any flexibility Ladd in changing zoning that was in conflict with the comprehensive plan . Conrad: Oh , we sure do . The Plan is just a guideline and I don 't know that we haven 't examined every foot of where that line goes . Ahrens: Is that true? I mean don 't we have to send that to the Metropolitan Council for approval? Krauss: The plan is a guide but it 's a guide that 's accepted by the Metro ' Council and we can't change it without their review . Ahrens: So Paul 's saying we don't have any flexibility no matter how small or how large . Conrad: That 's not what I heard him say. Ahrens: If the zoning change is in conflict with the comprehensive plan . Krauss: Yeah , I think that that 's accurate . My recollection of the ' language , which I don 't have here and if you 'd like, we can hold off on this and get you the Land Planning Act because I think that would resolve it , is that anytime you do anything that's contrary to your comprehensive plan, your approved comprehensive plan, you have to run it through Metro Council staff . You have to give neighboring communities that might have an interest an opportunity to comment. And we 've always operated that way. Emmings: If a piece of land is zoned single family , and say it's guided by the Comp Plan something else and a project comes in that 's single family . Krauss: You 're in the right , at least legally . I 'm not sure what, I mean the Land Planning Act was done 18 years ago and the case law and correct me if I 'm wrong Commissioner Ahrens but the case law on this was there was recent cases about 4 or 5 years ago with some suits that said that the zoning takes precedence . It 's quite clear that the zoning does . In fact we do have two instances that I 'm aware of where the draft comprehenisve plan is inconsistent with underlying zoning . One was one that was brought out at the Council which is Lakeview Hills Apartments. Lakeview Hills is Planning Commission Meeting 11 February 6, 1991 - Page 35 11 all- zoned R-12 right now and we 're bisecting it or it 's being bisected by TH 212 . The area north of the future highway is designated as park and based upon what the Council did , it 's low density residential with an overlay of park . Their attorney is saying well you 've down zoned my property and all this and the City Attorney was quite adamant about it . We had in no way down zoned anything . You still have that underlying zoning but the City was within their rights to do what we did. And furthermore , if we want to tackle it more directly , we should come in at a city response or request to rezone that portion of the property that 's inconsistent with ' the Comprehensive Plan . We would have the ability to do that and it 's something we may want to consider . But right now it 's zoned R-12 and if they came in with an R-12 project , we would not have sufficient grounds to deny them . I know I 've tried this against McDonald 's where they took us to court because we had a property that was guided for industrial use but it was zoned commercially . We told them that we would not , that it would be denied because it was inconsistent with the Comprehensive Plan . After ' about 12 months of litigation , we lost . Conrad: Well , I agree with the proposal . I just want the City Council to know before this gets to them , or as it gets to them , if they 're giving up any minor' flexibilities that Paul is saying right now we 're not . I just _ want them to be sure that anything we 're giving up , I think we should know . But otherwise I think this is smart planning. ' Emmings: Any more discussion? Ellson moved, Erhart seconded that the Planning Commission recommend ' approval of amendments to Section 20-41 , pertaining to consistency with the Comprehensive Plan. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously.' ZONING ORDINANCE AMENDMENT TO AMEND SECTION 20-406 REGARDING VARIANCES TO THE WETLAND ORDINANCE TO FOLLOW THE PROCEDURE AS STATED IN DIVISION 3, VARIANCES OF THE ZONING ORDINANCE. To Ann Olsen presented the staff report on this item. Emmings: Don 't we sometimes look at these when it comes in as part of a subdivision or a site plan? Olsen: Right . Emmings: And would we be dealing with them, on those or would that also? I Olsen: Well that 's where it gets into the new wording of the variance . Where yes, under part of the Site Plan , yes you do . Emmings: We 'd be looking at it? Well now is that covered by these amendments or doesn 't it need to be? Olsen: I believe that's covered under Site Plan Review. . . Where the variances are now , the Planning Commission just looks at the variance as part of the subdivision and the site plan.