1l. Minutes 4
CITY COUNCIL MEETING
" REGULAR MEETING
FEBRUARY 11, 1991
Ilk Mayor Chmiel called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m. . The meeting was opened
with the Pledge to the Flag.
COUNCILMEMBERS PRESENT: Mayor Chmiel, Councilman Workman, Councilman Wing,
Councilwoman Dimler and Councilman Mason
STAFF PRESENT: Paul Krauss, Jo Ann Olsen, Todd Hoffman, Todd Gerhardt, Roger
Knutson and Charles Folch
APPROVAL OF AGENDA: Councilwoman Dimler moved, Councilman Mason seconded to
' approve the agenda with the following addition under Council Presentation:
Councilwoman Dimler wanted to discuss the Southwest Metro Transit Board's budget
reduction. All voted in favor of the agenda as amended and the motion carried.
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT: PROCLAMATION ESTABLISHING MARCH 3-10 AS "VOLUNTEER
RECOGNITION WEEK".
Mayor Chmiel: - The resolution reads as such. Whereas the Volunteers of America,
a Christian Social Service organization, is celebrating its 95th year of service
to the people of Minnesota and the nation; it is therefore certainly
approrpriate for us to join in the observance of this milestone with the
commemoration of March 3-10, 1991 as Volunteers of America Week; and Whereas,
the Volunteers of America is making a valuable contribution to the people of
Minnesota by providing services for children and youth, adults and the elderly,
and offenders and ex-offenders. Whereas, the Volunteers of America through it's
compassionate yet practical crusade, is extending spiritual fellowship as it
provides relief where it is most urgently needed; and Whereas, the Volunteers of
America is commemorating its founding in 1896 and urges others to uphold the
American philanthropic spirit through their commitment to help those in need.
Now Therefore, Be It Resolved, that I, Donald J. Chmiel, Mayor of the City of
Chanhassen do hereby proclaim the week of March 3-10, 1991 as Volunteers of
America Week in Chanhassen. Further, that a copy of this proclamation be
transmitted to the Volunteers of America office as evidence of our esteem.
Passed and adopted by this Council on the 11th day of February, 1991.
11 Resolution $91-12: Councilman Workman moved, Councilwoman Dialer seconded to
adopt the resolution proclaiming the week of March 3-10, 1991 as Volunteers of
' America Week. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously.
CONSENT AGENDA: Councilman Workman moved, Councilman Mason seconded to approve
the following Consent Agenda items pursuant to the City Manager's
recommendations:
a. Approve Development Contract, Chan Haven Plaza.
1 f. Approve Access and Initial Development Plan' Herman Field Park.
g. Accept Donation from the Chaska Lions Club for the Park and Recreation
Department.
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City Council Meeting - February 11, "1991
h. Request to Extend Approval of Front, Rear and both Side Yard Variances, 9247
Lake Riley Blvd. , James Jessup
i. Ordinance Amending Chapter 9, Article 3 of the City Code Regarding the Fire
' Code, Second Reading.
j. Zoning Ordinance Amendment to Allow Emission Control Testing Stations as
Conditional Use Permits in the BH and IOP Districts, Second Reading.
' k. Approval of Accounts.
' i. City Council Minutes dated January 28, 1991 as amended by Councilman Workman
on pages 18 and 19.
Park and Recreation Commission Minutes dated January 22, 1991
' All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously.
E. APPROVE SOUTH LOTUS LAKE BOAT ACCESS SITE AND DRAINAGE STUDY.
Mayor Chmiel: I pulled this off because I thought that there were some specific
things of concern to me. One of those being the estimate of a probable cost
that we're looking totally at this, the total estimated project cost is going to
II _ run roughly about $40,587.00 and I think there are some things in here that
could be shaved a little. I'm looking at some specifics regarding fieldstone
boulder wall that we're looking at as a little rip rapping down at the park. In
addition to that, I know that they've had some problems within a specific area
whereby there was a problem with that 100 year storm caused some erosion within
a particular part. Quite ironic we had two of those in one year. Supposedly
' not to happen within 100 years but we did have two within one specific year.
I've had some discussions with Todd on this and I had one other question in the
VanDoren Report. Page 1. They indicate this additional area, in the last
' paragraph the fourth line from the bottom. The additional area has caused
ret-ention ponds to frequently overflow causing erosion, sedimentation deposits
throughout the project area. Do you know how many times that did happen by
chance?
Todd Hoffman: To quantify the word frequently?
Mayor Chmiel: Yes.
Todd Hoffman: Over the past, it would just be an estimated over the past 3
years. Specifically I think what they were reporting on is the area of those
two times. Other than that, unless we're into a 2 inch rain, I wouldn't think
that we're not going to overflow that upper area.. .corrections they are
proposing will handle. We are restricted by the physical area which is
' available there. Corrections to that upper area which they had outlined there
will help that so the frequency of that will go down. There still is the chance
that we may have that overflow in that upper parking but that's not where the.. .
Getting the water down to that low area and then. . .lower holding pond on out.
That's where the major concern is.
Mayor Chmiel: Yeah, okay. I see that financing the project can be funded from
the following sources. We have the Soil Conservation, Environmental Trust Fund
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City Council Meeting - February 11, 1991
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and Park Acquisition and Development fund. I think what I'd really like to see
done with this is for you to re-review this and see what we can do as far as the
total dollar expenditure is concerned. I know that we're getting these dollars
but we have to watch everybody's dollars all the way around. I'd looked at a
couple of the other things too Todd on that landscaping plan with the trees of
what's existing to what's being proposed. I know we're going to take some of
these from our own tree farm and I see that we're going to have 5 spring snow
crabs, 6 seedless ash, 1 norway maple and 10 cut leaf sumac. The purpose for
that sumac in the location that they're talking, is that an erosion area
problem?
Todd Hoffman: I don't believe that's going to address an erosion problem as '
more of an aesthetic factor as you drive down that area. Typically sumac isn't
planted as an erosion control measure.
Mayor Chmiel: It keeps a certain amount of ground from eroding and gives us
ability to base with the roots. Root system. That's why I was wondering. I
guess basically those were some of my, some of the questions that I had. As I
mentioned and would like to see staff take this back. Look at it and hopefully
come in with a little better aspect. Probable cause for this. Hopefully you
can bring this back to Council within a couple of weeks.
Todd Hoffman: We can bring it on the next time. In talking to Scott Harri of
Van Doren, Hazard today, we did go over those alternatives. The stone boulder
wall was one of the most aesthetically pleasing as well the most sturdy to keep
that wall up. There are other alternatives being rip rap or. . .and we'll take a
look at those and decide which one of those will be the nicest option both in
the terms of the dollar cost as well as serving the purpose which we're trying-
to obtain in retaining the integrity of that. .. It is real tight to the
driveway and we do not want it to be eroding underneath the driveway and causing
some structural problems there so we have to go in and do a major repair
project . '
Mayor Chmiel: One of the other things I'd like to look at as well as plans and
specifications, bidding, staking and inspection as well. I think that's a
little bit high as far as I'm concerned. So with that one I would suggest that
that remain for the next Council agenda. I don't think there's any action
that's required.
VISITOR PRESENTATION: None.
PUBLIC HEARING: CONSIDER APPROVAL OF A BLANKET. VARIANCE TO THE 75 FOOT WETLAND '
SETBACK REQUIREMENT FOR LOTS LOCATED ADJACENT TO THE CLASS B WETLAND IN
CHANHASSEN VISTA 3RD AND 4TH ADDITIONS.
Public Present:
Name Address '
Diana Maas 641 Conestoga Trail
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City Council Meeting - February 11, 1991
11 Councilman Workman: So moved.
Mayor Chmiel: We'll get just a short presentation. Thank you Tom. I appreciate
moving that quickly but maybe if you would give us.
Councilman Workman: You mean there's not a second for discussion?
Councilwoman Dimler: Should we close the public hearing first?
Councilman Workman: I thought we did.
Mayor Chmiel: No. I'd like staff review first and then we'll open it for
discussion and then close it.
Jo Ann Olsen: Briefly, you've seen this before where we thought that there was
an incorrect survey. The red shows what was shown on the site plans and the
preliminary plat and final plat and the green shows the correct wetland
boundary. Staff has gone through all the existing situations out there and has
also shown proposed decks and has come up with a 35 foot setback which would be
adequate to allow future additions to the 13 homes out there and to accommodate
the existing structures. We do not feel that the 35 foot setback is going to be
a detriment to the wetland just being with decks and the wetland is still in
good condition and would resolve the problems of the non-conforming structures
at this time. So we are recommending approval of the conditions in the report,
and I'll answer any questions.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay, thank you Jo Ann. Is there anyone wishing to address this
' particular item at this time? Come forward and please state your name and
address please.
•
Diana Maas: Hi. My name is Diana Maas, 641 Conestoga Trail. I just wanted
clarification on recommendation number 3. The term structure. There's a
standard defintion for that?
' Jo Ann Olsen: Yes, there is a standard definition of a structure.
Mayor Chmiel: Anything permanently fixed to the ground.
Jo Ann Olsen: Anything permanently fixed to the ground. It could be a large
playground equipment. It could be a storage building. It's real broad.
Diana Maas: Okay. What if there's already something there? We put a fort and
a swingset between our house and that area.
Jo Ann Olsen: That gets into, we are going to, reviewing the definition of
structure because there's certain things that our zoning ordinance defines as a
structure but actually building code doesn't. Technically we have no control
over where you do put your swingset or wood piles and things like that so unless
there were complaints, we really wouldn't be going for the swingset. It depends
on how large the structure is.
Mayor Chmiel: I think interpretation by our ordinance, it indicates anything
that's permanently affixed to the ground is considered as a structure.
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City Council Meeting - February 11, 1991
Jo Ann Olsen: Well, the big play gyms could be considered structures then.
Diana Maas: What about fence? I
Jo Ann Olsen: Permanently affixed to the ground?
Diana Maas: Right.
Jo Ann Olsen: Fences that go straight into the edge of the wetland we do permit
that. That they don't go into the wetland but up to the edge. THat's like a
dock setback too. It has to be within the water, within that 75 foot setback.
The fence you're got to look at.
Mayor Chmiel: Thanks. Anyone else? Seeing none I'll make a motion to close
the public hearing.
Councilman Workman: So moved.
Councilwoman Dimler: Second. 1
Mayor Chmiel: Any discussion? Dick?
Councilman Wing: I just wanted to ask about the non-conforming decks. There 1
were two decks involved in this. The discussion at the last council meeting
where those decks, one was going to be a double fine and the other one was
non-conforming to meet Code. ,
Jo Ann Olsen: Both of them were built without permits. Both have now received
the building permits and they have paid the double fee. '
Councilman Wing: No, but the one that didn't meet Code.
Jo Ann Olsen: That's being brought up to Code as part of their building permit I
requirement.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay? We have a motion on the floor with a second. With the
City Council approving the blanket variance request #91-1 to permit structures
within 35 feet of a Class B wetland edge on Lots 1-5, Block 4 Chanhassen Vista
3rd Addition.
Councilman Workman: Are we closing the hearing first?
Mayor Chmiel: Yeah. I
Councilman Workman: Got you back.
Mayor Chmiel: And Lots 5-7, Block 3 Chanhassen Vista 4th Addition with the '
following conditions. 1, variance is recorded aginst each separate lot. 2, the
wetland boundary is established at the 950 foot contour. 3, no alteration
beyond the 950 foot contour shall be permitted. This includes any removal of
vegetation or filling. Any structure closer than 35 feet from the wetland edge
shall not be permitted. There's a motion on tile floor with a second to close
the public hearing. I
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Councilman Workman moved, Councilwoman Dialer seconded to close the public
hearing. All voted in favor and the motion carried. The public hearing was
closed.
' Councilman Workman: I'll move your motion Don.
Mayor Chmiel: Thank you.
Councilman Wing: Second.
Councilman Workman moved, Councilman Wing seconded to approve Blanket Variance
' Request #91-1 to permit structures within 35 feet of the Class B wetland edge on
Lots 1-5, Block 4, Chanhassen Vista 3rd Addition and Lots 5-7, Block 3,
Chanhassen Vista 4th Addition with the following conditions:
1. The variance is recorded against each separate lot.
2. The wetland boundary is established at the 950' contour.
' 3. No alteration beyond the 950' contour shall be permitted. This includes any
removal of vegetation or filling. Any structure closer than 35 feet from
the wetland edge shall not be permitted.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously.
AWARD OF BIDS: PUBLIC WORKS EQUIPMENT.
Charles Folch: Mr. Mayor, the acquisition of these vehicles and equipment was a
part of the approved 1991 budget. A lot of effort was expensed on the part of
Harold Brose, the shop foreman to put together the very detailed specifications.
1 I think this was very beneficial in the bids came in exceptionally competitive.
The total of the low bids for these vehicles and equipment is $163,443.00. The
budgeted amount for these items, including the rear flail mower and the packer
trailer was estimated at $199,000.00. Thus the low bids are approximately 18%
less than that was estimated so I recommend approval of the purchase of the
listed vehicles and equipment.
' Mayor Chmiel: Thank you. Any discussions or questions? I liked the way Harold
pulled together information indicating how old the equipment is and so on. I
thought he did a good job with that. It at least gives us a better idea sitting
here and looking at figures and knowing exactly what we're replacing. If no
discussions?
Councilwoman Dimler: I guess I'd like, I know there's an equipment replacement
fund but I'm just wondering and I'm not going to say anything about it this
year, but I'm wondering for the 1992 budget since everyone is having to cut, if
we couldn't look at that. I guess I'm a little concerned when we just keep, you
' know even though I know they're 12 years old but there's many businesses out
there that are having to do with equipment that's older and I think as a city we
ought to be setting kind of an example.
' Councilman Workman: Freeze?
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City Council Meeting - February 11, 1991
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Councilwoman Dimler: Yeah, right. That's what I'm saying.
Mayor Chmiel: You're right. We're 11
going to have a lot.
Councilwoman Dimler: So I think in 1992 I'd like to take a close look at that
because that's an awful lot of money to spend on vehicles.
Mayor Chmiel: When we review budgets, that's the time for us to indicate our
concern. '
Councilman Wing: During budget time I wasn't here. $50,000.00 for a lawn
mower. You obviously have seen justifications for that and are comfortable with '
that?
Mayor Chmiel: You're talking about the Toro 580 D? Well it's really not
$50,000.00. It's $49,980.00.
Councilman Workman: Well we've tripled our park size and stuff.
Mayor Chmiel: That's part of the problem. With total numbers of people that we
have, it's a larger kind of mower and one thing that I'd really like to see done
is when we hire these part timers, and I watched them down at our park, they be
given specific instructions on how to operate those vehicles. Or those mowers
as well because there's a large dollar investment. Maybe if we said that if
they broke something they had to pay it they might drive them a little more
cautiously than what they have been doing. Any other discussion? If hearing
none, I'll entertain a motion.
Councilman Workman: I'd move the award of bids for public works vehicles and
equipment - PW016.
Mayor Chmiel: Is there a second? '
Councilman Mason: Second.
Resolution $91-13: Councilman Workman moved, Councilman Mason seconded to award 1
the bids for the Public Works Vehicles and Equipment as follows:
Low Bidder Vehicle/Equipment Bid .
Lakeland Ford Truck 1991 Ford F-800 Cab & Chassis $30,562.00
Waconia Ford Mercury One 1991 Ford F-250 4x4 and ,
one 1991 Ford F-250 2-wheel drive $29,990.00
Midland Equipment Dumpbody and Sander $ 9,980.00 ,
Crysteel Equipment Henke Reversible Snowplow $ 7,474.00
Vermeer Sales and Service Vermeer Chipper $11,400.00 '
Lano Equipment Ford 4630 Tractor $10,000.00
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City Council Meeting - February 11-, 1991
Lano Equipment Edwards HM 7472 Flail Mower $ 7,575.00
MTI Distributing Company Toro 580 0 Mower $49,980.00
Motorola Communications Three (3) 2-Way Radios $ 2,250.00
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously.
AUTHORIZE UPDATE OF FEASIBILITY STUDY FOR TETON LANE AND LILAC LANE, PROJECT
91-4.
Charles Folch: Teton Lane from Lilac Avenue south to Ashton Court is currently
a substandard street section by the City's current standard and it is barricaded
at the intersection with Ashton Court.
Mayor Chmiel: Charles, are you aware, and I'm sorry for interrupting, that that
is really not a city street?
ICharles Folch: I guess I was, I'm not aware of that condition.
Mayor Chmiel: We've had discussions on this for quite some time;+ Quite a few
different situations and we really have had a lot of people in here to discuss
this specific happening that we've got here. I would think that we should
probably look at this a little closer than what's indicated in the information
that's provided.
Paul Krauss: Mr. Mayor, the street that exists now is barricaded, it built in a
public right-of-way.
Jo Ann Olsen: It is a public street.
Paul Krauss: It's not being used as such right now but it's my understanding
that back when the adjacent plat was developed, that it was set aside in that
condition until properties in the area were developed. As I recall, there were
a number of individuals who maintained that their property wouldn't develop.
Mayor Chmiel: That's correct.
Paul Krauss: Under this proposal that we're seeing now, one of the major
property owners, Mr. Donovan who was one of the people who indicated he wouldn't
' develop his property is now selling his property for development. . .
Mayor Chmiel: Never going to happen.
Jo Ann Olsen: But the City does own that right-of-way now as part of the Curry
Farms subdivision. That was turned over to the City.
Charles Folch: I believe it's like 33 feet wide.
Jo Ann Olsen: So technically.
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City Council Meeting - February 11, 1991
Mayor Chmiel: I guess I still, in remembering all the discussions that we had
with that, some of this just doesn't hit me the way that it probably should.
But maybe why don't you go ahead and I see some people that just came in who may
discuss this as well. So why don't you go ahead.
Charles Folch: Okay. The current situation was a result and deemed an '
appropriate solution at the time of Curry Farms development given all the issues
as you're sort of relating to, that were involved and were raised at that time
and given the fact that Mr. Natoli would be the only property making use of that
portion of Teton Lane. And at that time none of the adjacent property owners to
that segment of Teton Lane had given any intent of wanting to subdivide their
property which would change the use of that street segment. As Paul had
mentioned, we now have a perspective developer for that 10 acre parcel to the
west of Teton Lane owned by Mr. Donovan. This potential development in all
likelihood will impact the needs and change the use of Teton Lane and a portion
of Lilac Lane. Also a feasibility study really needs to be performed or updated
to address the needed improvements that this potential subdivision would incur.
And of course also recommend some assessment strategies to recover the cost of
improvements. It may also involve, this project may also involve a cooperative
agreement with the City of Shorewood since the City of Shorewood owns Lilac
Lane. As you're aware, Engelhardt and Associates prepared the previous
feasibility study of Teton Lane and they are very informed and versed as to the
previous issues that were raised with the street improvement. Therefore I would
recommend that a feasibility study for Teton Lane and Lilac Lane be approved and
that Engelhardt and Associates be designated as the appropriate engineer on the
project and I would condition that upon receiving an acceptable letter of credit
or cash escrow from the developer to secure the cost of this feasibility study.
Councilman Workman: Charles? Is Donovan doing this or somebody else? '
Jo Ann Olsen: Somebody else.
Councilman Workman: Somebody else is, wants to do a feasibility study in
relationship to Donovan's property when he doesn't know about it?
Jo Ann Olsen: They're purchasing the property. '
Councilman Workman: From Donovan?
Paul Krauss: Yes.
Councilman Workman: Is Donovan selling his property? ,
Marc Simcox: No. He says he's not. I talked to him Saturday. He says he
doesn't know anything about this. Now unless he's giving me a story and I don't
know why he would. He says he's completely unaware of it.
Charles Folch: Well we have the developer who has hired an engineer and has
spent a considerably amount of time already preparing. '
Mayor Chmiel: Who's the developer Charles?
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City Council Meeting - February 11, 1991
II
Charles Folch: James Development Company I believe is the name of the
IIapplicant.
Councilman Workman: Charlie James?
IIPaul Krauss: No. No, this is an individual that used to work with Trammel '
Crow's residential group. . .but it's his firm that's behind the large development
that Eden Prairie approved southeast of Dell Road.
1 Councilman Workman: I guess until we're ready to undertake and we can apologize
to the Natoli's and Mr. Simcox. This has been the weirdest issue I've had to
1 deal with.
Florence Natoli: Can I talk a minute?
IIMayor Chmiel: You certainly may. Just state your name and address.
FLorence Natoli: You know. I'm Florence Natoli. Okay. A couple of days ago
I some fellow came to the door and first he called and then he came to see Frank
and I knew it was going to be something stupid again so I went out and did my
chores. When I came in my poor husband was all excited. This fellow, whoever
1 he is, bought the little house in the back. That monstrousity that will
probably never be anything because he was told that he could not make a road out
to number 17 so he wanted to go through our land and make a road alongside us. I
don't know what, 60 feet wide or something and he was going to develop the back
IIand he said, at the time that Donovan was developing. Donovan was going to sell
so that land would be developed. There would be houses all around us so in
other words we'd better just pack our suitcase and get out of there. And so we
1 talked to Marc and he said well I'll talk to James Donovan and Donovan knows
nothing about this at all. So I don't know what the name of the fellow was that
came to see Frank about buying our land or subdividing it or building and then
1 paying us. It was quite a process. So I don't know the information, where this
information is coming from that this is being developed. He wanted to buy our
land and then that would give him a chance to have a road so he could put houses
out in our back acre and his land is right next to ours. He was going to really
1 develop this back there but it was also going to include Donovan. That's the
story in back of it. Thank you.
IIMayor Chmiel: Thank you.
Florence Natoli: I promised I'd never come back here once you got that road
1 closed and here I am again. By the way, the people in the neighborhood love it
closed. We have people walking their dogs and their kids and skateboarding and
bicycling. I mean it's great. No problem at all. Everyone seems to be real
happy with it being closed. It's like a second park. They don't have to go in
1 that other park. So we now know it isn't the Curry Farms people that are asking
for this.
iMayor Chmiel: Thank you. Paul.
Paul Krauss: Mr. Mayor if I could clarify that. ' I think we have two separate
issues here that just happen to be occurring at the same time. We have a
developer who made representations for Mr. Donovan's property who's asking for
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City Council Meeting - February 11, 1991
the feasibility study tonight. If the Council so desires, you may wish to table
action on that and we could see if there's actually a purchase agreement of some
sort that's been worked out and bring that back to you. Then we have a
property, I believe next to near Mrs. Natoli's on the east side that's an old
home that's gone back to HUD I believe and Housing and Urban Development was ,
selling that and we've been contacted by any number of individuals who see a
bargain there and wanted to get access out across another city owned parcel out
to CR 17 which we had indicated that we're not real receptive to. And some
individuals have thought about subdividing it, possibly working out an
arrangement with one of the adjoining property owners to get access out to
Teton. So far people have just talked to us about that and I don't know who is
going around the neighborhood and talking about that but there is no firm
application or request at all on that particular property. But to the best of
my knowledge, that issue or the Donovan parcel issue are completely unrelated.
They just happen to be occurring about the same time. ,
Mayor Chmiel: Okay. I think as far as I'm concerned, this probably should be
tabled until we know that there actually is something happening. I had some
discussions with some people and that's why I brought up the fact as to what I
did. I would like us to then take a look at it because we went through a lot of
painstaking concerns and eliminated a lot of given problems at that particular
time. And until you see a purchase price for that property or a contract for
deed or whatever, I think we should do that.
Councilwoman Dimler: I just have a question of Chuck. I guess I'm not real
clear onto who's going to pay for this study. Why is the City getting involved
at this point?
Charles Folch: Well typically what happens is when you have a developer who's ,
petitioning the City or wants to develop and there's some needed public
improvements to be associated with the project, if they're not within their
property or rights to do the improvements, they can petition the City to do the
improvements and then we require that a feasibility study be done and that they
pay for the cost of the feasibility study.
Councilwoman Dimler: Okay but this without a purchase agreement and everything '
that he's coming in here?
Charles Folch: I guess I was unaware, I didn't really go that far into finding I
out the exact financial situation. The perspective developer met with the City
staff here and their engineer and presented a number of drawings because there
was extensive work on development proposals for the property and it seemed like
in all likelihood that they were probably had good intents of buying the
property or had some sort of tentative purchase agreement because money and
effort was spent on doing design for the project.
Councilwoman Dimler: Okay, thank you.
Councilman Workman: A feasibility study doesn't hurt us or help us I guess.
Maybe it helps us in the long run to figure out what's going to happen. I've
been told so many different things about this 'property. 99 year trust that it
never would be developed and can't be developed and here it is being developed.
I don't know that a feasibility study will hurt us. If a person wants to spend
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City Council Meeting - February 11, 1991
their money, they can spend their money any way they want. Obviously I think
the Council's only real concern is what's going to happen to the barricade and
isn't that what we're all worrying about? I mean this doesn't take down the
barricade but it does put pressure on.
Councilwoman Dimler: Well it interferes with previous agreements perhaps.
Councilman Workman: I would agree. And that's why I think, unless if Donovan
isn't, I guess we don't need the anxiety, both from the neighborhood and not on
ourselves, considering what we've gone through until we've got a solid idea
about what somebody really wants to do here and then I don't know that we'd
want to approve it then but I just, I don't understand the nature of this whole
thing. After all these deals went through and the barricade went up and what it
took to get that done and now in light of that, somebody coming in and wanting
to kind of poke at that. I don't know.
Councilwoman Dimler: My other concern is that if we approve a feasibility study
now before I can see why we need to get involved, is that kind of like saying
1 okay we're going to approve your project? You know it's kind of a lead in and I
don't necessarily agree with that.
a Councilman Mason: I'm kind of curious as to why they would want a feasibility
study even before there was a purchase agreement in the first place. I mean is
this kind of, I don't know. It kind of seems like the backwards way for any
developer to do this.
Councilman Workman: Well why buy the property before you know something can be
done is the object. Let's spend $5,000.00 rather than $100,000.00 to buy the
property.
Mayor Chmiel: It just works vice versa too. Same thing.
Councilman Workman: But I'd rather spend $5,000.00 than $200,000.00 before I
found out if.
' Mayor Chmiel: Would you like to come forth?
Marc Simcox: Marc Simcox. I live on Lilac Lane. I'm not a resident of
Chanhassen but maybe I should be. I don't know. The only thing that I'm
curious about, everyone's confused about what's going on and I did speak to Jim
Donovan Saturday and I don't know. Maybe he has been talking with a developer.
He said I think last year when he sold the small house off, that he went through
some, he had some problems with some other things that he had to take care of
and that he was then not going to sell the other property. There's a couple
things about that property. It's not 10 acres. It's 9 and I think part of it
is wetland but I'm not sure about that. I'm not positive about that. Number 3,
I always understood that when there was a feasibility study, it generally
focused on something and it focused on the feasibility of something. Not just
' to develop the property. Usually there was a fixed plan of some type or another
or an array of plans and it doesn't seem like any of that's been proposed at all
to base a feasibility study on. Maybe I don't understand it but it seems to me
that there should be, everyone would like to find out, I think it sounds like,
11 something a little more concrete but it would seem to me that there should be a
12
City Council Meeting - February 11, 1991
process, or at least there was the last time on the Teton Lane project that
there was a plan and a definite course of action be taken in one or the other.
Several course of action based on the outcome of the feasibility study. So I'm
just curious as to how that works and if there's some clarification on that.
Whether or not it should go through the Planning Commission first or something.
I'm not sure.
Charles Folch: Well basically the main issue revolves in developing this
property, the developer needs access to the site. Whether that comes off ,
of Lilac, whether that comes off of Teton and he needs to know what the cost of
those improvements are going to be because he is certainly one of the larger
shareholders benefitting from any street improvements or utility improvements to
the site. And I guess that was the intent of the feasibility study is to
address the needs of the site as far as access and what sort of upgrades, both
utility and streets would be needed to Teton Lane and a portion of Lilac.
Mayor Chmiel: Right. Paul.
Paul Krauss: Mr. Mayor, I don't know if I can clarify things very much with
this because quite honestly I don't know if there's an existing purchase
agreement. I do know that this is not the first developer to come talk to us
about this property so clearly the property is in play as they say with or
without the owner's knowledge because a lot of people have been calling on it.
Mr. Simcox is correct. It's 9 acres now because Mr. Donovan sold off and
platted off an acre on the corner last fall. There is a small wetland area near
Curry Farms that we've made Mr. Donovan aware of that would be protected. The
plans that we've seen'I think had something on the order of 20 lots laid out
depending on with different configurations. I guess one of the fundamental
questions here is the developer, as is staff, is somewhat at a loss to figure 11 out the best way to proceed with laying out a development for this property.
There's a lot of different options for running roads into there and we're hoping
that some of those issues could be clarified by this study. The study is a no
risk option for the City. You have no commitment to build anything. You're not
going to have to pay for it out of City funds. The developer would fund it and
you're not committed to doing a project that might be suggested from it. Now
we'll try to get to the bottom of this and see what, if any contractual
arrangements the developer has with Mr. Donovan and we'll try to clear that up
for you but Mr. Donovan's property is a developable site and on the assumption
that somebody someday can come up with something that meets the ordinance, we
can expect that it could accommodate single family homes.
Mayor Chmiel: Well I'd like to see some of those things cleared up. I'd just
as soon table it at this particular time until we get that information that
we're looking for as well.
Councilwoman Dimler: See this is again, why does the City have to approve a
feasibility study?
Mayor Chmiel: We don't. '
Councilwoman Dimler: He can go ahead and do it. Why are we getting involved?
13
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City Council Meeting - February 11, 1991
Paul Krauss: This would ultimately be used for public improvements if you would
authorize it. We could have, I mean their engineer has already done some of the
work but as a public project, normally we would want our engineer or somebody
working for us doing the design works so that they're responsible to us and not
to the developer.
Mayor Chmiel: Alright.
Councilwoman Dimler: I move to table.
Mayor Chmiel: Is there a second?
Councilman Mason: Second.
Councilwoman Disler moved, Councilman Mason seconded to table authorizing an
update of a feasibility study for Teton Lane and Lilac Lane for further
clarification. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously.
ADOPT RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING CHANHASSEN TO JOIN AN ENVIRONMENTAL CITIES
COALITION.
' Jo Ann Olsen: This is the Environmental Cities Coalition and there was an
article in the newspaper recently on that and it sparked interest with the
Recycling Commission so we contacted them to get more information and we
' attended one of their meetings in January. It's a group of cities that joined
together for a common cause and each city is going to be pursuing environmental
ordinances that we should work together to have to be consistent and to pull
more power so we are recommending that we adopt a resolution to join the 1
Environmental Cities Coalition. It's real easy going. It's a really nice group
and they have a lot of good stuff going but if we're not interested in one of
the ordinances they're working on, there's no requirement for us to be involved
in that if it's something that we don't agree with.
Mayor Chmiel: Well I, some time ago, Bob Long contacted me and asked me to join
that association and the particular night they had that, I had a conflict and of
course I wasn't able to make it. I think some of the ideas that they have are
fine. Some of them I think they're also out in left field because they've got a
lot of work that has to be done. Not only with the cities themselves but
they're going to have to get back out to the manufacturers who are doing the
packaging to change the whole concept and the whole idea as to the environmental
concerns that we basically have. I didn't agree with some of the positions of
that particular group as I said and I feel that you know, I don't know what the
costs are per se. Are there costs involved in this?
11 Jo Ann Olsen: No costs.
Mayor Chmiel: That's what I understood, there weren't any.
Councilwoman Dimler: Will there ever be?
Jo Ann Olsen: At this time no. That was even a discussion at the last meeting
and they want to keep it where we just meet. What we might do is each city
14
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City Council Meeting - February 11, 1991
I/
might send out the packet. You know make the copies. That's really all the
costs that there are at this time. They are doing extensive research with the
manufacturers. They really are doing a lot of digging. They're not just coming
up with ordinances though.
Councilwoman Dimler: Who's paying for the research? 1
Jo Ann Olsen: So far it's Bob Long is doing a lot of that. It became apparent
that.
I
Mayor Chmiel: The City of St. Paul.
Councilwoman Dimler: So at some point I can see that they'd be asking for 1
money.
Jo Ann Olsen: Yeah, at some point they might be asking. But we can. ,
Councilman Mason: . . .say no..
Jo Ann Olsen: Just say no, yeah. ,
Councilwoman Dimler: Sure.
Councilman Mason: Well I think this is a real neat idea. I think it's a real
good way for the City to get access to some of that research and certainly save
staff some time and maybe save some money in the process too. I see this as a
real easy way to show the State or the Metro area or whatever, that Chanhassen
is just as involved in taking care of the environment as anyone else is and I
think it sounds like, I've been at those Recycling Commission meetings and it
sounds like the work that Jo Ann, has done, it makes it pretty clear that we're'
not tied into anything that we don't want to be tied into by joining this.
Mayor Chmiel: Any other discussion? L
Councilwoman Dimler: I guess I have a small concern about the wording of the
last resolve. Be It Finally Resolved and where it says that although the City
understands that although the decisions of the group are not binding to the
City, the City has a commitment to participate actively in the activities of the
group to the fullest extent possible. I find that's kind of ambiguous. What is
possible? Also to actively participate. You know at some point then if we say
this in the resolution, are we then being forced to make a financial commitment?
Things like that. I would like to have that restated if we do pass this. I'm
open to ideas from our legal counsel here. I
Jo Ann Olsen: We can just take out the whole thing.
Councilwoman Dimler: Leave that final resolve out? Good. '
Roger Knutson: Why not just say, Be It Finally Resolved that the City Council 11 joins this coalition.
Jo Ann Olsen: The respective paragraph that's in there. The second to the last
one. ,
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IICity Council Meeting - February 11, 1991
IIRoger Knutson: Yeah, just drop off that last paragraph.
Councilwoman Rimier: Okay. Is that acceptable to everyone?
11 Councilman Workman: I would say be it resolved that you don't join anything
that doesn't cost you something. This will cost us something.
II Councilwoman Dimler: Well that's what I'm saying. Eventually it will cost us.
It's nice to get the information but it's going to cost us.
II Jo Ann Olsen: We do have a recycling budget too and again that was a concern of
everyone.
Mayor Chmiel: I see it as a whole host of different people that are attending
II from all the different cities and a good number of them are mayors and council
members.
11 Jo Ann Olsen: Almost all of them are.
Mayor Chmiel: And also those that are, I mean they're just from all over the
metro area and there can be more than one representing a city as well.
IIJo Ann Olsen: Mike has shown interest or stated that he'd be if you wanted to
have a Council rep. _
IICouncilwoman Dimler: Yeah, because someone should definitely attend the
meetings. 1
Jo Ann Olsen: I'll be going just as representative of the Recycling Commission
but if a Councilmember wants to come in.
II . Mayor Chmiel: When are the meetings? When are they held Jo Ann?
Jo Ann Olsen: It sounds like it's once a month but when, ' if it's a set day. I
1 think it's.
Mayor Chmiel: He's never gotten back to me to let me know when the second was
going to be.
IJo Ann Olsen: I believe it's next Wednesday or it's next Thursday. The day
after the State of Regional.
1 Mayor Chmiel: Met Council. Okay. Maybe we can discuss this amongst Council
members at some time to see if there's any others that may be interested in
Iattending those meetings.
Jo Ann Olsen: If you have any question about coming and see what it's like.
ICouncilman Mason: Yeah, I would certainly be interested.
Mayor Chmiel: Well it's strictly, that's open for discussion.
II
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City Council Meeting - February 11, 1991
I/
Councilwoman Dimler: I think it's going to cost us money and we haven't
budgeted for it.
Mayor Chmiel: Well, if it costs us money then we don't join but the
environmental concerns. . .and I think some of those are good. Although with the
budgets that we are having problems with and more cutbacks as see coming, there
may be a limitation to the amount of dollars that we're able to spend. I think
I'll leave it open here for any additional discussion. ' I
Councilman Mason: Jo Ann you've mentioned there's still money in the Recycling
Commission budget. Is that right?
Jo Ann Olsen: Right but again there was no talk of any money going into this.
That was one of their, all their main concerns. They're all in the same
position that we are in. It's just to meet and to network. '
Jay Johnson: Except there was one problem. . .I went to the meeting.
Mayor Chmiel: Jay? You're out of order. I
Jo Ann Olsen: There's a concern about it, yeah. And I explained that what we
were going to do is to pass off to each city to make copies and postage so that
it's not all coming out of Bob Long's pocket.
Mayor Chmiel: Jay would you like to be recognized? Come up to the podium. I
Jay Johnson: I was just at another meeting and I wanted to come for this issue
but yeah. Basically, any City's going to be asked at sometime to send out the
agenda and do the copying for that month's meeting and spread it out between all
the cities. I volunteered at this point to maintain the mailing list for them
on my computer and I bought 15,000 or something address labels at a sale the
other day so I have all the labels I need. There's only about 40 members so you
know, 40 letters once a year is not going to be a significant cost factor. It
seems to be a pretty active group. I was kind of impressed with their
objectives. From the Recycling Committee's point of view, we'd like to join it. I
Councilman Wing: I'm going to support any environmental issues we can and I'd
like to move that we join. . . .say no.
Councilwoman Dimler: Is that a possibility? Once you joint to then, if you
find the costs are too high.. .
Jo Ann Olsen: Sure. Make a resolution or...yeah.
Councilwoman Dimler: We'll send a nice letter of resignation. '
Mayor Chmiel: It's only $12.95 a year. Okay. There's a motion on the floor.
Is there a second?
Councilman Mason: I'll second that. ,
Councilwoman Dimler: Can I just clarify? Is that with the understanding that
the final paragraph is not in there?
17 '
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City Council Meeting - February 11, 1991
Mayor Chmiel: Yes.
Resolution $91-14: Councilman Wing moved, Councilman Mason seconded to adopt
the Resolution authorizing Chanhassen to join an Environmental Cities Coalition
with the amendment that the last paragraph be deleted. All voted in favor and
the motion carried unanimously.
COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS:
Mayor Chmiel: Ursula, Southwest Metro.
( Councilwoman Dimler: Okay. We had a meeting on the 7th. You probably read the
nice article in the Villager about this. The RT8 has informed the Southwest
Metro Transit that there have been significant budget reductions proposed for
1991 and they have chosen to make the opt out transit services included in these
cuts. We feel it is somewhat unwarranted in that since the services we have
been provided since it's inception in the early 80's, we have been cost
effective. Also, we are entitled to have 90% of the dollars collected for
transit come back to us and we've only been using about 70%. And they
automatically keep the other 10% to be used in adminstration and other services
of the RIB. On top of that, in our budget negotiations with them this year, we
r' agreed to reduce our budget by $310,000.00 at their request and so we feel we've
already done our part and we are now working on a resolution that will state
these things and that all the three cities, that'd be Chaska, Chanhassen and
11 Eden Prairie to adopt and so I'm going to bring it up at the next meeting
possibly to adopt this resolution and then take it onto the RTB.
Councilman Workman: Here, here.
Mayor Chmiel: Thank you.
Jay Johnson: Mr. Mayor?
Mayor Chmiel: Jay.
Jay Johnson: Shall I update you on the meeting we had today on the same subject
which Ursula wasn't able to make and I was at.
' Councilwoman Dimler: Did you go to the RTB meeting?
Jay Johnson: Yes. I went to the RIB meeting.
Mayor Chmiel: Good. Why don't you just update us rather quickly.
Jay Johnson: Real quickly. . .handout that I gave you as you came in the
building. •
Mayor Chmiel: That's what I was looking at when Ursula was talking.
Jay Johnson: Quickly, we had the administration and finance committee meeting
today. Roger probably submitted a letter to the Attorney for the RTB. Roger
1 probably be the Attorney for the Southwest Metro Transit Commission. The
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City Council Meeting - February 11, 1991
attorney's then for the RIB reviewed their earlier.. .and came out with a
slightly different opinion than they've had before saying that they cannot
arbitrarily or capriciously reduse our funds because they have a budget problem.
They can only tell us if we don't have, if our services are not meeting the
minimal requirements or if we are over the 90% which 2 of the opt out, of the 5
opt out programs or very near the 90%. What I gave you there was a history of
what we've done. To make you real quickly familiar with, on each of your tax
forms there's a transit tax that you get. It's just a couple mils or whatever.
I think it was like $4.00 or $5.00 on mine this year and that goes to their RTB.
All the money from all of our, plus they also get the homestead credits and
physical disparities go to the RTB from our cities that don't otherwise get
collected. We're able to capture up to 90% of that money and use it to provide
transit within the Southwest Metro Area. The first chart there shows the amount
of taxes that have been collected each year since we started in 1987 in the
southwest metro area. The three cities. The $2.1 million that's estimated for
1991 is well under what I believe will be there. The second page is what RTB's
done. Their share of the taxes that we've been getting. As you can see, it's
increased every year from $343,000.00 the first year to what they're asking us
is $1,185,000.00. The next chart is what we've done with the tax monies every
year. What we've done is almost kept it level so as our tax revenue grows,
RTB's been capturing that money. The next one just combines those three. The
next chart shows what we proposed as our budget. What we negotiated and was
approved by the RTB in December and then what they came back in January and says
we, you know we don't want to use what we told you in December. We're not going
to approve that anymore. The next one's just a lot of things together that, the
chart that looks like this is kind of an interesting one that I just came up
with. It's like two later. This takes 1987 as the first year that we were an
organization and shows what the percent increase in taxes and ridership and our
budget use of taxes and RTB's use of our taxes. As you can see there. . .use of
tax dollars, while the total taxes have gone up and the ridership has gone up
even faster than the total taxes and of course conversely RTB's use of the money
has gone up 240%. So beyond this initial argument that we are having with them
right now over their authority to increase it, which right now they're kind of
backing off, in the future we need to look at them and either recapture these
taxes within our area and somehow get it back to our citizens or provide them
more transit . Another thing I was thinking is the amount of time that our staff
spends on transit issues should come out of Southwest Metro's budget. Same
thing for Chaska and Eden Prairie staff. Rather than the City's budget.
Sharmin spends a lot of time working with it. But anyway, I just wanted to give
you a real quick history of what the Southwest Metro Transit is because I was on
the Board for 2 years before I figured it out. Ursula's been on the board about
2 years now so she's probably.
Councilwoman Dimler: One year. I
Jay Johnson: One year. She's probably getting up to speed. i
Councilwoman Dimler: I know what's going on.
Jay Johnson: Yeah. I thought we were close to the 90% level that we're, which ,
is the maximum. We're really right at the 50% level which is real interesting.
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11 City Council Meeting - February 11, 1991
Councilwoman Dimler: That's great. Did you say that the RTB now has backed off
11 and the resolution is no longer necessary? Is Roger Pauly working on a
resolution?
Jay Johnson: Well, we're going to have, they're going to have another meeting
of the administration and finance committee later this week. They're going
back. Staff is going back and they're going to redo with the new attorney's
I position that they can't just, because I have a problem with my other revenues,
I can take revenues from this pile. They said they can't do it just
arbitrarily. They have to have some reason to do it. So they're going to go
back and look and what I suspect is going to come out of this is that they're
going to say we can't do our Saturday dial-a-ride anymore because they're going
to say it's not meeting the standards. Well, in truth it is. They only have
the first 2 months data. But when you get December's and January's data in, it
will meet their minimum subsidy standards and they're going to try to limit our
in commute. I suspect those two, they're going to try to a line item. So I
think there's a lot of things to do. Minnesota Valley Transit Authority's the
one that has the most problems. I say that for Roger's benefit since he's their
attorney. They were announced to be the one that may be over their 90%c limit
so.
Roger Knutson: What?
•
Jay Johnson: Well they said attorney fees, they were going to cut back on that
' one and that should bring it down to about 5O% limit you know.
Councilwoman Dimler: One of the other things we called for at the meeting on
the 7th was to have an audit of the RTB administration which has, they indicated
hadn't been done in 12 years and I thought maybe an audit there would help them .,
find some areas to cut.
Mayor Chmiel: Good.
Jay Johnson: Yeah, they froze their budgets and cut ours.
IMayor Chmiel: That always happens.
ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS:
SET WORKSHOP DATE, 1991 GOALS. CITY MANAGER. '
Mayor Chmiel: Todd, I understand we are setting our date for March the 9th?
Todd Gerhardt: Well we've given two dates. You have February 23rd or March
3rd.
Mayor Chmiel: Neither of those. Yeah, it's scheduled for March 9th because
there were a couple that couldn't make either or so we moved it to the 9th of
March.
Councilman Mason: When I talked with Don, he told me the 23rd or the 2nd.
1
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City Council Meeting - February 11, 1991
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Mayor Chmiel: Yeah. And there are going to be 2 people gone and I understood
that everybody could be there for the 9th. I
Councilman Mason: Nobody asked me about the 9th Don.
Mayor Chmiel: Well then you're going to have to talk with Ashworth. How does I
the 9th look?
Councilman Mason: Real questionable. I
Mayor Chmiel: I'm available for any of those dates so it doesn't matter.
Councilman Mason: Yeah, that's too bad because I had mentioned to him that at I
first I thought it was the 9th he was talking about and I said I couldn't do it
• on the 9th. I
Councilman Workman: 23rd's out for me.
Mayor Chmiel: And there was someone else too. ,
Councilman Wing: 23rd's out for me.
Councilman Workman: I think we should plan our goals in 1991 sometime in 1991. ,
Councilwoman Dirrtiler: That would be good.
Mayor Chmiel: We're getting to the third month.
Todd Gerhardt: March 3rd didn't work?
Councilman Mason: I think it was the 2nd if I'm not mistaken.
Mayor Chmiel: Yeah, it is the 2nd.
Councilman Workman: I can make the 2nd.
Councilwoman Dimler: March 2nd looks okay.
Mayor Chmiel: Are you alright for the 2nd? 1
Councilman Mason: The 2nd's fine with me.
Mayor Chmiel: Maybe it was Don. He said there were two for both. Okay, let's r
tentatively set it for the 2nd.
Todd Gerhardt: We'll go with the 2nd and if there's a problem with Don, I'll I
talk to him about it. ..put it back on the next agenda.
Mayor Chmiel: Alright. I
Todd Gerhardt: I didn't talk to Don about the confirmation of the fire station.
They usually don't have anything planned at the fire station on the weekends.
I'll double check with Dale.
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City Council Meeting - February 11, 1991
I/
Councilman Wing: I'm not aware of anything scheduled.
rTodd Gerhardt: You're not aware of anything Dick? Okay.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay, starting at what time? 8:00 a.m.?
Todd Gerhardt: Yes. 8:00 a.m. . What staff usually does at some of these
things. We'd have an assortment of rolls, muffins, orange juice and soda and
coffee and then we would call out for pizza during the lunch hour and then
people could go down and play racquetball or go for a walk or do something.
Socialize and then start up again at 1:30.
Mayor Chmiel: Hopefully everyone got a copy of the agenda that's being
proposed.
Councilman Workman: Racquetball Todd?
Jay Johnson: Wallyball. Staff versus Council.
Councilwoman Dimler: Great.
Mayor Chmiel: Okay, March 2.
Todd Gerhardt: If you did take a look at that agenda, if there's something
there that you wanted to change or to add.
rCouncilman Wing: What's the estimate on this Mayor's pep talk? Approximately
how long would you say that would last?
rMayor Chmiel: Just the morning.
Councilman Wing: Could we possibly start at 8:10?
Mayor Chmiel: We could.
Councilman Wing: Don, I'd like to talk to you about this in a little more
depth. One of the neighboring cities just did their goals and they had a
facilitator come in from GTS and they said it was phenomenal. It just
completely changed the whole complexity of this thing and he was able to get
things going at an aggressive pace and they said it was one of the, the quote
was a wonderful experience. It was Lucille Crow. I don't know if you'd want to
talk to her but I had some comments from her to using this facilitator from GTS.
rMayor Chmiel: I already set it up as to what we're going to do for this one at
least but I think that's something to.
Councilman Workman: When he used the word facilitator, I think in the past we
maybe needed a facilitator. I don't know that we need a facilitator this time.
I don't feel some of the hostilities that a certain Council member who left the
State. I think we're a peace loving Council. I think we're going to have more
people talking than we can get a word in edgewise' quite frankly but I don't
know. I think it's a good idea and we talked about doing that at one point.
r
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City Council Meeting - February 11, 1991
I/
UPDATE REGARDING MOON VALLEY LITIGATION. CITY ATTORNEY.
Roger Knutson: I'll be very brief. Just a little background for the new
Council members. Last spring the City passed a comprehensive ordinance
regulating mining activities in the city. That's principly gravel mining,
mining of top soil, clay and things like this. We required, or the ordinance
requires all existing uses to come in and obtain a permit within 6 months after
the adoption of the ordinance. That's to give people time to come into
compliance. Moon Valley rather than apply for a permit chose to sue the City
claiming our ordinance was unconstitutional. That lawsuit was filed last fall.
I don't remember when. Late last fall. They had until the end of November
roughly to come in and apply. Subsequent to the filing of the lawsuit there's
been a bit of discovery. Some interrogatories have been answered. Some
documents have been produced. We're not filing a counter claim or requesting
information from the Court to file a counter claim that basically says if you
don't get the permit, if you don't come into compliance with the ordinance,
you've got to close down. It's not been the express intent of the City to close
them down but to get compliance but this is a procedural aspect we have to go
through. We anticipate filing a motion for summary judgment which is basically
we don't think a trial is necessary. We don't believe there are any material
factual disputes. We anticipate filing that within about the next 45 days.
Hopefully we'll get this matter resolved fairly quickly. 1
EASTERN CARVER COUNTY TRANSPORTATION STUDY, PLANNING DIRECTOR.
Paul Krauss: I think you're all aware that we've been talking about this '
Eastern Carver County Transportation Study for quite a while. In fact, you sort
of approved it with your comprehensive plan because it's in there. But we never
had an opportunity to go into it in depth. What we had intended to do was to
have Roger Gustafson, the Carver County Engineer come and speak to you with
Larry Dahlem who was the consultant from HNTB who did this study. Basically
give you an overview of what's in there tailoring it to Chanhassen in particular
and what the implications are and where think you should go from there. There
was a mass meeting that was scheduled in December. Unfortunately it occurred on
a night that we had a Council meeting and we couldn't go. What I'd like to do
is have those individuals come in and give about a half hour presentation to you
individually so that you can hear it directly and have any questions answered.
I think it would also be useful too if we extended the invitation to the HRA and
the Planning Commission because they've both been working with transportation
issues. I guess all I'm looking for is some guidance from you as to when you'd
like me to set that up. I think it's something that we can put on a Council
agenda, assuming it's not a real heavy agenda. I
Mayor Chmiel: Right. Let's do that.
Councilwoman Dimler: Tonight would be fine.
Paul Krauss: Yes it would have been a good one.
Mayor Chmiel: Can you get Roger here.
f ,
Paul Krauss: Well I think if we, I spoke to Larry Dahlem and I told him about
either in the next two Council dates and he seemed to be available for either
23 I
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City Council Meeting - February 11, 1991
one. I've got to speak to Roger but I'm sure he would be as well. Would you
just want to leave it up to me then? I can see which agenda.
Mayor Chmiel: Yeah, why don't you set that up.
Paul Krauss: I'll do that.
UPDATE OF BUSINESS FRINGE ZONING DISTRICT, PLANNING DIRECTOR.
Paul Krauss: First thing is there's a typo. We actually mean the Business
Fringe District. The Business Fringe area is a portion of the City that's been
given a lot of consideration by the Planning Commission and I believe we've
discussed it with you on occasion. It's the area along 169/212 and the issue is
focused primarily on environmental aspects. Trying to preserve the bluff line.
The commercial area there is viewed as generally being of somewhat low quality
and not representative of what we've grown to expect in Chanhassen. Of course
Highway 212 is going to be relocated out of there so there will be a change in
traffic pattern. There's a lot of issues associated with that area that we'll
be getting into. The Planning Commission's going to have that on their goals of
looking at ways to clean up that area and will of course be working with the
property owners down there when that happens. We wouldn't do anything without
involving them. The reason this is on the agenda though is, the Comprehensive
' Plan shows all the land located south of the highway as ultimately being
incorporated in the National wildlife Refuge. Now that includes the junkyard
that 's down there. It would include the Super America station and I forget the
name of the motel.
Councilman Workman: Motel.
Paul Krauss: And most of those uses are non-conforming. Some of those uses
aren't even in the BF district. They're just there and have been there for e or a
long time. Anyway, I finally got an opportunity to contact Tom Larson who was
11 the director of the Wildlife Refuge and he told me that those properties were
initially excluded from their property boundary for the ultimate boundary of the
park. The reason is they saw that it had existing uses in it and didn't feel it
was worthwhile to expend funds to acquire the property and clean it up. I told
them though that the City has expressed some interest in seeing that, and in
cleaning up the area and that we have some interest in seeing the refuge
11 developed so that it's also an asset for our citizens with trail corridors and
whatever else and he seemed quite receptive to the idea. In fact he was I think
somewhat excited to the fact that we were the first community that actually ever
came to him and talked about actively working with him to get the park to expand
in the community. He was very willing to, he asked to get a request that goes
through U.S. Congress ultimately to amend park boundaries and he Was going to be
filing a request in March. March 1st, early March and he was willing to
incorporate those properties south of the highway in his proposal. Now what
that would mean, this is a long term goal. It doesn't mean they're going to
have the dollars tomorrow to acquire it. They would have some more
environmentally sensitive areas that they'd want to acquire first but we set
this out as a long term strategy and I think it would be consistent with the
Comprehensive Plan and although we haven't had a chance to refine the policies
down there yet, I think it's consistent with the intent of what the Planning
Commission's laid out to pursue having that incorporated into the boundary.
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City Council Meeting - February 11, 1991
That doesn't take anybody's property. The Fed's would have to buy it the same
as we would and negotiate a deal. But as I said, Tom is willing to do that. In
fact Tom, Mr. Mayor, Tom Larson I believe is going to speak to the Rotary either
this Wednesday or next. In any case, I brought this up at the Planning
Commission. The Planning Commission indicated that they were very receptive to
amending those boundaries to incorporate those properties. I wanted to run that
idea past you and if you agree, I'll send a letter to Tom Larson indicating that
there is a desire to see that incorporated. He said he would do it without an
official letter, but it would help to make his case a little bit.
Mayor Chmiel: I think that would be a good idea for us to do that. That would
be an excellent area to preserve for years to come and really environmentally
would be the way to go.
Councilman Workman: In addition to that, did we ever protect that spring fed
trout stream down there?
Paul Krauss: Well, it's protected by the DNR. It's kind of a curious thing
about that Councilman Workman. The river, the wildlife refuge goes all the way
to LeSeuer I think but they have different management districts and actually the
Minnesota DNR is responsible for the area located upstream of the Shakopee
Bridge. So I've also been in contact with the DNR on this as well. All that
property is owned by a consortion of attorneys that own the seminary. They own
the creek. T here's also a rare fen which is a type of a wetland located north
of the creek on that property and we've talked to them about protecting that as
well. To the best of _my knowledge, the building itself and 20 some odd acres
around it have been purchased by Lee Golickey who we've been talking to about
rennovating the seminary. The rest of that property has, not. We don't have the
ability right now to require that we get protective easements over that but
everybody understands that it's the goal to protect it and it is, and the DNR
does protect it and we're going to be working with them as the properties
develop to make sure that that happens.
Councilman Workman: You know there used to be a golf course back there. At
least 9 holes. i
Paul Krauss: Up in the cornfield area?
Councilman Workman: Back behind the seminary somewhere. That's where our golf 1
course will go.
Councilman Mason: Is that a plug Tom? I
Councilman Wing: Who's in charge of that building security down there?
Paul Krauss: That's been a long standing issue Councilman Wing. The City i
initially some 3 years ago tried to have the building condemned and since then
the property owners have boarded it up with varying degrees of success. Mr.
Golickey has boarded up the property. Been working with our public safety
department. He's also gone in and actually spent some money in terms of
reroofing some of the buildings to make sure they don't deteriorate any further.
I'm trying to get in contact with him directly. I had hoped he'd have a PUD
application in to the City by now for the property and he hasn't so I want to
25 ,
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City Council Meeting - February 11, 1991
find out if he's still intending to pursue the project. But last I heard and
last I was down there, there were security measures up and he did have somebody
I believe living in one of the houses there as a watchman.
' Councilman Wing: I guess in my last visit by there, there had been an issue
that there were kids in there and a transient in there and there was a concern
of a major fire starting sometime but as I went by I noticed the security's back
' down. The boards are off the windows and there's ground level access to the
building again.
Paul Krauss: I'll check on that.
Mayor Chmiel: You're right. I went past it last Tuesday and same thing.
1 Councilman Wing: Scott's been real good about that and if he's made aware of
it, I'm sure he'll react.
' Mayor Chmiel: Okay, any further discussion?
Councilman Workman moved, Councilwoman (limier seconded to adjourn the meeting.
All voted in favor and the motion carried. The meeting was adjourned at 8:48
p.m..
Submitted by Don Ashworth
City Manager
Prepared by Nann Opheim
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CHANHASSEN PLANNING COMMISSION LI = T s n
Lal
REGULAR MEETING i
FEBRUARY 6, 1991
Chairman Emmings called the meeting to order at 7:40 p.m. .
MEMBERS PRESENT: Ladd Conrad, Annette Ellson, Steve Emmings, Joan Ahrens ,
Brian Batzli , Jeff Farmakes and Tim Erhart
STAFF PRESENT: Paul Krauss, Planning Director ; Jo Ann Olsen , Senior
Planner ; and Charles Folch , Asst . City Engineer
' PUBLIC HEARING:
PRELIMINARY PLAT TO SUBDIVIDE TWO PARCELS INTO ONE LOT AND TWO OUTLOTS ON
' PROPERTY ZONED BH, HIGHWAY BUSINESS DISTRICT AND LOCATED NORTH OF HWY 5
JUST EAST OF GREAT PLAINS BLVD. ON WEST 79TH STREET, GATEWAY FIRST
ADDITION, LOTUS REALTY SERVICES;
and
CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF A 1 ,238-SQUARE FOOT BUILDING
TO BE LOCATED ON LOT 1 , BLOCK 1 , GATEWAY FIRST ADDITION ON PROPERTY ZONED
BH AND LOCATED ON WEST 79TH STREET, VALVOLINE INSTANT OIL CHANGE.
Public Present:
Name Address
Scott & Teresa Dever 7220 Frontier Trail
Brad Johnson 7425 Frontier Trail
Robert Mikulak 3041 So 4th Avenue , Minneapolis
Lyndy Nordeen 3041 So 4th Avenue , Minneapolis
' Jo Ann Olsen presented the staff report on these items. Chairman Emmings
called the public hearing to order .
Brad Johnson: -Mr . Chairman and members of the Planning Commission , I 'm
Brad Johnson . I live at 7425 Frontier Trail . I 'd like to address the
platting issues and then Robert Mikulak and Lyndon Nordeen are with
Valvoline and they 'll address the site plan issues themselves and review
I what they 're planning on doing. A little background on this particular
site . We 've been involved in it now and as you will recall , originally
proposed a Hardee 's , a restaurant there , and have decided that it is just
II very difficult to package it because having to deal with both Brown , the
Standard Oil station and Hanus . You get too many playerd. going too many
different directions so , we are concerned long term because we also
represent the people that own the Hanus building. That ultimately this
piece of land be developed and be upgraded . To do that we first of all
have to have a tenant for the Kurver 's parcel which is the one we 're trying
to subdivide so we can generate some increment. So what we 're trying to do
I is work with the City to solve some problems that we perceive that exist
there and the City 's addressing some of the problems they also feel that
exist there . One of the problems long term was that the Brown 's Car Wash
is on a 10 ,000 square foot lot'' which does not conform to any lot size in
that particular district currently. So he has agreed to purchase 10 ,000
I
Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 2
square feet from this lot which we would then attach to his lot and at that
point he would have a full size lot so that I believe Paul in the future if
there was a building permit issued or rebuilding , it would be a buildable
lot . Currently it 'd be very difficult _to modify the building or pull a
permit because it 's a conditional use on a non-conforming lot so long term
' I think that solves that corner so the corner will now have a full size
lot .
Emmings: Excuse me . What 's the status of that sale? Is there a purchase
' agreement signed?
Brad Johnson: Yes .
' Emmings: Oh , okay .
' Brad Johnson: We can meet the conditions , most of the conditions that Paul
is requiring here . I just did not want to have everybody involved in the
platting process because not so much , because you 've got to get them to
agree on everything , and especially Minister 's Life which is in fee over on
the Hanus site . So I think we 've solved that problem there . We 're going
to , I believe Paul is requiring or the City is requesting a turn lane there
in case we have some stacking problems on the north side . We 'll also be
landscaping along the tracks where the cars are currently parked so that
would improve the look of that . What we 're going to do is , Valvoline is
not requesting any increment at all for their particular project or any
assistance from the City so we 'll use the increment and just apply that
' toward the initial upgrading of the street and site improvement . The 6 ,000
square , approximately 6 ,000 square foot lot on the east side , the reason
we 're also involved in this and the Hanus building is that there really
isn 't sufficient parking . There 's sufficient parking for the building on
the Hanus site but much of it 's to the rear and our plan is to initially
now , with a new tenant moving in , upgrade , continue to upgrade that
building to a more retail type facility and in order for them to handle the
parking that will probably be required , we need some more parking out front
so by adding that 6 ,000 square feet we 'll be able to add some parking in
there and actually have 3 rows of parking and we 'll be coming back to
change that in the near future . As far as the conditions are concerned
that they are requesting , there 's some coordination problems of getting tax
parcels and legal descriptions to match and we 're working with the City
' Attorney trying to accomplish that because it is our intent to add the two
parcels together and make them one tax parcel each . I think number one , we
don 't have any problem with . Number two we don 't . I only have , in this
' particular project , we 're only involved with the increment that Valvoline 's
increment . We obviously can 't pledge increment from a Brown site or an
Amoco site or something like to this particular project . We do have excess
increment currently over on the Hanus building . Everything that 's been
built in that area has been built after the date of the establishment of
the district so we have some increment that we can apply and in working
with the HRA , I think we can take care of the cost of the necessary
improvements that way . I 'm not sure on number 5 . We have a purchase
agreement with the City on the purchase of the lots behind the Hanus
building . We are doing everything within our efforts to close that .
Obviously it 's up to the City to ultimately accept it so if they never
accept the back two lots , we would certainly like still to be able to go
forward with the platting of this so we 're doing everything we can do . I
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Planning Commission Meeting i
February 6 , 1991 - Page 3
think that issue should be worked out between now and the Council meeting
with the HRA and we should have established the date of closing but that
condition could potentially , the owner on the development of this lot if in '
fact for some reason we can 't close with the City which simply means that
we could not meet their requirements so I 'd like to have that deleted .
However , we would agree to the upgrading of 79th . We own that parcel but
all three parcels have to be sold together . You can 't just pass the ,
because of the current ownership , pass just the 79th parcel or parcel 1 on
your map over to the City . So that could cause a long term problem .
Currently it would not cause a problem . I think that 's why Paul put it in II
there because it 's perceived that we will close on this but I think it 's
unfair for Valvoline to be held up because of some reason that he can 't ,
title problem or something that we can 't close on the back property . And II
then we will be presenting a proposal to the HRA to go over this at their
21st meeting to discuss the assistance that would be necessary and this
assistance that we 're looking for Paul is in the standard type of II assistance that are used within the City for this type of effort . With 3
year program and it 's pretty much of a standard thing so I don 't think
we 'll have any problems there . So that 's where we stand on the plat and
the reasoning behind it . Any questions for me?
Emmings: Yeah . Also on the other outlot , is there a purchase agreement
with the owners of the Hanus property to purchase that?
Brad Johnson: At the present time the owners , the ownership of the Hanus
may transfer at the time , we have a purchase agreement to buy the Hanus
building with Minister 's Life and we 're in final negotiations on our
mortgage . And so if that actually happens , we ' ll own it and then we ' ll
affect a transfer . If that does not happen , then Minister 's has agreed to
purchase it . But it 's just kind of up in the air and in a week or two
we ' ll know exactly the status of that . As part of all that process , we
will be changing the look of the Hanus building during the summer of this
year . Our first step is to remove the trucks . A good 3/4 of the fleet
will be leaving here in the next 3 or 4 weeks .
Conrad: Who owns the property right now Brad?
Brad Johnson: Lotus owns Parcel 1 , 3 and 4 . Minister 's Life owns the
Hanus building and Lotus owns the Kurver 's property . And Lotus being not
just me but we have investors that are involved in that . This is , I think II
I 've explained this a couple times in past meetings . This is about the
last time where somebody has control of the whole thing . We have it under
control so a lot of the things that Paul 's requesting on platting and
things could be a real pain if we didn 't own it all and could facilitate
this . So we have the opportunity at this time to do that and we 're more
than willing to do it to accomplish all these things because I think it 's
for the betterment of that site and also for the betterment of the Hanus
building even if at certain times it does not look that way . We 're trying II
to get it there . Any other questions?
Emmings: No . Is someone? 1
Brad Johnson: Yeah , Bob would you like to? This is Bob Mikulak and he 's
with the development department of Valvoline .
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Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 4
Bob Mikulak: Good evening . I 'm representing Valvoline as project manager
for the project , as I have on several around the country . This is Lyndy
' Nordeen who is an area manager and he will control the operations of the
store once it is open so if you have any questions for him , we can also get
those answered for you . Knowing that the quick lube business is new to
Chanhassen , there have been a couple of issues I guess I 'd like to address
first that have been brought up to me at various meetings . I guess number
one is dealing with waste oil . If you want , you can pass these here . It
seemed to be a large concern as to how the waste oil was handled at our
' facilities . What I 've done is prepared a very brief little paragraph here
at the beginning to describe it , followed up with some backup data there
and I 'll just verbally go through it . Basically a car pulls in . The oil
is taken from the vehicle through a closed pipe system which then drains
down into a holding tank in the lower level . That is vented to the
exterior through the roof and basically removed on a regular basis .
Regular basis meaning , depending upon the volume of the store and how the
store manager operates it , will be called periodically . He checks it
daily . Behind that is some backup material about the tank itself . The
tank is UL listed . Pressure tested . There is some MSDF sheets there which
are available in our stores and are the procedures that the employees have
to follow in case of any type of problem with the waste oil and finally the
site , as all our sites are , is part of the used oil bank which was a
' question at preliminary basis also so there is the collection of waste oil
at that facility . It does have a few regulations via the person bringing
in has quantity limits and the signing and basically putting their life on
the line as far as what they are bringing in on that data and that records
' are kept for both our company and for the State . Do you have any questions
on that in particular? I would like to move on then a little bit to the
building and as a preliminary to actually presenting our site and so forth .
A few folks as I understand have seen some of the buildings or possibly
looked at some of our facilities around the cities . Over the past about 2
years , actually it was about a year and a half ago that I remodeled all of
our 22 locations that we had at that point in time within the confines of
the metro area . In reviewing some of those buildings , I guess I have a
picture here which I 'll show you . Illustrates several of the sites that
were remodeled . Now they all resemble our prototype which is being built
on a nation wide basis also here now of every new building we establish but
we did acquire what would be called Rapid Oil here locally and it had
several different building configurations and locations which we did go
through and try to upgrade and bring into uniformity . If you 've per chance
seen one of those sites , it 's not a true replica of what our building is
today and I guess I want to show you a couple of pictures of what that
actually is and go into that . There are three pictures up across the top
which is a location at 37th Avenue in St . Anthony Village which is kind of
a north suburb . There are four pictures below that which are larger . One
being a shot of an interior and the other 3 being the exterior on a site we
built in Golden Valley almost a year ago . That gives you a little bit of
a , in picture format , what our new buildings do look like I guess better
than me trying to explain what they look like . I will also give and pass
you a sample of our exterior material that 's used on the building . Do you
have any questions on those buildings that are up there?
Ellson : Could you pass it around?
Bob Mikulak: Sure . I 'm sorry . I thought the camera did it .
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Planning Commission Meeting I
February 6 , 1991 - Page 5
Ellson: Yeah , even on the camera it 's not the greatest .
s g
Bob Mikulak: What we have up here is the current site plan . There are a II few things that were addressed in the site plan review that are listed on
that new drawing that I just handed Paul and Jo Ann and is also shown on
this . I guess I 'll just run through the staff recommendations here . Cover "
them as we go . Number 1 was the relocation of the trash receptacle and
enclosure that meets the required setback and that was accomplished on the
plan . We 've basically moved it in about 7 feet so it came within the
setback . On the copy there Paul and Jo Ann it 's listed and I have some
other ones if you want . Number 2 , I guess I would like to pass over and
come back to at the end . Number 3 is all deciduous trees and again we
noted what we could on the plan . That 's all been taken care of . Number 4 , '
in regards to the signage on the site , totally agree . We had an initial
meeting with the staff quite some time ago which Brad was part of and we
did discuss a majority of the items and agree with all that . Number 5 II talks of rooftop equipment . We have no rooftop equipment other than a PRV
which is a ventilation fan for the lower level and really I guess there 's
nothing to be screened on the roof . Number 6 , in regards to the contours .
Extending out 100 feet off of the site , that has been accomplished on that
set of plans also . Number 7 is in regards to some calculations in regards
to the storm sewer and what is actually happening on that site with it .
I do have the calculations that BRW went through on a preliminary basis for "
that project . What they have calculated -is a system which will handle 4 .2
cubic feet per second which is a flow rate . We have broken that down
further to our actual parcel and what our contribution to that could -be . II That is a number at 2 .2 cubic feet per second . Calculations by our staff
or our engineers with the impervious area using the MnDot 10 year comes up
with a 1 .8 so we are under the 2 .2 that the system can handle at this
point . I guess there 's still some issues whereas the street and how it 's II
all going to be upgraded but on a , I guess day to day basis , we 're keeping
informed of what 's happening . Currently we do meet all that . Actually
under it . There 's one other issue and that was the Highway Department
right-of-way and basically the drainage ditch along that TH 5 . We have
spoke to the Highway Department . When they calculated that ditch , they
basically calculated it as runoff from the entire area in that spot . Right 11
now we are currently having .2 cubic feet per second flow to the ditch
which makes them more than happy . As this all develops and the actual
storm sewer system is drawn up and what we 're going to do , we have a
location of where we 'd like our catch basin per everybody 's recommendation . I
It is shown on the plan but we do not have the connections because we
basically don 't know what and where it 's going to go in the street yet or
along the street . As soon as that happens , we will certainly tie into it '
and provide that . That goes along with number 8 basically . Number 9 is
the concrete apron issue and that 's totally fine and I guess we usually get
a copy and put it in as required . If I were to now , if I could jump back
to item 2 . We did also include I believe in the packet of information that II
you got , a brief synopsis of our ideas on the traffic pattern , traffic
flow . We do develop , have developed like 300 sites around the country . I
do have some other site plans which I can show you locally . I can show you
Golden Valley . I can show you Silver Lake Road . I can show you one is in
Burnsville which are new buildings , new developments . Typically we can 't
get anybody , we 'd sure like it if we could get people to wait in line
longer than a half hour but I guess if you- pulled up yourself and were
there for a quick oil change , be it a lot of people come on their lunch
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11 Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 6
hour , merely has to get done quickly or you leave and come back at a time
when there are not so many cars there . Or maybe none . If we take a look
at our particular site plan , we can in fact have about 12 cars backed up
before it gets onto the street . I don 't know of any way we 'd get 12 people
to wait in line . If we could , we 'd be happy . I won 't say it 's never a
possibility because I can 't guarantee something I can 't guarantee . But
I know that on our busiest weekends , which would be the Thanksgiving
holiday season , right in that area , I 'm sure Lyndy can speak to it . He
operates several stores . That 's the time when we are backed up most . We
have several sites around the city , 41 actually and I can go and he can
take and address the issue of do we ever have cars backing up out of the
properties onto the streets and I to this point have never had that occur .
I 've never been informed of it . You can ask him directly . We have sites
which are a lot smaller than this . One in particular that was brought up
to me is Apple Valley . It 's on a corner . It 's very tight . There 's not a
lot of room on it and yes , we do develop tight sites sometimes which you
' know we don 't have the pleasure of having all the room we want . This
particular site gives us more room than we need . A couple of things in
relationship to that traffic flow . First presented to the City , we had two
' curb cuts shown on it which allowed just basically U type pattern in and
out of the site . There was another curb cut on the other side of the
property . We chose to move the one per our meeting that we had . Based
upon that meeting , I went back operationally . It 's been set up to operate
' this way . We have put everything into organizing it and going with this
game plan . One of the main reasons that we don 't wish to change the
traffic flow is because if we did , we 'd have cars stacked coming in from
1 the other side which is then visible from TH 5 . We personally , as a
company , don 't want the cars stacked coming in from that direction because
it just doesn 't look good on our site first of all . It 's a hinderence to
business and flat out just doesn 't look good . If we can at any point in
time , we 'd do what we 've done here and basically try to hide the cars from
visibility . In this case I guess we feel it works much better on the other
side . If you have some questions in specific regarding that , I 'll
certainly field them for you .
Emmings: Is there anything about the operation of the station that makes
it necessary that they come in from one side over the other or isn 't that a
problem?
' Bob Mikulak : Operationally , no . We do flip flop the building . This
partiuclar building has been designed and set up and is under construction
if you want to call it that , via plans that has it laid out this way . To
take this building and this particular site and just to flip the building
' is not just flipping the building . There are many components of that
building inside which then get reversed . Again , a lot of people just think
it 's a couple holes in the floor and that 's all there is to it but it 's
not . It 's basically a bunch of different construction as far as steel . . .
with openings for the building itself . For the lobby configuration . The
lobby configuration is always in one position versus exiting the building
so there are a lot of little , I guess characteristics which make it quite a
change . I kind of went through I guess their items on there . Covered
their buildings in general as far as their appearance goes . I do have some
pictures which don 't really represent the building other than in an
artistic rendering . If you 'd like to see the colors a little bit better
than in those photographs , this gives you some color in the building . If
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Planning Commission Meeting I
February 6 , 1991 - Page 7
IIthere are any particular questions on the operation , I 'm sure Lyndy would
be happy to answer it . We feel very good being able to have the
opportunity to develop in Chanhassen . Very much community and would like 11
to be out here . Obviously we are not anywhere near this area . It 's
growing and we 'd like to join you . If you have any questions , I 'll be
' happy to answer them .
Ellson: I 've got a question . II
Emmings: Go ahead . I
Ellson: I 'm not sure if you 're aware that we 're going to get an omissions
testing station or plans to have one . I don 't know if it 's totally been II approved or not . I wondered if some of the services you provide would
coincide with some of the problems they 'd find or is it basically your 10
step thing and in and out?
Bob Mikulak: We don 't get into any of the other stuff and Lyndy can II
address the operations , strictly Quick Lube .
Lyndy Nordeen: I 'm not even sure exactly what the omission test is going 11
to be doing other than they check your exhaust . We do change air filters .
PVC breathers . PVC valves which does affect that . To what extent , we II don 't know . It 's something that Valvoline has been looking into and we
don 't know if we 're going to be maybe getting . . .
Ellson : That 'd be an ideal location . You 'd be right across the highway and ll
you could get everybody whipping in there saying , go across the highway and
get it fixed up there . I just thought that was an opportunity but okay . I
guess we haven 't really , they 're instituted in the whole state so we 're not !'
quite sure what they 're going to be required of any of us . I had another
question . Hours of operation .
Lyndy Nordeen: 8:00 to 8:00 , Monday thru Friday . 8:00 to 5 :00 on
Saturdays . Some of our locations are open on Sunday , 11 : 00 to 5: 00 . We
will not be open in Chanhassen on Sunday yet . It depends on , quite a few
of our successful stores on Sundays are near big shopping centers and as 11 Chanhassen grows , quite possibly we could be open on Sunday .
Ellson: You and about half the population . Bob you were saying that lunch II is one of the most busiest times . Is that true for this location? Do you
feel that the lunch hour is going to be like the busiest or is it , I 'm just
curious as to when the busy peak time .
Lyndy Nordeen: Typically noon hour is good . It depends on the location . II
Some stores are very busy in the evening .
Ellson: Do you have an idea what you think this might be based on it 's II
location and that?
Lyndy Nordeen: I 'm hoping so . The Shorewood store is pretty much , TM 5
II
and TH 7 are fairly parallel . The Shorewood store is very busy in the
evening . I 've read over a few of the items on here . The traffic flow
I understand is a concern and I oversee the busiest area in the Twin Cities
and we were real fortunate to get some real cold weather . We love it when
II
Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 8
it goes to 20 below and holiday season . And it 's very rare that a store
this size would have more than 4 to 5 cars waiting . Even when we 're that
' busy . The concern with Valvoline and us is people keep on going when they
see people waiting . After they 're accustomed to our business , they ' ll come
back later and we lose cars even if we have 2 in and no waiting . I think
' Bob addressed that somewhat already .
Bob Mikulak: We do obviously try to tailor to the consumer . That 's who
we 're trying to please and gain business from . Our business was born based
on that .
Emmings: You don 't have any outdoor storage of anything do you?
Bob Mikulak : We have a trash enclosure which is obviously outside . It
will be enclosed and covered . There 's nothing that 's stored outside .
Emmings : So if there were a condition on here that there would not be any
outdoor storage of anything , that would not hamper your operation in any
way? Did you have anything else you 'd like to present?
Bob Mikulak : No . Thank you much .
Emmings : Thank you . Is there anyone else here who 'd like to say anything
as part of the public hearing?
Batzli moved, Erhart seconded to close the public hearing . All voted in
' favor and the motion carried. The public hearing was closed.
Emmings : Questions and comments from the Commission . Tim?
Erhart : I didn 't have anything and I missed part of Brad 's presentation . . .
to staff 's statements . Regarding the site plan however , I guess the
assumption is the rotation of the traffic is because that 's the widest part
of the lot is on the east side right? Is that why?
Bob Mikulak : You 're asking me?
Erhart : Yeah . The rotation of the traffic . I mean it seems a little
funny that you 'd have cross traffic entering the driveway .
' Bob Mikulak : We have that at a number of sites .
Erhart: Yeah I know . Let me finish the question . The reason that you
have it this way is because that 's the widest part of the lot? You could
have reversed the whole lot and still had your stacking behind the building
had you made the entrance on the west end .
IBob Mikulak: You 're asking if we wanted the building . . .
Erhart : I 'm asking , in order to comply with staff 's recommendation that
you have counter clockwise flow of traffic , you could have reversed the
whole lot .
Bob Mikulak: Well , the position of the building was first and foremost in
the design of the site and that 's for maximum visibility obviously .
I
Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 9
Erhart : Maximum what? I
Bob Mikulak : Maximum visibility . Maximum visibility from TH 5 and to
bring it out so that obviously it 's visible that somebody knows that we are "
there . We don 't just develop it you know in a matter of a few minutes .
There is a lot of thought . There are several people that go through the
review of the process and cover it . If the issue of crossing traffic is in '
the back of your mind , remember that we 're going to have basically a car
coming out somewhere every 15 minutes . If we have a car coming out every
15 minutes , it doesn 't really cause an awful lot of congestion for us on I
the site is the way we view it . Possibility of the cars backing up from
stacking to that point where they would be at is , in our mind , nil and we
feel very comfortable with it . We 'd prefer not to have the cars visible
from TH 5 primarily in the stacking mode .
Erhart: That 's going to be a marketing decision that you need to do that
and I guess the issue 's going to be is it that detrimental . The other one II
is , I noticed you 've got a lot of Mugho Pines stated in your site plan
review and I guess those are in the front so I assume that you don 't want
anything to grow high in those two southern areas right? Again for
visibility?
Bob Mikulak: For us , yeah .
Erhart: In condition number 3 we added here that all coniferous trees must "
be a minimum of 6 feet . Are you including Paul . . . Okay , so you don 't
include that in the term coniferous? That 's all I 've got .
Conrad: Brad , your concern on the preliminary plat recommendations is
primarily point number 5 . Is that right? And you 're going to figure that 11
one out in the next , before this gets to , are you going to have a better
feel for that before it gets to City Council?
Brad Johnson : Yeah . Basically I said I do not have control over whether II
the City will close on the purchase agreement but I do not feel that it 's
imperative . . .that this transaction closes for Valvoline to build a building
there . . . .HRA , they 're not concerned with it either . We haven 't talked toll
HRA but staff from the HRA side of it . So I will try to work it through
but I 'm just saying , from my point of view , I can 't guarantee that the City
will close on the lot . We can accomplish the site plan request and we can II accomplish the road improvements and we can accomplish the landscaping of
Parcel 1 without closing on the back lot . Like I said , that 's out of my
control . I don 't think it 's fair , since the City is in control , to require
that . . . ,
Conrad: How do you respond to that Paul?
Krauss : There 's a good reason . It 's a little difficult to explain . We
worked out a program on this with the City Manager , Assistant City Manager
concerning the road improvements relative to the back lot . This is a
difficult area for us to work with . The road was built about 10 years ago '
and it was not built to current commercial street standards . It 's under
width . It doesn 't have a turn lane by the railway tracks which is
potentially hazardous . And the road 's been beat up quite a bit by the
heavy trucks that have been using it . If the area behind the Hanus
Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 10
building is to be intensively developed , we ne ed to extend nd the road back
there , we think that we need to have the road widened to the current
standard which is 36 foot wide which is quite an expensive program . We 're
looking at about $110 ,000 .00 expenditure to do that . What we 've agreed to
is that since the HRA is planning to buy those lots back there , and since
' when the HRA owns them it would be their intent to either not develop that
area . Use it for landscaping or whatever else , or very low intensity
development since we control it , we would have a comfort level that we
could go with only very slight improvements to the street . So basically
what we 're telling Brad , and you know I think everybody 's in agreement that
we 're going to be buying these lots as long as there 's not a pollution
problem or anything else . That we 're willing to accept the lower level
11 street improvements contingent upon our being able to gain assurance that
we 're not going to have to provide service for a lot of development back
there at some point in the future , i .e . our acquisition of the property .
' Brad and I were talking this morning and we think that there may be a way
to work this out in a purchase agreement . Have our City Attorney draft
something up so that A follows B naturally and we can do that . The reason
' we want to get all this straight right now is Brad is platting the
property . As a plat , we have the right as a city to say we need a street
improvement and assess it back to the property owner . All the individuals
involved would prefer that we not assess this in the traditional manner .
That we use the HRA program and finance it that way and again , we 're
willing to do that . We 're in essence giving up our rights to the plat .
Requiring of the plat and coming up with an alternative strategy . It 's a
11 little bit clunks because of all the different property transactions -that
need to take place but I guess it all boils down to , if our City Attorney
and Brad has talked to him , and I think he can develop a purchase agreement
that lays all this stuff out and it 's all signed , we would feel comfortable
letting the plat proceed under those circumstances . So we think that ,
what my recommendation would be is to leave the language the way it is
right now and we would hope we'd have some resolution of it before it goes
to the Council .
Batzli : Say that the purchase agreement shall be entered into rather than
the sale shall be concluded .
Ahrens: I think the entering into a purchase agreement is too . . .
Conrad : Okay . That 's my only concern on the plat . Site plan , my only
concern is traffic circulation . What 's the -estimated traffic count per day
on the site?
Bob Mikulak : Per day , we 're hoping to initially have 25 . Less than that
would . . .
11 Conrad: 25?
Bob Mikulak: Cars .
Conrad: Per day?
11 Fllson: In that 8 :00 to 8 :00 period of time?
I
Planning Commission Meeting I
February 6 , 1991 - Page 11
Bob Mikulak : Some days we 'll have less . Some days we 'll have more . On II
Saturday we 'll have more than Tuesday .
Conrad: What 's your best store? How many cars go to your best store right II
now?
Bob Mikulak: Best store that we have in the city? 1
Conrad: Yeah .
Bob Mikulak: The numbers that I know of , I 'm asking Lyndy because I . . . the '
information that I have would be a 3 or 4 bay store and on a Saturday if we
get I guess 80 cars per store , that 's very good .
II
Conrad: All day?
Ahrens: How long does it take for a car to go through the process? I
Bob Mikulak : Approximately in that period , depending upon what . . .
Ahrens : Average time? I
Bob Mikulak : 15-20 minutes . On the average . II Lyndy Nordeen: Some of our higher volume stores , we now probably service
flushing and cooling systems , changing transmission fluids . Each service
we try to gear towards 10 minutes . The average is around 15 so if you came
in to have your vehicle serviced and we changed your transmission and we
changed your oil and changed your coolant system , you 'd be in there about
half an hour so it varies . Typical oil change of a new late model vehicle , "
in and out some stores average 8 to 10 minutes . Your big vehicles ,
Suburbans . . .that 's about 20 minutes so it varies a little bit but our
average is around 15 minutes .
Conrad: Can you add to the number of bays on this parcel? 2 is it then? II
Bob Mikulak: Our intention on this particular site and future sites that II
we develop would be to maintain a 2 bay . We 're planning to build more
stores and less volume is turning out to be a better alternative or a
better approach than trying to put , and again it gets back to the
situation . People just don 't wait if there 's a line of cars out there .
II
Conrad: But if we double our population here , we ' ll probably double the
number of cars in the next 10 years . That would be pretty , your traffic is "
coming from the local area right?
Bob Mikulak : They take the basis from that a lot of it obviously is people "
that drive by on the highway that notice it but that in 10 years , the
volume of the store . . . -
Conrad: Again , 25 cars a day . And in 10 years maybe 50 cars a day . I
Lyndy Nordeen : We have 2 bays that average 3 times that a day and I know
the traffic flows are a concern and they rarely have maybe 2 or 3 waiting 11
II
11 Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 12
out front all day . So even if the volume increases , that won 't be a
concern .
Conrad: Okay . Well , the staff is recommending a very logical traffic flow
pattern and I think you 'd want to take advantage of that . If all other
' things being the way you wanted them , I think you want your sign facing the
right way on TH 5 and I think you don 't want to show people you 're busy .
From that standpoint I guess I don 't want to parade cars . From an
aesthetic standpoint , I 'm not sure that I want to stack cars out on TH 5
either . I was pretty much concerned and very favorable toward the staff
comments but if the traffic flow , we 're talking 3 cars per hour , I guess
I 'm not too concerned anymore . Those are my comments .
Emmings: Annette?
Ellson: You know I picture that the car wash always seems to be busy ,
especially on Saturdays and I was making a comparison to that car wash , in
my opinion , not trying to go to that car wash if there 's like 3 cars out
' there but a lot of times I see like 4 cars outside each bay on a Saturday
and wonder about those crazy people who are waiting . There 's probably one
in there plus 4 on the outside so I tend to think that if people get to
using this place , that there would be 4 cars stacked up behind there and
I 'm concerned about the traffic and I 'd like to see the staff plan
implemented only because that corner already has people who stack up behind
a car wash . Those would be the same people in my opinion who 'd be using
the rapid oil change and if they 're waiting for a car wash , they ' ll wait
for an oil change in my opinion so I think that the inconvenience of
changing all the plans isn 't a strong enough incentive for me and I 'm not
sure that it really would turn away too many people based on seeing some
cars waiting and I hate to think 10 years from now we said , now why didn 't
we handle that clogged area when we had the chance back when we were
developing it . So that 's why I 'd like to handle that clogged area before
it becomes a clogged area . I 'd like to see that traffic circulation go
counter clockwise . That 's the only thing I had . I like the idea of the
landscaping . I think that looks nice .
Batzli : I have to admit I 'm a user of the Shorewood store . I used to
change my own oil but I can hardly even find the dip stick anymore , they 've
got so much junk under the hood . But very rarely is there more than 4 cars
sitting out there and in fact , if there 's more than 4 people , turn around
and leave . I think they 're exactly right . So I don 't have a problem with
the traffic flow . It doesn 't make much sense to me but from a marketing
' perspective perhaps it does . I don 't think there will be much cross
traffic so I don 't think that bothers me much and it looks like they 're
trying to hide it from the road so I guess it looks like they 're designed
11 it . They 've thought about these things and so I 'm not necessarily in favor
of them being forced to reverse the flow . You 've discussed , the
applicant 's discussed oil . There 's other chemicals that they use , for
example the antifreeze and things like that . Do you use similar systems to
collect the antifreeze and transmission fluids and things?
Bob Mikulak: Very briefly and quickly , yes . The ones that are of concern
11 are done that way , right . -
Emmings: What is and what isn 't?
Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 13
Bob Mikulak: Well , we have the brake fluid . Obviously that 's treated
appropriately . Power steering fluid , same thing . Transmission fluid , same
thing . When you get to windshield washing solution and so forth , that is ,
not a chemical in the sense of a chemical so it doesn 't need to be treated
that way so it is not .
Emmings: What happens to that? Well , you 're not taking that out of
vehicles though?
Bob Mikulak: No . We 're merely adding to it but if there is spillage or if l
the guy 's washing his windows in the store , obviously it occurs there .
Sometimes they 'll put a new pair of wipers on and wash the windows in -the
car to make sure that they obviously work and don 't streak and so forth .
Batzli : If for example you 're flushing someone 's radiator and you get a
large spill of antifreeze and you clean it up with towels , they just get
thrown in the trash? '
Bob Mikulak : I wouldn 't say just get thrown in the trash . If you take a
look at the chemical make-up of antifreeze , it is not a pollutant as you
call a pollutant . In other words , there are different categories and I
don 't know if you want me to get into a long detailed analysis of all these
different chemicals that are used there . It would not be mopped up with
towels . It would merely be flushed through what we have called as an oil
water separator which is basically takes care of separating out
contaminants before it would go into the sanitary sewer system and that
particular fluid which is the antifreeze , would go through that system and II
that would take care of that .
Batzli : So that 's located in the interior of the building? ,
Bob Mikulak : Correct .
Batzli : So if any of these things are somehow lost outside the building , II
what happens to them?
Bob Mikulak : Well , I guess generally we don 't do anything outside the II building and all the draining or pitching of the floor comes back into the
center of the building and brings it in . If somebody drove up with a
problem outside , I guess the guys at the store would have to evaluate it
and go back to the MSDF sheets and respond to that accordingly . They 're
probably more trained in it than I am . I 'd have to go to those sheets to
review our procedures on it for each one .
Batzli : Is the antifreeze that you take out of people 's radiators , is that 'll
stored and somehow disposed of or does that go through your chemical
separator?
Bob Mikulak : That goes through the system . The separator .
Batzli : As far as storage of chemicals on site , are there any federal I
regulations that you end up following , I. would imagine?
Bob Mikulak : They 're not uniform all around the country . Most times it 11 drops back into State by State basis . In Minnesota what we have primarily
1
Planning Commission Meeting
February 6. , 1991 - Page 14
of concern is the waste oil and the new oil . We have the supply of
windshield washing fluid that comes under quantity limits . We don 't really
11 have anything else that really .falls under the impact of being harmful , if
you want to call it that , or if there 's .any governmental regulations . It
all kind of goes back to uniform fire code , NFPA requirements so that 's how
we base that .
Batzli : Jo Ann? We used to have Public Safety reviews of a lot of these
site plans and I didn 't see one attached to this . Have our people reviewed
it?
Olsen: They looked at it and they just wanted to give no comment . A lot
of the stuff that they 're involved with comes through with the building
permit application so the site plan itself they had no comment .
Batzli : They didn 't have a concern with it at all for any of the chemicals
or separators or anything?
Olsen: No . Again , they look at that in more detail with the building
permit .
Batzli : Okay . Is it Charles? The applicant discussed I think some of the
revision of the sewer elevations and those types of things . Did you need
anything else? Are you comfortable with the conditions we 've got in there
now?
Folch: Yes . I 'm comfortable with the conditions that we have . Basically
the requirements for the sewer elevations and some of the grade matching
that we 're talking about is just requirements that we would want to see
11 prior to final approval of the site plan approval . However though , in
relation to the runoff calculations , that is a requirement that we have .
I 've heard numbers tonight but we would have to get those in writing and
documented as such and we will review that accordingly and have them in our
files .
Batzli : There 's a catch basin up by the entrance . What part of the site
would drain to that?
Folch: Basically all of the impervious area will drain to it . The only
area that doesn 't really drain to that appears to be a southeast and
southwestern corners of the site , looking at the grading plan . But all of
the impervious area would drain to that catch basin .
Batzli : So the type of catch basin envisioned is just something to catch
leaves , things like that? Obviously not catch oils or anything that 's
running off the impervious?
1 Folch: Well it probably is going to end up being just the standard catch
basin grade .
Batzli : My only other comment is , I guess I have two . The increment , the
third condition of the subdivision . Mr . Johnson shall agree that all
increment generated from the Valvoline project . Jo Ann , are you referring
to just Lot 1 , Block 1? The outlots?
I
Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 15
Krauss: It takes as much increment as it 's going to take . It looks as I
though , we don 't have a final evaluation but it looks as though it 's going
to take the increment from the Valvoline and potentially some of the
increment that 's uncaptured from the Hanus building to pay for the road
improvement . We don 't have the exact numbers yet .
Batzli : So it 's the entire original lot that you 're talking about? Or are "
you talking about in relation to the one when you add like Outlot , one of
the outlots onto the other property that 's going to be included then?
Krauss: It could , if they would build something on those outlots that
would increase the value and i .e . taxes . It would have an impact but there
is no use being proposed for either outlot at this point in time . So the
only thing that generates the increment is , apart from inflation is the
structure that 's going to be built . The Valvoline structure and the
existing Hanus building which is throwing untapped increment at this time .
We 've got it down and you know I was talking with Todd Gerhardt over the
final numbers which we don 't have yet but it looks as though we need
approximately $60 ,000 .00 for the road improvement . Approximately
$45 ,000 .00 increment of which would be generated by the Valvoline so the
balance of that would have to come off the Hanus site . I
Batzli : When you say Hanus site , you 're talking about other parcels that
aren 't included in this subdivision?
Krauss : Correct .
Batzli : How can you get them to agree to that in this subdivision? I
Krauss : We 're not going to try . We 're going to ask Brad to do that since
that 's the representations that are being made . And Mr . Johnson is looking "
at acquiring that property and has worked , spoken to Minister 's Life and
possibly Brad can explain that . He has got a working relationship with
Minister 's Life in the meantime and has assured us that that 's something
that he could fulfill .
Batzli : I guess I 'm concerned about the broad language . I don 't know what
the Valvoline project is . I don 't know if that really includes , I mean if II
you 're trying to encompass additional lots , I think we should somehow
clarify what we 're talking about there a little bit more and I guess I
don 't know how to do it because I don 't know what representations he 's made '
that you 're trying to distill here . I 'll have to work on that . My only
other comment is on the first condition . I 'd like to amend the first
sentence a little bit so that it would read from after the word property II titles it would read , of the adjoining parcels and that such outlots shall
be combined with such adjoining parcels into single tax parcels concurrent
with recording the final plat . Just to clarify what the they 's and those
are . That 's all I have . I
Emmings: Okay , Jeff?
Farmakes: I have a couple of questions . When the overall site , the
location of site that 's tagged on the overall map sort of blocks the lots
that are along TH 5 . I believe that would be the lot due south of this
property . Is that a buildable lot due south of that property?
11
1 Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 16
Olsen : That 's highway right-of-way .
11 Krauss : It 's also the rear part of the Amoco site .
Farmakes : Correct . But right now , as I recall , it 's just sort of an open
field there?
Krauss : Yeah .
Olsen: He had proposed an expansion for in the future that actually
includes a car wash facility .
Farmakes : So it is owned by Amoco?
Olsen : A portion of it and then the rest turns into highway right-of-way .
Farmakes : If they wanted to access that site , would they go through their
present?
Olsen: They wouldn 't get an additional access from TH 5 .
Farmakes : I guess that answers my question about that . If there is a
building or something put back there , I guess I would not be so concerned
about the landscaping to the south . Although you 're talking about if you
agree with the staff 's proposal , that the traffic would come in and get
stacked up on that side and be the southwest part of the property . I guess
I don 't see any problem with that . I don 't see where that would be
aesthetically unpleasing one way or the other . Particularly if there 's
going to be a building going in there in the future that 's going to be
covering that area anyway . The other question I had was banners , or
building banners or anything of that nature . Do you intend on using any of
that? I 've seen other oil change or car businesses where they 've put large
11 building streamers . Do you intend on using any of that?
Lyndy Nordeen : It depends on what you . . .permit . We do have grand opening
1 banners . Open Sunday banners . Depending on the city ordinances .
Farmakes : Do we have ordinances on that? Are there , I know the one that 's
on TH 7 over here is pretty much up on a semi-permanent basis . Is there a
limit to that?
Olsen: Right . You can get temporary signs . You 're permitted those for 10
11 days and 3 times a year . A lot of times that 's how we allow the special
signs . The banners but we wouldn 't permit like the large blow up .
1 Bob Mikulak : I can explain that to you a little bit with Shorewood . The
problem with the Shorewood building is it 's obviously one we acquired .
That building has no frontyard setback and it was actually a development
put together with that Video Update by the previous owner of our company .
11 There 's no signage allowed on our building because Video Update has the
signage for that so called parcel . So what the City Code does allow is it
allows the banner on the building so the banner is then on the building as
11 signage conforms with the City requirements and also doesn 't have the
signage on the building which Video Update had totally so it 's a very tight
corner and tight spot . It was a buiding that was constructed prior to our
Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 17
involvement with the company here locally . So that 's how that arrived and
I 'm sure that might answer it for you .
Farmakes: The last question I have is , I 'm curious to know why the
majority of landscaping is to the east next to , as I understand it now
would be an additional parking lot for the Hanus building . Is that ,
correct? What was the reasoning behind that? That 's sort of in the
backyard . It seems to be your intent to keep this building as open as
possible . Is that for a retail reason or are you having a problem being
viewed from the highway?
Bob Mikulak: In looking at the TH 5 , at this location , TH 5 is basically
the only recognition that we will get . We 're obviously not going to get it ,
by somebody driving down a cul-de-sac on 79th . TH 101 is going to be
relocated in the future and moved about and so forth so our primary concern
obviously is to make this venture profitable long term . We don 't ever want
to get in a situation where all of a sudden we have one car coming in and
we 've got it closed . So in order to do that we have to maximize every bit
that we get , that the site gives us . It comes to your concern about
everything . You know you take minute little traffic flow , doesn 't make any ll
difference . Well , one little thing might not make a difference but you add
them all together and it makes a big difference to a company as to whether
they make a profit or not . Yes , your concern is legit . Did we locate it II
there? Yes . We located it there to meet the requirements of the City and
also to meet our requirements to have the development occur and that 's
visibility to TH 5 so that we 're obviously seen . We have screened
basically the headlights and actually have located the garage doors
parallel with TH 5 . Or actually they 're perpendicular . Our building 's
parallel and tried to conform with your requirements again but still trying
to maintain our optimum positioning because you know , just that little bit II
makes a big difference . You know you bring up car washes and people
stacking next to us also . Please keep in mind that if you take a 100% of
the people , the quick lube industry only has about 20% of those people II using them . The other 80% still do it theirself . The 20% that we get in
are not the people that necessarily wash their car . They 're the people
that would take their car down the street somewhere else and drive it
through and wash it . In other words , the income bracket that we gear our
vehicle studies to would be not the lower income but getting and moving up
that income bracket . So I 'm sorry to make it long but yes . That issue of
landscaping and all the others go together ._ It 's not just something that II
you can take one little thing and say well , if we change this one little
thing it won 't matter but then you get over here . Well , we change this
little thing . Pretty soon you make it unprofitable for a company to exist I
there and function and that 's where we 're coming from . So I 'm hoping , I 'm
trying to explain not only the picture I present but why we do it . You
know we 're not new to the business . We have 300 facilities around the
country and do it all over . That 's just what we 've found we have to do to II
make it work . To make it profitable .
Farmakes : To the north of the property , as you said , there 's not a lot of II
visual access there at that cul-de-sac . I guess I would like to see a
little bit more landscaping than what you have there if that 's possible .
It seems awfully minimal . That 's it .
I/
Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 18
Ahrens : Only one comment on the preliminary plat . That 's paragraph that
one that Brian brought up and I agree with him that that is vague . I don 't
understand the second sentence where it says if necessary , other parcels
will be . . . 1 don 't know what you 're referring to there . . . Site plan review .
A couple questions . Would you be willing , Bob right? To work with the
staff in providing more landscaping? I think it 's pretty minimal .
I noticed that you put in your plan I think that you were going to be
providing small bushes in certain areas and I noticed on your pictures that
the bushes provided shade for about 10 rocks mostly . Tiny little bushes .
Bob Mikulak: Well obviously they 're all brand new . None of the facilities
are .
Ahrens : Well I know but it could be years for them to get you know this
big even . Would you be willing to work with staff to maybe increase the
amount of landscaping? ^
Fob Mikulak: I guess give , present where and then I can answer that . Do
you increase it , yes I can increase it but to what extent and to where
I guess?
Ahrens : Well maybe Jo Ann , do you have suggestions?
Olsen : Yeah . We could , you know in speaking with them we 've requested
some additional evergreen trees and other trees rather than more emphasis
on the shrubbery and along the berm in the front and even some along the
building . I talked to them about that on the north side of the building
where it 's totally bare .
Ahrens : I don 't think it would have any impact on profitability to provide
more screening and some more landscaping around there . I 'd like to see
that at least . I have a question . Why aren 't we requiring the type of
roof that we required on the emission control building on this roof?
Olsen: It was discussed .
Krauss : A couple of reasons . First of all , the emission control building
was the first one we brought through that way and quite honestly we were
sort of waiting to see what the City Council did . City Council ultimately
recommended in accordance with your wishes and there is a mansard roof on
that building now . In fact they submitted building plans for it and we
think it looks a lot better . But this site is a little bit different in
that unlike the other one where we had a McDonald 's roof line that was
mansard . We had the residential area behind it . In this case we have the
Manus building which is flat roofed . We have the Amoco station which is
flat roofed . We have the car wash which is flat roofed . I guess we were a
I little bit hesitant to forcefully push the issue on this one because the
neighborhood wasn 't as clear to us and I know we 've spoken to you and to
some of the City Council people about this that we really need to sit down
11 and lay out the city and design goals for it so that we can clarify
ordinances and get our act together a little more . I should also say that
we brought this up a number of times in meetings and were basically told
that it 's a deal killer on this one . That this is their building and this
is what you have .
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Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 19
Ahrens: I guess I 'm just a little confused because I think we presented to
the emission control people that this was the new view , appearance of
Chanhassen . We 're all going to look like this and this is what we were
going to be requiring and all of a sudden , you know this is a pretty
visible building when you 're driving into Chanhassen . I think maybe it
wouldn 't look so bad , I don 't know .
Krauss: Well , in all honesty , we would still prefer something done to the
roof line . This building also though has that barrel feature that breaks II
up the side of the building a little bit . It 's not , I mean the emission
control building was just , I mean it was a box . There was no detailing on
it whatsoever . Arguably a red barrel is part of a sign package and not
sign detail . I don 't know , this was a tough one for us and I don 't know if t
we made the right choice or not but quite honestly I was curious to see
your reaction to it . We need more direction in this area . We would like
to be more consistent . We 'd like to consistently raise the standards of
our expectations but right now we 're doing it on something of a subjective ,
catch as catch can basis and we 're a little uncomfortable with that .
I don 't know if that clarifies it at all . It sounds like we 're waffling a II
little bit but there you have it .
Ahrens: I guess I don 't understand the standards there and I think , I
would like to see a mansard roof simply because the other buildings around
there are flat roofed and I 'd hate to see , it looks like just a one stop
auto service corner as you drive into Chanhassen with the flat roofs and
auto parts store and the gas station and the car wash and the quick oil
change . I 'd like to see something that looks a little different . I think ,
I don 't know . I think it 's going to look , not that I have anything against
your building but I don 't like the appearance as the main entrance into
Chanhassen .
Emmings: Are you done?
Ahrens: I could go on .
Emmings: No , go ahead . I
Ahrens: No .
Emmings: I 've got a little discomfort with saying that our subdivision I
ordinance doesn 't allow the creation of remnant pieces and then creating
two of them . I 've heard the explanation and so forth but it still bothers 11
me and are you comfortable that there 's no chance we 're going to wind up
with two pieces here? Two little outlots that can 't be hooked up to
something else?
Krauss: Yeah , and that 's why we proposed, this . We would have preferred toll
have the whole thing platted and that was our initial position on this
throughout . Mr . Johnson convinced us or maintained that that 's just not a
possibility because of the multiple ownerships so what we came up with is
kind of the same thing through another means . The instant these outlots
are created , our City Attorney 's going to control the process . Nothing
comes out the door , I mean those outlots will cease to exist as soon as
they 're created because at the same instance they 'll be merged to the other
lots .
I/
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Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 -~ Page 20
Emmings : Okay . I 'll rely on you for that . This dumping ground for
11 wrecked vehicles? This is obviously off the point but sure caught my eye .
It says the area located between 79th Street and the railway tracks has
become a dumping ground for wrecked vehicles , and what 's being done about
that?
Krauss: Well frankly it 's a little bit frustrating . You know we 're not
sure exactly who 's doing it at this point . We 've been working with Brad to
rennovate the whole property and we think we 've got the ultimate solution
which is our buying the property . We 'll berm it . We 'll landscape it in
this package of improvements and as city right-of-way nobody will be
parking on it but in the past , the Hanus operation has parked junked
vehicles , working vehicles , employees vehicles and everything else and
right now there seems to be vehicles that are being brought by wrecker onto
the property there . One of the things that Jo Ann and I would like to add
as a condition here too under the plat is we 're somewhat concerned with the
future use of the outlot adjacent to the car wash . The Hanus facility too
for that matter . We want to make sure that there 's a rider written into
I the plat that says that under no circumstances will these outlots be used
or these parcels be used for the storage of , the exterior storage of
wrecked or junked vehicles . We 're just concerned that wherever there seems
to be a nook and cranny over there , somebody seems to find something to
dump on it and we 'd like to head that off if possible . Now Mr . Johnson is
working with us and does , upon acquisition of the Hanus building , does plan
to rennovate that parking area in front of the building and hopefully we
can get him to work behind the building and we 'll own some of that so a lot
of wheels are turning that if it all falls into place , we 'll have most of
the problem licked .
11 Emmings: Okay , if we put a condition on this subdivision regarding those
outlots and if they go out of existence , are we doing anything?
Krauss: I 'm not certain . I 'd like to ask our City Attorney to clarify
that if possible , or you can clarify that for us . Do the conditions , you
know my question to Roger is , and we just thought of this one . Do the
conditions attached to that outlot carry forward when it 's merged with the
other parcels? I don 't know if they do . I hope so but I don 't know .
Olsen: We can work out some wording I 'm sure because that ties into number
3 too . We have to come up with the description for those .
Emmings: So the condition would say that , something like the City Attorney
will be directed to come up with some language that will prevent these
outlots from being used for storage of vehicles or anything else after they
merge with the other properties .
Krauss: Unless subject to a plan approved by the City , yeah .
11 Brad Johnson: Maybe I can clarify that car parking thing . Previously ,
prior to the Amoco store change , remember where those cars were parked?
Emmings: Where?
Brad Johnson: Behind the gas station . When Amoco changed that , there was
no place to park them , whoever parks them there . So now when there 's a
1
Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 21 1
wreck on TH 5 or TH 101 , the only place in the city that anybody can park a
car temporarily now , it turns out , not that they 're suppose to but that 's II
where they end up , is over on that parking area . We would like to
landscape and eliminate that . If you go by there at night on your way
back , by the dark of night somebody was parking cars there . Most of those II
accidents happen in the evening and it is an enforcement problem . It 's
been going on there now as long as I 've lived at someplace . What we have
is we have a wrecker service in town with no easy place to park stuff on a
temporary basis . We would propose . . .property way in the back there could
be someplace to do that because there 's no place in town to do it .
Emmings: Thanks . As far as the preliminary plat is concerned , I don 't
have anything else . I agree with Brian 's changes to number 1 and adding
the 7th condition here . On the site plan review , item number 3 . I agree
that the landscaping needs to be more and everything is so low except of
course where they want to hide the vehicles that are waiting . They put the ll
one pine tree 's in a position so it screens the cars that are waiting from
TH 5 and I understand the rationale for that , and I don 't have any problem 11
with it but I don 't know why there couldn 't be something taller on this
property . Certainly on that grassy area just north of the building there II
could be a couple of maple trees or something over there that would
probably make the site look a lot better . And I agree with Jeff 's remarks
that maybe something more along the northern edge there . That 's wide open
too . But at a minimum I would think you 'd want to add those along with the
additional landscaping you already talked about . I think we should add a
condition to the site plan review that there will be no outside storage .
No outdoor storage . I wondered , I 'd like to ask the applicants , what is
the maximum number of employees on site at any one time?
Bob Mikulak: Generally what happens is you have a manager who will open
the store so you will have a manager per se or assistant manager on the
presence of the property . Anywhere from 1 to 3 technicians with him 11 working . On Saturday you 'll probably have the 3 . On Mondays you 'll
probably have the store manager himself opening the facility so again
slower times obviously we 'd have less people there . Busy times we 'd have
more .
Emmings: So at most you 've got 4 vehicles parking on the site that belong
to employees? I
Bob Mikulak: At very ultimate busiest times . Generally you would only
have 1 person in the lower level working and then the 1 or the 2 up above .
Emmings: You 've got a total of 5 parking places here . Are there reasons
11
that people who are using the facility need to park and come in for
anything? You just don 't need it?
Bob Mikulak: If they want to come and talk to us about something ,
obviously I guess they can come and talk to us . We basically don 't have
that need . It 's a drive up service and that 's really what they 're there
for is to get in and out so they would be driving up rather than parking .
Most people are encouraged not to get out of their vehicles . Just to drivel'
thru .
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Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 22
I
Emmings: Okay . As far as somebody using it for the' first time . How does
a person know what your services cost? Or even what services you offer? I
mean is there any information outside the building that tells them that?
Bob Mikulak : It would be from the standpoint of you pulling up by the
building and someone will come out from the facility and greet you . They
will ask you if it 's your first time to Rapid Oil as part of their initial
questions . If that is a yes , then they will go through the other
information . Actual procedure . Lyndy could probably run down it because
he does it all the time . There is no signage outside . When you get inside
the building , there is a menu board if you wish to call it that and it is
explained to them once they are pulled up to the building by someone in
person .
Emmings: Okay . There 's no pricing information outside? Okay . I don 't
have anything else .
Conrad: I have a quick question .
Emmings: Okay .
Conrad: Where did we move the dumpster?
Bob Mikulak: Back , which would be , can you see that?
Conrad: Yeah .
Bob Mikulak: It was right here which would conflict with being on the
setback . . .
Conrad: Why is it separate from the building? That sort of bothers me .
We don 't have an ordinance . We just have a setback ordinance for trash?
11 I don 't like that. . It should be adjacent to the building .
Olsen: The trash enclosure , what you were saying was going to be 8 feet in
height so that would still be . . .
Bob Mikulak: I 'll tell you one thing . . .based upon experience . Again ,
nothing against having it close but if we were to take and locate this
adjacent to the building , it may work in office buildings or something but
if you were the guy pulling up to get the trash , how would you get it out
there in big semis? That 's the problem . That 's why attention . . . in that
case they pull in here , back into the parking spaces and leave . If it were
located on the building or something , he 'd have a heck of a time not only
disturb what 's on site happening , the other vehicles , cars and so forth and
the people which makes it very difficult for him to get it and next thing
we know we 've got the corner of it down because the guy can 't get to it .
It is totally enclosed . It has a slide up or garage door on it . A . . .roof
on it so it 's pretty clean .
Conrad: I 'm sure it is . I don 't like it though . I don 't like the fact
that it 's not adjacent . You know there aren 't very many exceptions . Well ,
I think the standards are what I would have to apply and if we don 't have
any , we don 't have any .
I
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Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 23
Olsen : That 's where we can add landscaping .
Farmakes: If you go with a clockwise flow of traffic , isn 't the garbage 1
pickup then going to be going against the grain of traffic?
Bob Mikulak: The car that 's coming out , that car that comes out comes out II
like I say , approximately 1 every 15 minutes . So if that would be the
case , an average of 15 minutes . So a car pulling out , if a truck pulls in
at the same time , obviously they 're going to be there . Small possibility . II
I can 't say it doesn 't exist but I can 't say that it would be any better
the other direction either because then you 've got a garbage truck which is
backing up into traffic . You know , is there a perfect way to do it? I
wish there were . . .but there really isn 't a perfect way and every sight has
a cloud on it . We just try to deal the best with those that we can . Trash
unfortunately is one of those necessary evils .
Conrad: What 's between the parking area and the building? Is that grass
or is that concrete? What is that?
Emmings: It 's grass . I
Conrad : Is it grass?
Emmings: I 'm assuming .
Conrad: Is it green grass? I
Bob Mikulak : Grass , yes .
Emmings: As far as the traffic pattern goes , I guess I agree that I don 't II
know that the traffic , the volume of traffic doesn 't seem enough to bother
to reverse it if it 's something they really don 't want . I think I 'd be
inclined to leave it the way they want it . The other question that I had II
here is getting rid of their , water from their site . I don 't quite
understand how we coordinate . There 's no sewer now on 79th Street so as
far as waste water from that site , until there is sewer , will those things II
be done concurrently?
Krauss: That 's the goal , yes . If we don 't , what happens is it will just
flow off the site and down the street and go into Great Plains Blvd . where
ultimately a catch basin .
Emmings : Is that something we should be concerned about? I
Krauss: Yes . That 's why we 're tying together this whole thing with the
HRA . I
Emmings: Well , it will be interesting to see if it happens .
Batzli : I 'd like to make a motion that the Planning Commission recommend I
approval of Subdivision Request #91--1 for Gateway First Addition , 3 foot
variance to the lot depth requirement , plat shown as January 15 , 1991 with
the following conditions . In condition 1 , the first sentence would be
amended to read , Outlots A and B shall be merged into the property titles II
of the adjoining parcels and that such outlots shall be combined with such
I
Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 24
I
adjoining parcels into single tax parcels concurrent with recording the
11 final plat . Condition 3 would be deleted and it would read , applicants
shall agree that all increment generated from Block 1 , Lot 1 , ( and
appurtances ) shall be used to offset the cost of public improvements prior
to final plat approval . Further , Lotus Realty shall agree prior to final
11 plat approval that all increment generated from Outlots A and B , the two
lots behind the Hanus building , the property on which the Hanus building is
located ( if purchased by Lotus Realty ) , and the Brown property to the west
( to the extent controlled by Lotus Realty ) shall be used to offset the cost
of public improvements to West 79th Street . And then a new condition 7
which would read , appropriate language shall be recorded against Outlots A
and B to prohibit storage of automobiles and other refuse , except upon
appropriate city review and permit process .
Emmings: Does anyone dare second that without Roger reading his new number
3 to find out what it means?
Batzli : Well you guys should take a very close look at that to make sure
it says what you want it to say .
Krauss: We will be forwarding this to Roger next week and getting his
advice before it goes to Council . We 're very comfortable with the intent
of the rewording .
Emmings: Yeah , I think that 's a lot more specific than what 's here and I
think it sounds better but , is there a second?
Batzli : Well I don 't know if it does what everybody wants it to do . You
11 guys need to look at that very closely as well as the applicants .
Emmings: Is there a second?
Ahrens : Second .
Emmings: It 's been moved and seconded . Is there any discussion?
Batzli moved, Ahrens seconded that the Planning Commission recommend
approval of Subdivision Request #91-1 for Gateway First Addition with a 3
foot variance to the lot depth requirement, on the plat shown as January
15, 1991 with the following conditions:
1 . Outlots A and B shall be merged into the property titles of the
adjoining parcels and that such outlots shall be combined with such
adjoining parcels into single tax parcels concurrent with recording the
final plat . The applicant is responsible for providing the City
Attorney with all documentation and agreements required to complete the
transaction .
2 . Five foot drainage and utility easements shall be provided along the
easterly lot line of Outlot A and the westerly lot line of Outlot B .
3 . Applicants shall agree that all increment generated from Block 1 , Lot
11 1 , (and appurtenances) shall be used to offset the cost of public
improvements prior to final plat approval . Further , Lotus Realty shall
agree prior to final plat approval that all increment generated from
Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 25
Outlots A and B, the two lots behind the Hanus building, the property
on which the Hanus building is located ( if purchased by Lotus Realty ), II
and the Brown property to the west (to the extent controlled by Lotus
Realty) shall be used to offset the cost of public improvements to West
79th Street.
4 . Cash in lieu of parkland dedication shall be required at the time of
building permit issuance .
5 . The sale of the two lots behind the Hanus Building and of the parcel
containing 79th Street to the HRA shall be concluded prior to final
plat approval .
6 . The applicant shall enter into an agreement with the City HRA which
will ensure the timely construction of improvements to West 79th
Street . I
7. Appropriate language shall be recorded against Outlots A and B to
prohibit storage of automobiles and other refuse , except upon
appropriate city review and permit process.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously.
Conrad: I make a motion that the Planning Commission recommends approval
of Site Plan Review Request #91-2 for the Valvoline Instant Oil Change
facility as shown on the plan dated January 15 , 1991 with the following II conditions and the conditions are as presented in the staff report except
for condition number 2 . In condition number 2 , what. I 'd like to reword
there . Instead of reverse the traffic circulation , I would like to have
the applicant present to the City Council revisions to the plan guiding
internal traffic including signage , curb cuts , center islands , stripes , so
that we 're convinced that the internal traffic is handled. I don 't believes
the site is designed well for what they 're talking about and if we grant
them the circulation that they 'd like , I need a better internal traffic
circulation than what I see . In terms of condition 3 , I would like to have
staff significantly . I would like to have staff review with the applicant
both the landscaping on the north and the south side . I think on the north
side we 're extremely lacking in any kind of pleasant entry from what I can
see and then on the south side we're talking about TH 5 and I guess I 'd
just like to have staff review that one more time and make sure that the
City of Chanhassen is comfortable with the landscaping . That is sort of
our entrance to the community . All other conditions I agree with and we
add condition number 10 that there be no outside storage . I
Batzli : Second .
Emmings : Any discussion? 11
Ellson: What do you guys want to do about that roof?
Ahrens : Yeah . I was just going to bring that up . Nobody hopped on that
bandwagon .
Ellson: I liked the idea .
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Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 26
Conrad: We don 't have any architectural standards and it 's just really ,
11 until we do , I 'm real uncomfortable about jumping into designing things .
Until we review it with City Council .
Ahrens : Yeah , but we already recommended that the emission control
building have it .
Conrad : You did . I didn 't .
11 Farmakes : I did but my reasoning behind that was it was adjacent to single
family residences and this is not .
11 Ahrens: . . .a decision made based on any requirements .
Emmings : No , but at least it has a rationale and I guess that was my
rationale for going along with that too . Here we look at an emission
control station from TH 5 , you 're looking against a single family residence
and those people also are looking out at it and they were here complaining
about flat roofs and so forth . In this area , we don 't have those same
conditions . It does seem different . Not a lot different but it does seem
different . I think it 's tough to impose it on this one . Plus , I 'm not
sure that you can put a mansard roof on this building the way it 's
designed . I don 't think that the emission station had much of a stake in
having all of their units look the same . They said they did but I didn 't
buy it . At least they said they did to the City Council , I heard them say
that but I didn 't buy it . This business I think is a little different .
And having their red barrel and everything up there , that kind of
identification I think is different .
Ellson : Well you can have the barrel and a mansard roof .
Emmings: I 'm not sure you could .
Conrad : It 'd be real tough . The point Joan is we should really look at
what we 're , we have to have standards .
Ahrens: I think that we should then have standards .
Conrad: Like real pronto .
Ahrens : Yeah , right away .
Ellson: You 're talking about the entrance and everything , I 'd think you 'd
want the nicest looking buildings you could have .
Ahrens: I do too .
Farmakes : One of the situations of making a car area in a city though for
car repair , car servicing is that habitually you 're going to get bright
colors because that 's the way that corporately they advertise . That 's why
it 's said they 're seen from the highway that way and primarily you 're going
to be surrounded by other buildings of the same alike . They 're not going
11 to be architectural wonders . It 's unfortunate that it is at the entrance
of the city from that side .
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Planning Commission Meeting II
February 6 , 1991 - Page 27
II
Erhart: But keep in mind , those cities who create architectural standards ,
you can get anybody to comply with them including McDonald 's and everybody . "
If you travel around , you can see those .cities who have got together and
agreed and put it down on paper and people will follow it . We have no
standards here and I don 't think you can do it piecemeal . It 's not fair
because it won 't be consistent . I agree with whoever stated that we ought
to get together with the City . If they voted unanimous on that roof on the
inspection station , that tells me that the City , somebody , the city leaders
here want an architectural standard and it 's high time to do it so . I
think that 's the first step . II
Ahrens: Well if we can 't get it on this building, I think we should get
the standards together real quick so we don 't have to approve further II
developments .
Emmings : Any more discussion? I
Conrad moved, Batzli seconded that the Planning Commission recommend
approval of Site Plan Review Request #91-2 for Valvoline Instant Oil Change
facility as shown on the plan dated January 15, 1991 with the following
conditions:
II1 . Relocation of the trash receptacle and enclosure to where it meets the
required setback .
2 . The applicant shall present to the City Council revisions to the plan II
guiding internal traffic including signage, curb cuts, center islands,
stripes, etc. .
3 . All deciduous trees to meet a 2 1/2 inch caliper and coniferous trees 11
must be a minimum of 6 feet in height at time of planting . The
financial guarantees for landscaping improvements shall be required at
time of building permit issuance . The applicant shall meet with staff
for their approval regarding landscaping on the north and south side of
the site.
4 . The applicant shall be permitted one pylon sign not to exceed 64 square "
feet in area and 20 feet in height , not more than 4 directional signs
not to exceed 4 square feet in area and 5 feet in height , and one wall II
sign not to exceed 15% of the wall area . Any lettering or symbols on
the backlit barrel will be considered wall signage .
5 . All roof top equipment shall be screened . Screening shall be provided
II
by elevated parapets or by screens constructed with materials
compatible with the building . Exterior wood slat fences are not
acceptable . I
6 . The applicant shall provide existing off site contours for all areas
within 100 feet of the property line including 79th Street . The
applicant shall also coordinate the boundary site grades with 79th
Street in order to establish a compatible grade match .
7 . The applicant shall coordinate and provide detailed information of the II
storm sewer connection to the proposed storm sewer along 79th Street .
Refinement of the site drainage scheme will need to be performed ,
11
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Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 28
particularly near the driveway access to ensure that the flow is
directed towards the private catch basin . Runoff calculations prepared
by a professional engineer and a contributing drainage area map is
required .
8 . Existing sewer elevations and service elevation connections are
required .
9 . The applicant shall be required to install a city standard concrete
apron at the driveway entrance .
10. There shall be no outside storage.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously.
Brad Johnson: If I could add one thing . I . . .standards architecturally . I
also believe that standards architecturally . . .public hearings with
developers there and other users because you can basically really impact
financially those people that own property . . .have to have a lot of input as
to what 's possible and what 's not possible . Mansard roofs aren 't the only
answer . There 's the bank building over here that doesn 't have a mansard
roof .
Emmings: Well and you don 't want everything with a mansard roof and how do
you get some variability if you 've got standards that say one thing? - Those
are problems .
Brad Johnson: My concern is I believe that everything should look good but
we 've got to be careful . . . If they come into town and they buy land in
town and know there 's a standard , they 'll check all that . If you 've got
it , they know it . . .so , but thanks a lot on your help .
ZONING ORDINANCE AMENDMENT TO AMEND SECTION 20-576(3) REGARDING
CONTRACTOR 'S YARDS AS AN INTERIM USE .
Emmings: I 'm not going to ask for a staff report on this because this is
very short and I 'm sure everybody 's read it . It 's a public hearing . Is
there anybody here from the public who wants to comment on this?
Batzli moved, Ellson seconded to close the public hearing . All voted in
11 favor and the motion carried. The public hearing was closed.
Ahrens: I don 't have any comments .
Farmakes: I have no comments on this as well .
Batzli : I 'm in favor of it .
Ellson: Nothing .
Conrad : No .
Erhart : Amen .
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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 ,
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 11
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 11
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. I
(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 II
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 I
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 II
we were going to go .
Krauss: Well , sort of , yes . I
Conrad: So what 's the point?
Krauss: We have spent , you spent quite a bit more time than I have but a II
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
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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?
Krauss : Uh huh . And that that should be examined in the context .
Ellson: It 's like a check and balance .
;11 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
11 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 .
1 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
MI
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
11 comprehensive plan as warranted and the Land Planning Act provides
Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 31
mechanism for doing that . We 've done it here already .
doing al y
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
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
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 1/
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? I
Conrad : Well I just don 't want us doing something that there 's a very
definite pro side to doing this . I just want to make sure we 're not doing II
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
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 .
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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
comprehenisve 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
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
11 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 .
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Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 33
Krauss : No . That was done in 1971 .
1/
Erhart: Now let 's just take a second . -Up at the intersection of TH 7 and
TH 41 . If I remember that right , that was always zoned residential .
Emmings: No .
Erhart : Someone came in . 11
Elison: It was IOP . Wasn 't it office?
Emmings : It wasn 't always . It went from , no I think when I came on here II
it was-, you were here , it was office .
Elison: It was office on the corner . . .
Erhart: Okay , alright and then we changed . We went from office .
Emmings : The neighbors wanted it residential . I
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 II
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 11
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 it
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
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
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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
11 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
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Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 35
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
1/
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 . Well
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 II
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. I
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 II
THE WETLAND ORDINANCE TO FOLLOW THE PROCEDURE AS STATED IN DIVISION 3 ,
VARIANCES OF THE ZONING ORDINANCE .
Jo Ann Olsen presented the staff report on this item . 1
Emmings: Don 't we sometimes look at these when it comes in as part of a
subdivision or a site plan?
Olsen: Right . I
Emmings: And would we be dealing with them , on those or would that also?
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
1/
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 .
I
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Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 36
Emmings: Yeah , it seems to me we 're going to be looking at these rather
than the Board of Adjustments in those situations aren 't we?
Krauss : Yes . If it 's associated with a subdivision .
11 Emmings: Or site plan?
Krauss: Or a site plan it would be processed in due course with that
subdivision or site plan by you and the City Council .
Olsen: So we need to connect those where it says now , where the Planning
Commission has that control versus a typical variance , do we need .
Emmings: No , you don 't need to show it to me . As long as I just wondered
if , since we 're saying that here it says that a variance shall be reviewed
by the Board of Adjustments or Appeals and there 's two cases where it 's
not
Krauss: We should check the wording so , there 's over riding language in
here and we ' ll make sure that this jives with that .
I Emmings: Okay . Is there anything else you wanted to add Jo Ann to the
staff report on this? Okay . This is a public hearing . Is there anybody
here that wants to comment on this?
Erhart moved , Ellson seconded to close the public hearing. All voted in
favor and the motion carried. The public hearing was closed.
Emmings : Any discussion from anybody?
Conrad: Who 's on the Board of Adjustments?
Olsen : It 's Carol Watson , Willard and Tom Workman .
Krauss : And I think the Mayor 's still the alternate .
Conrad: So we have one City Council member? How do we assort the Board of
Adjustments? Is there a formula for assorting it?
Olsen : I don 't know if that 's ever been put into the By-laws but there 's
always been one of the Council members on there and then the rest are just
general public .
Ahrens : What is the Board of Adjustments and Appeals?
Adjustments P
Emmings: People that grant variances .
Ahrens : That 's all they do?
Krauss : They 're actually a quasi-judicial group .
Olsen: They can make the final decision .
Emmings: There should be a Planning Commission member .
11
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Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 37
Olsen: They usually meet before City Council and they look at setback
variances or lot size variances . If it 's unanimous approval , that 's it .
It doesn 't have to go in front of the Council .
Emmings: Oh , I didn 't know that . I
Krauss: Yes . In fact in a lot of communities , and I think under State
Enabling Legislation , we have appeal to the City Council and a lot of
cities do but you don 't have to . In a lot of communities , your next line
of appeal is court .
Olsen: Also , a lot of communities don 't have a Board of Adjustments . The 11
City Council does it .
Ellson: I like this . Just a little housekeeping it kind of looks like
here .
Emmings: Is there any other discussion on this? I guess the only thing
I 'd say is , I think perhaps it should say in this as part of that first
sentence , or right after that first sentence , something about the fact that
the Planning Commission will review variances in connection with
subdivisions or site plans . Just so it 's complete , but that 's not a big
deal . Anyway , if there 's no discussion .
Conrad: Well I do have some . Or just one thing that 's sort of gnawing at II
me . I think the Board of Adjustments has some background in dealing with
the variance if we 're talking the setbacks . I think they get , well knowing
who 's there , they know that . But when you talk about variances to wetlands
ordinance , I don 't know that that 's really , they 've been educated in that .
The standards and why 's and what have you . I feel comfortable the City
Council gets brought up into those things . They have the Statutes in our
ordinance . It 's like introducing something brand new to a group that
really is used to , we care if it 's a 10 foot setback and the sideyard
setback is 9 and then so now we 're introducing wetland ordinance to them .
I guess I 'm uncomfortable . Consistency it makes sense to do it but I 'm
just not real comfortable .
Emmings: Where we 've been real rigid , they may not be . What kinds of
things will they typically look at a variance for? Like a deck?
Olsen: Right .
Emmings : Give me some more examples . 11
Olsen: . . .but if we get into wording . . .that the Planning Commission
would . . . look at that as part of a site plan . . . lot smaller than 15 ,000
square feet or closer than a 75 foot setback . You would be the group
that 'd be talking about that .
Emmings : So can you think of anything else other than a deck or how about 1/
an accessory building?
Krauss: That too . But keep in mind there 's no alteration to the wetland II
here . If there 's any alteration , that all comes for you through normal
channels . The focus of the Board of Adjustment was pretty narrow at this
Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 38
point . I mean I think we 've cleaned that up .
Olsen: They 're very strict . They would really have to . . .
Emmings : I know some of the people on there would be but I think Ladd 's
thinking of maybe of a different 3 people next week . Whatever , next year .
1 Conrad: I think we 've got to go along with it .
Olsen: I think that technically we have always taken . . .another variance . I
think it 's just kind of . . .to what we can usually do . . . .amending that whole
wetland ordinance .
Emmings : Do you have a motion?
Ahrens: I move that the Planning Commission recommend approval of the
Zoning Ordinance Amendment by replacing section 20-406 with the following
language , as written here except for the first sentence which shall be
changed as follows : Variances from this section , not required to be
reviewed by the Planning Commission , shall be reviewed by the Board of
Adjustments and Appeals . . .
Emmings: Sure . Is there a second?
Conrad: Second .
Emmings: Any discussion?
Ahrens moved, Conrad seconded that the Planning Commission recommend
approval of Zoning Ordinance Amendment by replacing Section 20-406 with the
following language:
"A variance from this section , not required to be reviewed by the
Planning Commission, shall be reviewed by the Board of Adjustments and
Appeals . The Board shall be empowered to decide appeals and grant
variances only when the decision of the Board is by unanimous vote .
The simple majority vote or split vote by the Board shall serve only as
a recommendation to the City Council , who shall then make the final
determination on the appeal or variance request . The variance process
shall follow the guidelines set in Section 20-29 and 20-56 of the City
Code . "
11 All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously.
IZONING ORDINANCE AMENDMENT TO REVISE ARTICLE V, FLOOD PLAIN OVERLAY
DISTRICT .
Jo Ann Olsen presented the staff report on this item . Chairman Emmings
called the public hearing to order .
Erhart moved, Ellson seconded to close the public hearing. All voted in
favor and the motion carried . The public hearing was closed .
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Planning Commission Meeting
. i
February 6 , 1991 - Page 39
Emmings: Does anybody have any questions or comments on this? I guess
I 've got one thing . It says that in one section it says that the flood
plain designation on the official zoning map . Is there? I just wasn 't
sure . Are there floodplains on the zoning map?
Olsen: No , it 's the . . .map . Do you know where that is? r
Emmings: It 's on the bottom of page 4 . It says , Add Section 20-46 .
Floodplain .
Olsen: I 'll check on that one because we 're just adding words from what
they 're requiring . r
Emmings: But I 'm wondering if it shouldn 't be on our zoning map .
Olsen: It doesn 't show up . I
Krauss: Have you ever seen the FEMA maps? There 's a series of panels and
it 's about 6 maps that cover Chanhassen and they give a flood elevation for "
a major event and then a flood fringe area . I don 't know that it 's
information we can accurately protray on our plan .
Emmings: Okay , it 's an overlay . That 's why it 's an overlay . Does that
map show all of the land in Chanhassen which would be subject to?
Krauss: Well no , it doesn 't . It shows major tributaries and lakes and the ,
river that is subject to flooding but if you have a wetland in your back
yard that tops out , it 's not going to be on that map .
Olsen: It just shows the floodplain . . .
Emmings: Would the wetland in my back yard that fills up and causes
problems be something that falls under this floodplain ordinance?
Krauss: No . Which is why you want to tie this into the FEMA . We are
going to get into that issue though . I mean the one that you 're raising . II
With the Surface Water Utility Program we 're going to do a comprehensive ,
one of the elements is a comprehensive storm water management plan . That
is going to be setting flood elevations for all these little potholes and II
wetlands and sumps that we have around town . Then we are going to enforce
our regs to make sure that the lowest elevation of any house is at least 2
foot above the anticipated flood . I know that Councilman Mason is here and
we 've been talking about a property in his neighborhood that appears to
have a flooding problem that somebody wants to build a home on . It 's not
anywhere near a designated FEMA flood zone and we don 't have any
information on what the flood elevation is on this because it 's locally r
generated information .
Emmings: What do we do when just a subdivision comes in that 's got some
low spots? What do we do to make sure we 're not going to be building
houses on lots that are later going to have flooding problems?
Krauss: Well that 's , and Charles can explain some of that but basically well
get an overall drainage plan and we figure to a 10 year storm I believe .
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Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 40
Olsen : 100 year .
Krauss: 100 year event .
Folch : 100 year event .
Krauss: And we project what the flood situation is going to be on that
particular property .
Emmings: One thing it said that on the first page it says the major
changes of the amendment and then number 4 at the top says changes were
' made requiring replacement manufactured homes to be properly elevated and
anchored and then all the way through here it seems like manufactured homes
are prohibited .
Olsen: Right . That 's one of the general items of the proposed amendments
that they were giving to us . . .
Emmings: Oh , okay . I see . Anybody got anything else? If there 's no more
discussion , is there a motion?
Erhart: I 'll move that the Planning Commission recommend adopting the
following amendments to the Flood Plain Overlay District as shown in
Attachment #1 .
Emmings: Alright , is there a second?
Ahrens: Second .
Emmings: Any discussion?
Erhart moved, Ahrens seconded that the Planning Commission recommend to
adopt the following amendments to the Flood Plain Overlay District as shown
in Attachment #1 . All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously.
lEmmings: Total unanimity . It 's really kind of sickening . Okay , I 'm
voting against the next thing no matter what it is .
iZONING ORDINANCE AMENDMENT TO AMEND SECTION 20-29(D ) CHANGING THE FILING OF
AN APPEAL TO THE BOARD OF ADJUSTMENT'S DECISION FROM 10 DAYS TO 4 DAYS.
1 Emmings: This has recently been before us . I don 't think we need a staff
report on this . This isn 't a public hearing is it?
Krauss: No , you 've already held that .
Emmings: Alright . I knew that . So let 's see , does anybody have anything
to say about this?
Conrad: Is there a way we can make , how do you get the word out during the
process that there 's a 4 day , that you only have 4 days versus 10 to
appeal? Or just simply a 4 day . No , I 'm not trying to communicate to the
City that we 've changed things but during the night of an appeal , or night
of where something came in and somebody wants to appeal , is it part of ,
•
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Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 41
well I know the answer to this but it 's almost like it should be said . If
there are any appeals , you have to make it then within 4 days . 1
Krauss: Really you 're right . It should be in the opening remakrs of the
Chairman and we should put it on the meeting notices that are sent out . Well
can make those .
Conrad: I think that would be smart to do .
Emmings: I 'd go a step further than that . I think that when there are
matters that are subject , wait a minute . Oh , this is just appeals to the
decision of Board of Adjustments . I
Krauss : Yes .
Emmings: Oh okay , I 'm sorry . That 's fine . '
Ahrens: How do you notify them now of the 10 days appeal period?
Krauss: Well actually what we 've started doing is one of the conditions of "
approval so that the applicant knows , is the last line is now this approval
shall become valid unless appealed within 10 working days . Also , we 've got ll
better control over this now because this is one of those items that the
City Attorney is , variances are filed against a property , or at least they
should be . And this is one of the issues that we don 't release it until
the owner 's given us whatever title information we need and the information i
is forwarded to the City Attorney and he files it . So we just won 't
release it until that period is over .
Emmings : I thought it was kind of interesting this change to any aggrieved
person . It 's just interesting language because here the City Attorney
thinks the reason to get that out of there and make it more restrictive is II
that it would prevent community gadflies from appealing a decision in which
they have no personal interest . I 'm sure the establishment thinks of Ralph
Nader as a gadfly and I think of him as a guy who 's protecting my butt from
getting blown up in a Pinto you know . I don 't think of him as a gadfly
so I don 't know . But anyway , I think that 4 days is not enough time to
allow a person to do anything . It really bothers me to go down from 10
days to 4 days . Another thought I had is , if somebody wants to appeal it II
there could be a fee . If it 's really a problem that people in the , that
there are people in the community who just appeal things just to cause ,
just to gum up the works , there chould be a fee . That 's going to separate
the gadflies from the folks who are really interested it seems to me .
Krauss: Well , but do you really want to make the process more , I don't
know what the right word is? I
Emmings: No I don 't . I don 't but that would be one way to address it if
it , I doubt if it 's a problem .
Krauss: Well no . It really has not been . I mean people who are going to
appeal a decision , every time that I 've had , that they either give it to
you there and tell you that they 're going to appeal it . Which is fine .
That 's all the notice we need because it 's of record . Or the next morning
you get a letter saying I 'm appealing this .
11 Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 42
I
Emmings: Four days just bothers me . I 'm very uncomfortable with it but
anyway , I know I 'm alone on that . Is there any other discussion on that?
Is there a motion?
Erhart: I move the Planning Commission recommend approval of the amendment
to the Zoning Ordinance Section 20-29 dealing with appeals from decisions
of the Board of Adjustments be approved .
Emmings: Is there a second?
Ellson: I 'll second it .
Emmings: Okay , is there any other discussion?
Erhart moved, Ellson seconded that the Planning Commission recommend
' approval of the amendment to the Zoning Ordinance, Section 20-29 dealing
with appeals from decisions of the Board of Adjustments. All voted in
favor except Steve Emmings who opposed . The motion with a vote of 5 to 1 .
Emmings: And why are you opposed? Well , I 'll tell you . I just think it 's
too short . It just doesn 't afford people due process as far as I 'm
concerned . They ought to have 10 days as a minimum to react to something
that changes property and it may be right next door to somebody and they
ought to have more time to react .
DISCUSSION OF RURAL AREA ISSUES:
A. UPDATE ON POTENTIAL GOLF COURSE IN SOUTHERN CHANHASSEN - JOAN AHRENS.
Public Present:
Name Address
Erik Roth 225 West 15th Street #412 , Minneapolis 55403
Perry Dean 1074 - 13th Avenue S .E . , Minneapolis 55414
I
Ahrens: A long time ago I volunteered to go before the Park and Rec
Commission to talk to them about this . In fact it was a month ago maybe . I
don 't know , and I gave them a little outline which I made copies for you
all so you can see what I did there . Basically , after I got into the whole
golf course issue I got very interested in it . I talked to people in other
cities who had municipal golf courses and they were all making a lot of
money off of them and they thought they were the greatest thing ever to be
developed in their city . I ,presented this . My request to the Park and Rec
Commission was that they amend their section of the Comprehensive Plan to
just include a study area for a golf course . To tell you the truth , I
don 't know what happened at that meeting .- They decided they didn 't want to
or they didn 't need to amend their section of the comprehensive plan and I
really don 't know why . They decided that it sounded like it was an
interesting idea and that somebody should look into it . I don 't know who
or what kind of timeframe but they really wanted to know if it was going to
11 be financially feasible before they 'd even look at study areas . So I
called Paul after the meeting and asked him what he thought of what had
happened at the meeting and he said he would talk to Todd Hoffman and get
I
Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 43 '
back to me on that as far as his willingness to proceed with the
comprehensive plan change . . . I don 't know what happened . Did you talk to II
him about it?
Kraus: I did . I think there 's a relunctance for the new ideas ,
especially new ideas that may cost money , to people to buy into and it 's an "
understandable relunctance . It 's still an unformed idea . I honestly am
not sure whether it should be proceeded with or not . It 's my understanding
that there were 3 Council people there . I
Ahrens: Yes .
Krauss: Who did show some interest in the idea but nobody can buy into
anything as unformed as this is at this point .
Ahrens: I don 't think we were asking for anybody to buy into the idea . We 1
were asking them simply to think about it and to think about where it might
go if it was , if the idea ever came into being . Where it might go in
Chanhassen .
Krauss: I think at this point it may warrant bumping the idea to the City
Council . Either we 've been talking about setting a goals session with the
City Council or just .a recommendation from you that the City Council
consider possibly appointing a group to investigate this further and report
back . There 's just not enough information for anybody to act on it at this
point but at this point , I think that it 's warranted to see if there 's
enough serious interest in the idea even from the City Council that they 'd
like this followed up further . You know , nobody has to buy into anything
in terms of commitments to spend money or anything else but do they want
you to proceed with this and then I think ideally a task force that would
be designed to approach this might have a couple of members from the Park
Board , a couple members from the Planning Commission . I mean there 's a
land use decision as to where this might go and what it accomplishes from al
comprehensive planning standpoint and there 's the direct recreational issue
of where should it be? What should it include? How should it be designed?
I sense that both of the commissions need to be involved in that kind of a I
recommendation .
Ahrens: Their main objective , they were most concerned about . First of
all they said well we already have a golf course in Chanhassen so they were II
very enthusiastic about preserving open space but they said we already have
a golf course . We have Bluff Creek and that 's open space and I explained
that you know , tomorrow if somebody came in with a good enough offer to the
owner of Bluff Creek , that open space would be gone and we'd lose the golf
course and we 'd lost the open space . They 're also concerned about spending
money right now but this realistically is a minimum 5 year to 10 year plan II
and most of the communities I talked to said , if you don 't get the land at
the stage that Chanhassen is in now , you 'll never get it because it either
gets too expensive or you don 't have any left . So if it 's something that
the City may be interested in , it 's not something that can just I think be
put on the back burner forever .
Emmings: It struck me as a good idea when it first came up but when I
looked at what you 've put together here , it seems to me it 's even a better II
idea . The idea of being able to use the club house for community events .
11
11
Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 44
Maybe even combining it with a community center idea .
Ellson: Community center down the road ,
Ahrens: Yeah , a lot of them did that .
Emmings: This has a lot of potential there for .
Ellson : This is a wonderful proactive kind of thing that I was referring
to before . Let 's not just wait for people to develop and see if we like
it . Like you said , we 're talking long range . We 're not saying this week .
Ahrens: There 's so many different financing options . I mean it 's not like
the citizens are going to have to come up with money out of their pocket
' even to pay for something like this . It really is an interesting idea I
think that deserves exploration .
Erhart: A quick question Joan . You 're saying profitable . That doesn 't
' include making payments on the purchase of the land?
Ahrens: Well , for instance in Brooklyn Park , the land was donated to the
City by a developer as part of a very expensive housing development that
went around the perimeter of the golf course .
Erhart : 188 acres?
Ahrens: Yeah .
Ellson : Dwan was an individual too .
Erhart: I guess when you use the term profitable , I 'm assuming that
' doesn 't include the cost of land cost , yeah .
Ahrens: Well supposedly the payback on golf courses is so high from day
one that cities can pay back whatever it took to purchase the land and
develop the golf course right away .
Ellson : I mean I think if the City 's losing out in payments , they 'd say
that golf course was a bad idea and they 're not saying that .
Erhart: It sounds a little hard to believe but if it 's in fact the case ,
then I absolutely think we ought to go ahead and form a committee to look
into it because I think , I never really thought that that opportunity would
have existed but if it does , then we ought to move on it .
Ahrens: I think it 's a real interesting idea and I think that looking
around at the municipal courses that are so successful . I mean look at
Braemar . They 're even building another 18 hole golf course over there
because it 's a big money maker for that city . Although all the cities
said , if they had to do it all over again , like Edinborough said they 'd
build the clubhouse a third of the size of the one they built because it 's
just too big for them . They ended up owning that . It was originally under
private ownership and now the City owns it . . . And they all said that
they 'd get a big name designer because it really brings a lot of people in .
r
1
Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 45
Edinborough is already booked through , and they have been , for several
months through the U .S . Open . I
Erhart: These are all publically owned?
Ahrens: These are all municipal courses . This is just a brief little '
sketchy thing . You know a lot of them use the golf courses in the winter
time for cross country skiing and sledding .
Ellson: A whole community kind of thing . I like it .
Erhart: What happened to the one , Edenvale . Edenvale? I
Ahrens: They tried to sell their course to the City of Eden Prairie but
they wanted like 7 million dollars for it and Edenvale is just not worth
it . It 's not in good enough shape . It was too expensive .
Ellson: Thanks for doing this research . I think it 's very interesting .
Ahrens: I know Tom Workman is here to answer any questions . . .
Emmings: I think it 's a terrific idea . I
Ahrens: He was talking about perhaps approaching the owners of Bluff Creek
to see if they wanted to sell their course to the City which is an option
too .
Emmings: It doesn 't meet the idea of having it designed by a , unless you
wanted to do it over . ,
Ahrens: No , but if we wanted to do something .
Ellson: Enhance it a little bit more . I
Emmings: And make sure it stays as a golf course because that 's right on
the bluff .
Ahrens: Right .
Emmings: Anything else?
Erhart: My response to that particular idea was that I guess in coming up
with this idea was that my sense to preserve open space , that this would be
somewhere centrally located in the city where we would preserve open space
not only for the golfers but for surrounding neighborhoods and that 's why
the Bluff Creek golf course doesn 't quite fit with that vision . I hope it II
stays and I 'd like to see it improved but I 'm thinking about a second
course someplace .
Emmings: You 've got a reasonably large piece of land . 1
Ellson: You want 7 million for it .
Erhart: I seriously think that we have some major areas in our new comp
plan that are very large single family homes . I think there 's an
11
Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 46
opportunity to break that up with some open space here . Or maybe as a
buffer from industrial to Timberwood as Ladd suggested here . Something . The
problem 's going to be finding 150 or 200 acres available beyond the
financial although the financial looks , your findings are better than I
would have guessed .
Ahrens: I think there are ways . . .
Erhart: I would go along with Paul 's recommendation that we try to form a
committee involving Planning Commission .
Emmings: So you want to run that idea by the City Council?
Krauss: I think so and possibly if Tom or some of the other Council people
are really that interested . Frankly , I 'll be honest , this is not something
I know anything about . I don 't golf and it 's not my area of expertise . We
could find out the information for you but if Tom is also interested or
somebody is interested from the Council on serving on this study group , I
' think gives it more credibility too and you might want to consider that .
So maybe a request to the Council to consider establishing a task force to
look into the idea .
Emmings: Do they have Joan 's notes and things?
Krauss: No , not yet . Unless Tom , unless it was distributed .
Emmings: Well that could go with the packet that goes with the request .
Maybe , I don 't know . Do you think Joan should be there?
' Krauss: It might be a good idea .
' Ahrens: Everybody I talked to from the other cities too said they would be
more than willing to come and talk to anybody in Chanhassen and make
presentations . Brooklyn Park even agreed to give us their feasibility
study which they spent several thousand dollars on just to see what kind of
issues they experienced .
Ellson: Really?
Ahrens: Yeah .
Ellson: That 's fabulous .
Emmings: Okay . Anything else on golf courses?
B. UPDATE ON BF DISTRICT - DISCUSSION WITH U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE.
Krauss: We last left this issue last summer or spring , or whenever it was
when the comp plan was overriding but clearly we had some marching orders
in terms of looking at the BF district and pursuing some ideas with it .
The comp plan that was recently approved does talk about that area and does
talk about a future work agenda for it . One of the things the land use
plan does is the land use plan shows all the land located south of 169/212
as future park . Some of that land is obviously an auto junk yard and some
other things right now . I was finally able to touch base with Tom Larson
1
Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 47
who runs the Minnesota Wildlife Refuge . In fact Commissioner Erhart is
going to have him as a speaker at Rotary next week?
Erhart: Yeah .
Krauss: He 's really an interesting guy . Very knowledgeable and probably
would be willing to come talk to the Planning Commission some time or send
somebody over here . The Wildlife Refuge is really coming into it 's own .
They 've been getting better funding lately . They 've just completed their II
building which is a very attractive building over by the
airport . They are looking at development of trails . They 're finishing up
their acquisition and they have some long term funding goals for their
acquisition . My question to Tom was , is that part of Chanhassen south of
the highway included in your plans for future acquisition? And if not , how
do we get it in your plans? The answer to the first question is that it 's
not included . When they originally defined the park back in the early
80 's , they kind of drew a line around existing land uses figuring that it 's II
just too much trouble and expense to incorporate it . He shared similar
concerns with me in terms of , you know is the junk yard a polluter? It 's
kind of a visual polluter at any rate , and long term would like to see
those areas cleaned up . He is making a request through channels that
ultimately goes to Congress , for future park definition so that as money
becomes available , that they could use it to acquire parcels . He indicated '
that he was willing to draw the map so that all the land up to the highway
was included in potentially acquirable areas . He said that his priorities
for spending though are based on environmental concerns . That he 's got a
lot of more sensitive areas where he wants to devote his resources first
but I said , this is a long term goal for us . I mean if this doesn 't happen
in 5 years , we 're comfortable with that as long as it happens eventually .
He did say he was willing to put that in his request . I said , would it II help at all if we had a letter of support from the Planning Commission and
City Council with that and he said it couldn 't hurt . So I told him that I
would bring that back to you and see if you wanted to make that letter of II
support . It is consistent , the comprehensive plan is a statement of your
intent at this point and it does show those areas included . A couple
interesting things though . I found that while the wildlife refuge goes all III
way down to someplace near LeSeur , parts of it are not managed by the
Fish and Wildlife Service . Parts of it are managed by the DNR and Tom gave
me the name of the DNR contact person because the break point is the
Shakopee bridge . So there 's area in Chanhassen that would potentially be
included in the park but we have to work with DNR on that . And I contacted
a fellow over at the DNR who 's name escapes me at the moment but he 's
sending me some maps on that area and he also indicated that he would be II willing , John Parker is his name . He also indicated a willingness to look
at , if they haven't already included it , looking at modifying the land so
• that it would be included up to the highway . There 's also another feature
that the DNR 's real interested in protecting . There 's a rather rare fen . II
It 's an upland , wetland over a limestone base or something like that , and
I know the only other one that they 're aware of in the Twin Cities is over
in Eagan . It was threatened by the Blue Lake expansion when they were 11 dewatering- lately and they did protect it . But it happens to be near the
Assumption Seminary . You have the Assumption Seminary and then you have
the creek and this fen is on the north side of the creek and it 's a very
rare formation and they want to make sure that that 's protected and
possibly we can develop a mechanism by way of a trail can go over back
11
Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 48
' there or something long term . Apparently both agencies have different
policies as to development of the park . I saw their trail plan and their
trail plan does not include any segments in Chanhassen .
Emmings: Who is now?
Krauss: This is Fish and Wildlife . Here 's where their policies differ .
' DNR , it 's against DNR policy to develop trails in a wildlife refuge which
militates against people enjoying it but I guess it preserves the wildlife
habitat value a little more . Fish and Wildlife is not opposed to that and
has in fact designed in trails but the closest trailhead is in Shakopee at
the base of the bridge . Tom indicated that they would be willing to
consider trails on our side of the river , especially if this land 's
ultimately incorporated . They didn 't want to route somebody around a junk
' yard . The long and the short of it is , I 'm pretty hopeful as a first step
that they showed a lot of interest in the fact that we were interested in
working with them . We are apparently one of the only communities that have
come to them to discuss that and there 's a lot of mutual interest . If you
were comfortable in giving us some sign of support that I can take back to
them , or take to the Council to take back to them , I would encourage you to
do that . Again , it is consistent with the draft plan that you 've adopted .
' Another matter , we 've been talking about bluff line preservation . Several
of you have talked to me about the fact that Eden Prairie has a bluff line
ordinance and I haven 't had a whole lot of opportunity to do a lot of
indepth research as to what I think a good bluff line protection ordinance
is but I did xerox Eden Prairie 's for you . Just so you can review that . I
tend to think we can do a better job . One that 's more specific to the
11 bluff line . Eden Prairie 's is all inclusive . Wherever you 've got slopes
that exceed a certain amount , this ordinance kicks in . Which may be okay .
And that 's kind of the traditional approach but again , I just threw that
out there as information . This is something we know is on your agenda for
' things for us to do . We 're trying to get things done . I can 't always
promise that we 'll get it done as quickly as you 'd like but we are still
working on this one .
' Emmings: Okay , and then this said update on the BF district but primarily
the things you 've done involve the land south of the highway and then the
bluff line .
Krauss: Right . But that seems to be in the terminology , semantics that
we 've been using to describe all kinds of issues .
Emmings: Right , I guess so . Does anybody want to talk about this?
' Erhart : Yeah , I 'd certainly encourage this to try to encourage them to
incorporate everything up to the highway long term . Makes sense to me .
Emmings : If they can acquire all of that and if we can get something
reasonable on the bluff , that means that whole area is .
Ellson: Nice looking .
Emmings: Sounds good to me . So yeah , I guess we 'd like it . Sounds like
everybody agrees again .
1
Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 49
Conrad: Are there controls over the junk yard from a pollution standpoint?
Krauss: Well one would hope so .
Conrad: I can 't believe there is anything going on down there that , that 'll
just got to be a significant pollution factor for that area . Just a
significant . I can 't believe .
Krauss : Keep in mind that this is a non-conformity that 's existed for a
number of years and predated the State 's regulations of junk yards .
Emmings: Does that mean they can pollute willy nilly? I
Krauss: Well I don 't think so but .
Emmings: I don 't either . 1
Erhart: What do you think they 're polluting? Oil running out of the?
Emmings: Got to be .
Conrad: Oh yeah . '
Emmings: Crank cases . Transmissions .
Olsen: . . .the Corps of Engineers has been involved with them and the Fish II
and Wildlife Service as far as they 're filling this wetlands back there .
I 've never been on the site . There 's wild dogs . I 've driven in there and 11 you just kind of . . . I 'm sure they 're expanding beyond what they ever were
to . It 's constantly expanding .
Erhart : It is expanding? They 're not moving the fence? '
Olsen: They 're filling and they 're going back .
Emmings: How can they do that? '
Krauss: Well they can 't and if we can catch that , we can stop that but
there was an incident that Tom Larson was relating to me where when they
did a survey of the area they found out that the auto salvage yard had
built 30 feet onto Fish and Wildlife property . What they did is rather
than force them to move the line at that point , they said well give us 30 '
feet back on the other side and they had a property swap .
Ahrens: Well if you know they 're moving it , why do you have to wait until I
you catch them?
Krauss: Well we 're not certain . I mean we need to have evidence . You
know catch people hauling in . It 's a real difficult area to access . We 're ll
talking about something that .
Ahrens: How would you ever catch them? '
Emmings: Well but now they 've got a survey it sounds like and that would
be a sure .
I
Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 50
Erhart : But isn 't the thing fenced?
Olsen: In the back? I 've never been in the back .
' Erhart: I 've been in there . I thought sure it was all fenced .
Conrad: Basically the pollution would be under somebody else 's
' jurisdiction though .
Olsen: The EPA .
I Conrad: Yeah . Could we inquire? Could you do that Jo Ann and just find
out what they think of that facility and what they 're doing to it?
' Ahrens: . . .for not doing their job .
Emmings: Here 's a chance to set the record straight .
' Conrad: It 's just got to be a major source of pollution to that valley .
Emmings: Alright , anything else on this right now?
' Krauss: No .
' C. UPDATE ON RURAL SINGLE FAMILY DENSITY ISSUES, PAUL KRAUSS AND TIM
ERHART .
Krauss: I 'll kick this off and then Tim can get into this as well . You
probably recall a month or two ago we brought to you the fact that we were
required under the Lake Ann agreement to have minimum 2 1/2 acre lots in
the rural area and the Metro Council , we since became aware that as soon as
' they made us apply that standard , they lowered their standard to 1 acre
lots keeping the density the same . The 1 per 10 acre density . The Metro
Council is now updating all their rural area policies and has proposed new
' standards that maintain that density so nobody 's getting any more than 1
home per 10 acres but eliminate the minimum lot area requirements .
Basically the minimum lot area is going to be established by whatever it
' takes to put it , a safe and efficient on site sewer system . We asked if
you wanted us to go use this apparent new flexibility to see if we can get
the contract changed and you asked us to do that . We took it to the City
Council . They asked us to do it . There 's a little bit of confusion in an
I issue that needs to be clarified . The new rural standards that they 're
developing don 't have any minimum lot area . I 'm guilty of some of the
confusion on this and some of the discussion we said that they don 't have
' any minimum lot area but I 've spoken to Carl Loren at Metro Council who 's
sheparding this through and he originally told me , I guess where it came
from was that we were required to have 2 1/2 acre lots . Right after that
they lowered it to 1 acre so I was assuming that we 'd have 1 acre as the
minimum lot standard . Commissioner Erhart raised the concern that it was
his assumption that we would go , ask them to eliminate the standard
entirely which is , the City Attorney drafted us up some new language for
Lake Ann Interceptor Agreement and in fact that does that . Just writes out
the minimum standards . We wanted some clarification of the intent here
I guess before I sent the official request to the Metro Council . Would you
like us to go for having no minimum standard in the Lake Ann agreement?
I
Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 51 i
You 'll have to establish a minimum standard I suppose in the Zoning
Ordinance but you can do that based on whatever discussion we 'd like to put "
in . I suspect the Metro Council 's going to say well this is an interesting
concept . Tell us exactly how you 're going to handle it .
Emmings: Tim , did you have something to add? ,
Erhart : Yeah . Not to be outdone by Joan , I have a handout too . Just
trying to put my thoughts down on paper and just some ideas to share with II
you . One was what we were talking about . I 'll just quickly just thumb
through these . This summarizes the first page , the current ordinance and
what I thought we were talking about in our discussion of this . And so
I just_ came up with some concepts so that I could draw some pictures for us "
to get a feeling for what really affect dimensionally are we talking about
in terms of land use . So I took what I thought was a reasonable proposal II
let 's say it 's 1 acre with 125 foot minimum width and using 30 foot
front and yard setbacks and put that down as a proposal and then summarize
what I thought were the benefits of that which included preserve open
spaces , efficient land use . We all talked about preventing the island
affect that we 've dealt with during the update . Allowing the use of wooded
and hilly areas while preserving the ag . We 've talked about efficiency
before . Another idea I came up with was , which was a new idea we haven 't
discussed if we were to do this , I 'd like to see us consider eliminating
rural standard streets anymore so we don 't have , we won 't build any new
rural roads with ditches and things . For two reasons . One is ultimately II they won 't fit and they 'll have to be redone as curb and gutter . Secondly
is that if you require an urban standard that 's more expensive and it will
encourage people to go to the smaller lots . So it 's again an idea for
discussion . The other one , again at this point I think the smaller
lots , the one thing that happened in Pioneer Hills was that they did not
install gas at the time and now you 've got all these houses with these
propane tanks . These silver propane tanks sitting outside next to them . 11 It 's really ugly . I don 't know if we could actually put in an ordinance
that says you 've got to install gas lines . That's not exactly a utility
but it really ought to be done . So there 's just a summary of some
benefits . I did talk to , I did some calling around . I got ahold of this II
Steve Shermers who was also very willing to come in and talk to us . He
runs the SP Testing and he does septic system design and so forth for
developers . He came out of that Machmeier school at the University
of Minnesota and got some ideas from him about what some of his ideas were
and he had recently done , I think he said 6 or 7 what he , well let 's see .
I 'm getting ahead of myself a little bit . The next page shows a typical 1 11
acre lot , how you might put it together in terms of where a house and 2
septic sites and according to him they would be required to be 40 feet by
90 feet in clay soil . So that gives you an example of how that might look
if we were to adopt a 1 acre site . It all fits on there I think fairly II reasonable . The next page is just to give an overview of looking in terms
of size of lots and what land consumption you 're really doing . The first
one takes a section and let 's say you have 3 developments . One in the
upper right hand corner is a 40 acre development so therefore you can have
3 lots plus the remainder of the 40 acres . The one on the left is 7 lots
in an 80 acre development and the lower right hand is a 160 acre
development where you have eventually 15 lots and course. It gives you an II
idea . That 's essentially using up 10% of the land as density in 1 per 10 .
If you go to the one area , the next page , that shows you 1 acre lots but
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1
Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 52
with the same density . See now your efficiency increases by more than
' ' doubles here so you 're losing a little bit less than 5% of the land . It
just gives you a relative feel on what you 're doing . Then we talked about
the idea , which I thought you had referenced in your last handout at the
last meeting . The idea of a community system . When I talked to this Steve
Shermers he said that community system 's a bad word beceuse it implies a
community . Because some small towns or big commercial areas like a store ,
11 like a Fleet Farm in a rural area , have very large commercial septic
systems and they call those community systems but they have another thing
what he terms cluster systems . They have done about 5 or 6 of those in the
last 2 years where he has designed them and installed them generally around
lakes .
Emmings: This would be like over on Dogwood on Minnewashta .
Erhart: Yeah but to modern .
11 Emmings: Well that 's an old one but it 's the same idea .
Erhart: Same idea . I don 't know how many houses are on that one .
' Krauss: About 8 .
Emmings: Yeah , a number like that .
Erhart: One of the overriding things that he said that so far they 've only
been installed 2 years and so far , you know he thinks they 're fine but he
says you want to limit the number of houses to 5 per system because of , not
that you , I mean you can technically put one together for 20 houses but it
becomes , you have to have a users association . A very active one and
somebody has to manage this thing and make sure it stays working and
' somebody 's not abusing it . He said one of the ways of getting around that
is to keep the minimum to 5 houses per cluster septic system . So that
seemed reasonable . I know that the more people you get involved , the more
' likely you 're going to have trouble trying to get people to get along .
There is also a point he indicated that if you get above like 15 or 16 ,
then all of a sudden you get into a , it becomes a big system and you 've got
to get the PCA involved and you definitely don 't want to do that . So with
that , that was my notes on that again . He 'd be more than willing to come
over and talk to us on that kind of thing . The last drawing here shows
what you could do with the cluster system . This piece is kind of the scale
assuming 20 ,000 square foot lots . And then I outlined just a little bit of
summary of what I gathered on the cluster system . The benefits are again
more concentration of lots . It has been particularly useful around areas
1 of lakes and wetlands where individual septic systems sometimes are a
problem that can be solved by these . Lastly , the ones we had discussed or
Paul had discussed in his handout was the idea that you could hook
essentially the sewer lines are put in at the time of construction so that
you could simply unhook and then hook to a citywide sewer system at that
time . That 's not quite true in that you still have to put two septic tanks
on each house as you would in an individual septic system so at the time
you hook onto sewer , you do have to essentially dig those and collapse them
or do something . Fill them up or something and bypass them .
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Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 53 ,
Emmings: In the cluster system , on each lot there 's septic tanks and
what 's communal is the drainfield?
Erhart: The drainfield , yeah .
Krauss: And you would have to make sure that the drainfield , which is the I
bottom of the system , is located in an appropriate spot where you would in
the future bring in utilities .
Erhart: As I showed on my last drawing , I showed you that . It doesn 't
imply that it 's zero cost to hook up . There is some disadvantage . It does
require an active association of users . They 've got to get along . '
Although they are living next to each other although sometimes that can be
the problem . It does mandate city involvement and I think that 's the issue
you 've got to grapple with here whether you want to get involved in these II
cluster systems or not .
Emmings: Why couldn 't we do what we require homeowners to do and have a II system whereby they have to have it inspected annually or whatever . Would
that , well the City still has to check and make sure they 've done it
I guess .
Erhart: And I think it requires more active than just that . I mean the
City actually has to , there actually has to be somebody responsible to
check this thing at least on an annual basis . Then the issue comes down toll
is the vacation syndrome . If somebody goes on vacation and something
happens , you get a faucet leak or the pipe breaks or something . All of a
sudden this thing gets to be , someone 's putting in more water than it was II intended . Who 's going to be responsible for getting ahold of somebody to
fix the plumbing? The other 4 people in the party? Is it the City? I
don 't know . These are some issues . It 's not that big a deal but they 've
got to be thought out . And the installation of water meters helps with II that because if there does seem to be a problem , you can check quickly to
see where this water 's all coming from . The last drawing kind of shows you
a sample , I put together a 10 acre site with 10 , approximately 20 ,000-
25 ,000 square foot lots . And according to Shermer 's , again worse case ,
actually the worse case is the standard drainfield in terms of the amount
of size it drains . Your primary drainfield and your alternate drainfield
is about a half acre for each 5 houses assuming a 4 bedroom house . You can '
actually have that if you go to a mound type system . Showing here .the
worse case , you pick up essentially 1 acre of waste for every 5 lots . And
again , as Paul pointed out , where in the future a sewer system would
probably come by in a major streak here , you might pick up one of these
fairly easy but the other ones , you may have to pipe in some 600 feet to
hit it . So it 's not perfectly clear that it 's just basically unhook a pipe '
and with a rubber tube hook to the new one . Essentially that was the
information I gathered and I think , I guess my feeling was that , I thought
what we had agreed on last time , we were going to go to Met Council and get
as much flexibility as we could and then come back and take up all these
issues . Decide what extent we want to .
Emmings: So to keep the flexibility we 'd need to be able to consider these
clustering of septic systems and other things , you wouldn 't want to see any r
kind of a minimum lot size?
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Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 54
Erhart: If that 's what you want , yeah . If you want that option in the
future , we would want to go back and ask for no minimum lot size which
coincides with what I think they 're getting to .
Krauss: Well yeah . We 're prepared now to ask them . Again , I haven 't sent
the letter out yet but the letter basically says eliminate any reference in
the Lake Ann Interceptor agreement which is the only thing that binds us .
11 Right now we have a minimum 2 1/2 acre standard in our ordinance and I can
see them asking for more definition as to what we will adopt or wanting to
have some authority to review changes in the ordinance that we want to
incorporate . You 're really working with two different things . You 're
working with the standard rural lot where you 're going to have to establish
a minimum area . And you know , 1 acre would seem to be appropriate for
that . In fact , Tim illustrated that quite well . When you get smaller than
11 1 acre , you 're going to have a very tough time locating the two drainfields
on your own property . But then we 'd want to develop cluster standards for
the rural area . And what those are at this point I don 't know but we 're
sure willing to work on that . I guess at this point we just wanted to
11
bring this back to you and so this issue was kind of laid out before you .
I 'll go ahead and I 'll forward our request to the Metro Council and I 'll
keep you posted as to what they 're asking for . Then at some point they 're
I going to come back to us or we 're going to have to develop a new ordinance
to deal with it and we 'll keep you informed .
' Emmings: Right now if somebody wanted to do something in the rural area ,
they 're going to be coming in at 2 1/2 acres minimum?
Krauss: Right .
' Emmings: Is the feeling we don 't want to see that kind of development? I
mean that 's what I 'm hearing . So this is something we should get , we 've
got to get cranking on so we don 't have people coming in for those although
there 's no activity in that area .
' Krauss: There 's not a lot , no . It 's not a very active market right now .
I guess I would also say that it 's not the City 's position to say 2 1/2
acre lots are necessarily good or bad . I mean clearly we 've had some
problems dealing with the after affects that we 've seen in the
comprehensive plan . They tend to get in the way . They make things
difficult for orderly expansion of the City in the future . If we lower the
minimum lot area to 1 acre , somebody could still come in with 2 1/2 acre
lots . We set a minimum , not a maximum so it wouldn't necessarily preclude
that same situation from arising . It just gives people more opportunity
to , more flexibility .
Farmakes: Given the economics of building out in the rural area , would the
natural tendency be like in town to be , putt as many homes as you can? I
mean would you expect a builder to be out there selling these homes wanting
to put 1 house per acre versus 2 1/2?
Krauss: Well , Commissioner Farmakes , the density cap would remain . The
Metro Council 's adamant on that . So if you have 40 acres , you 're still
only going to be allowed to have 4 houses . It 's just a matter of what size
lot are you going to put them on . And what we 've found is that yes , you do
have some builders and some developers who will go for the minimum every
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Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 55
time . But when you 're building to something other than rock bottom , entry
level housing , you 're not designing for the minimum and we 've got a lot of
developers . We have a 15 ,000 square foot minimum lot area but many , if not
most of the lots that are platted recently , are somewhat larger . And they
can be a lot larger depending on what the builder 's going for . My guess ill
that if you 're developing a rural subdivision , why live out there on a
15 ,000 square foot lot . It just doesn 't make sense .
Farmakes: That 's what I 've been seeing out there . I 've been seeing what II
I would call upper bracket homes . Large homes and they don 't seem to be
positioned in any particular way for future subdivision . They seem to be
positioned as estates . Placed in such a way that you wouldn 't think that II
they 'd be developed later but you never know .
Krauss: I think that 's generally true . The only exception is in
Timberwood , some of the homes have been situated off to one side and I know "
that the developer sort of designed it so that at some point in the future
you could , if you don 't mess it' up with a house location , you could split II the lots down- the middle and still have oversized lots but would have some
potential .
Emmings: Nice work . Anything else on this? ,
Krauss : I don 't think so . We 'll go ahead and send that letter in .
VERBAL UPDATE - TREE PROGRAM AND DNR PARTICIPATION. 1
Olsen : We just kind of added this at the last minute just to let you know •
that the mapping of the trees , of the vegetation in the city is moving
ahead . I just met with the DNR , about 4 of the DNR foresters last week andll
we 'll be bringing that , presenting that to the Planning Commission and City
Council in the next couple months . We 're trying to get something ready for "
Arbor Day to have it all mapped out . Have it designated what types of
woodlands they are and which are the ones we want to preserve and which
not . When you look at the aerials , what they have are aerial photographs
and it 's just amazing to see how much is not out there anymore . We 've just
got hardly anything left and to really just to show that we need to
preserve what 's there now and so we 'll have that in the next couple of
months . I
Emmings: Okay , and this is the effort to develop an overlay , like the
flood plain and everything else , showing where there are significant stands "
of trees?
Olsen: Exactly.
Emmings: Now in the past we 've always heard that there 's one DNR forester
for the 7 County metropolitan area and he just doesn 't have time to work on
this . Now , what is enabling us to do this all of a sudden? '
Olsen: Well they 're using us as kind of a pilot project .
Emmings: Oh good . ,
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Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 56
Olsen: And their boss and the DNR is really excited about looking at urban
' tree , it 's not to call it preservation . It 's called more management and so
they are putting .
Ellson: Resources in?
Olsen: Resources in , exactly . Plus they 're working with us on even
adopting like an ordinance to work on . What we do want to preserve and how
to manage it . They 're really , when I met with them last fall it was kind
of like they 're just going to give us this mosaic of the aerial photographs
and it was like , okay . Great . That will look nice on the wall but what do
we do with it? I don 't know what kind of trees they are and what are the
good ones and when we met last week , they 're just taking it . All the steps
up where we 're really going to have a working document so we also are
' looking at hiring an intern who will have to do the foot survey and to
verify what they see on the aerials . There 's ways to do that where it
probably won 't cost us much of anything .
' Emmings: Sounds good .
Krauss: I think Jo Ann deserves some credit here because this is not
11 something that the DNR 's ever done for anybody before and we are being used
as a little bit of a guinea pig but it 's clearly in both the best interest
of the DNR and the City to work out this issue . Hopefully it will be a
real useful project . We don 't know the product that we 'll get out of this
but you always have the opportunity to review it but we 're breaking some
new ground here .
Ellson: We 're progressive .
Emmings: And it points up too , you know when Valvoline comes in here and
' wants , they want to put up some substantial something and there ought to be
trees there . I don 't care if it 's pines or spruce or maples or oaks or
what but by god they ought to put up a couple of big trees .
Erhart: You know another thing that I wanted to point out on that thing
too , you should make them guys draw those trees to scale on those drawings .
I 'll tell you , a welsh juniper will never get 15 feet in diameter as shown
on that plan .
Ahrens: . . .on their picture , little teeny things .
Olsen: . . .they 're going to look at the urban , the downtown are and they 'll
be able to tell where they need to revegetate . . . It 's not necessarily just
the preservation outside in the rural areas but they 're also going to work
on .
Emmings: How about in our subdivisions where we have to have 1 tree per
' lot? That 's ridiculous . We 've talked about that before but we 've never
done anything about it .
' Ahrens: I think for Arbor Day , the City of Chanhassen should get a whole
bunch of trees and have a tree sale .
Krauss: Tim is working on that .
Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 57
Emmings: Tim does that .
Erhart: They 've done that every year . •
Dick Wing: I was going to ask , why the Valvoline? Why not the testing
station? That was one of the questions I wanted to ask when we were
reviewing the testing station . Why aren 't we , and I hear all this
excitement about trees which I really support . Some cities every Arbor Day
have a wholesale day and go to a nursery where they can pick up trees at
cost . . .but more important , I 'd like to see Chanhassen start reforesting .
And one issue that I 'm going to bring up at the Council meeting is that
I want that . . .substandard building , which I consider it to be, with a flat II
roof , which we didn 't . . .a•t least as those lots mature , I 'd like to see some
trees mature with it so that by the end of my tenure in Chanhassen , there 's
a legacy there . Not just a flat roof building . I 'd rather have a forested "
lot that it sits on but see I don 't know the ordinances to address these
issues very intelligently here . Other than that I think right here , plats
could be stopped cold until they have adequate trees and I want to tell you "
where I stand , I 'll support that when it goes upstairs so to speak . Both
the testing , I 'm disappointed that the testing station didn't put in more
trees . I mean that 's just another eyesore along TH 5 . My concern is , I
made a stand on I 'm worried about the east end of TH 5 looking like the
west end of TH 5 . What I haven 't decided yet is where east and west stops .
So just maybe this one we looked at tonight is still on the east side but
if it 's on the west side , you 're stepping into my territory now and I don 't "
want it going any further west . And I 'm concerned about that .
Emmings: Now the trees on the testing site , there were quite a few were
there not? Both on the TH 5 side and on the back side?
Krauss: Yeah , there was .
Emmings: Quite a few evergreens is what I remember . I
Conrad : Well berming and evergreens towards the neighbors side .
Krauss: It 's on the highway side as well .
Emmings: It 's on the highway too I thought . I
Dick Wing: . . .comment from an HRA meeting a couple months ago . They 're
putting in these great big walls that say Chanhassen made out of fancy
brick . It 's out by the Holiday station and then down in Market Blvd . and III
stood up and I said, well our big logo right behind your head Steve is a
big maple leaf and I think the entry to the city ought to be reforested in
maples , or at least hardwoods . Their statement was , well we don 't want to
obscure the sight lines to Holiday .
Emmings: Why not? ,
Dick Wing: Ask the people on the commission.
Ahrens: If anything could obscure .
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Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 -- Page 58
11
Dick Wing: Well a large hardwood . . .so they 've got a few low things and a
few pine trees and I said but our logo is and why don 't we reforest with
hardwoods and why doesn 't the city start staturating itself with hardwoods
again? So count on me for support if you choose to go that direction .
11 Emmings: The other thing is with hardwoods you know , as they age , as they
get mature , your sight lines really aren 't impaired at all . You have all
the benefits and none of the disadvantages .
Dick Wing : I 'll just finish up my statement . I just want to , I 'm
reinforcing this position . I drive into Chanhassen from the east and my
first sight coming into Chanhassen from the east is billowing white smoke
coming across the highway . And I said this at the Council , I 'm repeating
this . If you 've read the Minutes , cut me off but they tell me that smoke
is just steam but it don't smell like steam to me . And then I go through
' these buildings and here 's . . .testing station , McDonald 's , Taco stand ,
cement place . That 's TH 5 from our border to downtown and what 's going to
stop that from moving right on west the same way . It happened with this
1 Planning Commission and the one before you and the one before you and the
City Council before you and that 's what they 've allowed . What do we have
to do to stop it to get control of some direction?
11 Emmings: Terrorism . That 's all we have to resort to .
Ellson: No , I think we have to be proactive otherwise they 'll come in and
11 the ordinance will allow it to happen .
Ahrens: Well that 's what Annette was talking about at the last meeting ,
1 and I talked to Jo Ann about this too . At some point we have to be able to
say , we don 't like this stuff .
Ellson: Can we go out and give what we do want? Can we go recruit it?
11 Ahrens: . . .I 'm sure that people don 't like to hear , I don't think that
looks nice on that corner , but it doesn 't . It looks like junk and 10 years
from now it will look junkier . I don 't know why we have to have a corner ,
the corner that we drive into , that everybody drives into Chanhassen , why
that has to be devoted to auto services . I don't understand that .
Emmings: Presumably we can , we 've got our opportunity on the west side of
town that we didn 't have on the east side I think is what Dick is saying
and by doing a corridor study and looking at the study area out on TH 41
' and TH 5 , we 're going to be able to go a long way by performance standards
and other techniques to make sure that doesn 't happen on that end .
Ahrens: We 're letting it happen right now.
Emmings: Well yeah . It 's a lot harder , especially in a little spot like
that . You know it 's zoned BH . It 's a BH business . He can come in here
and we can 't turn him down because he 's got an ugly store .
Ahrens: Is there any way that we can direct any kind of development
though? . . .as soon as you bring that up , they say we can't change .
Erhart: We can do architectural design as long as we have the standard .
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Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 59 '
Mike Mason: That 's what we talked about at the Council meeting was getting
some performance standards . I
Emmings: We 've been talking about it for years and it 's easier to talk
about .
Mike Mason: Well I understand that but I think .
Erhart: No , I think we 've talked about it and we 've decided against it in II
the past . We have collectively made a decision , a couple times since I 've
been on the Planning Commission , that we don 't want to get into
architectural standards . 1
Ellson: Maybe they 're too stringent .
Erhart: I never understood why but that has been basically the consensus . I
Now that appears to change .
Farmakes: You could get into goals . I guess when I was talking before , II and saying that it would alleviate some of the complaints of the neighbors
if they would soften up the impact of that roof . The issue , I guess if you
had directional goals that you 're asking some of these architects to solve
without getting into the how to 's and saying this is what would help to get 11
this passed . I think that would allow them some flexibility into doing
what they need to do for their business . At the same time knowing what them
eneral thinking is I guess of the City as far as covering up standing
traffic and landscaping and berming direction and if your location is close
to a residential , that you need to be cognizant of that . Without again
being specific and saying, paint this pink . '
Emmings : Make a mansard roof .
Parmakes: It would be impossible . It takes away all flexibility from any II
professional and the people that they 're hiring .
Ahrens: But private developers do that in residential areas . They say we II
want brick exterior . They don 't say what kind . They don 't say they want 2
story or 1 store , whatever . They want a certain kind of look . They can
develop real general design standards where not everything has to look the I
same but everything is of a certain quality . I don 't know why they
couldn 't do something like , it's real hard to do .
Conrad: You 're going to find it real difficult . '
Ahrens: I 'm sure it is hard to do but what 's the alternative?
Conrad: The alternative is to require certain embellishments: Whether I
that be walkways for real people . Shrubbery to a specific standard that we
feel comfortable about . I think it 's real proactive . I have a real II problem developing design standards and I think because we , it 's just hard
to dictate . There are exceptions galore .
Ellson: Well how about Jeff 's idea? Give the goals and then you 're
reviewing everyone in light of the goals . Did you buffer the residential
well enough because we 've told you Mr . Developer , that 's an important part
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Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 60
when you 're going up against a residential and you 're commercial .
Hopefully his designer has looked at that and says , yeah . There 's 15 more
pine trees here than our last location .
' Ahrens: What 's the minimum we have to comply with and they just come in at
the minimum . They don't care about our lofty ideas but they just want to
know what the minimum requirements are .
rFarmakes : Although , I believe didn 't you say they 're making amendments to
the roof at the inspection site?
Krauss: Yeah , we got the plans today . It looks a whole lot better .
Ahrens: That 's because we required that far .
IEllson: But he 's saying because that 's a goal , we would be able to throw
that in?
11 Farmakes: But is it required because we asked for it or legally would they
have had to do that?
Krauss: It was a condition of approval . If you 're asking if they could
take it to a court and get it overturned , maybe in about a year or so . I
don 't know . We have an ordinance Jeff that says that we have the right to
' do architectural review but it 's vague as to what we can do . At some point
we go too far . Clearly you can 't deny a project because it 's ugly as a
sole reason .
Erhart: Look it . I mean you know , there 's been hundreds of towns out
there that have put in place architectural zoning ordinances . If we want
to get serious about it , just go to Vail , Colorado . Find out what they
did . There 's a tremendous amount of resort towns that have put
architectural code in there . Just go find out what they did and pick the
best parts that we want and put it in .
Conrad: You don 't have consensus from anybody in town what that would be .
Really .
Erhart: It 's a process that . Oh , it 's not going to be simple .
Conrad: What do they tell you in school Paul about architectural
standards?
Krauss: They tell me to do what the Planning Commission tells me .
11 Conrad: Good line .
Dick Wing: I 'll answer that Ladd because my wife 's a senior in
architecture and one of the projects they 're doing right now is redesigning
494 which they see as a dismal failure , as the communities are calling it a
dismal failure . Paul 's of the old school . I don 't care what he says , he
graduated before my wife did . The new school says , you just don 't strip
TH 5 . You run , go off a block and then you have a little cluster but what
we 're used to in this community isn 't what the new world 's thinking . And
all these clusters eventually . . .redeveloped and redesigned so when she sees
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Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 61 '
the comprehensive plan , she says well that 's what the average does but
here 's what some cities have done . She 's got all this new information from"
the new school . The kids in architecture and urban planning . . .have got
some clever ideas that are really pretty productive and Tom Workman brought
up the new car dealership in Eden Prairie . Well you don't know it 's a car
dealership . Why? Because performance standards said you aren 't going to
know that 's a car dealership . It 's very restrictive so we can raise some
goals and I agree . Architectural design is . . .so we can have a certain
flavor or quality of style like other cities do and we 're lacking that .
It 's going to happen on your ship . I don 't care if you do it or not but ifil
we fail , then it will have been in your terms of office and mine .
Conrad : I 'll just throw out one word . If you think we 've got problems on '
TH 5 right now , wait until we start designing the stuff that goes to the
west of the CBD because that 's sort of an unstructured . It 's going to
strip commercial type of stuff . That 's just what it 's going to fill up
with and that area has always bothered me that we really never , it 's going
to be parking lot , store , parking lot , store and we've never had any vision
for what that should look like . It 's always sort of been , well let 's take II
care of the CBD first and then after that fills up , then all these
franchise operations will go in to the west and sort of fill that up . I
guess I 'm not terribly concerned about the business highway , to be very
honest with you . I think we 're missing a whole lot of stuff but we haven 't "
had a vision . We haven 't had , other than locating highway service in that
area , which I think is not a bad vision . It keeps transcient traffic from II going through neighborhoods and I think there 's some really good value to
that . And the benefit is that we are able to do better designing with
other neighborhoods and keeping some of these franchise operations out of
other areas . But again I think it takes a vision and so far we haven 't
seen the vision. And we 're always dealing with problems with TH 5 . How
it 's divided . Who owns it and how we 're going to reconfigure it and where
the railroad tracks are . I don 't know . I guess it would be nice if
somebody had a vision that we could follow but in the years I 've been
around , nobody 's had that .
Ellson: Maybe your wife can do that for a project4 '
Erhart: Well aren 't we saying , I thought I heard that there was a
consensus among Planning Commission members to start working on
architectural standards. Is that my sense?
Ellson: Well I don 't know if it was just architectural . It had to do with
the landscaping and everything .
Erhart: Well agreed . Let me respond to that . Number 14 on our work list ,
which we added at the last meeting , that we were going to develop
landscaping standards so to me that 's already on the work list . We 're
going to add to that , and then I 'll get back , is that we ought to , another
project we ought to be doing is getting involved in Minnesota Highway II Department and finding out what their landscaping plan is on when TH 5 is
completed through town here .
Krauss: That 's something that we 're very active with . Dick was mentioning "'
it . Their project is very minimal . I mean they don 't do much of anything
but .
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Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 62
Erhart: Maybe we want to add to it .
' Krauss: Well we are and there 's an HRA _sponsored program and I forget what
the dollar amount is but it 's significant where there have been special
' paving treatments for the traffic islands . Landscaping where we can
landscape . Entrance monumentation at key intersections into downtown . The
goal of it is so that when you 're traveling on TH 5 through Chanhassen , you
will know that you 're no longer in Eden Prairie but that you 're in downtown
' Chanhassen . And you 'll know that because all the visual clues are there .
I haven 't seen the final plan . They 've gone through a lot of different
changes with it .
' Emmings: Who 's doing that plan?
1 Krauss: It 's Barton-Aschman is working as a consultant for the HRA and the
HRA will be paying for it and MnDot will actually be changing their
contracts I believe so that their contractor will build everything to our
specs . But there 's a lot MnDot won 't let you do . Inside the right-of-way
'
their primary goal is to move cars and they 're not going to deviate from
that .
Erhart: But they did a nice job on 35 and 494 of landscaping along the
side slopes I think . I think driving on some of those areas where they 've
really put some money into it , I think it looks really nice .
Ellson: And on the way towards St . Paul they 've got . . .
Krauss: Yeah , MnDot can be made to do some pretty neat things these days .
I mean look at where the new 35-E comes into St . Paul .
Ellson: Yeah , that 's what I 'm talking about .
Krauss: You 've got the bridges that have the antique features and the
light standards but somebody paid an awful lot of extra money for that too .
Emmings : Planted the whole median on top of that concrete .
Krauss: Well see that 's the result of not being able to build that highway
for 20 years due to neighborhood opposition . I think it 's a wonderful
design solution . I really enjoy it .
Emmings: Alright . It 's 10 after 11 :00 . Are there any additions or
corrections to the Minutes?
APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Chairman Emmings noted the Minutes of the Planning
Commission meeting dated January 2 , 1991 as presented .
CITY COUNCIL UPDATE:
Emmings: I 'm not going to ask Paul to go through it . Is there anything
anyone wants to make any comments about any of the items in there or get
clarification from Paul? I thought that the development fee schedule was a
ILgreat idea . That 's something that really needed to be updated it looked
like .
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Planning g Commi sslon Meeting
February 6, 1991 - Page 63 '
Conrad: I 'm just curious about the Timberwood comment . What? Give me a
synopsis of what? '
Krauss: The Council was very cautious and supportive of maintaining
consistency with the plan . Nobody wanted to change courses in midstream on "
Timberwood. To change what has been committed to . On the other hand , the
Council wanted to leave the door open for something else if it met a very
high standard of development to be considered.
Emmings: Now you 're talking about?
Krauss: The 137 acres in front of Timberwood . '
Emmings: Is that what you 're talking about? Oh , okay . I 'm sorry .
Krauss: And the way we approached that is , the City Council is holding all "
the cards . If we leave the land use plan exactly the way it is but write
into the text of the plan conditions under which the City Council may
consider changing it and what we did is we developed , you know we 've
always talked for years, what if American Express or somebody else like
that came and wanted to do a real Class A complex , campus . You know brick
and glass buildings . A tremendous amount of open space . Prestige type of
area and we 've always concluded that if somebody wanted to make a proposal
for that in front of Timberwood or wherever else , we 'd probably be fools if
we just didn 't give them the opportunity to at least make the case . So
what we did is we wrote into the text what sort of development may be
considered as an alternative to low density residential . And we talked
about basically brick and glass . Not much in the way of tip up panels . We
talked about mostly office . Not much in the way of warehousing and
manufacturing . We talked about a hard surface coverage , much more
stringent than is normally the case so that there 'd be more open space . We
talked about the need to preserve the creeks and trees and the school site.
We talked about the need to establish buffers and do the whole project as a '
PUD so we can exercise better control over it . See that 's where you can
do , that 's the easiest route to doing these performance controls . I 've had
the good fortune of being able to work with some of the better developers I
around here . You know , the Opus ' and used to Trammel Crow who would be
able to come to you and said I 'll develop 500 or 600 acres in accordance
with a very- high architectural theme . In accordance with a very high
landscaping theme and you work this through. Well that 's basically the
kind of development we 're saying that we 'd consider as an alternative to
single family on that property .
Conrad: Were there residents in there from Timberwood?
Krauss: Well yeah , there were a few. Just as a short antidote . Ursula
was talking to one of the neighborhood residents there , Bill Miller who 's II
been very active and had met with him on Friday . Bill apparently came away
from that meeting with the assumption that the City Council is deviating in '
a massive scale from everything that 's been done and there was a telephone
campaign to get people out over the weekend . Monday morning people were
calling me up and saying , what are you doing? You know , what 's going on?
And I said , well what do you mean? You 're way changing the comprehensive
plan . Who told you that? It turned out to have a rather smooth reception
at the City Council . Mary Harrington was there and did raise a concern but
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Planning Commission Meeting
February 6 , 1991 - Page 64
it 's quite clear that the plan that the City Council ultimately approved is
' the exact same plan they saw 2 weeks before and it 's the exact same plan
that you approved in October . It hasn't changed . And once that was clear ,
it was pretty smooth sailing .
' Conrad: My only question .
Emmings: Anything else on the City Council update?
Krauss: Well just to point out . We 've been talking about a corridor
study . Originally the assessment of looking at the 1995 study area on TH 5
which we all agreed to do and the Council wanted us to do , has seemed to
have expanded into this corridor study concept . There 's a desire on behalf
of the City Council that a task force be established to work on that with
some Planning Commission representation , some representation from the
' Council and some of the area residents and some of the developers to serve
on there and set some goals for that . Of course anything that would be
done would come back through Planning Commission for full Planning
Commission comment and then back up to the Council . It 's still an idea .
Everybody seems to be excited about it and it 's great . We 're going to do
some real interesting things with that . I 'm not exactly sure when we 'll
get it off the ground . It was laid out that we clearly have to get the
Comp Plan approved before we jump into that but they do want to start that
later this year . Oh, one last thing too . You wanted to raise an issue
about the next . _
' Emmings: Yeah , I will . We 've got the ongoing issue sheet here . It 's time
to get some of that stuff off there . I think I 'll talk to you about this
because I 'd like to see that revised a little bit but maybe I 'll talk to
you and then we 'll present something .
Krauss: Okay . There 's actually quite a few changes in here since the last
time we looked at this but yeah , let 's sit down and do that .
Emmings: Then in our packet there 's a letter . I guess that 's just for our
general information about a letter to Andrew Schmitt from Jo Ann Olsen?
Ellson: The Video Update guy .
Emmings: Video Update and the antenna . . I didn't know why it was in there .
Krauss: Oh , oh , oh . It was an administrative approval so we were just
' making you aware of it . Over on TH 7 and TH 41 .
Emmings : Oh , okay . And then Paul tells me there are not sufficient issues
' to having a second meeting this month unless something can be done on an
issue or is there not time?
Krauss: Mr . Chairman , yeah . I don 't want to commit to doing something
that , we generated a lot of material for this one and got a lot of things
scheduled . - A lot of minor stuff . We wanted to clear a lot of that up .
Honestly I 'm still in the process of getting the comprehensive plan finaled
out and making application to the Metro Council . That will take me into
next week . The next major job that Jo Ann and I need to tackle is getting
requests for proposals out on the surface water utility district so that we
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Planning Commission Meeting
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February 6 , 1991 - Page 65
can get the consultants on line and helping us with that . That kind of
takes up probably the rest of that month so I 'm a little bit leery of
telling you that we 'll , at this point that we can jump into those areas for II
the next meeting .
Emmings: Okay , so there won 't be a second meeting in February? '
Krauss: Correct . Yes , we ' ll send out a notice to that .
Emmings: I have run , the second meeting of each month has been run very
well and very quickly .
Ahrens: I won 't be here for the first meeting in March . 1
Emmings: Do you have a note .
Conrad moved, Ahrens seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor
and the motion carried. The meeting was adjourned at 11:20 p.m. .
Submitted by Paul Krauss '
Planning Director
Prepared by Nann Opheim '
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