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CC 2004 03 08CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MARCH 8, 2004 Mayor Furlong called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. The meeting was opened with the Pledge to the Flag. COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT: Mayor Furlong, Councilman Ayotte, Councilman Peterson, Councilman Lundquist, and Councilman Labatt STAFF PRESENT: Todd Gerhardt, Roger Knutson, Justin Miller, Kate Aanenson, Paul Oehme, and Matt Saam PUBLIC PRESENT: Rich & Dorothy Comer Susan Rich Karen & Guy Peterson Stephanie Unze Paul & Connie Palmer Ed Bixby Neal Blanchett Jack Spizale Bev Stofferahn Steve Pumper Paul Schlueter Ben Merriman 3800 Red Cedar Road, Excelsior 1000 Hesse Farm Road 3632 Hickory Road 1080 Lyman Court 2360 Bridle Creek Circle 3735 Hickory Lane Larkin-Hoffman, 7900 Xerxes, Bloomington 8141 Maplewood Terrace 8123 Marsh Drive 16797 Creek Ridge Trail, Minnetonka 427 Campfire Cove, Chaska 725 Interlaken, Victoria APPROVAL OF AGENDA: Mayor Furlong added item number 8, Consideration of Appointments to Representatives to Southwest Metro Transit Commission for the City of Chanhassen and to the Planning Commission. CONSENT AGENDA: Councilman Ayotte moved, Councilman Lundquist seconded to approve the following consent agenda items pursuant to the City Manager's recommendations: Approval of Minutes: -City Council Work Session Minutes dated February 23, 2004 -City Council Summary and Verbatim Minutes dated February 23, 2004 Approval of 2004 Reach for Resources Contract for Adaptive Recreation Services. Acceptance of $3,000 Donation from the Chanhassen Lions Club for Ball Field Lights on Lion's Field at Lake Ann Park. City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: PRESENTATION OF $3,000 DONATION FROM THE CHANHASSEN LIONS CLUB FOR BALL FIELD LIGHTS ON LION'S FIELD AT LAKE ANN PARK. Mayor Furlong: The Chanhassen Lion's have been involved in the Chanhassen community for many, many years and have taken special interest in assisting the city on many projects. In 1995 the Lion's supported, or donated $11,000 to be used in the operation of the new Chanhassen Rec Center at the time. Since that time they've been instrumental in obtaining lighting for the ball fields, number 4 and 5 out at Lake Ann Park. At that time they pledged to support that with an initial contribution of $25,000 and have been contributing funds ever since. To date they have contributed over $50,000 of their pledge, almost halfway there and they're here tonight again to contribute $3,000 towards that pledge, so Paul Palmer is here this evening representing the Lion's, so Paul. Paul Palmer: Thank you Mayor. When we started this project we had the pull tabs and of course that allowed us to funnel money in many different directions. Since then we've passed that duty onto the Legion and I sure hope you go there and support their efforts. They seem to be doing very well. I've seen some of their contributions so we should maybe pass this onto them but really the bottom line for us, the Lion's are really made up of contributions from everybody in the community in the different events that we host and the fund raisers that we do. And we just wanted to make another contribution toward that commitment that we had made and tonight I'd like to present the $3,000 check to Mayor Tom. Thank you. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. l(e). APPROVAL OF KEY FINANCIAL STRATEGIES AND STRATEGIC PLAN. Councilman Lundquist: Thank you Mayor. Just had a few mostly word smithing in this document. Mr. Gerhardt and I have already discussed some changes and amendments to put in here so what I'll do is go through these and have Mr. Gerhardt go over the changes that we discussed and then without objection we can go, or have further discussion there if desired. So first item is on page 6, number, or letter (e). The City faces potential major expenditures in it's water fund for infrastructure improvements in order to meet required federal water quality standards. I had issue with the phrases, required federal water quality standards. We already currently do meet all the federal water quality standards so changes there revolve more around just overall water quality and nothing that' s at this time required to meet any federal standards that we currently meet, so Todd do you want to. Todd Gerhardt: I'd suggest eliminating meet required federal and to put improve water quality standards. Mayor Furlong: Improve? 2 City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 Todd Gerhardt: Improve. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Councilman Labatt: Do we want to use maintain? Todd Gerhardt: No, we want to put improve. Councilman Lundquist: Do you want me to go through all of them and then we'll discuss at the end or do you want to? Mayor Furlong: Yeah. I think that will be most efficient. Councilman Lundquist: Alright. Page 10. Number 2.2. First sentence is worded, the use of public subsidies to assist with encouraging the type of development needed to maintain community competitiveness and balanced tax base should be continued. My issue there was with the phrase public subsidies. I think there's a lot of other ways that we have the ability and influence to assist in all kinds of developments. In certain instances it may require some form of public subsidy or city assistance but there's a lot of other ways as well so I want to make sure we don't just strictly put those in and that we can include that. So Todd what was your suggestion there was? Todd Gerhardt: That you would eliminate public subsidies to assist with and replace that with city assistance to encourage the type of development needed. So city assistance to encouraging the type of development Councilman Lundquist: Page 11. Number 5.1. The last sentence. Having the lowest property taxes is not always the final measure of this balance. That we just strike that sentence as a whole. My thoughts were that' s more of an editorial comment than anything that really adds any substance or impact to that phrase at all. And on the same page, 11. 5.2. Current city practice is to target only an inflationary increase in the following year' s operating budget. Wanted to just reflect or clarify that that' s the 5 year projections on our budget and not necessarily a year to year. We may opt to raise or lower from an inflationary increase depending on what's going on so. Todd Gerhardt: Part of our key financial strategies we give you a 5 year projection on budgets, and in those projection it takes into account inflationary increases. Does not take into account if you want to joint venture with the school district with a capital project. That's not included in there or an operational cost associated with that so I would suggest that you strike out city practice is to target and put in the current 5 year projection show only an inflationary increase. Councilman Lundquist: Those are all the changes I had so. City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 Mayor Furlong: Very good. Any discussions on any of those recommended changes or word changes? Councilman Labatt: The only, going back to page 6 E. The water. ! don't disagree with the change but something isn't flowing right there with the water. It's a joke Bob. Councilman Ayotte: Don't mess with the water treatment after all these years. Councilman Labatt: It's water fund for infrastructure improvements in order to improve federal water quality standards. Councilman Peterson: No, deleting out federal. Councilman Labatt: We're striking meet and required federal too? Mayor Furlong: Yeah. Meet required federal are all stricken. Councilman Labatt: Okay, so we're going to improve water quality centers, okay. Mayor Furlong: It's flowing better. Downhill, like some other things. Very good. Any other comments on the recommended wording changes. If not, is there a motion to approve the document as amended. Councilman Lundquist: Motion to approve as amended. Mayor Furlong: Is there a second? Councilman Peterson: Second. Mayor Furlong: Any discussion on the motion? Councilman Lundquist moved, Councilman Peterson seconded to approve the Key Financial Strategies and Strategic Plan as amended. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. PUBLIC HEARING: CONSIDER VACATION OF A PORTION OF KIRKHAM ROAD RIGHT-OF-WAY (JAMES PELTON)~ VACATION FILE 04-06. Matt Saam: Thank you Mr. Mayor, council members. First off! just want to get you familiar with the area of Kirkham Road that we'll be talking about. This is Kirkham Road. We're just east of Minnewashta Parkway on the west side of Lake Minnewashta. We're north of Highway 5. Staff has received a request from Dan Revsbech, the realtor representing the property owner at 3737 Hickory Road to vacate this portion of Kirkham Road. It's a portion adjacent to Lot, or house 3737. The area is approximately 30 feet by 150 feet. Currently what exists in this portion of Kirkham Road is just a gravel driveway that serves both 3737 and 3800 is the house right up in here. The city does have public 4 City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 sewer and water in this portion of the roadway that's to be vacated, so we'll want to keep an easement in that area. The remaining south portion of Kirkham Road here is really not improved. There's no pavement or gravel in there. It's really just a paper street. This is the survey that was included in your packet ! believe. Applicant is requesting this vacation in order to add additional area to his lot which is shown here. Again this is the 3737. Like to increase the size of the lot in order to, he has plans to increase the house on the site either by re-building or adding onto it, and so by vacating this roadway it would give him additional area and it would decrease the lot line setback limitation on this west side and it would also decrease the non-conformity of the lot area. Currently the lot is about 6,000 square feet. By vacating this entire right-of-way adjacent to the lot it would bring the lot up to about 10,500 square feet, which is not as great of a non-conformity when you consider the current requirement is for a 15,000 square foot lot. Now typically when the city vacates right-of-way half of the vacated right-of-way goes to the adjacent lot. So half on the east side would go to 3737 and the other half on the west would typically go to 3800. In this case, ! brought the plat to help explain. This is the underlying plat for the area where you see Kirkham Road was dedicated back in 1913. In this case, and I've checked this with Mr. Knutson and the surveyor, the applicant's surveyor. In this case because the right-of-way was platted with the property to the east, when we vacate the right-of-way, that entire property would go back to the adjacent property or lot to the east. It wouldn't be split 50/50. We really, staff really has no problems with this vacation for two reasons. First off, as ! said, the gravel driveway simply exists as a private gravel driveway so by vacating it, we're really not changing anything out there. We're just correcting the paperwork. And also we really don't have any plans to upgrade Kirkham Road. It's not maintained now. ! do want to point out however we're not proposing to vacate the south half of Kirkham Road, and that's simply because of the development potential of this Lot 3800 could possibly get a couple more lots in there, so we don't want to take away access off Kirkham Road if they so choose. We are recommending two conditions with this vacation. One, to retain a 30 foot public drainage and utility easement for the sewer and water. And the other condition would be for a private driveway easement to protect the rights of the 3800 lot owner so we could still access his site on the existing gravel drive. With that, we are recommending approval and I'd be happy to take any questions. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Questions for staff. Councilman Lundquist: Matt, this might be a question maybe for Kate but with that private driveway easement, what's the difference between if 3737, if that applicant came back later for, wanted to improve their house, what's the difference between having the city own that piece or having that private driveway easement on there? Essentially it's the same thing, right? Matt Saam: Not really. The only real difference ! see, and Kate you can add something if you want. Currently the property line is right here so currently if the side yard setback has been measured from that line. 10 feet back. So if this property owner would say want to tear down the existing house and build a bigger one, you'd have to maintain the 10 foot side yard setback without a variance. While if we vacate this right-of-way, he City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 now owns into this, where Kirkham Road is currently so his setback would essentially be at the current lot line because we wouldn't let him build in the easement, so what he'd be gaining is, ! think that number is 5.6 feet. Currently the house is 5.6 feet off the lot line. Dan Revsbech made a comment from the audience which was not picked up on tape. Matt Saam: That's a good point. That's why I'm not a planner. This lot is considered a corner lot because Kirkham Road is right-of-way, and so is Hickory Road. And that was Dan Revsbech the realtor. What he was saying is that the actual setback on a corner lot is 30 feet from both this right-of-way and this right-of-way, correct Kate? Kate Aanenson: That's correct. Matt Saam: So when we vacate it, now we take away that right-of-way so the setback decreases. Did you follow all that? Did ! explain it? Councilman Lundquist: Yeah, I guess I'm just struggling to see what advantage. Kate Aanenson: Well it's functioning as a private driveway so by vacating this street you're putting actually more property onto the lot making a bigger taxable lot. So you're actually putting it onto the tax roll and they'll be able to benefit from that by creating a larger lot, and upgrading their property so since it's functioning as a private driveway, the way the planners and the engineers look at it is, that's how we should do it in the field because that's how it's functioning today so it's really just adding more taxable property to the lot and increasing the ability to make the house bigger. Councilman Labatt: Doesn't this go against our principles of expanding non-conforming use though? ! mean if we're going to create this extra land, and then allow them to add onto the house. Kate Aanenson: No, it still would have to meet the setbacks, but as a paper street you have to maintain a setback from the street. If we make it part of the driveway it becomes part of the lot. The setback changes when you do that part of it. They still may need a variance but that's something, when this originally came in, it came in as one application. What we want to do is vacate the street first. To not cloud that issue so we're not trying to put one ahead of the other so we recommended that they vacate the street first and get a read on that before we could address any variance that may or may not be necessary for the house to expand. It is a smaller lot. Matt Saam: As ! understand in talking with Sharmeen earlier today, the only way the non-conformity comes into play is if they want to totally tear the house down and start from scratch. As he said, it's an existing non-conformity. If they want to add onto the house, they really don't need a variance from the lot area to do that. But if they want to tear the whole thing down, then they would need the variance so we'd be lessening any variances that they would need essentially. City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 Mayor Furlong: Sir, why don't you wait if you would please. Is that making sense? What they're saying? Basically right now it's about 6,000 square foot. Kate Aanenson: Correct, the right-of-way. Mayor Furlong: What is the width of the right-of-way? 30 feet? Matt Saam: 30. Mayor Furlong: It is 30 so we're adding 30 feet to the one side, and the reason it's going to the one property is because that's the way it was platted first? Kate Aanenson: ...with that plat. Mayor Furlong: And it's just a legal, the way it's done? So we're getting it up to 10, if we agree with the vacation then the lot becomes 10,000 square feet so it's still not up to the 15 required. But right now the setback is from the lot line at the right-of-way versus the setback being from the side, if this is vacated, from the side or the opposite side of the right-of-way. Matt Saam: Well yeah. Another 30 feet away, but again we won't let them build in the easement so essentially the farthest they can go to the west is right on the current lot line which is 5.6 feet. Kate Aanenson: To cover the utilities that are there. Councilman Labatt: So as you look at that house. To the north, if you take the house and go up to the north, that setback from Hickory Road is also 30 feet, correct? Matt Saam: Are you referring to the lot across the street? Councilman Labatt: No, no, no. Yeah, right there. If you go up to the north up to. Matt Saam: Yeah, that setback is 30 feet, correct. Councilman Labatt: So they could come in and expand this house to the north quite a bit. Matt Saam: Currently, as ! understand it, and talking with Sharmeen, they could come in and add onto this house and go up to the 30 foot setback. Councilman Ayotte: He keeps on blaming Sharmeen for this. Kate Aanenson: Again let's go back to the underlying issue when they came in and asked for a vacancy is how is it being served. We don't intend for this to be a public street, so what's happening is there's utilities in it and it's off the tax roll. It's being used as a private drive. If it's being used as a private drive it makes sense to put it with the lot City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 and that's how it's functioning, so that's the analysis we gave. We want to preserve the corridor for the utilities by putting an easement, so it does give them some additional square footage. It's being taxed. They can't go over the utility lines so that's how we viewed it, and we want to preserve the rights of the lots that are to the south of that to be able to further subdivide so we didn't vacate the entire street so they have that, you know they have that land locked that piece. Mayor Furlong: Other questions? I guess the final one, just from a public safety standpoint and that is, in that neighborhood those roads are fairly narrow. Long term there's no plan to build this road for safety or public safety? Matt Saam: Not if you're referring to Kirkham Road, no. Currently we have no plans. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Those are my questions. Any other questions then for staff at this time? Is the applicant here this evening? Alright, now would be a time to come forward. Dan Revsbech: The only additional information I have is currently the structure that's standing there. Mayor Furlong: And sir, if you could just state your name and address for the record. Dan Revsbech: Dan Revsbech. I'm with ReMax Action West and I'm representing the current owners of the property. Mayor Furlong: Thank you Dan. Dan Revsbech: The structure that's standing there right now is just a little under 600 square feet in size. City code for a rambler says a minimum size to be conforming is 900 square feet, so albeit the expansion of land to make it 10,000 square feet is not going to meet the 15,000 square foot minimum. However, in addition to the property, it helps bring the structure itself back into conformity with the city. As far as Councilman Labatt's concerns about moving forward on it too, obviously there's strict ground cover requirements too that will still have to be met with that that is going to inhibit an addition to any kind of grand scale. It simply won't have the ground cover capability to carry that but it does have the ground cover capability to do a reasonable addition and bring that home. That structure back into current conformity, so. Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Any questions for the applicant? This is a public hearing so we'll go ahead and open up the public hearing at this time and invite anyone that would like to come forward and speak on this topic and address the council. If you do, please come forward. State your name and address for the record. If no one wishes to speak on this issue, we'll go ahead and close the public hearing and bring it back to council for discussion. Discussion by the council. Councilman Peterson: ! think it's reasonable and go ahead. City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 Mayor Furlong: I would concur. Any other comments? If not, is there a motion? Councilman Peterson: Motion to approve. Councilman Ayotte: Second. Mayor Furlong: Any discussion on the motion? Resolution #2004-10: Councilman Peterson moved, Councilman Ayotte seconded to approve a resolution vacating a portion of the public right-of-way on Kirkham Road as defined in the attached vacation description, subject to the following conditions: A 30 foot wide utility and drainage easement shall be retained over the existing sanitary sewer and water lines within the vacated area. A private driveway easement is required over the vacated right-of-way for the benefit of 3800 Red Cedar Point Road. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. UPDATE ON INTERNAL COMPLIANCE CHECKS, AXEL'S, 560 WEST 78TM STREET. Mayor Furlong: This was a request by the council back in June of 2003 to come back before the council and give us an update on the progress that they've made with regard to their compliance check so at this point a representative from Axel's is here. If ! could invite them forward. There they are, right in the front row. Cristi Anderson: You want us to come up here? Hi. My name is Cristi Anderson. I'm the general manager of Axel' s. Linda Young: Hi, I'm Linda Young, the owner of Axel' s. Cristi Anderson: First off, excuse my typo's on my letter ! wrote. ! re-read it today. We have been doing internal compliance checks pretty much monthly within our stores. Councilman Ayotte: Could you talk a little bit more into the mic. I'm hearing impaired, if you could help me out. Cristi Anderson: I'm sorry. We've been doing internal compliance checks within our store. Bringing in people between the ages of 21 and 25 and making sure our staff was carding properly and if they don't, well we have a zero tolerance policy on that right now. Yes, we have been passing and we pre-shift on it every shift with our staff. We talk City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 about it. We have on the computers, the date and got a book. We have a book of ID' s. We have a book for the dates and everything so. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Questions? Councilman Peterson: Have you had anybody fail yet? Cristi Anderson: No. Not since last time. Everyone's taking it very, very seriously and they know how important it is and we talk about it all the time. Linda Young: Ongoing training. They'll learn as we...in Chanhassen, or the Axel's there and we told them, as well as in all of our other restaurants on a regular basis. And any new employees that are hired will do awareness training immediately as part of their training. Mayor Furlong: Councilman Ayotte. Councilman Ayotte: Just kind of curious. Have you seen any correlation between how busy you are and the difficulty for, the supposition is the busier you are the harder it's going to be to enforce. Is that true? To make sure you're in compliance. ! mean when things get busy. Linda Young: It's almost the opposite. It really is because when it's busy, everybody is more, they're just more aware of their surroundings and what's happening. They call it like a down time and when there' s a down time, is when they become lax and tend to oh you know, not always be as aware of what's happening at that moment. That's been, in our industry ! notice that in all of our stores. The busiest you are, it seems like people get the best service. You know everything is always much better. If you tend to go in the afternoon sometimes between that 2:00 and 5:00 when the lunch and dinner rush between that time, not always, always are people on top of it ! would like to say. However, having been in this business myself for 30 plus years, and what is happening is our industry with just the drinking laws in general, we cannot afford to have this happen to us because it affects everybody. It affects all of our employees and all of our restaurants are affected, and it is absolutely we take this very, very seriously as a whole. As our whole, you know as our group of restaurants, we take it very seriously. And it's not taken lightly at all. And when we fail a compliance check or a sting, it's very hurtful to everybody. We're very much affected by this. This is not taken lightly. At all. Councilman Ayotte: Thanks. Linda Young: You're welcome. Councilman Labatt: ... Victim Impact Panel, what did you learn? Tonya Swenson: Actually myself, ! was the general manager at the time. My name's Tonya Swenson and since then ! have transferred to our Woodbury Bonfire location. 10 City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 Cristi is not the general manager at the Chanhassen location. But myself and Barb Kuzelka who is still a manager at Chanhassen and she was the manager on duty the day of the failed compliance so her and ! went to the MADD impact meeting and it was very interesting and we got a lot out of it. The stories that we heard, you know made us cry. ! mean it was very heartfelt and it made us really realize how serious this is and open our eyes and we came back to our stores. ! was in Woodbury at the time and Barb in Chanhassen and shared our experience with the staff and you know all the pre-shifts for the next couple weeks we talked about it each night in pre-shift and just kind of raised their awareness once again and reminded everybody that we need to be serious about this and insure that we're carding and ! see it between the staff members watching each other's back too. If you have somebody that maybe starts in the bar or at, you know like a bar table and then moves over to the dining room, ! see the servers communicating you know. Have you carded them? Just kind of sure because we don't want to over do it to a certain point where people are bothered so we try to communicate if there's a question, ! see them helping each other out and watching each other's back to see that this doesn't happen again so. There's definitely a heighten awareness since this happened. We card anybody that looks under the age of 40, like the policy in all the restaurants, and when we train, that's in our training manuals too. Mayor Furlong: How frequently are you doing these internal compliance checks, or does it vary? Linda Young: We're doing them, what we're doing is we're taking each of our stores and we're using our staff for example. Some of our staff from Eagan, who are not familiar with the Chanhassen staff, we will use some of those servers from Woodbury, and we'll bring them over here to do compliance checks. Friends of our's and family so we try to do them at least, we do have three of them in Chanhassen since this whole thing happened and we're now we're doing them in all of our stores. We just find that it's better for us to try to right now know like that they are carding and they're aware of it. It's being talked about on a daily basis in our stores. And when ! say a daily basis, you can come into any one of our pre-shifts that we do every single morning and every night and that is absolutely the main, one of the main topics and it's there and they take heart on that. They do not want to be, you know it's very hurtful to our staff to lose a staff member on a mistake that was made for, you know they're very close. It's a close knit employees and they feel very bad for the victim involved, whoever did this you know and they made the mistake and didn't card. It affects everybody on our staff. Everybody. Because they lost a great employee that they worked with as well, so this is not, like ! said, we do this on a regular basis. It's been done at least 3 times. We try to do it on a monthly basis in each one of our stores that this is done. And we don't want to be, we don't want this to happen. We do not, that is not our intentions. It never has been to serve under age children. At all. Mayor Furlong: And rather than avoiding being caught, have you seen or witnessed any benefits to your operation from doing these internal compliance checks? 11 City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 Linda Young: Well again, it's brought up the awareness level. It absolutely has, and when they pass, you know we do have a reward because ! think they should be recognized for doing a good job. And if they do not, they are, they also are reprimanded and suspended, so there is a reward that comes along with it. Tonya Swenson: When we do the compliance checks, we do them, we try to send the person maybe into the dining room, because normally when there's a compliance check from the County, they tend to go to the bar it seems in all of our restaurants, except in Woodbury, we've been opened a year, we've had about 6 compliance checks from the County. They passed all of them so far but we try to do it, have them sit down at a table and so that it' s not just the bartenders that are, the servers are getting checked as well. Cristi Anderson: We'll have compliance checks we've done in Chanhassen, we've had them go to the bar first and then they go to the table as well and they've been carded both places. Mayor Furlong: Alright. Councilman Labatt: ! have another question. So say for instance hypothetically, a 19 year old person were to come in there and legitimately try to buy alcohol and you card them. What does your staff train to do at that point? Linda Young: if somebody came in and they're not served. Councilman Labatt: When they attempt to procure alcohol using a fake ID or. Linda Young: Well they're not served. They're not given any alcohol. You know, we don't serve them. Councilman Labatt: What, do you call the police and say ! have an underage person here attempting to procure alcohol which is against the law? Linda Young: You know ! honestly have to say that we haven't done that yet. We haven't called the police. We probably would send them home. We'd say you know, if they're not being served, they need to go home. It's absolutely something that you just brought back to light. We haven't had a situation of a 19 year old, other than the stings, try to get alcohol. Cristi Anderson: Yeah ! don't believe any time in Chanhassen I've seen that sine I've been there. I've seen people come in with cooked ID's with all the paper. They are not served without a valid ID. We're very strict on every policy. Parents try to serve their child with not having an ID. Absolutely not. We do not tolerate any of that so. And ! have not seen any person under the age of 21 try to show us an ID. Tonya Swenson: We really don't get that at Axel' s. 12 City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 Linda Young: We don't, and ! think that's part of where we were just absolutely stunned that we did not pass those stings. It was very hurtful. Mayor Furlong: Good, anything else? Councilman Labatt: No, that's it. Mayor Furlong: Gentlemen? Nope? Well thank you. Appreciate you coming back tonight and giving us an update on what you're doing. It sounds like it's going in the right direction so, ! can tell, so keep doing that. That'd be great. Cristi Anderson: Thank you. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. CONSIDERATION OF A KENNEL PERMIT APPLICATION; PAWS, CLAWS & HOOVES, 10500 GREAT PLAINS BOULEVARD. Kate Aanenson: The Paws, Claws & Hooves is an animal boarding shelter. The applicants are required to get a kennel license. They are published in the paper and because there was comments received on this, it's before the City Council tonight. There are two documents that govern the operation of this business. One is a conditional use. The conditional use does tie back the licensing requirements. There was code action regarding the conditional use and barking dogs. The conditional use was issued in 1996 and then in 2001 it was challenged regarding the noise coming from the facility. At that time the Judge felt there wasn't sufficient evidence to prosecute at that time so while the neighbors still continued to say there is noise complaints, it's difficult to measure some of that. The second document that governs the operation of this is actually the kennel license permit. Again that is the noise complaint. It's also listed in there. ! cited the sections of the code by 18 and that's again when they're outside, some of the barking and continued noise. Again one of the issues is the documentation or limited documentation that the city has. And while we believe that we would like to work with the operators of the business to you know that to provide some additional control, that we're limited in that so we are recommending approval but what we want to confirm with the council is that we want to more strictly adhere to and enforce following up on noise complaints and monitor those and document those so if they're, we can pursue action if that is validated. So we are recommending approval of the kennel license again based on the inability to provide the more documents as required as we found out in the court case. But then we would commit to, with the CSO's and the deputies, stricter enforcement and compliance documentation of the barking dogs. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Questions for staff. Councilman Lundquist: Question Kate. ! guess it just sounds odd to me why you would, why aren't we at this point just on our staff on our own going out and looking to enforce or document. ! mean these ordinances are in place, correct? 13 City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 Kate Aanenson: Correct. Councilman Lundquist: So you shouldn't need our approval to. Kate Aanenson: No. ! think a lot of the noise is, it appears that from the neighbors that the noise complaints seem to be early in the morning, typically on weekends and that's why we need to make sure we've got CSO coverage or deputy coverage to frequently, and getting, when it's a busy weekend or something, a holiday weekend, that we have people availability to get on that right away because again it's a duration of time and maybe by the time somebody gets there, the dog's gone. Just those sort of things that we're, it's a heighten awareness and that it's more quickly followed up on as far as, you know the deputy has to decide whether the CSO, whether they're doing traffic monitoring or something by the time again getting down there so we're certainly aware of the neighbor's concerns and try to document most. ! think that was where some of the issues were before. Maybe there wasn't paperwork follow-up or something. They got down there no barking dog, onto the next project. Councilman Lundquist: Understandable but again, ! mean we should be doing that anyway so that should be going on regardless of whether or not we would ever opt to approve a private kennel permit for any place or not. If we have ordinances that aren't being tracked or enforced, we should be doing that regardless so. Todd Gerhardt: We are enforcing the ordinances but the section that we've been missing is identifying the particular dog that is barking, and you have to view that dog for 5 minutes and then a citation can be issued. However there's nobody on presence to issue a citation. However ! think we can still mail it to them, Roger? Roger Knutson: Yes. Todd Gerhardt: So, you have to observe the dog barking for 5 minutes straight and you've got to identify the dog either by color or make or something. Councilman Labatt: Breed. Councilman Peterson: Four legs... Councilman Labatt: It's a Chevrolet. Todd Gerhardt: It was a Chevy. It was moving fast. Councilman Ayotte: So we've got people, we know the block of time. It's on the weekend. There's a time to respond to deal with this and then you've got to ID the dog. It sounds kind of silly to me. ! mean so you've got somebody that calls. You know find a CSO. They go and respond. How do you enforce that? ! mean to me it seems the nuisance is going to continue. You can't tell me that we say okay, CSO's you're going to 14 City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 be Johnny on the spot. Go out there. ID the dog. Ask the dog if it was barking. Come on. It's not enforceable the way it, ! mean is it enforceable the way it's written. Roger Knutson: Mayor? Mayor Furlong: Sir. Roger Knutson: ! think we need to look at two ordinances. One, the barking dog ordinances if you will, and two, frankly your kennel licensing ordinances which have not been looked at in years and ! think we're going to come forward with some suggested amendments to you in short order. ! mean it's impossible for most people to go out and say, this dog or that dog. You know which one of the two is barking, and ! agree. That's not doable. Councilman Ayotte: My rat wouldn't fess up. My rat around the house saying it wasn't me. It was the Westie. Roger Knutson: ! have an honest dog. Actually ! don't have a dog. Mayor Furlong: This conversation is. Todd Gerhardt: Going the wrong way. Councilman Labatt: It's going to the dogs. Mayor Furlong: It's going to the dog house, yeah. Let's, any other questions for staff at this point? Councilman Ayotte: Why are the two tied? Why are you asking us about the barking dog issue tied to the kennel permit? I'm not completely clear on that. Todd Gerhardt: The reason, we have this item before you is that we received complaints in the barking dog. Whenever we receive complaints the kennel permit must come back to the City Council for your consideration. Councilman Peterson: Did the City or a private citizen commence the lawsuit previously against them? Kate Aanenson: It was citizens complaints and the city pursued the case. Roger Knutson: A criminal citation was issued council member. Mayor Furlong: Is there anything we can do, basically a dispute between neighbors here. It happens to be about barking dogs. A commercial operation but is there anything we can do rather than documenting to verify the problem, or documenting to verify that there isn't a problem, more from a facilitation standpoint. To try to figure out a way for the 15 City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 neighbors to work better together. Not that ! have the answer, that's why I'm asking the question. Kate Aanenson: No, ! think certainly Justin worked on this and ! think through negotiations with the owners' attorneys we were hoping to find some amenable ways to, that we believe would do that. We can attach conditions to the license at this point and ! think the city attorney, as you know we're going through the code amendments and this is certainly one that we'll be looking at. Things that we can do but this current application, again ! want to be clear, we have enforced things down there. We haven't been as successful.., but it's not like we're ignoring it. Councilman Lundquist: I understand now. Kate Aanenson: So we are, you know there's another prong to go and that would be the language itself in the nuisance ordinance. Mayor Furlong: And ! guess my preference would be if we can find a way or act as facilitator to get the parties to work themselves together rather than trying to do something through the ordinance, that'd be preferred. If we need to clean up our ordinances, let's do that anyway. Councilman Labatt. Councilman Labatt: Kate, did you say we can or cannot? Kate Aanenson: Cannot attach conditions to the license. Councilman Labatt: Okay. Can ! give you my comments real quick? Mayor Furlong: Any questions for staff or do you want to give comments? Councilman Labatt: Comments. Mayor Furlong: Can you wait or do you want to do it now? Councilman Labatt: I can wait. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Why don't we hear from the applicant, if they're here or their representative is here from the applicant first. If there's anything you'd like to say or council has questions for you. Neal Blanchett: Mayor and council members. My name is Neal Blanchett. I'm with Larkin Hoffman Law Firm, 7900 Xerxes Avenue South. ! represent Paws, Claws & Hooves. We have nothing to add substantively to the staff report. Of course we support the staff' s recommendation which is to approve the permit and we would look forward to participating as the city looks at revising the ordinance. If there are other kennel owners in the city, we'd participate with them but certainly as the business and industry group we would like to be a part of that process and we certainly would like to work cooperatively 16 City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 and to the extent that the city can facilitate that, we're willing to do that so I've had good meetings with staff on this. We look forward to continuing having productive meetings and if you have any questions, ! certainly can stand to answer those but thank you for your time this evening. Councilman Ayotte: ! do have a question or two. May ! Mayor? Mayor Furlong: Councilman Ayotte. Councilman Ayotte: Let's make a supposition that you do have a problem with dogs that are causing a lot of noise and so forth. What's the mechanism that you employ, that Paws, Claws & Hooves employs to deal with that? ! would never use a shock collar but ! don't know how you guys work so what do you do to mitigate that problem? Neal Blanchett: Well the way the building is constructed, there's an indoor part of the kennel and there's an outdoor part of the kennel. In the outdoor part of the kennel it's not quite accurate to call it outdoor. It's still under the roof and it's still within the walls, it just has a sort of garage door that opens up. So those doors could be closed for a dog who is, you know who persists in barking and that would assist in blocking the noise. Those dogs could also be put on the Minnesota River, or the flood plain side. I'm not aware that there is a strict policy of separating dogs who are a problem versus aren't a problem, but that's certainly something we could look at in the context of looking at the ordinance. Councilman Ayotte: It seems to be procedurally there's certain things that people who know dogs or other sorts of animals can do and that would probably be worth while to percolate up, ! would think. Mayor Furlong: Is there any reason that your client couldn't look at these options in the absence of going through an ordinance process? Again, under the supposition that there is a problem. Neal Blanchett: We would certainly be open to looking at different options. ! mean ! haven't heard any resistance to that. It should be something that works. ! mean they don't want something that might provoke the dogs or cause problems or hurt business. Mayor Furlong: ! mean you just mentioned a couple here so it would seem to me again, from a way to solve the problem with the disturbances, regardless of whether it's within the ordinance or not, look for ways within the operation to try to facilitate that. Neal Blanchett: And we'd certainly be willing to, I've talked it over with staff and at least broached that subject so we're willing to continue to work towards that end. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Other questions for the applicant? 17 City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 Todd Gerhardt: Mayor I have one. Would you consider keeping the dogs inside permanently? Neal Blanchett: Well the dogs are within the actual kennel building permanently. The only part of the operation which really becomes outdoors when the doors are open in temperate weather for fresh air, so. Todd Gerhardt: My question is, would you keep them inside and not let them out and put fans in or something else to regulate the temperature inside. Neal Blanchett: Well ! think, you know we'd want to be careful with that because it's a high quality care out there with a very loyal customer base and ! think one of the things that they like is that their dogs have fresh air and the experience of being able to look out to the outdoors so ! guess I'd want to approach that carefully and I'd say that ! can certainly take that to my clients and we'll talk it over. So it's something we're willing to talk about. Todd Gerhardt: Okay. Mayor Furlong: Any other questions for the applicant? Councilman Labatt: Yeah. In the absence of not being able to have a condition on this, ! wonder if it could be strongly suggested that Paws, Claws & Hooves provide a 24 hour contact via phone or pager to the city on a monthly basis, on a 30 day calendar this employee will be on call for this week. This one this week. This one this week, in the event of let's say a burglar were to get in there so they could call and notify this person that the business had been broken in to or the fact that a dog may be barking on Saturday at 5:30 in the morning, and it's been barking for the last hour and we can call this person and say, we have a problem down here with one of the dogs. Would you come on in and handle the situation. Similar to the fact that you've just been burglarized, come on down here. Let's figure out what's been lost. ! wonder if they could be amenable to that. Neal B lanchett: Well that's one of the topics ! talked about with staff and as ! said, the doors are only open to the exterior for part of the day, and ! don't think that we're hearing noise complaints during the parts of the day when the doors are closed. In other words when the dogs are completely indoor. That's something that we may find out as we, as staff takes a look. If things are to be more closely monitored. So that's again something that we're willing to talk about. Right now there are conditional use permit conditions that dictate when employees have to be on the property. There's also a telephone line that's available 24 hours a day, so we've got some things in place. We're willing to talk about more but maybe we should find out the facts behind the actual noise and have the benefit of that knowledge as we have that discussion. Mayor Furlong: Alright. Any other questions for the applicant? No? Okay, thank you. Neal Blanchett: Thank you. 18 City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 Mayor Furlong: I will say, and my apology to my fellow council members. I skipped through visitor presentations this evening and typically that's when we have somebody come forward and speak on an issue for a topic. ! guess if there's no objection, if there's a resident here or someone that would like to speak on this, I'd invite you up now and you can address the council on your issues. Thank you. Susan Rech: My name is Susan Rech and I'm one of the neighbors. The complaining neighbors. ! live at 1000 Hesse Farm Road. The old O'Shaughnessy house. My husband and ! were one of the homeowners who wrote one of the letters. I'm also representing two other neighbors, the Force's and the Ladd' s. They are on vacation right now and so I'm speaking for all three families. We all live on Hesse Farm and we have been dealing with this problem for a number of years now with the incessant barking of these dogs. It isn't just one dog, and ! know that was one of the issues in court, but it is many dogs barking continuous over a long period of time. You'll be woken up once spring comes and we open our windows, you'll be woken up in the morning at 7:00 a.m. and ! know it was mentioned more on the weekends. ! think possibly that's because they have more dogs on the weekends. ! am home. ! hear them 7 days a week. ! will hear them, ! can hear dogs barking for 4 hours non-stop. If you're outside, you want to have breakfast outside, you're going to have breakfast, sometimes lunch and sometimes dinner listening to these dogs barking. They may bark 4 hours. There may be a short period of time, hour, half hour, and then they'll start barking again up until 7:00 p.m. at night. Let me see so ! don't get too far ahead of me. One of the attorneys, city attorneys and ! don't, somebody from your group suggested this past summer that we notify the city, or the Carver County sheriff, and try to get some type of documentation that these dogs are barking and so ! know personally, my husband and ! called on five different occasions and that was being on the short side of having to complain. Each time the sheriff did go over Paws, Claws & Hooves, he would call us from there and he would mention that the gate is padlock. He cannot get inside and nobody answers the telephone. We've been told that they would be issued a citation and ! don't know if you have a record of citations that have been issued to these, to the Blood's over a period of time or not but this is what the sheriff has told me. Every time, out of the five times last summer that ! did call the sheriff, ! did get a phone call back from the sheriff and the same comments were told to me all five times. We consider this noise pollution and just looking at some of the conditions for the conditional use permit, which ! know is not what we're addressing right now, but they talk that they have to, it's contingent on some of the codes. And ! think one right here that doesn't have to do with the noise is all dogs and cats shall be housed indoors when the commercial kennel employee is not present at the subjected property. Not being able to get onto the property because it's locked and no one answering the telephone indicates to me that there is no one present in that building. The barking does continue. It isn't as if we don't, it isn't our intent to close down Paws, Claws & Hooves. We'd like them to be nice neighbors. We'd like them to conform to the codes. Keep their dogs quiet, if there's a particular dog that is barking, that dog should be brought into the building. When they talk about the door and the fresh air coming in the door, what the attorney's speaking about is that they have, it is a mesh type area they're going out into so there is nothing holding in the noise there and ! know that 19 City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 they are down on the bluff side. However, the noise does come up on the bluff and is very disturbing to us. ! have numerous correspondence with the city of Chanhassen dating back to ! believe it's September of 1999. Numerous complaints with the barking dogs. It continues. The Blood's are aware of this but it continues. They do not seem to be addressing the problem and is one of the main reasons why we have sent letters to try and get this to your attention so that this can be taken care of. ! know someone had mentioned that maybe the neighbors get together. They are very much aware of the problem and the barking dogs, however the owners do not seem to be addressing the situation. Let me just see here ifI, ! guess it's our expectation as taxpayers and homeowners that the city enforce these codes that are already in place. ! know we had gone to court. ! was in that court hearing for the, when they talked about a dog barking. Well, a kennel, a public kennel doesn't have a dog. It has many dogs and many dogs are more disturbing than a dog and do ! really feel that that issue was skirted in that hearing. But looking at the all dogs and cats shall be housed indoors when the commercial kennel employee is not present, to me if we could endorse that, maybe this problem would go away and would not be an issue. ! guess as neighbors our patience is starting to... and ! guess that's all ! have to say right now. Any questions? Mayor Furlong: Questions? Councilman Labatt: Have you ever thought about saying in court, a picture's worth a thousand words and how many words can you get on a video tape as far as helping your cause and grabbing your video camera and recording this. Susan Rech: You know, now that was recommended to us. The confines of the Paws, Claws & Hooves has fencing and it's kind of sitting down in there. So you can't get into the property. Or ! could stand on the bike trail. The closest ! can get to the property, to get close to the property, the outside confines would be on the bike trail. Councilman Labatt: Yeah, but there's audio. ! mean here's you know, okay why was the dog barking. You go over there with your video camera with the fence like this, it's going to bark at you. Susan Rech: Oh, it can't even see me. Well no, but from my house ! could. Councilman Labatt: Yeah. ! mean then hit the old time stamp on it and it just gives us some help. Susan Rech: What about the sheriff' s department? You know there has to be documentation of the sheriff' s department going and listening for over 5 minutes outside on their locked gates. Todd Gerhardt: You can't get past the locked gate. You have to identify the dog and hear that dog for 5 minutes. 20 City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 Susan Rech: You can't get to that particular one dog that's barking to be able to identify it. Councilman Labatt: And that goes back to my point of, to Neal, their attorney, let's get some key information here. You know if it's after hours and this dog's barking, or there's no employee on site, get us somebody that can get us through that gate. We can sit there and listen for 15 minutes at the gate and we've got the time. All we need is to go in there and look at the dog. And let's re-word this ordinance to tighten this up. Todd Gerhardt: I think that's a good point. I think the ordinance needs to be broader. Any barking. Something like that. Councilman Labatt: Too restrictive. This says we have to sit and watch this dog for 5 minutes and identify it's that schnauzer versus that collie in a commercial kennel's ridiculous. Sorry. Susan Rech: I was also just handed this letter when I came in tonight from the attorney's office and ! guess ! take offense in a couple of the sentences. It says to our knowledge and as confirmed by city staff, no complaint has ever been substantiated. ! don't quite understand the wording to that sentence and the intent of that sentence. And then the next sentence, to date Paws, Claws & Hooves has had officers dispatched to investigate noise complaints and in each instance confirmed that Paws, Claws & Hooves was not the source of nuisance noise. Neal Blanchett: Mayor, I'd be happy to respond to that if it's council's desire. Councilman Ayotte: Not this councilman. Mayor Furlong: Yeah, I think we've got, we get the flavor of your comments so at this point, are there any questions? Thank you for coming and speaking tonight. Okay. With that, if there are no other questions or information. Debbie Lloyd: I just want to add. Mayor Furlong: Why don't you come up so people can hear. Debbie Lloyd: Debbie Lloyd, 7302 Laredo Drive. My comment is topography. Because ! live at the bottom of a hill, and the barking dog noise does rise, so maybe a remedy might be some acoustical solution. It's amazing. ! would bet that an officer might observe a barking dog and not hear it outside the fence as much as the neighbor up on the bluff. Thank you. Mayor Furlong: Okay. I'll bring it back to council for discussion. Now you have some time for comments. Councilman Labatt: I've made them all. 21 City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 Mayor Furlong: ! noticed you got them in there. Councilman Labatt: ...in there somehow. Mayor Furlong: You got them in there. Councilman Peterson: Yeah, ! don't like it and ! look to Roger to present us with some alternatives that we might have to enforce this. ! mean clearly what seems to be happening is that they don't have somebody on site when the dogs are out there but we don't have the ability to even check that. And hence there's some issues happening so I'd, let's be creative and let's be aggressive and let's fix the problem. It seems to be an ongoing issue. Roger Knutson: We'll be bringing back an amendment to your animal noise ordinance. Councilman Ayotte: I'm going to partially agree with Craig, but ! feel the frustration that you feel and for documentation to be delivered from September of 1999 to have an ordinance that needs to be broadened and enforceable still alive. To have dogs locked up without an attendant to take care of the dogs, upsets me. Because ! don't think the dogs are being taken care of. That's my personal opinion. So irrespective of being aggressive with that, no way you get my vote. To pass this thing and ! think the city has some heavy lifting to do and ! think the city to a degree has let some of the residents down. This is the first time I've said it that bluntly and directly, and when we get back in our discussion about public safety tonight, I'll bring up the point again about officers repeatedly coming out there and not coming up with the helpful resolution, especially when we have an ordinance that's not enforceable. ! think it's ridiculous. That ends my comments Mayor. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Other comments. Councilman Lundquist: I would say clearly we have some opportunities for an improvement here and ! look forward to Roger's amendments coming through. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Councilman Labatt. Councilman Labatt: Well I'd agree with Brian with his last statement there and another option just came to light. Maybe similar to, if there's no employee there, dogs are barking. Similar to a burning building. I'll use another analogy here. The fire department has the master key box to that little key on the outside of all the buildings and has a key to the front door, rather than shattering the door they can just go in on the fire alarm and see what's up. Maybe Paws, Claws & Hooves should be having that. Maybe they have a key outside their building or gate and in the event of an after hours call, such as this, that we can go in and roust that employee up, ! don't know but something' s got to be done. Paws, Claws & Hooves has to take more responsibility and ! think it starts by providing 24 hour, 7 day a week, 365 a year contact person, 24 hours a day and they can provide that to the city by the week's end and so. 22 City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 Mayor Furlong: Okay. From my sense here, if we don't have any reason to deny, what we can do is we can influence how it's being used and either that can be done willingly, among the parties, or we can pursue ordinances, which it sounds like we're going to be doing. Sounds like we need to do, and ! would hope that those, that the neighbors here, or particularly the business owner would try to find some ways to modify their practices so they can minimize the problem. ! think that needs to be done because this is a problem that needs to be addressed so we got to work on a few avenues here but in this case, in terms of the permit itself, it seems to me we need to go forward and approve because that's what we're required to do but that doesn't mean that we should sit around and wait for another year with nothing being done and so we will get things done. Councilman Labatt: Mayor, one more? Mayor Furlong: Steve, absolutely. Councilman Labatt. Councilman Labatt: So Kate, this permit is good for one year, correct? Kate Aanenson: Yes. Councilman Labatt: Or Todd. And that permit expired 12-31 of'03? Kate Aanenson: Correct. Councilman Labatt: So, in essence we could, ! mean we only have 9 months left here with this permit. Can we approve this permit tonight with the condition that if our ordinance changes before 12-31 of '04, they have to come back in and reapply? Kate Aanenson: I'll let the city attorney address that. Councilman Labatt: I mean as soon as we get our updated ordinance here as we're going through our ordinance book, and our ordinance takes, let's say our ordinance changes June 1. Hypothetically speaking. Can we come in and have them re-apply? Can we table this tonight until we get our ordinance updated? What can we legally do here to put some teeth behind this issue? Roger Knutson: ! think we can do a couple of things, but the easiest thing probably would be to, when we amend this, impose some conditions that are applicable to all kennels that will apply immediately to them which hopefully will deal with this issue satisfactorily to everyone. At least to the citizens and the council. So we'd apply conditions that are effective immediately. Mayor Furlong: With the issue of this permit? Roger Knutson: With the new ordinance. 23 City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 Mayor Furlong: With the new ordinance would apply to all existing kennels. Councilman Labatt: So there'd be no permit grandfathered in? Roger Knutson: They'd have the permit but the conditions of the permit would change immediately with the change of the ordinance. Councilman Ayotte: May I follow up on that question? Mayor Furlong: Certainly. Councilman Ayotte: Is it reasonable that we could table it with the intent of having more time to put the appropriate conditions on? Councilman Labatt had a very good idea with requiring all kennels to have a lock box on it, and there may be a number of conditions that we could put forth to make sure that it sticks. I feel like a little bit of a knee jerk here now that I finally have a total grasp of it. I apologize that I didn't before, but I'd like to table it to tighten up the conditions for an approval. Can we do that? Mayor Furlong: Well I guess I would ask the city attorney if this permit is approved this evening, and we update our ordinances, which seem to be, as I understand it, that's really our only legal conditions we can attach to a permit. We can't, is it true that we can't attach specific conditions to this permit? Roger Knutson: Not the way the current ordinance is currently formatted. Right now it's a checklist. Items 1 through 11. You just read through those items 1 through 11 and see whether they've been complied with, but I think I can assure you that the new ordinance will have more than 11 and will have, give you the ability to attach conditions. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Councilman Labatt: How soon may that new ordinance come out? Are we talking before July 17 Roger Knutson: Oh yeah. Yeah. Councilman Labatt: As early as April 1 ? Roger Knutson: You'll probably have it tomorrow. Councilman Labatt: So we're talking maybe the first meeting in April maybe? Roger Knutson: In April. Councilman Labatt: In April? Roger Knutson: In April. 24 City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 Councilman Labatt: Okay. I'm good with that. Mayor Furlong: Okay, other discussion? Susan Rech: Can I make a comment? Mayor Furlong: I'd rather not. Thank you. Keep this moving. We're going in the right direction so with that I guess if we're looking at a couple months to, for this council to be able to consider those ordinances, is there any reason for us to table this in advance of those ordinances or is it your opinion that by going forward with the permit now, that we'll take care of our concerns through the ordinance process. Roger Knutson: I think you'll take care of your concerns through the ordinance process, and I think it's also important to realize we're not just dealing with one kennel license. It will have effect on all sorts of licenses. There are many in the city and we want to make sure we kind of separate the two issues. Individual license versus the ordinance issue. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright, then I guess if there's other discussion, do we want to go forward. I guess I'll ask for a motion at this point with regard to the permit. Unless there's further discussion. Councilman Lundquist: Motion to approve the kennel permit for Paws, Claws & Hooves. Councilman Labatt: Second. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Made and seconded. Is there any further discussion on this item? Councilman Lundquist moved, Councilman Labatt seconded to approve the commercial kennel permit for Paws, Claws & Hooves at 10500 Great Plains Boulevard. All voted in favor, except Councilman Ayotte who opposed, and the motion carried with a vote of 4 to 1. REQUEST FOR A LOT COVERAGE AND FRONT, SIDE, AND LAKESHORE VARIANCE, 3637 SOUTH CEDAR DRIVE, TOM & JACKIE JOHNSON. Kate Aanenson: The subject site is a lakeshore lot on Lake Minnewashta. The applicants did appear before the Planning Commission and because they did not, they had less than 75 percent, their motion goes forward as a recommendation for your consideration. The applicants have an existing home that they want to improve. There is a large expanse of asphalt as you're coming in a side loaded garage, so an existing non-conforming setback to the front of the lot. And then with the addition of the deck would encroach into the 75 foot setback on the side yard. The Planning Commission worked to see if they could get the setback to meet the 10 foot on this side, with the applicant's architect and designer. 25 City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 They did work to make that setback work, the 10 foot, so what we're showing in pink there will be removed, so the side yard does meet standards. The area that doesn't is this area still on the deck where they want to walk out on this side to connect to the existing deck to the back. This area kind of hatched here in white and blue would still not meet the setback requirements. The other issue that the staff worked with the applicant on was to reduce the impervious. With the original one, 25 percent is the impervious coverage standard. They're at 46. With the changes they move to 43, and one of the recommendations is based on the asphalt that's out front, this is an approximate. In talking to the applicant they want to maybe alter that a little bit but to give the hard number of what we're looking at there, it's approximately 450 square feet and that would get us to reducing the impervious to 40 percent, and they've agreed that they think they can meet that. ! think they just want that flexibility but ! think what we'd like to put specifically in the motion is that getting to the 40 percent, so I'd recommend that you modify the condition. Councilman Labatt: Number one? Kate Aanenson: Yeah, it'd be on page, correct. Page 5, condition number 1. The 43 to get it to the 40 percent. Again adding additional vegetation. Taking some of that driveway out. Unless you have additional questions, ! think kind of the revised site plan, the Planning Commission did spend some time trying to see where there was some flexibility and again in good faith the applicants have worked to try to resolve through some change. Again it's a side loaded. A lot of the addition is going with what was already a hard surface coverage already so that, in moving towards reducing that, we think that's good and again flexibility of trying to eliminate some of the lakeshore setback. So with that we are recommending approval as seen in the staff report starting with the condition on page 5 with the amended as stated, and I'd be happy to answer any questions that you had. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Questions for staff. Councilman Lundquist: Kate what you have, Justin can you put that drawing back up? They currently have a side load garage now. What you're drawing there would require them to change the entrance 90 degrees. Kate Aanenson: No, it would still side load. It would come in this way. Still side load. Councilman Lundquist: Oh ! got you. Take that hatched area they take out and replace with, okay. Kate Aanenson: Correct. Yes, and so they want some flexibility on how that works but what they're still trying to get to is that 40 percent. They might split it a little bit. Maybe doing of that over here. So we're giving that flexibility. The goal is to get to the 40 percent and we'll have them document that on the building but as they revise those plans. Councilman Lundquist: Okay, understand. Thank you. 26 City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 Councilman Labatt: Can you, Justin can you go back to that picture again. Can you just go over those colors again real quick. Kate Aanenson: Sure. Let me just put this up here real quick as we're still in the same focus. Again, this is the existing house so there's a space kind of to the back of the house. Here you have the garage which is...trying to infill. That's where the addition is going. They're connecting the house to the garage because right now it's detached. Filling in that space. Again, when they originally came in, this is pinching down so what the Planning Commission was working to maintain that 10 foot side yard so the pink, when it originally came to the Planning Commission, had that on this through the, after the recommendation of the Planning Commission. They have agreed to remove that so they meet the side yard, correct. They meet the side yard. The problems still with the current setback on the back would be this area here where they want the deck to connect to the existing deck. That's still within the 75 foot setback. The Planning Commission did agree because this was in hard surface, to allow this variance to occur. What they were concerned was the lakeshore and the side yard. They thought there was flexibility in design and ! think the applicant has again worked through that. Mayor Furlong: Can you point out on the map about where the 75 foot line is? Goes. Kate Aanenson: Yeah. Actually pretty close to this, yeah. This is 68 to the back here. 72 up to right here so. Mayor Furlong: Okay. So the current deck is within the 75? Kate Aanenson: That's correct. That's correct. Mayor Furlong: So are they asking for expanding further into the 75? Kate Aanenson: Right, with the new deck because this deck does not connect with the back of the house. The addition. I'll just show you on this plan. Get it going the same way here. They're proposing doors that would come out the back of the addition that would tie into the existing deck. Take advantage of that. Again they pushed everything to meet the side yard setback but they wanted to interconnecting this so the deck's in. Mayor Furlong: Questions then. If the, if we deny the 75 foot lakeshore setback, what does that do to the existing deck? Kate Aanenson: We have this little narrow area, probably right through here to connect between this deck and this deck. Mayor Furlong: But would the existing deck have to be removed? Kate Aanenson: No. Again, it's existing non-conforming. That's something that we always look at. Where can we try to get modification or movement towards meeting the 27 City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 goals or the ordinance in place. Because that's existing and we didn't want to expand a non-conformity but we didn't ask them to tear it down, but we did look at the impervious surface to try and reduce that. It's certainly under a variance you can always attach any condition and make any recommendation you think is reasonable, and this was a recommendation that we had. ! think the Planning Commission felt, there were some that felt not to change that strong about the impervious and some that felt strongly about the side yard setback modifications. Councilman Peterson: Kate, per their current request, how, give me a sense of how wide the current, not the current, but the proposed deck would be? Are they talking, do they want just a walkway or do they want it to be 10 feet to have some chairs out there and seating, etc, etc. Kate Aanenson: It's wider than, it's about 10 or 12. Dan Anderson: At the 45 degree angle? Kate Aanenson: Yeah. Dan Anderson: About 8. Just enough for people to pass. Kate Aanenson: And that would be this area here. How about if! put it on this one, kind of that blue hatched area. Again coming out the sliding door. French door. Councilman Peterson: Okay, thank you. Mayor Furlong: Other questions for staff?. One of the things that ! read too was that underneath the deck there's impervious surface there as well. Is it their plan to add impervious surface underneath this new addition? That you're aware of. Kate Aanenson: I'm not sure, no. No. Mayor Furlong: Maybe we can ask the applicant that question. Kate Aanenson: Yeah. Mayor Furlong: Is there any difference from staff' s viewpoint in terms of where on the lot, is there a better or worse place for impervious surface to be? Kate Aanenson: Well again, most of the rear yard is landscaped, and that's the important side as you get towards the lake. Lake scaping. Again, because it' s a side loaded garage, there is a lot of asphalt towards the front and because the house is sitting so close, we'd like to reduce that. That runoff towards the street to reduce, capture some of that too. It's a small lot. Under sized, similar to Carver Beach so when you increase the size of the home, and ! think they've done a good job of trying to go vertical and maximize some of the, trying to connect the garage and going over the top of the garage, so as far as the plan 28 City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 goes that's work pretty good. It is a narrow lot as it's pinching down and one of the concerns we have sometimes when you do a deck, depending on the type, it ends up being hard surface underneath it anyway because grass doesn't grow, whatever so sometimes we think we're getting some additional impervious but it doesn't end up that way over time. It becomes a storage area or something. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Any other questions for staff?. If not, thank you. Is the applicant here this evening and like to address the council in any manner? Dan Anderson: My name is Dan Anderson. I'm representing Tom and Jackie Johnson at 3637 South Cedar Drive. If there are any questions ! can answer, ! realize there were some questions you were asking, or that ! can answer. On the deck. Mayor Furlong: Well the guess the questions. Dan Anderson: To answer the question, you said the applicant would answer it at some point. Councilman Lundquist: Impervious surface under the deck. Mayor Furlong: Okay, yeah. ! mean in terms of the impervious surface underneath the deck, if that was planned. You have that under the existing deck, is that correct? Dan Anderson: Yeah. That will remain. Mayor Furlong: Under the new portion of the deck will also be? Dan Anderson: That will be grass or some sort of landscape or that kind of thing. There's no need to bring that whole apron. Topography doesn't allow us to do that I guess, for drainage and slope. Sloping away. Kate Aanenson: Drops off. Dan Anderson: It drops off pretty good. Kate Aanenson: It drops off pretty good towards the lake... This is the existing deck. There is concrete underneath it. It's dropping towards the lake. Dan Anderson: This shows a maintenance... This is again, just a walkway to get you from here to there. Unless there's any other questions. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Any questions for the applicant? Okay, thank you very much. I'll bring it back to council for discussion then. Thoughts. Councilman Peterson: Mr. Mayor, I think I generally agree with staff. The only thing that ! would consider would be letting him have that access from the new space, if it's 8 29 City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 or 9 feet, I don't think they need that to pass. What I'd do is I'd do minimum per code and minimize the setback to a great degree, so whether that's 36 or 42 inches or something so that a standard hallway, from a fire standpoint, I'd encroach on the easement that much but that'd be it. Mayor Furlong: And we'll put that in as, you're recommending that that goes in as a condition? Councilman Peterson: If it's. Mayor Furlong: If we move forward on that? Councilman Peterson: Yes. Mayor Furlong: Yeah, you're Mr. Johnson? Tom Johnson: I'm the owner and one thing I wanted to, my name is Tom Johnson and I'm the home owner at 3637, and one thing I wanted to mention is that the actual 75 feet is about, right about there in the actual drawing. When I talked to Bob, when I came in initially he said you know that if we wanted to we could have come straight back and then come over like that but it would not then flow architecturally with the addition. And that was his comment. He was fine with the way that we redesigned. Initially my neighbor came and was upset with the fact that the deck came within 5 feet over here and he had given us a letter saying that as long as we had taken that part of the deck off, he was fine with the, actually he liked the overall design of the addition but I just wanted to make mention that if you bring it back like this, it's going to architecturally not flow with the addition as well, so that's really all I wanted to say. Thanks. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Additional comments council. Councilman Lundquist: I would concur with Councilman Peterson. I'm sensitive to Mr. Johnson's comments about the architectural flow but in my eyes I guess there's, the purpose that they're looking for that piece of the deck is to connect the two and I think it's possible to do that and still get probably out of the variance altogether, and if not, at least minimize it which is I think what we should, what I would support doing. It may impact the architectural features slightly but I mean the choice is there. If it impacts the architecture too much, the choice is always there to not put it in at all so, you know we have to be sensitive to the ordinances, especially on the lakeshore side and I can support staff' s recommendation with that addition that that be sent back to minimum for code or if they can get it out of that 75 altogether. I mean if it's 3 feet and that makes it a 5 foot thing and it's still bigger than code needs to be, then fine. As long as it' s, we either do the minimum required by code or out of that 75 altogether because I'm okay with that then. Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Councilman Labatt. 30 City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 Councilman Labatt: Kate I'm just trying, how big is the existing deck right now? About that far Tom, thanks. Dan Anderson: It's 12 feet by 36 feet. Councilman Labatt: So it comes out 12 feet right now? Dan Anderson: Yeah. Councilman Labatt: Okay, that helps. 12 feet. And Kate, in taking Craig and Brian's comments, what do you anticipate the deck would have to come in to meet that 75 foot on that. Kate Aanenson: Well it appears that it may be, if it's over the 75 feet, then what ! heard is what the minimum corridor passing would be per code, and that's kind of where I'm going. If it can be 3 feet, as Brian said, and still meet the 75, then it would be 3 feet or 4 feet, whatever that is. Mayor Furlong: Yeah, what I'm hearing is if it can be something bigger than code but still not encroach the 75. Kate Aanenson: Correct. Exactly, that's how I heard it. Mayor Furlong: And that's okay. Councilman Lundquist: Yes, exactly. Mayor Furlong: Or if it has to go into the 75, then it should be only as wide as code requires. Councilman Labatt: Clear as mud. Councilman Lundquist: And only for that new addition piece. The existing deck stays as is and we leave the existing deck alone. Councilman Labatt: ! just wanted to clarify that real quick so, good. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Any other discussion items? ! concur. ! think that's a reasonable compromise. ! would like to commend the applicant for making the adjustments that were recommended to Planning Commission by the neighbor for listening there so it makes it, ! think what that does is remove even the request for a side yard variance, is that correct? Kate Aanenson: Yes. 31 City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 Mayor Furlong: So that's not even, I don't know that we have to deny something that's not being requested. With that, do you have some suggested language based on what we've talked about here tonight? B was to deny the shoreland setback so ! think we need to put, we either approve that subject to the condition that we've been discussing here or we need some language here. Kate Aanenson: Yeah. ! have to go back to A and say, under A. Including the front yard setback, and then also put in the lakeshore setback. Mayor Furlong: Where do you want it? Kate Aanenson: I'd put it right up under A. Under the approval. At the end of front yard setback. Mayor Furlong: After the word setback, put in and? Kate Aanenson: Correct. Yes, and lakeshore setback to permit minimum code or corridor passing, is that what you're looking for Craig? Councilman Peterson: Yeah, or I'll even give you some leeway to say what's reasonable. If code is 36 and you look at it and say no, it really needs to be 4 feet, you know I'm open to that. ! don't want to hold a ruler to it. ! want you guys to use your discretion and do the right thing. Kate Aanenson: But to minimize, to make it work. Councilman Lundquist: Minimize the impact. Kate Aanenson: So if you put that right up in the A, and that's covered, those will be the conditions underneath that motion. With the 40 percent under 1. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Is there any other discussion at this point? If not, would somebody like to make a motion? Councilman Lundquist: Just for clarification Mr. Mayor. So then we don't even need to address B at all then, is that correct? Kate Aanenson: That's correct. Councilman Lundquist: Because there's remove the side yard issue with taking off the deck. And. Mayor Furlong: And the house. The shoreland we're addressing in A. Kate Aanenson: Well B actually addresses the impervious surface that should be. 32 City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 Mayor Furlong: But aren't we requiring them to move it to 40? Was suggested, which I think they agreed to so. Mr. Knutson, are you comfortable with us, do we need to do anything with B? Kate Aanenson: ! think we need to put the variance for impervious surface up here. I'd put it up in A too. Roger Knutson: Because you're agreeing. Kate Aanenson: Agreeing to impervious surface and it's qualified underneath it in 1. Roger Knutson: Yeah, ! think that's a good idea. Kate Aanenson: So it's after that first lakeshore setback to permit code requiring and impervious surface. Roger Knutson: And he's withdrawing the side yard setback. Kate Aanenson: Correct. Roger Knutson: Mayor, perhaps we could just have, so our record is real clear, have the applicant just stand up and acknowledge that he' s withdrawing that. Tom Johnson: ! have one more thing. The way this thing is coming out, we actually lose ground on the whole thing. We're giving on the impervious surface and we didn't get anything on the 75 foot setback. ! mean we had it before. This doesn't make, ! mean it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. See what I'm saying. Kate Aanenson: No, ! think you're a little confused on the motion maybe. What they're saying is if you can get to 75 feet, you get to have whatever you get here to get to 75 feet, or the minimum width for passing between these two. Right here, this is showing 72 right to this point. This is showing 68 right to this point. So whatever the passing is, what they're saying is possible, if it's 36 or if it makes sense to make it 4, we'll sit down and look at that with the building official... Tom Johnson: Okay, but tell me before, ! mean in the Planning Commission we didn't have this in and it was at 43 percent or whatever, so ! guess I'm a little confused with, it seems like we're giving up on this and not getting what we wanted, yet we you know agreed to go back the 2.6 feet over here. I'm trying to figure out exactly what we're getting out of it. It seems like the city's getting more than what, ! mean we're giving more than what we're getting on this. Kate Aanenson: You're getting a variance for the front yard setback and you're getting a variance to increase the impervious. Tom Johnson: Okay but we, didn't we have that during the Planning Commission? 33 City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 Kate Aanenson: Their's was a recommendation only. Tom Johnson: Oh, that was a recommendation only. Roger Knutson: And just so we're clear. Let me go through the numbers. Kate, the required maximum impervious surface coverage is what? Kate Aanenson: 25 percent. Roger Knutson: And what do they have currently? Kate Aanenson: 46. Getting it back towards 40. Roger Knutson: And will they be under 25 when they have this? Kate Aanenson: No. Roger Knutson: Sorry to cross examine you, but so what we're getting at is, right now you could just say no because to any building expansion that expands the foot print of the building because they're increasing the impervious surface, so you're allowing them to increase the foot print of the building. You're getting that. Kate Aanenson: So the goal is to bring it in conformance by allowing you to expand, to bring those into conformity or reduce the non-conformance inasmuch as possible and that's what Planning Commission recommended. That's what the staff is working towards. To try to get those in as much as we can. Dan Anderson: If! can add one thing. I'd like not to go 36 inches. Kate Aanenson: Well ! think they've agreed that we can talk about that. Dan Anderson: You'll just take 36 out of the equation. Councilman Peterson: We already did. Well we already did. Whatever, ! said whatever is reasonable. Dan Anderson: ...reasonable but going on whether...they're going to push 36. ! want to say 4 feet and be done with it. Kate Aanenson: Well that's up to them to decide so. Dan Anderson: Well that's what I'm trying to say.., over there, why get into the same argument over there if we finish it tonight and be done with 4 feet. 34 City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 Councilman Peterson: I'm comfortable with 4 feet. You know I'm just thinking the 36 is probably code, but that's narrow. Dan Anderson: ! can actually go 5 feet to the property line per code. Councilman Peterson: I'm comfortable if my fellow council people have already went on record by saying I'll go 4 feet or whatever is reasonable. If it's 5 feet, ! don't really care but 9 feet is much more than a walkway. Dan Anderson: If we can just come up with a number, a measurement then I've got something to work with. Councilman Peterson: 4 feet. I'll let my councilors agree or disagree with me. Mayor Furlong: Okay. But one thing, if you could just confirm for the record that you are withdrawing the side yard setback variance request, is that correct? Tom Johnson: Yes. Mayor Furlong: Yeah, if you could just. Tom Johnson: We're withdrawing the 2.6 foot side yard setback requirement, or variance. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is that good? Roger Knutson: Excellent. Mayor Furlong: Very good. Thank you. Alright. Okay, any other discussion or questions? Clarification? If not, is there a motion? Councilman Ayotte: I'm sorry, are we going to go with the 4 feet then? Councilman Lundquist: I'm okay with minimum of 4 feet. Mayor Furlong: Craig, do you want to make a motion? Councilman Peterson: Sure, I'll take a stab at this point. I'll make a recommendation that the City Council approve the item before us with the changes that were outlined in the last 15 minutes, ! think there's 3 of them. That the setback for the lakeshore would be permitted 4 feet or as appropriate. The minimum would be 4 feet or as appropriate. The impervious surface would change to 40 percent. And what was the third one? Councilman Lundquist: To remove the one other. Mayor Furlong: The front yard setback, which was already in the staff report. 35 City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 Kate Aanenson: Yeah, and then number 1 would also go to 43.9, would be 40 percent. Councilman Peterson: Yeah, I already said that. Councilman Ayotte: What was the third one? Kate Aanenson: Well the third one is saying he's under A, it should also say, approve the 19.3 foot front yard setback, a lakeshore setback to allow 4 feet to connect the two decks, and variance from the impervious surface, and it's qualified what that percentage should be under item 1. Councilman Peterson: That's what I wanted to say. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Does somebody want to second that besides Kate? Councilman Lundquist: I'll second. Mayor Furlong: Very good. Is there any discussion on the motion? I think we've had enough too. Just one more opportunity if people have comments or concerns. Councilman Peterson moved, Councilman Lundquist seconded that the City Council approve variances for a 19.3 foot front yard setback, a lakeshore setback to allow 4 feet to connect the two decks, and variance from the impervious surface for the expansion of the house at 3637 South Cedar Drive based on the findings of fact in the staff report and subject to the following conditions: The impervious surface shall be reduced to less than the current 40 percent impervious surface. The driveway shall be removed and re-vegetated as shown on the attached "Impervious Surface Reduction" schematic to achieve a reduction in the impervious surface. Tree protection fencing must be installed prior to any work commencing around all trees near the construction limits. Fencing shall remain in place until all construction is completed. The applicant shall work with staff to provide a vegetative buffer between the principal structure and Lake Minnewashta. Permits must be obtained before beginning construction, alterations and demolition. The tower and other elements of the project which are beyond the scope of Chapter 9 of the Minnesota State Building Code must be designed by a licensed engineer. 36 City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. REQUEST FOR A COMPREHENSIVE LAND USE AMENDMENT FROM OFFICE-INDUSTRIAL ONLY TO OFFICE-INDUSTRIAL AND OFFICE- INSTITUTIONAL; LOCATED EAST OF GALPIN BOULEVARD AND NORTH OF LYMAN BOULEVARD; SCHOOL DISTRICT 112. Kate Aanenson: Thank you Mayor, council members. School District 112 is requesting a land use amendment to provide the opportunity to build a second school. When the staff first looked at this we contemplated rezoning the site and doing a single land use. In looking at it further their decision is a couple years down the road and similar to what we've done in the southern area of the city, we felt it's probably more appropriate to provide for two land use options. One in interest to the city, and then in interest of the applicant that they can close on the property and have an appropriate land use and when they come back for site plan review, at that time we would actually rezone the property. When this item was held before the Planning Commission, there was some concern of neighbors for the proximity to the railroad so we know when the school does come forward, that we need to look through some design issues, but again we put in the staff report the uses that were permitted under the industrial office park for the OI. Again we're adding, this is guided office industrial park, and office institutional would permit a school. Again when an application does come in, because it's guided for both land uses, you have the ability to decide which one you want to go with. And in good faith, what we're telling the school district that we understand that this could be a school. By having both land uses on there, if for some reason the school chose not to go there, we still have the ability to maintain the tax base and keep the lOP zoning in place. Again with findings of fact provide for the appropriate use that the city may have at that time if it were not to be a secondary school site. So with that, the staff is recommending approval. This item does have to go to the Metropolitan Council because it is a land use change. We don't see any issues with that. ! have talked to our representative about that and it seems like that would be pretty much routine on their agenda because the school district does want to close on this property in the next few months, so with that we do have findings of fact in the staff report. So we are recommending approval of the subject site and I'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Questions for staff. Councilman Peterson: Kate, you know ! think we've talked about it for years. We don't normally like to see lOP go off. ! mean what are you and your team, what can you do to, whether it's in the 2005 MUSA area or whatever to bring other lOP back on to compensate? Are we. Kate Aanenson: That's a good question and we did put that in the land use, the overall percentage and what the impacts of that change would be, and we certainly know that that's on the council's radar to be cognizant of the impacts of that and where we pick those up. And as we work through the development of the rest of those areas, we know that we need to see where we can pick up that difference. Again, because the school is 37 City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 not intending to build until 2007, again we anticipate that there will be a school there, but you know we'll keep that in kind of our checks and balances to make sure that we're being consistent with what our goals of having a diversified tax base and we'll be looking at that so it's being followed through. Councilman Peterson: I mean as we go from guided areas to zoning, that's really when our, or we want to do it then versus later. Kate Aanenson: Correct, and as projects come forward that we're managing that check and balance and seeing where there's other opportunities. Certainly it's easier to go from institutional or residential then to put industrial where someone wasn't anticipating it so we need to kind of get ahead of the curve and we'll be working on that here in the next few months, specifically in the 2005, but as we work towards the old 212 area too. Where we can pick that up. Councilman Peterson: Good, thank you. Mayor Furlong: Just to follow up then. It's your sense that we will be able to pick that up based upon the other guy, portions, land use guided portions? Kate Aanenson: ! don't want to say we can get it all back, but we certainly, you know we need to look at the implications of that. Is there other ways that we do it, whether we anticipated probably some support commercial and some other areas that we hadn't anticipated. So again kind of measuring back with the holes. We're anticipating things coming forward but we will be looking at it more carefully. Not only in the 2005, but again in that old, what will be the old 212 area, and that's mostly industrial in that southern end too. Mayor Furlong: Well and I guess I know the staff has taken an opportunistic approach over the years as well, and we had a couple of those come up before this council. Where we changed some residential ! think. The one I'm thinking of is 5 and Galpin, where we actually went from residential to commercial so what I'm hearing is those opportunities. Kate Aanenson: Exactly, so we're kind of keeping that in check and we're anticipating some of those other ones coming forward so we know that it's an important issue. Again, meeting the goals and fiscal impacts of the city. Mayor Furlong: Absolutely. Thank you. Other questions for staff. No? None? Thank you. ! see representatives from the school district here. Is there anything you'd like to say or address the council on? Bev Stofferahn: Good evening Mr. Mayor, members of the council. I'm Bev Stofferahn. ! live here in Chan at 8123 Marsh Drive and I'm Superintendent of District 112. We know that there are more schools in the future of District 112, and specifically there will be a secondary school and not very far off in our future, given our rapid growth. Finding this piece of property culminates a long search for land in Chanhassen that would be 38 City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 appropriate for a school. That was priced in a way that taxpayers were willing to support and we believe that this will be a very aesthetically pleasant site with some great natural buffers for a school that is probably not very far off in our future. ! also just wanted to comment on how much we have appreciated from the district's perspective the assistance of your staff as well as the Planning Commission in this entire process over about the last 2 years. It's been outstanding. ! would stand by for any questions you might have. Mayor Furlong: Any questions? Very good, thank you. Bev Stofferahn: Thank you. Mayor Furlong: Discussion. Comments. Council members. Councilman Lundquist: Would just like to go along with what Councilman Peterson said before. Wasn't that long ago that we had a request for this same piece of property to go to medium density residential, and one of the reasons that we denied that was due to the loss of that potential tax revenue from that O! so ! think it's important that we keep that in mind, especially going forward in that 2005 MUSA area. That we look at opportunities as we're guiding land in there and in our zoning land and that to keep that in mind and that will be our best, this is a big piece of property and it's going to be difficult to replace in little chunks here and there throughout the city. And if we're truly committed that we were committed enough a few months ago to deny another proposal on this that we've got to keep that in mind and we need to be committed and ! guess the underlying message in my comment Mr. Gerhardt, to you and your staff is, expect to get, if not from the rest of the council, you can guarantee you'll get from me as we go to zone that property in 2005, that we need to be prepared to show how we're off-setting this property in that area, or at least a big portion of it as we go in there, so it doesn't really apply to the school site now but needed to take that opportunity to put that editorial comment in there so, thank you. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Other comments or discussion? Councilman Labatt: I would imagine that's a point we're all going to share as leaders here. We need to replace, and ! think the five of us, we'll all look forward to that date here coming down and we look at 2005 and we try to replace it. ! think that we're all going to have a common goal, the five of us in your concerns Brian so you're not going to fall on deaf ears with me. ! am excited about the school and the opportunity that this presents for the residents of Chanhassen. ! know many of us have been vocal on this issue and boy it'd be nice to see an ice arena at this place too. Councilman Peterson: Had to get that in there. Mayor Furlong: Out of order. Councilman Labatt: I had to get that in there somehow. And so that's all I've got to say. Leave it at that. 39 City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 Mayor Furlong: And point's well made. ! think back in June when this council voted unanimously to support the school district's acquisition of land within the city, we went on record saying that we wanted to support the school district, and this is the next step in that so ! commend the school district and their staff for all the hours that I'm not even aware of that you put in to get this done. That being said, when we set aside land like this for these uses we have to deal with the effects of that and preserving the tax base or maximizing that for the long term benefit of all our residents is important so we will do that. Still ! think ! wanted to just comment, commend staff for coming up with the dual land use option here, which ! think provides good flexibility. It achieves the school district's goal and objective so they can close on the property and still maintains flexibility for the city and ! think it's a very reasonable accommodation that we're being asked to make here. It's exciting. It's good. We're getting closer. Getting closer so, with that, is there any other discussion or comments? If not, is there a motion then? Councilman Peterson: Motion to approve. Councilman Labatt: Second. Mayor Furlong: Any discussion on the motion? Resolution #2004-11: Councilman Peterson moved, Councilman Labatt seconded that the City Council approve the Land Use Amendment to Office/Industrial and Office/Institutional subject to the attached findings of fact and conditioned upon approval of the Amendment from the Metropolitan Council. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. APPOINTMENT OF COMMISSION MEMBERS. Mayor Furlong: Next item here was added at my request at our work session this evening. We interviewed some candidates. Two candidates for the one position for Southwest Metro Transit Commission. This is the, help me out here Councilman Peterson. This is the one of the two representatives. You serve as a representative right now, and this is one of the two representatives that we have. We had two candidates, or two applicants. Ms. Vicki Ernst and Bill Thompson and at this point I'd like to bring before the council consideration of appointment of one of these two individuals to that position. So with that is there discussion? Councilman Lundquist: Discussion or a motion? Councilman Ayotte: Well very brief discussion. Both candidates were very, very qualified so ! don't think we can miss with either. I'll state that at the beginning and end. Mayor Furlong: No, I concur and that was I think our sense is that we have two very well qualified applicants here so it's good to have choices between two good ones. Not easy. But is there a motion to nominate or approve one of the applicants. 40 City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 Councilman Peterson: I'd move to appoint Vicki Ernst. Councilman Ayotte: Second. Mayor Furlong: Being seconded, is there any discussion? Councilman Peterson moved, Councilman Ayotte seconded to appoint Vicki Ernst to the Southwest Metro Transit Commission. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. Mayor Furlong: We also have three openings on our Planning Commission beginning April 1 st. We have had two of our current commission members who's terms are up have applied for reappointment. Craig Claybaugh and Uli Sacchet. We were unable to meet with Mr. Sacchet this evening. We will be meeting with him next Monday, on the 15th when we're meeting on a special work session. It was the sense of the council that certainly Mr. Claybaugh was well qualified and expressed interest in continuing for another 3 years and that Mr. Keefe as well seemed very well qualified for appointment. So with that ! would ask if there's any discussion, and if not is there a motion to approve the appointment beginning April lst of both Mr. Keefe and Mr. Claybaugh to 3 year terms. Councilman Ayotte: So moved. Councilman Peterson: Second. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any discussion on those motions? Councilman Ayotte moved, Councilman Peterson seconded that the City Council appoint Dan Keefe and Craig Claybaugh to 3 year terms on the Planning Commission beginning April 1, 2004. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS. Mayor Furlong: At this point I will just ask if anybody is still here that wants to speak for visitor presentations? Since we skipped by that earlier tonight and since there's very few people left. But one, please come forward. Stephanie Unze: My name is Stephanie Unze. ! live at 1080 Lyman Court. One comment regarding the school district. ! was a member of the citizens committee for the campaign for our referendum and I'm very, my youngest is in 7th grade so chances are, maybe she'll see one year of the new school if it's a high school. We haven't quite, but there are quite a few of us that were on this committee that live in Chanhassen that will, if we get the feel that there isn't going to be a secondary school for some reason, we will start the ranks and we will make sure that it happens. This community needs a second 41 City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 school. We're large enough. I know there are tons of kids that don't get to play hockey. Don't get to play basketball. Don't get to play volleyball because we have one high school and they deserve that chance. We're large enough and we pay enough in taxes and we have just as many people as Chaska does, so we deserve a school so that's it. Mayor Furlong: Very good comments and understand too, our control's a little limited in terms of the school district's facilities. But what we can say is that our staff, their staff works very closely together. We maintain a good relationship with school board members and try to do that so we try to work together on those issues and I think they are aware of those desires. I've heard many people say we need a high school and that's clearly my sense of the desire for our residents in 112, that we want a Chanhassen High School. Stephanie Unze: The only reason I actually, I stood up was because of my feel for a little bit was that we're more concerned with our tax base than with the school coming into our city so I just want to make sure that it's understood that absolutely I want this city to be sound. But it's more important for me right now to have a school than it is to have another empty piece of land as a tax base. Mayor Furlong: And in that regard, what I was hearing was mentioned is because this is a property that the school district will be purchasing most likely now, and we all expect and hope that they will build a school on that site at some point in the not too distant future. But because we're taking that off the tax rolls in terms of commercial property, off the potential tax rolls in the future, we want to look for other opportunities to take something that may not be commercial, or may be guided for either residential or commercial and focus on making that commercial. That's what I was hearing from our sense here in terms of, but I also heard tremendous support for this site to be purchased by the school district for a future secondary school. Ideally high school. Stephanie Unze: My non-educated understanding of the talk was that if you weren't able to find something else, then it wasn't going to be allowed to be, until you voted, it wasn't going to be allowed to be a school property either if you couldn't find something else to take it's place. Mayor Furlong: I did not hear that this evening. Stephanie Unze: Thank you. COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS. Councilman Peterson: Mr. Mayor the only one that I have is, obviously the Southwest Metro Transit has got some major decisions and issues and I think we're making a presentation to you, is it next week, or two weeks, about the park and ride and the downtown facility and how they all fit together and.., challenged as well as Southwest Metro Transit Commission so those are probably our biggest thing that we've worked on 42 City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 in the last couple years as far as how we deal with this appropriately so, that will be coming and we're looking forward to presenting that in a couple weeks. Mayor Furlong: Well what ! would ask staff to do too is invite Ms. Ernst to join us at that work session, who was just appointed to be our representative so that she can hear first hand our thoughts as well as some of the issues and be more informed right from the start. Any other council presentations? The only thing that I'll mention, and as a general comment. There have been a number of residents in various neighborhoods along the 212 right-of-way that have been sending emails and phone calls to the council members and while they're all welcome, ! haven't had the opportunity and ! don't know if my fellow council members have, to get back to all of them. We've talked to some but not all but we'll continue to try to do that. At this point we continue to work with MnDot. They have been very responsive in terms of accommodating our requests as a city sine this process began and ! fully anticipate they will continue doing that. We are limited a little bit in some things that we can and can't do, and insist upon and so ! think what we'll probably end up doing is getting as much as we can at this process, as it goes forward, and also preparing ourselves so that we can monitor the impact on, especially some of those neighborhoods right down by the right-of-way so that we can mitigate, alleviate problems as they occur and focus the solutions on the problems as they occur. So ! just wanted to mention that because ! know a number of us have received comments from residents and again, not having the opportunity to get back to everybody, I'd like to let them know that we'll continue to try to do that, but also put it in a public forum, their response as well. If there are no other council presentations, administrative presentations. ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS. Todd Gerhardt: Just a reminder to council March 15th, special work session. Starts at 5:30. Two items on the agenda right now. Southwest Metro update and also. Mayor Furlong: Interviewing commission. Todd Gerhardt: Correct. Interviewing commissioners for Park and Rec, Senior Commission and Environmental. Second item that I'd like to talk about is the bowl property. Staff believes that we will close on that property yet this week. We're down to two easement issues regarding the future parking ramp for Southwest Metro and there are 6 attorneys involved in this process. Nothing personal Roger, but. Roger Knutson: Just so we're clear. No, we don't have any problems. It's the private parties have a problem. Todd Gerhardt: Correct, and we have been trying to facilitate discussions between those private parties and their attorneys and trying to come up with language that they both can accept and ! believe in the next couple days that will happen with a closing before the end of the week. And we will send out e-mails and let you know if that does occur. That's all ! have. 43 City Council Meeting - March 8, 2004 Councilman Lundquist: Let's hope they close before the school district does. Mayor Furlong: I was going to ask for comments but I think I just heard one. Any questions for Mr. Gerhardt? If not, any discussion on the correspondence packet? CORRESPONDENCE DISCUSSION. None. Councilman Peterson moved, Councilman Labatt seconded to adjourn the City Council meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried. The meeting was adjourned at 9:05 p.m. Submitted by Todd Gerhardt City Manager Prepared by Nann Opheim 44