4. Request to Reconsider Trail Easement along the Rear Lots in T Bar K Estates I
CITY OF
111
CHANHASSEN
_ 690 COULTER DRIVE • P.O. BOX 147 • CHANHASSEN, MINNESOTA 55317
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(612) 937-1900
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MEMORANDUM
TO Don Ashworth, City Manager
Vate
' FROM: Lori Sietsema, Park and Recreation Coordinator
DATE: January 5 , 1988 //ti
1 SUBJ: Reconsideration of a Trail Easement, T Bar K Estates
Background
At their last meeting, the City Council tabled action on a
request to reconsider the trail alignment through the T Bar K
Estates subdivision. Staff was directed to review the item and
1 bring back all options available.
T Bar K Estates is located on the southwest corner of Lyman Blvd.
1 and TH 101. The trail easements required at the time of final
plat approval included a 20 ft. trail easement along Lyman Blvd.
and a 12 ft. nature trail easement along the 886 contour line.
The Comprehensive Trail Plan identifies an off-street trail along
Lyman Bvld. that will eventually make an east/west connection
from the Lake Riley area to CR 17, which will lead to the Chaska
1 trail system as well as the school campus . The nature trail
easement, as identified on the Trail Plan, is a section of a
walkway system that works with the terrain and the natural ameni-
ties that we have in the southern part of the City. This 12 '
easement runs across the three lots of the subdivision.
1 Park and Recreation Commission Recommendation
The Park and Recreation Commission discussed this item at great
length at their last meeting. Although they were not requested
to make comment, they felt their reasons for recommending denial
were worth emphasizing. Attached please find the minutes of that
meeting. Below I have summarized their points .
1 . The nature trail running through these lots is a section of a
larger trail network that will provide a scenic trail, con-
necting TH 101 and Powers Blvd.
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Don Ashworth '
January 5 , 1988
Page 2 I
2 . The north/south connection shown on the Comprehensive Trail
Plan, located on the property to the west of T Bar K, was
placed there based on topographical grades (see attached
trail plan) . Grades along T Bar K' s western property line
make north/south travel impractical at that location.
3 . It was the Park and Recreation Commission' s understanding '
that this wetland area was not developable. A 32' vertical
grade separates the trail site from the building pads and a
heavily wooded area on that slope acts as a buffer .
4 . It was noted that although it appears that the trail divides
the lots , the property south of the easement is wetland and
unuseable.
The Commission felt that the Comprehensive Trail Plan should be
upheld as much planning and research had gone into its prepara-
tion. They wished to convey that although the entire nature
trail system in that area may take some time before it is
completed, these small individual pieces are crucial if we are to
achieve the ultimate goal .
Alternatives '
Alternative #1
Upon further review, staff has found that looped trail system '
around the marsh area is very possible and desireable. The
wetland area is almost completely surrounded by high/dry area
that makes a natural trail system (see attached illustration) .
The only area difficult to traverse is the area to the west of T
Bar K Estates. Staff would suggest that the nature trail begin
on the southwest end of the marsh and move to the northeast.
Just before it reaches T Bar K Estates it would veer due north to
Lyman Blvd. The off-street trail along Lyman, and then south on
TH 101, would be used until you reach the south side of the 11 marsh. There it would traverse at a southwest angle back to
Powers Blvd. Future easements would be required at the time
improvements are made to the west and the south of T Bar K.
Although this alternative would require more trail easements than
what is shown on the current trail plan, a positive feature is
that it offers a more practical trail system and allows more
options for the trail user.
Alternative #2
The request could be denied and the trail easements would remain
as they are shown on the current trail plan (see attached
illustration) . '
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IDon Ashworth
January 5 , 1988
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Alternative #3
IThe request could be approved with no alternate course. This
would leave us with a trail segment on the plan that ends in the
back yard of Lot #1 of T Bar K Estates .
Recommendation
1 It is staff' s recommendation to choose Alternative #1 : approve
the request and to amend the trail plan so as to show a nature
trail that meanders around the wetland area. This action would
I require that easements be procured at the time improvements are
made on the parcels to the west and the south of T Bar K Estates .
1 ATTACHMENTS:
I Staff Report Dated November 17 , 1987
Park and Recreation Commission Minutes of December 8 , 1987
Comprehensive Trail Plan
Illustration of Alternative #1
1 Illustration of Alternative #2
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting
December 8 , 1987 - Page 21
Jay Johnson: There were two items. We were just simply saying we will
reconsider this in the future. We did not at that time reconsider it. We
didn't make any motion to vacate that trail at this time. The applicant
came in and as I remember , the trail did get added, as they were contending
right at the last minute, at the 11th hour. The applicant was out of town
at the time. The representative, they didn't have a lot of consideration
to the trail. I didn't go over all the Minutes on this but I'm just giving
the reasons that I voted to reconsider it. The other reason is that
nobody, in discussing this western route, I tried to get to find out if you
all had seen the western route and if you all had considered the western
route and that information wasn't brought forward that you had already
considered this route so I was not able to know. I was trying to get it
back to you reconsider it and provide us information. Unfortunately, I
should have asked whether that was going to be feasible before I voted for
the reconsideration. I voted for the reconsideration and then I said,
let's send this back to Park and Rec and let them look at the western
corridor. To me, the benefit we now will have a corridor for Lyman Blvd.
getting into the interior which is an important part of the corridor.
Which of the two is more important, the east-west or the north-south, to me I
looking at the overall trail plan, the north-south seemed more important
that that be established first. That was really where I was coming from.
The Council did not want to bring it back to Park and Rec. Bill and I did.
In my letter I said still want Park and Rec's opinion. If I have to get it
one on one and individually, please do . That will help.
Sietsema: We don' t have this easement .
Lynch: We didn't ask for that easement on this piece of property. We
decided we would ask for that easement on this piece of property. We
didn't want to go up that and as you see here, there's a swale there. I
was out there maybe a year ago and we didn't want to try to go up the hill.
Besides that, we felt that was enough without ripping another chunk off .
Jay Johnson: When you're negotiating with this guy, we can take just a
minor part down the side of the hill .
Lynch: All we'd need over here would be a standard right-of-way lot right
there and this continues to go. It's so much easier once you're attaching
to something. The builder comes in and says, hey I don't want to give you
that. We say, wait a minute, we already have this .
Jay Johnson: To tell you the truth, Dale is the probably the pivotal vote
on this. If everybody would send in their little opinion on it and you
remained unanimous, even though the Council didn't ask you to vote on this
but we get your opinion back anyway, I think we can keep the trail. I want
to make sure that this had been considered and the applicant does get due
consideration. I think this one was proposed at first and then later this
one got proposed somewhere between preliminary plat and the final plan and
the applicant was out of town at final plat. When this came through, lo
and behold it was a surprise to them. That ' s not too fair .
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IPark and Rec Commission Meeting
December 8 , 1987 - Page 22
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Lynch: A lot of these dotted lines in here Jay are fairly recent input
Ifrom Mark Koegler and Tim Erhart.
Jay Johnson: One thing the Council was saying last night is simply, if you
II had this part as it is. Come to this point and then you walk the roads
down.
Sietsema: No , this is an off-street trail .
1 Jay Johnson: And this is an off-street trail so the difference between
coming in and going up the side property line and an off-street trail
Iaround here, we' re coming through here, we can get this quicker.
Lynch: You're missing the philosophy here I think. Maybe we haven't been
II clear enough about it. The dark trails here, you're actually looking at a
system where if somebody wants to get on a bike and go someplace, that's
where they go. These dotted lines are someplace where you can just go
wander around . These are not really designed to get you anywhere.
1 Jay Johnson: There was talk of making this that people would walk this
loop. What Dale and Clark were saying was if you came up this side line,
Iyou still have a loop.
Lynch : A friend of mine said there are some people that walk for pleasure
or they just go.
ISietsema: I think another point that needs to be just said is that, look
at this trail plan. We have 4 lines here that are nature trails and the
rest is all off-street trails. We have very limited nature places where we
can go out in the woods and walk and no, this isn't a great distance but
still there are some natural amenities there that I think the reason why it
was put in there is so everybody would share in enjoying that. It's not
Ithe same kind of trail. There are two different kinds of trails. They
have two different types of purposes and to start giving up these little
pieces , we ' re going to lose it .
Lynch: So a trail on the north side of the T Bar K, there is really only
one reason to have that in. It's necessary to maintain planned, off-street
Itrail system which would carry a majority of pedestrian traffic. That's
what we've established the off-street trail system for. To carry the heavy
burden of that traffic .
IHasek: As per that plan.
Lynch: As per the trail plan. Now, the trail on the south side.
Hasek: Should we do everything around it first? Let's do everything
around it and come to that one last. Can we do that? Isn't there one
that ' s over on the west side?
ILynch : The Kline property is right here.
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting
December 8 , 1987 - Page 23
Hasek : Isn ' t there a north-south trail just to the east of this?
Lynch: No. The road, which has another off-street trail, is over on 1
another complete piece of property over here.
Hasek: Still, it's a part of this trail system even though it's not ,
directly attached to it as a part of the motion, we talked about it.
Lynch: Let's make an item that says we need to go east on this to connect.
In other words, Tom Hamilton doesn't like trails that start somewhere and
go nowhere and I think we should show that this starts somewhere and
connects up with this . ,
Hasek: I guess what I'm saying is, we've already defined an on-road trail
system. Let' s talk about the other on-road trail system.
111 Lynch : But there' s nothing else contiguous to the property.
Hasek: But that doesn't matter because it's a part of the bigger plan.
That's what I'm saying. Actually this north-south, that's where we're
coming from. If this went over to TH 101, if it goes to TH 101 and
connects over to Powers Blvd. , so it starts on Lyman .
Lynch: The trail on the south side runs southwest and east from the T Bar
K property connecting perspectively with Powers Blvd. and TH 101. As long
as we're talking about connections, the north-south connection shown on the
Master Trail Plan just adjacent to the west side of the T Bar K property
was located based on topographical grades. Grades on T Bar K made north-
south travel impractical. Number 3, the trail location was recommended by
consultant and staff as a worthwhile nature trail augmenting that southwest
of it. 4 would be, it was Park and Rec's feeling that this wetland area
was not able to be developed. A 32 foot nearly vertical grade separates
the trail site from home sites and a heavily wooded area on that slope acts
as a adequate screen. You want to add a note about this business that the
trail in the property makes it less valuable?
Hasek: I think that's a real judgmental call and we ought to stay away
from it.
Boyt: You could point out that it has shown in Minneapolis that property '
on the park system is worth more money.
Schroers: I would agree with that. I personally know of a situation where II
a trail has increased the value of someone' s property.
Hasek: The situation here might be a little bit different and the only
reason is because this trail goes across and separates this to the piece of
ground that ' s adjacent to it.
Sietsema : It only separates them from a wetland . '
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IIPark and Rec Commission Meeting
December 8 , 1987 - Page 24
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Schroers: Also the fact that it's probably going to be such a low use
1 trail in terms of volumes of people that are going to use it, I just can't
really see that it' s going to be a detriment there.
IILynch: I'd like to put in a fifth one saying, even though the trail would
separate the main lot from a small portion on the south edge, that south
portion is wetland and unuseable in any forseeable form.
IIMady: A suggestion I would make here, if the big problem is that it's not
on the property line, maybe the property owners would be better off deeding
that wetland to the City so they are not paying taxes on a wetland. Give
Ius the property right to the 886 contour line so they don't have to pay
taxes on a wetland. Just make it a full easement to the 886 line and take
our trail easement next to the conservation easement. That's a
possibility.
ISietsema: I don't know that the City Council would want to take all the
wetlands out of the tax base because we've got probably more wetlands than
Ianybody.
Mady: One other item we need to consider, I believe it was Councilman
IIGeving made about the difficulty about obtaining future easements along
both sides of this property. The comment was made at the Council meeting
that they thought it was going to be nearly impossible to obtain an
easement along the Kline property anyways so why should we look at this.
, If that's going to be the tact that the Council wishes to take on this,
then we are serving no purpose at all in putting a trail in any way, shape
or form in front of the City because we have a number of areas where
Ieasements are going to be nearly impossible to obtain in the near future
but in the long run, we probably will obtain them. Remind them of the fact
that the Lake Ann , the complete Lake Ann trail , although we know it will
Inot happen in the short run, is a long run goal just as this will be. We
can not base a trail plan on short term , will we get it in the next 2
years. We just can' t base on that because that ' s just not reasonable.
ISietsema: How do you want to handle this? Do you want me to send the
Minutes to you on this item as soon as I get the Minute back so each of you
can respond to the Council individually or do you want to make. . .
ILynch: I would say taking those items and writing them up in that form and
just sending them to the Council as an open letter .
IMady: Basically send them a memo saying, although we understand this item
is not being sent back to us for review.
ISietsema : You want me to write this letter?
Mady: You write it under from us. Not from the staff but from the
ICommission. The Commissioners in attendance felt strong enough about this
nature trail, they felt the Council should be advised of the position and
try to clarify points of concern the Council had .
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting
December 8 , 1987 - Page 25 ,
Sietsema: Do you want to mention anything in here that you feel committed
to upholding the integrity of the trail plan that you've worked so hard on? 1
Lynch: Yes. Basically that we can't allow it to be cut to pieces with
short term considerations. That we have to look at the long term. '
Sietsema: I' ll write up a memo. It will be from me to Don and it will be
regarding the Commission's concern regarding the reconsideration of the
trails along T Bar K. Is that what you want?
Hasek: I think if there is any 11th hour problem with coersion here, that's
Planning Commission and Council's problem, not ours. That was a problem
where this trail down here appeared on the final plat and wasn't on the
preliminary plat.
Robinson: Lori , when this was on the Council agenda last night, did they '
have our Minutes , a copy of our Minutes? Does that say that we probably
didn' t do a very good job when Klingelhutz came to us when we rejected it?
Sietsema: No. What we have to keep foremost in our mind when things like
this , when they do things that we don't recommend , is that we are just
recommending and they have the power to override us. It doesn't mean we've
done a bad job, it just means that they disagree or they have taken other
things into consideration that maybe we didn ' t.
Hasek: Or we don' t even know about . '
Sietsema: Perhaps a planning issue that we don't know about or something
else. It's not anything directed to the Commission personally and we
should not feel bad or insulted that they didn't take our recommendation.
It just means that they didn't agree with our recommendation and they have
the ultimate power to do that .
Robinson : But I was thinking maybe we should have said , we have to reject
your request and here are the reasons.
Lynch: What I talked about this a little last year and I asked the Council
about it when we had that little meeting, were we being explicit enough and
at that time I was told yes. Your motions are fine. Then the Council came
along and said in order for us to know better what's going on we would like
verbatim minutes so we can read those but those are awfully hard to pick
the ji.st out of. I think that we have messed up. When we have a sensitive
matter or maybe know that it may be sensitive to the Council , I think we
better structure a motion. This is what we recommend to do and this is
why and put down absolutely every consideration we have why we do it
because I'm sure, well Jay said, when he and I talked about some of these
things earlier , they didn't know about this. They didn't look at the
topography of the west side thing. They didn't know about this. They
didn' t know about that. They did not have the copy of the Master Trail
Plan to look at. They didn' t have any of that stuff .
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting
IDecember 8 , 1987 - Page 26
Mady: Last night I got the real distinct impression that a majority of the
ICouncil may have read what we had done on T Bar K but they were not basing
their consideration of it on anything we had done. They were looking at it
based on what the applicant was coming in front of them and I didn't feel
' they were taking any of. . .
Sietsema: If you want to make your motions lengthier, I will include all
that length within the update and it will just re-emphasize what's in the
IMinutes . That can ' t hurt but help.
Hasek : My general observation of body's that run cities, because they are
Icomprised of basically non-professionals and that's the way it should be in
city government, is that oftentimes you find people making recommendations
and motions based on things that absolutely have nothing to do with facts.
Something like I would never agree to that because I don't like it or my
mother voted against it and I'm against it too. You'd hear those types of
things .
Boyt : Or I ' ve lived here 20 years and we' ve always done it this way.
Hasek: I think we have tools before us and we've tried to work with those
I tools. We have a Comprehensive Plan. We know what the zoning is. We have
a good feel for what it is the people out there want. As long as we
continue to rely on those things and use those things, I think we're going
to continue to give the Planning Commission and Council good direction. If
Ithey want to look at them the way that we are presenting them , fine. If
they don't, we're still doing the best job. I think as far as Park and
Recreations go, this is one of the best that I've ever seen. I think we're
I doing an excellent job here and I certainly am not going to apologize to
anyone for what we ' ve done . I don ' t think we have to change.
Sietsema: With that I would need a motion to direct staff to write a memo
to the City Council with the above noted concerns and comments .
Mady moved, Lynch seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission direct
staff to write a memo to the City Council with the above noted concerns and
comments. All voted in favor and motion carried .
UPDATES CONTINUED
Sietsema: Other updates, Herman Field was approved with the Forest Avenue
extension with the driveway section so that will be built. What now will
occur is that I will go to Mark and ask him to revise the Plan and the new
plan will have to be approved before we can do anything so that Plan will
Icome back to you and then go to City Council. Hopefully, we will be able
to move along quickly enough so we can actually do something next spring.
That ' s my goal .
IHasek: Isn't there a way to shorten up some of these processes? It seems
like we' re making a minor revision to the Plan right?
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