1e. Minutes / �d a
IICHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL
REGULAR MEETING
III JANUARY 25 , 1988
Mayor Hamilton called the meeting to order. The meeting was .opened _
1 with the Pledge to the Flag .
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MEMBERS PRESENT: Councilman Boyt, Councilman Horn, Councilman Geving
1 and Councilman Johnson
STAFF PRESENT: Don Ashworth, Roger Knutson , Gary Warren, Barbara
1 Dacy, Jo Ann Olsen, Jim Chaffee, Larry Brown and Todd Gerhardt
I APPROVAL OF AGENDA: Councilman Johnson moved, Councilman Geving
seconded to approve the agenda as amended by Councilman Johnson to
include an update on the U.S . Army Engineering Report and Public
Safety; Councilman Geving wanted to discuss the Postal Zip Codes and
1 Councilman Boyt wanted to discuss attendance records . All voted in
favor and motion carried .
I CONSENT AGENDA: Councilman Horn moved , Councilman Johnson seconded to
approve the following Consent Agenda items pursuant to the City
Manager ' s recommendations:
a. Final Plat Approval , Hawks Hill , Mike Klingelhutz
h . Conditional Use Permit for the Public Works Building
Expansion , City of Chanhassen
d . Resolution #88-06: Set 1988 Liquor License Fees.
e. Resolution #88-07 : Resolution Adopting the 1988 Budget and
Establishing Tax Levies for 1988
Ih. Accounts Payable dated January 25 , 1988
I i . City Council Minutes dated January 11, 1988
Planning Commission Minutes dated January 6, 1988
All voted in favor and motion carried .
II
CONSENT AGENDA: (G) ESTABLISHING RULES OF PROCEDURE FOR THE CONDUCT
IOF CITY COUNCIL BUSINESS , CITY ATTORNEY' S MODIFICATION.
Councilman Johnson: On Section 8 , this is the same section I
I questioned last time and it ' s on voting and the effect of abstention.
Roger looked into this and I think he missed the jest of what I was
trying to get him to look at. Given you have it, if you abstain from a
vote, it is a no vote on an item. Now I read, a man from the State w
Attorney General ' s office recently sent me some information stating
that a recent Minnesota Supreme Court ruling said that an abstention is
a vote in favor along with the majority. So if it goes down without
Iyou, then you voted for it to go down . If it passes withour you, .you
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City Council Meeting - January 25 , 1988 1
voted for it to pass. This way your vote has no effect. In here we' re
saying that your vote is a negative vote and it will have an effect
upon that issue. If you' re abstaining from a vote.,. I don ' t believe you
should have any effect upon that issue.
Roger Knutson: I finished going through a bunch of examples but for
example, if you ' re passing an ordinance, it takes three positive votes,, -
to pass an ordinance excluding certain types of ordinances. It takes
three positive votes so the effect of abstaining is not voting_.- You' re
not part of the majority so you' re effectively voting , the effect is a
no vote. Now there are Supreme Court decisions , not from Minnesota ,
from other states that I 'm aware of and I have researched it, where
they have said, the effect of abstaining because of a conflict of
interest has the effect of decreasing the size of the Council 'by that '
one vote. To the best of my knowledge, the Minnesota Supreme Court has
never said that. It ' s a bit of an open question. Under Robert ' s as I
understand it , it does not have that effect . You could take that
position . The only time you ' re going to run into problems, potential
serious problems are with zoning ordinance amendments and that would
probably be the most likely situation .
Councilman Johnson: What I 'm looking at is when something does affect
a councilman, if they' re doing something on my block so I decide not to
vote for it. If I 'm actually against it , by abstaining , under these
rules , I ' m doing exactly what I want . I 'm casting a no vote.
Roger Knutson: It has that effect . And the reason it has that effect
is because the Statutes are written in terms of a majority of all the
councilmembers have to vote for something or in some cases , two-thirds
and if you' re not voting aye. We can reword this but it will have that
effect . it will have a no effect.
Councilman Johnson: Here it says that we will be counted as having a
no vote. I would like it noted that he did not vote . That he was
considered absent .
Mayor Hamilton: It says , noted in the Minutes as an abstention .
Councilman Johnson : Right, an abstention and above it it says.
Mayor Hamilton: It be considered as having voted against the motion.
Councilman Johnson: Right . So it says here that you' re going to be
considered voting it. It would be easier to say that the councilmember
who elects not to vote shall be considered as being absent at the time
of the vote.
Mayor Hamilton : I guess I 'm not sure what the problem is . I
Roger Knutson: It will have the same effect.
Councilman Johnson: It will have the same effect yes .
. _
Roger Knutson: If you wanted to put that in there. The reason it was
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City Council Meeting - January 25 , 1988 V "
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lk- in this draft and in your earlier draft is to make clear to members of
the Council what the actual effect is . So you understand when you
i abstain what ' s going to happen, effectively happen . It ' s not a no
I vote. It' s an abstention , but effectively it works as a no because it
takes a certain number of positive votes to pass something. But if you
wanted to change it to it just said , councilmember who abstains, it
I shall be noted in the record that he abstains . If you wanted to say
that , that 's fine too just so you all understand what the effect is .
Mayor Hamilton: I can ' t see where it ' s going to have an effect. I ' ve
I been here 8 years and it hasn ' t any effect yet . I don ' t know, Dale did
you ever encounter anything?
ICouncilman Geving: No . An abstention is just a non-vote.
Councilman Johnson: You ' re saying an abstention is a non-vote and our
I rules say an abstention is a no vote. What I want to do is what you
want is an abstention to be a non-vote and that ' s what I want the rules
to say so our rules will match what we think it is in our heads .
1 Mayor Hamilton : If you read this and agree with it, then it would
accomplish the same thing also. It doesn ' t make any difference. It
doesn ' t have any major effect on it . Under 10. 07 , Motions to
Reconsider, that says starting with the fourth line down about the
middle, only be made at the council meeting at which the original
motion was voted upon . Motions to reconsider contracts , written
agreements, claims for payment, ordinances , permits , zoning and
subdivision approvals and public improvement projects may only be made
at the Council meeting at which the original motion was voted upon.
That doesn ' t make any sense. You can ' t make a motion to reconsider at
Ia meeting that ' s already taken place a month ago.
Roger Knutson: That ' s what this says . What this says , if someone
I moves , I don ' t know if you have claims on here tonight or not, you do,
you move to approve claims right now. It 's been done and then later on
in the meeting, for whatever reason , someone says there ' s a mistake
there, I 'd like to move to reconsider the payment of the claims . You
Ican do it at this meeting but you can ' t come back here in two weeks and
do it. The reason I have it in there is because the check ' s already in
the mail . It ' s too late.
IMayor Hamilton: But even the zoning and subdivision approval?
Roger Knutson : What it says is, once those are by ordinance, once you
I have signed that ordinance and after this meeting or simultaneously,
it ' s too late because they' ve been signed . When you sign a contract,
you can ' t reconsider it a month later because it ' s gone out.
ICouncilman Horn : That ' s fine but what about ordinances?
IL -
Roger Knutson : You would just take it up as another agenda item. You
could pass an ordinance tonight to do something and next week you could
have a new ordinance. It wouldn ' t be a motion to reconsider. It would
just be a brand spanking new agenda item.
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City Council Meeting - January 25 , 1988
Councilman Johnson: So the case of the T Bar K, we had a final plat
that we approved , then we did a reconsideration on it. That was a
subdivision matter. Under this , how would we have made that change to
the final plat? Brought it up as a change to a final plat?
Roger Knutson : It 'd be too late.
Councilman Johnson: Once a plat 's a plat it ' s always a plat? ' -You -
can' t change a plat? I
Roger Knutson: Once it' s signed , you' ve lost control of it. It's
history.
Councilman Johnson: Even if the people come in and want it changed?
Mayor Hamilton: That ' s a different story. We can ' t change it. '
Councilman Johnson: So we didn ' t need to vote to reconsider that plat?
They can petition to have a plat reconsidered . ,
Roger Knutson: That has to be put on the agenda as an agenda item.
Mayor Hamilton: I don ' t have any other questions on that 10. 07 . Are
you satisfied with Section 8 , Voting?
Councilman Johnson: I 'd like to get that changed .
Roger Knutson: If you wanted , you could just delete the second
sentence. I
Councilman Geving: Let ' s just say, the coucilmember who abstains shall
be considered as not having voted.
Roger Knutson: That ' s fine.
Councilman Boyt: That ' s the way it reads in my amended Robert ' s Rules . '
The only reason I didn ' t comment was Roger clearly pointed out to me it
doesn ' t make any difference.
Councilman Johnson: But as long as that ' s what we all feel , we ought
to have our rules say what we agree so somebody can ' t come back and say
well , you voted against that.
Councilman Horn: But Roger ' s point , it says in doing this , so you
recognize that you are in effect voting against it when a certain
number of votes is required to pass something and I think it ' s
perfectly clear.
Mayor Hamilton: It can stay that way. It doesn ' t have to change.
Resolution #88-08: Councilman Johnson moved, Councilman Geving
seconded to approve establishing Rules of Procedure for the conduct of
City Council Business , City Attorney' s Modifications with the change '
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' City Council Meeting - January 25 , 1988
r-
noted by Councilman Geving suggesting that the councilmember who
abstains shall be considered as not having voted and will strike after
the word voted against the motion in the talleying of the votes . That
vote will be duly noted as an abstention. All voted in favor except
Mayor Hamilton and Councilman Horn who opposed and motion carried.
1
CONSENT AGENDA: J. RESOLUTION ESTABLISHING THE DATE, TIME, POLLING
' PLACES FOR THE SPECIAL REFERENDUM, FEBRUARY 24 , 1988.
Councilman Boyt: I was out of town when I gather you had the
discussion about February 24th. I feel that ' s too early. I don ' t see
things coming together to tell me that the community is going to be
well informed about the referendum by February 24th.
Mayor Hamilton: After a lot of discussion that evening, everybody
there felt that we needed to do it in February and that we would have
enough time. All those present thought we had adequate time to get the
' word out to everybody. I guess I agree with that.
Councilman Johnson: Mr Mayor, I was present and I staunchly opposed
February 24th at that time.
Councilman Geving: I didn ' t hear that Jay.
Councilman Johnson: Because '
• I said there ' s not enough time. We' ve got
to get it out . In looking at this , I ' ve been
9 , going over the tactics
and whatever and how we' re going to inform the people and I think what
we have to do is get into the homeowners associations . There 's a list
' of 7 or 8 meetings and I think that would get to maybe 10% or 15% of
the people. We really have to get out there and hit all these
homeowners associations . If we can do it, we may be able to get out
there and hit quite a few of them in the next month but I personally
would like to see it held off a little while too .
' Mayor Hamilton: Don , would you please comment on why you would like to
have it done in February.
Don Ashworth: At this point in time I think there are enough groups
' and people, brochures , ect . that do have the February 24th date. We
tried to have it as early as possible. It could be changed but again
we have several pieces of the information for the referendum are
' already done. The other part of it dealt with, we attempted to look at
the timing associated with each of the community groups and to insure
that we picked a point in time that closely approximated when they
' would be meeting . As Jay noted , we do hit most of the groups, or all
of the groups that I 'm aware of, before the February 24th deadline and
most of those are within the last week or 10 days before that
referendum. Lori does have a list of all of the homeowners
associations so if the Council would like to supplement the other
meeting schedule with homeowners , we could do that as well .
Councilman Boyt: I guess my concern , and maybe this is going- to come
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City Council Meeting - January 25 , 1988 1
out in the way the referendum is worded , is that part of what I had
hoped to have happen when we went out to community groups was that we
would learn something from them about what do they really want . We' re
making a proposal but I don ' t consider that proposal to be something
that ' s absolutely the way it has to be built . I would gather that
there ' s really no time to modify our position so are we in fact saying
that what we' re asking for is the ability to spend a certain amount of
money on different projects with a conceptual plan?
Mayor Hamilton : That ' s right. '
Councilman Boyt: Okay, so that we can take this feedback that we' re
getting and incorporate as much of that as possible into the final
plan.
Don Ashworth: That ' s correct.
Councilman Boyt: And you ' re comfortable that we can reach the people
then by the 24th? Enough time so that they know the issues.
Don Ashworth: I would hope so Bill . Again, the Task Force spent a lot
of time looking at each of the groups we should go to . The types of
information we should be getting out to them and they felt comfortable.
In fact, they were looking to February 16th and we moved it back from
the 16th to the 24th. The date set by the Task Force was the 16th.
Councilman Boyt: I think this is a situation in which it ' s an I
expensive referendum to run. We 're asking people to make a decision
over the next five years and I 'm wary that a month from now people are
going to be prepared but I understand that you ' ve got the material
printed and it looks to me like the majority of the Council is going to
agree to support so I 'm not going to delay this longer .
Councilman Horn: What 's the referendum Task Force that Don was '
referring to?
Don Ashworth: The Community Center Task Force. They have taken the '
lead role as far as coordinating between the three different groups
because they are composed of all groups .
Councilman Horn : Is it finalized what the structure of the referendum '
will be? They were going to go back, each group and talk amongst
themselves and decide on how the final structuring should be before it
went out. Has that been done?
Don Ashworth: The five questions were set by the City Council. I will
meet with the approving attorney the day after tomorrow to try to
reduce the size of the question down to the shorter form that I had
given to the City Council versus the more elaborate form that I had
distributed from his office.
Resolution #88-09 : Mayor Hamilton moved, Councilman Geving seconded to
approve the Resolution Establishing the date, time and polling places '
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City Council Meeting - January 25 , 1988
IIfor the Special Referendum, February 24 , 1988 . All voted in favor
except Councilman Boyt who opposed and motion carried .
VISITORS PRESENTATION:
' Mayor Hamilton: Brad Johnson is here this evening and I know he has an
item to discuss with us just briefly. If you remember a short time ago
Jay Kroenick who has a restaurant in Washington D.C. and he was
' considering putting a garden center within the City of Chanhassen . He
came before us asking about the Natural Green facility, Dave Luce 's
property, and we encouraged him to consider property in the downtown
district area . By the old Hanus garage facility and I think Brad is
' here tonight to just pass some additional information on to us about
that project . Perhaps he's looking for an approval or some feedback
from us.
Brad Johnson : Feedback. You recall that about six months ago Mr.
Kroenick came before you to see if in fact he could put his lawn and
' garden center out on the Natural Green site. At the time we told him
ourselves , we didn ' t think it would fly but he wanted the chance to try
it . He also asked us where else in the community he felt he could go
because he had originally inquired through us about a site that 's
I located behind the AMOCO building adjacent to it. There 's a for sale
sign called the Morehouse Signs to purchase property. One of the
problems in trying to locate a lawn and garden center in the community
from a practical point of view. Currently there is no really no site
' that you can go on that are zoned . The zoning has to be BG. If you go
strictly by the rules , follow that a lawn and garden center could only
go into those designated areas , lawn and garden, then there really is
no property from a practical point of view available for that type of
thing at the present time. Within the BH district , which is the
Business Highway District, you do allow retail and you do allow outdoor
' display. We originally read that to mean that retail is retail and
everybody knows restrictions in outdoor displays is a conditional use
for varied and practical reasons . You want to somewhat control what
the outdoor display is and looking at Frank ' s or someplace like that or
Anderson 's new place over there, they do have outdoor display and you
have to be somewhat cautious as to how that will happen . Jay called me
over Christmas time and said he would like to come on this site at the
' present time if I could possibly arrange it . There was some nitty
gritty, we've got to close on the land and all kinds of nitty gritty
and we have to make sure, as you know, or may not know, that we are in
the process of purchasing and then redoing this whole Hanus property.
We' ve been working on that for a couple years and probably be at it for
a little while longer but we were going to attempt to relocate one of
the tenants from downtown into that site and I think we' re close enough
now to commit to Jay, which we were not a year ago , that we can in fact
control the site and allow him to move in around the 1st. His problem
is , he ' s got to buy inventory and buy a home here. Relocate his family .
here and his question to me on the phone last night is , Brad can I do
it? I said sure you can do it probably within the existing zoning .
Possibly but I don' t know and the formal process , which is what we
would start right away, is to go through the Planning Commission and
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City Council Meeting - January 25 , 1988
through the formal presentation as to what the place would look like
IF
and everything like that . But in concept, what we were wondering
about, becuase either do it or put it off. He says , I ' ll have to wait
another year or two before he does it , was the question, is there any
great opposition given reasonable site planning and everything , to a
lawn garden center located in that area.
Councilman Geving: Which specific area now?
Brad Johnson: The area would be, the building that he would be located '
in, is what we call Building B, which is the Point Building on the
Hanus Building. This is the AMOCO station approximately right_ here. -
He needs about 3, 600 square feet and it ' s a building that sits out and
it ' s a good location from traffic.
Councilman Geving : That ' s where we had the vans there for a while? '
Brad Johnson: Possibly. Our feeling , anything is an improvement
there . That ' s what we' ve been working under but we also want to make
sure we do it correctly. Building A doesn ' t exist anymore yet that
would another plan.
Mayor Hamilton: He would have outside storage between B and A right? '
Brad Johnson: Between B and A and possibly in this area here. He 'd
come back for approval of what we' re trying to accomplish. It 's
landscaping so whatever you ' re displaying is basically trees and things ql
like that that we' re normally trying to get into the community but he
wouldn ' t have to display some of that outdoors . He' d have a greenhouse
area ultimately. ,
Councilman Geving: Does he need the Kurver ' s property?
Brad Johnson: Yes.
Mayor Hamilton: That whole piece is the Kurver ' s property.
Councilman Geving: Right up to that V? I have no problem with it.
Councilman Horn: Would he have dirt piles stored outside? '
Brad Johnson: Minimal I suppose. I still keep thinking about Frank' s.
We' ve got to figure out how to do it. We are as concerned as you would
be on the ultimate but we may have one year transition but we ' re going
to have to throw them in there right away this fall and we will come
back with a proposal for the site plan.
Councilman Geving: Is he going to get enough exposure there?
Brad Johnson : That ' s the highest exposure point in the whole city
based on all of our studies . Other than the AMOCO corner. 17 ,000 cars
and all projections show that that will be the highest point.
Councilman Geving: We've still
got that chainlinked fence there.
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ICity Council Meeting - January 25 , 1988
lifBrad Johnson: We' re going to redo that whole site. Ultimately this is
how the whole site is planned but believe it 's not an easy thing to do .
I Councilman Geving: So the idea then would
g be to take down that entire
fence line that you see out there now and open it up so people could
Isee the facilities.
Brad Johnson: If you drive down now and just pretend like this tree
I farm out in front there was gone, there' s a 4 foot cut from the block
of this building so the plan is to cut this down to the level of the
road and this whole building just leaps out then. With the new highway
I going, look at Al' s office and then look across, you' ll see that
everything will jump right out once we get rid of those trees. He's
got a good location. We' ve got a number of people out that are very
interested in that site now. I talked to Ladd Conrad and he didn ' t
I seem to have any problems either. They all remember the story. It was
just a matter in our zoning , we forgot that there was very little land
and it ' s not a permitted use.
ICouncilman Boyt: I think it ' s a compatible use with other types of
things we have there. I would encourage him to come.
L Councilman Johnson: Ditto on that .
Mayor Hamilton: I 'd say the same as I did last time. I 'd like to have
him there. I think it ' s a good location for him and I hope he can make
it .
I Brad Johnson : We do have some site planning needs that we ' ll have to
address . One other thing that I 'd like to say is , we did finalize
today, I think that we' ll have the ground breaking for the first new
downtown building February 10th. We ' re going to invite all of you
I there. It ' s kind of exciting . We' ll have the Chaska Band will be
there. All the kids are going to be let out of school and we' re trying
to get McGlynn ' s to bake the biggest hardhat cake that 's ever been done
I and it ' s going to be kind of media event and it will be the event that
we hope all you will attend .
I Jim Hanson: A would be voter and taxpayer in the city of Chanhassen
but I need a building permit . I own a lot on Pleasantview which is a
part of the Fox Chase development and have made application for a
I building permit which I thought I could pick up last Friday. The
engineering department has some concerns over where the driveway is and
I thought we worked that out . We did not consult with them. What I 'm
I proposing or asking, since they felt it was necessary to come here
tonight , was that we be able to get that building permit because that
would in no way affect the house and so forth, and get together with
the Engineering Department and work out the driveway situation so
everybody is satisfied so the people can begin with the house. A
couple of concerns , I ' ve got to be out of where I am by April 1st but
more than that, the basement is already built . I 'm putting in a wood
Ifoundation and they thought they would be putting that in Wednesday or
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City Council Meeting - January 25 , 1988 1
Thursday. So I guess I 'm asking not to be laid over for two weeks but
that you give the Engineering Department direction to issue my permit
based on working that out with them.
Mayor Hamilton: Gary, can you comment on that?
Gary Warren : Yes , the development contract for Fox Chase calls for '
this particular lot to have a driveway located off of Pleasant View
Road where it will maximize site distance. Where the current driveway
is proposed , it ' s coming off of a curve, without getting into too many
details , it ' s almost the worse location from a sight distance
standpoint and we have just begun to look at what we can do . Our
preference is to try to get the access on the most easterly corner of
the property. That is the best access point on Pleasant View Road.
It ' s a very bad curve and it 's just as you ' re coming east right before
you come into the entrance of Fox Chase, you' re coming downhill , you' re
coming off a reverse curve, you should have theoretically about 650
feet of sight distance and there 's no way we can get that but we' re
very concerned about getting this as far away from that curve as
possible. Larry just started looking into it and briefed me on it here
but we' re looking to get some cooperation to do that.
Jim Hanson: I had proposed where it 's been for the last hundred years .
I thought that was the best . I 'm not going to argue with them. I
would just like the opportunity to work that out with them to be able
to start my house.
Mayor Hamilton: You don ' t see any problem with reaching agreement with
Mr . Hanson?
Gary Warren: We just got into it so that ' s where we' re coming from so
we can get reasonable sight distance. The word is right now, the plan
is not acceptable from our standpoint .
Mayor Hamilton : Jim, I assume you' re willing to work with the staff?
Jim Hanson: Not until tomorrow morning because I think they ' re
occupied for the rest of the evening.
Mayor Hamilton: We ' ve done this in the past where we can issue a
building permit so they can begin construction but so this one detail
can be worked out.
Gary Warren: If the builder is interested in compromising, I think we
can come up with some solution .
Councilman Boyt: Did you say the baesment was already in the ground? ,
Jim Hanson : No . The basement is in Wisconsin . It ' s a wood basement
that 's being trucked in .
Councilman Geving: Could you tell me where the lot is? Is it part of
the Hewett Addition?
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City Council Meeting - January 25 , 1988
Gary Warren: It ' s part of Fox Chase. It ' s right on what I would call
the northwest corner . There's a lot of trees up on the steep side
slope and that ' s a lot of it.
Don Ashworth: The Council showed question about this lot and the
buildability and the biggest question again was being able to get a
' reasonable access .
Councilman Geving: This isn ' t where all the pine trees are next to
Cunningham's?
' Don Ashworth: Yes .
' Councilman Geving: We had a lot of questions on that. -
Councilman Boyt: So you' re saying that when you put the building in,
that you ' ll put the driveway where the City Engineer feels it needs to
be?
Jim Hanson: I might argue with him or try to but we ' ll work it out.
' What choice do I have?
Councilman Boyt: I would gather that working it out, what you' re
saying is you ' re willing to agree with the City Engineer because once
ILyou have it in the ground, I think we need to know what negotiating
point we have. Once we give the gentleman a chance to put the house
in , we basically have our hands tied . I 'm all for you putting your
IF- house in but if you put it in , I think you should put in knowing that
the City Engineer is going to have the last vote on where the driveway
goes . I would assume that he ' s going to listen and react to you.
' Mayor Hamilton: I think that ' s a process of negotiation . We put faith
in the City Engineer and good faith of a future resident that that will
be accomplished .
' Councilman Boyt: I 'm just looking for our worse case scenario .
' Councilman Geving : I always thought that that lot would be fed by an
access off of that cul-de-sac down on the lower level there. Why can ' t
that work?
' Gary Warren: My initial reaction Dale, not being here for the City
approval , was why isn ' t this lot accessing across the common lot line
that abuts into the current street system. Then the development
contract was pulled up and there was a condition of the development
contract that this lot would be allowed access to Pleasant View Road
where the sight distance was maximum. There has probably been a lot of
discussion about that prior to the meeting .
Councilman Geving : This would be approximately right across from Mr.
Schwartz' house?
IL- Gary Warren: Yes.
City Council Meeting - January 25 , 1988 1
Councilman Horn: Can I respond to that? As I recall when we went
through that , we were told if we used an internal drive, we 'd have to
remove the trees to have a buildable lot and that 's why we asked for it
along off of Pleasant View.
Councilman Johnson: May I ask, what 's going to happen if you move that
as far to the east as possible, which gives you your maximum sight
distance? As I understand it, before the meeting I talked to the City
Engineer on this point actually, that it will cost you a little bit
more grading because you have to cut down some hill . Is that going to
cut through the pine trees? I didn ' t go out and look at the lot. You
still won ' t be touching the pine trees but it' s going to cost you some
grading. There's very little, it looks probably only 100 or so foot
one way or the other so, can you go that way to the opposite?
Basically what the City Engineer is looking at is the opposite corner.
You want one corner of the lot and he wants the other corner of the lot
because the other corner of the lot maximizes the sight distance. The
corner that 's in now, minimizes the sight distance. We 're getting down
to like a 5 mph sight distance on your driveway which is not safe for
you. It' s not safe for the people. I don ' t know how much grading is
involved here.
Mayor Hamilton: It shouldn ' t matter to us if he's willing to do the
grading.
Councilman Johnson: So with your layout, your driveway will make sense
going to that other corner? It ' s not what you want obviously.
Mayor Hamilton: Do councilmembers have any problem with issuing a
building permit?
Councilman Boyt: None.
Mayor Hamilton : Gary, go ahead . 1
PROPOSED ACCESS TO WATER TOWER OFF MURRAY HILL ROAD, CURTIS R. OSTROM. '
Mayor Hamilton: Gary, would you like to give the staff report on this
briefly? I think we' ve all reviewed it and read the letters and phone
calls and everything . We' re probably pretty familiar with it.
Gary Warren: Contrary to popular belief we don ' t look to cause concern
like this . The site is up in the north central part of the city off of
Murray Hill Road by our water tower. The water tower was built in
1972 . The City acquired the south 110 feet of Lot 31 and this is a
measure from the construction plans that showed our intentions at that 11 time taking access off of Murray Hill Road . To this point in time,
City utility 's personnel have been accessing the site across school
property through a verbal agreement with the school and across the
soccer field and such. We have difficulties with this under conditions
such as we' ve had here the last week or two with the snows and that
this is quite an open area and we get wind blown quite a bit so the
access can not be made without plowing out the area and taking some ,
City Council Meeting - January 25 , 1988 �'6J
I
extra efforts to do that . As with any of our utilities , we like to
4 have a redundancy if possible and a good access . A water tower, an
elevated tank being the only elevated reservoir in the upper service
I area in this area is obviously very important to us . The access that
we would like to put into the property basically is , and I called it
intentionally a driveway access . We are not looking to come in here
I and tear up the neighborhood and put in a complete city section street
to urban section . We ' re looking to put in a driveway access for our
utility pickup trucks so we can get in from the east side which is much
I more protected from the snows and a much more certain access for us .
Also legal access , since at this time we do not have a driveway
easement to access over school property. The issue also relates to the
trail situation and that the development contract for Pleasant Hill
I called for the developer to provide an access , a trail access, across
Lots 5, 4 and 3 to get over to the school property here. This has not
been provided as of yet and alternatives that have been kicked around
and volunteered by the developer, Mr. Ostrom, and at this point he is
Iproposing to give us a trail access over Lot 6 in this fashion which
without the through access to the school , basically that ends the trail
at that point . So basically from my standpoint , we want to see a much
I more certain access, legal access provided to the water tower. We are
looking to be as little disrupted as possible. There are a series of
pine trees along this whole road , as I 'm sure many of you are familiar
III with. I ' ve been in contact with the DNR forester who wasn ' t able to
visit the site as of yet but just my own naive look at the trees out
there, I 'm sure he' ll back us up. Their spacing themselves is kind of
1r- restricting the growth of those trees and there is a tree in fact right
near the City 's fire hydrant on the south end of the property that
could be utilized as an access . Otherwise, there is space between
trees that we could get our trucks through. About 15 feet in one case
I that we ' re looking at . We ' re looking for your review of this . I know
the neighbors are here and would like to voice theirs .
Mayor Hamilton: Mr . Ostrom, do you have any comments?
ICurtis Ostrom: I think Mr. Kreiberg does .
I Bill Kreiberg : I 'd like to comment about the various letters and the
proposal up here.
I Mayor Hamilton: Before you get started , a lot of this may be
redundant . What we' ve gotten from you in the past, maybe you can just
summarize.
IBill Kreiberg : I 'd just like to comment on some of the points he made
and not to press the issue. First, in terms of the snow issue. My lot
is the southern lot right next door and went out and measured the snow
I conditions yesterday and there ' s 24 inches of snow in the area where
you want to put the road and 16 inches adjoining the road where you
ii— currently are . My drive parallels the exact the way the road with the
wind and the drifting was extremely heavy yesterday against my garage. '
It would be just as heavy on this road as it is on the one that you
currently have. A verbal agreement with the school , I 'm not sure you
don' t have a common law relationship with them after 15 years but I
1
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85
City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 '
don ' t know whether or not it may be possible to work out an access with
the school district in that regards. In terms of the issue of the
school , the school does not allow any of the children up in that area
of the field . We discussed that with them. They do not . It is not an
area that they utilize possibly because your road is there but it ' s not
something that they currently are utilizing there. Of course, if this
is a determination that this is planned , I spoke to Mr. Ostrom and he
said that this was never discussed at the time that he came before this
body to get approval for his plans otherwise he would have had that
issue resolved at that time. I 'm not sure if this drawing goes back to
whatever the land was acquired which I 'm not sure as to what the date
was . I guess another issue that we see here is that , we don ' t see any
fundamental improvement to the servicing of that tower. We see
something which I understand you feel you can do without taking the
pines down . I measured every one of them, the widest spread is 11 feet
and you need a 12 foot road and you' ve got a lot bigger than just
pickup trucks going in there. I ' ve seen your plow everytime it snows
and it ' s a lot bigger than a pickup truck. I just don ' t think you can
do it without disrupting the physiogomy of this particular area and I
guess from a fudiciary standpoint , I question whether or not this is
the best utilization of the funds on the part of the City. I guess
that basically covers the concerns we have. As far as we' re concerned ,
we would appreciate your sensitivity in reviewing this. Possibly there
is a way you can gain permanent access from the school district and
make some accomodations on that road . It may cost you less. I know
Mr. Warren suggested possibly selling the piece of property that you
have there that 's not being utilized and use those proceeds to do it.
I 'm not sure we would object to that . I personally would buy the
property from you if it was a fair market value. I think there ' s just
a way to get around this and we feel , as I mentioned in the letter and
I do want to bring this point up again, that there are a lot more
children playing and active in the area where the trucks would now have
to come in and service than there are on that part of the field where
they currently go . I guess I 'm just looking for reasonable fundamental
argument to support it. We certainly would not object to you putting a
trailway through there. We have no argument with the City' s decision .
If you'd like to do that, we ' ll accomodate that . The issue of the
trail , I think in a sense confuses the issue of why we' re here. I
believe that ' s something Mr . Ostrom is already talking to the City or
County Attorney about. 1
Mayor Hamilton: Why you ' re there, I just have to ask and I feel like
there must be a hidden agenda here someplace because I can ' t for the
life of me understand a neighborhood objecting to the City accessing
one of it ' s utilities off a street when we ' re going to have perhaps 3
trucks a week driving in there and they don ' t go ramming through the
neighborhood . They probably go slower than what your own residential
traffic goes . They go in and come out and leave the area . It' s not as
if they' re sitting there for hours on end or driving in there fast
where they would be a hazard . I think I feel we haven ' t gotten to the
bottom of this and I really don ' t understand where the neighborhood is
coming from.
Bill Kreiberg: First , I see very blatantly, you've got a viable 15 '
City Council Meeting - January 25 , 1988
year successful access to the tower . The issue of snow blowing to me
is self serving if that 's a problem for these guys once in a while.
IFMayor Hamilton : That ' s not an issue.
Bill Kreiberg: If that 's not an issue than I don ' t see any fundamental
' argument and you have an existing road service which has satisfactorily
serviced the tower for 15 years that it becomes necessary to put a
second access in in which you would disturb the visual appearance of
' that area which is basically residential . Whether you buy the argument
of the safety to the children in the area or not. Just straight
forward , I can ' t see where I can justify some fiduciary spending that
amount. Period . If you can tell me why a second access road would
' make sense and one is perfectly satisfactory or at least 95%
satisfactory, then maybe we have something . . .
Mayor Hamilton: Because the access road that we' re proposing would be
owned by the City and it would give us legal access to our facility
that we do not have at the present time.
' Bill Kreiberg: And I 'm saying, maybe there ' s another way being that
you have utilized something, whether you have legal access ,
theoretically or not and I defer to the City Attorney in that regard .
That may be something that you could obtain , avoid having to spend the
I money and avoid disturbing those people who pay the taxes and live in
that neighborhood. I don ' t think that ' s an unreasonable request Mr.
Mayor.
111� Mayor Hamilton : It seems to be to me but then u
I guess . . .
Gary Warren : How long have you lived there?
Bill Kreiberg: I moved in in October of this past year.
' Councilman Johnson : I ' ve gone out there three times over the last
couple weeks to look at it and watch the snowfall . I didn ' t get out
' and measure the snow depth. It was deep enough that I decided not to
try and climb the barbwire fence. Whatever we do , that lot needs to be
cleaned up. Barbed wire removed, etc. , that ' s out in that
neighborhood . I 'm sure in the summer it might look like more of a mess
because there seems to be a lot of old fence rolls and stuff in there.
It needs basic cleaning up no matter what happens . On the other side
of it, I think at that one point, next to the fire hydrant where the
' tree is all but dead , in fact most the trees have got some severe
problems to them. If you look , the green is not until you get a good
30 foot up until you have a significant amount of green . They seem to
be, again I 'm a civil engineer , I 'm not a forester but to me it looks
' like they just basically are maturing or about we' re going to lose
those pretty soon anyway. Maybe our forester will say we need to thin
them out in the first place and that will keep some of them longer . I
don ' t know. There are several of them that are dead but only one on
our property. If this was anybody but the City coming in here, we
would have no voice at all in this matter . If that was a privately
owned, like the telephone company having a facility in there.- They
I
B
City Council Meeting - January 25 , 1988 11'
owned that property. I don ' t think the City Council would have any
authority to say anything, to tell you the truth. But this is our own
property so we do have a choice. I think for the reasons that we are
trying to serve the entire city of Chanhassen and improve access to
that water tower in case of emergencies , which in emergencies is most
often predicted is wintertime. The route from the school has a rather
steep grade coming up to it and can get very slippery. This is , to me
a much more logical route to get to it. There's almost no hills coming
into it . It ' s all flat from Melody Hill on in . Where the other side
of Melody Hill is a nice, steep little grade that could cause some
problems. If that water tower stops functioning, there' s going to be a
111
lot of people very upset without water during the winter. I 'm for the
access I 'm afraid in this case because it ' s for the better good of
everybody and I do not think it will be a significant public -safety
hazard or by removing the dead tree it might even improve some of the
problems there in cleaning up that lot , that I 'm glad it got pointed
out to us now. There ' s going to be some improvement made there.
Councilman Geving: I have several questions that I 'd like to ask Mr.
Warren . Is the school being used at this time, do you know Gary? I
see children there? Is the water tower servicing the school at this
time?
Gary Warren: Sure. 1
Councilman Geving: So the school district really has a very important
interest in us maintaining that water tower for their benefit, is that
correct?
Gary Warren: Like the rest of the citizens .
Councilman Geving: What is the estimated cost that you would place on
building this road from Murray Hill on over?
Gary Warren : The current access? 1
Councilman Geving: The new access that you ' re planning on building.
What ' s the anticipated cost that you placed on this? Even if you used 1
city crews to do it .
Gary Warren : If it ' s $2 ,000 .00, it ' s a lot . All we'd be doing is ,
we' re not looking to reshape or grade anything other than just maybe
hitting so it would hit the bottom of the chasis if that and if
necessary, to put in some gravel as a roadbed but that ' s all we ' re
looking to do . I
Councilman Geving: Mr . Kreiberg mentioned that he has measured those
trees . Is he correct or is your earlier statement more correct? In
terms of the width of the area that could be used for the road .
Gary Warren : If he ' s actually measured them, I ' ve been out eyeballing
it from the side there and pacing it on the street so it ' s easy to be
off a couple feet here and there.
I
11
—' e:;q
11 City Council Meeting - January 25 , 1988
II Councilman Geving: When this issue first came up and I read about it
and I read the interesting letters from the residents here, we have
II about 20 some residents who are objecting to this so it ' s kind of a hot
issue up in the Murray Hill area . I originally thought that we might
save some time if we could contact the school district and see if there
I was a possibility of getting that legal access formalized . Have we
ever done this in the past do you know or does Don know? Was any
attempt ever made to meet with school officials and formalize this
agreement that we' ve got to go across their school land?
IGary Warren: All I can relate to is the discussion i had with Jerry
Boucheaux our utility superintendent, who has the working relationship
with the school . It' s never gone on any further. _
I Councilman Geving: I just can ' t imagine in my v '
g y iew that there would be
any difficulty with the school board granting the city to have access
I across school properties to get to this tower, especially since they' re
going to benefit from it to get water to the school . My own particular
idea on this is that we already have an access . I don ' t believe we
I need to go into a nice neighborhood such as they have up in Murray
Hill , and I 'm familiar with that development. Just what ' s been done in
the last 10 years while I ' ve been sitting here and I remember though
that we did ask for that access for the school kids to cross the lots
Ithere in the back so they could walk across to the school . I 'd still
like to see us pursue that . I 'm surprised that hasn ' t been done but
Mr. Ostrom, if you ' re out there, I definitely want to see that happen.
1 Curtis Ostrom: It ' s in place at the moment. The City was supposed to
take care of it .
ICouncilman Geving: My comment still holds though. I 'd like to see us
pursue the trail easement that we had and I want to see us get that
from you and I 'd like to also see us move ahead on formalizing any kind
I of agreement that might be necessary, depending on the vote tonight of
course, with the school district because I think it ' s a lot easier to
do what we ' ve been doing for 15 years than to go in there and tear up a
I fairly nice neighborhood and put another road in there. I personally
do not see the reason for another access . That ' s the end of my
comments .
ICouncilman Horn : I 'd like to ask Roger on the liklihood of getting a
permanent easement through school property.
I Roger Knutson: It'd be up to the school district if they want to give
it to us.
II Councilman Horn: Yes , but he was talking about the fact that we had
used it for 15 years and there being some legal right that we have.
li— Bill Kreiberg: I did not know. When I was referring to common law, I
was referring to sometimes long standing relationships in terms of the
reality of having to get approval from school .
Councilman Horn: So that really has no validity?
II
B
-City Council Meeting - January 25 , 1988
I
Roger Knutson: When you talk about that, we could talk about adverse
!—
possession being one. Just driving a truck from here to there once or
twice or three times a week under these circumstances wouldn ' t do it
for you. You 'd have to acquire an easement .
Mayor Hamilton: It has to be continuous use. It has to be adverse.
It has to be open. It has to be for 15 years .
Councilman Horn: So in effect, there really is no , the school di
strict
has no reason other than the goodness of their heart to give us that on
a permanent basis?
Roger Knutson: That 's correct.
Councilman Horn: I guess then my real concern on this issue was the 111
trees . I would like to hear from the forester about what a road
through there would do to the trees before I could agree to allow them
to access that way.
Councilman Boyt: Gary, what ' s the cost of doing a similar treatment to
our current access road? You said $2 , 000.00 would be a ballpark on
the new one.
Gary Warren : I don ' t know. I haven ' t put the calculator to it but not
knowing what the cost of the easement would be but we' re probably
talking $10 ,000. 00 to $15 , 000. 00 maybe.
Councilman Boyt: Do you know how much property is there? If we came IF
out a similar distance to our setback from the school lot line, out
from the water tower , how much property is in that remaining piece?
Gary Warren: If the City would take 100 foot on the property, there ' s
sort of a cross rough cedar fence out on the east side of the tower,
pretty much along this line which is 100 feet in. It pretty much
surrounds the water tower . If the rest of this , and the lot is 315
feet I believe so it would be 215 feet and 110 feet of frontage which
is almost exactly a half acre . If that ' s your question.
Councilman Boyt: Yes , it is . Thank you Gary. I went out there this
Saturday and I guess I would agree with you that a tree is going to
come out. We ' re going to put a road in there. It' s just reasonable to
me to take one out if a road goes in . I think that it ' s real important
here that , as a Council we try to be supportive of a group of people
when they come in and say this is a concern . And I think Mr . Ostrom
would like to see this issue cleared up quickly but I don ' t think
buying my logic of wanting to support your concern until we get it
cleared up, it seems to me like this is an issue that needs a little
more time. I 'd like to see us acquire the land from the school board
and surface that road and the only way I can see us doing that is if
the value of that half acre piece of property is approximately
$17 ,000 . 00 or $18 ,000.00, maybe more, depending upon what the school
board would want for their property. I think another issue that I
would like to see cleared up here is , I guess if it 's a half an acre,
I
' City Council Meeting - January 25 , 1988
I r that means it a buildable lot . As Jay mentioned , if it ' s a buildable
lot and someone puts a house on it, they ' re going to generate more
' traffic than the City is proposing . So I don ' t understand how that
would be an improvement .
Bill Krieberg: I ' ll buy it from you and not build on it . How' s that?
' Councilman Boyt: Well , if you ' re willing to agree that it ' s not a
buildable lot .
Bill Krieberg: I 'd be willing to do that. I ' d be willing to have it
jut as a buffer.
' Councilman Boyt: We can put it in the deed .
Bill Krieberg: I 'd be willing to allow you to put that in the Covenant
that upon selling my home that whoever purchases that would not be able
to build on that property unless you, this body, were to deem it okay
to do so. Otherwise, absolutely not.
Councilman Boyt : Personally, I think there is some information we need
to turn up yet and that 's in regards to the school board and our
ability to have permanent access . If we could have that and cover our
expenses , I would support us doing that .
IIT Councilman Johnson: Also , I 'd like, like Clark said , hear from the
forester about that row of trees . It almost looks like it may be a
better idea to thin those out now anyway but I 'd like a professional
forester to look at that and find out what should be done to save those
trees and maintain those trees as long as we can.
Mayor Hamilton : Gary, perhaps we could have the forester come out and
look at those trees and determine if there would be a problem if you
' took one out or perhaps he'd have all kinds of suggestions about how to
preserve and to make those trees flourish for a longer period of time.
And perhaps you should pursue determining costs of the lot that we have
' or find out what it could sell for and also what it would cost us to
put a road in across the school property and if the school would even
allow us to do that . You need to do this next week I presume to get
this access to the water tower but I assume that as long as this is
accomplished within the next month or so , so by spring you can put the
road in or do whatever you ' re going to do on the other property is
acceptable to your project.
' Councilman Horn : What is the difference in driving distance between
the two routes?
Gary Warren : Basically, you go up into Shorewood and double back and
intercept Chaska Road . If it ' s a half a mile, it ' s a lot . The
midistance isn ' t the real problem, it ' s more the slopes of Melody Hill
Road as Jay pointed out . While we say looking at the snowfall here
this year and comparing to it , I can go back and talk to Mr. Boucheaux
and others who have lived through some of more of the severe storms
we've had where we've had quite substantial snowfall .
r
City Council Meeting - January 25 , 1988 t
Mayor Hamilton moved , Councilman Geving seconded to table access to the
Water Tower off Murray Hill Road until the City Engineer can come back '
with additional information . All voted in favor and motion carried .
Bill Kreiberg: In talking about those trees, when you go to cut one '
tree down to plow a space, you usually take out the roots of the trees
on either side so probably taking one tree for a driveway is probably
equivalent to clearing about a 30 foot path. I 'm sure within 2 to 3
years , the others will die.
Mayor Hamilton: I 'm sure our forester would be quick to point- that out
and that' s why we have him on our list of experts to help us with these
types of issues . So he can take a look at that and if a roadbed were
to be put in there, he would certainly tell us , if we did do that if it
would kill trees or not .
Murray Hill Resident: A very quick question . Not having seen this
before, particularly the issue of the trail path behind Lots 3 , 4 and
5, this issue I believe, I 'm on 5 . This has issue has been resolved
and discussed with Mr . Ostrom and discussed with Bill Monk at that the
time prior to putting in the landscaping across the back of Lot 5 . I
was advised at that time that the trail path would not be going around
Lot 5, 4 and 3 . It' s at the city's expense that it would have to be
put in and that would be disturbing three lots as opposed to one lot.
I guess I 'd like to know where that stands . I ' ve been told one thing
and acted accordingly and I 'd like not to be ripping out landscaping
that I invested in the back side of my lot , to allow a trail to go
across the back of that lot.
Mayor Hamilton: That ' s perhaps something Gary is going to have to
clarify also , if you can . Maybe you ' ll have to talk to Bill and find
out if he remembers anything about this .
Gary Warren: The written record as it stands is the development
contract . Nothing else in writing that says anything other than there
was a letter left from Monk with a comment about a few loose ends and
this was one of them. There' s a memo left from Bill Monk who commented
in general terms that this was an easement that had to be acquired as
of yet but he was not specific. He talked about the options but he
didn ' t get to the point where he was saying one or the other.
Curtis Ostrom: I talked to a Lisa or Elsie or someone here at the City
who had a copy of a memo from Bill Monk that said that the Lots 5 , 4
and 3 had been abandoned . Pursuant to that , she thought at that time
going between 3 and 5 . . . '
Mayor Hamilton : We haven ' t anybody here working by that name or close
to it so we ' ll have Gary look into that and see. . .
Curtis Ostrom: Who knows who will be here 5 years from now so we have
to get it resolved .
r
IICity Council Meeting - January 25 , 1988
111 Councilman Geving : I think the resolution lies in the development
I contract. That ' s a piece of documentation that stands. It ' s not going
I to be changed by an employee telling you over the telephone that he' s
going to abandon that trail . It has to be done here.
ICurtis Ostrom: You' re right . 3 , 4 and 5 is where it stands at the
moment. Your City Planner called me and asked if we could just change
to this side of 6 so we' re negotiating with, I don' t know if it ' s your
Attorney. Some legal representing. . .
IMayor Hamilton: Well, the plot thickens so we' ll see if we can 't get
to the bottom of it.
ICurtis Ostrom: I 'm just trying to protect one of the nicer areas of
Chanhassen. I agree that 6 is the better thing. You' re disturbing
just one lot . I happen to live there now so if we could get it
Iresolved before I sell the house, we ' re home free.
Mayor Hamilton: It just doesn ' t go anywhere. Then there' s no sense of
I having it at all. If it goes on 6, then there' s no sense of having it
at all .
Curtis Ostrom: What, the trail?
I i Mayor Hamilton: Yes. It doesn ' t an g o anywhere.
Y
111- Councilman Johnson: But then go through the City property then.
Mayor Hamilton: But then we' re going to sell the city property.
ICurtis Ostrom: Mr . Kreiberg said he could run the trail across what
you' re city owns.
IMayor Hamilton : Then we ' ll have to buy another easement.
Councilman Boyt : I 'm sure we ' ll work this out. It has enough things
Igoing, just give us a little time.
Curtis Ostrom: I took the faith of an employee of Chanhassen in good
Ifaith as I would expect someone to take something I said in good faith.
Mayor Hamilton: I 'm sure we' ll get to the bottom of this. We ' ll find
out what' s going on.
I
APPROVAL OF 1988 POSITION CLASSIFICATION AND PAY COMPENSATION.
IDon Ashworth: This item had been on the Consent Agenda two weeks ago.
It was deleted to allow two councilmembers to potentially review
j certain portions of it. I have talked with both the Mayor and
Councilman Gevi.ng . Although we have some fine tuning to do during the
course of 1988, I guess I would like to move forward with that plan,
get it into effect as it does , any type of fine tuning we may do,
Iaffects such a small percentage of the overall employees in comparison
II
City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988
to potentially tabling it further which, again, would affect all
!-
employees . So, accordingly, I would ask that the City Council act to
approve the amended Pay Compensation Plan.
Councilman Geving : I will not hold this up for a long time but I think
it 's very important that we understand that this document, the pay
classification system is the very heart of what every employee looks at
and knows what ' s going to happen to his paycheck. There is a lot of
things in here in terms of goal setting, performance standards and
classifications and the thing that bothers me the most is that this
item appeared on our last City Council agenda as a Consent Agenda item.
As far as I 'm concerned, it's the most important thing that we do every
year . It kind of bothered me a lot that we were taking such light of a
very important document that we would put it on the consent agenda.
Especially when we had two new council members who hadn ' t seen this
document or hadn ' t had the opportunity of going through the formulation
process and understanding the cube and knowing what the performance
standards were and how the classification was arrived at so that
bothered me a lot. Some of the things that I didn ' t see in here, and
I 'd like to have answers to, are these kinds of questions. What does
the 1988 Pay Classification document cost the City over and above the
1987 Pay Classification document? I don ' t see that dollar figure
anywhere and I ' d like to know what that is . Number 2, what is the
total percentage increase of the 1988 Pay Classification document over
1987? Thirdly, what is the average increase for each employee? I want
to know whether it ' s 3% , 4%, 5% or something else? I think we need to
know that because this gives us a gauge of what ' s happening in our
City. There 's never any bottom lines in this document. There ' s no
bottom line here. There' s no dollar figures in here that will tell you
that and as a council person, we need to know that. I would like to
see a chart just for our own confidential purposes , as council people,
of all the positions in the city and where they are in relation to
their midpoints . That' s not in there either . There may he a good
reason for not having it in there so that the staff doesn ' t see it
before we approve the document but I think as councilmen we need to see
this. I think we have a right to see it. Then fifthly, I think
there' s a better way of doing this whole pay classifi cation system. I
don 't know what it is. It ' s been a number of years since we 've
reviewed this document and a number of years since we developed the
classification system and I know that it ' s quite difficult this year
because we had to melt a whole bunch of new items into this .
Particularly, this compensation plan. The comparable worth thing that
had to be developed and I understand that and we did develop this based
on the big 10 cities that we selected but I have real problems with
pages 92 and 93 and further on 95 where we identify certain salaried
grades by position in 1988 as being semi-skilled, skilled, equipment
operators, and technical , etc. . I really have no problem with the
salaried grades with positions in the first four categories.
Semi -skilled through technical . I have a lot of problems however in
0
the designation of some of our people, positions, I 'm not going to say `
people, I 'm going to say positions , in the areas that I consider to be
upper management. On page 92, this is broken out by a job match
worksheet. We have areas where people are considered to be
semi-skilled, skilled, equipment operators are very understandable and
.
IICity Council Meeting - January 25, 1988
IIi down through technical I can identify with all four of those
i classi cations but in the professional category, the next fifth
I category, I really believe that there are certain jobs , certain
functions and positions such as the Park Forman, the Shop Forman and
the Building Inspector, in my view belong in the technical area. I
I believe that in the next category, the Street Superintendent and the
Utility Superintendent are not middle management and should be
considered professionals. They should be moved back one whole
classification. This document shows two positions in a category called
I upper management . I do not consider , this is my personal opinion now,
I do not consider the Planner and the Building and Zoning Official in
upper management . My personal opinion. The next category is the
I department heads and finally the manager. Now when you look at what
has happened when you classify in matching these positions , in several
cases we are moving the midpoint, particularly for the Administrative
I Assistant, almost $6, 000. 00 to $7,000. 00. I can' t believe that that' s
comparable worth. Or when I see several other positions in the upper
management area that have moved from $31, 000. 00 to $38 , 000. 00. Is that
comparable worth? My question is, are we really classifying our people
I properly and that ' s my whole comment and question regarding this
document. I think we have some positions that are inappropriately
classified and as a result, moved the midpoint up very, very
I substantially and I picked out three here that I believe are way off
base. I ' ll give them to you once more. The Administrative Assistant ' s
position has moved up nearly $6 , 000. 00 to $7, 000. 00 in midpoint. The
IPark and Rec Coordinator has moved up $5 , 000. 00 to a new midpoint , or
F thereabouts. Reasonably close. And again the last one is the one that
I referred to as the upper management level of Planner and Building and
Zoning Officials have moved up nearly $7 ,000. 00 to a new midpoint. I
I think there' s something wrong because that does not represent to me a
3%, 4% or 5% increase which I consider to be reasonable. So I have a
lot of problems with the pay classification document but I 'm most
I concerned about two things. One, that in all future presentations of
this document to the City Council , that we have sufficient time in the
month of December to work as work groups going over this document and
thoroughly understanding it before it becomes an agenda item and that
I it not become a consent agenda item but one in which we can discuss and
understand . Secondly, I would like to see us do a very good analysis
of our positions one more time and make sure that they do fall into
I categories that are appropriate. I have no further comments . I do
want to have my questions answered.
Mayor Hamilton: They will be.
ICouncilman Horn: I have a question of Dale. Were you able to get
those specfic details out of this document?
ICouncilman Geving : Most of them, yes .
1 Councilman Horn: My concern is that they were so well hidden in this .
document that you couldn' t get any specifics of what effect we had with
comparable worth. The Manager gave us all kinds of indications of what
areas would be affected but it was so well hidden as to what the actual
Iaffect is, that it was very difficult for us to make any type of
City Council Meeting - January 25 , 1988
opinion on this and I think that we need greater detail than that
because just by reading through this all I see is generalities on what
affect comparable worth had. I think we need specifics on that.
Councilman Boyt : I would assume that Don used the Hey Point System in
determining the level of those jobs. Is that correct Don? '
Don Ashworth: The original was based on the Hey System. That still
and does compare very favorably with the joint study carried out by the
50 cities as a part of which was incorporated into this document as
well , yes.
Councilman Boyt: So my understanding then is that a blend of your
working through the positions and their responsibilities to set a
standard , it was comparable to what the other 50 cities used and then
working backwards into what a city of our size would pay for those
positions?
Don Ashworth : That ' s correct.
Councilman Boyt : I agree with Dale that there would certainly be a
value in having the figures that Dale asked for . I think that those
allow us to know the direction that the city staff expenses are taking.
I read your cover memo and in there I thought you referenced a
percentage of increase , general for the city staff. It seemed to me to
be appropriate and as we went over in the budget, I support Dale in
your asking to have time to review this information and I 'm glad you' re
willing to take the time to do it. My perspetive on it is that I want
those general figures that you asked for but when I read it, I felt
that we were moving in the right direction to balance things and we
were indeed biting the bullet. I did not pull out of there the dollar
figures of 6, 5 and 7 that you mentioned but I thought it was a
reasonable budget. I liked the format although I support you in saying
that we want it clearly stated what those are, I think the position
content summaries were well done and that it ' s a document that
basically says what it needs to say. Maybe we need another page that
identifies what you ' re looking for . ,
Mayor Hamilton : I guess I have a few comments . I began the process of
asking for some of this information about the time the budget started '
and began talking to Don about some of these things, the very things
that Dale was asking about, and didn ' t ever receive them. Don and I
had several conversations and we disagreed in several areas about how
they should be accomplished and I was most interested in having a
layout of all employees . What their position grade is and the job that
they do because I think we need to review all the employees from top to
bottom to determine if we have the correct staff or not. I never did
get that and I know that we' re all busy and we have a lot of things to
do but this is , I agree, a very important document. A very important
thing to do and to leave it to the very last thing and then to have to
ram it through and jam it down everybody' s throat I don ' t think is the
best way to accomplish what we' re trying to do. I think part of that
is the Manager takes on too much responsibility himself. I 've been
trying to get some support for that and to this point, still don't and
City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988
Don doesn ' t agree with me on that. We' ll continue to argue about out thzs
I suppose as long as either one of us are still here but I think there
' should be not just an Administrative Assistant. Someone who can take
Don ' s place when he' s gone who ' s called a community development
director, whatever you like. Assistant Manager, something to that
' effect, that can alleviate him of some of his day to day
responsibilities so he can accomplish some of these things. Whether
it' s meeting with me or other council members , it doesn ' t make any
difference but I have told Don and he and I were the ones that put
' together this whole pay thing previously and I have interest in that
and I did some work in that in previous jobs. I still have some
interest in it and I would like to be able to help but we talked and
' talked and talked about trying to get together to do this and nothing
ever happened and I think perhaps if Don had a less busy schedule we
could find some time to do it. That' s both criticism and to Don's good
also because he' s always here. He ' s always working . He' s in every
Bang meeting that goes on but that shouldn' t be the case all the time.
You' ve got to have time to deal with other issues and other people and
the citizens of the community. But that ' s really all I had to say. I
guess I agree with Bill , I think the Hey System is a good system. It
works in trying to come up with a comparable worth combined with the
Hey System. Maybe we had a few glitches in there but I think basically
it 's a good system. Perhaps we just need to consider having an outside
', consultant come in to refine the system a little bit for us . Someone
who is more up to date and more current with pay schedules and job
classifications and take a look at ours and say you' re in the ballpark
I - or you' re out of the ballpark and refine it from that standpoint. I
also still feel very strongly that we need to look at our total staff
overall and determine whether or not we have the correct people working
' for us in the correct positions . If we don ' t, we need to make some
changes. We 've added some staff in the past year or two. Have we
added the right people? I don ' t believe we have in all cases . I look
at our list of paychecks going out each month or every two weeks , and
the darn list keeps growing and growing and I 'm wondering if those
people are really the ones we need to have to get the job done or if we
shouldn ' t be considering other positions . I guess I won ' t be happy
until I feel that that 's been done. Perhaps for right now I realize we
have to get on with paying for 1988 and doing some salary increases and
I guess I would relunctantly approve this with the proviso that we do
continue and go on with future review of this and if necessary, bring
in an outside consultant to help us.
Councilman Horn : I 'd like to see this , I 'm always skeptical of a
' comparable worth thing that only deals in the public sector. I would
like to see the comparable worth put together with equal jobs in the
private sector and I think you can find that out based on educational
' level and experience levels and I can tell you, knowing what goes on in
the private sector, experience levels and educational levels don ' t
demand the salaries that we' re giving in this , if Dale' s figures are
correct and I was not able to weed those numbers out from the data I
had , if that ' s correct and it doesn ' t match up. If the public sector
pays like that, I 'm missing something. I 'm in the wrong sector.
Councilman Geving : I think what happens , and I think we always have to
City Council Meeting - January 25 , 1988 1
be on guard as councilpeople, is that the City is kind of an unusual
type of government . It' s governed by a Council , a board that replaces
itself over a couple of years and turns over. It' s very difficult to
put into place long term, long standing procedures of pay for whatever
purposes and about the time that someone gets really excited and
interested in developing these kinds of interest , they move on into
another sphere of government or they leave government entirely so your
Council turns over and you never have a consistent body of people that
are being the people that will assist the City Manager in developing
the kind of long term procedure that I 'm speaking of. It' s kind of
different than a Board of Directors in the sense that you have a
commitment to make a profit and dividends to your shareholders . In
this business, about the time we get a real good councilmember that' s
very interested in the finances of the city and the welfare of the
employees, they move on and that' s an unfortunate thing because we all
invest a lot of our own personal time in this and just about the time
we get up to speed, we finally say oh heck, I just don' t have the
energy to fight this anymore. So we turn the whole thing over to
management and to the Manager and that ' s when we get a document that on
any given night is on the consent agenda and if nobody objects , it
slides through. So I think as councilpeople you have to be a little
bit diligent in wanting to learn about how these things develop and our
own interest in being here as City Councilmen anyway is to protect the
citizens in how this city develops . That' s all I wanted to say.
Councilman Horn: I think that as long as we go along with the same
type of procedure that we' ve done in the past, maybe we can get by with
less data. In other years , we 've always had the data that Dale is
asking for and I think that ' s especially critical at a time when we' re
going through a major change or policy change with this comparable
worth. It ' s even more critical that everybody knows how that compares
with what we've done in the past and that' s the data we ' re missing.
And we saw some Hey number differences but that doesn ' t equate to
dollars as Dale is requesting.
Councilman Boyt : I think if you' re really serious about going through
this document with the prospects of changing it , that we should not
approve it tonight because you can always make salary increases
retroactive. So I think either we ' ve stirred up a lot of things here
to no ado or you vote it down. I don ' t see going through what we 've
just gone through the last 15 minutes , and if you seriously think this
document ' s not appropriate, then you need to vote against it.
Don Ashworth : I 'm not aware of any additional information that was
given in previous years that 's not present this year. The information
that has been requested Dale, I have available. I think we can sit
down and go through that. The major changes that have been noted by
Councilman Geving , in every case represent salary areas where the
incumbant is at a 65% to 70% of salary to midpoint grade. That means
that if , in going through with an outside consultant , Tom' s idea ,
adjustments would be required. In other words , if that consultant
would say Mr. Ashworth has erred and this position should therefore
fall into a 6 versus a 5, I feel very comfortable that that adjustment
could be made without in any way affecting the salary for that > '
City Council Meeting - January 25 , 1988
I individual for the current year . Realize that any employee potentially
looking to the $7, 000. 00 increase as a part of the midpoint , what we
I are saying is that either in the original establishment of that
I position or through factors in the outside marketplace, there' s been a
significant change in that position or at least what is paid to that
position in the outside area . That does not mean that we are going to
' take an immediate change to that. The change occurs solely through the
cube and the salaries that are given are solely within the cube so
you' re talking about an average of 3% to 4%. The only effect that
would have for that individual is it allows them the potential of in a
six month period of time having a secondary review. At that point in
time being able to look to again, a potential 3% to 4% increase. The
net effect over a one year period of time for that secondary review is
' approximately 1 1/2%. So if you want to take an average of what
comparable worth or what some of these things are doing, over and above
where we were before, you' re talking about 1% to 2% is maximum. I can
' prepare statistics as far as the cost of the this plan in comparisons
to 1987 but remember some of my comments during the budgetary process.
Specifically I noted that the 1988 budget did not see a significant
increase in overall positions because the primary increases had
' occurred during the course of 1987. That the real monetary impact of
that budget, or that group of decisions we had made. With the mid-year
employment of various people such as Code Enforcement Officer ,
Mechanic , right on down the line. When you then make a salary
comparison between 1987 and 1988, you will see those types of things in
there because you' re picking up a half of year back of an employee ' s
salary versus one full year and that' s the type of thing I was trying
to bring out as a part of the budgetary process . I can give you the
statistics and I can give you the overall increase and potentially you
would look at it and say, my god Don, you have $150, 000. 00 increase in
' salaries from 1987 to 1988. Again, somehow in that process you need to
factor out those new employees . With the computers and with everything
onto computer systems , I sincerely believe that any questions that
' Councilman Geving may, or any councilmember may have, can reasonably be
responded to. In the questions as to how to knock out this position so
that we don ' t have it make a weird type of a statistic for 1988 , we can
figure that out as well but I need some of your help in that whole
process . I sincerely would ask that you approve this document this
evening . If you want to establish $1, 000. 00 to $2 , 000. 00, I think
Wally would probably stand ready to take and re-review the whole entire
' Hey system as it was developed in here and being fully aware of the
private sector ' s salaries , could make some comparisons to you and I
stand ready to be corrected on any errors I may have made as a part of
preparing this document. I do not believe that if errors are found by
' an outside consultant, that that in anyway would again effect salaries
that may go into place effective back to January 1, or even as they may
occur for July 1 of 1988 .
Councilman Geving : I guess I wasn ' t as concern about any errors Don.
I was concerned about the procedure. The procedure was that we failed
to have a work meeting in December and this presented to us on the
Consent Agenda. That's what bothered me and you did not include some
very basic dollar figures so that we all understood what the bottom
I
City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 1
line was in your preamble and if you had done that, if you would have
clarified your 2 or 3 page introduction to this better , I think this
would have absolved all of my questions.
Don Ashworth : I agree and I will state for future years that we' ll put
this back on track. Not having a second meeting in December definitely
hurt us this year as far as being able to have a little more work
session opportunity, especially for this item because it has typically
been your second meeting in December where we have done the type of
work that you are talking about.
Mayor Hamilton moved , Councilman Geving seconded to approve the 1988
Position Classification and Pay Compensation with the proviso of having
continued and future review of the it and if necessary, bringing in an
outside consultant. All voted in favor and motion carried.
VACATION OF UTILITY EASEMENT ON LOT 2, BUCHHEIT ADDITION, LOCATED ON I
CEDAR CREST COURT, ARNIE HED.
Resolution #88-10: Councilman Horn moved , Mayor Hamilton seconded to
approve the vacation of the utility easement located along the internal
lot line of Lots 5 and 6, Cedar Crest. All voted in favor and motion
carried .
WETLAND ALTERATION PERMIT TO CONSTRUCT A CHANNEL AND BOAT TURNAROUND IN
A CLASS A WETLAND OF LAKE LUCY ON PROPERTY ZONED RR, RURAL RESIDENTIAL
AND LOCATED ON LOT 5, BLOCK 2, LAKE LUCY HIGHLANDS , ERIC RIVKIN,
APPLICANT.
Mayor Hamilton : I think we've probably all read the Planning
Commisison's Minutes and comments and all this so if we could, after Jo
Ann ' s presentation, confine our comments somewhat so we don ' t spend the
rest of the night talking about it which I suspect we could .
Jo Ann Olsen : The property is located on Lake Lucy in Lake Lucy
Highlands. A majority of the site is a Class A wetlands. The
applicant is proposing a wetland alteration permit to construct a
channel through the Class A wetlands for a canoe access from his
property. Staff reviewed this site with the proposal last year . We
had the DNR, the Fish and Wildlife Service and several other services
review this site. Dr . Rockwell , who we' ve used in the past for wetland
review, and she felt strongly that a boardwalk would be preferred over
a channel with the impact to the wetland from a channel . Therefore ,
staff also in interpretting the ordinance felt that a boardwalk would
be of less impact to the wetland . We therefore recommended denial .
The Planning Commission also recommended denial of the channel . They
did not act on the boardwalk option because the applicant did not feel
that that was a feasible alternative. We then visited the site again
with Mr. Jim Leech from the Fish and Wildlife Service. Dr. Rockwell
received another job out east. His feeling was quite the opposite.
That a channel would be preferred over the boardwalk. He felt that
both of them had the same amount of impact to the wetland but he felt
11
City Council Meeting - January 25 , 1988
Fthat a channel might be somewhat more beneficial because of the open
water . There is purple loosestrife in the wetland and it is a noxious
weed so it has to be transported elsewhere. It has to be pulled so we
are adding a condition. If the channel is approved that he must comply
with any conditions of the Department of Agriculture. I did speak with
a person from the Department of Agriculture. Mr . Rivkin will have to
receive a permit from the Department of Agriculture to transport or to
properly dispose of fill because it will have purple loosestrife in it.
We have provided 11 conditions should the City Council recommend
approval of the channel .
Mayor Hamilton : I ' ll just make one comment and that is , it seems to
me, based on everybody's input into this thing. People who are
supposed to be supposed experts , and know more about it than those of
us sitting here, that they don' t know anymore about it than we do and
that their opinions seem to be based on nothing more than what we know.
I guess, I have a hard time with that. Elizabeth Rockwell doesn' t
want it and her replacement comes in and says it ' s just fine. It' s not
going to hurt anything. I think that ' s kind of ludicrous . When you
have one agency says they think a channel would be fine and the next
agency says it wouldn' t be fine. The advice that we get from outside
agencies are supposed to know what they' re talking about , virtually
does us absolutely no good. I think it ' s rather ironic. So we' re down
to the basics of deciding what we like or don ' t like personally. The
professional input really hasn ' t lent itself to help us at all I don ' t
think.
Councilman Boyt : Sort of distilling down the many pages that we had to
read, I think that for me the heart of it was , we ' re going to be
setting a precedence that I don ' t want to set without input from the
community. More input than we got. I think the community spent a
great deal of time and effort in coming up with a wetlands preservation
ordinance and I see us about to torpedo a major section of that when we
allow people to dredge through a Class A wetland . I don' t happen to
think a Class A wetland is in need of improvement so, if we do propose
to pass this , that before we pass it , we should go back and review the
ordinance itself and amend that ordinance. I think that ' s basically
what we would doing and I would anticipate that a good many other
people who are currently locked in by wetlands would come and ask for
some sort of channel . I can like of Lotus Lake for example that has
several people who are locked out right now by a wetland. Then, the
other item. So my intention would be, unless swayed by other members
of the Council , to vote against this item. If we propose to vote for
it, that we should consider the size of it. I understand that the
residents have some concern about a boardwalk . I too have some
concerns about a boardwalk. They mentioned it crossing a deer trail
and how that would certainly provide some difficulties for the deer. I
consider 16 feet of open water 4 feet deep, providing some difficulties
for the deer. I am amazed that the DNR would approve a 400 foot long
channel , 16 feet wide and 4 feet deep. We might as well dig the Erie
Canal . That' s all I 've got.
Councilman Horn : I 'm as disturbed as you are Mr . Mayor , about this and
this isn' t the only agency or the first time that this has happened to
City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 1
us. I guess it comes down to we have to try to the best we can with
common sense and I think that we would have a much better chance of not
disturbing the area with a type of boardwalk, dock than what we would
by dredging a channel . We ' ve all heard horror stories of what dredging
can do. In fact, we changed our boat access on Lotus Lake because of
the fear of dredging and I don ' t think we know enough about the impact
of that at this point to allow this channel to be dredged and I would
be for some alternate method .
Councilman Geving: I happen to work with Dr . Rockwell for about 8
years now and I really respected Elizabeth in a lot of the decisions
that she' s helped us with over the last 8 or 10 years that she' s been
around this area. When I first read her report I said that's pretty
much how I feel about this particular project and I know Jim Leech
quite well . I 've worked with him for the last 10 years as well. I was
very surprised that our service would do a flip flop to that magnitude
although I do recall some instances where the DNR has done some similar
things to us. Where we'd get a memorandum in one case totally opposed
to this particular item and a week later, or two weeks later, we'd meet
on it and find that they had completely changed their mind . Maybe
i1
through pressure or whatever means , so I 'm a little bit disturbed by
the vacilati.ng by the Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency that I ' ve
worked with for 14 years. I find Lake Lucy to be a very nice, small
lake. I think there' s only a couple really good sized boats on it .
I 've been fishing there a couple times . It ' s a nice quiet lake and I 'm
afraid of what a channel might do to that lake on the northwest side of
the lake. That bothers me a lot. That' s an awful long channel and
I understand it ' s just for a canoe access . Is that correct? It seems
to me, if I was really an environmentalist and conservationist, I think
I 'd almost carry my carnoe to the lake somehow. This seems like an
awful lot of disturbance to the lake just for that kind of an access
and I really don' t think that we have all the cards played yet . I
don' t think they' re all showing on the table as to what this is going
to do to Lake Lucy. I 'm afraid that the opinions of the various
experts don ' t mean a whole lot because I look at the lake as being
something kind of different than what an expert might . I 'd like to
preserve Lake Lucy. As far as I 'm concerned, I would vote no for this
Pr
proposal . That ' s all I have.
Councilman Johnson: I 'm also, again concerned but I 'm not surprised
that two experts in any one field disagree with each other at 1000
opposite ends of the spectrum. That happens in every field . I tend to
agree more towards Dr. Rockwell . I can not see how a 4 foot wide dock
is going to have as much disturbance to a wetland as a 16 foot wide V
canal . That, to me, makes very little sense. However , I can not see
400 and some feet of dock going through there. That would be horrible.
I can not see 40 foot by 40 foot, and I think it may have been
recommended by DNR, 40 foot by 40 foot .
Jo Ann Olsen: That' s the maximum.
Councilman Johnson: That ' s the max, okay. Now I personally think I
could turn around a canoe in a 40 foot by 40 foot area. As a matter of
fact, somehow I think I could get in a little smaller area and I�d like I
M
City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988
Ili - to see this get smaller because the canoes that I 've usually been in
Y in,
you basically turn around in the seat and you' re going the other
direction. I think I could manage it in a 20 by 20 area. I 'd like to
see that pond reduced considerably. I 'd also like to see the wetlands
maintained. The pond not be brought right up to the shore. That we
' have a compromise here where we have some dock going out , not 400 feet.
We have to be somewhat reasonable here. I don ' t want to see a canal
going all the way to the shore that will allow short circuiting of
pollutants from the shore all the way out to the lake without having
' any filtration by the wetland area . So I don' t want to totally destroy
the wetland area. I 'd like to see a dock going out and I don' t know
how far . Maybe 50 feet to the point and have this at such a point that
the neighboring adjoining lot can bring a dock out to that.-same 20 foot
turnaround and they can put their canoe in. I think that the 4 foot of
depth is more than a canoe needs but I think that ' s also so vegetation
' doesn ' t come back. You get much shallower than that, and we' ll have
vegetation to grow back. I 'd also like to see something in here about
loosestrife control . I understand one of the methods of loosestrife
control is when it very first starts coming up that you hand pull it.
I 'd like to see some kind of stipulation in here that the canal is
policed for loosestrife and that that loosestrife is properly disposed
of. I 'm not ready to see a canal all the way to the shore. I think
litthere is some room to compromise. What I really wished had happened is
that this lot didn ' t go all the way to the lake. If at the platting of
3
this lot, which is past and gone, that the end of it should have been
an outlot that the City could have had it . Then there would be no
riparian rights to this lot but this is a riparian lot because it goes
all the way out to the lake. We have to provide some reasonable , as he
said, reasonable access. I 'd also like to hear from the City Attorney
on the points made in the various Planning Commission meetings on
reasonable access . Is reasonable access , if we decide that 400 feet of
dock at $8 , 000. 00 is access , whether that ' s reasonable access or the
' applicant ' s contention that a canal all the way to the shore is the
only reasonable access , which I don ' t personally see. What ' s
reasonable access and is there a State Law that says that he has the
right to access Lake Lucy from his property?
' Mayor Hamilton: I have just a couple of comments. There are some
things that I didn' t see, some information that I didn ' t see us getting
here and one of the things is, I think Mr. Rivkin eluded to how big an
area , it was in the Planning Commission notes or Minutes about the
amount of wetland area. That was wetland area or did that include
other non-wetland area in your calculations?
Eric Rivkin: That was designated area on Lake Lucy.
Mayor Hamilton : That ' s good . That was a considerable amount of
wetland and I think the thing that I would need to find out then is
how much wetland is needed to keep that lake in a healthy condition.
IL_ We do need some wetland area for some filtration but we don' t certainly
need to have every piece of shoreland to be wetland in order to filter
out what we don ' t need to have in there. I think Bill ' s comment that
perhaps other people on other lakes will be coming back for permits on
their lake. I think this is a key point because if we've got; I don' t
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City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988
remember the number right off hand but do you remember what the number
was , the total amount of wetland?
Eric Rivkin: 50 to 60 acres .
Mayor Hamilton: We've got 50 to 60 acres of wetland on Lake Lucy,
there may be 1 acre left on Lotus and that was 1 acre that we
protected. There' s a significant difference there. That' s where I
guess I don' t have a problem with any precedence. We get into this
very often about precedent on issues and I don ' t have as much hang-up
on it as most of you I guess because I like to look at each item, issue
by issue. To say that if we grant a digging of a channel on Lake Lucy,
which is rather insignificant when you look at the amount of wetland
that there is on that lake, and then if someone came in and asked for
the same type of permit for Lotus Lake, it ' s a totally different issue
because they don' t have the same amount of wetland. It ' s nearly all
gone on that lake. So I think it' s a totally different issue and it ' s
not a precedent setting item. Unless it' s exactly the same issue . I
think another thing I don 't know is how good is the wetland that ' s on
Lake Lucy? Wetlands do tend to fill up, deteriorate, it ' s just a
normal growth cycle for a wetland so what condition is that wetland in
at the present time? I 'm also not convinced that you can ' t improve on
a wetland. Just because it's a Class A doesn ' t mean that with the
technology available to us today, that that can ' t be improved upon and
if by digging a channel in there it allows some of that material that ' s
in there to spread out , loosen up and to grow and to have a longer
life, perhaps that better for the wetland than leaving as it is
111
currently. But those are things that I don ' t have answers to and I
think those are things that I 'd like to see if we can' t find answers to
and try to find two people that can agree on the same type of issue. I
would feel a lot more comfortable with it. Personally I don ' t have any
problem with putting the channel in . I don ' t think it ' s going to hurt
the lake and I don' t think it' s going to hurt the wetland. I don ' t
think it' s going to cause any deterioration whatsoever . To allow a
resident or two to have access to the lake and enjoy the lake and it
may even open it up for some other wildlife to come in there and use
part of that lake and that wetland that they can ' t use today. Those
are my comments and those are some issues that I 'd like to have answers
to before I 'd be ready to vote on this. Mr . Rivkin, maybe you 'd like
to add a few comments . We've read all your comments to the Planning
Commission so if you wanted to maybe summarize them or add something '
new that you haven' t presented in the past , why we would be happy to
have that.
Eric Rivkin : It hasn ' t been easy to being the first to test your new '
law. I can tell you, I 've been through hell and back and it ' s not fun
seeing agencies go back and forth on this but I think I can shed a lot
of light on the comments that you made about the flip flop that the
U. S. Fish people made. First of all , there are two people in the U. S.
Fish that do agree. That's Mr. Leech and his boss and they said that
in writing in a letter that' s in the report so there are two people
that do agree, okay. They both reviewed it and Mr. Leech was out to
see the site. There are some comments that I had made to the Planning
Commission the last time about the arguments that Ms. Rockwell put
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City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988
forth and it seems to me that it doesn' t make a lot more sense on the
impact of the wetland , the comments that Mr . Leech made rather than the
comments that Ms. Rockwell made. I know they are both highly respected
and I 'm sure she ' s quite knowledgeable as a wetlands expert but I want
to demonstrate for you, show you again the overhead that I saw which
will shed light on that argument because it ' s real important to
understand what it is she ' s arguing against. This map, you should have
a copy of it in your report. The green areas are the designated
wetlands on Lake Lucy. I superimposed the lot lines on the lake. All
the shore around here and here, even though this isn ' t developed yet ,
all have lake access currently. As far as a precedent or impact is
concerned , my one little channel here would take up approximately
3/10th' s of 1% of solid material away from this wetland. If everybody
on this lake who could qualify for access through dredging , if they
optioned that, it would only go up to 8/l0th' s of 1% so this is not,
and Ms. Rockwell said that it ' s going to have a major and significant
impact. Those were key words in her statements. This is not major and
it ' s not significant and Mr . Leech and his boss agree with that. I
asked them point blank, Jo Ann was there with me, will this have an
adverse affect upon this wetland as it sits and he said no . Now, you
do have two people that agree on that. The criteria for acceptance by
the DNR was that it somehow be shared with the lot next door. The
people next door I know pretty well . It was meant to be a private
agreement because legally we just could not have this really set in
concrete. It was not feasible. There were too many if' s and but ' s
about this but the point is that the DNR was making , in order to reduce
it and make it minimal , they wanted it shared somehow legally with a
guarantee that if this lot owner wanted access , this guarantee is that
this is public waters . That they will not have to dig a channel all
the way from their high water mark all the way out to the open water
which is longer than mine, by the way. If they were to apply for it,
they requested to go this way. Follow it across parallel with mine.
We didn ' t want that so I want it minimal too. And they can ' t dredge
here because in order to get dredging equipment across to that site,
they have to go across two property owner ' s to get there so eventually
I 'm going to restore this bogland to prairie. I 'm not going to let
them do it so they can put in a dock, which is very minimal . They
would only have 50 to 100 feet to go here. So again, that is minimal .
Did I shed some light on that? Okay. I don' t want to see the wetland
hurt either and it is designed to have minimum impact on the wetland .
It is the minimum size required in order to support the slope that will
not want to fill back in. All the experts , the wetland experts and all
the agencies that I talked to that knew anything about hydraulogy and
wetlands , said that the 4 foot depth would not encourage regrowth for
many, many, many years , in this kind of wetland and they all visited
the site . It ' s the minimum required to keep the channel from sluffing
in. This slope is designed to do that. I ' ve been around and around
with the hydraulogy experts . I talked to Clifford Reed , a shoreline
consultant. I talked to the people, the vice president at Braun
Engineering who excavates channels and big time stuff as well as little
stuff and he recommended that I go with a 3 to 1 slope but that meant
that I 'd have a 24 to 30 foot wide top surface and I said no way,
that's not minimal. I said, what can I cut it down to so we agreed at
a compromise at 16 foot top width and 4 foot deep with a 2 to-- 1 slope
City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 1
so it is the minimum required, engineering wise. Hydraulogy wise.
I hope that puts you at ease about the big dredging project here. This
is not a big dredging project. It does not take away a significant
amount of wetland area. The experts that do agree, agree that it won ' t
have an adverse affect upon the wetland. It will also be constructed
in a manner not to harm the wetland and the surrounding vegetation.
Provisions of the DNR permit pretty well spell that out and the
loosestrife issue, I did get verbal approval from the Department of
Agriculture about the wetland, about the loosestrife disposal. They
basically recommended that I take the spoils, they agree with the
provisions of the DNR, to put them in one place and at such a time when
you spread them out , is to mix them up with clay around there and seed
it with grasses, not with the prairie grass mixture that I wanted to
but to seed it to sod and maintain it with water and make sure it grows
very strongly so the loosestrife does not have a chance to establish
itself. So you keep mowing it and these provisions are going to be in
their permit. I wrote a letter to them, and I didn' t make copies of it
but I can give it to you here. It basically says , thank you for the
information on the verbal approval of the permit on the loosestrife
disposal for my channel project . I sent them a copy of the plan. This
was Mr. Chuck Hale from the DOA. The reason this permit is late is
because I didn' t hear about this until one business day ago , that I had
to get approval from the DOA on the loosestrife issue so he did give me
verbal approval on that. As far as the dock is concerned , none of the
members of the Planning Commission were in favor the dock. They agreed
with my arguments that it was not a favorable thing . It would have a
worse impact on the wetlands than a channel would. The design of the II
channel is like a meandering creek that goes through that area . The
dock is so long and so big that it will deteriorate over time. It can
not be maintained reasonably by any homeowner that lives there. It
will fall apart. Whether it 's a floating dock or an elevated type and
it' s not feasible to engineer it and install it. By law I do have
rights to reasonable access to the lake because I 'm a riparian
homeowner . I have to have access from the high water mark. That' s the
law. From the high water mark, that the DNR has established and that
is on the plan . The end of the channel comes right to the high water
mark and I went minimal . When it comes to the dangers imposed by the
dock itself , there ' s a letter in there about one of the homeowners who
has witnessed a deer getting his antlers caught, being chased by a dog
and it is an obstacle in the way. There are snowmobilers that do cross
the path all the time. They trespass . Can ' t help it. They will do
that and they' ll just run right over that dock and when it ' s cold ,
plastic will just shatter so if I put a floating dock out there, bam,
it' s gone in one shot. $19, 000. 00 out the window with one snowmobile.
If I put a wooden dock out there, which costs more than a floating
dock, it will end up like the dock that' s out there now. That went out
to the island, that the Wildlife Heritage Foundation put in. It' s just
a mess. You can ' t walk on it. It' s broken apart. Being left to the
elements, it will just become a big eyesore and a hazard as well as a
liability. An extreme liability. As far as the deer getting caught in
the channel, I know and Jo Ann and the people who have visited the site
have witnessed deer tracks . The deer trail goes right through here
along the upland. The deer have been witnessed by all the residents
who live there now in the whole wetland area around here. This is not
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City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988
IIa major path in the summertime for the deer. This is 1 to 2 feet of
4 water as it is and the natural path they take, there' s a bog down to
' the southeast of this location about 1, 000 feet and they bed down there
in the wintertime. When they move around they move around just along
the high water mark around here. That ' s where we witnessed foot prints
' when we went out there 2 weeks ago. I ' ve been out there for 3 years
now and every single time I ' ve gone out, there are footprints every
single day right along this path. If you go there right now, you' ll
see a beaten path right here. This is eye witness accounts and real
life and that ' s where the deer go . In addition to the comments that
you 've seen from the Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife
Service, let me summarize what they said here about the impact.
Considering that I have agreed to, as a part of the disposable
excavated material from channel construction, adverse fill and related
impacts to the associated wetland and habitat would be neglible. As
I far as the erosion control plans and everything , I plan to meet any
engineering requirements on that. We' re going to use hay bales staked
with snow fence around the spoils area . We' re going to be bringing
them upland so there ' s no disposal in the wetlands of that. Since I
will compile the provisions identified in the DNR permit and given the
general design of the channel , he liked meandering on the adjacent
property line , we believe the channel can be accomplish in an
II environmentally acceptable manner. In addition to these comments ,
which I did not write down but I did take notes , and Mr . Leech said to
the following here. I asked him if the channel would create a
protected open water habitat for nesting sights of migrating water fowl
and he said, yes it will . It' s open water. They come in and land,
they like adjacent nesting sights . There ' s wetland there. They will
come in and nest. He said it ' s more natural and aesthetically
pleasing than a dock would be. He said that a dock versus a channel ,
if he were doing it or if he had the decision to decide one or the
other , he said he would prefer a channel . We asked him, what about a
combination dock and channel and he said, absolutely not. If you ' re
going to do it , do one or the other . You can ' t complicate things or
complicate the impact on the wetland by having two methods out there.
As far as the overall impact , it ' s kind of a toss up but it ' s more in
' favor of the channel . The construction is feasible and acceptable to
go lakeward to the land rather than the opposite way the DNR
recommended. I called Judy Boudreau of the DNR and asked her, what do
' you really mean by this because in order to get out to the wetland , to
dredge it, you have to put mats down on the ice and you have to follow
it along and you can ' t go from the land out because then you' re
' crossing over water so you can ' t do that. She said, well that ' s fine,
all we were concerned about is the siltation into the lake. As long as
you provide a manner in which prevents that or minimize that, it ' s
okay. Now, it ' s pretty frozen solid out there and when we dig the
first time, make the first dig , if it ' s solid ice, there' s not going to
be any silt going through yet if there is a little bit of water that
starts coming in, we throw some haybales and take them out when the
whole thing is done and melts away in the spring . In addition to his
I comments, I have some of my own that have to do with whether, having a
positive impact on the wetland . First of all I want to say that
anything you do. I have rights to access and I want to do the most
' minimal impact solution there is . Reasonably. Now we seek the advice
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City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 1
of others, of experts , to get hopefully help us on this. He agreed
I!!
that the amount of material removed is minimal and he said that it
won' t have any percent impact on it looking at the map. In it' s own
small way, the extra water in the channel will increase the water
holding capacity of the lake by approximately 105,000 gallons . That' s
positive. Anything we do here is not going to have, seemingly is
always going to be negative so you've got to lay something down so a
riparian homeowner has access to the open water . So what has less
impact here? Another positive thing is that the channel will increase
access by fish to. eat mosquito larvae in the adjacent wetland . It will
also provide a drinking spot along the shore where there is the deer
trail . The people along Lot 4 saw a fox there last week and I found
the fox holes on my property. There' s rabbits and pheasants in there
and it will provide them with a convenient place to stop and drink too.
The channel in itself will not pollute the water. It' s a gently
winding design and the long boardwalk over time, shifting ice and
vandalism, weather associated, will deteriorate and become a piece of
pollution in the wetland . Yet, the channel will always stay a part of
the natural landscape. Other things about the dock, in this wetland
in Roseville, environmentalists like docks and I 'm and environmentalist
I belong to about 15 organizations. This is a floating dock in
Roseville and as you can see, it ' s a floating type. You can ' t just lay
this down through 3 feet high of cattails and expect to walk by. You
have to side cut 3 feet to either side of this so you' ve got this big
ribbon of plastic plus 6 feet of cut out cattails that you have to
maintain throughout the entire summer which I believe is an alteration
of the wetland. You might even have to get a permit to go cut down
some cattails which is unreasonable. So to make it passable, you have
to do something like this. It's not pretty. I already mentioned that
a 430 foot dock is too big. Maintenance costs are prohibitive.
Replacement costs are also going to be prohibitive. We talked about
the liability. Because the dock is a privately owned structure
accessible by the public and creates conditions highly susceptible to
personal injury which the owner is liable for whereas a channel is
legally considered a public waterway. Those who suffer injury by water
alone will not likely sue. If huge dock systems are put on this
property and others , they can not be shared by adjacent landowners
because they' re private. Therefore, if the owners on Lot 4 and others
who want lake access, put a half dozen or more or so of these huge and
natural scars on this small lake where this problem exists , the
cumlative effect of all these things on the west end is going to become
an abonimal eyesore. So that ' s the precedent if you say, let everybody
have docks on the west end of Lake Lucy. All the problems of liability
associated with huge dock systems are kind of multiplied and none of
the residents on the lakeshore community that have submitted written
comments , feel a dock is the right solution either . So there is
positive effect on the wetland. ,
Mayor Hamilton: I guess on Mr. Ri.vkin ' s behalf, I would like to ask
councilmembers what it would take for him to receive approval of this
or if there is nothing that could be done to gain approval . I think to
his benefit, so he would know he's either going to be able to continue
and perhaps get approval or he can just stop the process right now and
quit dragging this thing on forever. '
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ICity Council Meeting - January 25 , 1988
I I` Councilman Boyt: Briefly I can state that first, I am impressed with
the amount of homework you've done. I think the Planning Commission
I was also impressed from reading their notes. For me, your individual
logic is not the particular issue for me. Whether I agree or disagree
with that, my real concern is our wetlands ordinance overall . I
suspect that however we go on this , we need to be prepared to defend
I it. I know the Mayor and I have a bit of a disagreement about how
vulnerable we become should we approve this but personally, I don ' t
think that this is something that you need to do more work on. I think
I you've done more than enough already. I would like to see maybe the
group that initially put the wetlands ordinance together or a
comparable group, make a detailed investigation of the issue of
dredging through our wetlands . They talk about it in the wetlands
Iordinance but they don ' t really provide any kind of guidelines that I
see workable. You clearly have a difficult situation. I can see that.
I don ' t like the dock either . I ' ll tell you, if you came in with a
I dock, I 'd vote against it. So for me to vote for this , what I need is
a clear examination by the community of the issue of how do people with
wetlands in front of them get to open water. I need the larger issue
dealt with.
IICouncilman Horn : My position is always that you don ' t bend the rules
to go along with a situation. You modify your ordinances to update new
IIT issues that you hadn ' t addressed before. I think the proper way to
handle this would be to go through an ordinance revision that would
iallow this sort of thing . I have trouble, since we lack information
IF from our experts, I have trouble believing that there is a safe way to
dredge a channel through a wetland . I know all the issues we went
through when we looked at dredging for a boat access on Lotus Lake and
all the concerns and I quite frankly don ' t believe that there is enough
I good, technical data available to give us a good answer on that. You
raised the issue that you needed certain questions answered and I agree
with that. My question back would say, who is qualified to give us
II those answers? i don ' t think even our experts are. I don ' t deny that
we have to give Mr. Rivkin riparian rights . He obviously has those but
in my opinion, that doesn ' t give anyone the right to cut a channel in a
I public body of water and I have a real problem with that. The other
problem I have is with some of the logic that ' s applied . In one case,
the channel is such a small percentage of the overall wetland but in
the other case a dock becomes a major issue. I fail to see where if
I you take areawise for areawise, it ' s that much different. It might be
what appeals to somebody' s sense of aesthetics but to me the logic is
reversed in those two things . I have trouble with that. I have a real
I problem with dredging in general and I would much more go along with
some alternate proposal that didn ' t require dredging.
Councilman Geving : I don ' t want to be personal with you Mr. Rivkin
I because this is not a personal matter. I think it's one where we have
to judge the facts of the situation regardless of where it happens to
f be in the City of Chanhassen and quite frankly, to answer the Mayor ' s
IL_ question on what it would take for us to have you move along with this
proposal or to forget it, in my view I can not bend on this issue. I
can ' t even bend a little bit. I 'm very much not in favor of you
Idredging or anyone else dredging through a wetland area. It's_ in an
•
s ,
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City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988
area that we haven't spent a lot of time on. I don' t believe we've got
a single case where we 've done this before. At least not that I 'm
aware of. So in that respect, I don't want to start by doing the first
one on Lake Lucy.
Eric Rivkin: But you can learn by doing it.
Councilman Geving: It' s possible but we could also have a disaster as
well . I 'm afraid that sometimes the disasters are irreversable. Once
they' re done, they' re done and when you destroy a piece of wetland, it
just doesn ' t come back. Not in your lifetime so I guess to answer the
Mayor 's question positively, I would say that no amount of further work
on your part would help me to make this decision because my decision' s
already been made. I would request that we deny this.
Councilman Johnson : I 'd first like to say, that the Planning
Commission in their meetings did not say that a dock was a worse impact
on the wetlands. I sat through the Planning Commission twice last year
and then again this year when they went through and discussed this with
you and there was no way that they ever made that comment. One
Planning Commissioner may have stumbled across something that may have
sounded similar to that but in general they never came to that
conclusion. Several things that have been said I don ' t think 1000
agree with fact. Therefore, when I hear somebody quoting somebody from
another meeting, I 'd rather hear that from Mr. Leech. I have in
writing here that the Service typically encourages the use of removable
floating docks and in this case, they didn ' t like it because of the
length. I still think that there is some room to compromise. I don ' t
like cutting into a wetlands . I know Hennepin County Parks puts
floating docks into wetlands. Some of them quite lengthy and they
maintain the cattails at the edge of the docks. I never saw this 3
foot separation that they do and I go out and walk Carver Park all the
time, walking on these floating docks and it 's just not done. I don ' t
know where that' s coming from. Maybe it is , the picture you even
showed us, I believe the cattails are right up close to the edge.
Mayor Hamilton : No, they' re cut . '
Councilman Johnson : They're cut . . .Carver County does not do that . I
don' t know why these people are.
Eric Rivkin: Where do they have floating docks at Carver Park?
Councilman Johnson : There are several series of floating docks at '
Carver Park if you walk the trails out there. Cutting through several
wetlands. I 'm not going to show you a map or anything but I ' ll
guarantee you there, my feet are wet from walking on them. I feel that
this is probably a very, very unusual situation. I don ' t know where
else in the city we' re going to find 400 feet of wetlands . It ' s one of
the largest wetlands in our city. Before we go changing the ordinance
we 'd better find out how many more of these wetlands there are and if
this turns out to really be the only one that we' ve got this magnitude,
I don't think we need to change our ordinance for one situation. This
is what a variance is all about . Is when you have one situation that
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City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988
is unique within for which you don't want to write an ordinance for one
situation. I did ask a series of questions of the City Attorney, I
hope at some time he gets to answer those. I 'm still pretty close to
Dale except for probably not as adamant. I think if we can get a
floating dock going out 100 foot, as you see as we go here. I also
never heard anybody say anything about the 40 foot by 40 foot
turnaround for a canoe. No justification for that. If I see a canal
in here that ' s going to be 16 feet wide and it ' s never going to be
wider than 16 foot.
Mayor Hamilton : I ' ll just reiterate what I said previously. I think
there are some unanswered questions and that is , what is the health of
the wetland at the present time? Would cutting into the wetland
improve that situation or would it deter from it? The amount of
wetland that is required to do the basic filtration job on a lake this
size? If removing this amount of wetland would seriously detract from
the ability of the wetland to function as a screening device for the
lake, which I can' t believe since all the other lakes have virtually no
wetland and they seem to survive alright . So those questions I think
need to be answered but I am in favor of a channel . I think it ' s a more
natural way of doing it. We' re going to encourage wildlife and
wildlife habitat in there and I just can ' t believe that it ' s going to
hurt the wetland or the lake itself. Roger , I 'd like to have you
respond to some of the questions that Jay asked previously. Did you
jot those down?
Roger Knutson : I think I can remember them. First , I ' ve not been out
to this site. I 'm not sure it abuts public water. I don 't know. I
have not seen that information to satisfy myself one way or the other
on that. Assuming it doesn' t, and you can apply your ordinance and
turn him down for anything you want . You can reject the dredging or
you can reject the dock. Assuming you think there ' s good credible
evidence that it will damage the wetland . That ' s a judgment you' ll
have to make based upon the evidence you have.
Councilman Johnson : I believe the plat shows this is a riparian lot
that goes out to the lake.
Mayor Hamilton : That ' s correct .
Councilman Boyt : The question is , where does the lake start. Does it
start at the end of the cattails or does it start at the high water
mark. I think that ' s the question.
Councilman Horn : The high water mark.
Roger Knutson: Where does the official public waters start? I don' t
know.
Councilman Horn : At the high water mark.
Roger Knutson: Where does this lot sit in relation to that? Does it
abut the high water mark?
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City Council Meeting - January 25 , 1988
Mayor Hamilton: That' s true, it goes down to the high water mark and
beyond actually.
Eric Rivkin: The plot says it' s over 2 acres , 10. 1 acres and there ' s
only 2 1/2 acres . 8 of that is wetland. From what the DNR told me,
once a channel is dug to open water , the channel then becomes public
waterway by State Law.
Roger Knutson : That' s the issue that I was trying to get at. Is it
public waters right now? Through the wetland to the land. Is that
part of public waters now or is it now?
Eric Rivkin: The County or whatever.
Councilman Horn : Not if it' s below the ordinary high water mark.
Eric Rivkin: Then why are lots platted to include wetlands as a part
of the lot? I pay taxes on it don' t forget .
Roger Knutson: That goes into a whole new subject of why counties do.
Counties go in cycles as to where they want lots to go. For a long
period we had all sorts of pie shaped lots going out to the middle of
the lakes . Then we went through a long period of time where that
wasn' t done. Now that' s coming back in vogue with folks and why they
do it, I guess they' re concerned about fluctuating water lines and
marks and meandering streams and things.
Councilman Johnson: I believe, looking at the plats here , that his lot
ends at where they believe the lake was.
Eric Rivkin: Is. Is there too . The plat was drawn a couple years
ago.
Councilman Johnson: Yes , these wetlands in another 5 years will
probably march out into the lake. This lake is constantly getting
smaller so at this point, his lot ends probably where they thought the
wetlands ended and the lake began.
Roger Knutson : Does he have to cut through the wetland to get to
public water?
Mayor Hamilton : Yes.
Roger Knutson : Is all that wetland part of public water?
Mayor Hamilton: From the plat, all the wetland is a part of his
property.
Roger Knutson : It' s not a part of public water?
Mayor Hamilton: Right. That probably needs to be clarified with the
County as to where that lot really is . If he owns the wetland and
purchased it and is paying taxes on that land, it' s his and why can' t
he cut a channel through it?
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IICity Council Meeting - January 25, 1988
II 1 Roger Knutson: If this is public water, where he wants to dredge, only
in public water , then the DNR has exclusive jurisdiction over dredging
if that 's strictly public water. I don' t know the answer. I think we
ought to look into that and get it clarified .
IICouncilman Horn: So the question then is, you don' t know if the public
water starts at the ordinary high water mark? My understanding is that
it does.
IIRoger Knutson : I think that ' s right .
I Councilman Horn: If that's the case, and you say your channel ends at
the ordinary high water mark, then everything you' re dealing with is
public water.
Eric Rivkin : Then why am I here? If I went through all of this , why
didn 't one of these agencies speak up and say State law says that you
II have no right to do anything? State law says that I 'm a riparian
homeowner and I do have the right to open water access. Whatever is
there.
It Roger Knutson : I 'm not familiar with any State law that says that
myself.
1
lig Eric Rivkin : The DNR has moved it along this way with assumptions that
ir- these laws are still in effect. I 'm paying taxes on that land .
Roger Knutson : People pay taxes , that ' s another issue.
ICouncilman Horn: I think in addition to the questions you asked, I
think this is a key issue for us . Whether we even have jurisdiction
I here.
Mayor Hamilton : Can you determine that Roger?
IRoger Knutson: Yes .
Mayor Hamilton : I think you've heard the flavor from the Council .
I We ' ve probably got three that would possibly be in favor and two who
probably are not. So I think you need to go from there. One is a
complete no, apparently closed minded and the other one is possible to
convince .
IEric Rivkin : I agree with the fact that maybe Jim Leech should have
been here to testify but I found when I asked someone to come in and
I testify about the channel access , they back off real adamantly when
I say the DNR is involved, I don ' t want any part of that. Even
Attorney' s say that. But he may come. He seemed to be a nice guy.
The guidelines do need to be changed. The process, the laws not
perfect. No new law ever is and it' s not within my means to find out
all the answers to the technical questions raised either. Let's say I
I do have right to access , if Mr . Knutson finds out that I do and the
technical questions still come back, who answers them? Well , it ' s me
I
City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 I
to find that out and I really feel that I should not have to do that.
I also don ' t feel that I should be put off years more to wait until we
find out whether dredging this wetland, or any wetland, is going to
hurt it. If knew that now, we wouldn' t have laws that permit dredging
or maybe you wouldn' t have an ordinance that does permit dredging. As
far as the 40 foot by 40 foot canoe turnaround , I think I could
compromise and reduce that. A canoe, you do not simply turn around and
paddle the other way because the seats are not designed that way. You
have to turn around and this is minimum DNR standard they allow.
Councilman Johnson : It' s maximum DNR standards. Not minimum. '
Eric Rivkin: Right. It' s the maximum for a boat turnaround. Motor
boats are going to come in there. You can ' t enforce that. It' s public
waterway. I can put a sign up there and it says restricted
access. . .that says restricted to non-motorized traffic . they' re going
to come in there and they've got to turn around. So it' s logical for
me, you don ' t want them stuck in there.
Councilman Johnson: If they' re stuck in there, you call the cops . If
it ' s posted as non-motorized and they' re motorized .
Eric Rivkin: I don ' t think it 's reasonable to wait. I think this is a
major thing . It ' s not reasonable , even though I 'm the first, it ' s
still not reasonable to make me wait more years until you guys come up
with an answer to whether the technical issues are right or wrong . You
do learn by doing and the experts do say, do concur that there ' s not
going to be an adverse effect on this wetland. If you go back to them
another time, ask them again, really grill them with a blue ribbon
committee or whatever , fine . I agree with that.
Mayor Hamilton: I think we' re going back over things that have been
discussed and I guess my thought was , my view is not to put this off
for years or even months but to accomplish it as quickly as possible.
If that ' s something you don ' t want to do , I 'm trying to get this passed
for you because I think it' s something that you should hav and I 'd like
to see done there and have a channel in there. I think it ' s the fair
thing to do and the best thing for the environment. If you ' re not
willing to do that , to wait to have the answers to some of these
questions we can take a vote on the issue tonight as it stands before
us and I ' ll guarantee you that it will be defeated . That ' s your '
choice.
Eric Rivkin : I 'd rather you table it pending some of these decisions
about the legal issues and some more advice.
Mayor Hamilton : That' s all I 'm trying to accomplish. We ' re not going
to put it off for years. We are going to try and accomplish this as
quickly as possible.
Councilman Johnson : What you' re asking for , Mr . Mayor is basically an
environmental assessment worksheet which any RGU, Regulating
Governmental Unit can have what ' s called a discretionary environmental
assessment worksheet requested by anybody doing anything that may have
1
City Council Meeting - January 25 , 1988
T—
Try to cut some of our costs there for a lot of dirt moving . Their
response, which the City received a while back and somehow or another
didn't get to me too quickly, but is that they are already booked in
1988 and they would love to work with us in 1989 . It says , this type
of project supports our training efforts and develops a better
relationship with the community. They are really looking forward to it
and what I 'd like to do is proceed with looking at 1989 and the sooner
you can get on their training schedules , I 'd like to work the City
Engineer and Park and Rec, and look at where can, they have the basic
earth moving equipment to cut trails and flatten out for bailfields and
parking lots and things like that. I don ' t want any building
foundation work or this type of stuff . I think it ' s a different than
what Roger served with in Viet Nam. So it 's good news but it's too bad
they can ' t do anything this year . On Public Safety, I'm getting more
and more responses from people at various meetings and whatever on
public safety issues . I really thing that we need to replace some of
the positions that we lost this last year, as far as we lost our one
officer . It looks like we' re down to less than half time on the CSO
side of it. Our CSO is also our fire marshall most of the time so now
we' re down to even our basic animal control is limited . Is that
correct, Don?
Don Ashworth : That ' s correct .
Councilman Johnson : We ' re getting into what I consider a very
uncomfortable position for public safety. I thought last year we did a
very good job of park patrolling . We went out there and were visible. t_
We had our vehicle driving around to the parks in the evenings . We did
a very good job of maintaining our parks clear of beer parties and
everything that we didn ' t want to see in our parks. Now we ' re talking
this year of opening Greenwood Shores back up and we don ' t have the
patrol anymore. This is a basic required service that I think that if
we have to delay our City Hall expansion, that ' s one of my first ideas
to do this. Let ' s not expand City Hall , let ' s provide public service.
Mayor Hamilton : I encourage you then to take this item to the Public
Safety Commission meeting and present your ideas to them so they can
review it and make recommendations back to the Council .
Councilman Johnson: Okay.
Mayor Hamilton : That ' s through Jim Chaffee . That ' s a good idea . I
think we always need to, continually need to review that.
Councilman Johnson : I 'd like to hear from the rest of the councilmen
to see if they all agree with that. Take this to Public Safety.
Councilman Geving : I agree.
Councilman Boyt : Yes . '-6
Councilman Geving: Yesterday afternoon Jay and I met with the
homeowners from Red Cedar Point at the fire station #2 at Minnewashta
City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988
an effect upon the environment. It does not have to meet all the —
? categorical requirements of the State law that requires EAW' s. Certain
subdivisions , etc. require that they have to have it by law. But any
governmental unit can request that an EAW be performed in accordance
with State standards to decide upon the environmental , whether there is
a need for an environmental impact statement . We have some unknown
problems here that seem to have some. . .
Mayor Hamilton : I 'm not asking an environmental assessment to be done
because I think it's too lengthy and I have some specific questions
that I asked to be answered and I think if we receive answers to those, —
we' ll be able to make a better decision. Rather than going through
that whole lengthy process .
Councilman Horn : I think where the ownership ends and the ordinary
high water mark issue may make this all moot to this body. We need to
find that out too .
Mayor Hamilton : Jo Ann can clarify that with the County and be
specific with them. Find out exactly on this specific piece of property
how they' re assessing it. Where the line is and maybe on the whole --
lake, I suppose you have to determine that.
Eric Rivkin : I want to know what my rights are . What are my rights?
Councilman Horn: Would the County determine it or Roger who would
determine that?
Councilman Boyt : DNR assessed .
Roger Knutson: We' ll get the job done.
Larry Brown : I talked with Ted Kim, the County Surveyor about this and
I think it ' s going to boil down to what Roger finds out.
Councilman Geving : I think the motion is obvious . If we stay with
what 's before us , we have a proposal here to construct a channel and
boat turnaround in a Class A wetland . That ' s the proposal . If we vote
on that proposal , that' s what we have to vote on. Either to approve
that channel or not to . No other variations .
Mayor Hamilton moved, Councilman Geving seconded to table the Wetland
Alteration Request to construct a channel and boat turnaround in a
Class A wetland on Lake Lucy for Eric Rivkin until the questions raised
at the meeting are answered . All voted in favor except Councilman
Johnson who opposed and motion carried .
COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS :
Councilman Johnson: As you all may have noticed , I 've had some '
comments on it, that I wrote a letter to the Army requesting that we
get some consideration from them, from their engineers to do some work
in our parks and trail issue and specifically the Lake Ann expansion. I
aww3'�
City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988
and we had about 15 to 20 people there. Pretty good turnout
considering . It was late in the afternoon, the snow was blowing but we
still had cookies and coffee and I think the important thing when we
meet with these people is that we not only talk about the zip codes
situation, and that issue, but more importantly this is the first time
I ' ve really had a chance to meet with citizens in an environment like
that where we can just sit and talk about more than public safety.
More than their own concerns . They are interested in street lighting.
They' re interested in dog control , animal control . Overall , they' re
just really interested in being a part of the city and I found the Red
Cedar Point group probably the most receptive of any of the zip code
meetings that we had . We've had a numnber of them now but this was a
good group and I think we' re going to get a good return on--those
people. But the purpose for having this on the agenda is to have Todd
give us a quick rundown on the meeting on Wednesday. What we' re going
to talk about. Hopefully you can all be here. If you can ' t that ' s
unfortunate. I know you mentioned something Tom that you can' t but I
encourage all of the councilmembers to be here.
Todd Gerhardt: The meeting is scheduled for 7: 00. It' s in your
administrative packet and it ' s an informative meeting just to update
any citizens. All citizens in Chaska and Excelsior mailing districts
were invited to the meeting . It is to update those residents on the
City's proposal and why we feel it ' s important. Jim and myself will be
present at the meeting and I ' ve also asked Al Nelson to be present at
this meeting and he has said he would to answer any questions on
confusion if the change should occur on your addresses and that ' s all
Al said he would comment on.
Councilman Geving : Would you comment just briefly, as long as we' re
talking about zip codes , what are the next couple of things that we' re
going to do? The schedule of events .
Todd Gerhardt: We will be going out with a mass mailing on Friday
which will have the survey cards in there requesting each citizen to
respond to our survey. We are requesting that everybody who was asked
to go out and meet with certain people in the neighborhoods , to get me
that information before Friday so I can get that into our computers so
we don ' t double up on those areas . Then after that , we are giving them
approximately 2 weeks to respond from that survey and then after that,
if we haven ' t hit our 70o , we will come in with our committee and go
through our phone survey here at City Hall to hit that 70%. Right now
we' ve probably received close to 100 people in the Chaska area and I
would say about 35 to 50 people in the Excelsior area . We' re looking
at 250 people from Chaska and 789 in Excelsior so don ' t see a large
number but I haven' t heard back from Roger Dowling and he has really
covered the Red Cedar Point area heavily and I expect him to come back
with his results.
4 Mayor Hamilton : Then Bill wanted to
Y discuss an item with us that our
teachers are always concerned about. He wants to talk about
attendance.
City Council Meeting - January 25 , 1988
Councilman Boyt: We talked about this last summer and I was told,
let ' s do it at the beginning of the year . Well , it ' s around the
beginning of the year so we have the attendance records, incomplete
though they are , of Park and Rec Commission, Planning Commission,
Public Safety Commisison and HRA. I think that we have a standard. We
have a public that is saying that they would really like to serve on
these commissions. I am really trouble when people who are on the
commissions fall below the 75%. I know that there are people who are —
on the commissions who are making valuable contributions that are below _
75% but I think they' re not fulfilling their responsibility to the
public when they are over the course of a year, below that figure. I
don ' t know what it takes to get these changes . I wrote a memo. Don
tells me that he talked to the people who are the liasons with these s
commissions. That they were to draw up a plans with the people who
were having attendance problems and yet I see continued attendance —
problems. Maybe these things are simply out of the individual ' s
control but I think they should seriously consider giving someone else
an opportunity to serve on those commissions . That ' s my point .
Councilman Johnson: I tend to agree with that. There are several at
67% , 62. 5%, a 50%.
Mayor Hamilton : I guess we can all read those and I guess what I would
like to do is, I think we mentioned it before. It would seem to me
that it' s up to the individual chairman of those commissions to say,
listen, we've got Carol Watson here who' s at 62 1/2% for the year and
we feel that the city would be well off to replace that person. And
[-II
I 'm just picking on her because I just happened to see her name and
then make a recommendation to us so we can act on it . If their body
agrees that they feel they would be served better by having a different
person on there, than I would feel much more comfortable than writing a
letter to that person saying because your attendance does not meet the
city standards , we would like to have you resign so we can replace you.
Either that or guarantee us or something that you' re going to be there
for 75% of the meetings and they are on notice that if they don ' t
perform during the coming period of time, that they are going to be
gone. Does that seem reasonable. '
Don Ashworth: Bill had contacted me. I did state that I would make
sure that all of the attendance records were brought up to date. I
also sent a note to each of the chairmans or heads through our staff .
Make it known that anyone who was below the 50% be sent a letter by
that chairman and that copies of those be included in the packets . We
now have the attendance records up to date. I would assume that those
letters are in the process of being done. The commission then should
be informed that here' s where people stood . I don' t think that the
Planning Commission has seen this updated attendance record . I doubt
very much that the Park Commission has. I 'm sure that each of the
chairmans have been notified and the necessity for them to send out the
letter. Anyway, I 'm concurring with the process that you laid out.
That is the course of action that we are following and you' re seeing
the first results of that in to-night' s packet.
Councilman Horn: I have a quick question. This 75% , is that for all '
' City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988
commissions? My concern is that, and I understand we did this on the
Planning Commission when Tom and I were on it , the chairman did take
that role, but I guess I 'm questioning that now. As I understand it,
' all these commissions serve the Council and we established the 75% rule
or did they?
' Councilman Geving: We did.
Councilman Horn: It would seem to me then that we should be the
' enforcement for that since it's our rule and the commissions do serve
this body.
' Councilman Johnson: If we had such a rule for city staff , we still
would not directly go to city staff, we would directly go to Don and
that would go down through the department heads and I think following
the chain of command through the head of the commissions as the first
time through, I think is more appropriate. In the case where it is the
head of the commissions , then it is appropriate that it come from the
Council .
Councilman Horn : I don ' t think going to the chairman of a group is
following the chain of command . It 's not like those other people
report to him. He merely is the coordinator for that group . It ' s
different when you talk about staff than when you talk about a
commission . Don hires and fires people on the staff . The chairman
doesn' t hire and fire people on his commission.
Councilman Johnson : Agreed .
' Mayor Hamilton : I guess if the council wants , we can write a letter .
I 'd be happy to sign it with my name and say it ' s a group decision and
I ' ll sign it. You are expected to maintain a 75%. So that or resign.
'
Councilman Horn: Especially now that we have a lot more applicants, we
can do that .
Councilman Geving : In the case of , if you want to get real personal ,
which we should do because we are looking at numbers , in the case of
Mr. Whitehill , we did make an exception on at least one previous year
where he had a similar type of percentage. Some of the commission
members said , well when he' s there, he' s extremely productive and he ' s
very valuable. We were able to overlook his absence for business
purposes or whatever . I think Cliff we' ve already passed several times
' on that basis. But if it 's becoming a problem for the HRA, then I
would say we should step in but I assume that you take over as the
acting chairman?
Councilman Horn : Yes .
Councilman Geving : Does it bother the commission quite a bit?
Councilman Horn: Well it is a concern when he ' s not there. He is such
a valuable member that when he isn ' t there, it makes quite a hole.
I recall the case on the Planning Commission with Jack Bell, a similar
City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988 '
situation. He was very much of a contributor to the Planning
Commission but he had an attendance record similar to this and we
finally asked him to step down which he did. But it 's a similar type
thing . There it wasn ' t quite as bad because we had a 7 member group.
The HRA only has 5 members . The reason it' s so good to have Cliff
there is because he is an attorney and we deal in so many legal issues .
If we had a City Attorney at the HRA meetings , it wouldn' t make quite
the hole as it does now because really Cliff fulfills that role for us.
Roger Knutson: Just point out, the HRA is also a different situation
from the fact that the HRA is not a city commission or committee. It' s
there for a term of five years and they don' t serve for pleasure, they
have a term.
Mayor Hamilton: They' re appointed by the Council .
Roger Knutson: You can' t take them off. '
Don Ashworth: There may be some confusion for this year because my
memorandum did go out to each of the departments but I hope there
potentially may be some chairman letters that have already been
prepared and sent out.
CONSIDER RESOLUTION FOR NORTHERN STATES POWER COMPANY TO SERVICE LAKE
SUSAN HILLS WEST PUD, MAYOR HAMILTON.
Mayor Hamilton : It was a resolution that NSP had asked us to review.
Lake Susan subdivision, if everything remained as it is today, that
would be divided in half with NSP serving the northern half and the REA
or whatever.
Don Ashworth : Minnesota Valley.
Mayor Hamilton: Minnesota Valley serving the southern half so NSP was
merely asking that we pass a resolution stating that we would support
NSP serving that entire subdivision so there ' s not a conflict there.
He said because otherwise you' re going to have a storm and half the
people will be out of power . The guy across the street ' s still going
to have it. It ' s just a bad thing. Plus , he said the really bad thing
is that NSP' s rates are lower than Minnesota Valley so you ' re going to
have people next door to each other paying different rates and higher
electric bills and he said it' s really going to cause some problems .
He had drawn up a sample thing to bring and I couldn 't find it. '
Councilman Geving : Does it have to be passed tonight Tom?
Mayor Hamilton: Well, they would like to get it passed so they can '
just get on it. What I 'd like to do, is have Don perhaps draw one up,
a resolution. Maybe work with Marlo. I couldn' t find the one he gave
me. It was just a resolution. It ' s not like we' re passing a law or
anything. All we' re saying is we would support their position to
service the whole subdivision.
1
City Council Meeting - January 25, 1988
Councilman Johnson: Should we hear the other side? Should we listen
to one side and pass a resolution before talking to the other people?
Mayor Hamilton: The other people haven' t asked.
Councilman Geving : Who are they?
Councilman Johnson : Minnesota Valley. They service a large portion of
our town.
Mayor Hamilton : If you want a resident to pay higher rates , I suppose.
Councilman Johnson: Are they getting service for the higher rates? I
don ' t know.
Gary Warren : The difference in rates is based on the upfront costs and
Minnesota Valley, there ' s more than just the monthly charges. The way
that they charge for the installation of the wiring of street lights
. . .to a longer term cost difference to the monthly rate difference.
There is more than just the monthly charges .
Mayor Hamilton: All the resolution does is say that we would support
NSP' s position. That starts the fight between those two because
Minnesota Valley is not going to give up without a fight so it just
means they' re aware of NSP' s position and we would like to have a
combined one so they can start arguing about it.
Gary Warren : Maybe the Council should choose that we want one service
in the area, whether it ' s Minnesota Valley or NSP.
Councilman Johnson : I 'd like to see both arguments before I join a
side.
Don Ashworth : The first concern of mine would be that , if we go to
Minnesota Valley and they end up winning on it, does that mean we ' re
going to end up with another transmission line coming into serve that
whole area? I wouldn ' t think too much about that idea.
Councilman Johnson : I think we need to look at the pros and cons and
if it does say that Minnesota Valley has to bring in another big
transmission line, then I ' ll be ready to support NSP but until I see
that.
Resolution #88-11 : Mayor Hamilton moved , Councilman Horn seconded for
a resolution stating that the City will support one utility supplying
power to the Lake Susan Hills PUD. All voted in favor and motion
carried.
Councilman Geving moved, Mayor Hamilton seconded to adjourn the
meeting. All voted in favor and motion carried. The meeting was
adjourned at 10 :40 p.m. .
Submitted by Don Ashworth
City Manager Prepared by Nann Opheim
•CHANHASSEN PLANNING COMMISSION �` s{� �
REGULAR MEETING .� Y.
JANUARY 20, 1988 _.3 _i._
Chairman Conrad called the meeting to order at 7 : 35 p.m. .
MEMBERS PRESENT: Tim Erhart , Steven Emmings , Ladd Conrad, Annette
' Ellson, Brian Batzli and David Headla
MEMBERS ABSENT: James Wildermuth
VARIANCE TO THE SIGN ORDINANCE TO ALLOW A 12 SQUARE FOOT ON-SITE
DIRECTIONAL SIGN ON PROPERTY ZONED IOP , INDUSTRIAL OFFICE PARK
DISTRICT AND LOCATED AT 19011 LAKE DRIVE EAST, NORDQUIST SIGNS
(DATASERV) .
' PUBLIC PRESENT:
Steve Hertz Nordquist Signs
Bonnie Wagner DataSery
Ann Rolling DataSery
Jo Ann Olsen presented the staff report on the sign variance request .
Steve Hertz: I 'm with Nordquist Signs . We have done past work with
' DataSery and I think the main emphasis here is , their intent to come
in with a uniform sign program. They do have approval to put up a
freestanding sign identifying their corporation which carries on their
' logo and their letter style . They went so far as to take it one step
further and look at their directional situation and design something
that would coincide with that . This goes back to what they have at
their main corporate offices which are in Eden Prairie. So in taking
' over this site, they wanted to follow through with that and create a
uniform sign program. I think you ' ll see by the design of the signage
that it is not overpowering . The main intent is to make something
that ' s easily legible as people drive through the site. Again ,
I think it needs to be emphasized is the fact that the site is very
large and there is going to be future development on this site.
' Presently the letter sizes there are 2 1/2 inches on the upper case so
we' re not looking to advertise. We ' re looking to identify and direct
traffic . At this point, are there any questions that I can answer?
There are also representatives of DataSery here that would like to
' speak.
Conrad: Maybe we' ll have some questions for you later on Steve.
' Bonnie Wagner: I 'm representing DataSery here tonight . I wonder if
we could refer back to your overhead of the actual facility and the
access, or the approach to the building? In viewing the access to the
building, we feel that this presents to us and our customers and to
our shipping and receiving people a hardship in that you have to
by-pass the building on TH 5 and then you have to identify how to
' approach or to actually access the building . So you pass the building
on TH 5 and then you turn left and then just after McDonalds you have
to turn into the left, which is not visible to you. You have to
travel some way towards the entrance of the building and as you enter
the front of the building , there is a very limited, small visitor
parking lot. We do not want that to be a thoroughway. We do not want
I
Planning Commission Meeting
January 20, 1988 - Page 2 1
traffic to go through to the front of the office. That ' s maintained
strictly for a small visitor situation . So the traffic has to flow
through the road, around to the side of the building . At that point II we have to identify to them where is employment parking. Where do you
go for shipping and receiving so we' re proposing that these
directional signs are necessary to us and to the community because if
we don ' t direct this traffic appropriately, you have residential areas II
immediately next to the property of DataSery so we want to eliminate
jams , confusion and get the traffic in and out of there as
appropriately as we can and as quickly as we can, as a matter of fact.
We are planning to move our headquarters to the Chanhassen site in the
near future so we expect, we are experiencing a great deal of
employment growth. We 've outgrown the Eden Prairie facility in just a
year and a half so we expect to move into Chanhassen, probably about
300 people immediately and then our future plans are to move our
existing headquarter base into Chanhassen and build and construct new
buildings and have a campus environment , if you will . So we feel that I
these signs will be necessary and informational at this point and will
be utilized as we grow. We' re hoping, if it 's possible, then we can
actually utilize our existing signs yet out of the Eden Prairie site
if they conform and if they are maintained along our identity. Any
questions?
Conrad: Not yet . Thank you Bonnie. We' re pleased to have your '
company in Chanhassen . We ' ll open it up to anybody else who may have
a comment on this subject.
Erhart moved , Headla seconded to close the public hearing . All voted 1
in favor and motion carried . The public hearing was closed.
Headla: What ' s the address of DataSery in Chanhassen?
Steve Hertz: 19011 Lake Drive East.
Headla: So Lakeland Drive, if someday turns off of TH 5 , they' re
going to make a left hand turn at Lakeland Drive. The same as they
were finding in the other business .
Bonnie Wagner: I 'm sorry.
Headla : Wouldn ' t somebody coming in trying to find DataSery would
turn off of TH 5 and as they go down now Dakota , they' re going to turn
on Lake Drive, since that ' s your address . So, the sheet I have here
has one directional sign there. Maybe they would make a turn there
which would be a logical thing to do . I think the sign ordinance is
good . I don ' t see where we ' re working a hardship and I do support the II
Staff ' s position .
Batzli : I think I need to abstain on this matter since I was an
Attorney for CPT and worked on the transaction to lease the facilities ,
to DataServ.
Ellson: I 'm correct in that we' re just talking about the on-site
ones . They ' re also looking at off-site which goes to the Council,
right?
r
Planning Commission Meeting
January 20, 1988 - Page 3
Olsen : That ' s right .
Ellson: I agree that they probably do need signs but I think the
recommendation of just taking the company name and logo off and
keeping the height of the arrows and the direction exactly the same
would probably accomplish the same thing , so I pretty much agree with
the staff recommending to stay with the smaller size.
' Emmings : I think the signs are not unattractive and they don ' t
particularly bother me but they don ' t conform to the ordinance. I 'm
not persuaded by the notion that because it ' s a larger site, you need
' larger signs . I think that 's kind of a silly way to set up an
ordinance. So if you have small sites you put up small signs and big
sites , big signs . You may need more signs , but I don ' t think you need
bigger ones . I don ' t know if you' ve had a chance to look through our
' ordinance and see what ' s required for us to find , in order to grant a
variance, but those factors are laid out and I didn ' t hear anything
said that would convince me that it would be appropriate for us to
' find that a variance would be necessary. So I too would support the
staff recommendation on this .
' Erhart: The ordinance states that we' re limited to four on premise
signs no matter how big your campus is . Currently, the signs at the
CPT building are 4 foot? Do they have signs at the existing building?
No signs at all? There must be a reason for your requirements being
' different than CPT.
Bonnie Wagner: They maybe had signs prior but there are no signs at
' the site at this time . I do not know if they were there prior.
Erhart: No I mean your requirements are somehow different than CPT
for signage? Apparently dramatically different.
' Ann Rolling: We feel the access to the building is confusin g based on
there is no direct access to the building . We don ' t know what
problems CPT had. . .
Erhart: I guess the only question I had was maybe if we' re going to
' have something , run it proportional to it ' s size of the facility,
would be the number of signs , not the square footage. I don 't have
any more questions.
Conrad : I agree. I think I could have been persuaded on the number
of signs because of the size of the facility. I guess the only thing
I would raise, 4 square feet for directional signs is still pretty
small . I 'd lay it out and look at it, and from a car and from 40 feet
away, it ' s not a big square footage for signage for directional signs .
I could be persuaded to look at the ordinance and review that aspect
to say 4 feet might not be big enough in general for Chanhassen for
directional but I don ' t think that ' s going to help you in this
particular case. I don ' t think it needs to be 12 . It could be 6 . It
could be 7 but the 12 . I know what you ' re doing . You' ve got signs
that are useful right now and I understand that that 's a good
practical business decision and they'd be attractive signs . We have
an ordinance that we' ve applied to all our current business park
I
Planning Commission Meeting
January 20, 1988 - Page 4
residents and so far we haven ' t heard , staff correct me, we haven ' t
heard a lot of negative feedback about the sizing . However , if we do,
I think we could take a look at that issue and make sure that
directional signs and the sizing is appropriate for the business
name. We ' re not trying to penalize anybody for trying to move traffic
around but in this particular case, my comment would be, I feel
comfortable with the ordinance. I think it could be altered if you
told me that it ' s not big enough to really move the traffic but I
don ' t think Chanhassen would come back with a 12 foot size. That ' s my
personal feeling.
Ann Rolling: I had a question . They layout of the sign would be,
what we have for the existing buildings, like a 4 square foot sign,
the actual area that the sign takes up is the same area that we have.
We ' re just utilizing the face. The face carries straight down to the
ground rather than two poles holding up 4 square feet.
Conrad : What 's the interpretation of that Jo Ann?
Olsen : You do the size from the face of the sign . Not necessarily '
from the highest point . From the poles you don ' t measure. You just
measure the face of the signs .
Ann Rolling: I guess what I 'm saying is, we' re utilizing that area
rather than . . .create clarity and aesthetically pleasing .
Conrad: What we' re trying to do in Chanhassen is , we certainly want I
to advertise the good members of the business community. We ' re not
trying to restrict that but we' re also trying to keep signage from
being everyplace and if we keep some kind of constraint on it, then
one, aesthetically it looks better, but two , everybody 's not competing
with everybody else trying to get bigger and better signage. Actually
saving money in the long run for our business friends. I think my
general feeling is I 'm comfortable with the ordinance as it is.
Headla : I think we'd be sending the wrong signals to those people if
we allow one company. Then another one can come in with other
rationale.
Conrad: I think the deal is Dave, we'd have to take a look at the
ordinance. I don ' t know that a variance is appropriate in this case.
I think taking a look at the ordinance is the only thing and I think
as our friends from DataSery go to City Council , maybe the Council can
give you a feeling of whether they feel that a revision of the
ordinance would be appropriate. We' re always happy to take a look at
that . I think that ' s the solution .
Erhart: Do we currently limit the height of these directional signs?
On premise directional signs? Some guy could put up a 12 foot high or
perhaps even higher? Maybe even 18 and still be at 4 square feet.
They could put it on the top of his building if they wanted . That
pertains to the question that was asked about using the feet of
signage. The factis , somebody could walk in here with a 12 foot high
sign and we wouldn ' t need to look at it.
Headla: There would have to be a particular need for that though.
11
Planning Commission Meeting
January 20, 1988 - Page 5
1
Erhart: But we couldn ' t deny it though.
' Emmings: Why would somebody do that to themselves?
' Ellson : If it was a directional sign for a car, it 'd be pretty hard
to see it .
Emmings: They' re trying to put it someplace where people could see
it.
Conrad: I think the premise is it ' s got to be a functional sign . Go
this way for shipping. Go that way for receiving. Go this way if
you ' re an employee. We have to meet that need so functionally, we
have to meet the need of moving the traffic the right way. I think a
' case could be made to me that you need more than 4 square feet to do
that . I could relate to that problem but I can ' t relate to this
particular situation .
' Erhart : I ' m not trying to relate to this . I could agree that it
might be that it should be a little bit bigger . The issue that comes
about is, on one hand the intent is to not make the sign any more
' obstructive than or aesthetically displeasing as possible. We have
the ordinance allows them to go , we greatly restrict the size of a
sign but we don ' t restrict the height and to me, the height is just as
' important as the size. So all I 'm saying is , we sort of have a hole
there . There probably is a couple good reasons to look at the whole
ordinance. Size and height and to review the question of using the
legs and how does that relate to the height and size.
Conrad: Were we reviewing the sign ordinance? Wasn ' t there mention
that we were going to do that?
Dacy: Yes , in the upcoming months so this could be incorporated as a
part of that review.
' Conrad: It doesn ' t help DataSery right now. It ' s sort of a
unfriendly welcome to the community what you ' re hearing but maybe, we
will do that . We will take a look at least as we review the sign
' ordinance in the next couple months to make sure that. . .
Ann Rolling: Do you know when that 's going to be because for the
amount of money that we ' re spending , I guess I 'd like to maybe hold
off on that . We were planning on moving people into that building by
the end of February or March, our waiting to see what happens.
' Conrad: We don ' t have a specific time to review do we?
Dacy: After the meeting that will take place on Monday, staff will
have a better idea as far as the time schedule but there won ' t be a
public hearing schedule in February or March. It would probably be at
the end of March, beginning of April. We should have a better idea
' next week on the schedule.
Emmings : There's one thing you eluded to , and I ' m not sure
I understood it right . Do I understand that you already have these
Planning Commission Meeting
January 20, 1988 - Page 6 '
signs and are using them at another facility and want to move them out II
here? Are these brand new?
Bonnie Wagner: We are proposing brand new signs , yes .
Conrad: Okay, anymore comments or questions . Is there a motion?
Emmings moved, Erhart seconded that the Planning Commission recommend
denial of the sign variance request to permit 12 square foot
on-premise directional signs . All voted in favor except Batzli who
abstained and motion carried.
PUBLIC HEARING; SUBDIVISION OF 2 .5 ACRES INTO FIVE SINGLE LOTS
FAMILY '
I
ON PROPERTY ZONED RSF, SINGLE FAMILY RESIDENTIAL AND LOCATED EAST OF
AND ADJACENT TO MINNEWASHTA PARKWAY APPROXIMATELY 1/2 MILE NORTH OF
HIGHWAY 5 , SCHWABA-WINCHELL, APPLICANTS.
Public Present: '
Ellie Schwaba Applicant
Kevin Winchell Applicant
Earl Heatherinton 7351 Minnewashta Parkway
Jim Borchart 7331 Minnewashta Parkway
Jo Ann Olsen presented the staff report on this subdivision request. '
Ellie Schwaba : There is one other thing that I 'd like to mention .
There is an existing home on the property and our intention is to do
major renovation to that home. It ' s in pretty much mediocre repair
and . . .to upgrade that home to the value of the new homes that will be
built.
Earl Heatherington , 7351 Minnewashta Parkway: My property runs at the
complete east side of the property in question and also the north end
of the property. It' s interesting to note that the court here caught
the fact that it is only 2 . 19 acres . It ' s not 2 1/2 acres . In the
Planning Commission 's wisdom, from 1980 until 1988 , you have approved
a total of 33 subdivisions in this area . In these subdivisions there
are various number of units and various gross acreages involved with
each. What I 'd like to submit to you that in almost all instances of
all of these units that have been approved since 1980, that the vast
majority in almost every case, the lot sizes that have been approved
are of a 1/2 acre or greater. I 'd like to submit this is your
document and I ' ve done the mathematics and I 'd like to submit it for
your review and to check these figures out. In the case of the
property that has just recently been developed in the last couple of
years called Maple Ridge, on Maple Shore Drive, there are 13 single
family homes located on 7 acres which is an average layout per home of
23 ,455 square feet. 21,780 feet is a half an acre and I 'd like to
submit these. I 'm sure that the gentleman that developed that
property would have liked to put more lots in there. My point is
simply that you' ve got a situation here with an odd parcel of land
that ' s been obviously divided in such a manner as to meet the
ordinances period . Lot 1 , 15 , 011 square feet. Lot 2 , 16 ,809 . Lot 3 ,
' Planning Commission Meeting
January 20, 1988 - Page 7
22 ,981. Fine. The house sits on 25 ,435 and Lot 5, which is almost
hard to believe that one would put a lot in there like that . I don 't
' know what kind of house you could put on it, 15 ,031. My point is that
it does not lend itself to the neighborhood . In every case, all the
lots that are north, south, east and west have at least 1 acre or more
' of property. They are beautiful homes . It ' s a nice area . I have
nothing against Mr. Fisher selling the property to developers and
putting in nice homes but I do belive that it ' s probably a 3 lot
parcel and not a 5 lot . Again, I 'd just like to submit this to the
Planning Commission . Perhaps you have done this , perhaps you haven ' t
but it really shows the numbers of square feet in all your
developments that you' ve done in the last 10 years and it shows quite
graphically that what you ' ve approved is mostly half acre and above
lots . Even in high density family areas. Like Near Mountain.
There' s 153 acres there with 308 single and multi family and yet that
comes out at 21 ,638 square feet . Even in a high density area and this
is certainly not a high density area. And I think Jim Borchart , my
neighbor to the north would like to say something.
' Jim Borchart , 7331 Minnewashta Parkway: I 'd just like to echo what
Mr. Heatherington said . Another major concern of mine is the
drainage. At this time we've got all the water from Maple Ridge
through our property and it ' s only a 12 inch culvert running through
there and it can handle the water that Maple Ridge dumps on us but if
we get any more water , we are going to have volume from my lot and the
' Hauser ' s lot . There are four lots there surrounding this property and
we' re all over an acre . We would like to see nice homes built there
but that number 1 lot , you can ' t put much more than a garage on that
by the time you get your setbacks . Like Jo Ann said, there is a very
' steep hill there and they ' re probably going to have to go about 25
feet off the 'back of there so the property line, we ' re going to have
to look at , if you put a house on it , I know the lines are drawn
pretty but can you actually build a house on these lots.
Erhart moved , Emmings seconded to close the public hearing. All voted
' in favor and motion carried . The public hearing was closed .
Erhart: How does Mr. Volder get to his house?
' Jim Borchart : He goes through my property. He ' s got an easement over
my driveway.
' Erhart : And you ' re the center lot . At the beginning of the report ,
the subdivision ordinance states that there shall be no direct
vehicular or pedestrian access from individual lots to collectors ,
arterials , limited access highways . This is a collector. How do you
square the proposal with that?
Olsen: There is an existing access and the only other alternative is
' to provide public street access and the adjacent property owners are
not in favor of that so it would require condemnation proceedings .
Erhart: Just forget the other people. Why would this five lot
subdivision require a private street? What ' s here? The other lots
have nothing to do with it . That ' s the ordinance. Why aren ' t we
looking at a plan that has a street for those five houses?
Planning Commission Meeting
January 20, 1988 - Page 8
Olsen: The layout of the land , I believe the access to Minnewashta
Parkway is from the rear . To put another street right through the
middle. . .
Erhart : Are we asking for a variance?
Olsen : Technically, that ' s in the subdivision ordinance. The way we
interpretted it , if there was no other option , that there was a way
for them to be serviced from a collector, we would pursue that.
Erhart: How far apart are those two proposed driveways?
Olsen: About 180 to 200.
Erhart: And in our zoning ordinance, what 's the minimum distance?
Olsen: We don ' t have a separation . For driveways? '
Erhart: No, for streets .
Dacy: That 's in the A-2 district we have a recommended driveway
separation.
Erhart: I guess I look at this and I think there is , I don ' t know. ,
I guess I ' ll have to think about that . I ' ll pass it to Steve but I
keep thinking that we' ve just gone around the ordinance not facing the
fact that maybe you can ' t put five lots on here. Maybe you do need a
cul-de-sac and it ' s a four lot subdivision . I ' ll pass the questions
onto Steve. I had one more question. What kind of a tree is that?
Headla: Maple. That one right there by the mailbox is Maple and it ' s
one of the top probably 30 maple trees along Minnewashta Parkway.
Erhart: Sugar Maple? '
Headla: Yes.
Erhart : Boy, I just can ' t imagine why we would encourage anyone
cutting down a Sugar Maple tree.
Emmings : I don ' t really have anything here. I think that they are
trying to put a lot of houses on a small piece but it does meet the
ordinance and we certainly can ' t deny it because it does meet the
ordinance . I don ' t know about the drainage problem but I think that ' s
to be taken up by, that concerns me. His concerns about the drainage
problem and it also concerns me that he thinks drainage has increased
over his lot as a result of the work on Maple Ridge. But if that ' s
happened , you have recourse there. They can ' t change existing
drainage patterns and if they have, you should talk to the City.
Jim Borchart: I have a letter from the City Engineer right before he
left . Nothing happened when the new engineer came.
Olsen: I have contacted the new engineer and he will follow up on
that.
Planning Commission Meeting
January 20, 1988 - Page 9
Emmings : Other than that , I think it meets the letter of the
ordinance so in some ways we can ' t deny it on that grounds . The road
situation really does concern me. I drive Minnewashta Parkway nearly
every day and it ' s curvy and it ' s particular curvy right there.
There' s one entrance already and I don ' t know if another one's going
' to make a big difference or not . I guess I just don ' t know but it
might be better . I think it would be better to have a 3 or 4 lot
subdivision with one entrance rather than the two . That ' s all I ' ve
got .
' Ellson: I had a question about that tree also but one of the
recommendations was that it be cut down and yet the engineering report
said that maybe with proper grading it wouldn ' t necessarily ' have to
come down . I thought it was a nice looking tree too . That caught my
eyes when I went there. Like these others , it obviously looks like
' they' re trying to do as much as they can on a small amount of space.
You certainly can ' t blame them. The ordinance is there that allows
them to do that so I guess I can ' t take away from that but looking at
the lots around there, it did seem like a neighborhood that had really
' big yards and what have you and it didn ' t quite necessarily fit with
the homes right around it but I suppose from the standpoint as the way
the ordinances are, they are certainly within their rights.
' Batzli : I don ' t have any additional comments from those made.
' Headla: I want to hear the rationale again for cutting down the
beautiful tree.
Olsen: When we went out with the engineer , it was really difficult to
see to the south of there and it was suggested that that be removed .
Headla : We cut down a beautiful tree to do a line of sight but then
' we ' re willing to put in another driveway just a little ways to the
north. That 's inconsistent .
Olsen: We will be willing to work but it looked from the plans that
' they are shifting that and perhaps they can clarify this , but it looks
like they are shifting this driveway a little bit to the south and
what we ' ve learned from the forester , if you cut into where the root
' system is , the tree is going to eventually die anyway. I guess it ' s
difficult right now before we really see the detailed plan . If we can
save it and perhaps grade around it , explore the berm. There 's some
' sort of evergreen that ' s next to it.
Headla: I guess I don ' t even believe in that type of wording, that we
might be able to work out plans . I think it should be stated , they
' will work around that tree. That tree will stay. That tree and the
limbs are high enough, I just can ' t see where it ' s affecting the line
of sight . You don ' t say anything about the mailbox that 's right there
by the driveway and that mailbox can be much more of a hinderance so
I 'm in just total disagreement of destroying that tree. It ' s
interesting , Mr . Heatherington disagreed with the acreage. This is
the second time in two meetings where we get variations in what ' s
stated . The person who comes in is proposing for the land and then
what we know is actually the case. When I see two lots , one at 15 ,011
1
Planning Commission Meeting
January 20, 1988 - Page 10 1
feet and the other at 15 ,031 , I tried to go through the arithematic
and things are slid around enough, I can ' t verify the dimensions at
all . I just don ' t believe those two lots meet 15 ,000 square feet . I
also feel that five lots are inconsistent with that immediate area .
You ' ve got some beautiful homes and to have five homes there, dumping
them onto the parkway is ludicrous . Especially with two driveways
less than 90 feet apart . You' re proposed northern driveway and then 1
the next driveway?
Kevin Winchell: They' re about 100 feet , yes . 1
Headla : It ' s 90 feet to the center of the driveway. I just think
those two driveways are way too close. That 's all I had . .
Conrad : This gets me into my favorite issue and that is , what has
been eluded to when lot sizes are out of sync with the neighborhood
and I ' ve never won because basically the ordinance says 15 , 000 square
feet .
Headla: If they have it .
Conrad: They have enough feet to move lot lines here to do that .
I gues my concern still is , it ' s not really in sync with the
neighborhood and it doesn ' t have to be the half acre or acre but I
think we' ve always tried to make things kind of reasonable. But over
the last year we haven ' t been able to do that and I think we' ve had a
very strict interpretation of the ordinance which has said if they
meet the minimum, that ' s it . And Jo Ann , obviously that 's still , if
the minimum is 15 , 000 and it ' s not in sync with the neighborhood?
Olsen : You have no justification for denial . 1
Conrad: Although we ' re very interested in neighborhood continuity.
We ' re very interested in transitions and zones and that ' s why we plan
to get things in sync. We still can ' t change that 15 ,000 foot
minimum. That is it .
Erhart : Let 's pose the question to Steve and to our new member here, 1
both being attornyes . Maybe that ' s a bad thing to do but it would
seem to me, like many other sections in our ordinance, that in
addition to the strict 15 , 000 square feet for this particular area , we
could add a paragraph essentially that would say to the effect that if
it is determined that surrounding houses are of general lot size
larger , at the City ' s discretion or a formula or something . Some
substance in the ordinance that would allow us to apply larger lot
sizes in those areas where the surrounding lots are larger.
Emmings : Or maybe doing it in those perculiar cases where you ' re 1
filling in . Where you ' ve already got everything built up and someone
takes a large parcel and divides it down, then it must conform to the
neighborhood or at least come closer than the ordinance requires . The
problem I think on a deal like this though is that right across the
road it 's all open land. Last week we saw a master plan for the other
side of Minnewashta Parkway on the north and it was just a whole mess
of small lots , which is probably kind of what 's going in there now and
is probably what the future holds . If that continues, down that side
11
Planning Commission Meeting
' January 20, 1988 - Page 11
of the Parkway, this isn ' t going to be that out of keeping with that
kind of a plan . Right now it ' s out of keeping with what ' s on the east
side of Minnewashta Parkway but it may not ultimately be out of
keeping with what will happen across the road from it . The other
problem you get into is , how do you ever get a transition? If
' everything ' s got to be in keeping with the surrounding property, how
do you ever get a transition? It ' s a big question.
Conrad: I don ' t know that there are formulas . We' ve got a lot of
' places in the sewered district where we have lot sizes ranging over an
acre. I think very close to my house are a whole bunch of houses with
one acre lot sizes and we were concerned about what was going to be
' filled in when somebody wanted to subdivide but we really never came
to a solution. There' s not a good formula for doing that. Will you
allow half acre? Will you allow a third of an acre? I don ' t know
that there a reasonable solution to that . I don ' t know that there 's a
' formula that we can come up with.
Emmings: You also don ' t want to , there ' s sort of a naturala
progression here that maybe you don ' t want to interfere with. Where
people go into a rural area and they buy 10 acres and then someone
divides their 10 acres into 5 acre parcels and somebody does one of
' those into 2 1/2 or they do them into 15 ,000 square foot lots .
Eventually that all becomes kind of a , through this resubdivision
process , becomes kind of a highly or much more densely populated area .
I don ' t know that you want to necessarily stop that sort of natural .
Headla : I think you' ve got a special case here. Did any of you get a
chance to drive down the driveway and look at the proposed cul-de-sac
and then see the steep grade? It isn' t that you've got 15 ,000 square
feet and it ' s all flat.
' Emmings: What cul-de-sac? I don ' t know what you ' re talking about.
Headla: Proposed cul-de-sac to the east of that property. If you ' re
going down that driveway and you look at the steep grade, to me that
' has a real effect on that property.
Conrad: How so? What does it do?
' Headla: It makes the property shallower . It just isn ' t useful
property like 15 , 000 square feet . That ' s out flat . I think it makes
a property a lot smaller . The affected use of that lot is a lot
' smaller . When I look at that and the whole area in that immediate
area , I just see it ' s way out of context.
' Erhart: Referring to your comment , how do you make the conversion
from a large lot area to a small lot , I think for one thing streets
are lines . A subdivision across the street could be 15 ,000 square
feet where as one on one side . That ' s a natural line. The other one
is you could write it such that it might make a statement to say that
if 50% of the lots adjacent to a subdivision are over 20, 000 square
feet , then the subdivision should he 20, 000 and saying 20, 000 being a
' half acre, that ' s the largest . What that does, of course, if you have
one area and they ' re all over 20,000 and the next one, if you have
50% , it only takes two sets to get down to the smaller one. It does
Planning Commission Meeting
January 20, 1988 - Page 12
give you a way to gradually go from the large lots to big lots . So
again , you'd have to think this through but the idea of somehow
measuring the lots so if half of them were under 20,000 square feet ,
then it wouldn ' t collide. I think you might want to try some examples
and it might solve the problem. Just to summarize quickly, I think it
has been a problem here in the last year where we have been forced to
put in small subdivisions , or small lot subdivisions actually. It's
the bigger subdivisions that have come in with the 20, 000 square foot
lots which you really have to think about why that is . It' s telling
me that the big subdividers are doing a better job of putting together
neighborhoods . They' re more conscientious about it .
Conrad : They' ve got bigger areas to work with.
Erhart: Yes , but they 've got more at stake too because they have a
longer term time at selling these lots . Anyway, in summary I would
agree that I think if there is something we can do , I think we ought
to look at it and we ought to ask staff to come back with some ideas.
Conrad: If there's something they can do about the ordinance? '
Erhart : The ordinance, yes.
Conrad: It doesn ' t apply to the comments . We will direct to staff
because that ' s a real pet issue of mine and I have not got any
solutions to that because I think if we remember on the Murray Hill
where we rip out one house and put a driveway in and we ' ve got people
who lived there for 1,000 years and then they' re putting in 15 ,000
square foot houses in areas where they' re 45 , 000 square foot lots . I
felt real badly in that case but we didn ' t have a solution. Anyway, I
think we should look at it but that ' s a different time and place. In
terms of driveway access off of Minnewashta, try to give us some
guidelines . Staff is saying , regardless of our subdivision ordinance,
it is okay to put in two driveways or an additional driveway and we've
justified that how?
Olsen: The way we've justified it is that we really did not see any
other option . We felt that one additional driveway was acceptable.
It does have good sight distance. The applicant originally could have
come in with five driveways and of course it wouldn ' t have gotten
approved but by having just one public street , like Tim was suggesting
that cul-de-sac in there, is almost by itself the whole property.
Erhart: Why do you say that? '
Olsen: If you draw in a cul-de-sac, limiting it to probably about
three lots . You' re talking about 50 foot right-of-way and a very
large cul-de-sac. We did work closely with the engineering department
on what were our options with this and we felt that this was an
acceptable option. j
Emmings: Did you look at putting in a cul-de-sac and getting four
lots?
Olsen: We looked at a cul-de-sac along here. Lot 5 again would still
have to have it ' s own access. A street right in the middle of here,
1
' Planning Commission Meeting
January 20, 1988 - Page 13
it would do what the neighbors wanted , it would limit it one
additional lot or two additional lots.
' Erhart : How wide was your driveway? How wide is the driveway then?
' Olsen : I believe it ' s probably only, as shown on there, it ' s about 10
to 20 feet maybe.
' Headla: This is another situation though, we wanted to go a Class A
cul-de-sac road and it ' s serving 5 houses or 4 houses . We talked
about this before, it just doesn ' t seem right . They should be able to
go in there with a lot lower class road or cul-de-sac. You don ' t
think so Tim?
Erhart: The price of the lots would go up with a cul-de-sac. The
' value of the lots.
Olsen : We did not look at an internal street coming from the Parkway.
' We could do that and come back and have a proposed plan for that . If
you want to see how the site could be serviced by a public street
other than utilizing a private road . I got the impression that you
were talking about a cul-de-sac.
Erhart : Let me finish what I 'm thinking. I may be all wrong but I
looked at the dimensional drawings in here and I just can not see why
you can ' t put in just a real short street in here and a cul-de-sac and
they can provide an easement to go through that property so at some
later date if somebody else wants to hooks into that , at the end of
' that street like we do with a lot of cul-de-sacs.
Conrad: You ' re saying , to service the property to the east?
' Erhart: At some point, it could be.
Olsen: Ideally, we initially looked at approving that private
' easement . At this time . . .
Erhart: That ' s not the right place. I don ' t think that 's the right
place and Dave would agree that ' s not the right place.
' Headla: Well , I kind of like that idea .
' Erhart: From the north?
Headla : There' s a main driveway there right now and if they could do
' something , work off of that and then the other driveway, then I think
it ' s a won-won situation. I think the applicant can come off well
without spending a lot of money but the surrounding area isn ' t going
to lose either . It 's going to require negotiation with the neighbors .
' Earl Heatherington: We were curious as to would the surrounding lots
be assessed to turn that into a public road? A private road is behind
t there now. If that was upgraded to a public street cul-de-sac, what
would the assessments be on our lots . . .
Ellie Schwaba: I don ' t think the road or existing private drive back
1
Planning Commission Meeting
January 20 , 1988 - Page 14
there would be workable. The property owners are adverse to it and
would not cooperate with us so that gave us the only alternative which 1
was the two driveways off of Minnewashta Parkway. We did look
originally with our surveyor putting in a cul-de-sac. What happens
then is we lose so much land for building a cul-de-sac, we lessen the
lot size and consequently we lose the number of lots that we' re trying I
to accomplish and in doing so, the whole basis of the purchase of
property, we ' re buying this property now subject to our lot division.
We' re feeling that based on our initial cost and the cost that we have II
incurred thus far, if we have to lose one lot, we basically would have
to dump the whole project because it just doesn' t make any sense in
this situation where it ' s so conveniently located to Minnewashta
Parkway, to have to put in an expensive cul-de-sac. One thing too
that I wanted to mention is our intention is not to put in inexpensive
homes just because these lots are not half acre. Our intention is to
build houses in the same price range as the houses in the surrounding
area . As a matter of fact we've got a plan right now that we' re
working on to put a home on Lot 5 . A buyer has looked at it and is
interested in Lot 5 which they felt was the most attractive lots . And
when we were working with the surveyors , they located that house
beautifully on that lot and it would be a house in the price range of
the other homes in the area . So we did look at alternatives but we
felt these are what would work. . .
Conrad: As you can tell , one thing we look at is future subdivisions
also and the tendency is to take a look at one thing at a time and
pretty soon you really chop up a neighborhood and if it 's not
integrated . Not that the neighbors want to subdivide because a lot of
folks moved out here because they liked their large lots , but we find
that over time a lot of people do subdivide and sell off and that ' s
one of the points the Planning Commission is hopefully, we can look
ahead a little bit and anticipate some of those cases and make sure
that we can service anybody that wants to subdivide and we do it so
that if there is some kind aesthetic, some kind of continuity to the
neighborhood without really being totally chopped up.
Jim Borchart: We asked an expert on condemnation when they approached I
me and I showed them my land , I gave them auditor tax statements and
we projected ahead for 15 years which would be the normal length I
would live there, and he said an easement would have to bring at least
$211, 000. 00 for the amount of land they' re taking and he advised me
against selling an easement at that amount . He said I would lose in
the long run because of the value of my house . So we' re looking at a
tremendous amount of money for a cul-de-sac. He said it would be very
bad . I have a large house. It ' s about 6 , 000 square feet now. If you
cut off that and the size of the house it would be diastrous . And he I
worked off a tax statement not off of
any other paper .
Emmings : I guess I 'm just wondering , it seems to me, one of the '
points Tim raised is the fact that it would appear that it requires a
variance to the subdivision ordinance as far as the driveways are
concerned and I don ' t know if you' re ready to make the case for that
variance. Maybe we ought to look at this again.
Conrad: Can you clarify where you' re looking at for a variance?
rPlanning Commission Meeting
January 20, 1988 - Page 15
I
' Emmings: Under the applicable regulations in the second paragraph,
the Subdivision Ordinance Section 12 , 6 . 12 states there shall be no
direct vehicular or pedestrian access from individual lots to
' collectors , arterials or limited access highways.
Batzli : Is there access in this case from an individual lot?
' Emmings : It ' s all one lot right now and there is one which is
probably grandfathered in. I don ' t know why we have that ordinance.
It seems to me it prevents an awful lot of access . I was surprised to
see it there but it is there but it is there and we' ve got to deal
with it . Right now we have the case here for what the hardship is and
I wonder is we we shouldn ' t take a look at that.
' Conrad: So Steve, what would you like? You 'd like to have staff look
at other ways of treating this property? From a one access
' standpoint?
Emmings : Yes , look at the alternatives . Number one, could it be a
one access property and how could that be arranged and if the
applicant isn' t happy with that , what case can be made for giving them
a variance and making it a two or more access property. What
justification is there?
' Conrad: Do you think you' re going to, you reviewed this .
Dacy: I think the tabling motion idea would be in order and if I
' could suggest to the Commission that they suggest that the developer
could note an alternate plan to create a small public street in there
and then bring that back to us for staff to evaluate and then we can
' bring it back to the Commission as Option #2 . Then the Commission
will have two options to evaluate.
Headla: Would we have to insist on a 50 foot road though?
Right-of-way? That sounds awful high for those few lots .
Dacy: Well , yes you would . 50 foot of right-of-way, 20 feet wide
bituminous with concrete curb and 50 foot radius on the cul-de-sac.
If you want to reduce that, then you' re talking about another variance
to the subdivision ordinance.
' Batzli : I 'm not convinced yet that the language in this Section 12
restricts it to having one lot for the entire subdivision . At first
flush, I read this as saying that you can not have individual lots
' having access to the collector and not only one driveway for the
entire proposed subdivision . I read it as you can ' t put a driveway in
for each proposed subdivided lot.
Olsen: The way we typically have interpretted this is to prevent
individual access onto like the collectors or the arterials.
' Emmings : Then you ' re saying no variance is required?
Olsen: In writing the staff report , I did not feel that a variance
was necessary because they were combining driveways . Three into one
Planning Commission Meeting
January 20, 1988 - Page 16 1
driveway and two off of that other driveway. It ' s up to I
interpretation .
Batzli : It really depends on when you' re looking at the individual
access . Before or after the subdivision occurs . That 's certainly the
deciding factor of whether you need one individual driveway for the
entire proposed subdivision as long as you don ' t have individual ones II
after the subdivision .
Olsen: It says individual lots.
Batzli : Which seems to me to read after the subdivision has occurred.
Ellie Schwaba: What I was going to say was, if we were to put in a
road in there, then we would need a variance because then we would not
meet the lot size requirements . Then we 'd need a variance for the
lots so anything we do other than these two driveways creates us
having to request a variance. Based on our discussion with the City
Engineer and Jo Ann, we didn ' t have any variances . We weren ' t
requesting a variance so we would prefer , if we can, of having to put
ourselves in the position of having to ask for a variance, and comply
with the ordinance.
Headla: I don ' t know if you' re familiar with that area but going 1
north from there, there ' s the one by where the tree is and then the
next one is about a couple hundred feet and then another 90 feet
there' s a driveway, then about 100 feet there ' s the Maple Ridge II driveway, at the top of the hill you ' ve got another driveway and about
60 feet from there you have Mann ' s driveway. Now we' re loading in
another driveway. They ' re just too close. Last meeting we were
complaining about the Lawson property, we tried to reduce the number
of driveways on Minnewashta Parkway. I think we' re inconsistent . If
we ' re serious about reducing the number of driveways, let ' s reduce the
number of driveways . I
Conrad: Staff feels that another driveway however, is not necessarily
dangerous.
Olsen: This one I think has good sight distance. It 's preferred over
the existing driveway. In terms of meeting the ordinance they could
come in with five lots . With four additional lots with just one
additional driveway, I guess we felt that that was as good as could
be.
Conrad: I read that you would rather not go back and prepare a
cul-de-sac plan for us?
Kevin Winchell : I just don ' t think it will work . '
Ellie Schwaba: We pursued that initially and it didn ' t work because
like we were saying , we 'd have to ask for a variance. 1
Erhart moved, Headla seconded to table Subdivision Request #88-1 per
the City Planner ' s suggestions and bring it back to look at some kind II
of alternative to bring the access to Minnewashta Parkway to one.
This motion was later withdrawn.
I
'Planning Commission Meeting
11 January 20, 1988 - Page 17
Headla: Can I ask a question to the applicants?
' Conrad: Regarding the motion?
Headla : Yes . Now we can table it and review it or we could either
' approve it or deny it and it would go to the Council .
Elliw Schwaba: We would rather have you approve it or deny it and go
to the Council simply because we have pursued this and all we ' re doing
is wasting time. Because I don ' t know what we 'd go back and do . Tell
the surveyors to redraw the plan and put us in a position of asking
' for a variance and come back to see you with a variance. . We don ' t
feel we 'd be going forward with this.
Conrad: In my mind the only thing we could do is we either say there
' is one access or there can be more than one. That ' s the issue that
we' re looking at . If we feel there can only be one access , we' re
going to turn it down and they'd welcome that so they could go to the
' City Council with this thing.
Headla: From what I hear , they 'd rather see approval or denial and go
to the Council.
Erhart: I ' ll withdraw my motion.
Conrad : Do you withdraw your second?
Headla: Yes .
' Headla moved , Erhart seconded to deny the Subdivision #88-1 as shown
on the plat stamped "Received January 4 , 1988" .
' Dacy: Mr . Chairman, regarding your comment on consistency between the
application that we had further embarked on Minnewashta Parkway,
I just wanted to make sure that there is a differentiation in that
' this property, it ' s only means of access is from Minnewashta Parkway
and the additional driveway would only serve two homes . The
application that we' re looking at farther north, we were talking about
major stree intersections that would take traffic from other
subdivisions of 20 to 30 or more lots . So when Jo Ann was talking
earlier about the additional one driveway, it was based on the fact
that that would only be serving two homes and that the other
alternatives that we had looked at could not be implemented . That
being the alternative to the rear . I just wanted to clarify that from
the application we had last time.
' Headla : But you made an issue that by putting in the main road up
that one easement, that you got rid of the other driveway and you
mentioned that you were trying to get rid of driveways on the Parkway.
Dacy: I agree. I 'm not changing that intent at all . I 'm just saying
we saw this as generating less amount of traffic than the intersection
proposed in the other application.
Headla : I think it 's possible for Lots 1 and 2 maybe to go to that
Planning Commission Meeting
January 20, 1988 - Page 18
driveway to the north.
Dacy: I just wanted to follow up on that . '
Headla: I think there are alternatives yet, that ' s why I made that
motion. '
Conrad: So your motion is to deny on the rationale that there should
only be one access.
Headla: Let 's not increase the access to Minnewashta Parkway.
Conrad : And that ' s the same rationale Tim that you ' re using on the
second in the motion?
Erhart : Yes. '
Emmings: I guess the more I sit here and listen to what staff' s got
to say and I think Brian ' s reading of the subdivision ordinance is
probably right . I think my problem is I don ' t like the subdivision
and I 'm trying to find a way to rationalize turning it down but I
think it probably does meet the letter of the ordinances here and I
don ' t think we can turn it down . On a rational basis anyway.
Headla : All we' re doing is making a recommendation to the Council .
Conrad : Yes , that ' s all . They can take this . 1
Headla: And I 'd like to send them a signal , no .
Headla moved , Erhart seconded to deny the Subdivision #88-1 as shown
on the plat stamped "Received January 4 , 1988" . Headla , Erhart and
Ellson voted in favor of the motion , Emmings , Conrad and Batzli voted 1
in opposition to the motion and motion failed with a tie vote.
Conrad: So this is a 3-3 split and this is a motion to deny. It
fails .
Erhart : For the sake of the Council , at least these things are better
to be moved for approval because it would be more useful for the
negative comments . Because now what you have to do is provide the
positive comments.
Conrad: But the motion did fail . Is there another motion? i
Erhart : That ' s just a waste of time.
Kevin Winchell : I don ' t see why we couldn ' t set this up so all five
lots access onto the Parkway through the existing driveway or close to
the existing driveway. I
Olsen : Then it would have to be a road .
Kevin Winchell : Why? Does the ordinance say for five homes you have
to have a road? Instead of having three on one and two on the
other. . .
i
1 Planning Commission Meeting
January 20, 1988 - Page 19
1
Conrad: I don ' t think we' ll make it that way.
Kevin Winchell : It looks like having just one driveway is going to be
' the most reasonable thing to me. You can ' t go private off the back
and you can ' t go to the street.
1 Dacy: The motion from the Commission failed and staff will work with
the applicant between now and the Council meeting to see if there are
other alternatives available.
Conrad: We 've never had this situation where we had this .
Dacy: It did happen once before at TH 7 and TH 41 three years ago.
' Olsen: In the staff update, I usually pass on any comments .
' Conrad : I think from Robert ' s Rules of Order, we can carry this forth
to City Council . We 've conducted the public hearing. The Planning
Commission didn ' t really have a motion on it . There was no one
consensus .
Dacy: The motion to deny failed .
Conrad : But that doesn ' t automatically say it was approved .
Jay Johnson : Move to send it to the City Council without a
recommendation.
' Conrad: That ' s a good idea , thanks .
1 Batzli moved , Emmings seconded that the Planning Commission sends no
recommendation on Subdivision #88-1. All voted in favor and motion
carried .
1 Conrad : I do believe that our comments were pretty clear in terms of
I don ' t think we need to repeat why we voted as we did unless somebody
feels real opinionated . Dave, do you want to put a footnote in on
1 this to save the tree?
Headla : The tree is mandatory. It ' s one of the top 30 trees .
1 Ellie Schwaba: We always wanted the tree.
Headla : I can see why you want it . We ' ve got to get to some other
people to realize the trees got to stay there.
NANCY LEE AND PATRICK BLOOD , PROPERTY LOCATED ON THE NORTH SIDE OF TH
212 AND EAST SIDE OF TH 101 , ZONED BF, FRINGE BUSINESS DISTRICT:
A. CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT FOR A CONTRACTOR' S YARD ON 13 ACRES .
' B. WETLAND ALTERATION PERMIT TO CONSTRUCT A DRIVEWAY THROUGH A
CLASS A WETLAND.
Public Present:
Planning Commission Meeting 1
January 20, 1988 - Page 20
1
Nancy Lee Applicant
Patrick Blood Applicant
Jim Sellerude 730 Vogelsberg Road
Art Partridge 6280 Hummingbird Road
Barbara Dacy presented the Staff Report on the Conditional Use Permit
and Wetland Alteration Permit.
Patrick Blood: Just one thing I 'd like to bring up. A lot of people
think contractor ' s yards and garbage trucks and stuff like this . I do
want to make one simple point . Our company is tending to go to the
smaller garbage trucks for customers with road restrictions and stuff
like this so a majority of our trucks will be not more than 1 1/2 to 2
ton trucks with a 6 yard packers . . .
Jim Sellerude, 730 Vogelsberg Trail: I live at this location here and
I don ' t have any problems with garbage trucks in our neighborhood,
they come through all the time so I don ' t have any concern about that .
My thought is that as the business fringe area , that you designated
this , it seems an appropriate time to take a look at the frontage
issues along here . The State says right now you can ' t have access
here because they purchased this . My question to staff initially was,
if this application be granted , to enter on the TH 212 over here
somewhere. Right now we' re getting a proliferation of an increased
densities of uses on here . The present routing of traffic on here,
there 's a no stop, access all along here and I think we' re getting
individual cars pulling out along here and it ' s becoming more
hazardous . The State doesn ' t seem to be taking a lead on it . I think
as a business fringe development, this really should be oriented to TH
212 and I understand they don ' t want it coming on off the triangle but
I think all these uses should be collected somewhere in here and have
a more limited access . I know you ' re just looking at one part . It
seems to have an easy solution to come off here but if you keep
dealing with individual parcels , as they have conditional use
applications , you ' re never going to look at the problem, the overall
problem. I think the Planning Commisison is the right place to begin
that discussion . This is just going to be an emorphous development
and this is one the gateways to Chanhassen. What do you want it to
look like? How do you want that traffic handled? As TH 212 comes
through to the north, you ' re going to have more traffic coming off of
TH 101 and I don ' t know when we ' ll have an intersection with TH 212
but this sort of has a residential character on TH 101 right now. But
as uses continue to increase, maybe it ' s 20 years off but there will
probably be a light rail transit station at this point . If the County
picks up the line someday in the future, this is a key point where
traffic is coming together . I think it 's an important time to take a
look all of that access issue and I think these people could be
directed , I think their original intent on the application was to come
across here and it seems that it ' s an appropriate way to go. In terms
of MnDot giving their approval for an access over here, they' ll give
approval anywhere. They pass it off to the City. They say, if you
give a permit , they ' re forced to give a permit . They gave a permit
for access over here. If someone was going to develop this land and
it 's an outlot right now that I own with another party, and the MnDot
said they 'd give access there and they said they 'd give an access here
Planning Commission Meeting
January 20, 1988 - Page 21
for this lot . Because MnDot has some access requirements , I don ' t
' think that ' s . . . As an interim solution, I think access could be
granted here for a period of years but I don ' t know if that ' s a legal
way of operating but permit access here that expires after a certain
period of years and then direct a solution over this way. But not
' looking at your ordinance to see how you ' re able to deal with the
issue but I think this piecemeal fashion, you' re never really going to
take a look at this entrance to your city here. People are coming
' into Chanhassen for all sorts of reasons and here this is known as a
notorious entrance to the City.
' Conrad: You have some good comments . Mark, when you looked at the TH
169 corridor , as we are looking at that, those types of concerns the
gentleman brought up, do you feel they should be pursued in our study
or do they feel because we ' re trying to deemphasize this area that
' they not be pursued?
Mark Koegler: He brought up a couple good comments . First of all , on
' your second statement in terms of deemphasizing the area , that
strictly is the approach the Comp Plan is taking because that 's what
in essence the Metropolitan Council is going to be looking for . The
' document as a whole will not be expressing the issue of expanding
business fringe operations . Whether contractor ' s yards is necessarily
jeopardizing that or not . We believe it 's a level of low enough
intensity but in general the thinking is not to make that area more
intensive. Kind of stepping on your first comment , the Comprehensive
Plan and even these corridor studies are general information.
Particularly the plan the corridor studies does is we bring it down to
' a higher level of detail . . . It ' s more looking at a little more detail
and access issues . If you don ' t desire that much detail , it
certainly would he appropriate to handle it verbally. Just a policy
' type statement . How do you think we should handle that , might be a
better approach.
Headla moved , Emmings seconded to close public hearing. All voted in
' favor and motion carried.
Headla : How many people did you say were going to be here? Work
here, two?
Dacy: Yes .
Headla: I was under the impression that you stated two . Was that
correct or not?
' Nancy Lee: That would be people in the office.
Headla: I see you ' ve got a private office, waiting room, reception
room, office area , lunch room. It sounds like it 's going to be a lot
more than two people.
Nancy Lee: That would be in the office. The drivers would check in
' the morning , get their truck routes and then check in in the evening
with their trucks.
Headla: How many would occupy the building? You ' ve got what , 4 ,000
Planning Commission Meeting
January 20, 1988 - Page 22
square foot building?
Nancy Lee: 3 ,500.
Headla : And how many people would be there permanent in the building? '
Nancy Lee: Presently it ' s between 1 and 1 1/2 . You' re talking full
time personnel, it ' s between 1 and 1/2 right now. There's always
somebody in the office.
Headla : It seems like a big building . You ' ve got concrete walls ,
lunchroom and everything and only two people. It just doesn ' t seem
consistent . I 'm looking at this , this is a business fringe place. It
seems to meet all the requirements but if someone was to take the same
plan and the same promise and put it up somewhere on TH 5 or TH 101,
why can ' t they go for a variance and get the same thing approved?
I don ' t know if I 'm for or against it yet but that 's the kind of thing
and I want to hear your questions just to see how you look at it.
Batzli : They don ' t need a variance for a contractor ' s Y ard.
Headla: What ' s the definition of a contractor ' s yard?
Dacy: A contractor ' s yard is a use or an area where there is
construction equipment stored on the site on an overnight basis or 111 other type of contractor ' s equipment stored either within the building
or outside of the building . That you have continuous overnight
storage. People come to the site, as in this case, the employees come
to the site. They pick up the driver of the garbage truck comes and
parks his car, he gets into his truck , he leaves the site, he does
operations off site, comes back at the end of the day and drops off
the truck, gets in his car and goes home. What the applicant is '
indicating tonight that there would be 1 to 2 employees staying in the
office area to handle phone calls , dispatch, etc. .
Headla: By this you ' re saying we aren ' t having people dropping off '
the street?
Dacy: Right, no . This is not a retail business .
Headla: Why do you have a reception office? If you have a concrete
block here and a nice door and then you have this reception and an
office.
Patrick Blood: We put the conference room and reception office in
there, the plans when they were first drawn up, the rooms were there
to be used. We put it in there for future use, for City Council ' s
with their new mandates on garbage pick-up and just an office for
meetings if these occur. We don ' t even know if they ' re going to occur
but the room was there and rather than divide it up into a bunch of
small offices or just use them for storage rather than a conference
room, that was just the way we put it up with the possible intentions
in the future of possibly having conferences with people and that 's
the only reason that 's there.
Headla: If trucks coming south on TH 101 turn east, can they qo due '
IIPlanning Commission Meeting
January 20, 1988 - Page 23
I
I east and do into the driveway or do they have to drop down to turn and
come back and make a left?
Dacy: Okay, you ' re saying when the trucks come south of TH 101 and go
I under the tracks, to get into the site they 'd have to turn left into
the site and the driveway is proposed on TH 101.
I Headla : I thought we were talking on TH 212 . Boy, I missed that . I
thought we were going to try and get it onto TH 212 .
Dacy: No , that was an original consideration by the applicants .
I However, MnDot came back and said that an access to TH 212 would not
be eligible because they have purchased the access rights along TH
212 .
IHeadla : Okay, I was under the impression then, to make application
they would look at it and they stand a good chance to get it on TH
I212 . That 's not the case?
Dacy: Right . The applicant would have to buy those rights back and
I the problem is , MnDot is not going to sell it to them.
Headla : Coming out onto TH 101 , boy that 's tough.
I Dacy: We' ve talked about contractor ' s yards a lot in the last couple
of months and that 's been primarily in the A-2 and agricultural areas .
This area is zoned commercial . I guess if there is an example of how
I a contractor ' s yard should be done, I think this is an excellent
example. You' ve got a concrete block building , paved areas , berming ,
landscaping. Some of the same issues that the Commission has been
talking about and debating on whether or not these are appropriate in
Ithe agricultural areas .
Headla : I agree with everything you say but now that access on TH
I101 , that bothers me.
Dacy: It 's agreed . I don ' t think there' s any question that it is not
the best . However, given the low intensity of this use, between 4 to
I 12 trucks entering and leaving with their primary direction is going
south on TH 101 to TH 212 . Then the other issues of this part of the
site really screens that use the best . If you move it over to the
I east, it ' s a wide open view from TH 212 and it really can ' t take
advantage of the grades and elevations .
I Headla : I thought there was a possibility that they could go to the
east . Wasn ' t there a service road there?
I Dacy: If_ they did want to propose that , then you ' re fighting the
issue of more visibility of the contractor 's yard from TH 212 . They
would have to reoriente the septic system sites and so on . If I could
comment on the gentleman 's comment about the frontage road, as I noted
I in the report, that ' s an excellent idea and if the Commission would
want to add a condition whereby if this property is subdivided , that
that subdivision application reserve right-of-way for evaluating a
frontage road to be constructed . But again , our Attorney tells us
11 that we can only require right-of-way if it ' s durinrr i-hA a„hA41,4 4 '- ”
Planning Commission Meeting
January 20 , 1988 - Page 24
application and not a conditional use permit but the frontage road
concept is excellent and that should be pursued.
Headla: I hear you say the traffic coming and going and it 's minimal
but how do we know, is there anyway we can control that in 4 years or
5 years?
Dacy: One of the conditions contained in the staff report is to limit '
the amount of vehicles to 12 vehicles. Anything above and beyond that
would require a conditional use permit therefore at that time the City
would be able to determine whether or not that would be an adverse
impact on TH 101.
Batzli : I guess I ' d like to talk about the wetlands issue a minute
here and the holding tank requirement . They receive waste water from
the garage area from washing. You ' re planning on requiring a contract
prior to issuing building permits for the pumping of those holding
tanks? '
Dacy: Right .
Batzli : Is there anyway we can somehow make the continued conditional
use contingent upon receiving additional contracts or are you going to
require this person to get an eternal contract upfront?
Dacy: I see what you ' re saying . That might be a good idea to change
the wording in the condition that the pumping should be done on a
regular basis .
Batzli : Yes . I guess I ' m looking for something more along those
lines . I like the concept that they have a contract upfront but I 'd
also like there to be a continuing obligation.
Ellson: I noticed you didn ' t have that 26 . I had that as a question
myself but you caught that yourself. I like the idea of that frontage
road but you ' re saying we can ' t do that at this point though and I
guess I was a little confused as to the reasoning behind that .
Dacy: The subdivision laws are different than the laws enabling
municipalities to review conditional use permits . The subdivision
laws created by the State enable cities to require road right-of-ways
and to require things like parking dedication requirements . The City
Attorney says that the conditional use permit application, you ' re only
looking at whether or not that use is compatible with adjacent uses in
that district . We can not require right-of-way dedication along with
a conditional use permit . You can only do that during the subdivision
application.
Ellson: Also, I had a question , you said the people come in the '
morning and they take a truck. Do they come back for lunch and then
go out again or do they stay out all day long and then they come back?
Nancy Lee: They come back at noon and then leave.
Ellson: This probably has nothing to do with it but I was wondering '
' Planning Commission Meeting
January 20, 1988 - Page 25
things like that? What kind of seasonal
that makes that happen?
' Nancy Lee: It was switched . We would have more containers . The
containers we' re talking about are the containers used at construction
sites and it 's the wintertime that we may have some. We don ' t like to
t have them in but when construction goes down, the containers aren ' t on
the site. In the summertime there shouldn ' t be any there.
' Ellson : That 's all I had .
Emmings : I don ' t have anything additional .
' Erhart : I don ' t know where to start but I ' ll take the opportunity to
say what I have to say about contractor ' s yards in Chanhassen . I was
very much involved in our zoning ordinance. That was a major project
' we had when I first joined the Planning Commission . I spent a lot of
time on it including sitting through with the Council every night that
they went over it and approved it . There are two new members here,
there's a lot of it that goes over your head when your first on the
' planning commission . I ' ve had two years to reflect on some of these
issues and one of them is this contractor ' s yards . At the time I
didn' t oppose contractor yards in the City of Chanhassen . I should
' say in the rural area of Chanhassen because I really didn ' t yet
understand how they relate to that area . Today I firmed up my mind
quite concretely on the issue and I strongly believe that they have no
' place in the rural area of Chanhassen , which I 'm the only person
either on the Council or Commission that represents that area . One is
that they have nothing to do with agriculture which is the existing
land use in the area . So I believe they are incompatible with that.
' Secondly, is the agricultural area , the A-2 area in Chanhassen is
supposed to be reserved and allowed to increase it ' s residential use
in a planned method . Again, contractor ' s yards has no compatibility
' with residential use. Lastly, I think in particular, Chanhassen does
not have the road system to support the kind of truck traffic that 's
associated with contractor ' s yards and garbage hauling. Particularly
' TH 101 . Which gets us to this particular proposal and also into
another issue that I think a lot of, when we made the new zoning
ordinance, created the new zoning ordinance, a lot of discussion
revolved around this business fringe district which I think you
' opposed completely Ladd, at the time. I think, if I 'm right , I think
you did, I would agree that we made a second mistake there. But I
think we perhaps will get into that in a little bit in the discussion
' later on when we talk about corridor studies and plans . It really hit
me today, this is the first time that I read anyplace where the actual
MnDot has gone out of their way to restrict access along TH 212 in
' that area . Now had that been known when we put this new zoning
ordinance in effect , I think that would have had a big impact about
the way the Planning Commission and perhaps the City Council viewed
this area down there. In fact , the way I interpretted that , they say
' this is essentially 55 mph roadway. I live there so I know what ' s it
like. It is dangerous to turn on and off that and certainly TH 101 in
that area is no place to be promoting increased use by some commercial
' activity. I can ' t imagine why we would go through here and allow a
commercial activity where you have trucks coming underneath that
railroad bridge. It' s ridiculous just for automobiles to travel in
both directions under that bridge. One has to stop before the other
Planning Commission Meeting
January 20, 1988 - Page 26
one goes through. Lastly, again, you ' re dealing with this holding
9
tank situation and I 'm sure that everyone has all good intentions to
make sure that nothing gets drained over into the creek but again, and
I don ' t agree with the Met Council often but in this case, they' re
right in not planning for sewer in this area . In the first place,
it ' s below the level of most sewer lines in the southwest area.
Everything would have to be pumped up. I just think adding a holding
tank in an operation where trucks are washed , you' re adding an
operation where there 's a lot of water use. I 'm interpretting this
from the business and I may be wrong on that . Lastly, I guess just to
compliment my first comment , Eden Prairie doesn' t allow contractor ' s
yards and I do believe we do have a place in the City for contractor 's
yards don ' t we?
Dacy: We have a number of contractor ' s yards located in the A-2
District . '
Erhart : I understand that .
Dacy: I 'm sorry, what ' s your question? '
Erhart : We do have places in the zoning ordinance that do allow new
contractor ' s yards besides the A-2 District.
Dacy: Yes , in the Industrial Park.
Erhart: We do have a place for the. Eden Prairie doesn ' t allow
contractor ' s yards in their rural areas .
Dacy: Most of the communities in the metroplitan area don ' t allow
contractor ' s yards in the rural area except as a small , I guess I
would call them a ma and pa operation.
Erhart : A family business . So I think I have a whole lot more to say '
when we get to the corridor study but I think those are my comments
about contractor ' s yards as they relate to this particular proposal .
I ' m against it.
Conrad: You ' re against this because you' re against contractor ' s yards
period so regardless of what they could have proposed, you ' re just
anti-contractor ' s yards?
Erhart : Let me state that . I would vote against any contractor ' s
yard that comes before me. This one in particular with the TH 101
thing and that bridge.
Conrad: Because of traffic and because of access . That 's where I was
going too . It is a problem with a vehicle that ' s a little bit larger
going under the bridge. Now I 'm sure the applicant has said most
traffic will be routed south and out of there, but I guess I would not
see the north route would be acceptable anytime. People going up the
hill . We don ' t restrict, what are the restrictions on the truck
traffic in that area? Are there any?
Headla: If they can get through the bridge, it ' s okay.
Planning Commission Meeting
January 20 , 1988 - Page 27
Dacy: TH 101 is used a lot right now. Maybe to give you an
alternative to look at, another access alternative would have to be
' that from the east there is a separate property between the
applicant ' s property and the cold storage and warehouse site which is
right here. There was a suggestion made, could they tie into the
driveway. That was approved for the cold storage and warehouse site.
They would have to obtain an easement from this private property
owner . Whether or not they would get it, would be up to that property
owner . So it comes down to the City weighing several trade-offs . You
' can either limit the intensity of the use onto TH 101 to 10 vehicles,
12 vehicles , whatever or you can look at trying to have the applicant
buy the access rights back from MnDot. You would look at a more
' significant wetland alteration permit to bring the road through the
wetland area or the other trade off is locating use more in the open
are of the site. It' s one of those cases where one location affects
' the other and then a new issue arises . Aesthetics , screening , access,
wetlands so that would be the alternative to what is proposed in this
application .
' Conrad: When we directed truck traffic to Merle Volk ' s , we asked that
traffic be routed certain ways but there ' s really no way you can
control that .
Emmings: Even if your access is TH 169 , they can still go up TH 101.
That ' s not going to change the number of trips north on TH 101 .
Conrad: Barbara , your opinion on access , assuming that most routes ,
most of the time would go back to TH 169 . What ' s your opinion on
access coming out onto TH 101? Is that a danger? I think almost
anything on that hill seems dangerous to me . I drove it about three
times today in the snow and it was not easy.
' Dacy: First of all , that driveway that is there now, that ' s obviously
done for access to the farm and the old homestead there. Their access
into TH 101 is going to have to meet MnDot standards and as noted in
the engineer ' s report , they have to have a 1/2% grade for 50 feet and
' so on so that driveway location is going to be improved. Going north
on TH 101 so traffic coming out of the site is going to be able to see
traffic coming from the south better versus the other way around . I
' think coming south on that , you ' re really blinded going underneath
that railroad bridge so again , there ' s no question that this is not
the best solution . However, there are no other viable alternatives
' for this property to have access to this site. As long as the
intensity of the use is limited to what is proposed , I think it ' s
feasible.
Conrad: Could you interpret what Dr. Rockwell scribbled on that piece
of paper?
Dacy: Seasonally flooded emergent and scrub shurb wetland . Good
habitat for small rodents and various species of migratory and
indigenous perching birds . Refuge for pheasants and cottontails in
winter.
Conrad: Get down to the recommendation . Keep what?
I
Planning Commission Meeting
January 20, 1988 - Page 28
Dacy: When she went out to the site, this is when there was
a
proposal for the driveway across the wetland area . Keep width of
proposed driveway to minimum. Select area with fewest shrubs .
Protect remaining wetland from impacts during construction with silt
screens . No sidecasting .
Conrad : No sidecasting?
Dacy: Taking the material that is dredged out.
Conrad : Tim, it doesn ' t appease you that we' re in the fringe business
district at all? It is a zone down there that is kind of commercial
in nature yet it can ' t be used commercially because of sewer so it ' s
got the highway access without sewer so you kind of look for
applications that don ' t need high volume off of that . This looks to
me like a low volume use in a district you ' re in . ,
Erhart: What I 'm essentially saying is that it ' s an agricultural area
and that business fringe area should never have been put in the zoning
ordinance and that we shouldn ' t be allowing new commercial businesses
in that whole area because there ' s no sewer available. Barb always
tell me when I ask, there won ' t be sewer for 30 years . This is the
one area where I actually believe her on. It could be 50 years . I
think this is the area that should be, it got started , those
businesses down there died because it ' s not a good business area . The
restaurant 's not open . It hasn ' t been for a couple of years . There 's
been a used car lot and that ' s closed .
Conrad: So you 'd like to see it restored to agricultural or
residential? I
Erhart: I think we ought to just let it fade away.
Art Partridge: My question with the Merle Volk issue, R & W
Sanitation which is a much bigger operation , you allow that into what
is essentially an agricultural area . . .A truck can use a public highway
unless there's a weight restriction .
Conrad : As you can tell , we ' re still struggling with contractor ' s
yards and use of agricultural areas but your comments are well taken.
I believe this is a pretty good use of the area down there. It ' s a
strange area . It 's just a real strange area and I think I was
fighting to get rid of it altogether once upon a time and I don ' t know
if I lost the cause but whatever but I think here ' s a case where staff
has worked with the applicant to kind of hide the use. It looks like
the applicant has designed something that 's kind of nice here and I
don ' t think that set a precedent for any other contractor ' s yards. I
think my only concern is the traffic that we generate like I am with
any contractor ' s yard . If I think we' re putting in 100 trucks or 50
trucks , I think that is definitely not the point of the contractor ' s
yard or what we want to allow but I think as long as we minimize what
the applicant does there in terms of traffic generation , I think it 's
not a bad use of the land . ,
Headla : Remember, if he has 10 trucks there, that means you' ve got 22
vehicles entering and leaving everyday.
Planning Commission Meeting
January 20 , 1988 - Page 29
1
' Nancy Lee: I want to correct that . We run one person per truck. . .
Headla : How do the drivers get to your place?
Nancy Lee: They come in their vehicle.
Headla: So if you' ve got 10 trucks , you' ve got 10 cars , so you' ve got
' 20 vehicles plus two people in the building , you 've got 22 vehicles .
I think that ' s an awful lot for that particular intersection . If
there' s someplace with a better line of sight , I think it would be
' more appropriate but that ' s a lot on that particular spot on TH 101.
Conrad: I think we've sure talked about this . We ' ll open it up for a
motion . If there is one, if somebody makes a favorable motion , I
think there were some comments to be discussed in terms of pumping the
holding tank on a regular basis . The staff ' s 26th point and maybe if
somebody does make a favorable motion , we should be talking about
' subdivision and reserving land for future access but I 'm not telling
you to make that motion . I 'm jus saying if you do go along with the
staff' s posture, we should incorporate some of these other comments.
Emmings moved , Batzli seconded that the Planning Commission recommend
approval of the Conditional Use Permit Request #87-18 to operate a
contractor ' s yard located north of and adjacent to TH 212 and east of
and adjacent to TH 101 based on the site plan stamped "Received
December 29 , 1987" and subject to the following conditions:
' 1 . Hours of operation shall be from 7 : 00 a .m. to 6 : 00 p.m. , Monday
through Saturday only (work on Sundays and holidays not
permitted) .
' 2 . There shall be no outside speaker systems .
3 . Any light sources shall be shielded from adjacent public road
right-of-ways .
4 . A holding tank shall be installed to receive the waste water from
the garage area . The holding tank shall be pumped as necessary and
the applicant shall be required to keep a current copy of their
pumper contract on file with the City.
' 5 . The building must be sprinklered .
6 . The building must have a heat and smoke detector system with a
central dispatch
7. Lighted exit signs must be installed at all exits .
' 8 . A plan for storage of flammable and/or combustible material must be
submitted to the Public Safety Office for approval.
9 . Emergency lighting must be installed.
Planning Commission Meeting 1
January 20, 1988 - Page 30
10. The driveway and parking lot shall have surmountable concrete curb
and gutter.
11 . The applicant shall submit a landscaping plan indicating
installation of 20 six foot evergreen trees between the vehicular
use areas and the public right-of-ways .
12 . All septic systems sites shall be staked and roped off prior to '
the commencement of any construction . Any traffic over these sites
will require reevaluation of the sites.
13 . The applicant shall obtain an access permit from the Minnesota
Department of Transportation and shall comply with all conditions of
the permit.
14 . The approach onto TH 101 shall be a maximum of 0.5% 5 rade for a
minimum distance of 50 feet.
15 . Catch basins shall be provided at the low point of the driveway
along with proper spillways in the parking lot . A revised plan
shall be submitted for approval by the City Engineer . '
16 . Calculations verifying the preservation of the predeveloped runoff
rate for the site and ponding calculations for a 100 year frequency
storm event shall be provided to the City Engineer for approval .
17 . Check dams (Type II Erosion Control) shall be placed at 100 foot
intervals along all drainage swales. 1
18. Existing structures shall be disposed of properly. If debris is to
be burned , the applicant shall obtain a burning permit from the
Department of Public Safety and the Pollution Control Agency.
On-site burial of debris is prohibited .
19 . Additional erosion control shall be placed along the north side of
the site. A revised plan shall be submitted for approval by the
City Engineer.
20. All erosion control measures shall be in place prior to the
initiation of any grading and once in place shall remain in place
throughout the duration of construction . The developer is required
to make periodic reviews of the erosion control and make any
necessary repairs promptly. All of the erosion control measures
shall remain intact until an established vegetative cover has been
produced at which time removal shall be the responsibility of the
developer.
2.1. Wood fiber blankets or equivalent shall be utilized to stabilize
all disturbed slopes greater than 3 : 1.
22 . Seeding shall be disc-anchored and shall commence no later than two
weeks after slopes have been established.
' Planning Commission Meeting
January 20, 1988 - Page 31
I
23 . All detention ponds and drainage swales shall be constructed and
operational which includes all pertinent storm sewer systems to have
the ponds functional prior to any other construction on the project .
Ir . The applicant shall apply for and obtain permits from the watershed
district, DNR and other appropriate regulatory agencies and comply with
their conditions of approval .
1/5 . Any expansion of the building or parking areas or expansion beyond 12
vehicles used in the business shall require a conditional use permit
review.
I6 . The site plan shall be revised to shift the building 20 feet to the
east.
117 . Should the subject site be subdivided , the City would look to
requiring the necessary right-of-way for a frontage road to make
connections to the east .
All voted in favor except Erhart and Headla who opposed and motion
' carried.
' The following is the discussion that occurred after the motion was
made and seconded .
Emmings: Wouldn ' t you want to do that whether it ' s subdivided or not?
Or wouldn ' t it matter if it wasn ' t subdivided?
Dacy: The only other alternative would be that the City would
initiate condemnation proceedings . The subdivision is the best tool
that we have to get the right-of-way.
' Emmings : Alright, let ' s put it in that way then . In the event of
subdivision , you put the language in your way.
Dacy: In the event of subdivision , the City would be requiring the
necessary right-of-way for a frontage road for access to the east .
Conrad: In this case we haven ' t asked the applicant to direct the
traffic and take it around . In the Merle Volk , how have we asked him
to route traffic? What kind of agreement , what kind of a statement?
1
r
Planning Commission Meeting
January 20, 1988 - Page 32
Dacy: I believe it was a condition of approval that the access use CR
18 .
Olsen: And they already said that 's what they were going to be using '
anyway.
Conrad: Steve, what do you think about winding that type of, they are ,
going to have access off of TH 101 which is kind of dangerous in the
first place. Do you care which way the go once they get on there?
Emmings : No . I guess the thing is Ladd , well , where do you go?
Where will you be going?
Nancy Lee: Probably the only times we would be using TH 101 north '
would be when we go do Chanhassen routes which is on that road anyway.
Emmings: It seems , it is a public road and no matter where their
access is , they can always go on TH 101. If their access is on TH
169 , they can still go north on TH 101. We can ' t tell them where
they can or can not go . It also seems a little bit hypocritical
somehow. We expect people to pick up our garbage at our houses yet we
want to deny them use of our roads to do it . I don ' t know, if there
was an alternative for them to get north on, to get to the same areas
of the city but there really isn ' t is there. '
Ellson: He means more or less coming out than the dangerous way of
entering . Isn ' t that true? '
Conrad: Yes , I 'm concerned about that but I 'm also concerned about
getting underneath the bridge and that is definitely a dangerous
situation . It' s without a doubt , you can ' t put a truck and a car
through there at the same time.
Emmings: But then it seems to me that there should be a restriction
on the road that would prevent them from doing that . I don ' t think we
can tell them they can ' t use the road. '
Conrad: Well , how do we have the right to tell Merle Volk he can only
use CR 18?
Emmings: Because I think number one, that 's what he told us he wanted
to do anyway. Also , was it Merle Volk, or somebody who went into that
corner out by CR 41 , we did that as a condition of approval . You '
can ' t go north up to TH 5 , you have to go out to TH 41 and then up to
the intersection . But see that didn ' t really put them out in any way.
It was an alternative that we preferred and they really agreed to go
along with it and then we made it a condition of our approval . But I
think if push comes to shove, I have a hard time telling someone they
can 't use roads that they are otherwise allowed to use.
Conrad : Picking apart staff 's point 25 where they talk about 12
vehicles . Do you care about vehicles Steve as much as you care about
vehicle trips? Should we put in a cap on the number of vehicle trips? '
1
Planning Commission Meeting
January 20, 1988 - Page 33
I
We ' re trying to keep this low intensity. 12 vehicles and the
applicant in good faith, I believe them, they' re not going to be
theoretically shoving in and out all day long with one vehicle. The
vehicles go out and they' re going to come back but does the 12
vehicles put a cap on traffic or do we want to talk vehicle trips?
Headla : How are you ever going to monitor vehicle trips? Now that
you mention that , do these people come back here for lunch? Is that
why you have the lunchroom?
Nancy Lee: No, they won ' t come back for lunch.
Conrad : That ' s just architectural stuff that goes on there. You' ve
got to fill up boxes . No interest?
Emmings: No , I think the number of vehicles is more important than
the vehicle trips I guess , given the nature of the business .
Patrick Blood : There ' s one more comment I 'd like to make towards his
interest in the conference room, lunchroom. We also planned this
building for any future reason that we might have to resell this
' building , we just didn ' t want to come up with an empty block building
to resell . This building is planned into the future . For any reason
we should sell this building , it will have the facilities for other
' future use and that ' s one of the reasons these are put into the
building too .
Headla : That 's a good explanation. Thank you.
' Batzli : To get back to your point on the 12 vehicles , I don ' t
understand the phrase, or expansion beyond 12 vehicles . Is that
I vehicles that will be parked there overnight or is that parking spots?
What is that?
I Dacy: The intent of that was for the 12 vehicles referred to , the 12
garbage trucks or any truck equipment, truck vehicles that they use
for the conduct of their business . That was not intended for personal
cars . So if they called the City Hall and said , we ' re getting to the
I point that we need 15 garbage trucks, we would say, that ' s over the
threshhold of 12 , you have to reapply for a conditional use permit.
Batzli : But you ' re talking about the vehicles that will be parked
there overnight . You ' re not talking about their cars?
Dacy: That 's correct . Feel free to address the condition if you feel
1 you would like more clarification .
Batzli : I guess I 'd like to propose a friendly amendment to the
I motion that we ' re discussing that we somehow clarify that and I 'm not
quite sure how we do that other than indicate that we' re talking about
vehicles used in the business .
IEmmings : I ' ll certainly accept that . I think it should say that.
Ellson : You talked once about maybe they could go through the other
place if they got permission and it never was looked into? Sharing a
Planning Commission Meeting
January 20, 1988 - Page 34
driveway with the cold storage or whatever? I just hate that TH 101
too.
Dacy: No , because it was found that there 's a second property owner
between that cold storage warehouse and the subject property. No, '
that property owner has not been contacted to see if they would grant
an easement.
Conrad: Tim, can you summarize your vote?
y y ur negative vote.
Erhart: I don ' t think I need to add to my speech but I would like to
see, because I do agree we ' re essentially forced to pretty much let
this thing go through, I do believe the score here is on the Planning
Commisison to have us look at this contractor' s yard as it relates to
our zoning ordinance. I 'd like to see us do that at a near future
meeting. Whatever it takes to do that .
Headla: I ' ve got two reasons . One is the number of vehicles entering ,
and exiting at that particular point on TH 101. I think it 's very
poor planning and I have an environmental concern . The environmental
concern I think could be resolved , particularly if they could come out ,
to TH 212 rather than TH 101 . I think they did an excellent job in
planning their application.
WETLAND ALTERATION PERMIT.
Headla : As I understand it , they aren ' t actually affecting the '
wetland itself, right?
Dacy: Right, there 's no direct alteration . '
Headla moved , Ellson seconded that the Planning Commission recommend
approval of Wetland Alteration Permit #87-14 to locate a contractor ' s
yard within the watershed of a Class A wetland be approved subject to
the site plan stamped "Received December 29 , 1987" and subject to the
following conditions:
1. Compliance with the standards of Article V, Section 24 (a) (4) .
2 . Compliance with the conditions of approval of Conditional Use
Permit Request #87-18 .
All voted in favor except Erhart who opposed and motion carried .
Conrad : Tim, your reasons.
Erhart: The same reasons as before. '
ZONING ORDINANCE AMENDMENT TO AMEND ARTICLE V, SECTION 3 , TO PERMIT
VIDEO GOLF AND INDOOR GOLF COURSE AS CONDITIONAL USES IN THE A-2 ,
AGRICULTURAL ESTATE DISTRICT, JOHN PRYZMUS .
Public Present:
Planning Commission Meeting
January 20, 1988 - Page 35
II
IIJohn Pryzmus Applicant
Art Partridge 6280 Hummingbird
John Pryzmus: I 'd like to show you as far as the site goes . The
building that 's proposed for the site, the grading has already been
done on the site and the lines come from 974 , which was the high spot
and it 's been taken down to 968 . So you have taken it down about 6
1 feet 4 inches . This site right here is for the proposed mound system
for the septic and that will be raised about 3 to 4 feet . So the
whole building will be totally screened from CR 117 by about 9 feet.
IThis building, the walls are 12 feet high and it goes at a pitch up to
18 feet so it ' s a very low profile building . The City Council and
staff, we' ve already got the berming and all the trees and the
landscaping plans have already been approved for the whole site which
Iincluded the trees that will go around this building. What it does
for the project is , it won ' t intensify the use of the land because
obviously when you ' re involved with basically the miniature golf and
1 the driving range, is an outdoor use so when it ' s nice weather you' ll
be out here. The indoor use would be when it 's inclemant and it gives
me the extra month in the spring and an extra month in the fall so to
Imake the project financially feasible, the indoor facility is a must
as far as my financial package goes . I feel that staff and the
Planning Commission and the City Council have been very involved in
getting some recreational facilities in the city of Chanhassen . I
IIthink right now they are proposing that the taxpayers spend 2 .4
million for a recreational site in Chanhassen . What I need is
approval from the Planning Commission and City Council to make this
Ifinancially feasible for me so I need the building to make it a Class
A project . I think Mr. Partridge ' s here and will say that it ' s been
run like a ma and pa operation and it ' s been an eyesore for a long
Itime so with the money that ' s been approved by the SBA, it will be a
first class operation for everyone in the City of Chanhassen can enjoy
it . The building is a must .
IArt Partridge: . . . in recognition of the Planning Commission when the
initial proposal for this as a golf driving range . It was a unanimous
denial . It wasn ' t a question . The City Council . . . The property in
' my mind has been treated . . . There has been rubbish dumped on the
property. It' s been burned off without a permit. . . I feel what Barb
is recommending , this is a commercial use. You can talk about
recreation all you want but it is not a recommendation . . . It 's a
Icommercial use of the land and any other use on this property. . .
IErhart moved , Batzli seconded to close the public hearing . All voted
in favor and motion carried .
IConrad : Tim, you ' re our resident expert on the rural areas , we' ll
start with you.
Erhart : My first question , should that be a rural area? What exactly
Ihas been approved so far?
Dacy: The golf driving range and the miniature golf course.
Erhart: And the building?
Planning Commission Meeting
January 20, 1988 - Page 36
11
Dacy: No . The large building has not been approved . What there ' s on
the site is a small clubhouse to afford the servicing of the people
coming in for the driving range.
Erhart: Are you intending to put a miniature golf course there?
John Pryzmus : Yes. ,
Erhart : How much area does that take? The miniature golf.
John Pryzmus : The miniature golf, I 'm not exactly sure but I would
say I used about 2 1/2 acres for the miniature golf.
Erhart: Do we allow in other areas, other districts, other zoning '
districts , do we allow miniature golf?
Dacy: Yes, miniature golf courses are allowed in the Business Highway '
district and the Central Business District.
Erhart: But we have a zoning ordinance changed, it does now allow in
the R-1A District driving ranges with a miniature golf as an accessory
use. Okay, then the other question being posed to us later on is the
golf courses in general in the A-2 district. That clarifies that .
Emmings : This plan that we have in front of us here doesn ' t show the
clubhouse. Did that require any separate approval or is it on there?
Dacy: Yes , I think it is on there. It ' s right here. This represents
the plan that the Council approved this summer for the driving range
and miniature golf course area along this area . This was originally
proposed as an indoor batting building.
Emmings : One thing that upset us last time this came up was the
infringement on the wetland and we turned down a wetland alteration
permit on this property as I recall . Now Mr . Partridge has said that
people are saying there ' s something going on out there now with
respect to the wetland . Do we know? 1
Art Partridge: It's all hearsay.
Emmings : But do we know about that?
Dacy: I think I can clarify that . The Council upheld that denial of
the wetland alteration permit. What the Council did approve was
grading , he needed to as he said before, cut down the hill here and
respread the area for the driving range pads in here and we required
him to move the parking area back so there would be 100 foot setback
from the center line of CR 117 . So he needed to change the grade in
here. The grading, and we' ve got a grading plan on file, shows that
the only grading activity was in here and it should be outside of that
wetland area . Now, I haven ' t been out to the site since December and
that ' s when the activity was but we have not, or at least I have not
been out to the site to see how far the grading has gone. He was only
authorized to do the grading outside the wetland . The Council did not
approve the wetland alteration permit .
Planning Commission Meeting
11 January 20, 1988 - Page 37
IIEmmings: Has your office gotten any complaints about it?
IDacy: I have not received any. We now have a code enforcement
officer. Scott would have told me I think if there was something
happening there.
IIEmmings : I 'm opposed to this . I 'm in agreement with the staff report
on this . I think the only way I could see this , I was also opposed to
the miniature golf except as an accessory use. It seemed to make some
Isense in the overall plan because as I recall , what he was telling us
is that when people came out to use the driving range, kids could do
the miniature golf and stuff like that and all that, it kind of fits
Itogether and makes some sense to me. It may be that same rationale
could be used for indoor golf driving range but I don ' t know what kind
of a building that requires . This is kind of a great long building
Iand I remember when I was at the University, they used to do it in
very small rooms . You could do it in essentially a kind of small room
setup and that 's to catch the balls that you do and this building is
the same building as the batting building and I don ' t really know if
Iit 's even been designed for the use that ' s being proposed . I think it
could be a much smaller building but as proposed , I 'm opposed to this
plan .
Ellson : I don ' t have any additional comments .
IBatzli : To be honest, I feel a little bit lost. It appears there ' s
quite a bit of history behind this matter that just reading some of
these documents didn ' t quite capture the essence of it . I guess it
seems that , the question I raised in my own mind , if this appears to
Ibe the building that was proposed for the batting practice that was
denied , what has changed in the meantime to now permit this? I guess
I haven ' t been convinced of that yet.
IJohn Pryzmus : I guess I don ' t know that I ' m proposing it to be
anything but an indoor recreational facility basically geared towards
golf. As far as some of the comments Mr. Partridge made, when I did
burn on that site it was at the recommendation of the City and I did
have a permit for that so some of the things that you read in those
comments are not necessarily what has really happened out there. The
Ibottom line is , now what it 's going to do for the City. What it can
do for the citizens that don ' t have a recreational facility of that
type. I guess you said that there isn ' t a recreational facility and
Ithere should be one and the City of Chanhassen and the citizens feel
that 's a necessary improvement , we do pay for the ice time. We do pay
for the racquetball courts when you do use them.
IBatzli : You mentioned earlier that you' re going to gain two months by
putting up this indoor golf driving range . Are you saying this will
not be open year round? This is seasonal?
IJohn Pryzmus : It will he closed , I 'm proposing to have it closed for
the months of December , January and February. What it does it gives
Ime the opportunity, from a financial standpoint, when it ' s raining you
can have people still involved in doing something out there. That ' s
why I say it doesn ' t involve more traffic in the area . One other
II
Planning Commission Meeting
January 20, 1988 - Page 38 1
comment that people on the city staff had said earlier, when City
Council made the motions to approve this project, they made a
stipulation that it had to be on a major highway, state highway
trunkline, a major collector , which limits the city of Chanhassen to
one set would be TH 41 and TH 5 and obviously somebody isn' t going to
put one next to me. The other one would be down on TH 212 and TH 101
so basically when someone says that this project could be built
anywhere in the agricultural area, the ordinance specifically limits
it to major collector and major highway.
Art Partridge: At that time the City rewrote the ordinances to allow
this in the first place, they put that stipulation in. As far as I
was concerned , that was a condition based on . . .
Headla : You made your proposal , I don ' t remember the building . The
final proposal . I thought it was just the driving range and the
miniature golf course. Is that true? ,
John Pryzmus : No . In 1987 , since I bought the building , the steel
was all out there on the site. I did, at the recommendation of the
City Council and staff, I removed the geodesic dome. I built a new
building. I ' ve done everything . I ' ve done all the berming was done
to the south of the parking lot . Berming still has to be done to the
north of the parking lot . Basically, the City Council did deny the
wetland alteration but they did make me put in a pond for any future
runoff or whatever . The grading plans were revised by the City.
Headla: But was your indoor driving range proposed in your final
plan?
John Pryzmus: Yes it was .
Headla : I remember it was being talked about at one time but then I
thought it was dropped . I have a hard time with this inside driving
range. We 've had a hard time, we've really worked to keep retailing
out of the TH 5 where it isn ' t served by sewer . We have an indoor
driving range and people dropping in like that , I think that ' s
bordering on retail so I can ' t support this building .
Conrad: I agree that this is a commercial use or that it ' s in
conflict with the intent of the agricultural area . It ' s not in sync
with the district ' s intent . I think that was how I postured it before
with the indoor batting . Maybe even the miniature golf. I think a
golf range is pretty in sync with the agricultural area . Not
necessarily the big buildings . It ' s green grass looks agricultural to
me. A building is not and I think it ' s real clear. I agree with the
staff' s comments and their summary and don ' t feel that it 's
appropriate to have buildings like this in the agricultural area .
Headla moved , Ellson seconded that the Planning Commission recommend
denial of Zoning Ordinance Amendment Request #82-4 for indoor video
golf and indoor golf driving range as conditional uses in the A-2
district because the proposal is inconsistent with the intent of the
A-2 District and is imcompatible with the permitted and conditional
uses of the district . All voted in favor and motion carried.
IIPlanning Commission Meeting
January 20, 1988 - Page 39
II
ZONING ORDINANCE AMENDMENT TO AMEND ARTICLE V, SECTION 3 , TO PERMIT
IGOLF COURSES AS A CONDITIONAL USE IN THE A-2 , AGRICULTURAL ESTATE
DISTRICT , CITY OF CHANHASSEN.
II Public Present:
Art Partridge 6280 Hummingbird
II
Art Partridge: Is this in anticipation of. . .
IDacy: No , that 's not the case. Obviously we have one in the City but
because of a large land area requirements , I think the consensus of
opinion was that we didn ' t want to exclude that type of use any
Ifurther if, right now the Bluff Creek Golf Course is non-conforming.
If they did want to alter their course or add additional holes , they
would have to come in for a variance. However , that 's not to say that
Ithere are disadvantages for the site planning of Bluff Creek Golf
Creek especially to access . . . You' ve seen the Commission and the
Council stated that a golf course should be included somewhere in the
Icity.
Conrad: It was pretty much our direction that we think we should
allow them. It ' s a case Art where if we ' re going to allow them, maybe
Iwe should have standards before they come in there and ask us for the
permit.
IErhart moved , Ellson seconded to close public hearing. All voted in
favor and motion carried.
IIHeadla: A golf course, I don ' t have a hard time with that but when
you mentioned golf courses those people use it and pretty soon you
have like an office building and I 'm kind of thinking of like
Island View out at Waconia . You have a blacktop driveway and you' ve
Igot a building and you ' re going to serve pop or food or something and
pretty soon you' ve got several restrooms and now we' re taking a lot of
water and we' ve got to have a major sewer system. It's that sewer
Isystem, I have a hard time . If it ' s where we could hook it up to
public sewer and water, I 'd feel a lot different but that 's the only
problem I had with it.
IBatzli : I have the same problem. I don ' t necessarily agree with the
staff' s summary that a golf course doesn ' t have a lot of noise. In
fact , I think at many courses who rent their facilities out for
Ireceptions and such, the kind of noise you get is late at night and
it ' s probably more offensive than a different type of use.
IDacy: The size of the clubhouse is a good point . One that was not
addressed but maybe one that we could research further because, how
big of a clubhouse do you have before it ' s getting into almost a
conference center and being rented out for meetings and gets beyond
Ijust a golf course.
Conrad: I guess maybe you should go through the rest , but I agree. I
II
Planning Commission Meeting
January 20, 1988 - Page 40
think this issue should be tabled because I don ' t think we thought
that out . That gets back into a very commercial intent and I think we
should look a little bit more at the size of clubhouse. Would we
permit a big clubhouse if they came in? I think there are a lot of
other things that we should take a look at simply besides access .
Emmings: We have to define golf course too I think. Are we talking 1
about a 3 hole course, a 9 hole course, a standard size? I don ' t
know. There must be standards for golf courses but I think we' re
going to need a definition of what we' re allowing as a permitted use
in terms of the course itself also.
Erhart: I had that down in my notes too . I think we want to make
sure, if we' re going to entertain a new golf course in this city that
it 's a real golf course. Also, one other comment , I bet half the golf
courses in the Twin Cities operate on septic systems so I don ' t know
if that ' s a real problem but if it 's worthwhile, Barb I 'm sure would
love to find out . I thought this was a rather interesting thing.
When you go through Barb ' s logic, or if it was Jo Ann that went
through this , in trying to develop a philosophy of what we allow in
the agricultural area , getting back to contractor' s yards as you
probably anticipated, is that the philosophy tends to run is that the
A-2 and RR area seems to be well suited for , obviously agricultural
use and transitioning to residential . There seems to be another use
that runs through here and that is , it seems to be acceptable and
logical to allow recreational uses, those types of uses that require
large pieces of land . Those have all seemed to be non-conflicting .
We don ' t seem to get into terrible arguments about that. Just to give
you some examples on what I mean by recreational use that requires
large pieces of land would be the horse stables , golfing and in some
areas probably, not that we have enough room but it would be typical
to be like hunting clubs . We probably don ' t have enough area to do
that here. If we did have enough area , it probably would be
considered in Chanhassen . That seems to be acceptable and I think it
leads us once again here, it helps us in philosophising and accepting
some philosophy and guidelines . It helps us look at these and say,
yes , I think a golf course does make sense. I think we all agreed the
last time we talked about this . If someone came in with a nice
proposal we certainly wouldn ' t want to slow them down or give them any
kind of feeling that they weren ' t wanted . Yet at the same time, this
contractor ' s yard is , every time you mention contractor ' s yard , you
essentially say it ' s inconsistent in your report . So , that ' s all I
have to say about that one.
Emmings : If we table this item, the other thing we ought to think
about is having it as a conditional use . If we can ' t really come up
with a solid definition of a golf course or a solid definition of
what size clubhouse is appropriate, we may want to make it a
conditional use rather than a permitted use.
Dacy: That ' s what I had proposed . 1
Emmings: I 'm sorry, I thought you were proposing it as a permitted
use.
Dacy: But it doesn' t hurt to add a further definition .
11
Planning Commission Meeting
January 20, 1988 - Page 41
1/ Conrad : What signals are we sending you right now?g y g w. In fact, I don ' t
know what signals we all are sending on golf courses . If Hazeltine
' wanted to build in Chanhassen in the A-2 district , would we allow
them? We 'd say no.
Dacy: Right now, they couldn ' t .
Conrad: So if Staff could go back and draft some kind of guidelines
for us for an ordinance amendment . What do we want them to show us?
Are we looking for prohibiting a major golf course?
Erhart: That ' s not what I had . I had limiting a tiny golf course,
substandard golf course. That 's what I had in mind.
Conrad : That ' s more in line with agricultural though. A less
' intensive use.
Erhart: No , what I 'm saying is , the rural area is a good use for
' recreational use that ' s involved with use of the land . If it ' s an 18
hole golf course, it ' s consistent with proper use of the land without
requiring a big septic problem. It ' s an okay golf course. What we
don ' t want to do is allow in a substandard golf course. And if he
' does , then they' ve got to sell us that . That ' s what I was thinking in
terms of trying to define what should come in. And maybe also define
it, they can ' t have a great big conference center either as long as
it ' s a septic area . There ' s obviously limitations .
Conrad : Chanhassen is discouraging recreation activities . We really
are. Water slides come in here and we don ' t want water slides .
' I don ' t know what the recreation activities are but I always worry
that somebody has a good idea that requires land, the only place they
can do it is in the agricultural area but we really don ' t have
locations for major activities like that .
Erhart: I think we encourage horse stables . It ' s a permitted use in
both the A-2 and A-2 and RR district .
Dacy: I guess it depends on the recreation . The community center,
that 's aimed at specific types of recreation and the overall trail
plan is aimed at walking , cross country skiing and so on . I don 't
know that we' re saying no but I think maybe we' re more concerned about
a large amusement type of recreation . Water slides , to me that means
' ValleyFairs and amusement parks and so on .
Erhart : I differeniate in my mind the difference between some kind of
' a created amusement type recreation, which I think a mini-course is .
I would be against the mini-course because I think ' s a created thing
and it only requires a small area . You don ' t need the A-2 district to
put in a mini-course.
Batzli : By mini-course, are you talking a par 3 course?
Erhart : No , I 'm talking about a mini-putt . Sort of the natural ,
outdoors , large land use recreational uses . I think this community is
a perfect place to put those kinds of things. Golfing , horse riding,
I
•
Planning Commission Meeting
January 20, 1988 - Page 42
cross country skiing, walking and stuff like that . Maybe define
what ' s a gimick and what ' s real.
Conrad: Art , what do you want around your house? 1
Art Partridge: No contractor 's yards . I live next door to one no
matter what the City says . All I was going to suggest was that, just
as a citizen , . . .
Emmings moved , Ellson seconded to table the Zoning Ordinance Amendment
Request #88-2 . All voted in favor and motion carried.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES; 1
Emmings moved , Conrad seconded to approve the Minutes of the Planning
Commission meeting dated January 6 , 1988 as amended by Ladd Conrad on
pages 9 , 11 and 13 and Dave Headla on pages 9 and 46. All voted in
favor and motion carried .
COMPREHENSIVE PLAN, TRANSPORTATION CHAPTER, MARK KOEGLER.
Mark Koegler : Let me give jus some brief introductory things then 1
we' re going to turn it back to you. The transportation section is
really the last remaining significant section of the plan that we are
embarking into amending. As a part of that, we got into a discussion
you' ll recall a while back, on these corridor studies . The validity
of doing them. The waste of time in doing them. There were a number
of those kinds of comments that were kicked around . The issue went to
City Council . It came back with the Council was interested in having
some corridor studies within the Comprehensive Plan . It might go a
little bit more specific than the plan itself and the plan itself
getting into land use or the transportation section . They did make
the determination that they wanted that and as a result of that ,
specifically they asked that TH 5 , TH 101 , TH 212 and existing TH 169
and TH 212 be looked at . We talked about that in general terms with
this group last time. Last time being probably about a month or so
ago. What we had done since that time is put together a text that
reflects some of that discussion and there are some just real quick
land use sketch maps in there that again , correspond to some of the
larger graphic things that you talked about last time. The corridor
studies that you have drafts of now are intended really for two
purposes . They will be incorporated as a part of the Comprehensive
Plan and ultimately the graphics we pulled together and the whole
thing is completed . It ' s possible, however , for this to exist as kind
of a free standing document . If somebody comes in and says I want to
put a contractor ' s yard down along TH 212 , what do you think is going
to happen to that area? At least that 's a few pieces of paper that
you can give them. It ' s kind of interesting to see tonight that
already those are very much becoming day to day planning tools . I
think you have a couple of cases and the miniature golf case is
another one, that you could bring in the argument , what you envision
1
' Planning Commission Meeting
January 20, 1988 - Page 43
as being the long term land use for those areas and how this either
fits in the land use or not . Depending on the philosophy of whether
' it ' s appropriate. At any rate, the first portion of the material that
you received deals with corridor studies for the four different routes
that I referenced before. I don ' t know how you want to handle that .
' Whether you want to go through those or perhaps it ' s more prudent just
to take them one at a time and let you come back with questions or
comments that you might have. I think philosophically, hopefully they
are in line with what we' ve talked about before. In that the bottom
I line is the Planning Commission ' s feeling , if we caught the essence of
it, is that without sewer essentially there is little or no
development . We had tried to emphasize that in the text by
' referencing each and every one of those where there is, under this
city's philosophy within the Comprehensive Plan in general , a
correlation between provision of full urban services being
transportation network and sewers primarily, for different type of
development . Without either one of those other components , the urban
plan was premature . So we tried to reiterate that in these comments.
I think you saw that probably in the TH 5 for example. The western
' portion , throughout that kind of text employing the eastern portion
which is sewered is much more defined . Certainly defined in part by
the existing land use patterns that are there. With that, Mr.
' Chairman , I don ' t know if you just want to go through these one at a
time. If you want to open it up for general comments . At your
discetion .
Conrad: I will open it up for general comments . Does anyone want to
get into any specific corridor or any particular issue that Mark ' s
laid out?
Erhart: North TH 101. We show some straightning on the plans for the
mid part of TH 101 . I see up on the Hennepin County side they' ve
' taken that curve right up, as you get that curve to the right and the
left as you go north and the Hennepin side of that curve, the east
curve there, they' re making that a little more gradual there with that
' development.
Mark Koegler: Are you on Town Line Road?
Erhart: Yes . I suggest we also show, is there still an opportunity
to do that on this curve or the houses are already right up to the
corner? I can' t remember . When you curve to the left , they ' re
smoothing out that curve now by pulling those lot lines back so that
later on they can come in and cut that curve a little bit . The
question I had was can you do that here by pulling back future
development inside that corner.
Conrad: That ' s in Eden Prairie.
' Mark Koegler: I don ' t know if that was part , that area is fully
platted now and under development . I just don ' t see any field
activities there. It doesn ' t appear there is very much realignment at
I all .
Conrad: That 's just amazing that they' re not . I can ' t imagine when
they had that big parcel that ' s now being developed , that they didn ' t
Planning Commission Meeting ,
January 20 , 1988 - Page 44
r
pull it back there. It 's a good point Tim. That 's just insane but it
doesn ' t look they pulled it. I ' ve been up there and they' re certainly
not bringing it back much. The houses that are going in along that
curve are a fair ways off the road but, this is going to be a token
improvement if anything. I 'm really surprised that Eden Prairie
didrijt care or somebody didn ' t care.
Erhart: Are we talking about this whole thing, this whole document?
Conrad: I opened it up and I guess the reason I did that was because
I didn ' t have many comments on it . I had very few. I think Mark
echoed what the directive was and to kind of give some kind of a
forecast how we might use the land around these corridors and I think
he did what I expected him to do but if you 'd like to get into page by
page, we could do that too.
Erhart: The other issue of course, and I already brought it up
tonight, is the area down on TH 212 and TH 101 . We have the zoning
ordinance that calls it business fringe but if we want to rethink that
we could actually, is it an appropriate place to talk about perhaps
showing this as , what do you got here now? You 've got residential
medium density and this would be on this page here?
Mark Koegler: The business fringe area is shown on the land use as
commercial .
Erhart: Is there any point to bringing it up and rekicking that all
around again? I guess I ' d sure like to do it and I remember you at
the time, when we put the zoning ordinance in, was in favor of just
letting this sort of go back to agriculture and I think there ' s a
couple of points listed in here that support that . One is
availability of sewer , you mentioned is not likely. If nothing else
because of it ' s elevation . Also, that the land on the south side is
essentially the National Wildlife Refuge. What is Eden Prairie 's
plan, their Comp Plan say about that TH 212? In other words, the
valley. What we' re really talking about here is the valley and it
happens to have TH 212 down our side of it . So the question, we even
should be thinking about is what ' s the long term plan for the valley?
Dacy: It ' s similar to ours. '
Mark Koegler: As you go east the wildlife refuge continues . In fact
it follows the river all the way into Bloomington . There are some '
more intensive recreational . . . in Eden Prairie. There 's a long term
trail plan, or the refuge plan over there has a center with parking
and a trail . . .but the city does not advocate any commercial
development of any kind along that corridor . They are really similar
to Chanhassen. The only area that they have potential development is
on the north side and as you well know, if you go too far to the east,
you get into the airport and the landfill situation and everything
else. It 's only on the western portion of Eden Prairie that you would
have any potential developable land in the future. It's my
understanding from talking to Barb recently, that Eden Prairie is now
looking at advocating that that area , really that whole area , not be
in their MUSA line for a long , long time to come . So in that regards,
they' re interested in pulling the reigns back a little bit on
Planning Commission Meeting
January 20, 1988 - Page 45
developing the area as a whole. That area and some other areas that
' are not on the MUSA now, they ' re looking at not pushing to get
MUSA added to it .
Erhart : I 'm referring to essentially the Bluffs down to the road.
What is their position on that?
Mark Koegler: I can only tell you about south of TH 169 and TH 212
' and that ' s slated as part of the National Wildlife Refuge. North, I 'm
not sure.
' Erhart : What would happen in Eden Prairie today if somebody came
along the Lion ' s Tap and wanted to build a used car lot or what are
some of the things we' ve seen come in down there?
' Dacy: The Lion ' s Tap has to be a non-conforming use. If I recall on
their land use plan , there' s a little spot of commercial and that 's
the Lion ' s Tap.
Erhart: If you came in with a cold storage next to the Lion 's Tap,
would Eden Prairie permit it?
Mark Koegler: My reaction would be no , but I don ' t know specifically.
I know Lion ' s Tap, from what I was told not too long ago , there was
improvement to that building because of public pressure or whatever
' else.
Erhart : I ' d like to see us seriously consider on , start with this
' Comp Plan and show that as agricultural and not show that that ' s going
to be a commercial site. There are two other things I wanted to bring
up, one is preserve essentially those homes up on that bluff. Have
really a stake in the way it is today. By making that commercial , you
have a great detrimental affect on the homes on the Bluff and I don ' t
live on the Bluff so I 'm not speaking for myself or anybody that
I know. Secondly, you ' re talking about such a narrow corridor between
' that railroad track and TH 212 , it ' s really questionable whether it ' s
of any value commercially. By the time you run a service road along
TH 212 .
Conrad: There's a lot of traffic down there. The car count there is
like 13 , 000 to 15 , 000. It ' s really big . Naegle ' s being forced to
take their billboards down from that little corridor and they hate to
do that because of the traffic.
Erhart: Why are they being forced to take them down?
' Conrad : Part of the Scenic River Act or whatever it is . I think
there are some dividing lines where there is some jurisdiction over
' Naegle ' s has their signs but, let ' s do this . I don ' t have a solution
at the time for that . I think it deserves 15 minutes during a time
before 11: 20 at night so why don ' t we postpone it . Let ' s discuss what
this could be used for. I don ' t think staff has to do any legwork for
us other than if you could give us some information Barbara , either
you or Mark, what 's Eden Prairie doing to the east of us there and
let ' s just dialogue if there ' s another use for that . We tried to make
the uses down there, there were a bunch of assorted things that was
Planning Commission Meeting
January 20, 1988 - Page 46
happening down there so rather than making them non-conforming we put
a district down there just to take care of what was there. Our hope
was that they go away but they ' re not. And property owners have a
right to use that and it ' s a high traffic area . It ' s good visibility.
I think we need some debate about it . '
Erhart: I think what we' ve done, and I won ' t get into it but what we
effectively have done, is we' re encouraging commercial growth there
with that BF district.
Conrad: Anytime you put a district in there that says you can do
these things, you encourage something . Mark, we' re just going to
dialogue about that little thing.
Mark Koegler : That 's a point that 's very germane to transportation
and land use section because that whole area will . . .that we ' re going
to be walking with the Met Council . Barb and I talked about the text
pertaining to that and we ' re going to have to word it pretty carefully
so it would be responsive to all of the other agreements that the City
has with the Lake Ann Interceptor and everything else, designating
growth and that is allowed without sewer availability.
Conrad : Across from that map that we' re looking at, it says proposed
transportation improvements . Across from Exhibit C .
Mark Koegler: It shall be associated with the case study for TH 101? '
Conrad: Yes , the case study for TH 101. Halfway through there it
says jurisdiction for TH 101 south of TH 5 should be the
responsibility of Carver County. I guess I don ' t understand that .
Why is that there? What does that mean? Why are you making that
statement? '
Mark Koegler: That ties into the functional classification section
that ' s in here this evening as well as another section that will go
behind that that you ' ll see next time that ' s going to be on
jurisdictional classification . TH 101 in this plan is designated as a
minor arterial . Under normal circumstances , minor arterials are
maintained and fall under the jurisdiction of County or State
governments . Long term plans seem to indicate that that 's not going
to be a State route any longer . If it ' s not a State route we believe
the City's position should be that it 's a County route. City
jurisdiction essentially coming . . .certainly collectors and in some
cases minor arterials . That ' s the primary, we get into that in a
little more depth next time when we talk about jurisdictional
classifications . That ' s a summary of thinking there.
Conrad: Again , I 'm ballparking this whole thing . Mark spends a lot
of his time and we' re giving him a few minutes here and I 'm kind of
pushing it through. Maybe that ' s not fair.
Mark Koegler: Bear in mind you ' ll get several more cuts at this .
We' re going to be dealing with transportation for the next few
meetings .
Conrad: Anymore comments on this whole packet of stuff? '
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January 20, 1988 - Page 47
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Batzli: I have just a general question . Are we dealing with
potential future routes which may end up going through Chanhassen.
For instance, the LRT or an extension of the 62nd Street , Crosstown
which may or may not be in town? Are we going to deal with that at
some point or is that considered part of this package or it wasn ' t
considered?
Mark Koegler: No , it is part of the transportation plan . It is not
part of what you' ve seen to date. The Commission previously has
discussed, in very general terms and has specifically asked. that LRT
be addressed in the Plan . It was not addressed in the Plan that I put
together in 1980. It was not an issue at that time. So yes , that
will be addressed . As far as road improvements , the only major road
improvement that ' s been addressed so far is the new TH 212 . There are
some minor things, extension for collectors and so forth. The impact
of the extension of Town Line Road to TH 101 has been factored in as a
' part of the TH 101 being designated as a minor arterial . So in that
regards , that has been addressed . But this really is just a small
piece of the whole transportation picture and I 'm thinking it probably
is going to be wise the next time we get together to just take a few
' minutes of overview all of that ' s included within that . We ' ll be
bringing back some more material next time and hopefully wrapping it
up. . . The other thing we need to do is , the Metropolitan Council is
' on the verge of updating their development framework chapter on
transportation. The draft is now out . A very early draft is out and
Barb and I were talking the other day, we want to sit down with the
' Metropolitan Council ' s staff here, as early as next week or so , and
see what their thoughts are so if there ' s any other components that we
are overlooking , such as LRT or some similar types that are ultimately
going to be required in the Comprehensive Plan , we'd just as soon get
' it in now than to have to go back and do another revision 12 months or
18 months down the road . We ' ll try to have as complete of a document
in regards to the Plan . Bear in mind , as you all know, the Met Council
flucuates from time to time so the rules may change.
Erhart: On the amount of land area within the MUSA line available for
housing at this point . Once TH 212 gets put on the map, does that
area get excluded then from the buildable area?
Dacy: The developable acreage. But it ' s really a small amount that
' goes through the MUSA so it ' s not going to be that big of a factor.
Conrad: I 'm sure I don ' t want to talk about light rail tonight.
' Mark, you' ve got a note in here. Do we need to talk about Mark 's note
to us about the Comprehensive Plan completion schedule? It' s there
for our information . Anything that anybody wants to talk about on
that? Zoning ordinance amendment update.
Dacy: If you wanted to table that to the next meeting , we' re just
going to have two items on that next meeting. The official zoning
ordinance public hearing on some of these items so you will have more
time.
Conrad: Is that agreeable that we table this so we can give it more
time?
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January 20, 1988 - Page 48
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Emmings: Should we add to this , these things that came up tonight?
The talking about where we ' re filling in subdivisions and maybe trying II
to do something to. . .
Dacy: You mean the lot size issue and the sign ordinance?
Emmings : Yes . Then there was that ordinance that we talked about on
having access from lots onto collectors . That thing came up when
there were some questions there so I think we ought to kick that II around and make sure we understand that but the idea that , I think Tim
talked about it more than anybody else about when you ' re filling in
areas that were not previously developed or are newly subdivided, to
make sure that there ' s better compatibility in the neighborhood.
Ellson: I think you said your transitional comments .
Erhart: Specifically the first item Steve was talking about was that
Section 12 , 6 . 12 of the Subdivision Ordinance. I think it ' s extremely
vague. I interpretted it a different way than you did because I know
the intent . I think I know the intent but I may be wrong but it is
real confusing.
Emmings : We all understand it but if it raises questions here, we
ought to kick it around and maybe rewrite it a little so we do
understand it.
Conrad: I don ' t know how many of these things can staff do . We have
the sign height review. Subdivision.
Dacy: We can certainly add it to the list. We ' ll try and see what we
can come up with something initial in the next week.
Emmings : On sign height and stuff, don ' t they just use a manual? '
Some traffic control device to set heights of signs or something.
Wouldn ' t that all be in there?
Dacy: That would probably be like MnDot has a published manual .
Emmings: Could we just say their signs have to comply with that . I
think they have heights for all different kinds of signs .
Dacy: Why there wasn 't a height requirement in there, that was an
obvious oversight . There should have been an appropriate limit . '
Emmings: People are going to put them where people can see them.
They' re not going to just stick one up in the air so I don ' t think ,
there was anything really to worry about . Maybe just by reference to
some publication , you can say comply with the Uniform Manual or
something like that.
Conrad: Barbara , on this infilling or whatever you want to call it.
Smaller lots in big lot areas . I guess I 'd like to have staff tell us
if there are any ways that we can control that. That 's really our
intent of looking at that thing. I 'm not looking for an ordinance
amendment right now. I think we just need information. Is there
1
Planning Commission Meeting
January 20, 1988 - Page 49
anyway, legally that we can start controlling that given the fact that
we have 15 , 000 square foot lot sizes? Review of contractor ' s yards.
Tim, where do you want to go on review of contractor ' s yards? What
do you want to do?
Dacy: If I could jump in Tim. This is beginning to concern me, not
so much from tonight ' s application but we' re the only community in the
metro area that 's allowing them to scale that could get up to 20-25 or
50 trucks , beyond what Merle Volk has out on his site. Word gets
around that Chanhassen is the place to go . The only saving grace in
the ordinance is that 1 mile separation requirement and that ' s almost
' eaten up the entire A-2 area but there 's one spot left and you know
it . The guy' s been calling about requirements for a contractor ' s yard
and that ' s on TH 212 also. Down the line towards Chaska . You go back
' and amend the ordinance to eliminate, makes them non-conforming uses .
Three years ago , the Council directed staff to amend the ordinance to
include them and make them conforming . It ' s a perception issue from
' the public in that you ' ll have to deal with from the property owners .
Conrad: I don ' t know that we see a corretion right now. Let ' s just
put it as an agenda item next time and let ' s talk about it and see
' where it goes . It doesn ' t mean that we need anything from you at that
time Barbara .
Erhart: The other one was the BF district , we wanted to talk about it
somemore?
' Dacy: We can look at that as a part of that comment on the
transportation plan.
Erhart: On this sign issue though, there was also an interest in
' increasing the signage area . Was that something you wanted?
Conrad: I come back to a sign that ' s 2 feet wide and I don ' t know
' that it ' s visible. I honestly don ' t know that it works . I don ' t know
what standards we use for directional signs but that ' s my only
thought . Apparently it is working for certain people in town because
' they' re not here beating on us .
Dacy: Most of your entry signs to developments , exit and entrance,
employees , that kind of thing .
ORGANIZATIONAL ITEMS .
Dacy: The HRA liason , we do have the HRA meeting this Thursday.
Erhart: Who says we have to have an HRA representative?
' Dacy: If you don ' t one, that 's fine but if you' re having concerns
about where the City Hall is located and how wide the streets are.
' Conrad: Are there any volunteers for the HRA? We ' ll wait for Jim to
return . The second item on the agenda , meetings . For the new
members , I think you can see that we've been meeting on Wednesdays. It
works for the planning staff on Wednesdays . Not always food for all
members on the Planning Commission . I think Tim would like to
consider some other days . I guess we thought we 'd hear if you had any
Planning Commission Meeting
January 20, 1988 - Page 50
particular needs in terms of days of the week that you'd rather meet.
I think the Planning Staff has some, in my opinion , some persuasive
reasons to meet on Wednesdays like we do . Any objections to their
recommendations?
Emmings : I 'd like to leave it there just because I 'm used to it and
it really works pretty well for me. '
Conrad: Do we need to vote on that?
Dacy: No.
Conrad: Okay, let 's keep it then .
Dacy: Then the final correction on the By-Laws .
Emmings: Removing the word stick? '
Dacy: Yes.
Emmings moved , Erhart seconded to approve the revised By-Laws as
presented by Staff. All voted in favor and motion carried.
Emmings moved, Ellson seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in
favor and motion carried . The meeting was adjourned at 11: 40 p.m. .
Submitted by Barbara Dacy
City Planner
Prepared by Nann Opheim