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CC 2015 11 23 CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING NOVEMBER 23, 2015 Mayor Laufenburger called the City Council meeting to order at 7:05 p.m. The meeting was opened with the Pledge to the Flag led by Boy Scout Nathan Fine from Excelsior Boy Scout Troop 409. COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT: Mayor Laufenburger, Councilman McDonald, Councilwoman Tjornhom, Councilwoman Ryan, and Councilman Campion STAFF PRESENT: Todd Gerhardt, Chelsea Petersen, Paul Oehme, Kate Aanenson, Todd Hoffman, and Roger Knutson PUBLIC PRESENT: Elaine & John Malakowsky 10301 Great Plains Boulevard Maryanne White 670 Creekwood Street Stephen Kish 740 Bighorn Drive Helen Link 1216 Jefferson Street So, Shakopee Don Halla 495 Pioneer Trail Jim Swansen 615 Lakota Lane Kevin Nielsen and Colleen Jenson 740 Vogelsberg Drive Julie Welsh 2700 Santee Trail, Prior Lake Dave Kirkbride 2080 Boulder Road James Sabinski 775 Creekwood Drive Gary Anderson 725 Creekwood Drive PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: Mayor Laufenburger: Thank you Nathan. I wish to welcome everybody to the council meeting this evening. Those that are in the chamber with us, as well as those watching on Mediacom cable channel at home. Our first item this evening is, I have a public announcement. By the way for the record, let the record reflect that every council member is present tonight. Thank you. This is an invitation to the annual tree lighting ceremony here at City Center Park. With the holiday season approaching I’m excited to invite everyone to the annual Chanhassen tradition, the 2015 Tree Lighting Ceremony presented by the City of Chanhassen, Buy Chanhassen, Southwest Metro Chamber of Commerce and the Mustard Seed Landscaping and Garden Center. th I invite all area residents, their families and friends to join me on Saturday, December 5 from 5:00 to 6:00 p.m. on the plaza at City Center Park. People of all ages will enjoy activities including the official lighting of City Center Park, refreshments, caroling, gingerbread house displays. Yes a live reindeer and a special visit from Santa Claus. The entire event is free and registration is not required, however warm clothing will be required. Correct Mr. Hoffman? Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 Todd Hoffman: Correct. Mayor Laufenburger: So if you would like more information about that please feel free to contact City Hall. It’s always a fun event. Hot chocolate for warming your tummies. Kids love the reindeer and who knows we may even have some snow that night so I invite everybody to that. First item on the agenda is our consent agenda. Let’s see before that, is there any modification to the agenda this evening council members? And if not I’ll, we’ll follow the agenda as printed. Alright we’ll do so. Yes sir. Todd Gerhardt: If anybody’s here for H(1), that item is tabled this evening. The applicant asked for that to be tabled. Mayor Laufenburger: Good call. That was new business under the Gateway Medical building so that item was tabled because the applicant is out of town I understand, is that correct? Todd Gerhardt: Correct. Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, thank you. CONSENT AGENDA: Councilwoman Tjornhom moved, Councilman McDonald seconded to approve the following consent agenda items pursuant to the City Manager’s recommendations: 1. Approve City Council Minutes dated November 9, 2015 2. Receive Planning Commission Minutes dated November 17, 2015 Resolution #2015-71: 3. Approve Resolution Certifying Water Hookup Charges Resolution #2015-72: 4. 2015 Street Improvement Project (Carver Beach Area): Approve Assessment Abatement for PIDS 251600290, 251601730, 251601810, and 251601900 Resolution #2015-73: 5. City Project 16-04, Park Road Resurfacing and Culvert Replacement: Approve Consultant Contract and Authorize Preparation of Feasibility Study All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: PRESENTATION OF $10,000 TO THE FIREFIGHTER MEMORIAL FUND, CHARTER BANK. 2 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 Mayor Laufenburger: I know Chief Johnson you’re there. Let me just make this comment. After Chief Johnson has his presentation, if there’s anyone wishing to address the council on a matter that is not on the agenda this evening you can step to the podium. I will make that invitation again. Chief Johnson. Chief Don Johnson: Mayor, council, thanks for having us here tonight. As you know we’ve been working hard on our firefighter memorial fundraising and through partnerships with both individuals and businesses in town I’m here to, tonight to invite Steve White from Charter Bank. He’s the Market President. With a donation of $10,000 for the firefighter memorial so I’d like to invite Doug Foote. Firefighter Doug Foote, our committee Chair to the podium as well as Mr. White from Charter Bank. Steve White: Thank you Mayor. I just, on behalf of Charter Bank it’s a privilege to present this check for $10,000 to Chanhassen Fire Department in honor of the memorial fund. It is an honor and a privilege to support the men and women who have served and who currently serve on the fire department so thank you very much. Chief Don Johnson: Mayor, if you want to step down we can get a picture quick. Mayor Laufenburger: Sure. I love this part of my job. I’d just like to make, Steve just before you go, just one more comment. I so appreciate what Charter Bank does in this community. Not just the donation to this firefighter memorial fund but also you support many of our activities and we are pleased to have Charter Bank as a proud and a prosperous citizen within Chanhassen so thanks very much Steve for all you and please pass along my congratulations to everybody there. Is there anybody else that would like to address the council on a matter that is not on the agenda this evening? Okay. LAW ENFORCEMENT/FIRE DEPARTMENT UPDATE. Mayor Laufenburger: Is Lieutenant Kittelson here? Let’s give you first billing tonight. Lieutenant Kittelson, this is our public safety update. Lt. Eric Kittelson: Good evening Mr. Mayor, council members. The October update. Beginning th on Wednesday, November 25 and running through New Year’s Day, statewide we’ll be having the Towards Zero Death Impaired Driving enforcement initiative. It will be taking place mostly on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays and troopers, police officers and deputies throughout the state will be doing additional patrol to reduce drunk driving and the fatalities that are as a result of that. As a matter of fact last year in 2014 1 out of every 4 traffic deaths was a result of drunk driving and I think if you were to ask anyone in this room what the most dangerous holiday for th drunk driving is, people would probably say 4 of July or Labor Day. That’s what we always heard is Labor Day, Memorial weekend are the most dangerous times to be on the road and actually I’m going to share a couple of statistics that were even shocking to me and I’ve been doing this for 18 years now. If you look at the number of drunk driving deaths compared with 3 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 traffic fatalities, Thanksgiving 53.8 percent of fatalities on Thanksgiving are a result of drunk driving and 46.2 percent on Christmas. Compare that with Labor Day at 16 percent and New Year’s Day is now down to 12 percent and I think we’ve done a really good job of education and really pushing the New Year’s Eve parties and offer to have your guest stay with you or to find a sober ride home and I think we need to do a better job of that with Thanksgiving and Christmas because that’s half of the fatalities on the holiday as a result of alcohol so we’d like to remind everyone to plan ahead this year for their Thanksgiving and to either plan on getting a ride. A sober ride or staying where you’re going to enjoy your festivities. Staffing updates, Sergeant Moline, Sergeant Brunig and myself went to the Towards Zero Death conference at the end of October. We targeted 2 key seminars to help us with some initiatives and implementation for some ideas for next year with recent issues that we’ve had in the city so we attended the National Drug Trends conference as well as pedestrian safety and we got some ideas and some materials that we’ll look to present as we move forward for 2016. As far as calls for service for October, we had 95 citations for traffic violations and 295 warnings for violations. Total calls for service were 1,040 with 39 being Part I and 39 being Part II crimes with 962 miscellaneous and non- criminal. We did have 6 burglaries. Most residential during the daytime so in October so we like to remind everyone to lock your doors. Interior and exterior service doors as well as activate your alarms when you have them. Shut garage doors and most importantly report suspicious activity. The eyes and ears of the people out there are you know, the majority of the things that we do are a result of people just calling in a suspicious activity or incidents so we need those phone calls but we don’t ever want people to hesitate and think, I don’t want to bother them or I don’t want to call. We’re here 24 hours a day and that’s what we wait for is that call on the radio so don’t hesitate to call us. We’d be glad to come and check it out. That’s all I have for you this evening. I’ll stand for any questions you might have. Mayor Laufenburger: Any questions of Lieutenant Kittelson? Just a reminder, I know that there was a tragic accident in Chanhassen today. Lt. Eric Kittelson: Yes. Mayor Laufenburger: And it’s a reminder for all of us to just be measured in our driving, especially as the winter season approaches and it’s, we don’t like any accident like that to occur. Least of all to have somebody lose their life on our highway so. Lt. Eric Kittelson: Well said. Yeah it was surprisingly slippery this morning with the frost so, an unfortunate accident but. Mayor Laufenburger: And we know that that first snow is going to occur and like all of us when that first snow arrives it seems we forget how to successfully drive in the snow so just a reminder to everybody present here as well as watching at home. Just be cautious. It will be there. Drive a little slower. Arrive alive. Thank you Lieutenant Kittelson. Lt. Eric Kittelson: Thank you. 4 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 Mayor Laufenburger: Chief Johnson. Good evening. Chief Don Johnson: Mayor and council, thank you. I had that on my notes as well for winter driving as well as please wear your seat belts. I’ve got young drivers myself and when you have to respond to those types of incidents on the highway it really makes you think to get that word out. Make sure if you’ve got teenage drivers that they’re also wearing their seat belts. Mayor, council this is my report for October. I’ve got some staffing information in there since we last met. I did have 2 retirements. We will be getting into our recruitment and hiring phases probably right in about February or March so hopefully our numbers will start to come up. In October we did respond to 69 calls for service which is incredibly high for the Chanhassen fire department. As you can see we’re usually about 58-59 for the month and we did another 10 on top of that. Our total calls through October were 595. We did 621 calls all of last year and actually as of today I think we’re at 630 so we’ve got about another month and a half left of this year. Of the 69 calls we had 32 medicals and 1 motor vehicle accident. None of the fires or any of the other responses were of significant nature. The training, since we’ve met last we did hazardous materials training. We had an officers meeting with policy discussions. Our emergency medical services refresher. Self contained breathing apparatus skills and firefighter fitness. As well as we’ve attended several meetings with the high school in relationship to next year of our response to football. We did have a player athlete injury during one of the games which kind of made us look at ourselves and our procedures a little bit so how we can respond a little differently and also found that we had a hole there with JV games. We had no medical coverage for JV games which we’ll start that next year as well so. With that, as I promised we talked a little bit about fire prevention. Activities for last month, as you know October’s our fire prevention month. We had 1,100 children visit the station from preschool to third grade. During that week we had 26 firefighters provided over 100 volunteers hours to meet with the children at the stations. At the open house we had 36 firefighters that attended to insure the community had a great time. Amongst that week we also had several, over 15 of our retired firefighters and their families come back to help with that so not only did they give for a career, they also came back to, to come back to help with that. It’s a very special event. I’m very proud of our fire department for that. As well as this year the Fire Department Relief Association stepped up and did some financial support for both the open house food and some of the other things that go to support fire prevention week so again from the firefighters, the fire relief we had a great showing for this fire department for the community. We figured we had about another 600 or 700 people for the open house so I don’t know how Fire Marshal Littfin does it every day. Every day we schedule the open house it seems to be 80 and sunny no matter what day of October so hopefully we can keep that up. It looks like Councilman Campion and Jerry I know you have your, th Councilman McDonald you have your’s all year long but we are getting together November 30 for Movember to take a department picture so hopefully we’re planning on taking those off so I invite both of you to participate and Roger as well so. With that I stand for questions. One more thing Mayor, I’m sorry. I know that, excuse me? Mayor Laufenburger: No, you have to have the ability to grow a beard. 5 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 Chief Don Johnson: On a serious note, I’m the type, I like to cook my turkey in an oven and I know there’s people in the audience and in our community that really enjoy deep frying a turkey. Please, if you’re going to deep fry a turkey do it in your driveway. I can’t tell you the number of years, every year in our metro area somebody has a fire with these turkey fryers so if you’re going to do that I encourage you to do that. Please read the directions thoroughly. Understand what you’re doing and don’t do it on our deck, in your garage or in your house so enjoy your season but please do it responsibly so my guys can enjoy their dinner at home with their families so with that I stand for questions. Mayor Laufenburger: Alright, thank you Chief. Any questions of Chief Johnson? Well extend to your entire team, as well as Lieutenant Kittelson extend to your team a happy Thanksgiving and hopefully a safe Thanksgiving for our community. Thank you very much Chief. Chief Don Johnson: Thank you. PUBLIC HEARING: CONSIDER RESOLUTION VACATING DRAINAGE AND UTILITY EASEMENTS IN CONJUNCTION WITH A LOT LINE ADJUSTMENT, 6270 TH AND 6280 CHASKA ROAD, LOT 1, BLOCK 1 AND LOT 2, BLOCK 2 FRETHAM 15 ADDITION, APPLICANT: DAVID WEEKLEY HOMES. Mayor Laufenburger: Is there a staff report? Paul Oehme: Yes, Mayor and City. Mayor Laufenburger: Mr. Oehme. Paul Oehme: Yep, good evening Mayor and City Council members. Give you a brief th background on this item. The property owner at Lot 1 and Lot 2 of Fretham 15 Addition is th requesting a drainage and utility easement to be vacated on the adjacent line. Fretham 15 Addition was actually platted this year. I think it was approved by the City Council on 2013 I th believe. Fretham 15 Addition is just off of Highway 41. Trunk Highway 41 off of Carver or Chaska Road. Pulling up over here so this is Lot 1 and Lot 2. The property owner will be requesting administrative property line adjustment which is basically this red line here so this is, the blue line is the existing line. Property line and the red line is the line, the new property line that the property owners would like to move it to. The existing property line is shown here again. The green area is the drainage utility easement that currently exists that the property owner would like to vacate and in conjunction with the new property line adjustment, new property, drainage utility easement would be dedicated in conjunction with the property line adjustments and again with the vacation of the drainage and utility easement. The existing drainage utility easement does not have any existing public or private utilities that would have to be moved. There’s no utilities in that easement at this time so it is clean and free from that. 6 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 With that I’d like to stand for questions and I’d request that a public hearing be opened on the vacation of this easement. Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Before I open the public hearing is there any questions from staff? Mr. Oehme can you just educate us a little bit, why would somebody want to move a property line? Paul Oehme: I believe there, I believe Lot 1 and Lot 2 there’s no houses on these lots and I think with the builder who’s requesting to build on this lot, he would like I think Lot 1 to be readjusted to accommodate the lot, or the building as it situates on that lot so I think he wants a little bit bigger lot for one of the, for Lot 1. Kate Aanenson: Yeah I would just say that when the subdivision came through the builder wasn’t chosen yet so the builder that’s going forward on this subdivision has a little bit larger home footprint and so because that one lot is compromised by a wetland to accommodate that, shifting the lot line. Mayor Laufenburger: And this is not uncommon, is that correct? Kate Aanenson: Absolutely. Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, alright. At this time then I will, any other questions of staff? At this time I will open a public hearing. If there’s anybody who would like to speak either in favor of or in opposition to this action by the council please step up to the podium. Give us your name and address and address the council. There being none I will close the public hearing and bring this back to council for comment or motion. Anybody? Councilman McDonald: Mr. Mayor. Mayor Laufenburger: Yes sir, Councilman McDonald. Councilman McDonald: I would make the motion that the City Council adopts a resolution approving the vacation of public drainage and utility easement described in the attached legal description. Mayor Laufenburger: Thank you. Is there a second? Councilwoman Tjornhom: Second. Mayor Laufenburger: Councilwoman Tjornhom thank you. Any further discussion? Resolution #2015-74: Councilman McDonald moved, Councilwoman Tjornhom seconded that the Chanhassen City Council adopts a resolution approving the vacation of all the 7 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 drainage and utility easements on the property line between Lots 1 and 2, Block 1, Fretham th 15 Addition. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. PUBLIC HEARING: CONSIDER APPROVAL OF EAW AND OFFICIAL MAP, TH 101 (PIONEER TRAIL TO CR 61). Mayor Laufenburger: Do we have a staff report? Paul Oehme: Yes Mayor. Mayor Laufenburger: Mr. Oehme, you’re busy tonight. Paul Oehme: Yes, thank you again Mayor, City Council members. Tonight staff would like to review the preferred alignment and the environmental document that we’ve drafted for the Highway 101 improvements from Pioneer Trail down to Flying Cloud Drive. Staff has been working with partners on this project including Carver County, MnDOT for over a year now. As you know the section of 101 from Pioneer Trail up to Highway 5 has been improved over the last 7 years and just tomorrow the river, the 101 river crossing of the Minnesota River will be open so this section of 101 is the last section of 101 that needs to be improved basically south of Highway 5. This section of highway, this section of 101 has twice the amount of accidents as compared to highways of similar traffic volumes within the metro area. Traffic is also expected to grown in the region as the region develops. Also Chanhassen is anticipated, this area of Chanhassen is anticipated to grow in the near future as well so this document helps us plan for that growth and plan for that critical infrastructure that is needed. Staff again has had 2 open houses for this project and we’ve had numerous individual neighborhood, or individual meetings to talk about you know the impacts and try to improve you know our design as best as we can in conjunction and with the comments that we received from the neighborhood. For tonight’s public hearing we’ve invited 52 property owners that live in the area and along the corridor and in the neighborhoods adjacent to Highway 101 so with that Jon Horn from Kimley-Horn and Associates is with us tonight. He has helped the City with the environmental documentation and the preliminary design and also Pat Lambert who is the right-of-way agent for Carver County is also here if you have any questions for him so with that. Jon Horn: Good evening Mayor, members of the City Council. Mayor Laufenburger: Welcome Jon. Nice to see you tonight. Jon Horn: As Mr. Oehme mentioned I’ve been working directly with city staff as well as representatives of Carver County and MnDOT on the preliminary design activities for this section of Trunk Highway 101 between Pioneer Trail and Flying Cloud Drive so it’s about a year’s worth of work and I’m going to try to condense it down into about 15 minutes tonight so. There we go. So basically I guess what we’d like to try to cover is provide some background history on the project. We’ll talk a little bit about the preliminary design process and the 8 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 alternatives that were considered. I’ll walk you through how we picked a preferred alignment alternative and the background behind that. We did do an environmental review process, an Environmental Assessment Worksheet. I’ll talk a little bit about that. There is a number of parcels we need right-of-way acquisition from. I’ll talk through that process. Talk a little bit about next steps and then stand for questions prior to the public hearing. The section of 101 that we’re specifically looking at is the piece between Pioneer Trail and Flying Cloud Drive. I don’t know Paul can you give me a little bit of help there pointing it out. On the north end is Pioneer Trail. No arrow? North end is Pioneer Trail. South side is Flying Cloud Drive. Paul Oehme: There’s the pointer, there it is. Jon Horn: There we go. So Flying Cloud Drive there. Pioneer Trail on the north end. You can see from the red line the existing conditions. A lot of very steep curves in the roadway. Very rugged alignment. So some background. Back in 2007 a corridor study was done. Basically a multi-agency project between MnDOT, Carver County and Chanhassen to look at this corridor all the way from 212, all the way down to the river. Since the time that 2007 corridor study was done a number of improvements have been made. The piece between Lyman and Pioneer Trail was reconstructed a couple years ago and as Paul mentioned the piece from the Flying Cloud at the river is currently going to open up tomorrow I understand so a couple pieces are, have been completed or will be completed. This is really the last section between 212 and the river that needs improvement. Why the improvements? Based upon the last graphic that we showed we looked at some of the steep curves. Steep grades. Blind driveways. Paul mentioned the accident rate so a lot of safety conditions as well as capacity issues that need to be addressed on this piece of roadway. One of the things that makes this project a little unique is that it’s not currently funded so we’re going through a preliminary design process to kind of understand ultimately what the design for the roadway should be but it’s currently not scheduled for construction nor is the funding currently in place to allow the project to proceed. The thought would be that this process will do a couple of different things. One, establish what that alignment is. Assist the agencies in a search for funding. The other big part of this process is to help the property owners in the area kind of understand ultimately what the roadway alignment would look like if and when it does occur in the future. So I’m going to talk through 5 alternative alignments and we did have some screening criteria and I’ll talk through what those screening criteria were and we did go through a pretty extensive stakeholder engagement process. Paul had mentioned we had a couple open house meetings to engage property owners in the area. We had some one on one and group meetings as well with property owners. We have been in front of the council for a couple of work sessions as we’ve gone through the process to update you on the process and we have been meeting on a monthly basis between City staff, County staff and MnDOT staff just to walk through this process just because there is so many issues that we needed to discuss to ultimately to get this to where we are this evening and that is basically to have a selected preferred alignment. So we’ve got 5 alternative alignments and I’ll walk through those here with you really quickly but if the pointer works Paul maybe we can point out a few key criteria as we walk through the various alternatives. So on the south end there is a roundabout that’s being built or will be open tomorrow as a part of the river crossing project so basically we needed to tie 9 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 in to that roundabout. Up on the north end of the project area we needed to tie into the intersection that was built a few years ago as a part of the previous part of the project. One of the things that we’ll talk quite a bit about tonight is impacts to Vogelsberg Trail. So I don’t know Paul if you can point out Vogelsberg. Vogelsberg is at that location. There’s 4 residential home sites at that location that was a big part of as we look through alignment alternatives how do we address that issue and otherwise it’s basically trying to consolidate access and address the safety issues along the corridor. So this first alternative followed an alignment very similar to the alignment that’s out there today. Took away a number of the very sharp curves and this first alignment, the goal was to try to preserve the Vogelsberg Trail properties and access to Vogelsberg Trail so this alternative suggests the Vogelsberg Trail cul-de-sac and the 4 homes at that location could remain. It provides access to that Vogelsberg Trail area from the south from 101 so basically we’d maintain the existing 101 roadway and provide access to Vogelsberg at that location. The second option is very similar except in this particular case we provided access to the Vogelsberg area off of Creekwood to the north instead so basically extending a roadway from Creekwood to Vogelsberg to maintain access. As we looked at these alternatives one of the challenges we found is that there were cuts up to about 90 feet. A lot of retaining walls. A lot of environmental impacts associated with trying to maintain access to those Vogelsberg properties and maintain those Vogelsberg properties so we looked at a couple of other alternatives. Next alternative pushes the alignment on the south end further west impacting the 4 Vogelsberg properties and also looks at an alignment that instead of following the existing roadway alignments extend to the north. Actually cuts straight north and heads to Pioneer Trail basically impacting or slicing off a portion of the Halla Greens Golf Course property. Earthwork impacts, retaining wall impacts for this alternative were a little bit less but in this particular case because we are cutting through native territory between Creekwood and Pioneer Trail there were environmental impacts and impacts to the ravine at that location as a part of this alternative. Third alternative or fourth alternative, it’s alternative 3 but it’s the fourth alternative. Portion from Creekwood to the south of Flying Cloud is very similar but instead of going straight to the north we again follow the alignment close to the existing alignment as you headed north from Creekwood up to Pioneer Trail. Earthwork for this option is quite a bit less. Cuts are in the 35 to 40 foot range instead of the up to 90 foot range. Much less retaining walls. Much less earthwork associated with this alternative. After engaging the stakeholders one of the comments was, isn’t there a happy medium somewhere inbetween so this alternative looks very similar to alternative 3 from the north from Creekwood but in the south end we pushed the alignment a little bit further to the east to try to maintain access to Vogelsberg, and I don’t know Paul if you can maybe point. So Vogelsberg’s there. It shows a right-in/right-out access to the Vogelsberg Trail cul-de-sac. 101’s actually pushed further to the east to allow that to occur. Earthwork impacts for this are a little bit better than the first alternatives but again we’re still ending up with 60 to 70 foot cuts for this alternative and access to Vogelsberg would be right-in/right-out only. They would not be able to turn both directions out of their access to 101. So we looked at those 5 alternatives and we looked at a number of screening criteria. We worked with the stakeholder group. The agency group to establish what those screening criteria would be so looked at roadway capacity. We looked at safety issues. There’s a desire to have regional trail facilities in this area so we looked at that. We looked at right-of-way impacts. We looked at the ability to 10 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 provide for future community growth. We looked at environmental impacts. We looked at cost and maintenance issues so we had a matrix that basically compared all the alternatives across all these criteria and based upon that review the alternative 3 alignment was the one that rose to the top considering environmental impacts and all the screening criteria that were addressed. And maybe just to touch on alternative 3 real quickly again. It generally follows the existing alignment. Takes out the sharp curve in the area of the Mustard Seed at that location. Does extend to Creekwood at that location. Provides access to those properties via a cul-de-sac or access off of Creekwood and extends further to the south and impacts the 4 residential properties on Vogelsberg Trail. That has been a very emotional and very challenging conversation and a process to work through in terms of trying to figure out a way to be able to address that issue and to try to figure out a way to balance all the environmental impacts associated with the project. I mentioned the trail component. The proposed improvements do include the extension of trail facilities along the entire roadway so basically it would be trails on both sides, east and west sides from Creekwood to the north and then from the south there would be a trail facility that would extend on the east side down to Flying Cloud Drive. There would also be a bridge separation for the existing regional trail facility that’s currently at grade. That would now be bridged over the top of 101 and then there’d be a box culvert underpass that would occur down at the roundabout so basically trail facilities on both sides north of Creekwood as well as the ability to cross with two grade separated crossing considering the ultimate traffic volumes that are going to occur along the roadway. Also got a lot of feedback and input from people as we’ve gone through the stakeholder engagement process about the need to have city of Chanhassen utilities in the area to support future development. This graphic shows the potential for the extension of water and sewer along the corridor to provide for those future utilities as development would occur, and I don’t know Paul if you want to maybe mention a little bit about that utility process. Paul Oehme: Sure, so thanks Jon. The sewer and water that is shown here is basically the trunk system that would potentially go in in conjunction with the 101 improvements when that would occur. It does not show any lateral improvements at this time. That, the scope of work that we have in this project was just to identify you know can we service this area along the Highway 101 corridor and I think we’ve demonstrated that. As we get potentially closer to improvements for 101 and when the project is funded you know we will have to have a feasibility study documenting what the needs are for the area. How to best service the area and what the extents are for providing services to this area. How much lateral sewer and water we want to bring in through Creekwood or Laredo or some of these other locations too so we kind of looked at the utilities at kind of a high level based upon you know our comp plan and what we think the needs are for this area and then south down to 61 but again we need to dive into this area of utility improvements a little bit deeper when we get closer to construction. Jon Horn: Based upon the challenges associated with building this roadway with the topography certainly would need to consider those utilities and try to get them installed as a part of the roadway project when the roadway construction occurs. 11 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 Mayor Laufenburger: When you say Mr. Horn, Jon, when you say install them you mean lay the infrastructure. Not necessarily turn it on. Jon Horn: Correct. Mayor Laufenburger: Not necessarily fill it right? Jon Horn: Right. Basically get it in the ground to facilitate that future, turning it on in the future. Paul Oehme: And Mayor to that point too, we don’t know exactly when 101’s going to be built so maybe a lot of infrastructure north of here might already in place where when 101 comes in you know we just hook onto that infrastructure and take off from there so. Mayor Laufenburger: But this is a prudent decision that when you’ve got the ground dug up, put the pipe in that you need in place right? Paul Oehme: Correct. I mean it’s going to be cost prohibitive if we don’t do it in conjunction with the 101. Put the utilities in with 101. It’d be cost prohibitive to put it in afterwards because you have to dig up the road and create a lot of disruption if we did it at a later date. Mayor Laufenburger: And while I’ve interrupted you, do we also give the utilities such as cable, electric, would they also have the opportunity to use the ground when we have it exposed as well? Paul Oehme: Yep. Jon Horn: Yeah our goal would be to coordinate all those activities as a part of the roadway construction. So I mentioned the environmental review document. Because we’re adding a lane of travel more than a mile long length of roadway there is a requirement that we have to do a state environmental assessment worksheet or EAW. We did go through that process. That EAW has a 30 day comment period that occurred between early August and early September. Through that process we received 9 comments. 3 from agencies, 6 from property owners. I believe the Findings of Fact document was included in your council packets just to give you a sense of what those comments were. Based upon review of those comments and the environmental review document it’s staff’s opinion that additional environmental review or an Environmental Impact Assessment or Environmental Impact Statement is not necessary as a part of this process. Right- of-way needs. So because of the nature of the roadway design and the fact that we’re widening it and changing some of the alignment we do have a number of parcels that would be impacted for right-of-way. There’s an official map I believe in your packet that shows 21 parcels that would be impacted. It includes a combination of residential properties, vacant properties as well as commercial. It does require 6 total takes. Parcels that we’d have to take in their entirety and the thought would be that we would establish this official map because we don’t know when the 12 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 project would proceed to construction. Official map would do really 2 things. One, help identify and help the property owners in the area understand where ultimately the roadway alignment would go. The other thing that staff from the City, MnDOT and the County is exploring is the potential use of a program that the Met Council offers called the right-of-way acquisition loan fund. Basically that provides funds to allow right-of-way to be acquired in advance of construction projects recognizing that once you go through a process like this it can create some hardships when you don’t know when a project’s going to happen but if you’re a property owner and you know your property is going to be impacted, the right-of-way acquisition loan fund actually provides some flexibility in terms of how and when that right-of-way can be acquired and the official map is actually a requirement of that RALF process. So this graphic shows the parcels that would be impacted so basically everything in purple are the total parcel takes. Everything in orange are the strip takings. A couple things to notice on this property, there is the Carty property that shows up on this graphic. That’s actually already been acquired by the City, County and MnDOT and it does show those 5 other residential properties. The 4 on Vogelsberg and then one property just to the north of that in order to accommodate the preferred alignment would impact those 5 parcels. Official map document is again in your packet. Identifies just the details of what those properties are and what the right-of-way takings would be so this would be the map that would be recorded at the County Recorders office. So in terms of what happens th next. The Planning Commission did review the official map last week, last Tuesday on the 17. They recommended approval. You really have 2 actions tonight. Council one is to approve the EAW and make a negative declaration on the need for an EIS and the other one is to approve the ordinance adopting the official map. That process does require a public hearing which is what we’re holding this evening and then ultimately if the project proceeds forward the agencies would be working with Met Council to get a better understanding of whether RALF funds could be available to help address some of the right-of-way hardship issues in the project area and then ultimately at some point the project could proceed to final design and then securing the project funding to allow it to move towards construction but again construction’s not currently scheduled. A lot of people have been asking questions in terms of when that would happen. I think Paul we’ve been generally saying the earliest it could possibly happen is 2018 but it could happen a number of years after that really depending upon the funding that would be available. Paul Oehme: And Mr. Horn, Mayor, City Council members. And another reason we’re going through this process right now too is the staff, City and Carver County have been applying for federal and state funds over the years for improvements to this corridor. The more environmental documentation we do, the more preliminary design that we do the official map just helps us gain points basically for these grant opportunities and potentially us secure some funds for future improvements since we’re getting closer to final construction documents. Councilwoman Ryan: Mr. Oehme does that mean that because it shows a level of commitment on the City or the 3 participating parties of our intent? Paul Oehme: Right it does and it also shows there is, the agencies have gone through the process. There’s less risk associated with the project moving forward because a lot of the 13 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 environmental issues had already been identified. The right-of-way has already been reviewed and there is a corridor that’s available for that roadway to go through in the future. Mayor Laufenburger: Any questions of Mr. Oehme? Mr. Campion or questions of Mr. Horn. Mr. Campion. Councilman Campion: Yeah 2 questions. One is, I saw some comments, the comments that were collected and concerns about you know where traffic will go you know once the construction is underway and looking at whether it’s Bluff Creek Drive or where the detour would be routed through. Have considerations been made of that at this time or is it too preliminary to? Paul Oehme: It’s fairly early in the process to be talking about roadway detours but you know at a high level you have talked about detours. We would prefer that, we would request that Bluff Creek Drive would not be used as a detour. That’s a local street. MSA street. The official detour would probably be Audubon in Chaska. That’s the north, parallel north/south road that’s a county road similar design to 101 so that would be the preferred detour route. There not to say that there wouldn’t be some people that maybe want to use Bluff Creek Drive as a detour but we would try to discourage that traffic during construction and construction too we also did talk about staging the project too. We wouldn’t probably want to open up the whole project at one time. We’d like to stage it. We know there’s some businesses and there’s some residential access issues that we have to deal with too so you know there might have to be a staging process associated with the construction so maybe we do the south half first and then work on the north half or visa versa first so we just want to make sure that we have good access. Decent access during construction and everybody can get in and out of their property on a daily basis. Councilman Campion: Okay, and then one more question. Mayor Laufenburger: Go ahead. Councilman Campion: Can you explain again the meaning of the negative declaration on the need for EIS? Paul Oehme: Sure. Do you want to go? Jon Horn: So basically the EAW process is a State process. There’s a number of questions we have to go through and answer relative to a whole bunch of topics and then basically what happens is once that’s done it provides the opportunity for public comment and then the decision has to be made on a couple of things. One was the document adequate and then two, is there a significant environmental impacts associated with the environmental document that would suggest that additional environmental study is necessary. 14 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 Mayor Laufenburger: And Mr. Horn it’s your recommendation that based on the results of the Environmental Assessment Worksheet, the comments and the responses to that, it’s your recommendation that the City Council make a negative declaration meaning it is in our view not necessary to go to an Environmental Information, EIS. Jon Horn: Right, Environmental Impact Statement. Mayor Laufenburger: Impact Statement, is that correct. So that would be a City Council recommendation or a City Council decision, is that correct Jon? Jon Horn: Correct, yeah. Councilman Campion: Got it, thank you. Mayor Laufenburger: I just have one more question before we go to, before we open this to public hearing. Mr. Oehme you mentioned about the importance of us moving forward in response to Councilwoman Ryan’s question. I often, my involvement with other transportation projects I often hear the term shovel ready. Are you essentially getting this project closer and closer to shovel ready so that if funds become available for whatever reason we can move immediately is that correct? Paul Oehme: Absolutely yep. So if there’s money that becomes available for whatever reason, you know the agency, the State or federal government would be more willing to give money to projects that have less risk that are ready to go that you know have the documents. The construction plans ready to go versa some other project that is less farther along in the process than we would be. Mayor Laufenburger: Sure and you made reference to the 101 bridge. Certainly the 101 land bridge will be opening tomorrow but that’s a project that actually began June, 2014 and it’s now in completion 17 months later. Paul Oehme: Exactly right and that project was not in the 50 year or the 20 year plan at the State level so you know projects like that, like this one do come along. Their funds become available every once so often that I think it’s staff’s recommendation we would like to try to be ready for that, those dollars if and when they become available. Mayor Laufenburger: And though, though the project is not funded we can anticipate that funding and therefore do everything that would be necessary were the funding to become available. Paul Oehme: That’s correct. 15 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, alright. Thank you Mr. Horn. I would just ask that you stand nearby in case any questions come up. At this time I will open the public hearing on this item and remember we are considering two things. The approval of a negative declaration on the need for an Environmental Impact Statement and also the decision on making this the official map. I wonder if you could, there we go. Is that the? If anybody would like to address the council on this matter I simply ask that you come to the podium. State your name and your address and address the council. And just for those people who are watching at home I’m pleased to see there must be about 30 or 40 people in the audience tonight. State your name and address please. Kevin Nielsen: Good evening Mayor and councilors. My name is Kevin Nielsen. My fiancée Colleen Jensen is joining me. I come before you with comments about. Mayor Laufenburger: And your address Mr. Nielsen? Kevin Nielsen: Yeah, 740 Vogelsberg Trail. I have comments to share about the 101 Flying Cloud to Pioneer. I do reside at 740 Vogelsberg Trail in one of the 4 homes, they are scheduled for demolition that you’ll be considering this evening. Mayor Laufenburger: Actually you understand we’re not demolishing any homes tonight. Kevin Nielsen: You’re here to approve the map that ultimately could lead to that. I understand that. Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, alright. Kevin Nielsen: I ask you to consider that you know as was shared there is another route more direct up that hill from the big roundabout that does not take out our cul-de-sac and the last power point I saw in April showed that costing about 2 ½ million or roughly 10 percent more of the total project cost. Mr. Oehme and his fine team would have the current figures I’m sure so I ask you to consider that. I ask you to consider the length and height of road retaining wall routinely used in more hilly places like Colorado, Hawaii, California. I ask you to consider that a home is more than a house. A home is a collection of memories that you cannot uproot and replant at a different address and so I know we elect you guys to make hard decisions. Consider balancing the public good and impacts on people so I thank you for listening. Colleen you want to share some comments? Colleen Jensen: I’ve been told over and over this is we’ve got to treat this like a business deal and that’s the furthest thing from my mind. That this is business. I haven’t seen anybody do any personal studies on how this is impacting our cul-de-sac. Nobody’s done that. Nobody’s come and talked to us other than show us a plan that’s going to destroy our neighborhood. I have never seen anything more beautiful. You are all invited over to come out and have a fire in our ravine in the back of our house. There are no other homes in the middle of a ravine. They are on 16 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 top of the bluff or at the bottom of the bluff. There is nothing more beautiful than these 4 homes and their property. It’s the house I would give you in a minute. It’s the property that we’re on. It’s our dream home. We’ve been there for 6 years. I have had 4 major losses in the last 2 years and the news of demolishing our home put me into a very bad state physically. One of my losses was my son to suicide 2 years ago which is the loss of a child to a mother is on the scale of being compared to being in a concentration camp. This house has been where I’m trying to heal and the stress of this is unbelievable. That’s just my story. There are other stories that they will not let me share. The other people. It’s like my family in this cul-de-sac. We take care of each other. We take care of each other’s homes and I would ask you to do everything possible to save this neighborhood. And please come and see it yourself. Thank you. Mayor Laufenburger: Thank you Ms. Jensen. Mr. Oehme, can you answer a question for me? The, this has come before the council in work session a number of times over the last what, 2 or 3 years regarding this and I know that there was substantial work done on different costs associated with this. I think that Mr. Nielsen is probably suggesting that one, Option 1 or 1A which retains access to Vogelsberg from either Creekwood or from the south, I think that’s probably the one that he’s referring to. Paul Oehme: There’s also another one. Mayor Laufenburger: Oh the right-in/right-out. Paul Oehme: Right-in/right-out that was more cost effective than the 1A and 1B. Mayor Laufenburger: And the right-in/right-out, can you just update the council, what’s the anticipated cost of that? Paul Oehme: Sure. Jon can you put the drawing up on the screen there? And Jon has the matrix for the cost so maybe you can go over that. Mayor Laufenburger: And again we know this is anticipated cost on based on today’s dollars, is that correct Mr. Horn? Jon Horn: Correct. Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Jon Horn: Estimated costs so just to give you a sense of where we’re at here. So Vogelsberg’s right here. This here just shows the right-in/right-out so basically if you were going southbound you’d be able to access… Mayor Laufenburger: Yep. 17 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 Jon Horn: You’d be able to access out but if you were coming from this direction you’d have to do a U turn at this location. You would not have full access at this location. Mayor Laufenburger: Right. Jon Horn: So that is the alternative we looked at to say is there a way to be able to maintain access, right-in/right-out and the analysis that we went through from a costing perspective. It’s about a $3.5 million dollar cost delta between the alternative 3 version and this alternative. Mayor Laufenburger: Is that construction costs only or is that? Jon Horn: It’s project cost. Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, project cost. Paul Oehme: And that considers the right-of-way acquisitions as well too so our biggest, one of our concerns again with this alignment is the right-in/right-out. Again like Jon had indicated to go north on 101 from Vogelsberg Trail you have to go south down to the roundabout and then go north and likewise if you’re heading northbound on 101, coming across Shakopee or whatever, you have to do a U turn at Creekwood and then go down. Also again 101 going down the bluff is going to be able approximately 8 percent grade and coming into that intersection and the geometrics that we can only fit in there because the bluff is right there, it’s really problematic kind of hairpin turn to get into the neighborhood as well so from a safety perspective, from an access perspective we kind of discounted this alignment more than the other ones as well too just because of those issues. Mayor Laufenburger: Is that road, are you proposing this to be a barrier divided 2 lanes on one side of the barrier, 2 lanes on the other side? Jon Horn: Correct. It would have a center median. Mayor Laufenburger: Center median, okay. Thank you Mr. Horn. Todd Gerhardt: Paul is there a right turn lane put in to get in? Paul Oehme: Yeah there’s a right. Mayor Laufenburger: Heading south on 101. Paul Oehme: Hearing south yeah, there’s a right turn lane there but it’s a wider median or shoulder there that we created to access that location there. 18 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 Mayor Laufenburger: Alright. Is there anybody else that would like to address the council on this matter this evening? You’re welcome to step up to the podium. State your name and address. Welcome. Julie Welsh: Thank you. Good evening. My name is Julie Welsh. My address is 2700 Santee Trail, Prior Lake. I’m here with my mother Helen Link tonight and her property is the 10 acres where there’s a new intersection proposed and it looks like an access road that. Mayor Laufenburger: Can you just show, Mr. Oehme do you know the property that Ms. Welsh is referring to? Paul Oehme: Yes. Mayor Laufenburger: Can you point to your property? Julie Welsh: This would be her property here so it has the road running around it. Mayor Laufenburger: So her’s is the large gray area kind of in the middle there? Julie Welsh: Right. Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Julie Welsh: Yep and so there was discussion about water and utilities and so will those properties that abut 101, will they be assessed for utilities when they go in or at some point? Mayor Laufenburger: I know somebody who can answer that question. Mr. Oehme, can you answer that question please? Paul Oehme: Sure. Right now the way that we have the project scoped out and funded, the trunk mains would not be assessed under Highway 101 so the way that we pay for the trunk mains is through connection charges for new development so that’s basically how we pay for those improvements. Now the laterals that would come off of Laredo Lane and go into. Mayor Laufenburger: Is it Laredo or Lakota? Paul Oehme: Or I’m sorry Lakota. Mayor Laufenburger: Lakota. Lakota. Paul Oehme: Yeah sorry about that. Lakota, those would be the laterals. Those 8 inch pipes for water and sewer. That would be proposed to be assessed back to the benefitting property owners 19 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 because that’s a developable area and that’s the service that would be needed for their future development of their site. Mayor Laufenburger: But that would not, that assessment would not occur until that time that the connections are actually made, is that correct? Paul Oehme: Well and that’s something we need to study because we don’t know, I mean some property owners have requested why don’t we put all the sewer and water in at this time to service that area and that’s that feasibility study that I mentioned before. We need to go through that and see who wants to be serviced by, with sewer and water at this time. It’d just be more cost effective to do it all at once than kind of piecemeal together so that’s, we haven’t gotten to that level of detail yet. We’re just, focusing on trying to figure out how to service the whole entire area with the 101 improvements and the sewer and water improvements infrastructure that we’re proposing at this time. Mayor Laufenburger: So Ms. Welsh I think the answer to your question is that the assessment for the main trunk line would not be assessed to the property owners but the actual utility through connection charges would be assessed to the benefiting property owners. Does that answer that question? Julie Welsh: So my understanding is that there will also be some running up Lakota. Lakota Lane and that’s what she would be assessed for? Paul Oehme: And again we haven’t got to that, got to that level of detail yet so typically the services or the assessments that would be associated with an assessment roll would just be for the benefit of that one particular property so you know typically we don’t assess for utilities that are outside of that service area for your property so if it would come up to Lakota, you know that infrastructure we’d have to look at and see who the benefitting properties would be. Julie Welsh: Okay. Mayor Laufenburger: Which property is, so you said your mother’s is. Julie Welsh: It’s the vacant 10 acres. Mayor Laufenburger: Oh vacant, the vacant field. Julie Welsh: Yes. Mayor Laufenburger: Immediately to the west, is that Schutrop’s? Julie Welsh: Yes, correct. 20 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Julie Welsh: And so the access road that runs the perimeter, is that entirely on her property or does that take some from Schutrop or is it all off of her 10 acres? Paul Oehme: I think there might be some from adjacent property owners but I believe the only access that, well the majority of the access would have to come off of the Link property I believe. Julie Welsh: Okay and do you know approximately the acreage that she’ll be losing? (Due to technical difficulties a portion of the discussion between Julie Welsh, Jon Horn and staff was not recorded.) Julie Welsh: Exactly. Thank you. Mayor Laufenburger: I’m sorry we can’t answer with definitiveness all of your questions but we certainly will be talking with you in the future as we get closer to that, okay? Julie Welsh: Great, thank you. Mayor Laufenburger: Thank you very much. Is there anyone else who would like to address the council this evening? Dave Kirkbride: Hi Dave Kirkbride, 2080 Boulder Road. And I guess are we approving the map as a resident of Chanhassen and run a business here, are we approving the map as it looks with questions as to what it’s going to be? I guess that’s what you’re doing. Mayor Laufenburger: Well let me take the first question. Dave Kirkbride: Sure. Mayor Laufenburger: One of the actions tonight is for the City Council to approve the official map. Dave Kirkbride: Okay. Mayor Laufenburger: In doing so Mr. Kirkbride we are essentially putting in motion all of the necessary steps to follow that particular path for Highway 101. You heard Mr. Horn talk about some of the benefits of doing that. The property owners know that. We can make plans for utilities, things like that so one of the actions that we’re taking tonight is to essentially put the City Council stamp of approval on that official map so that is, that’s one of the actions before us tonight. 21 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 Dave Kirkbride: Okay. Mayor Laufenburger: And you, Mr. Kirkbride did you say your address? Dave Kirkbride: 2080 Boulder Road. Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, alright. Dave Kirkbride: So I’m, to go on that point. It said you’re approving the map and there’s still questions on some of those things that hypothetically this could change. This could here or there. Mayor Laufenburger: Yeah I think what, Mr. Oehme can you clarify? Are we approving the main corridor of 101? Paul Oehme: Correct, yep. So we’re just talking 101. The property owner that had questions about her property previously that was kind of a lateral road. Those connections, that still is under discussion and under study so we’re not approving those alignments yet. Dave Kirkbride: Okay I just want to make sure because you’re approving the map and it’s not yet set I guess that’s my. Paul Oehme: Well again we’re approving, we would like to approve the alignment for the 101 corridor. Dave Kirkbride: Okay. Paul Oehme: Not the side streets. Dave Kirkbride: Okay. Mayor Laufenburger: Now Mr. Kirkbride, you have a business in this area don’t you? Dave Kirkbride: I manage a business yeah. Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, alright. Dave Kirkbride: And it states on here that, will there be any extra width at the north end on Pioneer Trail and 101? Is it built as it exists except for the walkways on both sides? Is it going to get any wider there? 22 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 Mayor Laufenburger: What you’re referring to now is where 101 connects right at Pioneer Trail right? Dave Kirkbride: Correct. Mayor Laufenburger: So Mr. Oehme can you speak to what kind of plans. Dave Kirkbride: Right now it shows 6, it shows 6 lanes on this with a median in the middle and currently there’s 5 with no median so that’s really my only, if you could address that. Paul Oehme: You bet. Dave Kirkbride: Thanks. Jon Horn: Yeah so the design in terms of what happens at Pioneer Trail, it will be a divided roadway so you can see from the graphic we’ve got 2 through lanes as well as in the southbound direction as well as in the northbound direction, as well as a left turn lane and a right turn lane so basically it will be widen. It will become an urban section of roadway with curb and gutter as well as a center median. Mayor Laufenburger: And is it also your understanding or your estimate that that road will be, will it be raised or leveled so that it meets the intersection height, is that correct? Jon Horn: Yeah we had a lot of conversations at, from the agency perspective on how best to improve the safety of that because you are coming down a pretty steep grade and there’s kind of a knob at the top of the hill. Basically the proposed design shaves off some of the knob at the top of the hill to be able to improve sight distance as well as stopping sight distance coming down 101 as you approach the Pioneer intersection. Mayor Laufenburger: Wonderful. Paul Oehme: The intersection’s not going to be raised up from it’s current elevation today. It’s the approach going south. Mayor Laufenburger: It’s going to be a more subtle approach as opposed to a gradient. Paul Oehme: Exactly. Approximately, right now it’s approximately 7, a little over 7 percent grade going up. We’re proposing it to be a little over 4 percent. Mayor Laufenburger: Okay thank you Mr. Horn. Dave Kirkbride: Thank you. 23 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 Mayor Laufenburger: You’re welcome. Is there anyone else who would like to address the council on this matter? Good evening. Maryanne White: Hello, good evening. My name’s Maryanne White. Mayor Laufenburger: You want to pull that down just a little bit. Maryanne White: Sure. Mayor Laufenburger: There we go. And your address Maryanne. Maryanne White: 670 Creekwood Street or Drive. So I’m the property right here. Can you see it right there? Mayor Laufenburger: You’re right on the northwest corner of that intersection, is that correct? Maryanne White: Right so my property line’s like way down here. Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Maryanne White: And so a couple things I want to say. I guess I’m not in agreement with the alignment. I’m not in agreement with it taking maybe an acre of my yard. Supposedly this alignment will take out the septic and if you’re going to take out the septic I’m asking you to put city sewer and water or at least city sewer in. I don’t want it in the rest of the yard to put another sewer in to take out other properties that have potential for selling in the future. Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, just to clarify Ms. White. Is your property immediately opposite that straw, is it Straw Farm? Maryanne White: Straw Hill. Mayor Laufenburger: Straw Hill Farm. Maryanne White: Right. Mayor Laufenburger: So your property is, I think of it as the property that has the cell tower or is your’s not where the cell tower is? Maryanne White: No. My property is basically where the driveway is. Mayor Laufenburger: Okay so you have access off of Creekwood? Maryanne White: Yes. 24 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, got it. Maryanne White: Anything else? So yeah I only have two sides of my yard and one’s going to be a highway and from what I’m looking at here it looks like to me it’s going to be 6 lanes, 2 bike paths and a median and I do not want that in my yard. And also one of my other complaints is that the Straw Hill was in foreclosure for 3 years and I don’t see why the City or whoever could not have purchased that in the 3 years that it was sitting there for the $375,000 it was given how much this project is going to cost. That doesn’t seem like a lot to me to purchase 5 acres and that property which is not on the historical. Historical, what’s it called? Mayor Laufenburger: Registry. Maryanne White: Yeah, it’s not on there so. Mayor Laufenburger: Thank you for your comments. Maryanne White: Thank you. Mayor Laufenburger: Mr. Oehme can you just before, can you just clarify or Mr. Horn what is the current width of the 101 corridor right at that point? And then contrast it with the width that you’re proposing or that you’re anticipating. Jon Horn: See if we can maybe zoom in on this one. So as Ms. White mentioned so she’s at this location. This is the Straw Hill Farm property. One of the challenges we looked at the roadway alignment through this area is how to make the roadway alignment work with the design speeds we had as well as to avoid impacts to the Straw Hill Farm’s dwelling that sits on the property and one of the challenges with that building, it sits very close to the existing right-of-way line so accommodation of trying to make the right-of-way work as well as to avoid impacting that existing dwelling, it resulted in the shifting of the roadway further to the west so in this, in the orange area it basically shows what that strip taking would be to be able to accommodate that. Mayor Laufenburger: So are you able to identify how much of that, how much of Ms. White’s property in terms of width, feet. Jon Horn: I could probably look at the official map and give you that exact answer if that would help if you give me a minute. Mayor Laufenburger: Yeah I’d like to know the answer to that. Paul Oehme: So as Jon’s looking that up and this was another big discussion point at the TAC level so you know one of the alignments. 25 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 Mayor Laufenburger: At the what level? Paul Oehme: At the you know the agency level. Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Paul Oehme: When we had our weekly or our monthly meeting so you know one of the alignments did go in back of Straw Hill Farm through the Halla Golf Course and it did avoid the Straw Hill Farm. You know the other alignments did basically follow the same alignment as current 101 but tried to avoid the Straw Hill Farm because there was again there’s some unknowns there in terms of historical registry and things like that but we did look at trying to limit the impacts again through that section of Ms. White’s property but you know with the traffic projections in this area going up about for, potentially for about 20,000 vehicles per day and by 2035 you know the infrastructure that’s proposed with the 4 lanes and the turn lanes left and right turn lanes at most of these intersections, that’s the type of infrastructure that is needed to support that future growth in our area. But we did again look at several different alignments again at Creekwood but nothing really seem to help Ms. White’s situation there. Mayor Laufenburger: Mr. Oehme the, was there one alternative that took the road to the east of Straw Hill Farm? That was the one that cuts through a major portion of the Halla Greens, is that correct? Paul Oehme: That’s correct. Mayor Laufenburger: Okay but all of the other alternatives, 1, 2, etcetera they were all following this similar path is that correct? Paul Oehme: That’s correct and again we’re, to decrease the cost we’re trying to follow or utilize the existing right-of-way as much as we can so we don’t have to buy, purchase more property from adjacent property owners and create those additional impacts. Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. And I know Mr. Horn you use the term taking. Is there a difference between taking and simply right-of-way? In terms of property impact. Jon Horn: Right-of-way can either be right-of-way or it could be easement, and I don’t know if we’ve talked yet in terms of is it right-of-way or is it easement. The difference is, Roger I’m going to speak like an attorney so close your ears. Easement is the underlying property ownership stays with the property owner and the agency has overlying rights to be able to use that property for things versus right-of-way it’s actually taking of the property. Mayor Laufenburger: Okay so right-of-way is you actually compensate the property owner for the land that you’re going to take. 26 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 Jon Horn: Correct. Mayor Laufenburger: Easement you also compensate the property owner as well. Jon Horn: Correct. Mayor Laufenburger: But the property remains the ownership of the property owner. Jon Horn: Correct. Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Alright. Did you, are you answering our question here Mr. Horn? Jon Horn: I am. So the question that was posed is, what is the taking that is necessary so this is Ms. White’s property. Mayor Laufenburger: Yep. Jon Horn: This demonstrates what the taking is so this dimension is a little over 95 feet. So it’s a 95 foot strip along the easterly boundary of her property. Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. And how, 95 foot looks probably to be about a 300 foot long. Is that about right? Jon Horn: It is pretty close. Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Alright. Thank you very much. Is there anybody else that would like to address the council? Good evening. Your name please. Don Halla: I’m Don Halla. Mayor and council members. My main concern is if you’re putting in sewer and water up to what used to be my own property which is now the Mustard Seed, that th ending it there and not extending it all the way down to 96 Street through a force main is a negative impact on all the property owners in the area. th Mayor Laufenburger: 96 Street. Don Halla: That’s where the lift station is and it was built to accommodate all the sewer needs in this area as I understand from the City. Mayor Laufenburger: Mr. Oehme is that true? Paul Oehme: This area is proposed to be serviced by a lift station on Powers Boulevard. That’s what the comp plan states. 27 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 Don Halla: You have a lift station proposed in the bottom of the ravine on my property also running through the property. Paul Oehme: There is a sub-lift station to service your property that would pump to the trunk mains that were being proposed on 101 and that gravity main would flow over to Powers Boulevard to be pumped to the Met Council station. Met Council line on Lyman Boulevard. Mayor Laufenburger: Mr. Halla are you, regardless of how the sewer and water services are provided, are you saying when we change the road that’s when we should deliver utility services? Is that what you’re asking? Don Halla: I’m saying that the sewer should be put in the ground for future connection at the time you’re doing the roadway. The, as I understand Bluff Creek, which you want to put the sewer running through has no intention of doing any subdivision in the long range even. They’re making plenty of profit. Mayor Laufenburger: When you say Bluff Creek you’re. Don Halla: Golf course. Mayor Laufenburger: Oh the golf course, alright. Don Halla: Yes. That’s my understanding anyway. They make plenty of profit and they don’t want to eliminate that I guess I’ll put it that way. The rest of the property, I own 12 acres addition, or directly adjacent to Maryanne White’s property and I have the cell tower on my property. Mayor Laufenburger: Oh so the cell tower is on your property? Don Halla: Yes. And of course with sewer and water all of this property down there including the 10 acres that was spoken about earlier is ripe for development and I understand you also want to connect the gun range area where they’ve been taking. Mayor Laufenburger: The 61. Don Halla: Moon. Mayor Laufenburger: 61 corridor. Don Halla: Right. To this same area so to me it would be prudent to put in the sewer system to handle all of that area at the time the road goes in instead of having to dig up the road really would be the fifth time and that intersection’s been redone 3 times on Pioneer Trail in the last 28 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 what 3-4 years anyway. 5 years it’s been done one more time also so it would be prudent to put it in with the construction or reconstruction of 101. Mayor Laufenburger: Sure. Mr. Halla I don’t think you’re going to get any disagreement from us on that. I think that we would agree that it is prudent to when the road is, you know when the dirt is exposed put the pipes in even though they may not be turned on or filled right at that particular time but put them in the ground at that particular time. Don Halla: Correct. Yes. That’s my request too and so… Mayor Laufenburger: I think we’ll do the best we can to honor that Mr. Halla. Don Halla: Thank you. And if I may address Maryanne’s concern, she is my daughter. She has a large row of sugar maples that are going to be taken out. She has her septic tank that’s going to be taken out and they want to put that in her only front, left of her front yard basically. They want to build a septic mound in her front yard. That’s her concerns if she doesn’t get sewer in her system so she’ll have a great big mound between her and Creekwood. Right next to her driveway and she loses all her separation from the highway that she has now. She has a row of evergreens and a row of sugar maples that run about 8 to 12 inches in diameter and the road will then be only 50 feet from her home I believe it is and so that’s her real concerns and she won’t be able to get a barrier. And according to the plans that have been submitted the State doesn’t want to put any kind of a barrier up for her. That’s just she’s going to be exposed fully to the road and that’s the other problem with that. The road is moving about I believe 20 to 30 feet more into her property off of the existing right-of-way than what it is today. Thank you. Mayor Laufenburger: Thank you Mr. Halla. Appreciate your comments. Mr. Oehme can you just clarify one thing. Things like landscaping along the road or you know if we have to do construction, as a general rule don’t we return property owner’s land to a state similar to what it was before? Is that, isn’t that kind of the practice we follow? Paul Oehme: Mayor, City Council members, we try to you know screen the properties as best as we can. You know we can’t do in some situations put it back to it’s current condition but we do our best to screen it for the impacts associated with the new improvements. A good example of the project that we tried to screen is residents from the improvements, the 101. The north section of 101 north of Pioneer Trail so in that project we installed over 120 trees. We put up 4 berms. We’ve graded a bunch of other areas to help screen in some circumstances too so we try to work with the property owners as best as we can. Actually in that project we obtained additional easements from adjacent property owner so we could put those mounds, berms up so we can plant trees up on top to help them screen so we try our best to work with property owners. We do have a landscaping plan. We typically try to incorporate in these designs to help property owners with these type of situations. We know it’s an impact. We know it’s a detriment and we try to do our best to accommodate their wishes. 29 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 Mayor Laufenburger: And we do it in a way that we do our best to listen to what it is they’d like to accomplish right? Paul Oehme: Absolutely. Again the 101 section, the 101 improvements north of Pioneer Trail we’ve, we worked with at least a half a dozen property owners on where they wanted their trees and where they wanted a berm. How high they should be. What type of vegetation they wanted. Those type of things so we do our best to work with the adjacent property owners and address their concerns. Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Alright, thank you Mr. Oehme. Is there anybody else who would like to address the council at this time on this matter? Todd Gerhardt: Mr. Mayor. Mayor Laufenburger: Mr. Gerhardt. Todd Gerhardt: At this time can we get an opinion from the City Attorney on the effects of the official mapping process? Mayor Laufenburger: Absolutely. Mr. Knutson. Roger Knutson: Mayor, members of the council. Officially mapping does not transfer ownership of the property or any interest in the property to the City. It will be just as it was before you adopted the official map. But if someone comes in and asks for a building permit in the area that’s officially mapped then what has to be done is a balancing of the needs of the property owner, interest of the property owner and the needs of the City and after that balancing a decision is made to approve the building permit. Then the City has 6 months to condemn that property or they can build what’s approved in the building permit. That’s how it works. Mayor Laufenburger: So this action that’s proposed tonight of us making this map official, this does not change property lines? Roger Knutson: No. No. Mayor Laufenburger: All this does is it identifies that this is the intended, the preferred, the official corridor that we would like to, that we will follow with Highway 101. Roger Knutson: And obviously we don’t want you know more, if you put up a building inside that area that creates an issue because when we have to condemn it we’re going to have to pay for that so then before that building permit is issued again we weigh the, you have to balance the interest of the City and the interest of the property owner and then if the decision is made to issue the building permit then we have 6 months to condemn that property or they can start building. 30 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, thank you for that clarification Mr. Knutson. Roger Knutson: You’re welcome Mayor. Mayor Laufenburger: Is there anyone else would like to address the council at this time? James Sabinski: James Sabinski at 775 Creekwood. Mayor Laufenburger: Could you say that again James. James Sabinski: James Sabinski, 775 Creekwood. Mayor Laufenburger: Good evening Mr. Sabinski. James Sabinski: All this talk that’s being going on here and nobody has addressed the access off of Creekwood and like a stop light. I mean we’ve got 300 to 400 cars that go up to that golf course everyday in the summer time and nobody in their planning here has addressed the safety feature on that. Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, would you like. James Sabinski: So when would that, when would we address that factor? Mayor Laufenburger: Actually I think it’s probably not accurate that it hasn’t been addressed. Perhaps it hasn’t been addressed just to you. James Sabinski: I haven’t heard it tonight. Mayor Laufenburger: Mr. Horn, you want to speak a little bit to that intersection. First describe what that intersection will be and how you perceive it will be, deal with the safety. Thank you for your question Mr. Sabinski. Jon Horn: Yeah so access onto 101 certainly was a significant concern in particular considering the number of accesses that exist today and some of the sight distances that are a challenge based upon the current alignment so the question that was raised is what’s happening here as a part of Creekwood. So at Creekwood as you approach 101 from Creekwood you would have separate left and right turn lanes as well as separate turn lanes that would be proposed on 101 to be able to separate that turning traffic from the through traffic. The other big thing that we looked at in particular at that intersection location is the sight distance that’s there today is very challenging so when you look at the profile of the roadway and looking at where that intersection sits relative to the grades on the roadway, we looked at a location, a profile for the roadway that provided much better sight distance than what exists today because it is very dangerous in it’s current 31 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 condition. So it would basically improve the sight lines by both configuration of the alignments approaching 101 as well as the vertical profile. Mayor Laufenburger: Okay and Mr. Horn, today how many driveways are off of 101 in that Creekwood area? Jon Horn: A majority of these in this area still access Creekwood. I’m sorry. Need a longer microphone or a longer arm. So it’s basically the accesses for the White property as we just talked about is off of Creekwood. I’m still missing, there we go. Mayor Laufenburger: There, thank you. Jon Horn: So basically the plan would be, there are accesses on these properties today. The goal would be to try to provide an alternative access off of Creekwood for those so we would be eliminating the direct accesses at this location and then improving the Creekwood intersection so we’re consolidating the individual driveways that occur here today into one access off of Creekwood. Mayor Laufenburger: So Mr. Sabinski’s home, he’s on Creekwood. James Sabinski: And Mandan. Mayor Laufenburger: Creekwood and Mandan so his access to 101, his access to 101 would be, I got it. So his access to 101 would be a collected access for all of the people on Creekwood including those homes that currently have driveways onto 101. Jon Horn: Correct. Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. And does traffic warrant anything of a traffic signal in this area at this time? Jon Horn: So there’s basically you have to go to to warrant a traffic signal. It depends upon traffic volumes, both on the main line as well as the approach roadways. I mean that’s something that would have to be monitored if and when development occurs. You know that’s something that would have to be studied at some point, do those warrants get met and could a traffic signal be installed. Certainly based upon existing conditions it wouldn’t meet those warrants just because there’s no traffic volumes but that’s something that could be evaluated as time goes on and development occurs. Mayor Laufenburger: And I would assume part of that evaluation would be how will traffic patterns change once this road is in place from the roundabout on 101. People would then very easily progress up the hill to this area. 32 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 Jon Horn: Correct. Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, so a traffic study would likely be warranted at that time? Paul Oehme: Absolutely. Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Mr. Sabinski would you come back here for just a second? James Sabinski: Yes. I don’t think you are seeing the clear picture on this here because you can’t count driveways. You can’t count lots because we’ve got a golf course up there that has the 300 to 400 cars a day. Mayor Laufenburger: I understand. James Sabinski: So I think that’s what you should be looking at because we wouldn’t need nothing if it was just the dozen lots up there. Mayor Laufenburger: Right but Mr. Sabinski isn’t it true that those 300 to 400 cars today are traversing from 101 back along Creekwood? James Sabinski: Yeah. Mayor Laufenburger: So maybe I don’t understand your question. Your concern. James Sabinski: Well because when you put the road in, excuse me but. Mayor Laufenburger: Go ahead. James Sabinski: That you’re going to have more traffic on that road. Right? Mayor Laufenburger: Yeah I don’t question that. I made reference to that. James Sabinski: That there will likely be a need for a traffic study at that time. Mayor Laufenburger: That there will likely be a need for a traffic study at that time. James Sabinski: So I think, I doesn’t see why we don’t go ahead and bite the bullet and put the stop light there right now while we’re building the road. Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. And as Mr. Oehme has said and Mr. Horn has said, today’s traffic based on warrants which is a state calculation of traffic, it does not warrant a traffic signal at that point at this time. 33 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 James Sabinski: Well I still, I dispute what he’s saying because maybe he can show me in writing where that when you’ve got 300 cars on a small street like that trying to get out onto another busier one I would say that’s pretty much a warrant right there. Mayor Laufenburger: I understand your views on that Mr. Sabinski. We follow state guidelines when we plan for roads. Plan for speed limits. Plan for all of those things and I would trust my engineer to evaluate that and evaluate that based on a number of things. Sight lines. Number of crashes that occur. Things like that so those are, those are valuable measures in determining whether or not a traffic signal. I’m not eliminating the possibility that a traffic signal may be necessary at some point in the future but at the present time Mr. Oehme we don’t need one is that correct? Paul Oehme: That’s correct. Mayor Laufenburger: It’s not warranted, okay. Thank you Mr. Sabinski. James Sabinski: Well I guess he’s got your mind made up then. Mayor Laufenburger: At least at present Mr. Sabinski. Anybody else wishing to address the council at this time? Ms. White. Maryanne White: Yeah, Maryanne White again. Yeah I do want to actually address that. I did call Paul Oehme and asked him about a light there and he said no. There just won’t be a light there. You know I’ve been there since 2002 and I have been given the finger when I take a right because I’m taking a right. I literally over at Mustard Seed I turn on my right signal to let people know. Literally people go way too fast so they’re already going way too fast. They already run into you know the Mustard Seed. What do you call that? That was why we put up the guardrail, right. How many people flew over the fence before that? I mean I can see it’s obviously horrible but yes, I definitely believe there needs to be a light there. If there’s not 300 cars going to the 18 hole golf course over at Bluff Creek it’s going to be maybe in how many years a development and it’s going to be 20,000 cars a day and if you want to sit out there you’re welcome to sit out there and watch the cars go by from 6:30 a.m. til 8:00 a.m. rush hour and from 4:00 until 6:00 p.m. is rush hour every day. And people fly so yes I definitely think a light needs to be there so that’s what I came up here to say. Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, thank you Ms. White. Anyone else wishing to address the council? Gary Anderson: Sure Mr. Mayor, Gary Anderson. I live at 725 Creekwood. It’s basically. Mayor Laufenburger: You’re on Creekwood. Gary Anderson: Yep, right up in this area. 34 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, right at the corner of Mandan and Creekwood? Gary Anderson: Yep, couple of acres up in there. Mayor Laufenburger: Is it Henderson or Anderson? Gary Anderson: Anderson. Anderson yes. Mayor Laufenburger: Anderson. Gary Anderson: I was just learning everything outlined in yellow, that’s the official map that’s going to be approved? Mayor Laufenburger: I would say the official map is the 101 corridor. Gary Anderson: Off that 101 corridor Creekwood and going the other way Creekwood into Teich’s property, is that going to be, is that part of the official mapping? Paul Oehme: That section into the Link property is not part of the official map. Gary Anderson: Is Creekwood? Paul Oehme: I think up to the cul-de-sac Jon. Gary Anderson: I’m just wondering are they going to put, is that proposal going to be have curb and gutter? Paul Oehme: Yes. Mayor Laufenburger: Yes it will. Gary Anderson: And then like you mentioned in your first statement you said to have sewer and water underneath the curb and gutter and a new road? Mayor Laufenburger: Well the utilities will be placed, determined by our engineers whether it’s right under the road. Adjacent to the road but it will be placed. Gary Anderson: So sewer and water would be underneath that road? Paul Oehme: Yeah in conjunction with the roadway project. Gary Anderson: Up to Mandan? 35 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 Paul Oehme: Well and again we need to study exactly how far we want to extend those laterals? Gary Anderson: And how soon will that determine how? Paul Oehme: Well you know the process I envision would be after we have funding for the 101 project we would enter in, or start a feasibility study to determine exactly how far sewer and water should be brought up to Creekwood or to the Link property or to the Laredo and you know meet with the property owners and see what their feelings. How far we should extend sewer and water at that time. Gary Anderson: Because if we’re going to go ahead and put the new road with the new street I’d say put the pipe in right away like you mentioned before. Mayor Laufenburger: So you’re, as a property owner there you’re advocating to put the line all the way to Mandan, is that what you’re saying? Gary Anderson: I would think that would make the most sense is to have the sewer, the pipe in there. Have water in there. Right now we’re on well and septic there so I think our wells are pushing the limit with 3 golf courses, 2 nurseries and a pickle factory. I think, I’m kind of concerned about a well issues there so I would think that would be one of the things that I would take a look at. And the other thing is the infrastructure. I’ve been dealing with Minnesota Valley Electric. We’ve had issues with the power going out in that area. Cyclely golf course, Mrs. Teich’s area back in there and they’re going to put a new 3 phase cable in there. Talking to the senior engineers and they want to also do upgrading underground power through that whole area so I think maybe this would be the time to take a look at those issues. Mayor Laufenburger: I’m sure Mr. Anderson, those are good comments and I’m sure that the people who are working on developing the plans will make sure that anybody who needs to be in the ground in that vicinity, let’s make sure they state their piece before we start putting shovel in the ground. Gary Anderson: Appreciate that. Mayor Laufenburger: Alright, thank you Mr. Anderson. Anyone else? Dave Kirkbride: Mayor, councilmembers, I just want to, I spent a few years over at Bluff Creek and coming out there and just talking about the traffic. Mayor Laufenburger: Bluff Creek, the golf course. Dave Kirkbride: Bluff Creek Golf Course. Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. 36 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 Dave Kirkbride: Right now it’s just a 2 lane road going through there and as you come out this section here, it’s just not a 90 degree turn. It’s actually about a 110 degree turn. Mayor Laufenburger: Because you have to kind of make a sharp left. Dave Kirkbride: Yeah and it’s one lane you have to cross and if anybody spent time out in that area and every neighbor has tried to get on there every day so often days it’s very impossible coming over the rise and this area, I’m certain there will be some land shaved off in this area but as you come off this and now you’ve got to cross what looks like 4 lanes of traffic to try to get a 110 degree turn into an already median, right now it’s un-median. I think you’re going to run into a huge problem with accidents and to their point, the residents point in the area, without a traffic signal that’s going to be dangerous. That just my point after doing that for 8 years, taking a left, taking a right coming in there. One lane it’s, you can get on there and all of a sudden somebody’s coming over the hill and I know that grade will change but I think 4 lanes with the turn signals, the turn lanes, the 2 main lanes to try to get over there, and I’m sure the speed will be more than the 35 I think it is now. Just my point. Just a point of interest I guess. Mayor Laufenburger: No I think that your point is well taken Mr. Kirkbride and I think that this is, this is one of the reasons why this is, this is not an easy thing to do. To design for. Dave Kirkbride: No. Mayor Laufenburger: Mr. Horn mentioned the shaving of that, that hill and giving a long turn lane. All of that will be taken into consideration as the design of this is put together. Dave Kirkbride: I’m sure they’ll make a good choice. Mayor Laufenburger: Alright, thank you Mr. Kirkbride. Kate Aanenson: Mayor if I could just add. I think we’ve met with some of these property owners, the planning department as we had these open houses so there’s a lot of discussion regarding property access to the thread which is the 101 is really the thread that ties all these together so there are provisions for other access for the development of Bluff Creek. Not necessarily Creekwood because it’s a smaller road. We’d have, someone would have to acquire additional property. They may not want to develop so other provisions were made and you can see some of those connection points. As we worked through those, that’s really illustratively to show kind of how you would tie into those. I think some people feel right now that those side services are going in. We’ve been trying to have this discussion because we know that’s the next area that wants to develop so as we look at that, as the City Engineer indicated that would be an opportunity as, if the road gets funded that we have further discussions to say where is everybody at. What’s the best place to put those services but there are other options out there 37 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 besides just coming down Creekwood because that’s a substandard road and we didn’t anticipate that being widen at this point. Mayor Laufenburger: And what you’re referring to is accesses from Bluff Creek Golf Course. Kate Aanenson: Correct. Mayor Laufenburger: In the event that at some point in the future it is developed. Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, alright. Which we know reasonably that at least via evidence of comments tonight Bluff Creek is profitable and they have no reason to develop into housing. Alright. Mr. Sabinski did you want to make another comment? Please just I would ask that you step all the way to the microphone so we can hear you. We have somebody who records this and also the people who are watching at home are interested in hearing what you have to say. James Sabinski: My concern now is that if you’re going to put sewer and water under Creekwood, it’s the way you’ve got Creekwood in yellow there is that, where the road’s going to be? Are you going to follow the existing road or are you? Mayor Laufenburger: We’re, Mr. Sabinski we’re not putting sewer under Creekwood today. These are all parts of discussions that we will need to take place. The only thing we’re doing tonight is just deciding where the main 101 corridor will occur. That’s the only thing we’re deciding. James Sabinski: Okay then that’s fine. I thought when Mr. Anderson got up you said you were going to, if you put sewer and water under Creekwood area. Mayor Laufenburger: Yeah all I said to Mr. Anderson is that his, I thought his idea is a good one and at the time when we begin construction, when the plans are in place and construction is underway we will then make decisions as to the feasibility of how far we extend the water and sewer into the neighborhoods off of 101. James Sabinski: We’ll be notified before you do that. Mayor Laufenburger: Absolutely. Absolutely. James Sabinski: Okay, thank you. Mayor Laufenburger: Thank you Mr. Sabinski. Any other comments? At this time we’ll close the public hearing and bring it back to council for comments and questions. Mr. Oehme is there anything that came up in those questions that you want to clarify or anything? 38 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 Paul Oehme: Just maybe a little comment on Creekwood again too. So right now this is kind of a unique project. 101 is basically the jurisdiction of MnDOT. It will eventually be turned back to Carver County but the City of Chanhassen is more or less leading this initiative because we see the need for it. So for the signal again the warrants are a state level. MnDOT and Carver County both have to sign off on something like that to put a signal in because they would have to maintain it and operate it. And again signals they help in some situations but where they’re not warranted they can actually cause more problems than they’re worth so you get a lot more T- bone accidents. People running red lights. Those type of things so signals aren’t always the best option in terms of accessing onto trunk highways or main collector roadways. There is a safety component that potentially can be reduced when you put a signal in. I just wanted to make sure people understand that. Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, very good. Very good. Thank you Mr. Oehme. Council members any questions or any questions or staff or any comments you’d like to make at this time? Councilman McDonald: Mr. Mayor? Mayor Laufenburger: Councilman McDonald. Councilman McDonald: First of all I want to thank everybody for coming out. This is a big project. Realize it’s only about a 2 mile long project but it is a big project. It is not only the last piece of 101 but it is probably the most difficult piece. We’ve been dealing with this for over a year. Actually discussions started before we finished the section north of Pioneer Trail and we knew that there were going to be a number of problems which is why we did start as early as we have. You know I agree with some of what’s said about the alignments but again Mr. Oehme has done a good job of going through and explaining why it needs to be the way it is and based upon that the scenario that we’ve come up with is probably the best alignment. It’s not a perfect solution. It definitely doesn’t solve a lot of problems. Maybe creates a few new ones but I think that we can deal with those problems. You know we are looking for cooperation from the State, from the County to address some of the outstanding issues. I think the big thing that you need to take away is that I mean we’re not done with this. The only thing we’re trying to do is just, as Mr. Oehme and Mr. Horn have said, we’re just trying to map out where we think the new 101 is going to go. That’s the only thing we’re looking at. From there we will begin to build upon this and I think that thus far Mr. Oehme and Mr. Horn have done a good job of addressing concerns. I know they’ve been to a number of meetings with the people that are in the audience today and we are trying to listen to you and we are trying to come up with solutions to this but this is not going to be an easy section of roadway to fix but we have to fix it. It’s key to the development and the access of our city to the south and especially going across the new 101 bridge over to Shakopee and picking up 101 there. All I can tell you is that you know going forward after tonight we’re not done. You brought up a number of good issues that we will continue to look at and try to address and try to come up with solutions but no matter what we do it’s all going to be a matter of compromise and I would just ask the residents to keep that in mind. That the City 39 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 needs to compromise and the residents are going to need to compromise. It’s never easy whenever government comes through and we start telling you we need to build this road because it’s in the better interest of the citizens of the city. I know that a resident sitting down on 101 down there is not going to buy that. I don’t blame you. If I were in your shoes I would probably also have a hard time taking it but I just ask for your patience. The conversation doesn’t stop tonight. It continues and we do welcome everyone’s comments and suggestions and we’ll try to take those and build upon them and when we’re done we’ll have a good project and I think it’s something that will make the City of Chanhassen proud. Mayor Laufenburger: Thank you Mr. McDonald. Anybody else? Councilwoman Tjornhom. Councilwoman Tjornhom: I guess I’d like to agree with Councilman McDonald and everything he said about the struggles and difficulties of 101. I mean we have struggles with it north and south. I live on the north part of 101 and that’s going to be a struggle too. I mean that road is also dangerous and needs to be improved and so 101 will be with us for a long time I’m afraid but tonight as the Mayor said we are here to address the map and environmental studies and to agree that we need a map and that we probably don’t need a really in-depth environmental study. What I appreciate is everyone that came tonight because for me it really helps to put a face with an address so as the discussions continue and we talk about properties and we talk about scenarios and we talk about Creekwood and stop lights and what’s necessary and what’s dangerous and what will improve the quality of life for residents on 101, it’s really going to help me so thank you for that. For letting me know. I’ve always been an advocate that I’m not, I don’t believe that government has a right to take properties and so it helps me to at least listen to everybody and really hear their voice and you know like I said we’re all here together. We live in this wonderful town and we just have to deal with 101 and I believe that we will so thank you. Mayor Laufenburger: Thank you Councilwoman Tjornhom. Anyone else wish to make a comment at this time? Councilwoman Ryan: Mr. Mayor actually I have a question before I make a comment. Mayor Laufenburger: Sure Councilwoman Ryan. Councilwoman Ryan: And it’s kind of in connection with what Councilman Campion had asked at the very beginning and so I would direct this at you Mr. Horn. Before we make a motion about the negative declaration and I just always get concerned about making, you know moving too quickly. I know nothing in government ever moves very quickly. I understand that but when it comes to these impact studies have we, are we just trying to move this forward? Do you feel like the due diligence has been done through the worksheets and the questions and the comments? Is there, could there be more that needs to be studied or, I mean are you comfortable with where we’re at? 40 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 Jon Horn: Mayor and council, so the EAW process, there’s a number of questions that need to be responded to so we basically went through the process. Responded to each of those questions. Want to make sure that we provide an opportunity for public comment and response to the answers of those questions which is basically that 30 day comment period. Through that 30 day comment period there’s an opportunity for people to provide any feedback on the adequacy of that environmental document. If you look at the Findings of Fact document that was included in your packet, so basically we’ve taken all the comments that were received and responded to them individually in terms of a response back to the questions that were raised through that 30 day comment period and the environmental professionals that put that document together. You know they do this stuff all the time and basically then evaluated those comments and concerns and said is there any need for additional environmental studies and based upon that process, the questions we received and the responses of those questions a determination of the recommendation was that there was not need for additional studies to look at anything that wasn’t adequately addressed through that environmental assessment worksheet process. Councilwoman Ryan: So it’s common that you don’t always have to make that next step is that correct? Jon Horn: Correct. It’s probably more typical that you don’t than you do. Councilwoman Ryan: Okay, than you do. Okay, thank you for that clarification. Mayor Laufenburger: Just related to that Mr. Horn, I’m recalling that when County Road 61 was, when the work was being prepared for the roundabout. I’m not sure if you were, if your organization was involved with that but I know that they’ve discovered some historical digs and perhaps they didn’t know about those ahead of time but when they discovered those things kind of came to a little bit of a halt until things could be assessed. So if something like that were to happen with 101 and we encounter something that we, you know below the surface and we don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s a vein of gold or something like that. We can hope. We would just, we would have to address that at the time, is that correct? Jon Horn: That’s correct and actually because of what happened as a part of the 61 job this EAW actually went a little bit above and beyond. We actually some shovel testing with archeologists in the field. On some of the properties because of the concerns associated with that and that’s not typically done as a part of an EAW process. In this particular case it was because of the findings of what happened as a part of the 61 job. Mayor Laufenburger: Great. Did you find anything? Arrowheads? Jon Horn: No veins of gold. Mayor Laufenburger: No. Alright. Thank you Mr. Horn. 41 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 Councilwoman Ryan: Thank you. Mayor Laufenburger: Councilwoman Ryan did you have a comment that you wanted to make? Councilwoman Ryan: No and I just would like to agree with, I don’t need to reiterate with what Councilman McDonald said but you know when we go through this process and it did, I’ve only been on the council for a year and it did come before us and it isn’t just a roadway that you know is going through. I mean we take it very seriously. We acknowledge the struggles that property owners face when something like this, they’re being faced with and so again to repeat it’s, we ask for your patience and support and we truly do understand the challenges that property owners face and so this isn’t an easy decision but we hope to continue the communication as we move through this process. Thank you. Mayor Laufenburger: Thank you. Not necessary Mr. Campion but would you like to voice a comment or two? Councilman Campion: Just briefly to echo many of the comments of my fellow council members and thanking all of your residents for coming out to voice your concerns. You know and appreciate those and we’re listening to them. We would like to proceed with setting this map for the planned route of 101 so that we can continue that planning process and address these issues that you’ve raised tonight so thank you for coming out and we are listening. Mayor Laufenburger: Thank you Mr. Campion. I just have a couple comments that I would like to make. First of all, Ms. Jensen I don’t know the, I have not experienced what you have and I am very sorry for your loss and I think that it exemplifies what, that which we all face. Not necessarily the loss of a son or the loss of a loved one but whenever the City undertakes change there is loss. Development is hard. Progress is hard and as Mr. Nielsen so wisely pointed out, the 5 of us were elected by the city to make not only the easy decisions but also the hard decisions. And those hard decisions include hopefully an eye on a preferred future for this community and that preferred future for this community regarding the topic that we’re looking at tonight is a safe 101. A 101 that is not closed down when a quarter inch of ice comes in the winter. A 101 that does provide a corridor of commerce for people coming into the city from Shakopee and Scott County and people in Chanhassen who are going to work in Scott County so change is really, really hard and that’s one of the reasons why we think it’s so important to establish this official map at this time so that people can take steps that are necessary between now and what did I hear Mr. Oehme, what’s the earliest possible date that this road? Paul Oehme: 2018. Mayor Laufenburger: 2018 and that’s if all of the stars align and a couple of planets too right? Paul Oehme: (Yes). 42 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 Mayor Laufenburger: Our idea here is to put this in place so people can go about their life with their current property, with their plans with this preferred future in mind so as Councilwoman Tjornhom said, this requires cooperation and it requires a partnership on the part of all the people in the city. Those who not only use 101 but those you go to the golf course. Those who live down by 101. Those who quite frankly may have property sales between now and whenever 101 is fixed so we think that this is in the best interest of the community. Yes it is a hard decision and I can tell you I may not have knocked on all the doors at Vogelsberg Trail but I turned into that cul-de-sac and I felt the presence of the community there so I know that which you’re describing. Is there somebody that would like to offer a motion? Councilman McDonald: Well I’ll do so Mr. Mayor seeing as how our monitors have gone out. I would propose that the City Council approves the EAW for the Trunk Highway 101 improvements, the CSAH 14 to CSAH 61, City Project number 14-08 and makes a negative declaration on the need for an EIS. Further that the City Council approves the ordinance adopting the official map for the Trunk Highway 101 improvements, CSAH 14 to CSAH 61, City Project number 14-08. Mayor Laufenburger: Thank you Councilman McDonald. We have a valid motion. Is there a second? Councilman Campion: Second. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Second. Mayor Laufenburger: Thank you Mr. Campion. Any further discussion? Resolution #2015-75: Councilman McDonald moved, Councilman Campion seconded that the City Council approves the EAW for the TH 101 Improvements, CSAH 14 to CSAH 61, City Project No. 14-08, and makes a negative declaration on the need for an EIS. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. Councilman McDonald moved, Councilman Campion seconded that the City Council approves the ordinance adopting the official map for the TH 101 Improvements, CSAH 14 to CSAH 61, City Project No. 14-08. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. Mayor Laufenburger: Ladies and gentlemen thank you very much for your patience during this process. We appreciate your input and we look forward to continuing dialogue with all of you relative to this project as it moves forward. Next item on our agenda tonight, the new business, Gateway Medical Building has been delay due to the applicant’s absence. Let’s move to Administrative Presentations. 43 Chanhassen City Council – November 23, 2015 ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS. Mayor Laufenburger: Mr. Gerhardt. Todd Gerhardt: Items that are coming up Mayor and City Council members. We’ve got the Southwest Reconnection Project or what we officially like to call the bridge opening ceremony th will be tomorrow, Tuesday, November 24. There’s a program at 10:00 at Turtles in Shakopee and then the official ribbon cutting will be at 11:00 on the bridge with a luncheon at 11:30 back at Turtles and there will be bus transportation from Turtles to the bridge and then back to Turtles so. And so an exciting project. Kind of a long time in coming and look forward to that event. Mayor Laufenburger: Wonderful. th Todd Gerhardt: The next item is on Monday, December 7. We’re going to hold our Truth in Taxation hearing here at City Hall at 7:00 in the council chambers so the public has been invited to that through their Truth in Taxation notice so I just wanted to remind people of that meeting. Mayor Laufenburger: Alright. Todd Gerhardt: That’s all I have. Mayor Laufenburger: Anything else, thank you Mr. Gerhardt. COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS. None. CORRESPONDENCE DISCUSSION. None. Mayor Laufenburger: Before we vote just a reminder council will convene in the Fountain Conference Room for Executive Session immediately following council. Councilwoman Tjornhom moved, Councilwoman Ryan seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. The City Council meeting was adjourned at 9:05 p.m. Submitted by Todd Gerhardt City Manager Prepared by Nann Opheim 44