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1f Minutes .4J- CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING OCTOBER 27,1997 Mayor Mancino called the meeting to order at 6:35 p.m. The meeting was opened with the Pledge to the Flag. COUNCILMEMBERS PRESENT: Mayor Mancino, Councilman Senn, Councilman Mason, and Councilman Engel COUNCILMEMBERS ABSENT: Councilman Berquist STAFF PRESENT: Don Ashworth, Roger Knutson, Todd Gerhardt, Kate Aanenson, Todd Hoffman, and Charles Folch APPROV AL OF AGENDA: Councilman Senn moved, Councilman Mason seconded to approve the agenda with the following amendments: Councilman Senn amended item IC. PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: None. CONSENT AGENDA: Councilman Mason moved, Councilman Senn seconded to approve the following consent agenda items pursuant to the City Manager's recommendations: c. Resolution #97-86: Request MnDot to perform speed study on TH 101 south ofTH 5 to 861h Street, and also north of TH 5 to sharp curve, PW262f. f. Approval of Bills. g. City Council Minutes dated October 13, 1997 City Council Minutes dated October 20, 1997 Public Safety Commission Minutes dated October 9, 1997 All voted in favor and the motion carried. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: TRUNK HIGHWAY 7 SAFETY IMPROVEMENTS - MNDOT REPRESENT A TIVE PAUL KACHELMEYER (MNDOT PROJECT). Public Present: Name Address Rick Dorsey Jill Lidstone V.R. Isham Kris Knox Mary Knutson Rogers Howard Schmidt 3941 Leslee Curve 3991 Country Oaks Drive 4030 Leslee Curve 3801 Leslee Curve 3851 Leslee Curve 2810 Sandpiper Trail, Excelsior City Council Meeting - October 27, 1997 Rick Raether David Kammerer Frank Scott Zoe Bros 6200 Cypress Drive 4000 Crestview Drive 2730 Sandpiper Trail 6631 Minnewashta Parkway Paul Kachelmeyer: On the section of Highway 7. Mayor Mancino: Excuse me. Have these handouts gone out to the public in the audience? Paul Kachelmeyer: There are some over here if anybody hasn't gotten any. Mayor Mancino: Is there anyone here tonight? Thank you. Did you need to get the handouts? Good. Anyone else who would like to follow along with the presentation with handouts. Paul Kachelmeyer: MnDot has a work project scheduled on Highway 7 for the year 2000. The project is 8 miles long going from Highway 41 to St. Bonifacius. The main purpose of the project is safety improvement involving quite a number of different things to be done out there. Pave the shoulder on both sides of the road 10 feet wide. We're putting in a number of turn lanes. We're putting in a signalized intersection at the intersection of Rolling Acres Road and Smithtown Road on Highway 7. A number of other minor improvements. This road is not intended to be made any bigger. There are no additional lanes going to be added to the roadway in that project. Mayor Mancino: Any trails? Paul Kachelmeyer: There are no trails being added to the roadway, along the roadway as part of that project. But one thing that we are planning on doing is a significant number of reduction in the access points to the highway in both city streets that come to the highway and driveways. Private driveways. The reason for this is an overall understanding that the number one thing that affects safety on a road like Highway 7 is the number of access points that come down to the roadway. The stretch of Highway 7 that's located in Chanhassen is essentially from Highway 41 out to west ofMinnewashta Parkway. Just a little bit beyond that. That stretch of road was looked at as part of the corridor study in 1986 that all the communities along that road took part in. Chanhassen, Shorewood, Excelsior, Victoria. All the other communities along there. Minnetonka. The overall recommendation of the study in '86 was that the number of access points to the highway going all the way from Highway 101 to Minnewashta Parkway was that the number of access points be greatly reduced and that the remaining access points that are there be improved so that they be real safe. They have right turn lanes and left turn lanes. Good sight distance and that kind of thing. So the stretch that is in Chanhassen was looked at back in '86. They were just recommendations. Now that we've got a project going we'll come up with specific recommendations and they essentially follow what was recommended back in '86. It would involve closing off three city street connections to Highway 7 and changing one of the city street connections so that access at that city street connection would be just right turn in and right turn out. The history of closing access, after that 1986 study there have been a number of projects done on Highway 7. People who drive that area, we've rebuilt the intersection of Christmas Lake Road this year. In past years there was Vine Hill Road, Old Market Road, County Road 19. As part ofthose projects, access reduction was done during all them. There were about a dozen or so city streets closed as part of all those projects. So it's an ongoing effort and continuing into the future actually in some places too. There's a project proposed for Excelsior 2 years from now. As part of that project there would be three city street connections closed and a couple of driveways also. I've got some maps here showing what we're 2 City Council Meeting - October 27, 1997 proposing to do at the various streets in Chanhassen. I can try to quickly go through the reasons why we would. Mayor Mancino: That would be very helpful. Paul Kachelmeyer: Oriole A venue is about the third page back in the handout. Oriole is located about 950 feet west of Highway 41. When there is a major intersection at a highway, what we find is that any intersection that's very close to that major intersection tends to have accident problems and tends to distract drivers from what they need to do or what they've just done at the major intersection. And so we try to make sure that there aren't minor intersections within a quarter mile or so of major intersections. Oriole Street is, like I said about 950 feet west. Oriole also is located at a place where Highway 7 is four lanes east of Highway 41. It goes into a two lane section very quickly west of Highway 41 and right at Oriole is the place where the merging of those two lanes into one lane occurs so all the drivers on Highway 7 are conductmg that movement right at the same time that other drivers are conducting a movement to leave the highway and Oriole. We see that as a place where, due to the increased number of things that drivers have to look at at that spot, that creates a hazard. It turns out there aren't an excessive amount of accidents occurring out there. There is 2 or 3 a year or so at the intersection. There probably won't be more as traffic volume goes up. This project that we have proposed for Highway 7 is probably the last project we'll be doing out there for at least 10 years, ifnot much longer. Traffic volume on Highway 7 in this vicinity of Oriole right now is about 17,000 vehicles a day. We expect that to go up. It's hard to say how fast that will go up. Oriole itself has an uphill grade to it which is pretty steep which means that under slippery driving conditions, vehicles that are exiting either right or left onto Oriole would have difficulty doing that. Left turning movements onto and off of a highway seem to be where the major hazards come from. The accidents that occur out on highways. There's about 50 a year that occur on that 8 mile stretch of Highway 7 that get reported to the Department of Public Safety and about half ofthose involve people getting injured or killed. And it's left turning accidents seem to be the most major of the ones that involve people getting injured or killed. Turning left off of a road that you don't have very good acceleration on isn't a very good thing. Turning right is also not so good but it seems like people who turn right have a better chance of getting into the traffic stream because they aren't crossing the lane of travel also. Turn to the next page. Washta Bay Road. Washta Bay comes and joins Highway 7 at an angle and across the street but about 50 feet down there's a road on the other side of the street, Pleasant A venue. That comes at an angle also. A different angle. Two intersections that almost meet but don't quite meet at a highway tend to cause real conflicts of movements. There is not too many accidents that occur there eight, remarkably. Only about 1 or 2 a year end up getting reported. Probably cause for the high number of accidents there is the relatively low volume of traffic that actually uses that intersection. It just really services the local homes in the area. But also leading to a rather complex situation right there at the intersection is again on Washta Bay Road is a steep incline that leads up to the hIghway. And then a frontage road that comes in just like 15-20 feet back from the highway. If you put those three things together and you've got a lot of potential for conflicting traffic movements at the intersection. I mean again that's the type of intersection that ends up being unsafe and accidents happen. Not a lot of accidents because it's got a relatively low usage. The next drawing in the handout is Cypress Drive. Cypress actually has a very small number of accidents occurring at it, but it's got an extremely steep upgrade leading up to the highway. Steeper than any of the others at all and it'd just be extremely difficult to get out onto the highway safely during slippery driving conditions. It also just serves, there's only 8 homes on that street and there's really close access by adjoining streets. The closeness also contributes to one of the potential hazards out there in that with vehicles going so fast on Highway 7, when streets are close together it tends to lead to confusion to drivers as to just where vehicles are turning. Where drivers have to turn and then to the other drivers where a vehicle might be turning. We feel it's much better to try to get a wider spacing between intersections. The last one on the 3 City Council Meeting - October 27, 1997 handout is Leslee Curve and Leslee Curve, the local homeowners around there report that there's about an accident a month occurring out there. And part of the real big reason for that is probably the fact that there are no left turn lanes at the intersection. All the other intersections that we just spoke about, they do have the center two way left turn lane but there's no left turn lane at Leslee Curve. It's also located close to but not across from another city street. Over on the other side of the street is Pipewood Curve, about 300 feet down or so. The vehicles that are turning into Pipewood Curve are making a movement often that is in conflict with vehicles that are either turning into Leslee Curve or vehicles that are going around vehicles that are turning into Leslee Curve. Again, having intersections that are kind of close together but not exactly together tends to be a real unsafe situation. Now there isn't a left turn lane at Leslee Curve or Pipewood Curve and we just simple haven't got the funding in our project to build them either. So that's not really an option that, it's an option that could be done but it's not an option that we have the money to do. I should mention about all of these. There's a plus and there's a minus to closing access. The plus is an improvement in safety and improvement in traffic flow on the highway. To try to msure that the highway is safe to drive on and that it can carry the traffic that's on it. The negative to closing access points is that most people end up being either inconvenienced or disrupted. The inconvenience is that most people who would normally use that intersection won't be able to use it any more and so they have to drive somewhere else to get to the area they want to go and that somewhere else is usually a longer trip. If it's a block or two, maybe it's a half a mile or more. The disruption is that the vehicles are going elsewhere, it usually means that more vehicles are going by somebody else's house. And the homeowner who perceives that more vehicles will be going by their house is usually somebody who would not support that concept and that's inevitable that it would happen in any case where we close accesses. We've been publicizing what we intend to do out there. Notices were sent out to about 200 residents in Chanhassen. With maps and explanations of what we were proposing to do. I've gotten a lot of phone calls. We've had a public meeting that was advertised in the local paper out here. Had that 3 Yz weeks ago. Many, many people came to the meeting. The reactions I've heard have been mixed. There's endless stories about people who have been in accidents. People who have almost been in accidents or people who knew somebody who was in an accident and they very strongly felt that something should be done about situations that are unsafe out on the highway. Then there are people who lived in the neighborhoods who supported what we're proposing and then there were a number of people who opposed what we are proposing due to that, .. .one is people oppose it, there's going to be more traffic by their house and there will be in many cases. And others I've heard who oppose it who see quite a long detour around from the route that they presently take. I think that's as quick a version as I could give. I'd be happy to talk more about any questions people have. Mayor Mancino: Thank you. I'll ask if anyone does have any questions for you tonight. Is there anyone here that has any questions for Mr. Kachelmeyer? If you do, please come forward to the podium. State your name and address and please ask. Jill Lidstone: My name is Jill Lidstone and I live in Chanhassen and the Leslee Curve closure affects me. There's a church right there and I'm wondering how you anticipate. My concern is there's a lot of kids, as there are in many neighborhoods and my concern is that we're taking the traffic, as you said, off the highway and then putting that on the streets where the kids are certainly less likely to be as cautious as they might be around a highway. And especially with the church being there, it seems like we're going to put a lot of traffic onto the local streets instead of taking them right off of Leslee Curve. Plus there doesn't seem to be, there seems to be a great distance for going south of Highway 7 between Minnewashta Parkway and Leslee Curve. So it's not like it's a very short distance. That's my question. Mayor Mancino: Paul, do you want to come on up and answer it so that Jill can hear you. 4 City Council Meeting - October 27, 1997 Paul Kachelmeyer: A couple items that were raised. The distance between Minnewashta Parkway and Leslee Curve. It's got a good spacing. It's the type of spacing that we'd see as being desirable. You know not too close together like it sits in some other spots. But for some reason there is the accident problem that's existing out there. And so the spacing alone, it's not making a difference. The church, we've looked at the church situation and it would be nice as far as traffic flow if that church weren't there. We looked at could we relocate an entrance just for the church. I'm glad the church is there but you're right. It creates traffic flow through the neighborhood of non-residential people coming and going from the church. It's like a business. Not a lot of good options for locating a driveway out on Highway 7 just for the church. It turns out right in front of the church is the street across the way. And right across from the street across the way on the south side of the road is a great big gully that the drainage from the area flows through. Ifit wasn't for the great big gully, it'd probably be fairly easy just to move an entrance down just for the church and remove the Leslee Curve one. It wouldn't be too easy doing that. We could possibly leave the entrance there and route it just over to the church and cut it off from the neighborhood, but the neighborhood couldn't come and go but the church traffic would. Neighborhood wouldn't have the church traffic but then the neighborhood wouldn't have the convenience of the access either. We would see that as being acceptable for a couple of reasons. One IS, the volume of traffic using the entrance would be greatly reduced and that would reduce the accidents. Mayor Mancino: Would you come back to the Council with that option. I think we'd, I'd like to see it. Paul Kachelmeyer: Sure. If there's support for that I could look at the dimensions of what's out there and see if we can fit it in. There is a couple of other. The option would be to leave the leave the Leslee Curve access right where it IS but close it off from the neighborhood streets and connect it over to the church. Mayor Mancino: So that all the church traffic can still go in and out from TH 7 but the neighborhood traffic can't. So you know you wouldn't have the extra church traffic going through the neighborhood. Paul Kachelmeyer: There is a church down in Excelsior, or actually it's in Shorewood I think, that has an entrance off of the highway that would appear to be an undesirable entrance as far as safety goes but church traffic tends to be you know Sunday morning and a couple nights of the week, and people coming and going from church aren't in a tremendous hurry. They're not trying to get to their job that they're already 10 minutes late to, and for some reason churches don't seem to generate the same type of driver that is normally out on the road. Mayor Mancino: We all go to church so. Paul Kachelmeyer: While people are going to church, they seem to drive different. Maybe that's a different way of putting it. So that'd be an option we could look at. We are here, our purpose for talking to the Council for publicizing what we're doing is to hear ideas and concerns. We haven't just decided we want to do something and are going to hold to that. Mayor Mancino: Okay. Jill, I may ask you to come up again but just one second. Councilman Senn. Councilman Senn: Couple questions, just to follow up. Why can't, or I guess why have you dispelled the introduction of just simply the turn lanes at that point? Paul Kachelmeyer: Well we figured the turn lanes would cost about a quarter of a million dollars and we simply don't have that money to do it. 5 City Council Meeting - October 27, 1997 Councilman Senn: Okay. And what about the issue with the gully. Why can't you deal with the drainage issue by introducing. Paul Kachelmeyer: Right. Engineering wise you know we could construct something. We'd have to divert the flow from one spot to another spot. Re-route a culvert underneath the highway. That could probably also be achieved but it would also start getting real expensive. And it actually, over by Pipewood Curve it's in a worse location than Leslee Curve as far as sight distance from the road goes. It's near to a curve and it's near to an area where we can't really widened the road due to a wetland being on the north side of the road. So if money weren't an issue, it's something that could be done but then the sight distance problem would still be there. Councilman Senn: Okay. But well what, I mean it's hard for us to evaluate these without understanding you know effectively more of what you're talking about on the money issues. I mean it's kind oflike you know, we don't have enough money to do this but we're going to do it anyway so we're going to do kind of a you know half whatever job of it. I mean it's almost kind of what I started hearing and so if you could put that in perspective, I think that might help everybody understand what we're trying to deal with. Paul Kachelmeyer: Okay. The money situation, you know you see a lot of highway work going on. Why is money getting spent in one spot and not another spot? There hasn't been a gas tax increase since 1988 and people are driving more so they are paying more in gas taxes but construction costs have gone up for highways way faster than the inflation rate than the increase in driving. The net result is, there Isn't a project done today where we do it the way we'd really like to if money weren't an issue. All along Highway 7 there's a hundred spots where I've made concessions, something we'd like to do but we can't because ofa shortage of money. We pretty much have gotten a certain amount of money to spend on this stretch of road. That's probably all we're going to get to spend on it for at least 10 years and we've got to decide, an improvement at one intersection would mean something not being done at another intersection. So the intersections where we've decided to do expensive improvements have been in the intersections where we felt traffic volumes or accident situations merited it. Mayor Mancino: Any other questions from councilmembers? Councilman Senn: Not for now. Mayor Mancino: Thank you Mr. Kachelmeyer. Jill, did you have another question? I sense you do. We just want to make sure we get it in the Minutes so that if we have to go back. Jill Lidstone: Okay. Ifwe don't, I mean what is our opportunity for recourse if we don't agree with some of the closings? I mean is this it? Just to tell you that we don't agree or what happens next? I mean are these done or are these proposed? Paul Kachelmeyer: The closings we're proposing are proposed. We seek the City Council approval of these closings. Ifwe don't get the City Council approval, we probably would not close them. We do see reasons why we think they should be closed. Something that I have personally heard many times is a rather extreme statement so I'll warn you it's a rather extreme statement but it's the statement, how many people have to get killed before you do something? Or does somebody have to get killed before you do something? Well in this case we've got a project. We're proposing to do things in places where we see a potential for accidents to occur and if the City Council does not want us to do that, in a way they've 6 City Council Meeting - October 27, 1997 decided that at the time you would rather wait to see if the accident problem worsens or somebody gets killed before we do something. And that's kind of an offensive way to put it now but it's a statement I've heard many, many times. We are wanting to do something strictly for safety purposes out on the highway. This is what we think would make for a safer roadway. We're seeking the City Council approval in our decision to do that. Mayor Mancino: Thank you. Jill, to answer you further and Mr. Kachelmeyer, will you still stay up please. We will, this is a visitor presentations so we will not be making a motion for approval tonight. This is for us to really hear it for the first time. To hear your issues and he will come back to us with the option of the church and having it's access out ofTH 7. And maybe give us some cost figures to go with the gully and the work that needs to be there. I mean exactly how much are you anticipating that would cost in addition if. Councilman Senn: Well I guess, I also would like you to bring back some budget numbers to us. I mean what's the total project budget. Where it's being allocated to the different points. Paul Kachelmeyer: I can give you that right now. The total project budget for the 8 mile stretch of road, from Highway 41 out to St. Bonifacius is $3 million. Probably about half of that is going in to just pavmg the shoulders along the road. So that's a million and a half. About a million is probably going into adding turn lanes and intersections. And oh probably about half a million is going into the work that's going to be needed down at Smithtown Road and Rolling Acres Road. Signalizing that intersection and completely reconstructing what's out there. And there isn't much left over after that. There's minor safety things. Putting up guard rails. Flattening some slopes and that's about it. The access closures are typically not an expensive thmg because they're removals. Councilman Senn: Okay, $1.5 million is to pave the shoulders. Why do you need to pave the shoulders? Paul Kachelmeyer: The unpaved shoulders on heavily traveled roads tend to greatly contribute to accidents that occur. There are a lot of head-on accidents that occur on Highway 7. When vehicles are going 60 mph down a highway, somebody's coming at them, apparently in the past a lot of people have not felt that hitting the shoulder was an option and in some cases that decision resulted in somebody getting killed. Also when somebody goes off the road and their vehicles, or their tires hit the gravel shoulder while the other tires are on the pavement, they go out of control. Paving shoulders is you know, after accident, access reduction, it's almost like an equal thing that can be done for safety improvement on a road like that. Mayor Mancino: Okay, thank you. One other question. What other roads.. . Highway 5? We have TH 5 and TH 7. Paul Kachelmeyer: The only road that I work on is Highway 7 and so if you have questions on others, I wouldn't know the answers. But I do know that Highway 41 is a state highway. Mayor Mancino: My only question is more conceptually. As we're going about and we're developing our city and we have accesses going out to MnDot roads, and I know that every single subdivision, every single access and I'm sure that Oriole, Les1ee and Cypress, you know at some point came in front of you to okay. I want to make sure that, you know in the future we won't be going back and closing. I mean is MnDot looking at that right now as we are developing as a City and making sure that we're not going to have problems in the future? 7 City Council Meeting - October 27, 1997 Paul Kachelmeyer: An extremely diligent thing that we do now that wasn't done in the past is we try to have a great influence in where any new accesses onto the highway go and we try extremely strongly to work with CIty planners to ensure that good access locations are put in and that new developments don't necessarily hook up to the highway. That they hook up to existing developments, and it's usually quite a fight because when developers develop land, they usually develop as much land as they own. The adjacent parcels that are not theirs, the developer usually isn't concerned about and at that time it's usually up to MnDot and the City to work together to somehow or another look out for the concerns of those parcels that aren't being developed at that time. Make sure that they will have a good connection to some road when it does come time that they develop. Mayor Mancino: Okay. So you're looking at that now, good. Thank you. Any other questions from Council members? Anyone else tonight in the audience wishing to ask a question. We have one more question for. Or a couple more. Please come up to the podium. State your name and address. Zoe Bros: I'm Zoe Bros. I live on Minnewashta Parkway.. .accesses that will get the cars out of the neighborhood... Now it seems to me we're going to be backing them up and they're going to be winding around all over every trail...traffic within our community...kids are crossing Minnewashta Parkway. Like we're going to kind of bottle it up so traffic is going to have to all come back into one source... Mayor Mancino: Well that is exactly what we're trying to do now and not make so many accesses on our major highways. So that there will be more inter-neighborhood traffic and so that cars will go slower and hopefully will obey the speed limits. And I mean, that's why we also have trails so that people will not only be in their cars but be walking and bike riding, etc. But most people don't want to do that on the highway. Frank. Frank Scott: Yes, Frank Scott and I'm from the Sandpiper Trail. My question is, today we have three accesses into that entire area from Washta Bay Road up to TH 41. Into all those houses. There is three of them. They're planning on closing two ofthem down to left turn lanes. Washta Bay would close. You couldn't turn left into Oriole. The only place you'll have left to turn left is going to be Sandpiper. Unless you're coming from St. Boni, you can't get in that way. I imagine a lot of people are going to be going past that and trying to do a U turn on TH 7 to get back. Take a right turn into Oriole because there's an awful lot of cars.. . to get into that area. This map shows there's a connection to TH 41 and if there is, it's pretty well hidden because I haven't seen it for a number of years so. Right now we have three accesses and they plan on basically closing two of them to the majority of the traffic coming from the east, Minneapolis area, to get into this area. Mayor Mancino: Do you know what the traffic count is? I mean how many homes it is at all that will be just using the one? Frank Scott: I do not know how many homes there are, but there's a small industrial complex also that's right off Oriole that the traffic goes in and out of. But there's quite a big of turning, what's happened on Oriole Avenue. Mayor Mancino: Paul, have you quantified that number to find out what the difference will be? I mean how many will be using the one access because you'll be closing the two. Paul Kachelmeyer: No, we haven't made an estimate. It would be fairly easy to try to come up with something. 8 City Council Meeting - October 27, 1997 Mayor Mancino: That would be helpful. Paul Kachelmeyer: .. .pomted out that I didn't realize. Mayor Mancino: Paul, could you come up to the podium too. Paul Kachelmeyer: Sorry bout that. Something that was pointed out that I see is absolutely true is this map does show that there's a 64th Street that connects over to Highway 41 and that connection was removed apparently a number of years ago. So there is no other, there is no connection to Highway 41 from this neighborhood. You know I just picked a map out of our source of maps to draw up for this and that was a mistake. Mayor Mancino: Well if you could, when you do come back, if you can quantify those numbers and tell us, you know how many more, how much more traffic there will be on the one entrance and exit, we'd apprecIate that. Now, we will be notifying as a city Don, correctly, the next time Mr. Kachelmeyer comes back and we can have a public hearing on this. Correct? Don Ashworth: Well it will be printed m the Villager, but what I would suggest, because I know many of the people, especially in the Minnewashta area do not get the Villager. So if you would, if you're here for this item, could you mark it. I believe we sent out an attendance and make sure that your name and address is on there. Somehow mark on there Minnewashta item so I'll know who you are. Mayor Mancino: Or Highway 7. Say Highway 7 improvements and then we will make sure that we send you an announcement of when we will have our next public hearing and some of the answers to these questions. If also any of you have questions between, you know this next week, write them down. Please send them to us at City Hall and we'll get them to Mr. Kachelmeyer to answer for our next meeting. Councilman Senn. Councilman Senn: A couple more maybe to take with you just before you go. When you're going to effectively pave the shoulders. Paul Kachelmeyer: It'd be in the year 2000. Councilman Senn: No, no. When you pave the shoulders. Paul Kache1meyer: Oh, I'm sorry. Councilman Senn: Okay, it's kind of a. When you pave the shoulders you're going to also introduce you know like turnmg movements. You said turning lanes, that sort of thing. Okay, are you going to broaden the road at the point that you're going to introduce the turn lanes or are you simply going to utilize the then paved shoulder to introduce the turn lanes? Paul Kachelmeyer: No, we would build a standard right turn lane which is 12 feet wide, whereas we plan on paving the shoulders 10 feet wide. And the 12 foot wide section would extend back for, like 500 feet for a right turn lane. Ifwe're building a left turn lane, that means widening the whole driving surface of the road for a distance oflike a quarter mile in either direction of the intersection and we're planning on doing that. Not at any location in Chanhassen but that involves you know widening of the road so that the road has standard left turn land. Standard right turn lane where those turning movements would be occurrmg. 9 City Council Meeting - October 27, 1997 Councilman Senn: Is the 10 foot versus 12 foot in safety circles or whatever, something that's critical or what? Paul Kachelmeyer: Yeah. For turning movement. A standard driving lane is 12 feet wide. Councilman Senn: No, I understand. But when you're going into a turning movement you're not going anywhere near the speed you're going to be going in a standard lane. So I'm saying you've slowed down. You've exercised caution. You're going to turn. Paul Kachelmeyer: Right. There's a number of turn lanes in the metro area that are less than 12 feet wide. Right turn lanes. Councilman Senn: All right. I know that. Paul Kachelmeyer: But if we're building something brand new, spending all the money to do it, we'd make it 12 feet wide. Councilman Senn: Well but the point I'm trying to get at is you're going to pave the shoulders all anyway 10 feet. For the whole distance. You're going to spend a million and a half doing that. You know looking at your plans here, you know you've got a million tied up in turn lanes. It seems to me if you adapted your plan to utilize little narrower turn lane and use that within your paved shoulder, it would free up dollars to deal with some of these other situations that really need to be dealt with which you know, which could accomplish you know a little bit more out ofthe project, you know with a little flexibility simply over a 2 foot section because I mean I know there's a lot of turn lanes that are less than 12 feet in width. Now granted it's not the ideal but again we're trying to improve the overall safety and at the same time as improving the overall safety, we're also trying to keep in mind the safety within the neighborhoods and stuff that we're doing here too. Not just purely the safety on the highway. And if some of those situations could be treated more effectively by some trade off on those dollars and use of those dollars, where it just seems to me you ought to be looking at it. That's all. Paul Kachelmeyer: Well that sounds like a real reasonable thing to ask. Actually when this project originally got programmed, we were only anticipating building shoulders that were 8 feet wide. And then it turns out that you had asked about trails. There's a lot of trail crossings. Snowmobile trails, hiking, that cross the highway. There's none that run parallel to it, although I believe Chanhassen recently made a proposal to try to get funding for a section of trail along the highway. I haven't heard about it so. Mayor Mancino: We passed a referendum. Paul Kachelmeyer: It turns out back during the corridor study in '86, and again there was a corridor study that was done for the stretch of highway from Minnewashta Parkway all the way out to Hutchinson. That was done 2 years ago and that involved an involvement by all the communities between here and Hutchinson. There was a strong push for trying to accommodate trail use along the highway. Despite the fact that most people wouldn't want to calmly walk along the highway, it turns out there's a heck of a lot of bicyclists who use the road. I've encountered dozens of them using the gravel shoulder that's out there now. And we were allocated additional money for the project in order to pave the shoulders 10 feet wide. That more or less came out of a trails allocation so that's why we're having 10 City Council Meeting - October 27, 1997 10 foot shoulders and if we reduce the 10 foot shoulders, the money would probably get taken away. In building. Councilman Senn: Why though? I'm just curious because I mean 2 feet isn't going to buy you or not buy you bike trails. You're going to be in conflict with the turning movements with bike trails regardless because as soon as you introduce the turning movement you're going to cross whatever bike lane is there. I mean it seems to me again you can minimize your stuff there a little bit and accomplish some other practical. Paul Kachelmeyer: Oh, you're right. You know we could make decisions to do different things and free money up from one. I just wanted to go into a little bit of the background that turns out bikeways, trails, was a consideration on this project and that's why it actually is getting the amount of money it is getting. As far as the construction of turn lanes go, when we make pavement for shoulders, we don't make it very thick. Turn lanes are much, much thicker because they receive much, much more traffic. The shoulders are kmd of designed so that if somebody needs to pull off the road, they can pull off the road without sinkmg into the mud and so that bicyclists can ride along there but it's not anticipated that they get much traffic. So the construction of the turn lane ends up involving a whole lot thicker pavement plus a whole lot thicker granular and sand material underneath the pavement. Mayor Mancino: Any other questions councilman? Councilman Senn: Not for now. Mayor Mancino: Thank you. Anyone else here tonight wishing to. Howard Schmidt: My name is Howard Schmidt. Mayor Mancino: I bet some of you didn't realize you were going to learn about highways tonight but we're glad you're here. Howard Schmidt: My name is Howard Schmidt and I live on 2810 Sandpiper Trail. The same place he does, and what gets me, they're talking closing two roads. But they just got done building across the street from me 12 new homes but now they want to start. I was there when they closed the back road out to TH 41 and that really hurt. Because I used to use that road a lot because you'd go on, you'd get onto TH 41 real easy and go out to TH 5 and go anyway you wanted which was better. Now it's closed. Now they're talking about closing some more. And we still, we're getting more people built in these territories but they're going to put them all on one road. How are they going to get out? I've sat out on, I live on Sandpiper Trail where I come out. I've come out there where I've sat 15-20 minutes just to make a turn to go west. Or go east, not west. Go east into town. Because it's just.. .and the other thing. Since they made, they remodeled TH 41, or TH 7, it's like a race track. Now here about 3 months, or about a year and a half ago they had a big radar set up and for about 3 solid months there was decent traffic on that road. But now they're back to the same thing. Mayor Mancino: Thank you for your comments. Kris Knox: Good evening, my name is Kris Knox. I live in the Minnewashta Parkway area. A couple comments that I've heard from Leslee Curve is that that closing, the idea of coming up with an idea to separate the church traffic from the neighborhood traffic. First of all, some of the neighborhood go to that church so I mean to drive all the way around, is pretty ridiculous. Also the idea, if you look on this 11 City Council Meeting - October 27, 1997 map here you'll see this whole area here which is between 80 and 100 homes is served by two areas on either end of the neighborhood. One offTH 7 and Leslee Curve, which is the proposed stop place. And the other off Minnewashta Parkway. You know sheer numbers ofhalfthe people use that, which I do all the time and I know a lot of neighbors do. That means a lot of traffic to be funneled through one entrance to that whole giant neighborhood, which is ridiculous. I have called several times this summer. The traffic on Minnewashta Parkway. The speeders are bad enough. There's parks all along there, as you know as far as private or association beaches. There's traffic problems already with speeders on Minnewashta Parkway and between Minnewashta Parkway and, or between Glendale, which is the other entrance to that neighborhood and Highway 41, you're going to double the traffic. They're going to be in more of a hurry because they've got to go three times the way around to get to their same house and it's just going to cause more problems with speeders. More problems with the traffic through the one entrance into that whole neighborhood at this point. It seems like a ridiculous idea. I've been driving out there for millions of miles and maybe I don't know where the reports of one accident a month and maybe that's true but as a person that drives on the road for business in the area every day, I've never had a problem with accidents. I've never seen an accident out there personally so the idea of all the disruption and the potential danger to the neighborhood as far as speeders go does not seem worth it for the Leslee Curve spot as far as I can see. That's everything I had on my list, thank you. Mayor Mancino: Thank you. Anyone else? Okay and as I said, please remember to sign up and to write us any of your thoughts this week and we'll make sure that we will get those to Mr. Kachelmeyer. Thank you very much for coming tonight. ApprecIate it. REFERENDUM UPDATE. SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 112. Mayor Mancino: Next item under visitor presentation, scheduled item is School Distnct 112 officials updating us on any new information about the November 4th referendum. You've got a crowd tonight. Dave Clough: Yeah, I don't think they're here for this but. They are here for. Mayor Mancino: Wait. Let me just ask one question. How many of the people in here do go to a school in District 112? Oh, there you go. They're here for this. Thank you. Thank you. Dave Clough: They're here to talk to you about another issue that is very important to the school district also. I'm Dave Clough. I'm the Superintendent of the Schools. I do live in Chanhassen. Thank you Mayor, Council, staff. You've given us time twice now at a work session and another Council meeting to explain the referendum. The only reason we're back tonight is when we presented information to you earlier on the tax impacts, we did tell you that we knew that there were changes coming based upon the actions of the legislature last spring and we do have that updated information now. We're just going to take a very short time to present that to you. And again, our thanks to you for giving us time, three different times, to help our citizens better understand the November 4th referendum. Dave Peterson is our Finance Director and he will present the information. Dave. Mayor Mancino: Okay, thank you. Dave Peterson: Yes, thank you for inviting us back. What we have of course is a very unusual school district. School District 112 is exhibiting the characteristics of only 20 districts in the State of Minnesota and that primarily is that we're a fast growth district. We have been growing at 300-400 students a year and that growth will continue. All of the evidence that we have from the Met Council and from our demography shows steady and continuing growth. When a district is growing such as this we need to, 12 City Council Meeting - October 27, 1997 just as you and the County and the State of Minnesota build the infrastructure, and as the number of students increases, we need to create space. When we have to create space we either rent it or build it, remodel it but that takes usually a bond referendum. What we're working with you from last summer through today and up through November 4th with is the other type of referendum. The referendum that provides general fund and operating dollars that go into our system that can create the learning and activity in the classroom. We have up for a vote Question No.1, a $1.25 million, 8 year referendum question. And also a $400,000.00 Question Number 2,8 year referendum for technology. We've gone through those presentations with you and with the public to quite a large degree. The information tonight is a short package. Very short of good news. Funding all ofthis activity is the State Omnibus Tax Bill and also the State Omnibus Education Bill. Two bills have come together. The legislature passed a very significant tax relief program for commercial industry, retail and also a very substantial tax relief program for homeowners... They all go in effect in 1998. The very year that this tax levy begins. What we have for our tax impacts is about a 10% reduction in what has been mailed to the homeowners in the Truth in Taxation parcel specific notification that went out last week. The reason that this new information is coming is that It's taken the State of Minnesota, Department of Revenue that long to create software to give to the 87 county auditors across the state to be able to calculate what the value of our school district is under the new law. When all of the new calculations are made we have a significant impact with our levy for the referendum, if it passes. And that impact is down. Because of the new law and the shift, the State surplus into tax relief, both in the decreasing State tax rate and also the new classifications which lower the value of the homesteads over $75,000.00, and a commercial industrial by about 25% across the board. The impact of this referendum has gone down about 10% from what's been actually advertised and notified. These are the new impact statements. Mayor Mancino: Dave are you telling me, excuse me. Do you mind my asking a question? On my property tax for my residence, are you telling me that the line item, now I don't live in District 112. I live in 276, but if! lived in District 112, that line item that said school levy, or school property tax would be decreased by 10%? Dave Peterson: It actually goes down 12%. Mayor Mancino: It will go down 12%, according to last year ifmy home value is still the same as it was last year. Dave Peterson: All of our tax projects are on the assumption that your home is not reassessed or your mdustry property. By law that needs to be looked at by the County Assessor or the City Assessor every 4 years as a minimum, and it needs to stay within I believe it's 90% of the actual sale. So yes, we're in an area where there is inflation and equity going into the structures that we have. We're becoming more valuable each day. That's good news when it comes to sell. It's also good news for cash flow and other kind of financial statements. The issue however is that the school, cities, and the county, we don't control that. That's a matter of the interpretation ofthe state law by the assessors. So all of this data is on the baSIS that all we can say is that we can give you a model of one value home in '97 to the same value home in'98. Mayor Mancino: In '98. Okay. Dave Peterson: .. . many of our properties stay the same. Now when you take. Mayor Mancino: I hope mine does. 13 CIty Council Meeting - October 27, 1997 Dave Peterson: When you take all of the school taxes. You remember our school taxes are about Yz of all the property tax paid in School District 112, so if you go to Victoria, Carver, Chaska, Chanhassen, right around 50% of the total property tax goes to the school. There are over 26 different levies that we make. The crime drug levies. There's the general foundation they've formed levy. Capital outlay. Health and safety. Transportation... Only one ofthe levies that we're talking about is this excess levy referendum. But if you take all of the school levies that are posed now to certify on December 11 th, the actual levies. If you look at that, it's $1,317.00 before the referendum. Ifboth questions pass, you would add $97.00 plus $31.00 for a total tax bill in 1998 on a $150,000.00 home of$1,445.00. This is before your 20% reduction in property tax on your State Income Tax return at the end of '98. That's going to be another tax relief program that goes into effect. None of this shows that impact. This is of course good news to us because when you look at both the homesteads and the commercial, just take the homestead and focusing on the $150,000.00. That was just the home that I took. By the way, if anybody has individual homes or very complicated apartment complexes, industry, any of the commercial/industrial base, we can do calculations on an individual basis and we're available for that kind of personal counseling. If we can't answer it, we have our financial advisors who are standing by. .. to help any individual taxpayer. But when you put all of this together and you say okay, pass both referendum questions and compare the taxes of '97 to '98. If you look at the blue column is '97 tax. The maroon is '98. On any valued home over $75,000.00, there's a significant tax reduction, even if the property tax impact of the referendum goes into effect. Now, if the referendum would fail. Mayor Mancino: There'd be more. Dave Peterson: Obviously your taxes go down further than this. Okay. Because you wouldn't be applying this. In that case the tax reduction would be about $250.00 on a $150,000.00 home. So the tax relief program created by the State surplus that the legislature spread is a tremendous impact on property. It's one of the largest property tax relief programs in modern history. It may be unprecedented. If you look at the commercial industry.. . some of our community in District 112, we're building an infrastructural wealth here that will parallel any school district inthe future. That is coming on line and being developed in all of our communities. But if you look at a $1 million business, of which we have many, if the referendum passes, that's what this bar graph is assuming. The tax reduction to that industry is still $6,257.00. That's with the referendum passing. Obviously if the referendum did not pass, or we weren't holding it, this would go down around $10,000.00. So the good news and the short package of what we have been anticipating the new law would provide for us since last July has in fact come to fruition and we now have the numbers to prove and document the case. And with that we thank you very much for letting us present this to the public and. .. very interested in this and we appreciate your fine comments of support at the last meeting also. If you have any questions, Superintendent Clough or I are available now or after. We'll go out in the hall and... Mayor Mancino: Thank you. Is there anyone here tonight that has any questions on the referendum? I don't see any but you're available. What's your number? What's the quick call, hotline number for any questions? Dave Peterson: I'd have to look that one up. My number is 368-3623. . . Mayor Mancino: Oh excuse me. Please come forward to the podium and state your name and address please. Susie Blake: I have a question. I'm Susie Blake and I live at 8040 Hidden Circle. I've had a couple people ask me, is it possible to do an absentee ballot for the referendum? 14 City Council Meeting - October 27, 1997 Dave Peterson: Yes. They have to do it Monday and you should.. .go into the school district office. It's gettmg pretty late to do them by mail. . . Councilman Engel: When was that to be in by Dave? Dave Peterson: The absentee ballots have to be done, I would say by Monday. I mean technically if they come in the mail, they should still come in Tuesday's mail. Councilman Engel: Which is the 2nd? Mayor Mancino: No, Monday's the 3'd. Isn't it? Dave Peterson: Monday's the 3'd. Mayor Mancino: Monday's the 3'd and the 4th is voting day. On Tuesday. Councilman Engel: Okay, got it. Dave Peterson: The best thing is to just go in and go to the office. And then otherwise we have to send you an application. You have to send it back and then we have to mail you the ballot. You have to mail it back. It's gettmg very tight time wise. Mayor Mancino: And again all Chanhassen 112 residents vote at the Rec Center. Dave Peterson: Chanhassen Rec Center, Community Rooms 1 and 2. Everything is set. There will be 15 votmg booths in there and we're looking forward to a real efficient flow of people. Mayor Mancino: And are you handing out Halloween candy? Or post Halloween candy? CouncIlman Mason: I bet there's a law against that. Mayor Mancmo: Thank you. Okay, moving on to the agenda. And I would like to say we have a public heanng next but I would like to thank everyone who is here tonight for being so polite and listening. I really apprecIate it. PUBLIC HEARING: CERTIFICATION OF DELINQUENT UTILITY ACCOUNTS. Don Ashworth: Each year the City Council goes through a process. The City does of notifying those residents, property owners that are delinquent on their utility bill. State law provides a process by which a city can certify the delinquent account such as that to the County Auditor for collection with the next year's property tax statement. We have notified everyone on the list that the City Council has in their packet, that we intend to make that certification this evening. I did have two written responses which the Council has copies of. I think one of those we have settled out. I've not heard from the other. I would suggest that the Council open this public hearing. See if there are any other comments and staff would recommend certification of the delinquent list at the end of the hearing process. 15 City Council Meeting - October 27, 1997 Mayor Mancino: Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Ashworth at this time? Then this is open for a pubhc hearing. Anyone wishing to address the Council on the delinquent utility bills, please come forward at this time. State your name and address. Seeing none, oh okay. Denny Sullivan: I think I may be one ofthe ones who wrote. Sullivan. Don Ashworth: The City Council does have a copy of your letter. I believe you talked to somebody in finance here 3-4 weeks ago. Maybe a little longer and I don't know. Denny Sullivan: I haven't talked to anybody. Since I got the letter back in August from you guys. Don Ashworth: Okay. Mayor Mancino: What would you like to state Mr. Sullivan? Denny Sullivan: Well as I said in my letter, basically I've stopped paying my water bill because over a period of time I've had brown water and I've talked to the City Works people and they said well just don't pay for water on that day, so I haven't. And those, I've documented it and sent it into them and when I pay my water bill but of course you keep billing me back for it and to the point now where I think I owe you $500.00 some dollars over the last 6 or 7 years. Mayor Mancino: This has been going on for 6 or 7 years? Denny Sullivan: Yeah. You just keep billing me back for it and I keep keeping track of which days it's brown and they tell me to run the hose, and so I run the hose, which of course I'm getting charged sewer on also. They say we're flushing lines and we're doing this and it's gunk coming off the lines but I mean I'm ruining laundry. Replacing appliances. It's just not, as I said in my letter, it's not just for an hour or two a day. It's for days on end. In fact, after I got your last letter, the next day we got, this is water right out of my tap for about a day. Mayor Mancino: I've seen worse. Denny Sullivan: This is a pickle jar and my kids thought it was actually pickle juice. Mayor Mancino: I was going to say something else but. Denny Sullivan: It doesn't look very good when you get a whole bath tub full of it. And so I guess what I've asked for is my current bill is $500, at the time we wrote the letter it was $545.00. I've paid it down since then by about $300.00 but I thought you should split that with me for the water I've been writing off over the last 6 years. 7 years now. Councilman Engel: Do you have neighbors that live on either side of you? Denny Sullivan: Yes. Yeah, we live on a development on a dead end which is I've been told is one of the issues. Councilman Engel: How's theirs? 16 City Council Meeting - October 27, 1997 Denny Sullivan: I don't know. I know that they have problems. I don't know ifit's hard water related or you know, a lot of faucet washers in our neighborhood are gone and a lot of water softeners that are having a tough time. The main problem really, you know for drinking it's disgusting but you can drink it but it's really tough to do laundry. And the solution of running my hose until it goes away, It'S sort of starting to bother me after a while because you know I'm paying sewer on that water that I'm running down the street. Mayor Mancino: My suggestion would be for you and I and Mr. Sullivan to meet and let's get on your calendar and have a meeting on this. I'll come over and look at water, etc., and we'll go forward with this, if this has been going on for 6 or 7 years. Do you have an office number? Denny Sullivan: Yes. Mayor Mancmo: And what is that? Denny Sullivan: 401-0631. Mayor Mancino: Okay. So that's what's on your letter here? Good. Denny Sullivan: Is it? I may have changed. Yeah, that's it. Mayor Mancino: Well I would ask that the Council, until Mr. Ashworth and I can meet with Mr. Sullivan, delete his name from this and go ahead and have a motion and then we'll come back and we'll settle that. Denny Sullivan: Thank you. Don Ashworth: If! may. Staff would suggest that you end up adopting the entire certification list, includmg Mr. Sullivan's. We've got a 30 day period in which people can pay. We can still come back in 2 weeks and potentially adjust his downward but at least we would have started that 30 day, that 30 day clock. Mayor Mancino: Okay. So that means we'll have to come to resolution soon, which is good. Okay. Then may I, thank you Mr. Ashworth. Can I have a motion certifying delinquent utility accounts to Carver County? Councilman Senn: Mayor, we haven't even closed the public hearing yet. Mayor Mancino: Oh, thank you. I just was going forward to the next one. Anyone else here tonight? Wishmg to address the Council? Then I will close the public hearing. Then. Councilman Senn: Back there? Kris Imker: Can I just say something from back here instead of walking all the way up there? Mayor Mancino: No, you must come up here. Thank you. We want to get you on tape. KrIS Imker: Well I'm not one to come up and speak at meetings. I'm Kris Imker. I live at 8163 Marsh Drive. Our water is awful too. I mean if you take a poll, I'm sure it's not just this gentleman and we've 17 City Council Meeting - October 27, 1997 called too and basically what they tell us is to run it until it's clear. So maybe there's a problem you might want to look into. Mayor Mancino: We are. Thank you. May I also say that many times when people call, the utilities department, Jerry Boucher who is the head of it, will come out within 24 hours if you're having a real problem and flush the hydrant nearest to you. Leave it going for 45 minutes. Make sure that it has been rechlorinated so that you don't have a problem and then will come to your home, and this is really called customer service. And then will come to your home and have you run your water and make sure it's okay. Denny. Denny Sullivan: What happens when they do that, the guy who's the next one down the line gets. .. water. Mayor Mancino: Well they run the hydrants. The hydrant has to be cleared. Denny Sullivan: Well that's one of the explanations they gave me. We're flushing hydrants in your neighborhood. You're downstream so that's why you're... Mayor Mancino: So you get all the stuff. Okay. Well I don't, you know I'm not the expert on this but thank you for your comment. Bringing it back to Council, may I have a motion please. Councilman Senn moved, Councilman Mason seconded to close the public hearing. The public hearing was closed. Mayor Mancino: Thank you. Then may I have a motion? Or any discussion first? Councilman Senn: Yeah, as far as certifying the roll. I mean I don't have a problem certIfying the roll but I guess I'd like to certify it on the basis that at least on these two appeals that we get some feedback on it one way or the other at the next meeting. Because especially in terms of one of them, we really have no data coming into it tonight other than the letter. Secondly, you know I don't know how we get at explaining our water problems but I think we need to get more effective at it. It's not a new problem. It's been going on for a long time. City Council people aren't immune either. I've blown out a water softener and a few other things. There's no good solutions but I think if nothing else, it sounds like some of the problems we have are being caused not only by the rust, you know by the water itself, but by I'm going to say our lack of education or at least a good explanation as to what's causing it and what you can do about it to at least help avoid it, remedy it, or whatever and I think we ought to really follow up on that versus just kind of go through this routine again and keep providing the same pat answers because obviously the same pat answers aren't working. Mayor Mancino: Well I can think of two things. I mean number one, it would certainly be worth it to put it on the agenda, City Council agenda and to have our, have Jerry Boucher come and talk to us about it. I know that there is also going to be an article in our newsletter, in our winter newsletter that talks about some of the rusty water problems and what the City is doing but I think that's a very good idea. Councilman Senn: With that, unless there's other comments, I would certification of the sewer and water bills to the County with the stipulation on those, at least two appeals we do get some follow-up at the next meeting. Councilman Mason: Second. 18 City Council Meeting - October 27, 1997 Resolution #97-87: Councilman Senn moved, Councilman Mason seconded to approve the Certification of Sewer and Water Bills to the County. All voted in favor and the motion carried. CONSIDER REQUEST FOR A DONATION. CHASKA COMMUNITY HOCKEY ASSOCIATION. Public Present: Name Address Dave, Cass & Abby Kreitlow Eric Enger DavId M. Kelly Montgomery Eric & Kris Imker Robin & Derek O'Borsky Bryan & Mark Giordana John & Lezlie Vechart Berg Amy & Tyler Erickson Julie Fury Damel Berg Jim & Kathryn Liddell Chase Carroll Randy Mueller Barbara & Aaron Larson Jason, Mike & Mary Ehrmantraut Carol & Bryan McGovern Beverly Erickson Susie, Patrick & Kerry Blake Todd Porter Diane, David & Adam Zamjahn Kathy Fisher Elisabeth Vargas Bryan Botz L., Shawn & Layton Zellman Dan Obermeyer B.A. Greg & David Hromatka Kevin P. McShane Jim Leaman 1702 Valley Ridge Trail North Vine Hill Road 5233 Birch Road 17833 Powderhorn Drive 8163 Marsh Drive 1027 Pontiac Lane 8120 Hidden Court 420 Santa Fe Circle 7090 PimlIco Lane 20 Fox Hollow 20 Fox Hollow 2550 Bridle Creek Trail Victoria 8470 Pelican Court 8510 Spoonbill Court 900 Penamint Court 520 PinevIew Court 8040 Hidden Circle 9261 Kiowa 7506 - nth Street 2236 Stone Creek Lane E. 2596 Southern Court 8743 Flamingo Drive 2290 Timberwood Drive 1540 Heron Drive 7280 Cactus Curve 7580 Canyon Curve 180 South Shore Court Mayor Mancino: Well we, as a City Council have, as you all know that are here tonight, have done a lot of considering of the request from the Chaska Community Hockey Association. We have searched our souls. We have done a lot of discussing. We have done a lot of listening. And I'd like to read a reply on behalf of the entire Chanhassen City Council on the request for a donation from the City of Chanhassen to assist in the creation of a new sheet of ice to be constructed as an addition to the Chaska Community Center. The situation. A relative shortage of ice sheets is making it increasingly difficult for children in organized hockey to have access to indoor ice time. Recent state legislation mandating equal access for 19 City Council Meeting - October 27, 1997 gender equity has put additional pressure on the ice facilities in our arena. Excuse me, in our area. Talk to any parent with a child in hockey and you'll hear the strange hours many of them have to get up to get their kids to practice and the distances they have to drive to get to indoor facilities. The proposal. The Chaska Community Hockey Association recently approached the City of Chanhassen with a request for a donation of$120,000.00 to be paid to the City ofChaska to help underwrite a portion of the construction costs for a second sheet of ice. When completed the entire facility is expected to cost approximately $2,250,000.00, exclusive of operating costs. This sheet will be built as an addition to the existing Chaska Community Center. This proposed donation would be spread over a 3 to 5 year time period and would help create one new sheet of ice, but it would not pay for any actual ice time. Our position. This is a worthy cause and the Chaska Community Hockey Association has come up with a creative approach to fund an expensive project. They should be commended for their efforts to make this kind of an amenity available to the hockey players and recreational skaters in our area. We value the time and energy the volunteers from our community give to all youth athletic programs. However, there are a number of worthy causes. As a community already spread thin to keep up with the demands of rapid growth, Chanhassen needs to prioritize where we will and where we won't spend taxpayers money. This is not an easy task. Our highest priority for funding is meeting the legal, contractual and mandated obligations we've already assumed. Just behind that is safeguarding the health and safety of our community, educating our children and building and maintaining the infrastructure we need to accommodate growth. The CIty of Chanhassen has a long standing tradition of supporting youth activities through our parks and athletic programs. We have already made a substantial commitment to youth hockey and ice facilities in our city. In the past two years alone Chanhassen has invested $500,000.00 on the construction of new hockey rinks and a warming house. These include two hockey/inline skating rinks at the Chanhassen RecreatiOn Center, Bluff Creek Elementary School. One warming house, park building at the Recreation Center. One hockey inline skating rink, along with an expanded parking lot at North Lotus Lake Park. In total our City maintains 5 outdoor hockey rinks, 8 pleasure skating facilities, and 3 warming houses. As a City we invest approximately $45.00 per year to operate and maintain these ice facilities. It is the feeling of the City Council that Chanhassen has demonstrated strong support for hockey, as we have for many other athletic programs for our youth. Given the tight financial environment in which Chanhassen must operate, we are not comfortable with the proposal to contribute $120,000.00 towards this project. However, in the spirit of collaboration for providing a regional indoor ice arena for the residents of our community, we will commit to a $30,000.00 contribution to be paid over 5 years. This investment is contingent upon the following conditions being agreed to. Preferential ice access to prime time, 3:00 to 10:00 p.m. weekdays, 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. weekends, during hockey season. The first right to schedule prime time hours will include the Minnetonka Youth Hockey Association, MYHA. They will have the right to purchase a minimum of 100 prime time hours. These hours will be charged at a rate equal to the rate being afforded the Chaska Community Hockey Association. This MYRA agreement shall be valid for a minimum of 5 years. In addition, all Chanhassen residents will pay resident rates for all open skating hours in the new arena. And with that I conclude our answer to the request for the Chaska Hockey Association. So thank you all for coming and that is our commitment to you. Susie Blake: Do we have an opportunity to talk to you? Mayor Mancino: No. This is not a public hearing. We have already had one and we have had other times during the City Council meetings. Thank you. Susie Blake: ... were told that... Mayor Mancino: Excuse me. Pardon? 20 City Council Meeting - October 27, 1997 SusIe Blake: .. .decision would be made until.. .impression that we had an opportunity.. . from a comment that was made by Steve Berquist on the Board that he was very disappointed that more people didn't talk when we had people here the other night and out of courtesy for the. ..chose not to. ..by bringmg up the same comments of everybody that was here so.. .We also have a petition of 150...in support... Mayor Mancino: Okay, number one. At the last Council meeting I did ask during the public hearing if there was anyone who wanted to come up in front of us. I didn't ask for someone, for people not to come up. We did take public hearing at that time. You're certainly welcome to come up with the 156 signatures and if, I'm fine if one or two of you do come up and make a few comments. That would be fine. Susie Blake: Thank you. My name is Susie Blake again, and I live at 8040 Hidden Circle. I'm a taxpayer in the City of Chanhassen. I happen to be a hockey parent and I'm also a member of the Association Board. And I do have a petition here of 156 signatures which includes approximately 10 people who couldn't read directions that it said Chan residents only and signed the petition as well. So you can take those out. The only point I want to make is I think from the response it seems to me that we're focusing this whole attention, that this is a hockey request. Sure, there happens to be 100 players or more, 100 families in Chanhassen that are current members of the Association and that makes up approximately 40% of the AssocIation in Chaska. There are also, if! remember correctly from the other Board meeting, approximately 100 kids from the Minnetonka School District, but there happens to be, and I don't know if figures from the school district. Maybe this gentleman can help us, but there's a bigger issue here. This is also providing a phy ed opportunity for the school district of 112, which mcludes qUIte a few students that would benefit from this as well. And one of the things when people move to a community is they look for opportunities for their children and you know being able to provide a world class school includes some of those activities as well and being able to provide some activities. So the question I have for you is, you said in your response that you're currently spending $45,000.00 a year to maintain 5 hockey rinks and 8 pleasure skating rinks. There are 3 of those rinks that have warming houses. I would ask that the City Council reconsider how they are operating those rinks and maybe it would be in the best interest of those residents in the community to funnel or move some of that money from operating all of those outdoor rinks to be invested in an indoor rink because as most of you know WIth the weather here, it's great to say that we have 13 outdoor rinks, but how much time can we actually use those rinks so. Mayor Mancmo: Too long I think. SusIe Blake: So anyway, I have the petition to present to you and then I also ask that if you did look at thIs more from a hockey request, that you take a step back and look at the bigger picture. We are paying for the ice time that we do spend with the rink. It's not something that we're asking the City ofChan residents to pay for our time on the ice. We're all personally involved in the commitment of the ice and actually looking at my own commitment and I have three children of my own. To say that the City of Chan is going to invest $30,000.00 for however many residents we have, compared to what I've personally put in myself, is somewhat a slap in the face so I would just like to have you take a look at it and possibly redirect some funds if you can if funding is an issue and also ask that maybe you be prepared with this many people in these two associations to be prepared to have to foot a bigger bill when we come to you for the third rink. So thank you. Mayor Mancino: Thank you. Appreciate your comments in bringing that forward. Are there a couple more people that would like to come up? 21 City Council Meeting - October 27, 1997 David Zamjahn: Thank you for giving us an opportunity to address you. My name is David Zamjahn and I'm a resident of Chanhassen and have lived in Chanhassen for 11 years. Prior to that I lived in Chaska and am a long standing family background from Chaska. Early on I was on the Board for the Chanhassen Athletic Association. I've coached in Chanhassen for 11 years in soccer. My son does play hockey. I'm also in the business area ofChanhassen and one thing that I think we're all proud of in the business in Chanhassen is that we support our youth athletes. We sponsor their teams. I look around our business community and I'm very proud of all the people that sponsor those teams. I think the money that's invested, as Nancy was saying, is good, but it sounds like it's directed just at Chaska. I think as a community, that 45,000 is for the residents ofChanhassen, available to Chaska. And I have concern about your decision, as a businessman in Chanhassen. As a resident in Chanhassen. I'm concerned about two other communities that come forward without hesitancy to support our youth. And we have one other community, Chanhassen in District 112 that has all these constituent agreements to a very mediocre $30,000.00. I'm embarrassed as a businessman about your decision, and a resident. And I think a lot of the residents in Chanhassen would probably feel as strong as I do about this. Thank you. Mayor Mancino: Thank you for your comments. Beverly Erickson: Hi. My name is Beverly Erickson and I live at 520 Pineview Court and I am also a resident ofChanhassen. Have been so for 5 years and I applaud Susie's comments and also David's comments about how we feel about the decision that's been made. I'm also a board member with the hockey association and I work specifically with the Mini Mite program and the Mini Mite program encompasses children who are the age of 5 and 6 year olds. And for those of you who aren't familiar with the 5 and 6 year old program, it's a very growing program in our community. One of the things that you had talked about in your letter is the, you're aware ofthe, you're building the infrastructure for the community to accommodate the growth, and as the School District has pointed out, the growth in our community is much more than I think that we've ever anticipated, just because of what we've done as a community and how we've attracted our residents here. But what bothers me is that how are we building that infrastructure if we are not looking towards doing things for the residents that are coming into the community. And when we have a community like Victoria who is only 8% of our hockey association giving $30,000.00, and we as Chanhassen have 40% of the member of the hockey association and we also are giving $30,000.00, I don't understand the decision there so again I'd like for you guys to reconsider the decision. And I guess the final question is, how did you come up with the $30,000.00? Did you just pull the number or what was the decision in that $30,000.00? Mayor Mancino: Actually it was given by our other councilmember who isn't here tonight who thought it was an appropriate number. I can tell you that one of the reasons that Victoria, having talked to the Mayor there, came up with the $30,000.00 is that they don't have a Park and Rec Department at all. They have one hockey rink in their whole city. Therefore, they are relying more on other cities and using their resources and that was why they did give $30,000.00. We as Chanhassen on the other hand are building our own and have our own park and rec programs, as you know, and we have, as I just stated, have the 13 rinks and therefore we're building a program in and of our city. Victoria isn't ready to do that yet. Beverly Erickson: Now, you're building, we're building an indoor arena as a City? Mayor Mancino: No. We have built outdoor ones. We have been funding for the last so many years outdoor rinks. 22 City Council Meetmg - October 27, 1997 Beverly Erickson: Okay. When Minnetonka built their rinks, and a lot of this is focused on the fact that Chanhassen and Minnetonka, we have to look at both. Was there any support from Chanhassen with the Minnetonka arena? Mayor Mancino: I don't know. Beverly Erickson: Is that something we could find out as far as, I mean because that should be. Councilman Mason: The indoor facility? Beverly Erickson: Yes. Councilman Mason: Chanhassen didn't contribute. The City ofChanhassen didn't contribute any money to that. None whatsoever. Beverly Erickson: DIdn't contribute, okay. Mayor Mancmo: Nor do I know if they came. I have no idea. Do you know Mike if they came and asked. Councilman Mason: No. Beverly Enckson: So the $30,000.00 decision was based upon. Mayor Mancmo: They did It as a school district or did they do it as a city? I mean was that an addItion to the Mmnetonka School District facility? Councilman Mason: I believe it was ajomt, wasn't It ajoint one: Councilman Senn: Minnetonka and Hopkms have done a lot of joint ones but that one I believe was not one of them. Hopkins did their own and so Minnetonka dId their own. Councilman Mason: Minnetonka's was school and city as I recall and Todd's shaking hIS head yes. Mayor Mancino: So because of the constraints on our budget, that was what we felt we had to, available to give towards hockey. And additional. Beverly Erickson: And I hope that, and I'm sure that because Randy and Kevin have done a fantastic job with this, but I hope that they have outlined the implications that we will be facing as a community by not having this and how, as an association by not being able to, and again the focus is not strictly on the hockey association, even though I'm a strong supporter of it and I have two boys that are actively involved in it and I am actively involved in it. It's not just the hockey association. It's the community at large. And you know all the number of residents I've talked to support the program, support the issue, and I really would like to have you reconsider the amount of support that you're giving and some of the restrictions that you have put on to the support also. Thanks. Mayor Mancino: Thank you. Anyone else? Last person, please like to come in front of the council. Please state your views and make any comments you wish. 23 City Council Meeting - October 27, 1997 Greg Hromatka: I'll just state quickly. My name is Greg Hromatka at 7580 Canyon Curve and just to take a note to all the people here on behalf of the ice arena. You've got 2 Yz sheets mostly directly towards the ice arena...l thought I'd point that out. Mayor Mancino: Thank you. Thank you all for coming and we'll move forward into the next agenda. SITE PLAN AMENDMENT FOR THE CHANHASSEN CINEMA. BOB COPELAND. Kate Aanenson: This item is before you tonight because the applicant had requested some changes from the original approved site plan. The originally approved site plan is on the easel there, showing the different colors. The articulation to the building. When this project was originally approved there were six theaters. There's now eight so there's different exiting doors going out onto the alley. One of the things that we're trying to do with the project along that profile that's on the screen is to warm up the alley way going up towards the Timber Lounge so it'd be an inviting place. We do share parking. ..buildings. As the project's come in, it's taken off some of the excitement of what we believe kind of made the building more interesting. We believe that the changes were substantial enough that we didn't feel comfortable signing off on them... We have made a recommendation that if you were to approve some of the material changes, that some of the design elements...and lighting are to be brought back in.. . applicant more specifically the changes with you. I'd be happy to... Mayor Mancino: Okay, thank you. Any questions for staff at thIS point? Councilman Senn: No. Councilman Mason: No. Mayor Mancino: Okay. Is the applicant here and would you like to address the City Council please? Please state your name and address. Bob Copeland: My name is Bob Copeland. I live at 14 Cooper Avenue in Edina. And before I actually get into the issues tonight, if you don't mind, I'd just like to take a minute or two and just bring you up to date on in general where we are on the project. I know that we have lived with it for a long time and you folks, maybe some of you even longer than I have. We have, the company that we have formed has purchased the property and that company is controlled by Ray Mithune, Jr. and myself, and Ray and I also own the Buffalo Cinema and contrary to some of the rumors around, we have absolutely nothing to do with the Chaska Cinema. Neither Ray nor I have anything to do with the Chaska Cinema. So we also have hired a new manager who's name is Liz Beard and Liz is starting to oversee our operation in Buffalo and when the Chanhassen Cinema comes on line she's going to oversee our personnel and our cleanliness for the new cinema. We applied for a building permit back in June of this year and we received hmited permits to go ahead with some demolition work and some of the site work. And right now the issuance of the building permit is pending your approval tonight. We have commenced some of the construction work. We've done some demolition. We've done some of the site work. Some of the site utilities are in. Curb and gutter is in. We've done a little bit of the foundation work related to the new entry at the southeast of the cinema. We plan to open in March if we can get our building permit and one of the features that we've added since the plans were started, as we're putting in four of the auditoriums are going to be state-of-the-art stadium seating, which will be like bleachers or risers. This is the latest thing in cinema or movie theater seating. And have much better views and sight lines for the screens. Weare investing close to $3 million in this project. $540,000.00 of it is going to be reimbursed through the tax increment financing over the next 21 years. So nobody's more interested in the 24 City Council Meeting - October 27, 1997 appearance and success of the cinema than we are. I'd like to just address the specific issues that staff has brought to your attention. The first one in their memo, that I believe you all have, is that we have found a way to eliminate the retaining wall, most ofthe retaining wall and the railing which is, or would have been at the elevated sidewalk. If you will recall, the elevated walkway on the south and east sides of the. . . and at one time we had a retaining wall and a railing there. But we also had very little landscaping and we felt that by adding a sloped landscaped area there we could bring a lot of green to the front of the cinema and also it's been suggested that we put in flower beds. Some flower beds along in the landscaped areas which we are prepared to do. So we feel that it's an improvement. It's an enhancement from the design that we had before. Another issue that was brought to your attention was the back lit window. This plan originally called for a back lit window here above the entry and while we, we've had a lot of trouble dealing with that. It presents a structural problem in that we can't make holes... these panels here that supports the pre-cast frame for this simulated window and have openings in it. So we eliminated the idea of a back lit window but the staff and others have made us aware of the fact that this is an important feature to some people and so what we can offer to do is add lighted panels that would be flush with the pre-cast that surrounds this simulated window so that it will give an effect to a backlit window. So we're willing to do that and try to be more consistent with the deSign that was submitted and approved onginally. Another issue that's been raised is the exterior material of the bUilding. When it was submitted originally it was labeled as efface material which is similar to stucco. And that would have been over a rigid illsulation. And we've come up with a better material, and the material that we plan to use now is pre-cast concrete and did you bring those pictures by the way? Mayor Mancillo: No, I didn't. I think Sharmin has them. Bob Copeland: What we're proposing to use now is a pre-cast material and I'll pass around some pictures of the actual panels. Keep in mind that, don't be concerned about the color. Those are, have some blotchiness to them and some unevenness in the colors and they're going to be stained so that that fimsh that you see there is not the one that, you know that's not the way it will look. But the pre-cast panels there can, you can see the actual pictures ofthem. We changed this and we think it's better for a handful of reasons. One is we're able to have a wider variation in the textures. We're going to have some parts of the panels are going to be smooth. Some parts are going to be a little bit rough and other parts are going to be quite rough. Our joints are better. We're able to have very distinct Joints in this pre-cast panels whereas with efface your joints are not as distinct. This is a much more durable material. You can't pick at it or damage it. We were concerned about maybe children or something being in line here and kicking the efface material or picking at it and it can be damaged in that way. Efface can be but the pre-cast won't be. And our last reason for going to this material is that it can be erected in the cold weather whereas efface material is somewhat impractical to do in the colder weather. So we think it's a much better material. It's an improvement and in terms of the design characteristics, ifit wasn't labeled on our plan and we didn't call it out as something different appearance wise, very few people would be able to tell the difference. Another issue that's been brought up was color. We are proposing that the colors that you see on this model for the building structure.. .be the colors for the cinema. And now originally our architect had some gray colors in mind and we'll go back to the grays but we don't like that as much. We think that this is a warmer color. It's a little bit different from some ofthe other buildings that you see in town and we think that's good. I should also point out that we do intend to have accent colors here, and the accent colors would come into play some of the street lighting that will be around the exterior and the ability to walk.. .comice. At the trim around the marquee. The lights will be on these sides here and the handrails that will be on the stairs. So it's not going to be all the one tone that you see here but we do intend to have, or we would prefer, let's put it that way, to have the sort of taupe and maybe vanilla colors that you see on this model as the basic building colors. But again we'll, if it's a big deal that it be gray, well we'll make it gray. The other issue that was brought up in the staffs memo 25 City Council Meeting - October 27, 1997 is that we, well it doesn't even show up here but on one of the drawings it was proposed that there be some sign posters here for coming attractions and we think that that won't present the best appearance for the building and we propose to delete those. But obviously if there's a condition to approval, I mean we have to have those posters, we'll have posters. We just think that it will be more attractive without them. Last issue that the staff brought up was goose neck fixtures on the east side of the building. Actually we never proposed any goose neck fixtures on the east side of the building but we did propose some fixtures. And if the staff or people at the city would like to have goose neck fixtures, we'll have goose neck fixtures. We never, we weren't proposing a change there. I don't know exactly how it got into the memo that we were proposing a change but we're not. So we're enthusiastic about the design. We're enthusiastic about the project. We hope that the City still is. And we request that you approve the plans the way we submitted them, but we'll also propose that we'll submit detailed landscape plans, detailed signage plans, detailed lighting plans for the, for your approval or to whatever degree you want to look at them, and we'll submit specific color numbers for your approval also. Again, our desire would be colors sImilar to what you see on the model there. So we're not changing the lighting. We think we're keeping accents on the building. In fact we're thinking we're bringing more accents in by way oflandscaping in the front. And with that I would be happy to answer any questions that you have. Councilman Engel: Did the handrail go in there? Bob Copeland: Well, we have handrails at the sidewalks... Mayor Mancino: But not on the boardwalk. CouncIlman Engel: On the boardwalk is what I'm talking about. Bob Copeland: Well here, no. We won't need one along here. But this might be a little bit misleading in that this model shows a, just a straight slope down here but in reality we're going to build what's been approved by the Building Inspector. We're going to come out here about 2 feet. Have just a slight slope on it and then come down. We have no need for a handrail on this elevated walkway area. We do have a few handrails down also along each side where there's a ramp. We have them where code's required. Mayor ManCInO: Okay. Thank you. Any other questions for Mr. Copeland at this time? Okay, thank you. Bob Copeland: You're welcome. Mayor Mancino: Todd, will you please go over the city participation in this particular building. Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, Council. The HRA approximately 2-3 years ago agreed to enter into a private redevelopment agreement with the cinema group in providing them $540,000.00 worth of assistance and redevelopment of the old Instant Webb building. Bloomberg building. It has a variety of names. Into a movie theater complex. That is increment back to the cinema people over a 21 year period, with interest as a pay as you go program. So if they do produce so much increment, we will then reimburse the developer for, as per the agreement. At the beginning we determined that the movie theater had about $540,000.00 worth of cost into the facade improvements, boardwalk and their pro-rated share of the parking lot and is how we came up with the $540,000.00 as to incentives back to that. I think Mr. Copeland would come in and tell you that the true costs out there are substantially higher than that. Those are statements that he's made to me. So with that if you have any other questions. 26 City CouncIl Meeting - October 27, 1997 Mayor MancIno: Yes. Was the purpose of the subsidy to get a quality of design or was It, the purpose was for the subsidy to make sure that we were paying the whole cost of it. Of the outside improvements. I mean dIdn't we expect to have some developer contribution to the outside? That we were not going to be paying the entire amount. Todd Gerhardt: Well Mr. Copeland will say that he is contributing to that outside amount. He is not, I don't think he's running his budget to the tune of $540,000.00 for outside and you know $2.5 million in the Inside. But I'd have to have Mr. Copeland give you the numbers on that. He is going to have to provide receipts of actual cost for that construction at the time first payment is being made. Mayor Mancino: So again, what was the purpose for the HRA? Todd Gerhardt: Well the purpose kind of goes back to the Highway 5 corridor group and as the Highway 5 corridor group took numerous tours along Highway 5, they kept pinpointing the intersection of Market Boulevard and Highway 5 and the visibility ofthe bowling center, old Instant Webb, Bloomberg Companies area as one of the major eye sores of that corridor. And that this would be a priority one in trying to redevelop this area. With that we wanted to try to stay with the high quality redevelopment that we've started In the downtown area and that something that we will not have to go back for some time to look at agaIn. Mayor Mancino: So we were hoping to get a higher quality than normally we would get? Todd Gerhardt: Typically, yeah. That's what you're doing. You also have to provide an incentive to somebody to look at redeveloping a site. You know typically would thIS development occur Ifwe didn't provide the incentive? Clayton Johnson would say I could probably make as much money you know renting from us and putting warehouse businesses in there every other year with us chasing him telling him he can't do that, than he probably can by selling the building over to Mr. Copeland. And it's been our effort In downtown not to have those kinds of uses in the downtown and to relocate them in proper spots so. Mayor Mancino: Okay. The only thing I would ask councilmembers as they give comments is to please look at this as a whole complex. Just not one building. Who was the architect on this entire complex? Todd Gerhardt: Truman Howell was the original architect. I think Truman took it through the onginal site plan approval process and then with that when Mr. Copeland's group became interested and started to do the physical construction of the building, they opted to go with your in-house group. Correct Bob? Bob Copeland: Truman was the original architect on this and we hired him to do this. He also, Truman did this model. He did this design here too but we hired somebody else called JRP Architects to do the actual working drawings for us. Mayor Mancino: Okay. Bob Copeland: We have a different architect on the inside. Mayor Mancino: Well I'm assuming there aren't any changes. Are these changes for cost reasons? Is this cheaper than the other, than what was drawn and we approved before? Bob Copeland: I would say overall, no... 27 City Council Meeting - October 27, 1997 Mayor Mancino: Okay. Comments from council members. Councilman Senn: Before we do, point of clarification and Todd or Mike correct me if I'm wrong. This solely wasn't an HRA review before. Council reviewed this project also. Mayor Mancino: And the Planning Commission. Councilman Senn: And Planning Commission did and also in lieu of the dollars that were going into it and ifmy recollection's correct, the whole reason the Council endorsed the dollars going in was to enhance the, you know effectively the facia and it's presentation to predominantly Highway 5 you know and that open section of town. I mean that was the whole reason or justification, at least in the Council's eyes of supporting that. Mayor Mancino: Thank you. Appreciate that, okay. I did see this on Friday. I saw it as an isolated building and it is, I've spent some time with it this weekend looking at it as a whole complex, and just very conceptually, Bob I like the original architecture. I think it went WIth the rest of the buildings. I think that as it was designed as a whole complex, it was very integrated, compatible with each other. I, 2,3 of the bUIldings, 4 of the buildings are face brick and two are the efface. There's a lot of demonstration or you know window detail. I like the columns that have much more of a relief on the original architecture and I like the columns that were underneath the marquee in the front. They added again a period pIece to it that goes with the rest of the buildings. What else can I talk to? So again, I took what you had shown me on Friday morning and then looked at the whole complex and said, going with this new archItecture, we would have to go back and look at everything else and have that almost redesigned because it's a very, very different feeling than the original plan that we, that I saw on the Planning Commission. But I'd like to hear some other viewpoints from Council members. Councilman Mason. Councilman Mason: I guess a couple of comments. After hearing what Mr. Copeland had to say and after certainly taking a look at all the stuff in our pre-Council meetings, I certainly would be willing to take a look at the change with the berms and the hand rails, dependent on the landscaping. I mean depending on the plan there. I don't, personally I don't. Kate Aanenson: To give some feedback. Staff had also recommended that. ..handrail kind of movement... it actually looked more inviting to look across this. The problem that we're having is Mr. Copeland, I mean we need to see more detail. That's part of the problem. There isn't the detail and color on the corner. There isn't the color for any light. We tried to keep the project moving. We gave him a permit to begin demolition. We felt uncomfortable at this point.. .change without seeing it's effect. Street lighting, landscaping, that we couldn't approve it.. . the architecture. Now if we saw a complete set of plans, we saw the landscaping. Mayor Mancino: For the whole complex. Kate Aanenson: Maybe it would be palatable but at this point it's not all there. That's what you're getting back to.. . maybe it did soften up the building. Maybe it works but it's not there yet. Councilman Mason: Right. Right. And I guess that's maybe my difficulty with this tonight in that, I mean yeah. The berm and the rails were the first plan when we approved it but I don't think there's anyone here that's going to reject anything out of hand without being able to see something. But well, 28 4- CHANBASSEN PLANNING COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING OCTOBER 15, 1997 Chairman Peterson called the meeting to order at 7:10 p.m. MEMB~{{S PRESENT: Allyson Brooks, Alison Blackowiak, Ladd Conrad, Craig Peterson and LuAnn Sidney MEMBERS ABSENT: Kevin Joyce 81 AFFP~ENT; Bob Generous, Senior Planner and Mark Koegler, Planning Consultant COl\iPREHENSIVE PLAN DISCUSSION - UTI~I:rIESAND TRt\NSPORT ATION. Generous: Thank you Mr. Chairman, Commissioners. The infrastructure...ofthe comprehensive plan are basically the framework of what your community grows. As part of this update we've been looking at responding to the Metropolitan Council's growth strate.gy.. . for developing a phased expansion of the metropOlitan urban service areal, the MUSA line. A second major issue that we'll look at is providing or developing. a policy for the extension of services to large lot subdivisions. Oktersubdivisiol1$ in the community. A third issue we need to discuss is whether or not to adopt specific level of service level for our roadways. Level of service standards determine the floW of traffic along a stretch of roadway or. . . intersection and their grade level determines how congested the roadway is. And the fourth issue that we'd like to point out is we're looking at expanding policies and facilities.. .transportation. Pedestrian and bicycle access... In the' 1"991 comprehensive plan there was a list of roadway deficiencies within the community. Part of our analysis we looked at some of the deficiencies that have been corrected in the last 6 or 7 years. In addition however there are at least five roads that still retain deficient... We have entered into a contract with SRF for the tranSPottation study in conjunction with the Carver County study to look at transportation specificelly in the City of Chanhassen. Unfortunately we won't have useful results from this until sOmetime probably in December or January. And then the fmal study for the Carver county won.'t be until next June. However; as part of the existing deficiencies, 'the Highway 5 upgrade cutr$ltly scheduled that for letting in 1999 and construction in 2000 and 2001. However, our concern is the State has continually. .. to fund it. We're a littlehesitantto relyon...heavi1y. As I said one of the issues we're looking at is the level of service standard. Whether oroot we shouldoffieiallyadopt part of the comprehensive plan. Level ofservJ..ce standatds are two edge swords. If you ~dopt the level of service standard B or intheu community and don't need it, we cattfiot legally penmt new subdivisions to be appf9veduntil eith~r the mitigation measures'~ in place or tl1elevel, or the projects that. . .are funded. The problem with this is if they d<>n~t ~elophere, they may move farther out west and further impact our m~jor roadwaysy~HighWaY 5 and Highway 212. And so we wanted to lookas part of our discussion whether we should adopt level of service standar4s for local roadw~ys only or for roadways that are both local and.. .and hope that the PlannirigCQJllIttissioncan.live US some direction on this. Planning Commission Meeting - October 15,1997 Brooks: So you're talking like Trunk Highway 5? Bob Generous: Trunk Highway 5. Brooks: That's at level of service F isn't it? Bob Generous: No. ...generallyaccepted apptQpriate level of service during rush hour. Brooks: It's a 0 during rush hour? Bob Generous: Yes. As part of that study tbatthey prepared for Highway 41 and 5, the Arboretum Business . Park. They said in 2003 we would hit F . Based on background nows of traffic. Brooks: It doesn't move at.rush hour now. Bob Generous: Yes. But it does, it b.asn "tfailed. Brooks: Oh I think it failed. Bob Generous; Which is the level ofserviceF. While it may be 'cOngested, it still operates. Brooks: What's Tnltlk Highway 7? . Bob Generous: I don't know. Hopefully as part oftbestudy'.,.contact MnDOT. That's the other part oftms... Brooks: Did you get a copy of the transpc:)1wlioD. systelt1plan? Bob Generous: Yes. ,. As part of our... AgainJ $lid,a,nd fl.-IIy we looked at strengthening specific policies regat<!ing~$transit, pedestrlatt, bicycle. Probably the most itnpOrtattt component of our update is the MUSA expansibJ1ptoposal.$taff'has preplted a proposed ' MUSA line exp~ion that wouldtatke tbeCity tQultiUiatebtlildoutaro1.tnd 2020. The existing 2000 MUSAline, We woutdpropose that everythUI,northofLymanBo\ile'Vard be brought into the MUSA area.by 2003. And then the area norfhwestorT~ HighWay lOt, the proposed right..of-wayfQt 212 behrought in as 2008. And thimt1U$.$1i'U1IJ..areaoftofHigbway 10 1 that is, actually will be serveciby ~. Lake Riley Trunk Utiutf'...... . Bmupt.in 8$ .partQrthat expansion. The nex.t atea wiJ1 a 2013 MUSA atea *" wOUld meOrpotatethe land cast of Trunk Highway 212 and nortl\of.. .26 and 25. AndU1en fbulfty the u1tin1ate MUSA that wo1.1ld incorporate the balance of thecQ1'l1111lU.Uty. As part of out capital improvement program and the capital investtnentprognUn we have shown 'oowtbis can be done and we'll be bringing that with our next update. ~ Broob:Peol>lewho are on rural septic now, are .~'required w'hook-upot i$ it an optional? ~ i J I , 2 1 f f l Planning Commission Meeting - October 15, 1997 Bob Generous: Currently it's discretionary. Up to City Council but there's no specific policy. As a general guideline we've been stating that unless a majority of the property owners within those developments petition for it, that we leave them outside of the utility expansion. There are exceptions when there's failure in the systems and that is for public safety reasons. And that health and safety exemption.. .looking at providing the other policies that they'd only... Part of the rationale for that is we don't want premature connection because if we do a utility expansion.. .you have to, you can only assess the benefiting properties... Peterson: And what can we do Bob, if anything, as we continue to grow outside the MUSA and people are putting in septic systems? About creating a policy that would put the onus upon them to do testing every 2,3,4,5 years. I don't know. Right now there isn't that. I mean we're depending upon the trust that the homeowner, ifit does fail, that it's reported to the City, etc., etc. Bob Generous: I believe the policy related to that, the public building department is working on a program to address that. Peterson: I mean we've got a pretty large percentage of sewer and water within the City 1 would imagine, don't we? Bob Generous: Right. There might be 300 homes. There are very few large lot subdivisions that are undeveloped... They just requested a 2 year extension on their plat. Development... Peterson: I mean it would seem at least, it would seem easy for us to, on new systems for both water and sewer, that we could put in, put the responsibility on them to provide the City with a verification of usability. Bob Generous: Well that's, yeah on page 8. Or page 9, the policy addresses the septic system. In discussion with the building official, they're looking at implementing next year. It depends on the budget process. Peterson: Okay. Bob Generous: I hadn't intended to go through the specific policies in the statement. Most of them are still appropriate like I stated, we'd like to expand the multi levels of transportation element to include the MUSA expansion lines. We do have some concerns, questions, whether MUSA expansion areas are too restrictive. We believe there is sufficient land, however you might want to develop.. .how we can expand... Or maybe the City wants to slow down growth rate. .. Conrad: Mr. Chairman, it's real tough for me to figure it out based on some lines. 3 Planning Commission Meeting - October 15, 1997 Bob Generous: Well that's what, the first attachment there we were looking at within each of these MUSA expansion areas. The number of units that we would anticipate based on our current level of.. .and these numbers we have taken from... Using our GIS. Conrad: I think you have to go through that with us so we understand what you're doing. Bob Generous: Okay. For every, we estimate annually, we'll have about 300 permits for residential development. So for every, well you divide the total number of units by 300. That will give you your capacity for the development.. . area. Conrad: Standard for development? Year supply do you like to have in the hopper? Bob Generous: .. . about 7 total within the 5 year plan. You'd like. Conrad: And that's what you feel keeps prices equitable? Bob Generous: Right. Conrad: And is that a standard based on what? Bob Generous: That's what's in the comp plan now. We have a 30% overage. Conrad: That is what Mark has recommended that we keep that kind of standard in to keep the prices? How do we, Ijust want to know how our standard is developed versus what's in there. I need to know what the best thinkers we have say we should ~ave to keep the prices stable. Not inflationary. So with that aside, yeah I'd appreciate a quick overview of how you determine how many acres and. Bob Generous: Well we were using to develop this line is probably incorporated a logical division area. We have about 5 years inside the MUSA and so I just, this was the first run through. I finished the calculations. ..so in the first MUSA expansion we have about, a little over 2 years of growth. In the second MUSA expansion area we have 6 years.. .such fine lines. Maybe we call it a 2008 MUSA. Conrad: Well wait, you've got to hang in there with me Bob. So, and your graph, your chart that says 1998 to 2003. Bob Generous: So we've taken total acreage ofland from each land use. The wetlands have already been taken out as part of our GIS. Conrad: Okay, so what does BC 7 mean? Bob Generous: Oh, that goes with the utility expansion area typically. 4 Planning Commission Meeting - October 15, 1997 Conrad: Bottom line is I didn't get this at all. And I didn't get why it was snuck in with utilities and I understand utilities in relationship to utilities to expansion but it's sort oflike, wow. We're talking utilities and all of a sudden we're into our MUSA expansion and it seems. Bob Generous: Well MUSA's directly related to utilities. Conrad: I get it. I understand that but it's. Bob Generous: We could have described it, just described an area. The BC 7 is related to the sewer expansion plan that was approved in '93. Completed by the City. It's just the way... serVIce area. Conrad: So BC is, that's just. Bob Generous: If you look on, Bluff Creek 7. It's a service area. And there will be...way to designate it. I figure that related this map to the MUSA expansion. We used, the MUSA area within each of those potential expansion areas, you can look at what sewered area they're incorporated in. It really ties in, you'll see more of it when you bring the capital portion together with this. Because they're all related to a specific service... Peterson: If you go back and take a look at 1998 through 2003 then and you look at total units, 653. How does that correlate to the 300 per year? Or am I looking at something different altogether? Bob Generous: No, that would be the total estimated units developed in there based on the assumption we have here. Large lot, 2 Yz acre minimum lot size. Low density of 1.8 units per acre. Medium density is 6 units per acre and high density, 11 per acre. Conrad: How does that fit that 3, we've got 300 building permits? Bob Generous: The assumption is if you have 600 units, that would provide you with... Conrad: But you've got 5 years for a time period. Peterson: So you're losing your 7 years. Bob Generous: But we're also, some of the stuff in the current MUSA area hasn't developed yet as we expand the line out. Conrad: You've got a supply. Bob Generous: Yes, we have an excess. Conrad: You're just adding two years worth. 5 Planning Commission Meeting - October 15, 1997 Bob Generous: Basically. Now if we wanted to make 15,000 units, or 1,500 units every... Peterson: Would it be safe to say that of your 300 units, probably the far reaching majority will be within inside the MUSA? That's already defined currently. Bob Generous: Yes. Because those will have to be developed. It might have been... For example the Longacres development... We have almost 300 units coming in in Walnut Grove and it's... When we get down to the bottom the numbers converge with what has been estimated all along. Conrad: How do I know what our inventory is? The acres right now in the current MUSA? Bob Generous: Well that's part of the, you will... Conrad: Did I miss that? Was I in a meeting or I missed a meeting? Bob Generous: Well yeah. We haven't provided all the background materials. It was in. Conrad: How critical do you want us to be right now Bob? Bob Generous: Well I'd like you to provide, what information you need. These are good things. Specific things to address. It helps. Conrad: It's really hard for me personally to react because I see the logic. I know what you're doing. I've done this before. It's just if! don't, my goal is t9 keep enough inventory out there to keep land prices stable. We don't what inflationary prices in this community. At least that's a personal belief. But I don't know how many units we've got and how many acres we've got available and we add this to, you know that. Let's see how you're calculating it. I just need a bigger picture of available units and I think I need to believe that there's a standard. See at the end of2003, I've got to believe there's still going to be several years of supply out there to keep prices stable. Now that's just one side of this whole equation. The other side is cost and whatever and putting in utilities and putting in... I just need to see how we're doing that. To react to your, yeah so therefore I can't really react to what you're showing me tonight Bob. Other than tell you what I need to know to see that we have a standard of having, every year there should be so many years of supply of land and I understand that the, we go in 5 year increments so that's a problem and that's the Metropolitan Council land use planning so I get it at the end of the 5 years we're going to have less than the beginning of the 5 years. But I don't know that I want a standard of only having two years of supply left in the year 2003. I think we should all know that that's going to drive up land prices. Stop development. Maybe that's good or bad. Bob Generous: Well maybe that's the policy then. We look at we want to have x amount of years left. Conrad: I would think we would. 6 Planning Commission Meeting - October 15, 1997 Peterson: I think if that point is important to us, we think, let's find out somebody who knows and do the analysis of what, how does it affect land prices and the growth and can we afford to put in MUSA to balance the prices versus the cost of putting in additional MUSA. Conrad: Mr. Chairman, the only reason I'm pushing this is we have this affordable housing goal and land drives housing prices. Not the timber. It's the land. You've got a 2 year supply. You're going to push up the prices. I don't have a crystal ball. I don't know what I'm really talking about. Ijust know that's the way it works. So if we have this goal, I haven't said I believe in the goal but we do have it out there and 50% of our houses, housing units are going to be affordable, then we'd better make sure we don't artificially force the price of the land up. That's what you could do if. Brooks: Yeah, but isn't that somewhat contingent too though, we talk about the analysis. Somebody would have to corne in and talk about the turnover rate of housing units. I mean it can't be just land alone. I mean I don't know what the median life span. Conrad: New home construction, cost of a new home is totally dependent on the cost of the land. It is a multiplier effect. The developer says land costs x amount. 1 can put a house that is 4 to 5 times that valuable on that land. That's how they, so if you increase the cost of the land, then you've got a multiplier effect on the cost of the housing that you're going to build so that's just for new housing. You're right. Brooks: Yeah, that's just for new. Conrad: But as far as inventory, you're right. Different subject. Brooks: Yeah, but there's got to be a relationship somewhere. 1 mean no everybody who moves to Chanhassen wants a, you know has to have a new house. Conrad: But we're zoning future use. You know we don't care what... Peterson: I mean an excellent example being, you look at lot prices today. I mean generally speaking, speak to this if you will Bob. Trying to find a lot for a single family home under $50,000.00 is virtually impossible today. And 4 years ago it wouldn't have been impossible. And accordingly our housing starts are down substantially to 4 years ago also. Brooks: Do you know, what is the average price per lot? Bob Generous: Well it depends on amenities. It runs $40 to $150-$200,000.00. .. . developed subdivision. One of the last lots. Blackowiak: Mr. Chairman, I've got a quick question about the dates. When we put a date down, for example 2008 and say that we're going to offer MUSA services to that area in 2008. Are we as a city bound to do that? 7 Planning Commission Meeting - October 15, 1997 Bob Generous: You amend the map every 5 years. It depends on how fast you... Blackowiak: My thought was, instead of putting dates, I mean can you have dates in your head or whatever and phase it in? This is Area 1 that's coming in. Area 1 will come in, you know no earlier than 10 years from today. This is Area 2. It will come in no earlier than, can you do something like that as opposed to putting specific dates on that we may be bound to honor and not want to honor. And 5 years is a long time I think. I mean if you've got, you know we make a decision tomorrow and then all of a sudden we decide we really didn't want to do that, we have to live with that for 5 years. Can we not put dates on? Can we put a range? Can we time it to say, you know x number of years after the staging of Phase I? Something to that effect as opposed to specific dates. Bob Generous: Well we can.. .if we go, the policy is to keep a 5 year supply ofland available... Blackowiak: But I mean, you're not going to. Bob Generous: Then we'd drop out dates. Say we'll keep a... This is our phasing plan.. .how we'll grow. Blackowiak: I just worry about putting a date. I mean it looks good on paper but do we want to be bound by the date 2003 if we decided that's just not an area that we need to develop. Or 2008, let's say 2003, all ofa sudden has not been developed at all. Do we want to invest an infrastructure for 2008 and spend all the money and potentially not have any development there. That to me sounds like a not real wise use or wise allocation if you don't have a building where you want it. Why provide infrastructure to an area which you had envisioned as being developed after 2003? Bob Generous: 1'11 have to.. . specific. Peterson: Other comments? Questions? I don't now whether it's appropriate now Bob or not but within the context of the plan itself it really doesn't talk about the growth of the roadways as a standard to set. You talk about it in a narrative, the memo of October 8th but it's not necessarily specifically put in there. I mean we talk about the MUSA line and preparing for that growth. We don't talk about zoning and do we make a decision and we put in the plan that we will not, unless this roadway is upgraded, that we will not build out this development or put development in this area. Bob Generous: That would be...in essence you are saying that. In Florida they have a... requirement. The facilities either had to be in place or in a capital program to meet the demand. . . Peterson: My personal opinion is that I think we need to go in that direction and make a stand more strongly than we currently have. That's my humble opinion. I don't think we're doing that by what's in here. I don't think it's strong enough. We sit through many meetings talking about traffic and congestion. What TH 5 is and what's happening on Pioneer Trail and what's 8 Planning Commission Meeting - October 15, 1997 happened to TH 7 and the other roadways. I don't think we're addressing it from that perspective adequately. I don't know ifmy fellow commissioners are. Brooks: Well I agree with you and I think one of the main problems that we're facing is that there is no state and federal funding coming our way to build more roads. So how do we want to deal with that? Maybe we need to put the onus on the developers and say that's great if you want to put a development in but then you're going to have to upgrade the road to go along with it. Peterson: I mean there's no easy answers to this but I think we need to start getting used to a different perspective and tone. We're going to have to say no eventually. Whether we start thinking about it now, which I think clearly we need to do. Sidney: Bob, do we have all the data for a level of service for all roads? Bob Generous: That's part of this study. Brooks: We have our first transportation advisory group meeting tomorrow night for the County plan so I can come back and, as we have our monthly or you know meetings, I can come back and let you know what's happening. I think the first meeting all they're at the point now of is talking about the issues we're facing, which is a rehash of everything everybody knows but they started. Bob Generous: Part of the problem with the level of service standard. .. Peterson: It's no different than us penalizing a car dealership for not getting in here soon enough to get into the right zoned land. Timeliness is a fact of life to some degree. I empathize, but if we don't take a stand it's going to get worse and worse and worse. I can just see us letting it slip by and we have to let this one go but we've built up MUSA and fortunately the roads haven't followed. Put another 300 unit development in and another down the road and another down the road. I mean I wish I had an answer but I'm just getting a sense that we're going to get caught up without doing enough early on now. I mean Ladd you're staring at the ceiling and thinking. Conrad: Well yeah. I'm not sure what, you sure a lot about the concern for transportation. I'm just thinking. Because I'm in the north part of town, I have no problems. It's better than it's ever been and I've lived here for 27 years. Brooks: Do you take Trunk Highway 7 then? Conrad: No, 62. Crossroad which dumps out. It's perfect. So if! were to survey anybody north of downtown, anybody north. They don't believe there's any problem. Peterson: Particularly now that 62. Conrad: 62 is just so good. I can get home 5 minutes faster. Faster than I've ever been able to do. 9 Planning Commission Meeting - October 15, 1997 Brooks: But it's going to build. Conrad: Sure. Brooks: As people find it. I mean I take 62 now too. Conrad: But my point is, it is faster than it's ever been. It's a better road system for where I live right now. Brooks: Right. But I think you also have to stop and think a minute. Do you want to wait for 62 to build and then congest TH 101 or do we look ahead and say, we know this is going to happen. We know TH 101 is going to be a disaster zone. Let's plan now. Why wait for everybody in the north end to complain? It takes 20 years to get something done. Conrad: Yeah... the residents have not felt comfortable with 212. And Highway 5 is, Highway 5 is the problem. I don't know of other problems in town. There are minor problems but you can see the, we've solved quite a few of them over the last 5 years. I live on one of the future needs in Chan, based on recommended. ., In fact I use all of it. I'm just not sure, and that's why I was staring at the ceiling. I was just trying to figure out how bad really is it and it's a state problem. Highway 5 is a state problem. It's not our highway and therefore I'm sort of wondering, well what do we do about it. We really got involved in 212. Chanhassen very much was, and the visuals got very involved in getting it moved ahead several years ago. Then it got delayed. Brooks: Well delayed for 20-30 years. Conrad: We got very involved as a city and as individuals felt it was important to do, and it didn't pass so we've lost 212. TH 5 I think, there's going to be something happening on TH 5. Brooks: You're getting a couple of extra lanes, you know a mile. I wouldn't do a dance over that one. Conrad: But it's better than what I'm used to before we did improve TH5 for 5 years. So again I'm not trying to make any other point than I'm just trying to... Brooks: But there's other things we can do besides building roads. This is where SRF I think has to be really you know watched carefully. I mean there's all sorts of alternative traffic management studies where you redirect local traffic off of TH 5 and get more people to use TH 101 and 62 or get people maybe to move up to TH 7 or when they're doing local roads, maybe we want to look at upgrading city streets to have them use alternate routes off of TH 5 to get to where they need to go. But you know, that's an important part of this transportation study is going to be not just corning back and saying, gee we need more money to build more roads and there isn't any. Because we could say that. 10 Planning Commission Meeting - October 15, 1997 Conrad: The study, I don't know anything about the study. It is being done on Highway 5 right now? Bob Generous: All the major roadways. We have a signed agreement with them to do specific roads.. . Peterson: Well, there's some feedback for you. Conrad: Yeah, take that. Bob Generous: ...it's hard working...what are the specific issues that...I was aware that we'd like to see what our.. . capacity is so we'll make sure.. .how many approved plats we have. Conrad: I think it's neat to have a level of service type of deal. I think that's cool. I'm just not sure what we do to it because... the ones that I'm aware of, I don't know how we can affect positively. We can say, it's like cutting off your nose to spit your face. Ijust look downstream and say okay. Well we have a F rating on Highway 5 so let's stop. We'll show them. We'll just stop. We'll show the people who invested in our community. Let's just stop and then we'll wait until the State figures out that they can do something for it. What's wrong with this logic? That's not very. Brooks: But that's why I was saying, we have to think more, we have to think in a bigger context than trunk highways. We have to think about alternate routes. Upgrading city streets. Transit. I mean Hennepin County is spending a lot of money on a commuter rail study. I know every time somebody says commuter rail everybody runs in 15 differen! directions but it's coming closer. It's more real than it's been in a long time and we need to think in a broader transportation perspective. Not just a trunk highway perspective. Peterson: Our hands are tied. We just need to try to figure out some creative ways to loosen up the ropes a little bit. We can't do anything per se because if we do say stop development, which we can easily do with hardship, then Victoria and Waconia. Conrad: Yeah, they'll expand. And I think there's some people who moved into town in the business community that were really dependent upon us growing and would not be happy if they didn't... Major folks are struggling. So I don't know. We do have to do the planning and I do like level of service... Bob Generous: That's one of the ideas. Do we just tie it to our local jurisdiction roads where we do have control. Conrad: That's theoretically all you can do because that's all you have control over. Brooks: Well the trunk highways are so bad now anyway, what's the difference? It's not like what are we going to do? Well, we're at level of service F. We'll keep it there. I mean. 11 Planning Commission Meeting - October 15, 1997 Peterson: Other comments or feedback for Bob? Conrad: On this whole thing? Overall, you know really some of the standards are pretty good. Some of the things that we did before are, the policies geez. I have Mr. Chairman nothing to add. I think they're strong. Yeah, they're strong. They say what we want to say. My only comment, and I made it earlier on and that's when we, throwing in this land use and MUSA stuff in the midst of all this just sort of faked me out. It seems like it's a subject all by itself. It was tucked in. All of a sudden I burst upon it in the staff report and you know, how did we get here from there and I think if staff can do a job of bringing us through the inventory bit. How much we have. How much is left. Then I can understand that whole page and that's my only other. Peterson: Anyone else? I think it does, every one of the points really has standed the test of time and I think that is probably the greatest compliment to the people that participated in developing them a number of years ago so. Good. Thanks. BLUFF CREEK OVERLAY DISTRICT - DISCUSSION. Bob Generous: Mr. Chairman, Mark Koegler with Hoisington-Koegler is here to present the draft ordinance. We stated that it's tentatively scheduled for a public hearing for.. . depending on the discussion today if it's a public hearing... Mark Koegler: Good evening. Let me do a couple things in covering maybe some introductory remarks. Kate, in her absence had asked that maybe we just take a moment briefly and step back and revisit the Bluff Creek Watershed Natural Resources M~nagement Plan that was done just to set the stage. Set the context for what we're going to be talking about in more detail this evening. The management plan itself was completed in '96 and '97, adopted earlier this year and it really, it was an overall plan for the Bluff Creek area which I think the Planning Commission is certainly aware of the boundaries from just north of Highway 5 essentially... essentially the western edge, encompassing quite a substantial area within western and southwestern Chanhassen. The plan was a broad based view of the whole corridor involved a technical and a steering committee that went through and did an establishment of some vision and some goals as a part of that. Did a very detailed inventory. Natural resource inventory of the area. Out of that inventory basically you kind of began to define by geographic segment various plans. Various suggestions for ultimately improvements within the corridor district. The primary goal to preserve water quality, preserve wildlife habitat within the Bluff Creek area. The watershed management plan defined what they called a primary and a secondary corridor, which is kind of a hierarchy if you will, of quality of resources. The primary area being more pristine, more connected to water quality and wildlife habitat and movement issues secondary, still having a relationship but not quite as strong. The implications of the vision were translated into this plan. There were a series of recommendations in the plan that included a lot of major topical areas. There were preservation of some sites that were out and out called for. There was an educational component of the plan itself. There were physical improvements that are called for as part of the implementation program and then the thing that we're really beginning to focus on in more detail tonight, the rezoning and land use modifications that were laid out in kind of a general context 12 Planning Commission Meeting - October 15, 1997 and we're trying to take that down to the more specific this evening. That was identified in the implementation program as a high priority among all of the projects and if you have a chance to revisit the document, there are a number of suggested things that are going to be happening in the upcoming years. So the plan was adopted by the Council. The charge back to the Planning Commission as we've been talking about in a general sense for the last few months is then to craft an ordinance that begins to take the plan and put the plan into reality of via the ordinance structure of the city, which is what I want to focus on this evening. I want to begin my remarks I guess by saying that the draft that was in your packet is very much a working draft in our mind still and I think that leads into Bob's initial comment. I think what we're going to talk about tonight still has a number of what I would call rough edges that need a little bit more work, and I'll highlight some of those as I go through some of the things that at least from our perspective we think still need some additional attention and some direction. We're going to take on that in certainly any direction that you would like to offer this evening would be most appropriate. So as far as schedule goes, probably the more realistic schedule, and again it depends on your comfort level, is to consider coming back with a revised version of this on the 5th and the 19th being then the public hearing date and we've always had that kind of as an alternate as part of the overall program for getting the ordinance adopted. With that as kind ofa lead in, ifit's appropriate Mr. Chair, I could go through and just highlight maybe some of the major aspects of the ordinance draft. Then maybe use some examples to relate what I think are still some issues and some concerns that we have that still need a little bit more work. And then bring it back to a discussion mode if you'd so choose at that time. The ordinance fits obviously into the City's overall code structure. There are some definitions that have been added that really, to a large degree come out of the plan that was done. There are some terms like ecosystem, natural habitat area, and then certainly defining this primary and secondary zone which are shown graphically on the plan map itself as again these two areas where there's kit:ld ofa hierarchy of the importance of the resources within those areas. What we're talking about establishing is a Bluff Creek, what we're calling the Bluff Creek Watershed District or perhaps the BCW designation as far as zoning might go. The map, ultimately the zoning map for the city would be amended to include the overall limits that are shown as part of the Bluff Creek Watershed Management Plan graphic. Eventually we'll take that and we'll fold that into the zoning map. This is identified as being an overlay zone. Very similar to the zone that you crafted a number of years ago for Highway 5. There is a number of points in the initial portion of the ordinance to just kind of interrelated to other aspects of the current code, and I'm not going to go through those in great detail. We can come back to those but yet maybe perhaps more to the meat of the ordinance itself. Looking first of all at the purpose. The purpose and intent statements come largely out of the body of work that was done in putting that plan together. The vision that was a part of that in essence in protecting the Bluff Creek corridor and the resources that are there such as the wetlands, the bluffs, tree cover, through a variety of techniques of which this is one. Encouraging a developing pattern that allows the mixture of people and nature development if you will, while still to the degree possible respecting the natural resources that are there. And then one of the goals as part of the plan has been to allow creation of a greenway that ultimately would go from the southern portion of Chanhassen, meandering up the boundary of the Bluff Creek corridor and connecting up to Lake Minnewashta Regional Park. That would become a very strong corridor. A very strong linkage for pedestrian, bicycle flow through the community. As far as intent of the ordinance itself. It is to craft a district that allows again this blending of the development pattern 13 Planning Commission Meeting - October 15, 1997 that will be coming into the natural environment in land areas that are suitable and in a manner such that the unique resources there are protected. Consistency certainly with the comprehensive plan, with the watershed plan, with the surface water plan, with the community's existing zoning and subdivision ordinances and other applicable references there are included. Preservation of natural conditions found in the primary zone and that's something I guess I have to stress strongly is that the ordinance is structured to preserve what was identified as the primary zone. That was a very strong direction that came out of this effort, and that's something that I'll talk about a little bit more in how you do that and really what the implications of that are. And then minimizing impacts in the secondary zone. Not necessarily precluding development by any means, but effectuating the appropriate controls that will make that development as compatible as possible with the resources that are there. Creating a suitable balance between the amount of open space landscaping, view protections, those kinds of things and the man made features. How do those all work together. And then back to the open space again. Again facilitating the possibility of having an open space linkage that will be a part of this that's viewed, not only as a recreation and transportation corridor, but providing access to the educational resource that's there as well as part of the Bluff Creek. It is as I said an overlay district, which would be applied over the top ofthe underlying zoning so the underlying zoning would still prevail with regards to uses with anything that we ultimately make exceptions to as a part of this ordinance. The ordinance draft talks about boundary delineation and essentially we will use this as a guide but the ordinance looks at requiring somebody to come in with a development proposal. It would take a better look at the delineation of the primary and secondary corridor areas based on some of the kinds of standards that are contained in the plan. Very similar to what's done with wetlands. Not terribly different. You know as a general guide where they are from the maps that are present but really the field observation is what ultimately determines that and we're looking for that to be a part of this process as well. There are regulation,s in the ordinance dealing with impervious cover. Relating back to the Best Management Practices Handbook the City references in many of the ordinance sections. Development minimizing essentially the amount of impervious cover by encouraging clustering, common access drives, utility corridors, things of that nature. There are some standards in there regarding impervious cover in areas of steep slopes and they're kind of on a sliding scale. Where slopes are less than 10%, this looks at allowing the impervious cover to be consistent with the underlying zoning. For example ifit's a PUD, it would be 30% in a residential. It'd be 70% in the industrial and by and large I'm presuming that a lot of the pieces that you would see developed here in the future would be done as planned unit developments. The ordinance doesn't take any means to define bluffs beyond what it's already in other sections of the code. It does deal with the sight views, and I guess I would highlight there is an example graphic that's there and it's our intent to make this ordinance more graphic in it's orientation, similar to the Highway 5 ordinance so that we will be developing some graphics that support some ofthese other clauses that are a part of the code. So you'll see more of that in the final draft that comes back. Encouraging design though that takes advantage of essentially laying the structure into the landscape in order to preserve views. Those views not necessarily only being associated with bluffs which are covered in other portions of the ordinance right now, but they may be views from public arteries for example in and across wetland areas. Density transfer is certainly we've talked about before, one ofthe key concepts and something that I want to provide some examples on in a few minutes but the intent here is whether it's a residential or an industrial property is to allow a transfer of density from, particularly the primary 14 Planning Commission Meeting - October 15, 1997 area and to the degree that it's appropriate, from secondary areas to other portions of the site. What I'll show you in a few minutes is that works I think reasonably well in residential. I think on the industrial side we still have a little bit of work to do. That one's still somewhat of a challenge and I'll touch on the specific in a moment. One of the things that I want to highlight is that based on the size of the parcels that are out there that ultimately will be developed and the extensive amount of primary and secondary corridor areas, it's likely that what will happen is what's on the top of page 6. That in order to effectuate the residential density transfer, there's a proviso in the PUD standards right now that essentially don't allow you to put anything but single family in the low density categorized lands in the comp plan. This looks at changing that to allow any type of housing that's allowed in the community to go into those low density categories. The reason being again is we have so much natural resource areas here that we're trying to protect that you have to go to another housing form in order to maintain that same density and maintain that same level of development, and we can come back and visit a little bit more about that tonight too if you would like. There is sections in the ordinance dealing with natural habitat preservation and habitat restoration plan. Not only trying to preserve resources within the primary zone but in the secondary zone for example in areas where wildlife habitat for example may need to be disturbed because of development. What is the means of mitigating that? What are the means of replacing that resource if possible and asking to address that as part of a plan? The ordinance calls for 100% open space within the primary zone. That's consistent with that goal of that is the area that is to be preserved. There are some structural setbacks that are identified there, specifically a setback, structural setback of 30 feet from the primary zone with no disturbance to occur within the first 20 feet of such a setback. We're essentially talking about a Bluff Creek impact zone if you will, much like you see in a shore impact zone or some of the other portions of the code. Part of the logic behind requiring a 30 foot setback from a structure to the edge of the primary zone is what you might call kind of the residential creep that happens over time in any community. That if you build a house next to a wetland, next to a resource you're trying to protect, the more it goes out a little further. The more it keeps going out a little further and pretty soon the back yard's gotten bigger so there's just some means in this to try to hold that edge and define that edge as a part of this with setbacks. As I indicated before the boundaries will be delineated as part of what ultimately will be a zoning map change and that's something that we'll have back for you next time also. But the new boundaries will reflect the boundaries that were established as part of the plan. With that what I'd like to do is take a couple of minutes and talk about a hypothetical, somewhat hypothetical residential and industrial development pattern in some of these areas and maybe that helps to bring some of this to focus. I've got some handouts for you to follow along if you'd like. We've taken a hypothetical site that is somewhat less than hypothetical, and it sits right here in the community but what we did is we selected this particular site because it appeared on the surface of things to have kind of a blend of all, first of all, all of the types ofproperties...outside of the corridor areas and those that are in the primary and those that are in the secondary.. . any one category. The property that's been selected without naming any specific names, is an 80 acre site in Chanhassen within the Bluff Creek corridor. A major roadway along the west side. Quite a mix of topography. Existing wetlands occurring in pockets on the site. Some fairly steep slopes that occur and some isolated areas with the bulk of the site being relatively developable. Being a farmstead now. Being tilled now. If you look at applying in a general sense the primary and secondary corridors to that site. Suddenly we're chewing up quite a bit of the property. The primary being this line 15 Planning Commission Meeting - October 15, 1997 pattern that comes across, and certainly it encompasses the wetlands but it also encompasses basically tributaries that are part of the Bluff Creek. Those are the lands that were analyzed as needing to be sensitive enough that they were categorized as primary. The secondary then being kind of that buffer strip if you will that comes around each of those. Those being then the two areas that are designated as part of the corridor. What we've done thus far, and it's a very simplified and very general sense but it begins at least to point to some of the issues that we're dealing with, is we looked at two scenarios. One says okay. Ifwe look at a single family, detached housing development going in or a traditional Chanhassen PUD if you will, and bear in mind this is a simplistic approach. Ifwe've got a total site that's about 80 acres. The wetlands is about 5.4 of that so if we pull that out we've got a net site area of about 75 acres. Assuming about a 20% relationship of streets in a typical pattern like that. We're saying 15 acres of street right-of-way with a net developable area of about 60 acres. Now we're ignoring the fact that there may be stormwater ponds. There may be park dedications that would skew this but we'll just use it consistently the same simplified model. Leaving the 60 acres, if you look at the average PUD right now is 15,000 square feet per unit, in this hypothetical example we get 175 units that could go in there. We then look at what happens if we apply some of the provisions of the Bluff Creek ordinance. What happens then? Suddenly, first of all and foremost, we're looking at preservation of the primary corridor, which in this case is almost 30 acres of an 80 acre site. Again, a substantial number. So suddenly our net developable area is down to about 50 acres. If I as a developer still want to sell that single family detached house product in Chanhassen of a typical PUD, suddenly I've got 40 acres instead of 60 acres and I can get 119 units instead of the 175 so in essence I've lost quote unquote if you will, the ability to develop 56 units. What we're talking about through means of density transfer as a part of this ordinance is that, we want to call it the ability of the development to be put in at a level of 175 units but it preserves a part of this ordinance by transferring that density out of that primary corridor area, into either the secondary or the unaffected portions of the property. So in essence what we're doing is we're taking this 175 units that's identified here and instead of putting it on a 60 acre site in terms ofa net review of things, we're putting it on about a 40 acre site because again we've preserved the rest of that as open space. So if we just focus on the net density around the development patterns if you will, it's gone from about 2.9 to 4.3 units per acre. Average platted lot has gone from 15,000 to about 10,000 square feet. The form of housing mayor may not change. It could remain single family in this model. It might become doubles if you have a more, if you have a different piece of property, I suspect it would force you into maybe a townhouse configuration or something like that in order to preserve that same density. Again, bear in mind this is a very simplistic model. Not meant to take in all the nuances and the sublities that are part of the development process but just a quick comparison of how some of the numbers look. This looks pretty workable. The framework. I think we're beginning to have methods crafted that this kind of a transfer could work. You've experienced this before. This is nothing that's terribly new to you. Maybe it's come with some pain but you've gotten used to it and you... The industrial side, if! can touch on that real quickly, paints a little different picture. Ifwe assume again that properties may be developed in a PUD fashion so that we're dealing with 70% impervious cover limitation as part of an industrial planned unit development. The scenario works like this. We've got again still our 80 acre site in a traditional development. We're looking at 5.4 acres coming out. We're at 75 again. We're using about a 10% number for streets in this case, which is probably a little high. Again, that developable area that's about 68 acres. If 16 Planning Commission Meeting - October 15, 1997 we can have 68 acres at 70% impervious which would cover buildings, parking, sidewalks, all the rest of those kinds of things, we've got 47 Y2 acres of potential development there. Again, this is a perfect scenario. This is a square site that you know a square building fits on and square parking lots fit on. Real world says these numbers won't get that high. Ifwe use that as a basis of comparison then for the watershed district development, the Bluff Creek District development. Again, total site area of 81 acres. Pulling out that corridor again, the primary corridor of 30 acres. That net site area drops down to 50. Pulling out street right-of-way, we're down to about 45. Suddenly when we apply the 70% impervious to that, we now have 32 acres of building and parking instead of the 45. Quite a differential that occurs there. That again in terms of density transfer can be potentially shifted if you will, from the point and we'll end up with probably higher net impervious cover in the secondary and non-corridor portions of the site may be higher than 70% in some cases. But what's kind of intriguing are the examples like this one that are extreme and some that are even more extreme in that if you look at if we're trying to accommodate, we have a development that should be at 47.5 acres of total cover. We've only got 45.9 acres of site now within this non-primary area. We don't even have a 100% relationship. We're over 100%. So in that case we've got 1.6 acres in this primitive example of building and parking that is basically being taken if you will from the property owner, from the developer, that we may need to think in terms of some other means of compensation and how we deal with that. Is the shifting of impervious enough alone to accommodate that? In this case, maybe. In this current example. There are other sites though that continue to pose more interesting technique or more interesting concerns which is kind of in this portion of the site here so we really have an entire property that's either primary or secondary. We can shift out of the secondary into the primary but I'm not sure, and we'll look at some specific examples on that still but I'm not sure we can shift enough of that again to get back to a 1 to 1 parity relationship. In all likelihood, if that property is to be preserved, it's going to have to be acquired. Or portions of it are going to have to be acquired and how are we going to deal with that in the mix of things. It's kind of intriguing because the land use matter, this will be a little harder to see and I apologize for that but we don't have any better map. But what you're seeing in the southern portion and the reason we picked this site is it's shown on the land use plan as having an industrial designation. But it's also shown as possibly having some residential. So we looked at that and we're not saying it could go either way... If you look at the parcel just to the north of that, that's industrial with open space underlined. Of course it can't be open space. The plan right now says it should be industrial. And that's certainly consistent with the land uses that you would find if this map was expanded to the City ofChaska. Brooks: Are you south of Lyman? Mark Koegler: Yes. I'm sorry. I should have provided some orientation. This is Lyman. Brooks: That's okay. It's just really hard to see. Mark Koegler: ., .Lyman is here. Audubon is right here. This is the piece.. .Degler property. The piece to the south I think is under Chaska Investments. Fox and so forth are to the east of that piece. The point being, without any specific names attached, is we've got an industrial piece there that industry by it's nature obviously is land intensive. It's impervious cover intensive. 17 Planning Commission Meeting - October 15,1997 That's in direct conflict with what we're trying to achieve in Bluff Creek. So finding that balance is very tricky. That's part of what still needs some polish I think in all of this because I'm not going to stand before you tonight and tell you that I think the industrial density transfer is nailed down. I don't think it quite is as of yet. I think we're getting there and we'll get there and certainly would welcome any input that you would have tonight on not only that aspect but certainly other aspects of the ordinance. Brooks: Can you just put the overlay back down for a second? Mark Koegler: Sure. That doesn't show too well either. Brooks: No. It's really hard to see. Peterson: And the overlay is a primary and secondary corridor? Mark Koegler: Yeah, the overlay is to simply, an acetate version of the delineation that's on this map. Brooks: You have a whole primary corridor going up from north of Lyman. Mark Koegler: .. . camera can focus on it but, the area that we're in here, the primary is in the area that's in green. So for example as we look at this piece of property, especially the southern half of that to the eastern edge of that is all in primary. The balance of that entire site, what we've got, the approximation of 50/50 relationship there or primary and secondary with none of that property wanting outside of those two designations. The piece that we've highlighted for example.. . obviously a little different in that you've got a substantial primary down in this portion, as you can see, that is ringed with some secondary and smaller primary on the north but you've got this kind of curling shape of property that's outside of the primary, secondary corridor designations on that site also. Brooks: Well...piece actually above Lyman. That it's zoned I believe industrial. Remember they wanted to put the townhouses on there, and I look at that all the time and I don't know, that's going to be so difficult to do something with without wrecking that. That's a huge wetland area. A pretty good sized wetland area. Mark Koegler: I should have indicated too, the dark blue is wetland. The wetlands on this map too. Brooks: And that's something that I don't know how it ever got zoned industrial because I don't know what you'd do with that piece without wrecking the whole area. Bob Generous: .. .make it more... Brooks: What do you mean? Oh, that little hill where they wanted to put the townhouses? 18 Planning Commission Meeting - October 15, 1997 Bob Generous: No, that.. . meets the ordinance. Brooks: Yeah, of a bluff. Mark Koegler: So that's an overview of what's there right now and what I think are still a couple of challenges that still lie out there, which is the reason I would not paint this as being a draft that's ready for public hearing but I think we.. . certainly welcome any comments, questions, clarifications. Anything that we can provide at this point. Peterson: Commissioners, feedback for Mark. Blackowiak: I have a few questions. When we're talking density transfers, both for the single family and say the residential portion and the industrial portion. Are you making the assumption that the City needs to accommodate the developers in some way? Mark Koegler: I'm making, we're making the assumption I guess that that property under today's rules could develop hypothetically to a certain level. A certain intensity, if you will. And that we're now putting another set of rules on that property, which are pretty broad and pretty wide spread in their purpose and their intent. I think one of the things that we can come back to you with is the City Attorney's view of all of this. What the comparison with the transfer has been that set of standards could be applied today compared to the new set of standards, what is that differential? And is that equitable? Does that constitute at all a taking of any of that property? Is it more burdensome than what would normally be allowed? It certainly goes far beyond the normal wetland legislation that you find everywhere. The bluff legislation that you find everywhere because this is a unique natural resource th1:1-t's trying to be protected so we've been trying to, to the degree that that's possible, facilitate some transfer of density. Whether that has to be 100% I think is a good question. I don't know the answer to that yet. Maybe it doesn't have to be. But I think there has to be some transfer in order to constitute a legitimate use of that property. Blackowiak: Okay, yeah. That would be a question is you know, how accommodating do we have to be as a city because we're talking about an area that we say is valuable and should be preserved so I guess my question would be, does it make sense to try to keep the same amount of development on that property or would it make sense to just keep the current zoning requirements in place and have fewer units and therefore less intensive use of the available land? I don't know that I am convinced that we need to do a 1 to 1 transfer and exceed impervious covers, etc. on remaining areas outside the primary and secondary zones. My second question is back to the habitat preservation and restoration. That's talking about Sections 20-1469 and 1470 about disturbances, etc. And talking about plan disturbances. What about unplanned disturbances and is the ordinance a place for any penalties in the event that there is disturbance of a primary or secondary zone of the corridor? Mark Koegler: If I understand your question there, I don't know an answer off the top of my head. 19 Planning Commission Meeting - October 15, 1997 Blackowiak: Yeah I don't either and I don't really expect one I guess. I'm just sort of. Mark Koegler: ... whether this would be the proper venue for that or whether that's a development contract provision that has penalties associated with that. Blackowiak: Or even, maybe even a line in here just acknowledging that we reserve the right to, or the development penalties or something will be mentioned or agreed upon in any development contract or something to that effect because again we're talking about an area that is so important and I don't know that, I mean I understand that we need to put.. . any disturbances but I think that there will be unplanned disturbances regardless of how careful people are and we just need to plan for that event when and should it happen and make sure that we know what we're going to do when that happens because I often say that we've got all this wonderful agreements and conditional uses and no enforcement means whatsoever and this I really think we need to look into how we enforce this. Let everybody know that we plan to be serious about it if we're going to do it. We're taking the time. Mark Koegler: That line of questioning, you can take that a bit further into the implementation mode and question, where is the appropriate place to require for example some kind of staking, fencing or whatever of this delineated line. Talk about delineation in a planning context but not necessarily delineation and just like you're put up erosion control. This edge condition would be less obvious I think perhaps to somebody driving a dozer but that's another good point. Blackowiak: Right, and that's it. Peterson: Other feedback or questions? Conrad: Mr. Chairman, I really like this. It's not real specific yet. I really like the direction. I am a proponent of density transfer. It is philosophically, if you want to protect something, this is the way to do it. As Mark said, and I'm not going to belabor the point. We've got some problems, especially in the industrial type of transfer. I don't know how to solve that and I guess we just need staff and Mark to advise us in the alternatives and we should probably go through where we, every, we should go through the entire Bluff Creek site and where we're going to have problems and we should also understand how, I like density transfer but I also want to know what it would do to neighbors that are there. Brooks: Well it's also a question of wildlife. I mean the parcel that I'm kind of harping on that I don't see how it will ever be developed without something giving because of the large wetland area within the parcel. I mean the scary part of that is that it's a, you know the geese fly over there. I mean it's a, the natural resources. The wildlife that are a part of that are a major part and you, you know I don't know the answer. You know you do a big density in one section but then what are you going to do to the wildlife that inhabits the area. I mean the noise. The air. And I think we need to look at parcels like that and question whether are we really going to make an active effort to preserve them or we're going to have to just let them go. Conrad: Or buy them. 20 Planning Commission Meeting - October 15, 1997 Brooks: Or buy them because it's not, it's almost a situation where if we develop it, it's going to get ruined. Peterson: Anything else Ladd? Conrad: No. Again Mark was looking for feedback and.. .some details that he's recommending and, but boy. I sure like, personally like how this reads. It preserves just a great asset and it also gives the landowners the chance to do something economic with their land. That's not very much feedback for Mark. Philosophically. Peterson: Anybody else? I just had a couple of questions, more than anything else Mark. If you look at, we talk about the green way will serve as uninterrupted pedestrian trail and bike system. I mean where are we at in trying to lay that out within the district itself. Is that something that, the one thing that the public will be interested in. When they see that on paper they go oh. Where's that going to go, you know. And I mean are we, how much development is it going to take for us to bring that, the first development we have come in, we need to be thinking about that. Ifwe're going to be putting it in. Where's that fit? Mark Koegler: It is a concept, still at this stage that has certainly been reinforced by this plan. I think it's really kind of been in the back ofa lot of minds in this community for a long period of time. That's an ideal place for a corridor connection. But there has been nothing put to paper in terms of an alignment as of yet. . . end of the earlier topic you talked about is the MUSA line expansion.. .and those development pressures take place, that will be a logical question. Where do you want it to go? How does it impact properties? That does need to be probably another thing that has to happen, fairly close on the heels of. Peterson: In the intent area, under D. You talk about the creation of interconnected open space that preserves migratory patterns for wildlife and facilitates recreational opportunities for people. Those are separate and distinct and in many ways I see them almost as being conflicting. To balance migratory patterns and recreational opportunities. You've got a lot of delicate balances in here but that one seems to be more than, more difficult than many of the other ones. General feedback. I was also surprised that we didn't, we left that bluffs and didn't become more strict what our current standards are. In many of the other areas we went more aggressive on what our current standards are and the bluffs we didn't. I'm just, I'm relatively surprised that we didn't take a more aggressive stand in preserving even over and above what we currently have, just because of the delicate nature of that area. Was that a conscious decision or do we just feel that the... that we currently have or no? Mark Koegler: We looked at that pretty carefully and we can certainly investigate that a little further if that's your desire. But in looking at you know, kind of first of all I wish somebody had a perfect model for this kind of an approach, and it's not out there from what we can tell. You can certainly find bits and pieces that have been done in Minnesota or in the northwest or in California that have some similarities but nothing hits the mark at all. But in looking at what communities have done generally with bluff related provisions in sensitive areas like this, 21 .i Planning Commission Meeting - October 15, 1997 Chanhassen's current ordinance basically was right in line with everything that we found. The one exception was, and the plan for example recommended a 30 foot setback for new development. Well that's already in Chanhassen's code. The code now has I think it's a 5 foot, is that right Bob, setback for existing conditions from the bluff. I think there's a 5 foot provision that's in there. We found a lot of examples of 10 and didn't think that that 5 feet in that context was probably significant enough that we addressed that separately from the ordinance that's already there. One of the goals is certainly to make this as easily implemented as possible so therefore not to create conflicts with other portions of the code or differences from other portions of the code that don't have to fundamentally be there. So the initial review, our feeling and staff's feeling was the bluffs are pretty well protected, pretty well addressed in the current ordinance and.. .some minor things but it's probably not worth it. Peterson: Lastly, we talk about density transfer. Can you list three separate and distinct areas for allowing that and guidelines and we put down other lands as determined by City Council. I generally have an adversion to throwing something like that in there. I think it's asking for problems personally so that's my feedback for you tonight. Any other questions or comments? Anybody? Conrad: Mr. Chair, just, Bob when this comes back. All of us have to understand what we're doing. You need to take us through the entire site. The entire thing so when we say density transfer, not just an ordinance. Like Mark did tonight. He took us through a specific deal. I think all of us want to see, as you move that 1 to 1, or whatever the ratio is, this is the implication. This is probably what's going to happen so we all understand what that is. If there are sites that can't take that. Or at least know. Brooks: .. .can't take that transfer. Conrad: Yeah. So it's a great exercise. Mark Koegler: Don't lose sight of the fact that one of the parallel things that's going on right now is that there was a sizable portion of referendum proceeds that were, by the voters, that currently negotiating properties, some of which may well be some of these more sensitive areas we're talking about. That hasn't been determined yet and I guess that's a subject of a lot of factors in that decision. One of them being what can be bought at a reasonable price but it is in all likelihood some of these properties may be acquired and preserved in advance of even having any development pressure on them. But I assume that's going to be coming. Brooks: Little farther out than that don't you think maybe? Bob Generous: Well, they're working on some of the negotiations right now. Brooks: I realize that but. Bob Generous: They could eat up that money very quickly. 22 Planning Commission Meeting - October 15, 1997 Brooks: That I agree with. Mark Koegler: There may at least be some of these chunks that will fall out of this equation. Part of that from an ordinance perspective. Hopefully there will be some of those that are more difficult to deal with. Peterson: Good, thanks Mark. Any old business? OLD BUSINESS: Bob Generous: Famous Dave's is coming back. Peterson: When? Bob Generous: The 5th. Conrad: Where? Bob Generous: Same spot. Different architecture. Conrad: Better? Bob Generous: Sharmin loves it. It's interesting. Peterson: Sharmin loves it. Interesting. Brooks: Does it look like any other Dave's bar-be-que shack that we've ever seen? Bob Generous: No. Brooks: Oh cool. Maybe it meets the design standards Ladd. Bob Generous: Well Mika did the design work. Brooks: Pardon? Bob Generous: Mika did the design. Peterson: Other old business? Is the dealership coming back for a work session at all or is that? Bob Generous: Yes, I believe it's the second meeting in November. Peterson: We don't have any Minutes to note. Ongoing items, anything? Bob Generous: I can tell you what the Council did Monday. 23 .J Planning Commission Meeting - October 15, 1997 Peterson: Go ahead. Bob Generous: Okay. They approved the temporary tower ordinance. The final reading. They also approved the Villages on the Pond 2nd Addition, final plat. Southwest Auto Brokers conditional use permit down on 169. They were happy that the site. .. Then they tabled the amendment to the interim use permit for...the nursery, wholesale on 169. Peterson: Tabled it primarily because of the signage being inappropriate to. They were spending a lot of time, as we did with the sign for Hooves, I can't remember. I always get it. ...Paws, Claws and, and they were setting high standards for that sign and then the Henning sign was not near the level of quality that that one was. There was a conflict there, what they should let go so they tabled it to get a better design created. Any open discussion items from anybody? With that, may I have a motion to adjourn. Blackowiak moved, Brooks seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried. The meeting was adjourned at 8:38 p.m. Submitted by Kate Aanenson Planning Director Prepared by Nann Opheim 24